Disjointed and caffeinated thoughts that most certainly do not come from your regular host, Mr. Jim Peacock, so throw the tomatoes at me, not him. 'Course, you'll have to wait until the site's back up, which is what I'm doing right now. The other thing I'm doing right now is taking advantage of Jim's kindness in giving me a guest login. I'm a real super-good taker-advantager. I'm knacky with the grammar, too, if you couldn't tell.

Anyway, Jim didn't write the following, I did, and you'll be able to tell right away because Jim, unlike myself, is normally coherent.

I used to think the only thing worse than having a blog and not feeling like writing anything in it was . . . nothing. I really thought writer's block was the worst.

Now I think the worst thing is having a blog and feeling like writing in it and not being able to get to the damn thing because you were a total moron who signed on with journalspace.

There are other bad things in life, of course, like being awakened by some car with the mother of all engine rattles trying to start outside your apartment, at 8:30 a.m., after you've been asleep for all of four hours.

And noticing your breadmaker has started making a very, very annoying squeak during the kneading cycle . . . that's bad too. Does this indicate rust? What happens if I WD-40 it? Will I die of WD-40 poisoning? What in the hell does it want from me? Should I ask the Master of the Bread about this, or will he just sneer at me because I don't have a Williams-Sonoma machine?

Hey, did I tell you my demon neighbors moved out? [This is an abrupt segue, I know, but, well, it seemed right while I was drinking all that coffee earlier.-ed] I will refrain from asking if you care. You know what's the saddest thing?--Listening to two solid weeks of maintenance crews working all, day, long, on the vacated apartment in an attempt to get it leasable again. Part of me wants to know how bad those freaks trashed it, but the larger, saner part of me doesn't.

Know how they moved out? It was like this: First one went to jail, then the other. (Armed robbery and assault in the case of the second one. I was not kidding about the demon thing.)

That left a weedy little 18-year-old fella. Let's call him . . . well, see, he's named after a former Mormon prophet, and it's one of those names which, when you hear it, screams "I am a former Mormon!" Obviously former, because active, devout Mormons do not generally move in with, you know, criminals. But I don't want to use his real name, even though there's no chance in hell he'll ever run across this, so let's call him Hiram, with the understanding that this is not his real name.

Hiram knocked on my door one day 'bout a month ago and said he wished to apologize for the noise. I said, "I haven't noticed any noise today."

"Oh. Good! But I thought I'd let you know we're getting kicked out after all so you won't have to worry about the noise anymore."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that," I lied.

"Yeah, well, it's cool. I can't afford the place by myself anyway, and my roommate went to jail, so--"

Now I already knew one roommate was in jail thanks to an unpleasant conversation I'd had with Roommate #2, who we're going to call . . . Bernard. And we'll call the first roommate Shep. So I said, "Wait, Bernard told me Shep was already in jail."

"Oh, he is. But now Bernard's back in jail too."

Note the "back." Did I mention Bernard was all of 22 years old? These guys were real go-getters. Too bad what they mostly wanted to go and get was other people's stuff.

I can't resist a good ha-ha-you-used-to-torment-me-with-your-constant-noisemaking-and-now-you're-in-jail-so-take-that-you-oaf story (well, that's how I viewed it, anyway), so I asked Hiram what happened.

"Well, after New Year's? He was gonna quit drinking, so he went dry for like 2-1/2 days but then towards the evening he started getting the shakes and stuff--"

"He got the DTs? Holy shit. How much did he used to drink?"

"A LOT!"

"Damn, I guess. So he got sick--"

"Yeah, he started feeling real bad so he went and got, like, two bottles of vodka and when he was half into the second one he got the bright idea to hold up a jewelry van and of course it didn't work 'cause he was so drunk, plus he was on probation already, so now he's in jail and he's not coming out for a long time."

"Well, gosh," I said. "I feel kinda bad for him. Here he was trying to recover and get sober and then it all went so horribly--"

"I sure don't feel bad for him! He tried to get me to go with him! I was like, 'Dude, I'm trying to sleep! Go to bed!'"

Here it was about all I could do not to burst out laughing at the thought of Bernard, a guy with "I Have Been in Jail and It Won't Be Long Ere I Return Thither" written all over him (mostly in tattoo form), waking up this tiny, Very Obviously Former Mormon, to help him rob a jewelry van (and don't ask me what a jewelry van is, because I have no idea). I can't imagine wanting to rob a jewelry van, myself, but see, if I were to try it, I'm like 99.7% certain I could choose a better partner than Hiram.

But then, probably it was the vodka talking.

Anyway, I said I was still sorry to hear that his roommates had caused him so much trouble, and Hiram informed me that it was no trouble; he would get an apartment with his brother who was moving back to town, "and it's going to be MUCH quieter." Then he grinned a mile wide. I mean, his face lit up like a Mormon kid on Sunday who's just realized it's Stake Conference this week and therefore he hasn't got to go to church . . . and he said:

"I can't wait!"

Now that could have been a real teeth-grinding moment for me (you can't wait for things to quiet down a little? You can't wait? You little bastard, d'you know how long I've been waiting?), but at that point I was cheered enough by the prospect of having them gone not to sweat it. So I shook his hand and wished him good luck and then as he was turning to go I said, "Oh, and Hiram?"

"Yeah?"

"Choose the right, dude."