Back in the writing thing

Yeah, I know, I haven't written anything in days. Fark me.

I have a small mountain of little expenses that are popping up like little financial prairie dogs. The exhaust on the diesel wagon chose to come apart the other day, and I can either replace the whole thing for a couple of hundred bucks I can't really afford, or I can get under there Saturday morning with my wire-feed welder and put in a section of pipe salvaged from one of the Saabs. I actually keep spare pipe around for that purpose, and I guess now's the time. I've got a tank of oil yet to pay for, the cable bill is due, and probably a couple of gas cards want to be paid.

One of the ways I'm looking forward to Suzanne's relocation in less than two months is that then I have someone with whom to share the expense of running this house. I've been able to handle it for the last four years or so, but it doesn't always leave a lot to spare. The house project was always intended as a joint project, until Nancy left, but I've done OK with it. Nothing has collapsed and the cats have never starved or gone without shoes or anything. Still, I figure I spend somewhere around $2500 a month running the household. Poo.

Oddly, though, she spends a fortune (more than she makes at her internship, actually) on her household up in New Jersey, so realistically, things will be cheaper for us both. She's had a couple of interesting job contacts but nothing has jumped out at her. That's sort of the nature of the DC area... nobody does anything meaningful between Thanksgiving and early January. We're all too busy going to holiday parties and taking time off from work to actually... work.

Speaking of which, thanks be to Jerry Ford. He was one of the few Republicans I genuinely liked, and for him to be gone means that the first President I really took interest in is gone. Well, that, and Bush gave us federal workers next Tuesday off as a National Day of Mourning. I don't recall them doing that for Ronald Reagan, so this is a nice thing, indeed. I liked Ford much better than that actor fellow, anyway.

Maryland is in a bowl game tonight, so I guess I'll go watch them beat Purdue down in Orlando. It's been a few years, so I wish them well. The last bowl I remember us doing was the Orange Bowl the year that Niki and I went to New Year's Eve in Frederick and had a terrifically onanistic evening. I think I still have her underwear someplace.