We have been successful in our 30 Days of Blog campaign, having blogged every day in the month of June despite the fact that Blogger sometimes wouldn't publish late at night and some entries had to be published the next morning. I can't say that Numb Trolleybus's readership has picked up any -- it may well take more than thirty days to accomplish that -- but it certainly is a start, and I thank you all for sticking with me.

Big thanks goes out to Jerry, who was mostly successful these last thirty days, and to Katherine, who wasn't, but who accepted the challenge nonetheless.

Thanks goes out to my cousin Sandy, who I see has been stopping in quite a bit lately, and the irreplaceable Rachael, whose two visits to my blog this month set a record for blog-browsing on her part.

Now that these 30 Days are over... who wants to go again? Yeah, me either.

I do have a few updates on this weekend I'll be bringing you this week, though, so stay tuned. :)

Some of you may remember an incident from a few years ago in which a girl named Daisy (who was obviously high as a kite) found her way into my apartment at approximately five in the morning, helped herself to some doughnuts, and was at least a half hour into Kissing Jessica Stein before I woke up and found her sitting scantily-clad on my living room couch.

Tonight, I wondered if Daisy hadn't come home.

I was thoroughly re-enjoying the first season of "The L Word" on DVD when I decided to stop the disc and check up on a few things online. I had been sitting at my desk for several minutes perusing the latest midget porn when I heard noises coming from the living room. A quick listen told me I was hearing Alice, a character on "The L Word," explaining to Gabby that she'd hoped they could just be alone (to which Gabby, always the sensitive one, replied, "We can be alone when we're dead").

In other words, the DVD had been re-started.

I flew into the living room to see what on earth was going on, and not only was there no one in the room, the controller for the PS2 (which contains both the 'stop' and 'play' buttons) was in the exact position I left it. The door was still locked and there was no sign of anyone. Yet the DVD had been re-started. This has never happened before and there have been no signs of a PS2 malfunction in the hours since. Perhaps, barring a homecoming on Daisy's part, we'll finally catch a glimpse of that full-torso free-roaming vapor we used to hear so much about.

Went to the Royals-Cardinals game tonight after tailgating with a buncha drunk St. Louis buffoons for nearly three hours. We'd beaten St. Louis all four times this season, but the game I go to, we lose. Half the fucking stadium was in red... as though this isn't Kansas City. Fuck you people.

Another game tomorrow afternoon, which will also see my butt in a blue seat. Let's stomp some red bird ass.

Back from down south; the funeral went well and people held up better than I expected. I got lots of pics of fam and I'll have those in a bit; there's another horrific thunderstorm going on outside, so I've got to shut down for now. Two ball games this weekend and many more pics to come.

Heading down for the funeral early-early tomorrow morning. See everyone once I'm back, we won't be gone but a day.

Working long ass hours in preparation for an audit at work. Leaving early ass Friday morning for the funeral. Probably won't be available much for the next few days. Most likely talking in incomplete sentences for the duration.

It's time for one of my favorite features here on Numb Trolleybus -- our Fun with Spam segment:

From: Anderson Sears
Subject: Fucking a fat ferocious female!
(Because, you know... nothing says fun fucking like a fat ferocious female...)

From: Linda Laurence
Subject: Two boosty babes!
(Apparently their seats aren't high enough.)

From: Stefanie
Subject: Portugal regrets not bringing herbal supplements
(It's a good thing Spain brought enough for everyone.)

From: Prashant
From: World's cheapest apothecary
(Because that was the one thing I couldn't find at Wal-Mart.)

From:Susanna Powell
Subject: Update your penis
(Believe me... no updates necessary.)

From: Naiche
Subject: I secretly grab her boobies
(So secretly, it's being broadcast on the Internet.)

My grandpa Ethan passed away around midday today. He turned 85 this month. He'd been in the hospital since May 3 with all kinds of things wrong, including a platelet count that was down around four thousand (normal levels for a human are between 200,000 and 450,000). And lately he'd even stopped doing important things like eating. This weekend we knew something wasn't right, and I got the call from my mom today around 2:30 or so. We're heading down south on Friday for the funeral. He has the distinction of being the first grandparent I've lost that I was related to by blood and who was still alive when I was born. And as sad as we are, he was eighty-five years old... what're you gonna do?

My review of The Happening is up on Movie-Popcorn.

For the love of everything we love about movies, please skip this one. You'll be so glad you did, and you won't even know it.

We are heading up to the drive-in for sure tonight, myself and at least five others. Yes, I just checked my cell to make sure there were no messages from people trying to bitch out before I started this second sentence. The choices were Get Smart and You Don't Mess With Adam Sandler on one side, then Kung Fu Panda and The Incredible Hulk on the other.

'Incredibly,' I've only seen one of the above, and although I had no desire whatsoever to see the Zohan, I didn't vote and instead stood back as the majority chose the Panda. That's all right. We'll make a night of it. Ska-doosh!

For those of you trying to get in touch with me and failing -- repeatedly -- be aware that I am loving your calls. I would love them even more if I could answer them, however. We have an internal audit coming up at work in less than a week and mandatory overtime is the order of the day. Chances are, I'll wind up working tomorrow too, which makes me less than happy.

I will get back with each and every one of you, hugs included. I just won't be very accessible for the next couple o' weeks, during normal human times of the day, anyway.

My stats counter tells me we've had visitors from Lake Saint Louis today... could it be? Could it be that my favorite kiwi has finally stopped by the old blog?

Some people will give their phone number(s) to every beggar on the street, and then they guard their e-mail address with their life. That's a bit backwards, is it not?

Well, today was the first full day of equality in the state of California, and those of us actually committed to equal protection under the law have reason to celebrate, at least for now.

"[H]undreds of tearful same-sex couples got married across the state Tuesday in what some are calling California's new Summer of Love."

We've got a long way to go still, obviously:

"However, the federal government still does not sanction same-sex marriages, and the General Accounting Office has identified 1,138 federal benefits and civil marriage rights that will not be extended to gay couples."

And even this round isn't quite over:

"Voters in November will decide on a proposed constitutional amendment that would again ban gay marriage. It was unclear what the passage of that measure might have on gay couples who are married in the interim."

People. I may never... get them, you know? Everyone's in favor of equality until it comes to someone they don't agree with -- those people aren't as equal as everyone else. They don't deserve the same rights, protections, and benefits under the law as people who do agree with them, because of course, their way is the only way.

Everyone wants to keep church and state separate. Get God outta there and keep Him out... oh, gay marriage? Well, let me see what the Bible says.

Leviticus says this and Romans says that, apparently. Well, for one thing, not everyone subscribes to those religious convictions, so to use that as the basis for your argument is to place one (or two) religious faith(s) above all others and apply them to law. Secondly, I do subscribe to those religous texts, and I don't agree that those passages have any more relevance to modern-day life than the following, which is taken from Leviticus 4:23-26.

"If the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring as his offering a goat, a male without blemish, and shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the Lord; it is a sin offering. Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering. And all its fat he shall burn on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings; so the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin, and he shall be forgiven."

So as long as we're clinging to every last word of the Old Testament and applying it to 2008... when was the last time you cut a goat's throat for the Lord?

Yes, I'm a Christian and and I believe in gay marriage and gay rights. You can have both, and I do. These religious nuts protesting wedding ceremonies that don't involve them are only making real Christians look unsavory. In the United States, you've either got equal rights or you've got discrimination; there is nothing in between. So-called "civil unions" meant to appease both sides with a middle ground are nothing more than well-intentioned attempts to stop the shouting coming from both sides. I personally will never be satisfied -- and I hope you won't either -- with anything short of the complete and unequivocal recognition of gay marriages and gay individuals' rights under the law. When all fifty states legalize Marriage -- not merely Straight Marriage -- we will have achieved this.

I encourage everyone reading to visit the Human Rights Campaign web site at www.hrc.org. The site is a bit wonky tonight (that seems to happen with a lot of sites I link to late at night). Participate any way you can. Let your voice be heard. We have a lot of work to do. I can only pray (yes, pray) that we accomplish this within our lifetimes.

Have you ever kept tabs on someone's blog not because you liked them, but because you didn't like them? At some point, we probably all have. I'm a big believer in the phrase, "Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer."

Livejournal has made lots of changes in their code recently, and one of them in particular is something I really, really hate to see.

Before this change, it was easy enough for an LJ user to keep you from reading their posts; all they had to do was set the entry (or their entire journal) to friends-only, and since you weren't on their friends list, you couldn't read it. But you could still tell that an entry had in fact been written because of the Calendar view Livejournal sported. Go to www.livejournal.com/username/current-year, and it would display for you a monthly calendar complete with how many entries were written on which dates. So even if a non-sympatico kept you from reading, you could still tell they were journalling, and that would tell you something; the frequency and concentration of entries, long silences, sudden upticks in activity -- all these things can tell you something if you're keeping tabs on someone who doesn't exactly have your best interests at heart. Yes, I have one or two of those. This Calendar view was one of the few redeeming qualities Livejournal had, in my opinion.

Well, the change they've made involves the Calendar view only displaying the number of entries per day you, a particular user, are permitted to see according to that user's settings. It effectively removes the ability to keep your enemies closer.

For the record, I stopped blogging on LJ years ago; the politics and childishness within my circle gave me an overall sense of malaise I was no longer willing to deal with. But I still have some friends (and a couple of not-so-friends) on LJ that I like to keep tabs on, and what some might see as an improvement in security can also be seen as a downgrade in security, depending on which side of the discussion you're on.

On top of that, I used to be able to tell if friends had posted with one click, now I have to log in to see if there's anything hidden away. The pain.

I once read the comment that setting an LJ entry to friends-only was the equivalent of shutting the door but not locking it. Could anyone in the viewing audience give me a better idea of what that might mean?

How is it that I'm out of school for the summer and I don't feel any less busy? I'm as worn out as I ever was. If I could get to sleep at a decent hour, that would change everything.

Hope everyone is well. Let me hear from some of you, ok?

I haven't written them up on Movie-Popcorn yet, but I will soon:

The Happening : F

The Incredible Hulk : B

Yeah, no one is more surprised than me. I'll have the full story on MP tomorrow.

Discovered any outstanding new bands lately?

I certainly have, one called Uh Huh Her, which features Leisha Hailey, my favorite cast member of "The L Word" and former front girl for the band The Murmurs. A quick listen on their web site prompted me to do something I've never done before -- buy an mp3 -- and I'd encourage you all to check them out as well, provided you're in the mood for strong, well-written, kick ass girl rock, like I always am.

I woke up feeling like a completely different person this morning. It started slow; I got up and around and got going, got to work, and suddenly it hit me that the clouds are lifting. It's as inexplicable to me as it is to my blogging audience.

I've had my moments over the last 24 hours or so; nothing has been changed or resolved on my end, and in the end I'm still dealing with every single thing I was dealing with before. It's just that at this point, for some reason, I'm no longer consumed with bitterness and angst over things I can't control but that seem to keep repeating themselves.

Today I learned, straight from the source, that The Girl I Can't Have is having problems I have never had to deal with before, problems that are far, far above and beyond anything I'm dealing with now. I'm pretty confident things will work out for her, but in the meantime, it does help my own situation to have something else to focus on: helping her out in any way I can, which I've already offered and she's already accepted. This news of hers, which was quite a jolt even to me, despite the fact that it doesn't involve me but because I care so much for her well-being, had a way of putting things in perspective, things I already knew, but needed shown. And I'm a bit surprised with myself as well: when things are finally ironed out on her end (and they will be), it will mean I get absolutely none of what I want, and I'm pulling for that result one hundred percent. Her happiness on this front, in this situation, is paramount.

God does not hate me. I should not have been an abortion. Most of the people in my life would agree that their worlds are better off with me in them. I may not be out of the woods yet, I understand, but I believe we all occasionally need episodes like these to remind ourselves of things like this.

I have to say that as good as I don't feel today, it's still better than it was yesterday, so there is hope.

No energy at all tonight, so I'm calling it a night. Much more to come, this is a big week in more ways than one.

Remember all the ways I mentioned you could lose your blog's readership? Never update, seldom update, be boring, etc? There's another way: angst and complain.

I do realize I'm doing it, and I have to admit, with the benefit of hindsight, that I picked a hell of a time to start 30 Days of Blog. I haven't battled angst of this ilk for quite some time, and I am not enjoying it. It's blindsided me a bit, to be perfectly honest, as quickly as it came on.

I spent the better part of today just altogether bitter. Irritable as hell. Even as I write this, I can feel myself sinking back down into it, and what's especially strange is that once I got off work, the clouds lifted and I felt like a different person. By the time I got home, spanked it, and ate dinner, you might not have even recognized me. I felt that much better.

I am not enjoying work, and I am not enjoying that I can't have The Girl I Can't Have, and putting a few miles between me and those two things probably did me more good than anything else I did when I got home. I'll go into a bit more detail in another entry; tonight I'm going to try to get to sleep as early as possible -- pre-midnight, even -- just to see what it feels like. I'll let you know how it goes. Another time, there is plenty to talk about.

Everyone bitched out on last night, every last one of them. One girl had family come into town at the last minute, one guy was stuck at work all night, one girl just opted out because of how late it would go, and two other girls, we never even heard from. Rude.

I actually found myself pretty angry about it late last night, believe it or not, because everyone backed out last weekend too, so I'm done organizing these things. Someone else can do it, maybe we'll get a better response. I'm tired of counting on everyone else and then winding up at home all weekend because they all found better things to do. You know... you don't owe me an explanation, just don't think of me as an idiot, that's all.

We've already had two people drop out of the drive-in festivities tonight. We really need to have someone else organize these things, this is the second weekend in a row we've tried to get up there and had people either waffle and opt out or decline altogether.

I have no problem hitting the movies on my own; I've done that for years, and I do it more than ever now that I have Movie-Popcorn. But one thing I've never done is hit the drive-in alone. That's one barrier I've never broken. Back in the day, I never had to, especially when I worked up at Oceans. A big group of us would decide to go to the drive-in on the fly after work one night, but that was, of course, well before anyone was tied down with kids and spouses, and you know... life. Anyway, I don't get out that much, so I was hoping to see as many peeps as possible tonight.

There will be pictures as well, just so you know.

Drive-ins are dying out. We've known that for years. There are only four in Missouri that I know of; that is, there were only four until the one in Macon was blown down by a (suspected) tornado in the middle of the night some seven/eight years ago. The owners announced at the time that they would not rebuild it, and to my knowledge, they never have.

So I try to get up there as often as I can, and that isn't often, given that most of my friends don't live around here, and the ones that do are always bitching out. It's as much a nostalgia thing as anything; what's actually playing at the drive-in is secondary. And the practice of actually staying in the car during the movie(s) has gone with the wind as well, absent inclement weather. You gotta break out the air mattress/comforter or lawn chairs 'n coolers and camp out outdoors, it's part of the atmosphere. Ah! Can't wait to get up there. :)

And for once it looks like the weather's going to cooperate. I thought we were all going to wash away earlier in the week.

So I'm sitting here, 11:56 p.m., eyelids heavy despite the 20 oz. coke I just finished, and I'm trying to decide what kind of night I'm having.

It's going to be the over kind very shortly, fortunately; I plan to hit the hay as soon as possible get as much sleep as I can manage, given the week I've had. In the meantime, a few thoughts.

Yesterday and today were the two better days of this week so far, mood-wise, anxiety-wise. Monday was horrible; I spent the entire day on edge and then didn't sleep worth a shit that night. Tuesday was spent in the throes of a near-depression primarily induced by fatigue; and then Wednesday, just about the time I decided to start looking into some clinical suggestions, it just began to level off. Yesterday was even better than that. Now, I realize it could just be that I was so terribly busy those two days; the school I work for had its make-up orientation for new students on Wed night, and then last night was graduation, so I had my hands completely full. But it could also be that my anxiety is primarily situational, as I was telling a friend this afternoon, and judging from the way today went, I'm becoming more convinced of that all the time.

The next two or three days will probably tell me a lot. If nothing else, I'm anxious about how I'm going to be feeling.

A bunch of us are heading up to the drive-in tomorrow night -- I haven't been since Batman Begins in 2005, so it's been way, way too long. We don't know yet if The Girl I Can't Have will be able to make it; not that I'm planning anything, it'll just be good to see her, since she didn't get in to the office at all today.

Whoo-sahhh.....

So lately, I've suspected (and that's going to sound wholly ridiculous to some of you) that I've been having some pretty pronounced anxiety issues, most remarkably over the last week or so. I've always been a bit of a nervous person anyway, but I don't know, lately it has ramped up quite a bit, and I'm starting to get a bit concerned. It's a little early, because I've never had the anxiety problems some of my close friends have, and it's with that in mind that I have to say I truthfully don't know what I'm talking about, since my experience dealing with anxiety is so minimal.

Actually, it may be that my experience is extensive, but my tangible discourse on the subject is lacking. It reminds me a bit of The Great Meltdown of 1996, in which I was clearly and terribly depressed, but had so little knowledge of the clinical aspect of the condition that I saw depression as a luxury diagnosis I couldn't afford, under the circumstances. Hindsight fixed all that, of course; looking back, it was something I couldn't afford not to address, and because I didn't, it only got worse until finally everything collapsed around me.

The root of my problem is multi-fold, of course, but I'll keep it simple here. First and foremost, I have been smitten for some time with a friend at work who is utterly unavailable; I touched on this briefly in an entry some months ago, and in fact, things got so much better on that front (and for so long) that I thought it was over. The past couple of weeks have been really trying, though, and a number of factors (mostly on her end - I realize that makes no sense) have brought about a terrible relapse. On top of that, work has been giving me sporadic fits, although once again, I have yet to decide how much of it is in my head.

I have new friends at Anxiety Centre.com. I found their web site yesterday afternoon when I finally realized I had to look into this. The first page I popped in on was the list of anxiety symptoms themselves, which is so exhaustive and all-encompassing that it almost didn't tell me anything... except that your anxiety symptoms can manifest themselves in practically any form, with any intensity, with any frequency, and in nearly any combination under the sun. That was both validating and disheartening, given that self-diagnosis is my option of choice until I find out a bit more and decide whether professional intervention is even warranted.

But several things have become very, very pronounced over the last week or so, not the least of which is a remarkable change in sleep patterns; Monday night, I hardly slept at all. The time stamp on this entry may not reflect this, but it is currently 3:51 a.m. as I type, a product of the fact that I crashed around nine p.m. and slept until a little past one. I haven't fallen into the trap of napping after work for many, many months, and this recent dramatic change is no coincidence. Symptom-wise, most of the usual suspects are present, and they will ebb and flow as the day goes on, depending on my surroundings and how I woke up feeling, of all fucking things.

I'll go into more detail as the week goes on - I have got to lay down and see how much rest I can snag before work. If I can break away early from whatever it is that's grabbed me lately, I have a much better shot of confining it to a temporary relapse. This isn't the time for a major episode of emotional drama... but of course, when is?

I swear, if we're not getting pounded with snow and ice for six months of the year, we're getting drenched with torrential rains the other six.

The storm (lightning) outside is pretty bad, so I'm going to go ahead and turn off the computer for the night. Much more to come tomorrow as we continue our 30 Days of Blog. :)

Some of you, despite the blog's design (wink), have expressed your curiosity over where I came up with a name like Numb Trolleybus.

The honest truth is that back in January, I was re-reading The Bell Jar for the umpteenth time (a true student of Plath never grows weary), and right there in Chapter One was this passage, without a doubt one of my favorite. Check the very bottom of this main page for this quote as well:

"Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. ... I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo."

I had already been kicking around the idea of starting a new blog. Lack Thereof had pretty much run its course, I'd only updated once that month the way it was, and it was pretty clear the password-protection was keeping most people away; it didn't help that the user names were server-generated and looked something like p-02939432, which is nearly impossible to keep track of.

So I'm sitting there reading, and I come to that passage and it just knocks me over; honestly, how do I spend most of my days if not bumping back and forth between obligations like a numb trolleybus? For the rest of the week, I scoured the first few chapters of the book for some other bit of original cleverness that might overtake NT and make for a more appropriate (and maybe even more obscure) blog title, but I found nothing better than that. I registered the domain that weekend, and here we are. :)

Click the 'pull' string up top there, and all the profile passages are quotes from The Bell Jar as well. And if you haven't read the book and are wondering what all the fuss is about, p'raps now is as good a time as any?

I've already had two friends of mine accept the 30 Days of Blog challenge, and honestly, I'm shocked. I figured people would play along enough to tune in here, but to have people participate themselves in what amounts to a NaNoWriMo for blogs (and in June, no less) is more than I expected. Glad to have you both on board.

Everyone else, do feel free to take this opportunity. It's not too late; it's 30 days, not 30 June days.

I've already gotten an e-mail asking where the old entries can be found, the ones before what's displayed on this main page.

See that little string labeled "pull" up toward the top right of the screen? Click on that and select the month and year of your choice.

Carry on. :)

One of the quickest ways to lose your blog's readership is to never update.

Or seldom update.

Or be boring.

Of the latter, you will be the judge. Regarding the other two, I have resolved to blog every day for thirty days and see if we can't light a fire under this sum-bitch.

I can't promise every day will be a party, but those of you with blogs are usually pretty good about keeping me posted on the goings-on in your lives, and I haven't done the same for you here.

If you have a blog yourself, I'm tagging you to do the same.

Let it begin. :)

It's late and I've already finished off about half a bottle of wine. Who wants to bet I can kill the whole thing before I crash? Whoo-sahh! :)

Edited to add: Yep, finished it off. I am one big gigglebox, yo! I have got to get me s'more o' that.