The last few days have been a blur of record temperatures and incredible heat in my apartment. I got home from work last night and fell asleep with my jeans and shoes on. When I woke, I felt really sick, like I was going to pass out. This was with the windows open, and all of the fans running at full blast, so lound that I couldn’t hear. The apartment still felt like standing next to a kiln. I don’t remember it being this bad when I worked in a copper refinery in the worst of the Indiana summers.

My beer-before-bedtime solution to sleep is still working, but I think I’ve completely pumped up my alcohol tolerance, and I might have to start drinking more if this heat wave continues. Last night, I spent my last $8 on a 6-pack of Molson and a Chicken McNugget meal.

The great car exchange takes place Friday. I dropped off the Escort and took the Rabbit last night because the Escort’s brakes are starting to squeal, and I don’t want to make it worse. I hope that I can get that one past Ford without paying extra. I’ve got a bonus coming on Friday, and it should be decent, so it doesn’t matter either way. But if I just pay them the $620 or so in body damage and then get cut loose, that means a lot of screwing-around funds for the next few weeks.

It’s weird to be back driving the Rabbit again. I hate not having AC, but the sunroof is very awesome for weather like this. I’m not used to driving a stick, and the hills are a problem. Also, I have trouble determining distances and blind spots and all of that, but I’m guessing that after a weekend of blasting around Seattle, that stuff will pass.

I read somewhere that over 3 million copies of Dr.DOS have been sold in the last 18 months. Isn’t that weird?

I may have a visitor from NYC in the future. I may be going to Indiana again for Halloween. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

It’s motherfucking hot in Seattle. Maybe I’m just whining, but you should try hanging out in my apartment for a few hours. Even with all of the fans on full blast and the windows open, it must be 90 in there, and the mercury doesn’t drop much at night. I know there are some of you that think “I’m a tough guy - 100 degree heat doesn’t bother ME.” That’s because you’re brain damaged. I can’t do anything but sit in bed when it’s this hot out, and with the jet-engine roar of my fans, I can barely hear the sound of the stereo or TV. There’s no use in trying to read any new books or write anything. I’m glad I discovered that if I drink a beer right before bed, I fall asleep a lot faster. I’m not glad that I’m down to my last beer, and I’m pretty much broke until Friday.

Yes, I’m counting the days until Friday, when the Escort goes away. I have $400 of the $620 I need to pay Ford, and payday plus bonus-day is Friday, so I should be home free. I am down to my last $11, which I’ll probably spend on Sprite, Gatorade, and stuff for lunch this week. I should make it. And after that, I’ll have cash every month - enough to save for weird trips around thw world and still have enough to go to the CD store and buy everything in sight.

I keep thinking about where I’ll travel next. I think another default trip back to Indiana is in order, except this time I’ll try to hook up with Michael in Cleveland and take some better pictures of Bloomington. I also want to take a trip to NYC, and one to LA. This huge Amsterdam trek is still on the drawing board, but I’m not sure when that will happen or how I will pay for it. I’m thinking of keeping very detailed journals on my next couple of trips, and then writing a book about them. It would be about the tree or four places I visited, which would all be completely different, but it would be more about me and the time I spent on the road. It wouldn’t be like On the Road - more like Kurt Brecht’s book The 30-day Diarrea Diet Plan, which is a cool book about his voyage into Mexico on no money.

Nothing else. It’s nice in my office though. Maybe I should move in here.

I’m thinking of sinking an insane amount of money into some new stereo hardware. I really want a pair of Magnepan speakers, and I really want a Crown amp. I don’t think panel speakers will sound too good with Entombed, but they’d sound great with this new Pat Metheny CD, or some Shadowfax or something. So I’m coming up with a list of all-purpose test CDs I could use while auditioning new gear. They all have to be familiar, but exhibit some weird quality I’d need to test. I think the list is something like this:

• Motorhead - 1916
• Chick Corea Electric Band - Under the Mask
• Pat Metheny Group - Imaginary Day
• Peter Gabriel - Us
• Mariah Carey - Mariah Carey
• Death is Just the Beginning II comp.
• Dismember - Indecent and Obscene
• Brahms - Piano Concertos (complete) (Philips)
• Frank Zappa - Civilization Phaze Three
• Frank Zappa - The Yellow Shark
• Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All (Au20)
• Joe Satriani - Crystal Planet
• Shadowfax - Folksongs for a Nuclear Village
• the digital domain test disc
• the Holophonics test disc

I think with those CDs, I could find new speakers that didn’t suck, or at least piss off the sales clerks.

It’s a beautiful day out, I’ve got a twenty in my pocket - what the fuck am I doing writing on here?

If you still can’t figure out yesterday’s entry, it’s from the Conan O’Brien show.

There are several reasons why I haven’t been writing. First is the heat - at night it gets up to about 170 degrees in my apartment, and I want to do nothing but watch TV. I’ve begun tipping back a beer or two before bed, because there’s no other way I can fall asleep with this heat. I have a ceiling fan and a box fan - maybe I need more fans.

Also, my connection at work has been messed up. It slows down and times out way too much. It’s become too much a pain in the ass to write during lunch, so I stopped.

So that means no writing on the book. A few people are reviewing the first nundred pieces from Rumored to Exist, and I’m getting back some helpful feedback. It makes me want to write more, but the heat… the heat…

I’m getting a lot of conflicting information about what to do with my dating life. It was so much easier when I could just ask a girl in my Spanish class for help with my homework, buy a pizza, make up some stories, and bam. Now I have to explain a huge manifesto about what I want to do with my life when I meet someone new. Maybe I should stay single for a while longer.

I talked to Tom G. today, an old friend from my neighborhood. I guess he wasn’t a friend for a while - in 1989, my then-girlfriend took off with him, and they eventually got married, had two kids, then divorced. But I guess the statute of limitations on that stuff has run out, and it was good to talk to him again. It wasn’t much of an “old times” type of discussion, but more of a “what’s been going on” thing. It’s weird how much can change in 8 or 9 years.

I’ve gotta split - I actually have plans that don’t involve TV or writing!

I gave up. I fell off the wagon. I relapsed. I once again have cable TV. And I’m watching way too much of it.

I decided one night that I wanted to watch the Conan O’Brien show again. He’s really funny, and I like his guests and his jokes with Andy and Max, and it used to give my life a certain amount of regularity. So did the Seinfeld reruns at 7

, but they always preempt those with the fucking Mariners games. So the other night, I got out the wire strippers and fixed my TV cable, and there it was.

Conan was funny, and I watched some other pseudo-educational things, like a show on the Berlin Airlift, and this giant Noam Chomsky thing on PBS. But I find myself wandering the stations, which is bad. Oh well, I need some new ideas for the book, and I can’t think of any while hermetically sealed in my apartment.

It’s Friday, but it feels like Tuesday. I hope this will be a breakthrough weekend for the writing - I have been hovering right below 40,000 words on this project, and I’d really like to break through and officially be in the 40s. Yesterday, it got so nice out that there was an emergency beer and ice cream meeting on the patio. It was HOT out there - it felt good to be drinking cold Corona while standing around on the concrete and looking at Lake Union. Days like that make me wish I had a boat moored across the street, so I could hop in and hit the water.

I’m in the final stretch of this money ordeal, before the car is gone. It looks like I’m going to make it with a few bucks to spare, but I’m waiting for Ford to pull the old switcheroo somehow, and ask me for more cash. So that means I’m mostly broke for the next two weeks, but then I’ll be back to dropping bills in the CD store and buying many books I’ll probably never read.

I’m bored now. Time to do a bunch of stupid web searches.