Since my left hand is bugging me again, I've been trying to lighten its load a little bit. Cutting down on computer time. Renting a few videos so I won't be reading as much (holding a book open exacerbates the problem). And I got a massage on Saturday morning, which seems to have helped the problem during my waking hours, but the stupid pain woke me up last night. I should've worn my brace to bed but didn't. I put it on at 4 a.m. and went back to bed, but I could feel the tingling pain pretty bad this morning.

Right when I got home from my massage, I proceeded to mow three lawns instead of relaxing. The benefit was sweating out a lot of the amino acids or whatever it is that gets freed up when you have a deep, painful massage. On the downside, I'm supposed to relax and not do much after a massage. But the lawns were getting wild, and there was a good chance for more rain yesterday afternoon. I figured I'd better mow while the mowing was good. Of course it hasn't rained again at all yet.

I told Lisa, my masseuse, that it's a good thing this affliction is in my left hand and arm and not my right. She asked if I felt that way because the right was my dominant side. I told her it's because the right is my fucking hand, and if it was having these kind of problems, I'd be looking for an arm transplant by this time. She was so cute. She said, "Oh. You know, it takes me a couple minutes to catch on sometimes, but eventually I do."

I told her that I'd wondered if propping myself up on my left elbow a lot during sex had compressed something over time. She didn't seem to think that was an out of the question possibility. I may have to mention it to my chiropractor.

I'll get back to the San Diego story eventually, but I figure it's time to get this over with. Yes, it's time for all of you Jake fans (and you know who you are) to kick my ass. Remember me talking about part of the ceiling in our utility room falling in? Well, we asked a contractor who was doing some work around the corner to stop by and take a look. This contractor just happened to have gay and leather pride stickers on his work truck. I love this town. Anyway, he came over and gave it a look-see. The portion of the roof over the utility room has no rake and had started to leak, thus the soggy ceiling. He suggested I get a tarp up on the roof as soon as possible (more rain on the way), and that I should put the lightest person I could up there to do it. Jake!

Here comes the kick my ass part. I was enjoying watching Jake work up there in her Indigo Girls t-shirt and tool belt so much that I completely forgot to take pictures.

OW ow Ow OW ow OWWWW! Okay! That's enough! Hey! OW!

I am SOOOOO sorry. I will make up for it somehow.

So last night Deb brought home 12 partial bottles of wine, which was a good excuse to have one of our impromptu tasting on Jake and Sara's front porch occasions. I invited Stella and her friend Tracy, but they decided not to come. Of course, you can't keep Lucy and Ricky away from free booze. Those two can put it down, and they just get funnier and funnier.

I asked them how they'd met, and Lucy told me that she met Ricky when she was barely 18, waitressing at a bar, and Ricky, at 24, was a waiter or bartender (I can't remember which). Some other waiter bugged her to the point that she cried about it one night, so Ricky approached they guy and said, "Hey, you leave Lucy alone. We've been dating for a while, and I don't want you saying anything to her." They had not been dating; he was just blowing smoke. But, to make his tale true, they went out on a date.

Lucy said they dated and fucked for about six months. Ricky bragged that every woman he'd ever dated wanted to marry him. Lucy got tired of hearing it and said, "Listen. I don't want to marry you. I'd never in a million years want to marry you. I just want to FUCK you." (Straight girls, take note here.) They went their separate ways, but over the next 10 years, Ricky couldn't get Lucy off his mind. They got married 10 years later. Lucy was actually engaged to someone else when he came back into her life.

And Lisa, who's one of the community folks who responded to Jake's call for people who want to start a sort of informal renovation and remodeling support group (like, if you need a tool you don't have or help with a job that's too big for one person, you call up someone from the group to come help and you return the favor for others), told some great stories too. She's a totally hot 37 year old black lesbian Harvard Law grad. She worked for "a boutique firm" not long ago where you had to ask permission to take hours off on Sunday. That's right�12 or 14 hour work days, seven days a week. She came in to work one morning to find that her secretary had flung holy oil all over her office and on her briefcase. Later, that secretary became her biggest advocate when Lisa told her superiors (when they asked) that the work conditions sucked, and they started setting her up for firing.

She's got a much easier job now and, it turns out, she works at the same downtown office complex that I do. Jake has a big crush on her, and I can see why. She's really smart but down-to-earth too. She just happened to drop by last night when she saw us out on the porch. So she met four or five new people (I don't know if she got to meet Sara, who was inside in her craft room or asleep) and was way relaxed and participatory by the end of the evening�much more that I would've been in the same situation.

Gotta go wash dishes now and get ready for breakfast. We're taking Deb to see "Shrek" this afternoon and having dates afterward. (woo-hoo!) Can't complain about a day full of eating, seeing a funny movie, and having sex.

Life is good.