Now that I have some motivation...

And never you mind what that motivation is. Let's just say it's very tempting, and so I am finally, after nearly 2 months, updating my blog. I could make up about 5,000 excuses as to why I haven't done it, but I will only offer five (just as a side note, this number has increased several times over the course of the day, seeing as I started writing this when I got to work this morning, and it's now 10:06 PM and I'm just finishing it up. The set-back of me accidentally pressing the wrong button when not everything I wrote was saved didn't help either. So if this blog is second rate, let's just blame it on that and say it was really AWESOME the first time I wrote it, and it just didn't come out as great when I had to rewrite everything Enough of these parentheses). If you don't accept them, there isn't a whole hell of a lot you can do about it but bitch at me, and quite frankly, I don't care. So, here are my excuses:

1. With the shit that has happened to me lately, I was sure that if I blogged, I would insert some personal comments in here, and I made a personal promise to myself, and my blog readers that I would not bitch and moan about my life. And so I chose to wait until I was more mentally stable.
2. I have been traveling a lot (though not nearly as much as I would like to imagine I have been). The weekend of May 19-21 I was at a cabin in the Middle-of-Absolutely-Nowhere, Virginia with Lindsey and Banjo (pictured right). Much talk of all things sexual ensued, along with drinking of alcoholic beverages (though not in excess), and a random encounter with a boy from Norwin and his friends (how we managed to run into someone else from Norwin in the middle of nowhere is beyond us). All in all, good stuff. The following weekend (Memorial Day weekend), I took my big trip out to Denver to visit Heidinator and the ever so adorable Nikle Pickle (whose birthday was June 17th, by the way! I can't believe he's a year old already! He's pictured on the left in the adorable little Hawaiian shirt I got him). Denver was tons of fun, Nik was adorable, and Heidi and I even got some time to do a little road-trip into the mountains. You can see all of those pictures on my picture page. There just isn't enough room here. AND this coming weekend I'm headed out to Tucson to visit Jason (I know, I know, don't even say anything. It wasn't Tucson that I hated, it was the situation), which I am very excited about! And speaking of Jason, we move on to the third excuse.
3. Jason keeps me on the the phone for approximately 4 million hours every night, so there is absolutely no time for silly things like blogging (or much of anything else for that matter, hehehe).
4. I joined a gym. Yes, I, Ashley "Sven" Caskey, who Lindsey Kerr once referred to as "lethargic" joined a gym. And I am slowly getting insanely BUFF (yeah, I wish). I may not have a fabulous body yet, but at least I'm trying. The point here being that I go straight to the gym after work every day, and therefore do not get home until quite a bit later than I used to. Which leaves less evening time for me to do all the things I want to do. And between talking to Jason and getting home later than usual, there is DEFINITELY no time for blog-upkeep. What about the weekends, you ask? Well, that leads to my fifth, and final excuse:
5. I just didn't feel like writing.

I apologize in advance, as I do not have one particular subject to write about, and so this blog will be completely random.

Some random things (I alternate between things I hate and things I love to provide for an adequate balance):

• I still love using bullet points. They are so awesome and efficient for separating my often very confusing blabberings.
• I hate being called "sweetie" by people I do not know. But what I hate more is being called "ma'am". It makes me feel OLD. And this is a feeling I do not enjoy. The kid who waited on me at Subway did it the other day, and this dude who is supposed to interview at one of our client companies next week calls me "ma'am" on a regular basis, and it almost makes me not want to place him, even though I will make money if I do.
• I love that I was watching an episode from season 4 of The Sopranos on Sunday night, and Meadow Soprano brought up Leslie Fiedler, who was one of the first major critics to discuss homoerotic themes between males in literature like Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to name a few. It made my nerdy little heart swell with joy to hear a major literary critic's name (especially one of this nature, as we all know I LOVE homoeroticism) mentioned and discussed on mainstream television.
• I hate people who put magnets on their cars. It's such a cop-out. Magnets are like the temporary tattoos of car decorations. It gives people the liberty to be wishy-washy about an issue, unlike a bumper sticker, which is more or less permanent, unless you want to go through an assload of work trying to scrape it off, and get that goo-gone shit and possibly scrape off some of your car's paint along with the bumper sticker (much like some of your skin would have to be scraped off if you decided to get a real tattoo removed). But you never really have to make up your mind with a car magnet. For example, if you have one of those (insanely stupid) "God Bless America" magnets on your car, and you suddenly decide that you'd rather God damn America, you can just peel the magnet right off, and throw it away (or stick it on somebody else's car, as it's reusable, so you can change your mind as often as you want). Around these parts (Pittsburgh, that is), many of my fellow commuters are sporting Steelers magnets on their cars. This is pretty damned convenient, when you think about it. Everybody loves the Steelers right now, because they just won the Stupid Bowl. But this season, when they suck ass because Ben mangled himself all up on a motorcycle, those of you with Steelers car magnets can just peel them off and store them away for when the Steelers are good again. A real Steelers fan would put a bumper sticker on his/her car, and leave it on there through the good times and the bad. None of these fair-weather car decorations. "Oh, I supported breast cancer research yesterday, but today I hope that everybody I know comes down with it, so I just peeled the magnet off and stored it away." No. Here's what I have to say to you car-magnet assholes: Make up your mind. Either get a bumper sticker that states your opinion on whatever, or don't decorate your car at all.

I think I'm going to end here. OH, with the mention that my puppy is getting HUGE. When I had her to the vet about 3 weeks ago for her final round of puppy shots, she weighed 25 lbs. She's now a little over 4 months old, and I guess she weighs at least 30 lbs. Here are some pictures of her for you to enjoy. I will update again when I get back from Tucson. This is Sven, signing off.