Greetings, folks. It’s been a darn long while…ok, a long fucking while since I’ve written anything, and frankly, I feel like a sheep. But only because I’m soft and cuddly and smell of lanolin, not because I have any sense of guilt from not writing. No, I reserve that to people who clothe their children through the fruits of their flying fingers. They are the ones who will reap the seeds of discontent when their naked offspring cry in the night because they haven’t bothered to twiddle the keypad for nigh on 6 months. Me, I’m just lazy.

If there is anything more lightly amusing than animated peas with French accents, I don’t know what it is. Although I’m not hot and bothered by the religious education provided by the ever-popular VeggieTales (it’s innovative, sure, but the tales are, like most interpretations, a bit too assuming), the quips by the various vegetables are just precious.

So, they are taking down the brick buildings to the west of my office building here in Sheffield. Whilst there’s nothing overwhelmingly odd about that, it strikes within me a sort of nostalgia for the past. I’ve never been a historian or really had any great sense of wonder of history, but it has become interesting to me to find out the various historical facts about the town that I live in. I would guess that is because I have an attachment to this place; I’m curious as to what used to be below my feet as I walk down the sidewalk, what people have gone here before me, did they have dreams about their futures, what problems did they encounter? As I stroll through the park, I wonder if I am stepping on the location where someone received their first kiss? As I lay in bed, I wonder if a couple years ago spent their wedding night here. Or someone’s child was raised in this room.

I’ve lived in two places in this town so far, my current residence (100 years old) and my former house (at least 117 years old). I wonder many things about them. The newspapers in the wall that we found, dated October 30th, 1888 — what was it like that day? Who put them up there? Were they rich? Poor? What was the weather like? Was it a father struggling to keep his family warm in the harsh Midwestern winters, or was he rich and putting up a new wallpaper covering? Did he ever think that 117 years later some guy would be reading the same newspaper he put in there? Did his family have a good life?

Nothing like having a taste of your own mortality.

We’re cleaning the house madly for the (supposed) mass of people set to invade us shortly on the 29th for our 3rd annual Halloween costume party. I don’t know exactly why we got that one started — guess we felt we should have our own sort of party for our friends — but in the 3rd year now, we’re hoping it’s going to stick around for awhile, kinda be the thing the Pralle’s do around here. It’s fun — getting adults dressed up in costumes is still entertaining, I think. We get several people who bitch’n'moan about it the first time but when they understand that EVERYONE has a costume on and then they start to think creatively about it, they end up having fun with it.

Today definately has one of those downer sort of feelings to it, and I’m not exactly sure why. Mondays often do — something about the combination of being back at work with the looming practice of barbershop and the general dreariness of weather — something like that. I like barbershop, really I do, but at times the constant weekly committment to it gets arduous. That statement sounds absolutely ridiculous given that I used to have choir rehearsals 5 nights a week for an hour each night during college; however, those were set into a schedule that was a lot more flexible, I didn’t have to drive 30 minutes to get there, and it was a good solid hour of hard-ass practice with talented people and then we left. Barbershop blows 60 minutes of driving, takes 2.5 hours of hard-ass practicing with a group that is both very good and very amateur group. Some guys come to sing, some guys come to jaw. That’s frustrating when I come to sing and take a night out of my life to do it. Band on Tuesdays, at least, carries less of a “screw-around” factor to it.

I need to get off the massive amounts of caffeine I drink during the day, but I have yet to find a drink that goes down as nicely as Diet Mt. Dew and yet doesn’t contribute to my caffeine amount or so forth. Diet Sprite doesn’t do it, water definately doesn’t do it, etc. Coffee counts, but it rips my stomach to shreds after a few days so I can’t keep on it unless I drink the weak shit, and I can’t *stand* the weak shit. I don’t know. I think sometimes I have some sort of oral fixation as I have to constantly have my little mug here to sip on while I think and work.

Perhaps I’m just mentally looping.