I have stone lions on my mantle.

life is good.

before I get on to the main post...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!

and now, the top five things that have recently begun to irritate me:

1) car washes turn their bill changers off at night. this inconveniences me to no end.
2) my apartment is being taken over by giant mutant crickets. some mysterious radar always leads them into one of the many plastic grocery bags lying around the apartment, where they make incredibly loud rustling noises that sound like rats scurrying around.
3) this is over a year late, but I really, really miss fresh samantha. best juice drinks ever. stupid odwalla discontinuing the whole damn line of em.
4) hotmail's lack of support for any browser but IE. I'm teetering on the edge of going back to a yahoo address--I'll keep everyone posted.
5) lindsay lohan. in general.

must get to bed; the whole department has had to go in at 5 every day this week, which has fucked over my sleep schedule. one day I'll get my full eight hours again, and what a day it will be.

so josh and I saw wilco in raleigh saturday night. excellent, as always and expected. they didn't play most of the songs that I'd really been aching to hear, but the asheville show would have been hard to top as a jeremy pleaser.

over the past few days I've had a couple of revelations that have really altered my outlook on life. seriously. I now realize that, after 23 years of feeling inferior most of the time, I've developed a genuine superiority complex. and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. in fact, I'm going to start introducing myself thus:

"I have better taste than most people. I'm probably more intelligent than you are, and I'll only be feigning interest in 90% of what you say. if you're already offended, than you might as well give it up. but if you can say any of that about yourself, stick around and we'll see how long we can tolerate each other."

I know it's extreme, but I've got a lifetime of meekness and self-deprecation to make up for.

also, this morning I took inventory of my life, as I am wont to do on occasion. I have a swell automobile. I have a nice apartment. great friends, great family. as far as I know I'm healthy as the proverbial horse, and in almost the best shape of my adult life. the cherry on the cake, of course, is justin, aka The Wonderous One. after taking stock I realized that there's not a lot more that I could want. a house, but that's pending. my dream job, but since I haven't ascertained what that is yet it can wait. I'm damn lucky.

ordinarily I shy away from making statements like that. when I do I usually knock on the nearest door frame hard enough to fell a mighty redwood and mumble something about "jinxing things." well, I'm tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm just going to sit back, relax, and remind myself that there isn't always another shoe. because you can't enjoy the ride if you're too preoccupied with crashing. I'll worry about the carnage when AND IF it happens.

that said, my superior ass is getting into my holier-than-thou bed so I can get some arrogant sleep.