Day 181: Day Indoors

Nothing like a day spent indoors, in bed watching television while wearing a limited amount of clothing. I did cool things like home electrolysis on my legs and when I finally pulled myself away from watching Castle, I took a shower! Then in the shower I saw a cool artsy image in the loose strands of hair on the shower wall. Made me want to draw it, but I was naked and wet and without paper and pencil so...that didn't happen.

I've noticed a frequent spasm in my left foot. It makes my big toe twitch something fierce for several seconds at a time. First it was kind of interesting in the way seeing a body part moving independently of your will can be, but now it is just annoying.

Brie just got her offer on her own place down south accepted, so it seems like the house dynamic will soon change. I already started daydreaming interesting scenarios, some of which are horror stories like an annoying, messy girl who brings home equally annoying friends. The more optimistic daydreams end pretty early on because they are woefully boring.

Day 180: The Dependency of Happy Feelings

Written on 6/29 at 10:45 P.M.:

I need to clean my keyboard. But I am not going to clean my keyboard at 10:45 at night after working an 8 hour day. Nothing particularly dirty-making fell on the keyboard, but it is just grossing me out right now. That is what I just thought about while trying to think what to write for today.

I don't feel like writing in depth about anything really. I have a few things I could explore, but I just don't feel like hashing them out on this day. Instead, I've been riding the happy ship of Fassovoy/McBender/McFassy as if I was high. Just a'giggling and a'cackling about every .gif and pic and witty comment and not so witty yet amusing confession of lust from every person in these posts.

I like laughing in the comfort of my room, alone. Laughter is rarely triggered without the influence of another. Arguably, it is not able to be triggered at all without someone else in some form having a part in it. If you read a book alone on a deserted island and you laugh at the awkward yet oh-so-true daily goings of the main character, you are laughing because someone wrote those words knowing their power to affect others. I prefer that way of interacting more often than face to face. I find more continuous happy feelings when I read on my own.

Day 179: Finding the Characters

Sometimes I have these moments in which I find the experiences of others super interesting and I act as a collector of these memories. Part of it is a sincere interest to know the person's story, but another (at times bigger) part is saying "this would work well in a story".

While on break at work one of my co-workers got off the phone and did that kind of talking to oneself yet aloud thing, essentially expressing exasperation about a family situation. But then she says a sentence that include "...my parent are both addicts..." and my ears might as well have jumped over the table, my interest so piqued. I didn't expect to hear something like that from someone around my age. Upon my inquiry, she explained that her father was clean now but had been addicted to crack while her mother has been addicted to many a drug with cocaine, meth, and pills making headline appearances.

It was a bit baffling to hear her talk about it so nonchalantly, so I questioned how her childhood was and she told me in that same matter-of-fact tone that her mother was never particularly loving and was often selfish. Even now with her ten year old sister, my co-worker wishes she could her take in or away from her mother, but has no means to do so and also has resentment for being made to feel responsible for her sibling when ultimately she is her mother's responsibility.

On this occasion my co-worker was talking to a family member who received a text from the mother asking for "three 30s", water, and some other seemingly bizarre items. My co-worker suspected it was code for drugs and intended for a friend but accidentally sent to the family member.  The lot of us in the break room tried to figure out was "three 30s" could be but none of us believed what my co-worker's mother eventually claimed they were: money orders. "Money orders are for paying bills and none of the bills she pays are 30 dollars". In all this though, I became more interested in my co-worker's personality and mind set than either of her parents' history.


Then I got to talking to another co-worker who works garden, a woman in her 40s who has this way about her that is laid back and casual and yet humorous and smart. We have talked about her sex life before in the broadest way, that she had a booty call of sorts. So I asked how it was going and she said that is kind of fizzled out with...at that point she said a name. I recognized the name, but being the common one that it was, I made a comment about it being a dull one, and she confirmed that she was indeed talking about another co-worker of ours who she has been seeing on and off for 2 and a half years.

It didn't shock me that much, I could see how they would hook up, but I found the dynamic interesting as hell. How do you sustain a sexual relationship with someone over that length of time without it getting messy? Apparently, not very well at times with one highlight memory being her yelling at him while he was naked a taking a piss. "What am I to you?!" she screamed at him. And he meekly responded, all the while hold his dick in his hand, "My best friend..." and how she was the only one who knew him and accepted him. That image in my mind was too classic, the emotions so easy to conjure, and her reaction that little bit of difference from what mine would have been that makes it a character and not an extension. She just had to leave after that.

Day 178: Castle and The Wire

Continuing on my television journey, I have started to watch both The Wire and Castle. An odd mix of shows, granted, but I need to see them both for different reasons. The Wire is considered a masterpiece of television with its forth season supposedly being one of the most artfully written and executed arcs ever created. Unfortunately, I go in knowing this along with some of the more unexpected deaths so, I am not expecting to get the full glory. Five episodes in though I recognize good writing even if I don't understand all the lingo or everything that is happening.

For Castle it was all about Nathan Fillion. He has always seemed really accessible as an actor, I wouldn't geek out if I met him or anything. Just normal guy kind of vibe. But he has a great magnetism that he brings to his characters. Love him in Firefly (really, loved everyone in Firefly) and was/is totally on the bandwagon to have him play Nathan Drake in an Uncharted movie. Watching the intro to one of those games affirms that he is the only man who could do that role justice. I didn't start watching Castle from the get go because I wasn't optimistic it would stay on air. It seems to be fairly stable with a few seasons now, so I am giving it a go.

Much lighter themes and kind of clumsy character development with the main female character telling essential aspects of her backstory out of the blue to Fillion's character when she hasn't known him very long. Oh, and he is writing a book headed by a character based on her. She even makes the comment that he now has the angsty backstory for the character. Eh...just a bit clunky. But it is light fun full of that will they/wont they stuff that must be ingrained in my DNA to find enjoyment in.

Day 177: The One Who Suffers No Fools

I like to think I am a fairly compassionate person. When it comes to awkward people, those who are often laughed at because they just don't fit in and don't know how to stop trying, I've never been one to join in. I hope I never will be.

But there is a particularly awkward person at work who I honestly can not stand. Every time we are in the vicinity of one another I put up my shield and throw out my I-dont-want-to-talk-to-you energy in the hope that he will heed it and let us avoid any unpleasantness. Sometimes, mercifully, be it due to the fuck-off vibe or no, he doesn't try to talk to me.

The other day though, I was merely walking by with a zip-lock bag containing two corndogs which apparently demand comment. Pretty much he just pointed out I was eating corndogs, used what he must have thought was a funny voice and a humorous way of speech, and expected...I don't know really. I just ignored him like I do. He must then comment on that to the guy sitting next to him at the table.

Ignoring him wasn't my first course of action. When I came to the store in January I was nice but quickly realized he was more on the annoying side. Then he started spouting assumptions about me based on whatever preconceived notions or stereotypes he subscribes to. I can't even recall what that first assumption was, but I recognized the pattern in all his other assumptions in the subsequent conversations which led me to wanting to talk to him even less.

Before the corndog incident this week he came to outside garden while I was cashiering, came up from behind and said something unintelligible or negligible, I just know I didn't bother to try to understand it because on sight he flipped my annoyance switch. Later in the break room he tried to apologize? or give reason to his randomness? I stopped him with a "It doesn't even matter" which seemed to stun him a bit. But not enough to try to stop him from trying and trying again.

Day 176: Rules

I am a very honest person. This quality has always been a prominent part of my personality. With it comes a strong sense of following what rings true to me. So my own set of truths beget their own rules. Sometimes other rules, rules made by people at a generality, well they don't apply very well to me. That is, they don't mesh well with my own rules.

That's when you have me reading in outside garden when it is slow. In my mind I know I do my job, greet everyone and help them just as well as I would if I wasn't reading during the lulls of the day. But the creator/s of the rules don't know that and the enforcer/s of the rules don't care to qualify. They know me well enough to know what I say is true, that I am a good worker, but they believe in the rules as they are set by people who are good at labeling and grouping data.

Like with me watching television while Bookkeeping. There is no harm in it. Really there is no difference between listening to the audio of a show versus listening to the audio of the store system. One is music and other a variety of sound, but that doesn't hinder my capability of doing the job. I know this so I am fine doing it. I also don't have a problem telling some people that I do this because I assume they understand how to qualify rules based on the individual. And I am not afraid of worse care scenarios. However, when I had the full-time Bookkeeper tell me that the girl she is training told her I watch television back there in an effort to...I don't know, prove she can do things how she wants? I don't know why she told her but I immediately got that uneasy feeling.

I don't think the full-timer would do anything, she understands that I don't have to be fast at the job like she is because I can only do so much for them as the back-up Bookkeeper. The uneasy feeling was about the person I trusted who apparently has no concept of discretion and the ever important capability to reason how some times, different rules apply to different people.

Day 175: The Change Up

Almost halfway through with this project and I'm not really getting what I wanted from it. I don't know if I was just expecting a much more interesting life here or for my post-graduate mind to become a fount of creativity and insight, but I am not impressed with most of what I have been producing here.

This displeasure came into sharp focus when I went through my old blog on MySpace. I backed up all the writings from the blog, which spanned from January 2005 to sometime in the Spring of 2010. Then I went through and deleted each one from the website. In so doing, I read a little bit and realized that had been what was missing. The observations, the direct tap into the thought process that I was able to record a smidgen of. Only a smidgen, though. It wasn't perfect interpretations by any means, but I at least had these strong feeling and thoughts I wanted to convey and attempted to do so in sometimes clever ways.

So I am going to try to deviate from the record of daily accounts that this has become for me, and allow myself to reflect on thing if I want, if that is what it takes to trigger something new and creative and inspiring and not dull!

But right at this second? At this second I am going to sign off and take some drugs because I am beginning to cramp again. And my computer is doing that horrible audio belching sound it likes to do sometimes now. Ruining my tunes, dammit.

Day 174

Well...I am getting better at my hiragana and katakana. I printed out a sheet with both set of characters on it so I could study it while waiting for customers. I figured they couldn't get me in trouble for looking at a piece of paper. It wasn't proving to be very affective though, because even though I tried to black out the part of the print out that showed the sound of each character, I could still see them.

I also realized that while I can identify most of the character by sight, I can't write them down from memory. So I started with one set of five syllables, hiragana and katakana for each, making ten characters to memorize and write. Then I went on to the second set, then added the second to the first. When those were decently memorized I moved on to the third set. I got to about five sets, fifty characters, before I went home today.

The last set isn't very strong in my head, either, but I was getting tired of looking at a piece of paper and not remembering what are essentially a formation of lines in a fairly basic style. It was getting annoying and I wasn't letting myself have it easy by reasoning that it was hot and I was being interrupted by customers. Then again, the longer it takes to perfect, the longer I can use it as a distraction.

Day 173

So the Finale song of Game of Thrones that I have been obsessing over since I watched the last scene of the season? Totally sat for two hours with my flute working out the notes to play it. I did pretty damn well, I must say. There is only one part where a lot of notes are played in quick succession that I am having difficulties separating into individual notes.

Of course one instrument playing a piece of music composed of several instruments doesn't lend itself to the epic scale of the song, but I know what the other parts sound like and they are sounding off in my head quite nicely.

On my weekly Wing Stop outing I got the Atomic flavor. The guy at the register questioned if I had ever had it and I had to explain that everything else that is hot on the menu doesn't phase me. If I am able to read a book and eat a wing without pausing said book to get a drink from the heat, it isn't hot. Well...while they were sufficiently spicy, they were not nice tasting. I knew on first sniff that I wasn't going to like the flavor, it just had pungent spice smell that wasn't appealing. So I pulled most of the skin off and just used what remained on my fingers as the flavoring. It wasn't so bad like that.

I revamped my resume a bit so it is more organized and included my software knowledge. It took an unnecessary long time partly because I well into a singing phase which caused all music selections to be of the "I want to sing to this" variety. But I did get it done and I submitted the new resume to a few places. Made me feel optimistic again which I need since after talking to my ASM, it doesn't seem like another position is going to be opening for me soon.

Day 172

I've started playing my flute again recently. I think it started with looking up Doomsday by Murray Gold from Doctor Who. I tripped up all over the place trying to play it, slowly remembering how to read the notes. My fingers for the most part remembered where to go to play each note, so that wasn't very difficult, but the fluidity of movement was not very for awhile there.

I also dabbled with the Game of Thrones theme and then today played Sailor Saturn's theme from Sailor Moon. That was the best I have done yet, though I am still having issues with some notes to the point that I am wondering if my flute is broken. It is very inconsistent, but at times I can't make the A flat sound out and then a few seconds later it will be fine. I kept trying to watch and see if all the valves were closing and opening like they should for the note, but there are quite a lot of them for that note, and nothing popped out as odd looking.

Now I want to play the Finale song from Game of Thrones after watching the last episode. The song is so epic and awesome and connected to one of my favorite scenes from the books and I'm almost done with them so that is saying something. Made it into a ringtone within a few hours of first hearing it...and repeating it...and repeating it. Only 2:31 minutes long. That's how to write music, goddamn. This Ramin Djawadi guy is pretty fabulous.

Day 171

Two hours into my shift cashiering I realized I wasn't going to be able to make it for the full eight. Without being able to read, the boredom was so severe, I was seriously just mulling over how stupid it was and becoming increasingly more pissed off. So I just decided to ask to leave early. And I did.

Since I had the day free I ran the errands necessary to get my passport application sent off so maybe if I can't find anything here in the next few months, I can start looking overseas. Though, some preliminary searches I did were not very promising and kind of depressed me. I don't understand where I need to be or what I need to be doing to be happy. Ideally I would be doing something arty but nothing in my job experience qualifies me for those positions and then the experience I do have doesn't seem to lead to anything but the same thing I am already doing.

Then there is the annoyance of getting no feedback from the heaps of places I have applied, quite a few I am actually qualified to fill. So maybe I need to change the format to my resume or start to focus on cover letters. It is discouraging.

Day 170

I finished watching Fringe today at work. I feel lost without it. That's what happens when I pound through these shows like I do and catch up only to suffer the agonizing wait for fall. The show is much better than I thought it would be to be honest, and it seems to get better each season with the major conflicts effortlessly building off one another and tied together by fairly intricate characters and the complex relationships they have with one another.

When I got home from work I didn't expect to feel so exhausted, but it happens with me having to wake up so early on the weekends so I took a nap starting around 6. And woke up at 9:30. I knew when I opened my eyes and it was dark that I made a mistake. I mean, I am sufficiently tired now at 11 but I had to eat something without being properly hungry and just generally made myself feel off-kilter. I also had to make an emergency Father's Day call to my dad because I had been counting on him to get on Skype because my first attempt to call him from my signal-deficient bedroom resulted in a lost of signal.

While talking to him on Skype Ran came in to show off the new vacuum he bought and then caught the baby anole that was hanging out on my ceiling. The little guy severed himself from his tail and Ran thought it was hilarious to give me the still wiggling thing to my horror. I was still talking to my father the whole time and showed him the wiggling tail that I had to grab with a tissue and throw away....ugh.

Day 169

When I got home from work today I henna-ed my hair. While I was piling on the goopy stuff I thought about how I had to get a key made for Ran because he let Kristie leave without making him a copy of giving him her own. So he just leaves the house with the door unlocked which already annoys me when they do that while we asleep in the house, but when no one is here there is no deterrent from theft. And you know that if we did get robbed and I threw a fit and wanted compensation from them for being utter fools I wouldn't get a dime.

So it was surprising when went into my room to start the waiting process for my hair and found a text from Ran asking if I wanted to go see a movie. I was game and asked what he wanted to see. He said according to the Austin Chronicle the new Pirates movie was the best rated which is just...ugh...foul. Already not really feeling it, but when he got home the full story came into focus.

He asked if he could use my car to go out a ways into the boonies to get a rug he wanted to buy for the house from a person on Craigslist. He mentioned that he would pay for the movie as compensation for the gas and such but I just waved it off. When he told me how far out it was, I definitely wanted to revoke that "no problem, whatever" attitude I was giving him. But hey, movie and food so all good.

I gave him my keys and he said he would be back by 7 so we could make the 7:45 showing. If we missed it we could make the 9 showing, though I already knew that wouldn't be a good idea for me because I woke up at 4:15AM this morning and have to wake up at 6:15 tomorrow.

Well now it is 8 and I started worrying an hour ago about what he may have done to my car, but he texted about thirty minutes ago to say he was stuck in traffic. Really hard to believe it would take that long so I don't know what really is going on, but I wont be offering up my car so easily in the future, that's for damn sure. And he can just give me gas money.

Day 168

Someone ran out with a drill set today while I was cashiering in Garden. I was talking to a customer with my back to the door though there was also a customer behind me who was listening to the conversation so they were facing the door. I heard the alarm go off and looked up to see this dude just sprinting like hell out and across the parking lot. All the customers huddled together to watch him while I immediately got on the phone and told a manager what happened.

Well, it order to see what the guy looked like they had to check the video and through looking for that part in the day they ended up seeing me reading my book. Of course when the manager asked if I knew it was against policy I bluntly said that I knew and did it anyway. That kind of took him aback and he asked why I would do that. I had to explain that I do my job, greet everyone that enters the store, answer any question, withstand the weather in heat and cold which most of his cashier will not do, but when I am bored I read. Then I told him I wanted and have been wanting to move to another department.

He surprised me by saying he respected that I was bored and wanted to do something more engaging and told me what course of action needed to be taken to pursue other roles in the store. Ideally I would still get the hell out of the store altogether, but if I can learn something new perhaps I will be entertained for awhile.

Day 167

I have spent the whole day watching Fringe. A few hours in I tried to motivate myself to go grocery shopping but ultimately decided it could wait another day since I just wasn't feeling like putting on clothes and braving the heat when I didn't need to. I considered reading or watching something else only in passing but when I realized I could finish the season by the end of the night I was locked in.

With Kristie gone the bathroom is pretty much only filled with my myriad of conditioners and soaps. I started to wonder what Ran was using to wash up because all that is in there besides my stuff is two shampoos and an acne face wash. There is also a wash cloth that I have always assumed he must be using, but I touched it to see if it was still damp from his morning shower and it wasn't nearly enough to be what he used earlier in the day.

Like a proper paranoid I smelled my loofah and then the products that are not my own but that was inconclusive. Then I  ante-uped the neurosis by putting my bar of soap over the top of my liquid soap and positioning both so that if they were moved I would know. I don't like the idea of someone using my soap but someone using my loofah is just....ugh....no! So the investigation begins.  

Day 166

I spent what must have been five minutes hovering a cursor over a button, trying to reason with myself on whether to select it and more importantly, why it wouldn't be a dumb thing to do. I ended up clicking it in the end because the fact that I keep looking after so many months of nothing new is an indication that I am not going to get over it. Well, the two year period of silent before would confirm that as well.

I wouldn't say I want to be friends or hang out but it seems kind of ridiculous to be in the same city and think I can forget that fact. I realized it wouldn't matter if he responded either because I just felt so much better throwing out that line in acknowledgement of him. It is true that I am not really fond of anyone I have met here and I get restless to go out and do things but have no one to do them with so my mind can easily wander to him, but I wouldn't be quick to go back to the way things were. They weren't very fun, either.



I did make sure to get out today early in the morning before it was too hot. I drove to a mall down south to try and find the Legalize Gay shirt from Old Navy that my dad's girlfriend wants. They had sold out very quickly though and they were the only store in the Austin area to carry them. I continued looking around and found some shorts and a skirt that I tried on because I figure I should implement those type of garments into my wardrobe. I ultimately couldn't rationalize buying the one cute green short I liked because they were too short to wear to work and I wouldn't be bothered by the heat at any other time than when I am in Outside Garden so...shopping was a bust.

I did go to Wing Stop for lunch, though.

Day 165

I've realized what I like Fringe is that it is like X-Files, which anyone would agree with, but without the episodic monster-of-the-week standalone bit. There are still things that are technically monster-of-the-week but in each episode the main plot moves forward as well because the MOTW is relevant to the overall storyline. Problem with this is that I am watching episodes while messing around on the internet so I keep missing details that I feel are probably important since there is no filler.


Kristie is leaving tomorrow to go across country for school for the summer. It will be just Ran and I until Brie comes back from Italy next week. Kristie is anxious about leaving because she is insecure about her relationship with Ran. She first expressed the anxiety as not trusting Brie who supposedly gets so wicked drunk she comes on to unavailable men. Kristie was warned by one of Brie's friends that she should talk to Ran about Brie before leaving.

Then today she revealed that she is nervous about what she will do while there because she has never gone to summer college without engaging in a fling. I questioned if she had no self control. She explained that she could make herself believe that the relationship with Ran is not as important because it isn't in the honeymoon phase anymore and the distance would only enhance the temptation created by others.

Makes me worried what she thinks about me then...What is the point if you can't even trust yourself to be faithful?

Day 164

The other day I went out with Lou and a friend of hers, Luke. We went downtown and had pizza at a bar called Rio Rita.  The pizza was sold by the slice and were pretty elaborate in their toppings. It was pretty good.  Then we went to a shop called Lucky Lizard.  It is a shop of oddities with a museum in the back full of the B-movie-esque knickknacks.  It wasn't as cool as I thought it would be and I felt bad that Lou paid for us to enter the museum part of the store.  But it was an Austin experience.  

We went to the Dr. Seuss art gallery display which ended up being more interesting than I expected.  I took some photos of the works I liked the most and was surprised that I could have even afforded some if I wanted to use all my money. That is until I found out by talking to Lou and Luke who are both artists, that they were all prints though limited. They also explained that the gallery seemed to focus on framing so most of the price of the pieces were based on just the frame alone. Crazy stuff.

Then we went to get some raspas as Luke called them.  Us English speakers know them as snow cones.  Then Lou's car wouldn't start and we had to find someone to give us a jump.  It didn't take as long as I thought it would have.  Though by the time we got home and hung out at my place for a while, we were hungry again. So we went to get some dim sum at Get Some Dim Sum.  It was fairly good, if not expensive but Luke footed the bill as I had bought our pizzas and Lou our accept to the museum, some for the snocones, and most of the driving.

Day 163

I watched a few films yesterday. Hanna, Penelope, and Becoming Jane. The last two were compulsive downloads triggered by McAvoy sickness as I am like to call the transfixing quality of James McAvoy in anything he does.

I didn't know much about Jane Austen before watching the film, but I wiki-ed her after. The movie heavily embellished the romance between her and Tom LeFroy, but it was interesting to read that neither her nor her sister ever got married and that she had moderate success as a writer at a time when making a profitable marriage was deemed the proper course. Made me feel better about my anti-relationship way of being though the idea that she died a virgin while being heralded as one of the best social commentary romance author kind of hurts the soul.


It's been a Fringe day. Watched something like five episodes at work and then came home a decided to download the rest of the first season. Shit is pretty good, I must say. I have always enjoyed Joshua Jackson since Dawson's Creek or I suppose even since The Mighty Ducks, though I didn't really know him from any other character as I was fairly young when I watched those films. I am warming to Anna Torv as well which is surprising as my lukewarm reception of her on first viewing of the pilot when it originally aired convinced me to not continue watching. I still hear her accent slipping all over the place, though.

Day 162

I woke up at 4:15 and turned on the computer. I went on to facebook and saw someone from college wanted to add me which I opted to "not now". Then something interesting popped up. A message from Curtis from sometime last week that wasn't flagged as they normally are. I told him in the past that I don't friend anyone I don't talk to on the regular or close family and friends and that I unfriend people who fall out of those categories. I unfriended him after I found out he was quitting and it didn't seem like he was going to be talking to me much. No big deal to me, right?

"I figured you'd get around to unfriending me sooner or later. Completely understandable. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I really did enjoy hanging out with you. I'm sorry for the way things turned out - I call it self destructive antisocial tendencies. Told you I don't have friends. Lol. You're a great girl, and I wish you all the best and I sincerely hope your apron-clad days are numbered. You're much too good for that place."

On first reading, all half asleep as I was, I took it at face value of being charming and sincere as he is naturally. Be that as it may, I realized he felt he needed to say something where nothing needed to be said. Perhaps he thought I took offense where I did not or was worrying about what happened though I hadn't been, but for me it wasn't a necessary thing. So then I reread the "don't have friends" bit and the fact he has to point out I unfriended him and I honestly felt a wave of annoyance. I don't like that kind of weakness; if you don't want to lose touch with someone then don't, and definitely don't make it out to be the result of personality flaw.

Day 161

We saw the bats yesterday. Austin is known for the biggest city bat population in the world? the states only? I don't know and I don't feel like looking it up, but there were a lot of those suckers. We got to the bridge about 40 minutes before they started their mass exodus and there were people in the water in canoes and boats and these odd bicycle raft things. It was a lot of watching those folks below, idle chit-chat with Lou and trying to not listen to the inane conversation of a group of people they came up behind us.

Then I started to hear a different kind of chatter from under the bridge. It still took five minutes before the first wave of bats came out. They flap their wings more than I thought they would and even at the close distance could be mistaken for birds by the ignorant observer. Still, it was pretty cool to see them for a spattering ribbon across the sky, all of them following the same trail no matter which part of the bridge they came out from.

Lou and I also tried some food from South Congress, that is from the famous trailers of South Congress. From the line of them we chose Coat and Thai. I got the garlic dish for fear of doing anything spice in the heat. It was alright, nothing special to me, but an experience nonetheless.

Then we went to Toy Joy since I knew it would be Lou's kind of place, and she got some finger puppets and figurines and a bat ring. Then we tried their Honeysuckle Boba Tea. Not bad, though not particularly honeysuckle tasting either.

As a fairly random aside, I've noticed lately that I have changed the way I say the word "either". Use to be "ee-ther" and is now the more British way of "eye-ther". Odd since I haven't been watching more British television now than I have before and when I do say "ee-ther" I automatically follow with a correction of "eye-ther". I kind of like it, just don't recall consciously deciding to change it.

Day 160

I saw X Men: First Class last night and it was "AWWWEESOME"!!!

Not quoting anyone in particular, just seemed it needed to be in quotes. I was prepped for the epic bro-mance by the lovely folks at ONTD, the gossip community I have frequented (and probably never missed a post) for six or so years now. I wasn't disappointed. The bros brought it in force with Fassbender and McAvoy becoming quickly dubbed Fassavoy by the internet legion. There is now something called X Men: First Class Kink that I believe I am only on the fringe of investigating as I skirt on the edges of the fanart that is flooding from the masses with the release of this film.

My favorite is from gingerhaze who has some really on point art paired with equally delightful humour.

She also has some cute Doctor Who fanart. But she is just one of many though the others are going more serious slashy with it.

I was talking to my dad about how much I liked the film and he was all "yeah, I saw how you were pressing your ideas onto the film" and I was all "nah, nah, back up. I quoted the actor in the film who said that his character and his co-actor's character should have been doing it on the regular". Then I went into how the comics apparently have more undertones to that nature but because they are older men in them people tend to look around it. With these two young hot guys though....come on. They had mad chemistry, am I really having to explain this?

Day 159

My buddy Lou texted me, "I'm outside". I looked at the text, started to text back that she could just, you know, come in, but decided it would be easier to go get her. On my way to the door I stepped on something, but that isn't completely unusual for me to do in this house so I continued to walk a few steps before I realized whatever I stepped on was now embedded in my foot.

No, not just embedded, it cut a segment of skin and wedged under to create a dark bump on my sole. So at that point I needed to get this thing out of my foot but also needed to fetch my friend who couldn't just come inside the house on her own because she is a timid little thing, bless her heart. After fiddling with my foot for a bit, I realized I wasn't going to be able to get it out quickly so I hobbled outside and waved Lou in from a distance and hobbled back in where Kristie had burned the end of a needle for me.

It took a good fifteen minutes of picking and pulling at the skin of my foot before I was finally able to squeeze a picky toe nail sized piece of glass out. No idea where it came from but Kristie assured me they break many a thing, especially beer bottles outside during their parties, and they must have tracked it in. She wasn't too pleased about it, that's for sure.

Day 158

To tired to function. I think the heat of the day just sapped me dry because now I am just a puddle of sleepy with a bit of night ritual to go before sleep. They turned my water off that I was using for a mister so I had to suffer in the heat today. Makes me feel 10 times less bad about calling in on thursday since my friend will be in town.

I was suppose to go out for wings after work but my coworker flaked on me. No surprise there as this has been one in a many such occurrences with her. I suppose it is for the best since I plan to go out spending money the next few days with my friend in town and all. Still...don't like flakes.

Holy hell, writing is suffering right now because I am falling asleep and typing with on hand and laying down. I will just leave this now and call it a crap effort in terms of meeting the day's writing quota.

Day 157

I watched the new episode of Game of Thrones and then proceeded to spend a good several hours figuring out how to make a animated icon that I could upload to livejournal. It took so long mostly because of how difficult it is to make an animated icon small enough to adhere to livejournal's size restrictions.

I eventually got one of Littlefinger there, but I wanted Rickon yelling "They aren't coming back!" or Bran's face after Greatjon Umber got his fingers bitten off by Grey Wind and the whole lot started laughing. But while I was watching the last scene I had to rewind it to laugh at Littlefinger's expression at some A-class bullshit Verys was spewing. None of these expressions could I capture with the restrictions imposed by livejournal. So here is some dancing Peytr Baelish.

Because I got so distracted in my fruitless journey of gif-making, I forgot to eat dinner. My housemates decided to hold an impromptu dinner party but I didn't join or even bother to make myself something small. Around 10 I realized I was indeed hungry, so I made myself a gourmet meal of cereal. I will do better tomorrow, because now I am watching all the game previews from the first day of E3.

Day 156

Thank goodness for second alarms. I set my phone to have two separate alarms, fifteen minutes apart. I vaguely remember (or maybe I just believe I remember) waking up to turn the first one off, but why I wouldn't have turned on the computer and stayed awake, I don't know. When my second alarm went off though I seemed to know before I looked at it that it was the second one, so...yeah. My subconscious is devising ways of stealing more sleep time.

On the drive to work it was pleasant enough to keep the window down. It hasn't been that nice in the morning since it began to feel like summer around here, so I dubbed it the first "summer morning" I have experienced this year. With the sun just rising it reminded me of some other now distant summer mornings ago that, while semi-associated with people I don't involve myself with anymore, still have a distinct memory imprint that could be described as nice.

I finished watching the first season of The Borgias at work today. I am kind of lusting over Francois Arnaud hardcore now and finding out he is only 25 didn't help matters. But it may be specific to his character Cesare because I just watched an interview with him and he isn't nearly as compelling in it as he is in the show.

Then I started watching Fringe from the beginning. When it first aired I watched the pilot and was kind of indifferent about it so when I wasn't really liking the second episode I stopped half way. But now I know somethings that happen in the later seasons and I am interested to see how they get there. I also need a show to carry me through the rest of the weekends I have to work in Bookkeeping and it seems like a good one for the job.

Day 155

My body is bruised to hell and back from those pilates from yesterday. I knew doing them on the hardwood floor wouldn't feel very good, but my neck is rigid as well and it made the second day quite a battle of pain endurance. I tried on crunch before I knew my back hip bones and neck would not be able to do it, but luckily Kristie told me there were matts in one of the closets. I was back on track with one of those, though painless it was not.

I only slept four hours last night for thinking too much about possible job opportunities...well, specifically the possible money and how I would best use it. That coupled with the incongruous but seemingly ever present night dreaming (but not actual dreaming) revolving around he-that-should-be-fully-extracted-from-my-life, kept me tossing and turning for two hours.

It made for a great crash once I came home from work. Except for waking the two hour nap extremely hungry, it was a good one. Now I am going to get my mind blown by Doctor Who! I kind of hate that it is the mid-series finale, but then again, we get new episodes sooner than a year. Okay, off to find out who River Song is!

Day 154

I forgot yesterday when I was writing about how boring life currently is that I ate some cow tongue. It tasted good if not a dripping mess, but I kept on looking at the chunks and could totally see how it was just tongue cut up. It was all textured and stuff. Didn't make it taste any less good, though.

I had been walking out of the break room to go back on the floor when a co-worker I don't even know very well walked by with a tell-tale greasy bag. In my ever-mooching way I had to inquire what he had and when he rattled off the very Spanish-y names for cow cheek and tongue I just had to go back to the break room to see what exactly he had. Then he was awesome enough to let me have one of the tortilla wrapped meats, and since I have had barbacoa/cheek (very good!) before I went for lengua instead. Good people are good.

Continuing with bike riding after two days getting home as it was becoming dark made for a huffing-puffing mess of a ride, but I made it a bit longer with the aid of a Metric Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? soundtrack. Five songs this time. Then I used the sixth to reintroduce the Pilates exercise first taught to me by my high school winterguard instructor. It's suppose to be sixteen counts of a lot of leg variations and then sixteen reps to each side and then the hardest eight of these odd crunch and then full lift into upright sitting position then down again. I to three before my neck would literally not move anymore. I remember it doing that the first time I ever learned it too, so I was understanding, but it made me feel like a fat-ass loser nonetheless. 

Day 153

When I sit down to write this and have nothing to say it just proves how utterly bored I am with my daily life and that shouldn't be happening. I moved so there would be excitement and fun and such normal occurrences but that isn't the case for the most part. Or perhaps I am just noticing when it's not because I have to write something everyday and the pressure for it to be of some significance is great.

Well, nope, it was just another day at work doing the same shit as the previous day interspersed with reading A Feast for Crows in the lulls to try and dull the soul sucking void that is cashiering. And then I come home and catch up on internet gossip, getting lost in Game of Thrones posts now much less dangerous, and that much more fun, for having read most of the series.

I have the day off tomorrow and while it is tempting to spend it like I have most others, reading, watching television, playing games (now that I am done with Dragon Age II there are so many possibilities!) I feel like I should go out and explore the city. But I don't have money to spend and it is hot and it is just so comfortable to lay around and while the hours away in made up realities. 

Day 152

I ate an organic apple today. I think that may have been the most exciting thing that has happened in awhile. I went to Central Market the other day for groceries after battling between it and HEB. I don't know what was the ultimate determining factor, perhaps because it was more "on the way" home from work that HEB, but I chose Central Market.

Buying food is such a chore. Why can't be choose to be insta-full sometimes? There was a ridiculously varied selection of apples to choose from, how was I to know which one was best? I went with the obscenely expensive organic ones, figuring if I was going to shop at CM I might as well do it in full. I got organic chicken as well. I don't know how that one is since I haven't made anything with it yet. I bought some ground beef but it didn't say anywhere on it that it was organic and it looked and tasted the same in my spaghetti so I could have such spent a lot more money for something I usually get for less down the street.

But the apple was good. I don't know if it was "would purchase again" good, but it had several notes of flavor. It was interesting to see what an apple is suppose to look like, a smaller fruit than what most groceries stores sell. I remember hearing or reading that they are engineered to be bigger just like chickens are fed onto obesity to produce plentiful product. Why don't the big apples taste really good then? Another thing I should research but wont because I am going to sleep and will forget about it and when I do think about it again it will be in passing and I will forget to look it up again, and again, and again, and...I'm going to sleep.