I'm always working, slaving every day.

Man, I'm exhausted.

If you were here, you could tell because I've indiscriminately mixed Led Zeppelin, Motley Crue, and Journey in the same playlist. I remember being in the seventh grade and "Unskinny Bop" seemed like such a revelation then.

That's what happens when you keep your kids away from the mass media until they're 11. It takes them forever to develop an actual taste in music. And even then, their — alright, my iPod has Britney Spears sidling up beside Nina Simone, who's looking over her shoulder at Kanye West, wondering how the hell she got there.

. . .

I was carrying a wine glass around with me today as part of an errand I had to run and it provoked two funny conversations:

1) With the checkout guy at Office Depot — He gestured to the glass and said, "What's that for?" to which I replied, "You know, for drinking wine out of. And stuff."

It seemed remarkably witty at the time.

2) With the barista at the green ones — She noticed the glass and said, "So what're you guys all carrying around the dishes and stuff for?"

To which I said, "Um."

And then, "What?"

Her: Well, there was the guy with two dinner plates about half an hour ago and before that, there was a lady with a silverware set.

Me: Uh, I don't know what they're all up to, but I needed to get more wine glasses and so I brought this one to match them. I mean, Pottery Barn is right next door, so . . .

Her: Yeah, but I've never seen people carrying those things before. Only today.

Me: Uh . . . so, do you have your lighter bean currently brewed?

It should be noted that she continued to eye me suspiciously for the rest of our cash-for-coffee transaction, as though I had some tableware related secret I wasn't letting on.

. . .

I had a an exhausting day at work to cap off my seven-day roll. It should be noted that I really love my job and I had an absolutely great day, it was just physically tiring. Hey, you lift dozens of 25 lb. boxes over your head for an afternoon and see how full of energy you are afterward.

But now four days off lie before me like a feast spread before a pauper. I have plans, yes, but they're vague things that only take a portion of the day, things like screening and nachos on Tuesday, condo on Wednesday, and bowling on Thursday.

I'm sure there's something dramatically important I should be taking care of, but I can't think for one second of what that might be.

And that's just fine by me.

I said "Meh!"

The New Year snuck up on me again. Like it always has since I moved to Seattle. Dumb old unicultural city.

I should still make an effort this week to go down to the international district and try to procure some delicious gau. I haven't had that in such a long time.

. . .

Who says you have to be a good writer to be paid for it?



No word yet on whether Holmgren also shows them all the beauty they posses inside, but I do hear that their laughter reminds him how he used to be.

Unfortunately, because of my poor poor planning, I will miss the first quarter of the Super Bowl this year. C'est tragique! I finish work (which will be slower than molasses, I have no doubt) at 3 p.m., which is when I believe kickoff is. I'm not 110% or even 100% sure, because I am terrible with time zones, but yeah.

I am the worst. 12th Man. Ever.

On eating the 100% perfect lunch one beautiful January afternoon

Just like I get obessesed with certain music, I'll become obsessed with certain other things. A particular food, for example. I'll eat crepes every day I get a chance until I'm sick of them — or until my eating companions get sick of them and refuse to go anymore.

This week's workday lunches have been themed around the delicious soup and half-sandwich.

The first day I went was a disaster. I went to Pasta & Co., which sounds unpromising now that I think about it, but they had a big sign touting their soups du jour and I figured everyone has sandwiches, right? Alas, their soup was tomato cheese (and you know I hate tomatoes) and they had no sandwiches. At all. So instead I got what seemed to be a good substitute: a risotto cake. I also picked up a bit of "island fried rice" as a solid back up plan.

So it turns out: I really do dislike tomatoes, even when paired with cheese and turned into a hot steamy soup substance. And on closer inspection of the risotto cake, I discovered an ugly secret: it appeared to be using a tomato based sauce as the glue that held the cake together.

And it was cold.

So I decided to try the fried rice, since it was to be my saviour, but no dice: the fried rice was full of pickled peppers or some shit. Hey everybody, I found where that peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked went! In my fried rice.

So instead I ate threw the risotto cake in the soup and ate that. Well, some of it, anyway.

The next day, I tried the Honey Baked Ham Store (or whatever it's called) on the advice of a co-worker. The veggie sandwich was actually really good! The soup choice was between seven-bean and minestrone. I chose seven-bean. I got what appeared to be half seven-bean and half-minestrone.

And it had pickled peppers in it.

And the servers were surly Jay and angry Silent Bob who appeared to be annoyed at anything that would keep them from going out back and taking another hit from the bong they'd fashioned out of an entire ham.

So, I guess I'm not going back there.

Today I just went to the QFC and got cream of potato-bacon soup and a turkey sandwich. It was OK, but the problem with this paradigm is that I end up with twice as much sandwich as I need.

And, embarrassingly, I somehow got some soup on my hair (no doubt by making one of my ridiculous gestures) and didn't notice until someone pointed it out. By the way, I do not recommend working someplace where 80% of the employees are guys and getting cream of anything soup in your hair. It's just, well, uh, don't do it.

So my quest for the perfect lunch goes on. I hope I don't have to go to two different places to get my one lunch. That would suck.

Or I'll find something else to fixate on, no doubt.

. . .

Felt overwhelmingly sad today. No particular reason.

Talk about attraction, talk about electronics

I found out today that Rhett Miller has a MySpace page. It makes me sad with the cheesy, but happy because he has some songs on there, including a re-recording of "Singular Girl" which is one of my all time favorite Old 97's tunes.

You know how when you love a song, you are always offended and a little bit annoyed when it's remade? Even when it's remade by the same band, ala Bon Jovi's "Prayer '94"? That's totally not how I feel about "Singular Girl". I love it even more than I used to if that's possible.

Am also enjoying the other songs and am considering picking up his new album when it comes out next month. It seems very promising, since I really enjoyed his first solo effort, despite the overproduction. However, the songs I've heard so far don't have that same over-stringed approach, so I think things are looking up.

. . .

I got a gift of fruit today at work — a large orange. Yay!

Turn around, bright eyes

Last night I finally got a chance to go out with a bunch of my South End Peeps. I thought it was just going to be three of us, but it turned into what Guillermo referred to as "the social event of the season".

A bit unexpected and a lot fun, an entire bunch of us plowed into Red Robin and ate and drank and were merry. There was a lot of gossip to catch up on, and since I was sitting at one end of the table, I didn't even get to catch all the juicy bits that were floating my way. Sadness!

There were actually quite a few of us who hadn't seen each other in months, since the wedding in September, or since leaving the store, and hugs all around were in order before we left for the night.



Di said (to the PBG and me), "I forgot what it was like being with the dirty-mind twins!"

Watch those hand gestures, girly!

. . .

We did end the night at what would be considered an early hour by most standards, but:

a) a few of us had to work early the next day
b) Guillermo had bar night to go to
c) Scott, PBG, and I just stayed up way too late the night before and are getting too old too fast.

Were I a younger lemur, I would have made us find something else to do and trouble to cause, but alas, I am not. Not this week, anyway.

. . .

When I got home last night, the guys were out carousing as well and got home about three hours after I did.

I came upstairs, discovered they were all completely ass-drunk, and decided to go to sleep.

That's when the crazy banjo demands started.

Again.

They all lay down on the floor and wouldn't get up until I played a selection of songs (very poorly).

Last night's set list included but was by no means limited to:

* American Music
* an X-rated version of She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain (not my idea)
* Total Eclipse of the Heart

It turns out drunk guys like caterwauling as much as drunk girls.

Parts of me have already died

Walked home for the first time last night. It was a nice walk, except for the freezing rain during the last 15 minutes of it. I'm a little concerned, since I woke up with a cough again, but I'm fully confident that'll go away. Contrary to what the boy with the purty mouth thinks, I do not have a generally weak constitution. I just overcomplain.

However, I'm not going to walk to work today, even though it's all downhill because I've determined it's still too dark at 7:30 in the morning. I am, however, fully confident that it will be light enough by the end next week.

In the meantime, I got things to do and people to see. PBG and Bill tonight! And new Stephen King book! And whatever the hell is going on tomorrow that I'm a party to that I don't know about yet! Wait, I know! BSG! And probably LOST!

Woo!

It would've been a great day to go to the zoo.

The sun is out and I'm having a lazy morning of it — but not too lazy, since I'll have to be up early the rest of the week. Tricking your body clock can be so tiring. But I digress.

It's sunny and I'm having my breakfast tea, while sitting at the table with my back to the window. What's so great about this arrangement is 1) the sheer relaxation of it and 2) the sun warms what it touches, and I get something I never knew I missed. This is going to sound silly, but it's sun-warmed hair.

It makes me so happy, I have to capture a moment of it. My place in the sun:



I delight in being sun-drenched, but it's not something we get a lot of around here. Another thing I would love, but just can't get on demand: jackfruit. A larger, juicier, more sweetly musky fruit has never been found. Mmmm. Jackfruit. I sure hope my mom doesn't cut down that tree, regardless of what the neighbors say, because the next time I go home, I'm going to plan it around jackfruit season.

Note: The jackfruit is not found anywhere on the continental U.S. because it is too tropical. Even Florida winters can kill these trees. The fruit don't ship all that well (heavy!) and the canned stuff is not any-freaking-where close to what a fresh one tastes like. Never heard of it? Don't feel bad. Even Wikipedia only has a little information. The picture there appears to be baby fruit, probably only about a foot long at that point. My tree at home would grow them up to 2 feet long and about 10 inches in diameter, but they can get up to 3 feet long in proper growing conditions.

Also, what's a girl got to do to get some mountain apples around here?

I suppose I should be happy with the things I can get on demand, like tea, and foot rubs, and chapstick.

I should also be happy with the nice things the postal service brings me every day, like today I got a letter from my sister (complete with niece pictures!), and a 401k statement (man, I love retirement planning!).

Yep.

G.G.

I woke up this morning feeling 90% better — except for my throat and a little tired. It's probably a casualty from yelling at the t.v. yesterday. But man, good game.

I'd like to personally thank Steve Smith and Jake Delhomme for sending the Seahawks to the Big Game. Especially Steve Smith, who just couldn't stop fucking up, even when it was clear the Panthers just would never win at all. That last fumble was classic.

Thanks, man! We owe you one.

And, of course, congratulations to our own Seattle Seahawks, who finally have a second thing to add to their highlight reel.

. . .

To day is shaping up to be a Divine Comedy kind of day:

With a divine Beatles bassline
And a big old Beach Boys sound

The Zoo tomorrow perhaps?

I'm having Dick's for breakfast

So last night we had some people over again, to attempt to cook and eat Moby Salmon, the great white salmon El Jefe brought home from the Whole Foods:



That's a huge fish, my friends. What's really great about this huge fucking fish is that he went in there to get a mackerel. Or possibly a couple mackerels. But since they didn't have fresh mackerel and the frozen wouldn't thaw in time, they upsold him to Moby Salmon and I'm glad because that fish was goddamn delicious.

For people that don't know, salmon is a huge thing in the Northwest. People in Florida may have never heard of, say, copper river salmon, but for the short time it's available here, it's heavily advertised and people go crazy. A white salmon is apparently a genetic mutation of some sort (I'm not clear if it's a sub-species or a 1-in-100 kind of thing), that makes the fish taste finer and less salmony (true), but it's also fattier and more finely marbled, leading to a smoother, tastier fish (double true!).

So a few folks came over, including Russ and Morgan (who is my most favorite mean girl ever), and Laurell (thanks for the delightful hot toddy!) and Rob and Lucas and Vanessa (who found a way for me to bowl in February! Yay!)

Me and my favorite mean girl:



I thought I said some crazy things, but Morgan has showed me that clearly, I'm an amateur, and I like that.

After many hours of suspense and merriment (I really should have been sleeping, but I love these people and really wanted the fish), the Moby Salmon was finally revealed!



Sadly, you can't really tell how huge the fish was from this picture. Suffice it to say that those tongs aren't small or mini-tongs by any means. And it's on top of and covered with deliciousness. The salmon was laid on a bed of awesome salad, with this olive-y delight on top — I don't know what it's called, but it's basically puttanesca without the red sauce.

It was in fact absolutely divine, if a bit frightening:



After feasting on our vanquished foe, I went to bed, but everyone else continued to party. Apparently there was ice cream and apparently someone decided that going to Dick's and getting burgers would be a fine thing to do. I don't have any reports yet on how toasted these decision makers were, but at least they weren't demanding banjo-playing.

And they were nice enough to get an extra burger for me, which I have had with my breakfast tea. Yum.

. . .

To go back up a step, the first time I looked at the picture of morgan and myself it weirded me out, because I thought I was sitting on the other side of her. But then I realized that hey, I was! And the door is on the other side of the room! Turns out the camera on my phone reverses the images you take when it's closed vs. when it's open.

I suppose that makes sense if you think about people using that as sort of a mirror — I can recall at least one instance where Jake used his digital camera to such effect — but it's odd. Although...when I think about it, I've had pictures I've taken with the phone closed come out crisp, but become blurry a little later. I don't know if that has anything to do with that, but it's really really annoying.

. . .

So tired. My cough is worse (!), but I feel a bit better anyway, though there are signs my mental acuity is off a bit from the early hour waking. And hey, I have tomorrow off so I can sleep in forever. I might need that, since we're going to a pub to watch the game after work today and if the Seahawks don't choke (I'm not a jinx!), a bit of celebration might be in order.

Hoo-ah!

Of White Salmon and Pink Evenings.

Today is the day of multi-colored hands. Last night I made shrimp rub kebabs and got turmeric stains on my fingers (was it turmeric? I can never tell). Today I had blood oranges for lunch and was rewarded with pink fingertips overlaying my orange-y nails. It was like a magnificent sunset except all over my hands.

Crazy crazy fingers.


Killer Cold 2006 Update:I've kind of reached that point where I've been unwell for long enough that I'm starting to almost feel like this is the status quo. I am clearly going to feel like crap for the rest of my life but I am accepting of this fact since I clearly cannot do anything about it.

I feel I must interject here

Mucho thanks to Guillermo for letting me listen to his awesome CDs. I am quite enjoying The Most Serene Republic and plan to spend some time this weekend with Broken Social Scene and Stars. Others to come later, as I squeeze time from my packed schedule.

I have a feeling that I'm going to come out of next week feeling like it kicked my ass.

. . .

In other news, I got to use a mallet to pound the crap out of things at work today. That's always a nice change of pace.

. . .

The stab of stiletto
On a silent night
Stalin smiles and Hitler laughs
Churchill claps Mao Tse Tung on the back

. . .

An update on the ill that ails me: I don't think it's a sinus infection, but my sinuses have been stoppy and sore. Sadness. My lungs are still hurting, but hot showers and tea help. While my throat nearly doesn't hurt anymore, I still don't have my full voice back. It's amusing in a way. Apparently it makes me sound in such a way that over the phone, people want to be really really nice to me. It's great for dealing with irate customers.

I recommend it.

Vast quantities of monkeys and lemurs

My most excellent friend Lloyd ( of the famed The Year of Coffee Blog started a cool new project recently —50,000 Monkeys Blogging. Basically, the idea is that, well, I will let him explain, since he's better at that than I am:


50,000 Monkeys blogging is a social experiment brought to you by those geniuses at The Year of Coffee Blog. To participate send an email to 50000monkeys@thecoolkids.us. What you write in the subject line becomes the blog entry’s title. What you write in the body of the email becomes the blog entry. Our server receives, reads, then posts your entry automagically every few minutes or so. Attachments confuse our server, so for now just send text. How long do you think this will last before going all lord of the flies? Send an e-mail and let us see…

It's chugging along OK, but he needs a bit of help, since the spammers have caught the e-mail address and are currently outnumbering the valid posts from the monkey peeps. I think it would be super cool if everyone who read my blog (well, the five of you anyway. Hi guys!) sent in one random entry.

See if you can guess which post is mine.

I bet it would be great for confessional.

The Book Bar

Neat as hell.

Ble-argh.

I had all this great stuff to write about nacho nite and post-nacho nite bowling and how drunk El Jefe was when he came home and demanded I play the banjo for him on the spot. However, this episode of merriment (plus pictures!) has been precluded by how ridiculously sick I feel.

Earlier in the week it was just a sore throat — a major sore throat to be sure, but just a sore throat. Now the evil seems to have crept steadily downwards and I have a burning cough. Slightly worrying, but nothing like the Pneumonia of 1988.

My planned day trip to Portland has also been derailed, so sad. I went to bed and when I woke up, I felt completely terrible. My lungs were full and burning and plus, Dragons just wouldn't wake up. So, no tiny breweries and Powell's City of Books for me today.

. . .

The mail carrier wore one of those white postal pith helmets today. I cannot overstate how completely goddamn awesome that is.

. . .

I had a dream last night that people kept calling me and leaving terrible raps on my voicemail. The kind that rhyme "bad" with "sad" and "dad" and "all-clad".

. . .

Had to take my phone back to the store today and get it replaced. The bluetooth just stopped working, it was sad. Of course, I had everything saved to the phone itself, not the SIM card, which means I am back to assigning pictures to people for several hours today. Stupid not working perfectly with iSync.

It also means I lost several awesome pictures I took yesterday. Luckily, that deliciously monster-y donut is still sitting on the counter.

Just like East and West Berlin

So passwords, right? You have them, you love them, occasionally you forget them (thanks, Keychain!). You are constantly changing them or making new ones up. Would it be better (more secure, less likely to forget) to have a single password that you changed monthly or to have a completely different password for every single thing and never change it?

I still use the very first password I'd been granted (you know, the one you're supposed to change?) for a couple of different things. On the other hand, I only use it for things I really really don't give a crap about. I use a bunch of different passwords just for lemuridae.net — there's one for FTP, one for logging in to the web panel, a different one for mail, and a fourth for the blogging. And they're all secure. Why? Because that's the way I roll.

Duh.

Let's not even talk about my physical system passwords and how often I change them. It's my virtual answer to sleeping with all the doors in the house closed.

. . .

In all the old apartments, I could never go to sleep without 1) checking the front door and 2) closing all the other doors in the place. We're talking each bathroom door, bedroom door, closet door, etc. Especially sliding doors. Of course, this here house doesn't belong to me so I can't go around closing all the doors before sleep because the cats need to get to their food and shit. Also, I think El Jefe likes them open and it's a fair guess to say he is in fact crazier than I am.

It really kept me from sleeping truly well, but at least I could close up all the doors in the basement, which made me feel a bit better. Localized control is better than none at all. What I didn't realize when we got cats is that our freaking cats would not let us sleep with the doors closed. They would paw and claw until you let them in. and then they would paw and claw until you let them out. All night, every night.

Until one morning I woke up and the door was open. Freaked me the crap out. Mike had left it open because he just couldn't deal with the whiny cats anymore. So now I can't say I sleep securely, but I sleep OK. As long as the door isn't wide open, I can handle it.

That crazy got mostly transferred elsewhere.

. . .

In other news, my throat is killing me. It might be Avian SARS Throat, which I hear is making the rounds. It's horrible, the tea helps, and I'm hoping it passes soon.

Went Bowling.

I snagged an invite out bowling last nite with Greg, Laurie, Jake, and Rich. We were joined by Vicki and the lovely Vanessa and were prepared to take The Garage (a hipster bowling alley, if you can believe it) by storm. Unfortunately, other people were already taking The Garage by storm and the wait was 2 hours. So was the wait at Sunset.

Luckily, Vanessa knew that Leilani Lanes was still open (through March 31) and we called them. 10 minute wait? No problem!

Sadly, when we got there, the 10 minute wait turned into an hour and a half, but we decided to have some drinks to pass the time. There was a fair amount of gambling and lots of silly.

When we finally got lanes, we were a tiny bit sauced and a lot of silly and broke up into two lanes. You can see that our lane started out at Vanessa, Rich, and Myself:



But it ended up as, well, you can see for youself:



Not that Laurie, Greg, Vicki, and Jake were much classier, mind you:



Vicki's full name there was actually "Idaho Udapimp", for anyone keeping track of this for posterity. You can also see what a horrible horrible bowler I am. I'm much worse when I drink. (That's not true. I am always a shitty bowler. Why do I lie?)

The thing about drinking and bowling is that it's really really fun. The other thing about drinking and bowling is that you don't really realize when you're repeating an action that is injuring you slightly every time until you wake up in the morning and you have a crazy muscle knot in the middle of your thigh. My shoulders feel good though, as do my gluteii (no, that's not a word).

Here's hoping we can get out there and bowl again soon!

Cheers!




. . .

I've really been digging on a particular song lately: "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" from Death Cab for Cutie. So spare, yet resonant. It's so calming and you have to admit the chorus is most lovely:


If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their VACANCY signs


That, my friends, is awesome imagery.

. . .


In the category of "Other Awesome Imagery But In A Different Way" is this ad in the women's restroom of the bowling alley:




A classy joint all around!

Back in the Hiz-ouse, Bitches!

I don't have a lot of pictures from the trip, except for this proof I am a poor bowler:



When I was younger, I used to take pictures all the time. I was obsessed with photographing my existence, proving my survival by how many pictures I captured. It's something I picked up from my parents, I suppose. If you stacked up all the pictures of me & that I took over the years of my life, it would be a steadily declining curve, with a sharp jump up for one particular year in college when I carried a camera everywhere and photographed everything. In film.

I don't require that kind of severe cataloguing anymore, but all the same, I can think of at least 3 things off the top of my head from this past week that I wish I had a physical representation for, not just one in my head. I can't go backwards in time and pluck those out of the ether, so I just have to hope that someone else captured those moments and I can duplicate those images.

. . .

So Macworld was fun. It took a lot longer to set up than I thought it would. I think at least part of that was that a lot of people were tired, and especially I was tired, and everyone had their own ideas about how things should go.

We did finish up, and finish finishing up in the morning, and past the crush of that first open expo day, everything was great. Wednesday through Friday was smooth as lubricated silk, the breakdown took 20 minutes, and we even got to the airport on time.

All that's left to do at this point is get the expenses expensed. Yay!

Quietly panicking

Less than 20 hours until we leave for San Francisco and I am quietly panicking and waiting for my laundry to be done so I can pack it.

. . .

The Zoka people tell a story about a guy (one of the managers?) who works there who highly objects to rude language. If someone — even a customer — would swear, he would chastise them, saying, "Hey, this isn't a Denny's!" This has made him the object of much derison and although I've never met him, I think it's truly a funny story. We often walk around telling each other to be cool, this isn't a Denny's.

Today, Dragons and I had occasion to actually go to Denny's, while we were down in The Fed, as I had a hankering for hash browns that just would not go away. Now, I know how to make a lot of great breakfast food, but I've never mastered hash browns. They always turn out greasy or gray or some other horrible thing. It makes me cry with sad, because I love potatoes and all potato products like a motherfucker. Seriously.

So, to Denny's we went.

We had a really cool server, it must've been his first week working or something — he looked all of 17 with the baby fat cheeks and everything. But we had a good time joking around with him and ordering, and he came back a few minutes later to tell us the coffee would be a while as they were brewing a fresh pot. Dragons said, "Hey, what the hell, you should always have coffee ready according to my whims!"

Mock seriously, our server said, "Sir, please watch your language. . . "

"Seriously. This isn't a Denny's!" I finished.

We cracked up all over the place while our server looked some sort of combination of amused and horrified, until Mike explained it and he seemed somewhat less horrified and somewhat more amused.

And I ate a metric ton of hash browns.

. . .

I'm pretty sure that all I have to do between now and tomorrow is pack my shiznit. And get some Top Pot donuts. And possibly bake a cake. Am I baking a cake? I honestly can't remember.

In any case, remember that it's that beat that make ya get crunk.

lemurs are your friend

Stayed up late last night making mayhem.

Well, it wasn't mayhem per se, but it could sort of be considered funny in a manner most ridiculous if you've been up really late and everyone's just a bit punchy.

I call it "screwing around with IMs when you have way better things to do".



Eventually, as you see, Drew did catch on and disapprove of our hijinks, changing himself into a chinchilla! But oh, was he in for a surprise. We were on to his little game.




You see why I can't get things done?

. . .

AND HEY! I leave for MacWorld SF tomorrow. If it wasn't completely obvious until now, I'm quite the combination of excited and anxious about it. If you're in town, come visit me in Booth #710 (on your left!) along with the rest of the Delicious Monsters.

Avast, mateys!

Can you believe I found someone who is more into pirates than we are? He's probably a bit more into pirates (and naked torso pictures of himself (!)) than one would consider healthy.

I never got around to collecting pictures of me and me mateys on Halloween. We were the eyeliner-iest pirates ev-yar!

It rained today.

That's pretty exciting. Of course, you might think, "But you live in Seattle, it rains all the time!" but you would be wrong. It's damp 99% of the time. It mists most of the time. However, we only get an honest to god actual downpour about once a year, and I savor it. No, I will savour it with the extra u and everything. Tomorrow it will all be gone, and the mist will be misting and the bikers will be saftey biking around. But for today, I had my rain.

. . .

I got so much shit done today it was crazy. Word. It was word crazy airwolf extreme. That means tomorrow just leaves a few more things to be done. Yes yes y'all.

. . .

I was thinking about music today. I was dancing around the house while packing things up (like I do), and thinking about the way that I listen to music. Instead of listening to particular things, or building a few mood playlists, I'll actually get stuck on certain bands, songs, or albums for days on end and build upon those things that are circulating in my brain, until nothing else will fit and everything competing for attention finally breaks each other's hold on my mind. And I'll end up with a blank slate for an hour or two.

That was barely coherent.

But it's like this:

I'll start by wanting to listen to a particular Death Cab for Cutie song so I'll make a playlist with that one song in it. But I can't just listen to one song over and over (though I sometimes do when I'm alone), so I'll add a couple more. Probably by the same band, probably off the same album. Or I'll just toss in the whole album because it's the least amount of effort that nets me leisure listening.

After a few go-rounds, I'll want to add The Postal Service to it or three Simon & Garfunkel songs with the same general mood. The next day, I'm probably still in the same frame of mind, so I pick up where I left off, adding a couple more branches and reshuffling my playlist.

This goes on for usually three or four days, until the music tree has grown large enough that the leaves on the north end of the tree are nothing like the trees on the south end of the tree and the discordance between them is terrifying when you're after some soul soothing. That's usually about the point where I'm done with that list and I'll let it go for a while before I start the cycle over again.

I don't mean to imply that I never have general purpose playlists. I do, for very particular occasions. They usually end up undergoing the branching process themselves, albeit much slower, until they're pretty much useless as occasion oriented playlists any longer and get unceremoniously dumped.

On the other hand, when I'm going to sleep, I put on a general shuffle of everything on my ipod, regardless of how I am feeling. It helps me to dream well, somehow.

Zub Zub Zub

I haven't been sleeping well.

This is evidenced my my anxiety extreme yesterday. When I don't get enough sleep, I can't really concentrate well enough to form a coherent plan all the time. This leads to me having a constant vaguely displeasing feeling of not knowing what is going on and not really being in control. Which means I get anxious.

This particular brand of aniety can manifest itself in a number of different, but related, ways. For example, I have problems sitting still. I also have problems being in public places surrounded by a lot of people, because it ups everything to the nth degree. It makes everything seem dramatic and life changing even if it's as simple as getting tea.

I get an anxious stomach too. No, that doesn't mean I poo all over the place or vomit in shivering rage, but it does mean that I can't tell half the time if my stomach is a bit upset and acidic or if I'm hungry. It's a weird blend of the two.

It also makes me quite a bit cranky, which I think happens to a lot of people on not enough sleep.

On the bright side, I don't have any more Scheduled Work between now and next week Friday, which will afford me the option of staying up late and being productive and then sleeping in the next day. (As an aside, I'd like to note that you never really realize how commonly used the "x" key is until you ned to hit it three times for it to register. Dear PB, I've been bad to you.)

And on the brighter side, I'm pretty sure that after today, things will be way under control. We are starting our controlled descent and by this time tomorrow, everything should be totally airwolf.

I should probably cut back on the late nite stimulants while I'm at it.

. . .

Considering the above sentence, it seems a bit soon to say this, but I bought some minty green tea at the grocer's last night and it is fucking awesome.

Giggidy Gigggity!

A couple nights ago, Dragons and El Jefe were having a discussion about their different points of view. One of them thought I was high-maintenance (no offense meant). The other thought I was simply spoiled (no offense meant). Without really getting into the discussion myself (I objected that both were bad and I was neither nor, but was forecefully overruled), I would like to point out well , I don't really have a point. It was just a weird discussion to have.

I considered resolving to be less spoiled/high-maintenance, but as they didn't seem to think these were necessarily bad traits, and there are a lot of other things I really should be working on, I opted not to. However, I will endeavour not to become more of the above-mentioned things.

. . .

Why is it that the closer you get to a deadline, your to-do list gets longer and longer? I'll be glad when I reach that magical point where I'm only crossing things off and not adding things that pop up.

However, we all seem to agree things are coming along nicely, so yay.

A brief retrospective

2005 was a full year by anyone's standards. As far as I can tell, it seemed to be a watershed year for a lot of people I know. Lots of real estate deals. Lots of weddings. Lots of engagements. lots of big break-ups. Etc. Etc.

As for myself, I got married, changed jobs (then changed employment locale), moved, made a bunch of new friends, attended 2 weddings, got a new baby in the family, and lots and lots of bunches of other things.

Learned to ride a bike. Learned to drive a car. Learned how to make a nuisance of myself. Am learning how to play the banjo.

This coming year, '06, promises to be just chock full of goings on. I have at least 2 major trips lined up in the next two months. It'll probably end up being more like 3 major trips in the first four months of the year. That's a lot of being stuck in an airplane!

At least the very first trip promises to be full of excitement and, uh, work. Yeah.

Fun fun fun in the new year.