A second heartbeat is echoing through my body when I wake up. Reedy and muffled, it is as if a small frightened dog is curled up tight against my chest. I draw my arms closer around myself slightly. It's cold, the kind of cold that slowly seeps the warmth out of you. It's brisk and refreshing, until all of a sudden you realize you're curled up, shivering, and the chill is gnawing its way up your limbs.

I pull a small pillow over to hug for warmth, and try to take stock of my surroundings. I'm lying on the living room floor, between the couch and the coffee table. My head is resting on my beanbag, my feet neatly tucked under the couch. Through the reluctantly lifting mists of sleep, I blearily wonder why I'm fully dressed. I can feel the jab of keys against my left thigh, and the press of my wallet against the right. I roll over slightly, and am rewarded with the crackle of too much hair gel crumpling against carpet, and the smell of too much deodorant. I wiggle my toes experimentally, and they slide against the hardness of leather shoes.

By now I can feel that my errant heartbeat is coming through the floor. Snatches of music and voices raised in laughter drift through the open window. Earnest voices, much too passionate for the subjects of conversation I can hear, and with a slight lilt that suggests Asian speakers, accents easing out under the influence of alcohol.

I'm awake now, but my head still feels wrapped in goose-down. Through one squinting eye, I glance up and see a tumbler with a thin layer of pale golden liquid in the bottom. Either someone has taken a miniscule piss in one of John's glasses, or I've been drinking Scotch.

A vein throbs powerfully in my temple, a painful surge of blood.

Ah, yes. Now I remember.

Yesterday afternoon, a knock sounds on the door as I'm dozing on the couch, accompanied by the television. I give my customary bellow of "Come in!" which practically nobody ever takes me up on. I hop up from the couch muttering savagely, and the door opens when I'm halfway to it. I am left with a disgruntled, sleepy expression, holding my hand out for the doorknob, in front of two college-age Asian girls that have come up from the downstairs apartment. I do my best to compose myself; I can only imagine the ghastly consequences this has on my expression.

They're having a party, they tell me, and have come up to make sure I'll be okay with a little noise late tomorrow night. It's a birthday party, they say, and the one on the left raises a hand. You should come by, they say, there'll be free alcohol. Eyebrows waggle suggestively.

I thank them, wish Lefty a happy birthday, and tell them I'm fine with the noise, and I might take them up on their offer. The door closes on three polite smiles.

The next day, all my ill-laid plans have fallen through. Luke is sick. Shaun is AWOL. John is stuck in traffic somewhere on the northbound 5. What the hell, I think. I'll stop by this party and see what's going on. The last time I saw any of the ladies downstairs, they were playing board games stone cold sober. Me and two friends barged in on them, blind drunk, put up a good fight in Cranium, and then retired upstairs in defeat to our just rewards (burnt pizza and tequila). This could be a good time to make amends.

I pull on some jeans at 7pm, watch some TV, then poke my head downstairs. Nothing. No problem. I surf the web for a half an hour, then listen at the window. No music, no voices. Shrug. Well, I might as well get started early, no point wasting a healthy head start. I crack open the stubby bottle of Dewar's, and pour it out over some ice. It makes a short single, which I sip in front of the computer as I chat with some equally unoccupied friends. I'm feeling distinctly tingly by the time I reach the bottom of the glass, which is my Asian heritage at work. I amble downstairs again, but the place is still dark.

My god, I think. Maybe they're holding a seance? Perhaps the noise later on will be them opening up an unholy portal to the afterlife in their living room?

Clearly, this possibility merits another drink.

I wander back upstairs and pour myself another single, this time out of John's Glenfidditch, which I butterfinger into a bulging double. I go back to sipping in front of the computer screen. By the halfway point, my ancestors have seen to it that I am raving madly on my keyboard, preaching the merits of Double Dragon 2 on the original Nintendo. By the bottom of the glass, I've realized I haven't had dinner yet. My wavering attention now focused like a laser on the prospect of greasy food, I make an immediate beeline for the McDonald's on the corner, where I summarily dispense with the laughable pretentiousness of "eating right." I return triumphantly to the computer screen, a triple bypass clutched in one victorious fist.

It's now 9 o'clock, and my buzz is fast disappearing. The alcohol and grease is weighing heavily on my eyelids, and I head-bob a couple of times in front of the computer. This won't do, I tell myself, so I pull myself to my feet and peek downstairs again. Dark as a tomb. The girls are probably still painting pentagrams on the floor, or whatever you do at seances. I flop down on the couch and flip on the TV, searching for something lively to watch. Ah, what's this? The history of sponges....

Oddly enough, I've never really had to hunt around for someone to share living space with. Well, I did once, but I ended up living with Chi and two strangers. Even though it all turned out quite well, I think we can safely discount that effort as a practical victory, but a technical failure.

So this whole experience is kind of new for me. I'm lucky that John is being very cool and flexible about the whole thing, that makes it a lot easier. One invaluable tool I've found is Craigslist. I posted my "roommate wanted" ad on there, and within 24 hours, I have 3 potential new roommates.

Some statistics on my respondents so far:

• 66% female
• 33% male
• 1% other?
• 33% parents with children aged 5
• 0% use substitutions like "u" for "you" or "r" for "are" in their e-mails, which is good. Those drive me absolutely batshit crazy (except for Jish, who I already know is a doofus).
• 100% fart (according to the statistics laid out in one of my older posts).
• ?% vegetarian. Either way is fine, considering the fact that I'm... oh, let's say 83.279% vegetarian myself. I just hope the one I end up living with isn't one of those proselytizing vegans who insist on sniffing disgustedly whenever you're settling down to a good meat meal.
• 100% sound like people I could live with, though the one with the 5-year-old would probably do better in a more stable environment.

Either way, it's going to be weird. I'm going to have to start wearing pants, for starters. And I'll be surprised if my new co-tenant has the same appreciation for vile humor that John and I share, so I may just have to rein in those perverted jokes.

Holy crap, something changed.

My roommate got a new job in Ventura, so he'll be moving out really soon. Congrats to him; we've been saying for years now that "this year is going to be crazy, there are going to be lots of changes," but what with one thing or another, not much has really changed. It's been about 6 years since we first started living in the same apartment. Whew... six years.

Anyway, now I have to deal with this housing situation. I don't make enough money to live in the kind of apartment I'm used to and still sock away a little money every month; I figure a really cheap single bedroom apartment in my area would pretty much bump me up into the $900s or so, which would put me just over my rent budget, given my current spending habits.

Some of you (Jish) are going to say, "quit your job and move up here!" And I would, but I am actually starting to formulate some interesting possibilities for myself, and I need a little time to examine them. Plus, despite everything I've said, I'm starting to really like San Diego again; the sun's come out, I'm healthier than I've been for a long time, I'm spending time at the park and the beach, and against all expectations, life is pretty good.

So right now I'm looking for an apartment-mate who's willing to drop a little over $600/mo on a big room (walk-in closet!) in a nice apartment smack dab in the middle of the UTC/La Jolla area. The place is month-to-month, so no huge pressures either way. If anyone you know needs something like this, tell them to drop me a line. With luck, I'll have alternate arrangements by the end of the summer. Without it... who knows? Life will proceed as it will.

I wonder if I should be worried about this budding Zen/fatalistic approach to life.

Okay, let me ask you something. Is it weird to go to the supermarket to do some grocery shopping right after you've gone to the gym? The local supermarket is right on my way home from the gym, so I often stop in and buy a few things I need.

Every time I go in there, every time I get to the head of the checkout line, the checkout person goes, "Hey, you just come from the gym?"

Hm.

Workout towel, check.
Grody sweat stains all over, check.
Water bottle, check.

I always reply with a grin, and a tell-me-about-it chuckle. "Yep," I say.

"Oh," and a slightly furrowed brow. "Where's the gym around here?"

"Up at U.T.C., the 24-hour over there." Invariably. It's like there's a conversational black hole at the head of lane 7 that keeps sending me back to this bizarro-world.

Slight nod of recognition, and "I should get down to the gym more often."

Smile, swipe, beep, scribble, done.

It's just weird, is all. I've even gone through this same routine with the same person two or three times in one week.

It kind of reminds me of my favorite (and only) joke:

A girl walks up to a supermarket checkout lane, and starts placing items on the conveyer belt. The items are as follows:

1 tube of toothpaste
1 toothbrush
1 bar of soap
1 frozen dinner

The guy manning the checkout counter scans the items through, and gives the girl a friendly smile.

"So, you're single, are you?" He nods at the neat pile of goods.

The girl's face twists in scorn as she slaps a credit card on the counter. She says acidly, "How'd you figure that one out, Sherlock?"

The checkout guy replies without missing a beat. "Because you're fucking ugly."

I've been toying with the idea of becoming an ordained minister via an online service. This is mostly because I think it'd be kind of cool to be one, especially since I have no serious religious convictions. Luckily, my pastoral urges don't extend so far into the ironic/hypocritical/blasphemous spectrum as for me to attempt a Christian ordination; I would no sooner try to be a Christian reverend than I would try to become an imam or a rabbi.

So I turned to these "universal churches" that have sprung up all over the place. After a little surfing and research, one thing kind of turned me off to the whole thing. Most of these places charge an ordination fee (some are free, but offer a "premium package" to receive the actual title of Reverend or Minister), and many of them place suspicious emphases on the potential tax, earnings, and business benefits that could be accorded to an ordained minister. I should interject that the fees don't bother me; I can see how the churches need to cover the costs of the time and resources involved in ordaining every cyber-Joe Blow that comes along. But the touting of the financial benefits of ordination, it kind of tarnishes the spirit of the occasion, like seeing "YahWheaties," or "Pepsi presents: The Bible!"

In the end, though, all I wanted to do was use the crossed-fingers-thing at people and shout Latin phrases at them (Ave Maria! Pro bono post-coital tobaccum!) until they either left me alone or bought me a drink, with the knowledge that I had the full power of the (a) C(c)hurch behind me.

They don't let you do exorcisms though, so that's a no-go anyway.

Faeces erat demonstrandum.