2006-03-17 - 8:02 a.m.

Sometimes I start to figure out that Jack must have instructed Vaughn to do this. I mean, Jack's done it before and he can have slippery motives - God knows that's why I love him. It's just, I don't know why Jack would orchestrate anything that would cause me discomfort. Well, I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Zach, this is Jack. His reasons are always nebulous at best." Right, but we can always assume that one of the things that drive him the most is protecting Sydney. True, true. And I guess that's why he's make Vaughn do what he did. I'm not talking about NOW, I'm talking about THEN. Well, in the context of THEN I'm talking about NOW. It's just the only relatable thing my brain could pick out of the ether to match it. I mean, Jack and Vaughn had their reasons, right? So it only stands to reason . . . it only stands to reason that . . . I'm still covered in fabric paint from last night and the fumes are forcing ny brain to blur its already fuzzy line seperating tv and reality into almost non-existent border. I understand this.

I don't understand this.

I claim not to understand any of the following, but will simply report it:

- Ben evicted me two weeks ago and instructed me I had to be out next month. Reason given? So he could "finish up the house." He hasn't been back since. So - yeah.

- Got in an enormous fight with the high mucky-muck at the Diamond Mines last week - hot on the heels of my eviction. It was fuckin' awesome.

- Got in a fight with my father chronologically between the last two bullet points.

- I color coded a LOT of index cards

- I got buried hip deep in Fabric Paint. Granted, the fabric paint was/is "Glow-In-The-Dark White" and "Neon Orange". So I won't be getting lost in the dark anytime soon. Not that I had a propensity to do so BEFORE I got tribal tattoos made from fabric paint, just that I'm less likely to do so now. The ony dicey part is that the Neon Orange is the same color as this new toothpaste that I bought. And while I've been sober for 31 fucking days(!!! - more on that in a minute), I see the alcohol fueled potential to smear toothpaste on shirts and end up brushing my teeth with fabric paint. All society would breakdown. Things would walk backwards and hamburgers would eat people! Oh wait, I'm thinking of Rand McNallyland. [If you so choose to, leave in the comment section whether you got that last joke. If you did - and don't explain it, just say if you got it - then you'll be counted among my favorite league of Leprechans this St. Patrick's Day

- Today is my 31st day without a drink. Which sounds pathetic that I even need to state it so grandly. But it's true. Peter and I have stayed bone sober since Valentine's Day. I made sure all the alcohol in the house was destroyed the night before Valentine's Day. Yeah that's it, "destroyed." I won't go into all the ups and downs of the "not drinking thing". I chronicled much of it over on mySpace. The hopeful person may posit, "Maybe after all this time I won't even want a drink." The hopeful person would be warped and evil to think such things.

- I had some close calls with some friends this past month. Maybe the lack of alcohol cleared my head up and made me think twice about things. Or maybe the lack of alcohol made me crazed and more of a paranoid delusional fool. Can't it be a little from column both? Either way, band-aids have been slapped on the majority of the wounds that were intentionally or not-so-intentionally caused. That said, sometimes you just have to see a natural end point for what it is - a natural end point. I mean, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had to go off the air at SOME POINT. Come on, they had switched Aunt Viv's and things just weren't the same. We all knew it, no one wanted to admit it - but we felt it. New Aunt Viv tried some last ditch saves, but her and Uncle Phil seemed off.

- St. Patrick's Day Party / Peter & Zach Can Finally Drink Again Party / Not Under Any Circumstances A Surprise Party for Monique Party commences tomorrow. Been looking forward to the whole business for weeks. I know Catfish has had visions of cheddarwurst dancing in her noggin' for some time. I hope the cheddarwurst can share room in her fantasies with all the corn dogs. I hope everyone is cool. That's why we invited cool people. Well, some non-cool types snuck in under the wire but that's only because of Peter's "White Man's Burden". Or something. He explains it better in person.

- The time of new Sopranos is upon us! Don't worry, this is a spoiler-free zone. But hot damn! What an episode. Go to your local library and check it out! You know . . . if your local library has an HBO hook up. And seeing as the Laconia Library still sees the "information superhighway" as a "passing trend" I wouldn't go there first.

New poll for all you lads and lassies. The results of the last one were the following, "Why are we scared of the Ides of March 2006?" and "Fred crying over Coty's insistence of going to work naked" ranked 3rd with 3 votes and 16%, "Peter becomes a robotic love slave to JJ Redick" received 4 votes and 21%, while not too surprisingly, the winner was "Monique being convinced every day is a possible surprise party" with 5 votes and 26%. Peter had high hopes to win this last poll. Maybe next time Peter. Maybe next time. Also, I can't speak to the Fred & Coty option, but I can say that the 2nd and 1st place votes have definitely become reality. As I knew they would. As I knew they would.

It's been real,

Darby

A Paragraph

Please, I'm not going to be so obvious and predictable as to write this paragraph with the broad strokes of the portion of my brain that was eaten 9 hours ago. Instead, I'll say something that will sound pat and pre-packaged. And in reality it's neither of those things. Actually, now I'm not going to write what I was going to write. Instead I'm going the maniacally coded option. ZACH, hey! ZACH. Do I have your attention now? I do? Great. Listen. Are you listening? If you could make a deal with a calendar and you could make a deal with some store bought cookies and negotiate an understanding with the fridge and come to an understanding with the street sign between here and South Berwick then you can do this. It's the weakest argument to get you to do something but it's also, predictably, the most effective. Remember how your own mother convinced you to go to Ben's birthday party? It wasn't clever and you hated that it worked but that doesn't change the fact that it DID work. And now you just need to come up with parameters to gel your brain into focus. Just sayin' is all.

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