August is supposed to be the month when I make up for so much lost time in June and July. The “lost time” was mostly lost to procrastination, frequently in the form of my Xbox 360 (I can’t help it that Guitar Hero released an Aerosmith version of the game, I was helpless in the light of the computer-generated Steven Tyler).

So, I entered this week with optimism, a daily schedule, and every intention of doing certain things every single day (walk Evey, work out, spend 6-8 hours working, etc). I also planned to finish unpacking, get the cable and internet installed, and make this place feel like home.

It is now Saturday night, and we have internet. And I walked Evey today. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.

Aside from the various distractions that often come with anyone’s day, here are a few of the random issues that have either sidetracked or completely dislodged me from attaining my goals:

• Wednesday night, I stayed up all night to build the new closet organizer, along with some smaller furniture I’d picked up that day. After the hammering and drilling was finished, I took the empty boxes and other trash out to the dumpster – or, tried to. Our apartment complex has two dumpsters, one on either side of the U-shaped building. Unable to find a route to the closer one, I hauled the heavy load of trash all the way through the back alleyways inside the building to the farther one, in a narrow fenced-in alley against the outside of the building, and heaved the trash in. I then discovered that the door I’d come out of had shut behind me, and has no doorknob or other method of opening it from the outside. Crap. So I headed for the gate just past the dumpster, which leads out onto the sidewalk and, thus, safely to the front gate. Except you can’t open this gate from the inside (or the outside – no key works in there). After 5 minutes of futility trying to open both the gate and the door, I chucked my shoes and keys over the 6-foot high fence and climbed it, barefoot, dropping into the neighbors’ lawn. At 4am. Thankfully no one called the cops on me.
• On Friday, ComCast guy showed up 10 minutes earlier than the 3-hour window of time I was supposed to allow. Thinking we’d get all set up in a hurry and I could go rollerblading, I let him in and showed him what he needed inside the apartment. However, to get to the cable box for the building, the landlady had to guide us – out the front gate, past 5 other buildings down the block, around the corner, to the PotBelly’s behind our building where there is an alley for their dumpsters and deliveries. This is not the route we get, though, as the actual path to the back of our building involves squeezing between the alley’s fencing and a huge overgrown strip of shrubbery that reaches at least 10 feet into the air and almost entirely obscures what may, at one time, have been a foot-wide path about 50 feet long. ComCast guy looked at me like I was insane, but dubiously disappeared into the jungle behind PotBelly’s, coming back 5 minutes later to tell me that he cannot reach the boxes and we have to go get his ladder. Back around the block to my building, he unhooked the ladder from his truck, then back around the block to the impossible path. Where I then found myself hunched over, shoving leaves and sharp branches and, very possibly, poison ivy out of the way with my bare arms and my face as I helped him shove the ladder down the “path.” We finally emerged in a small clearing at the back of my building, where, sure enough, two large cable boxes are attached about 15 feet up on the brick wall. He did his thing, we braved the jungle once more, and voila! Two hours late, we have internet. (Yes, it was worth it – no, we’re never changing our service, because I’m not going back there.)
• But best of all (using the most sarcastic form of “best” I can possibly invoke) was last night at the Gaelic Storm concert. I love a lot of Gaelic Storm’s music and have seen them once before; you’ve actually seen the two lead singers – Pat Murphy and Stephen Twigger were part of the steerage band in Titanic. You know, this scene. Anyway, I was out with a group of friends watching them perform at a venue on the south side, having a great time, singing along to “Johnny Tar” and drinking a Smithwicks or two. A little less than halfway through the show, some sort of goofing around ensued in my row, and I twisted my body in laughter. This shouldn’t be anything notable – except that my cell phone was in my lap. About 10 seconds later, it hit me that my phone was no longer in its precarious place, and I looked down…and saw my BlackBerry Pearl, leather case and all, ass-end poking up out of my beer. It was completely soaked. It is now fried.

So…if you’ve been trying to call me, don’t bother ’til next week when I will get yet another replacement phone from dear Verizon. For now, I’m just thanking whatever god is out there for giving me internet just before my phone left me. Sad but true, I don’t think I could handle being completely out of touch with the world unless I planned for it – I’d probably have a nervous breakdown.