[In a world where the dead are returning to life, the word 'trouble' loses much of its meaning]
Well, I'm up early. The ferrets have figured out how to get out of their cage and come wake me up with scratching and digging in the bedroom, just like old times. This apartment has more than a thousand square feet of scratching room for them, and they decide to come scratch beside the bed. And when I get up, they decide they'd like to sleep under the nightstand. I should go back up there and scratch all around them until they wake up. The difference is they can sleep through anything.

Work yesterday was pretty sad. Two people on my desk got "laid off" (re: fired). One of them was the man who showed me around and was super nice to me when I first got there. He's been there for 23 years and was two years away from natural retirement. The other was a woman who's been there for a long time too. She wasn't close to retirement, though. Neither was offered a nice going-away package. Just "early retirement." The Flyer has an interesting story on the labor disputes here.

Monday night, Phil, Jamie, and I saw "Land of the Dead." It was a decent flick. Much of the dialogue was covered in cheese, but you can't expect Shakespearian exchanges from a zombie movie, I suppose. I thought the "Big Daddy" character emoted far too much for my tastes (I like my zombies to feel nothing but the need to feast on sweet living flesh). I think he could be considered the Martin Luther King Jr. of zombies, leading his people to emancipation. Well, maybe more of a Malcom X, since he found that violence helped accelerate the cause.

I was, however, fascinated with the previews before the movie actually started. There were three previews in a row for what seemeed to be the exact same movie: A ragtag group of rebels (including one token hot chick and one "ethnic" character) decides to clandestinely do something risky and daring to claim a big, life-changing prize. Only, one film was set in space, another underwater, and another in a cave. But, essentially, they were the same films. Even the deep-voiced trailer narrator seemed bored with the premise by the third preview.

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Thanks, you guys, for your kind thoughts and words. You all mean the world to me. Things around here are still strange and, at times, awkward, but Phil and I have talked this thing to death and I finally feel like I at least understand some of what happened. That's not to say I excuse it, but it doesn't seem so mysterious and foreign to me now. But we are still the best of friends, and we still care deeply for each other, but it's time to be away from each other so that we can grow independently. There's no doubt it will feel impossible at times, but it's necessary.

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This weekend I visited the family and my grandmother generously gave me a ton of her old art supplies: A tackle box full of oil paints and palette knives, a box full of brushes, two large canvasses, two big flipbooks of pastel paper, a drafting table, and a lamp. I also talked her out of a really nice framed landscape she painted about 20 years ago. It's a barn scene with lots of oranges and blues. Phil's jealous; he's really into original amateur landscapes. I look at this painting and I'm amazed that my grandmother did it and kept it covered up in a spare bedroom all this time. The woman can do and has done everything. I hope to chase life with as much instensity as she has over the years.

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Amber's coming in for a few days. I don't have any definite plans for us, but I get off at 7:30 tomorrow, so we might have to go out somewhere, just the two of us. I'm always inclined to sit on the couch and talk all night, but there's got to be something in this city worth coming out and seeing and drunkenly puking on. Right?