After a brisk bicycle ride to work, I think my body temperature must be somewhere around 140, especially in this humid weather. I rip off my helmet at the bike rack and everyone in a two block radius thinks its raining. I'll tell you what though, it makes the air-conditioning in my office feel downright supernaturally good.

Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to bring the ol' girl into the shop already. It seems like I'm getting a little contact between the rear wheel and the frame.

It seems that we're now at war with our new neighbors.

We forgave them for the days of polyurethane fumes leaking through our shared wall when they had their hardwood floors installed. And I begrudgingly forgave them for putting their yappy little dogs out in the back yard at five in the morning the first week they were here, even though their desperate howling was enough to wake anyone in the neighborhood not audibly-insulated by central air. And I can deal with them occasionally blasting Frank Sinatra records on a weekend afternoons.

What's a lot harder to forgive, thought ultimately futile to argue about, is his constantly chain-smoking on their front stoop. One of the great things about our house is that the first floor stays remarkably cool for most of the summer, because it gets good cross ventilation. But of course, that only works if the windows are open, which we can no longer do, because our living room literally fills up with secondhand smoke. Sadly, that's just something I suppose we'll have to live with.

But there is one offense, which we're not putting up with. The first week they were here, they put their garbage in front of our house, instead of theirs. It struck us as strange, but we gave them them the benefit of the doubt and moved it over to their stretch of the sidewalk, figuring that would be a gentle enough way of letting them know. The second week, they did it again. We moved it again, planning to speak to them about it, but every time I've seen him since then he's been sitting on the stoop drunk, which I don't begrudge him, but it seemed an ineffective time to make my point.

Now, there are a number of ways you can get fined for putting out your garbage incorrectly in Philly. You could put it out too early (which they always do), you can sort it incorrectly (they're using recycling containers for general garbage), and you can put out too much (which they've been coming damn close to). Even if being caught is unlikely, I'll be damned if we're going to risk getting fined for their violations.

So last night, when we went out and saw that they'd once again put their garbage in front of our house, we went over and knocked on their door. We waited several minutes, since we knew they were home, knocking periodically, but they didn't come out. So I decided that if I was going to move their damn garbage one more time, I'd put it where they were a lot more certain to get the hint. So I put all their cans on their stoop, piled in front of their door.

Of course, the instant we walked out of sight of their windows, she stuck her head out and was all startled and flustered. We came back and explained the situation and she said they've never had to put trash out before and didn't know how it worked. "So you thought the right thing to do was to put your trash in front of your neighbor's house?" I asked, hardly believing that I had to have this conversation with a woman in her early 50s. "You really thought that's how it works?"

She apologized and kept pleading ignorance, but I'm fairly certain they knew exactly what they were doing. They were putting their trash out in front of our house, so that he didn't have to smell it on his long night of smoking on the stoop.

I'm almost looking forward to the next confrontation, but far more than that I'd rather have our old neighbors back.

Watching movies used to feel like more of an event. I either had a half hour walk to and from the theater or at least a Netflix envelope to rip open and put in the player. But now that I have cable, there are so movies available any time I turn on the tube, that they're no more eventful than the average television show. Most of the time I don't even turn off the laptop when I'm watching them. It's a little sad. Of course the problem is largely in my head, so I should be able to correct it, but will I?

Of course, it wouldn't be such an issue if there was anything at the theaters I wanted to watch.

Took a sick day yesterday, because I woke up already tired. It was probably just laziness or depression, but it definitely helped. Did a little laundry, watched like eight movies on HBO, and spent some time transcribing notes for my novel into the computer.

Still feeling a little weird today so I let the reported threat of thunderstorms keep me from riding my bike to work even though the skies are currently as beautiful as can be.

Now I'm at work and at war with my computer. Only about 40% of my mouse clicks are getting through for some reason. I tried three different mouses (correct plural?) and they're all having the same problem. Then I decided to update my Java so that my internet radio station will play better and now the program we use to clock in and out won't work, because it was ineptly programmed to work with only a specific old version of Java from two years ago.

Watched Citizen Kane last night on TCM. It was really beautiful and brilliant and surprisingly fun, even though I went into it knowing more than I should have about the enigmatic Rosebud. I love the fake newsreel about Kane at the beginning, which must have been a bit of a head trip back then when you were used to seeing real newsreels prior to your film starting. And I quite enjoyed the structure of one character going around to interview various people to get the real story on the main character, even though the people telling the stories were often talking about private moments that they didn't witness (something I think Todd Haynes handled better in his similarly structured Velvet Goldmine).

The only real problem for me was the way Welles interrupted the brisk, years-are-flying-by pace of the film with that gruelingly long and sometimes tedious opera storyline. Don't get me wrong, it's a great anecdote that tells us a lot about the character. Kane building an opera house for the untalented singer he left his wife over largely to silence the critics who put her profession in quotes during his election bid, and then writing the scathing review of her performance himself. It's good stuff, but it could have been told in fifteen minutes, rather than forty-five.

Still, it's a great film, and you can use that conveniently large chunk of time in the middle to check your laundry or walk the dog.