This is Alison Morris. Perhaps you've seen her on TV. I was seated at a big table with her on Saturday night to watch the Pitt game. She's well-educated, well-traveled, has a great career in broadcast journalism, and she's beautiful. There's only one problem. She's a bitch.

Bugger!

Last night's last-second loss stings a bit. It's not quite as bad as 1992/Braves/Pirates/Sid Bream, but it still hurts.

So, I was trying to make plans with my friend Michelle to watch the Pitt game tomorrow afternoon, and we were communicating via text messages and emails. And then, out of nowhere, she called me on my cell phone because she thought it would be easier. Easier to talk on the phone than to try and set up plans using text messages and emails. Huh. I think she just might be on to something. We'll see if it catches on.


And just a little while later . . .

While I was getting my hair cut today, Kelly was telling me a story and she was telling me about how she had posted photos from last weekend on her MySpace and Facebook pages. I don't seem to be able to get away from it.

It's been quite a while since I've been to an actual nightclub. Apparently, now young women talk on their phones, while men simply watch them. I suppose if they want to dance, their phones are their dance partners.


I bet all three of these young women are on Facebook.

Today I added the word "Facebook" to the spelling check feature of my email because it kept getting flagged when I used it in emails. But that's as far as I'm going.

The saga of The Tunnel to Nowhere continues . . .

Well, are they going to finish this disaster or not?

I was sitting at the bar in a local restaurant last night having dinner and a couple of drinks while watching college basketball. A woman came in with her young son and were seated at a table close to where I was perched at the bar. Apparently, her dining experience was not as good as mine because she complained about seemingly every facet of her meal and her son's meal from the moment they sat down. She immediately alienated her server somehow which I didn't quite catch. Then when her server wasn't around, she would grab the attention of other servers passing by to make requests and complaints. She asked for an extra ranch dressing for an appetizer, and then complained when it didn't arrive quickly. (Why don't restaurants just give you an extra dressing or sauce when you order something? It saves us all the trouble of asking for another one and the server having to go get one.) Then when their main courses came, she complained that both her and her son's food were cold, and she sent them back. I didn't stare at the table, but I did look over once or twice, and I noticed that the woman had a perpetual scowl on her face from the beginning of their meal to the end. Shortly after their meals were returned from the kitchen where they were apparently heated up, I sneaked a peek and saw her putting her nose up to the opened end of a bottle of A1 steak sauce to smell it and then making a face of contempt. It wasn't long before she flagged down her server and asked for takeout containers so that they could take most of their food home. Before they left, however, the manager came over to the table, and the woman told her about all of the things that had been wrong with their dining experience. Meanwhile, from what I could tell, the server who waited on them was polite and professional, despite being on the receiving end of a lot of complaining. And I thought to myself that it would probably be impossible to please this woman. For whatever reason, no matter what restaurant she and her son would have gone to or what they would have ordered, she would have complained about it. She was a scowler. And scowlers are never fun. Why would someone like that even go out to dinner if she's not going to be satisfied? It would not be a very pleasant experience, and I think that going out to dinner should be a pleasant experience. And I realize that this sort of thing happens all of the time in restaurants all over the place. I just wonder why.

More adventures for Jim with Facebook . . .

Jim: I got an email that a woman I went to high school with wrote on my "Wall". Still not sure what that means exactly. But I can say with a pretty high degree of confidence that in four years of going to high school together, she never spoke one word to me. Of course, that goes both ways. I don't expect that I ever talked to her either. And not that there's anything wrong with that.

Now I have some kind of graffiti or vandalism on my Wall. What is the etiquette here? Am I obligated to respond to this, even though I've never spoken to this person? After all, what it really boils down to is she's just trying to be friendly, right? And, I assume, she wouldn't have had access to write on my Wall if I hadn't accepted her email request to be my "friend". So now am I being rude if I accept her as my friend, but then ignore her message on my Wall? I don't need to go pissing anyone off. Look what that guy in Alabama just did because he perceived that some people had slighted him...

Email . . .

Jim: My wife invited me to be her "friend" on facebook and talked me into opening an account this week. How cool am I? Only I've now come to find out that facebook is passe and all of the cool kids are Twittering. But at least I now have 33 "friends" already on facebook, almost all of whom are people from my high school class who I never talked to or hung out with in high school and have never been in touch with ever since our high school graduation.

Is this really what the internet has come to? God I miss the days of free internet porn.

Dave: Apparently, Facebook is the new big thing with people in our age range. It's scary. I keep getting invitations from people to be their "friend," and they always say that they tried to hold out but that they eventually gave into the "peer pressure" to join. I'm not doing it.

Jim: But now I'm finally popular!!!

I haven't felt compelled to write about anything recently. I have gotten into a bit of a routine, which helps me to keep the worst of the depression away. I still have good days and bad days. But I've been able to manage fairly well since I returned from Florida four weeks ago today.

I've been thinking a lot about Sidney lately. He's just such a good dog. I can't really say that I or my mother have done anything particularly special to make him the way he is. I think he just came that way. And to think, I picked him out on a website for dachshunds in search of new homes. And then I drove to Ohio to meet him and bring him home. Now he is a very important part of my parents' lives and my life. I'm very much looking forward to when he returns to Pittsburgh with my parents in early April. It will be great to see him and play with him. Maybe he can even come stay with me for a few days. Just a little visit to his first home after I adopted him. Hopefully, someday, Sidney and I will be reunited for good.

Writing about Sidney also gives me an excuse to post a photo of the handsome little fellow.

I turn 40 tomorrow. As if I wasn't already in a reflective mood, that just compounds the situation. I am most reflective of the last year, which has obviously not been a good one for me. It was about this time last year that I first started noticing some of the symptoms of depression, but I managed to keep it together for a couple more months before the dam broke and I was really suffering. It's really just a lost year of my life. The time passed, but I accomplished very little, and I spent most of the year battling this force that has taken over my life. Of course, with such a milestone birthday as 40 just hours away, many of the people in my life will take this opportunity to express sentiments to the effect that this is the year that I recover and resume a normal life. I hope so. I really do.

I'm dog sitting for a couple of friends for a few days this week. I'm staying with their dog Zoe, who is getting older. She is a great dog and has lived a very full and rewarding life, but her youth is behind her now. Her hearing and sight are not what they used to be, and she has some occasional problems controlling her balance in her rear end. She stumbled a bit today toward the end of our walk. It made me very sad. She limped along for a few steps before I decided to take an injury timeout. So, after a few moments for recovery, we were back on our way. Aging dogs can be very tortuous on the soul. I have a soft spot for older dogs. My very favorite dog in our family, and the dog prior to Sidney to live with me for several years, was Fritz, and he was a real pleasure of a dog during his golden years. He was content with the life of a senior citizen canine. He did have the occasional bout with some ailment, and he was not in necessarily good health. But we had some good years. They just join our lives in progress, hang out for a decade or more, and then they get older and slow down. Before they leave us. And our lives continue, even though those of us dog lovers are forever changed.

And being around Zoe makes me think about and miss Sidney even more than usual.

I don't like to buy too much toilet paper at once. Even though it is cheaper and it obviously lasts longer to buy 9-packs, or 12-packs, or even 24-packs of toilet paper (all of which are usually sold as double rolls), I prefer to buy the good old fashioned 4-pack of regular-sized rolls of my chosen brand (Angel Soft). And even though I almost never buy more than the diminutive 4-pack, I make sure that I never run out. Toilet paper is too important to let that happen.

I've been back from Florida for a week, and it hasn't been a particularly pleasant time. I haven't felt as badly as I know that I can, so I'm thankful for that. And I haven't had overwhelming exhaustion. But as the week went on, I started staying in bed later each day. I have no structure. I tried to stick to the same basic routine that I had in Florida, but it's just not the same here. The major components of what helps me to feel all right are missing here: human beings. I am lost without the consistent, predictable presence of other people. Just having my parents around helped me tremendously, and I was very thankful for their presence. I've probably never been more happy to have spent so much time with my parents. Maybe that's just the thing that I need to be happy: someone (or someones) around me on a regular basis. I used to be able to manage as a person who lived and spent a lot of time alone. I thought that I liked it, given my general dislike for most people. But now, that characteristic which I was once seemingly comfortable with threatens to destroy me. I don't know what to do. I need to do something. I need to find things to do with my time, volunteer. But ultimately, I am still alone. And being alone is not good for me.

I played Wii for the first time ever on Friday night. I don't know if I ever thought that I would play Wii, but my friends convinced me to try their new system. I had been smoking and drinking a bit, so it seemed like the perfect thing to do. My initial impression was that we spent far too much time making an avatar that looked like me (which it did, eerily enough). But then we played. We started with some bowling and followed that up with some miniature golf. I did surprisingly well, for my first time. At least that's what my friends said. And I ended up rather enjoying myself. Now, I'm not going to say that I pulled my calf muscle the other night when I was playing the bowling. But it has been a little sore since then.

My clothes smell like Florida. I love when my clothes smell like Florida. It's wonderful. And yet, tragic.

Traveling on Friday was all right. Saturday and Sunday were rough days. And today I'm feeling better. But I was definitely feeling happier when I was in Florida. I miss the sunshine and the warmer temperatures. But I think it was mostly the company. I miss the company of my parents and, of course, Sidney. It's lonely being back. It's the negative by-product of being a loner. It's a big part of my depression. And it's not easy to remedy.

I'm heading back home to Pittsburgh tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it. In addition to the cold, snowy, wintry weather that awaits me there, I am going to miss Florida. Warm weather, my parents, their nice little house, Sidney, and warm weather. Even though the last couple of days and nights have been some of the coldest weather here in something like 50 years (provoking much complaining from the locals who have clearly gone soft), it's still been better than what I'll be experiencing back home. Apparently for the next six weeks. Fucking groundhog.

Video killed the radio star.

Wow.

So, today is the big day. I have to admit that I'm feeling a little nervous with anticipation. The game is still six hours away, and I have to find things to occupy my time until then. I'm accompanying my parents to a party being held at the home of friends of theirs. I went to their house to watch College Bowl games on New Year's Day. They're nice people, and they have a 72-inch HDTV, so it should be pretty great watching the Super Bowl there. And I'm going to be watching the game in Florida, where the weather is a far sight better than it is back home in Pittsburgh. Granted, it's a little chilly here today, with highs expected in the low 60s. But I'll take it.

After arriving here on the night of December 16th, the time has finally come for me to head home. I made plane reservations last night to fly back to Pittsburgh this Friday. After spending so much time away, in Florida, with my parents, I am concerned about how I am going to react to being back home, in my condo, in cold weather, alone. But I'm trying not to worry about that today. And I want to try and enjoy my remaining days here as much as possible.

Go Steelers!