Day 327: Five Hours

Five hours. It took five hour to travel a distance that normally only takes 3. Worse yet, the speed limit for most of the trip has been raised by five miles. Worse, worse yet the first big city, Temple, which is about an hour away from Austin, took 2 hours to reach. I was starving when the trip started. Five hours later my stomach was just an aching pit, where it is going to stay until tomorrow morning because I can not bear to fill up before falling asleep as that is always bad news for me.

I want to blame whoever didn't let us leave early. Whole teams were able to leave before we did and I was sitting around doodling for a good hour and a half before we finally got to leave at 5. It was the definition of ridiculous. It also prevented me from meeting a potential housemate. That is actually not bothering me as much right now because I am too tired to contemplate meeting people, but at the time I was pretty pissed off.

Now I am fighting to stay awake. My hair is wet, my clothes are in the washer and dryer...yeah, I think that is it. I am not processing that I am here very well. I will not be doing that shit again. I was in the middle of it and talking to mom on the phone and I told her I would have rather woken up crazy early, like 4 am, and drove in. I will do that for Christmas, and probably Sunday when I go back. I am not capable of braking that much and not wanting to shoot things and people and self.

Day 326: Pre-Thanksgiving Fuck Ups and Prospects

They moved us onto the floor today. I was really dumb to think we would all be sitting together still, but I did. The thing is - they bulk of them are still together, in easy access to one another. It is just me and that awkward guy to ourselves around the corner. Adjusting to the move and new alienation was made all the more difficult by my increasingly crap way of doing things. I say this and all the while do not know how to prevent the bad from happening. I am hoping this is the learning experience I didn't get in the first week because I was lucky and had cases that didn't challenge a lot of the more difficult stuff but...I don't know about that.

A part of it could be that our work week ends tomorrow and I am already thinking about making the drive home to mom and my sister. I was planning to just leave straight from work since it is up north and it would just make sense to leave from there instead of coming south only to head back north again. However, if we get out early I have made loose plans to meet a potential housemate. I know I was looking for my own place, but that is seeming less and less likely. If I wanted to look forever I suppose I would run into the perfect deal that combines good, below 45th street but above and away from university areas, location, affordable price, and non-shithole appearance, but I just am not that patient.

So I gave in a started looking at the shared living ads. I made a kind of silent agreement with myself that if I were to live with someone else it would be just that. One other person. I can deal with one person's faults a whole lot better than the combination of several, all grating on me in different ways. I already expressed my main worry with excessive noise, so it has been an upfront situation from the word "go". It's another one of those "we will see" situations. It is slightly further south, in reality just a mile or two away from where I am now, but a different neighborhood could make things feel new a productive, yeah?

Day 325: Pre-Thanksgiving Thanks and Givings and Non Givings

We are having a potluck tomorrow at work tomorrow, just between the group of us newbies. I knew I had all these vegetables still left over from the stew I finally made yesterday. I also knew that I once made a fairly edible dish back when we would have Glee nights over at the house, a cauliflower, mushroom, breadcrumb parmesan thing. So I just kind of winged it and 86ed the mushrooms since one of the girls doesn't like them and added zucchini, squash, and yukon potato.

I also doused everything in garlic butter perfection which was a major deviation from the recipe, but is a guaranteed yum fest. It looks promising that we are going to be let out early Wednesday so the next two days should be fairly nice. I am currently filled with the happiness frozen yogurt brings. Sandra and I went to our favorite fro-yo place down around campus. They had the ginger flavor she has been hollaring about for a good while now, so I had some of that and Pumpkin Spice and Cinnamon Apple Orchard. Put some graham cracker dust and Reese's Pieces.

And then, like with most things I have been trying to enjoy food wise as of late, the sharp pains of my back teeth chewing into anything minorly cold or hard made for odd, distracted eating. The right side is like a shockwave jolt upon cold contact. The left side a dull pain on candy coated shell crunch. I would go to the dentist but I did that already and they said it was teeth grinding. I am starting to doubt that. Haven't even had a headache like I normally do when my mouth hurts/probably actually was grinding my teeth. Bullshiiiit.

Day 324: Pinpricks

I have been having unusual spikes of anxiety today. Unusual in the sense that I have no idea what is triggering it. It came on around mid-afternoon while playing Sims with Sandra sitting next to me in bed. Inexplicable, and gained in strength until I closed the game to try to focus myself. At that point the theory was that I was anxious about wasting the day away with games. Then there was the veggie stew I had in the crockpot all day that I needed to eventually turn off and store it before going out for an old co-worker's birthday party.

Messing with the stew didn't work so then I figured it was anxiety about going to the birthday party, and my nerves seemed to support that the closer I got to the location. That went by fine though and now I am home with a full stomach and still some jitters. Perhaps it is the prospect of work tomorrow. I have noticed that the idea of the job makes me far more nervous than actually doing the job. I have had a few nights within the past week with brain draining dreams involving making certificates. I tend to do that when I am worried about errors.

I want to spend my time away from work pretending I know virtually nothing about that world. It makes the time off much more enjoyable when you don't think about all the cases that are going to carry over through the weekend. Things that would normally have me quite wary, like e-mailing and chatting with people I don't know, are becoming second nature. But when I think of them on the days off they are just intimidating and things I don't want to do. I am not sure what is the best way to go about this - disconnect or fully immerse.  

Day 323: Rehabilitating

I started watching The Inbetweeners today. One of the girls at work, the one who is a Whovian, suggested I should get on that so I did. I don't know how sold I am on it, but I do think it is pretty hilarious and I like the main actor, Simon who plays Will...not Simon who is played by Joe? I think that is his name. And their accents are all so pomp, quite different than most of the accents I have heard on other UK shows. Reminds me more of that Charlie guy from YouTube. I keep getting distracted by how old it is that they twenty-somethings can play awkward high schoolers so well. It shouldn't be that flawless.

I think peeling my almost week old nude fingernail polish may be the most productive thing I have started to do today (just started peeling a few minutes ago). I mean, I did actually ingest some food that was not in cracker form. I also aired up the tires on Brie's old bike and went for a bit of a ride around. I had convinced myself that it would be a leisurely ride, but I stilled ended up winded and weak by the end of it.

Sandra wanted to get drunk tonight but I nixed that. I am not about to fuck my stomach so quick. I would rather have a boring weekend. Actually, even without the stomach issues, I would like to have a boring weekend most of the time. She expressed a type of cabin fever issue and needing to make friends because she wants someone to go with her to late night jazz. Definitely not my bag on all accounts: jazz, late night, public places. I kind of like jazz sometimes, but all those other factors trump the "maybe" that is the possible enjoyment of the band she likes to go see.

Day 322: Humor and Rage

Dude at work was cracking me up like crazy today. We just click humor wise which I explained must be because we are both Sagittarius and thus awesome. It is nice to just mindlessly shoot the shit while doing these certificates, a sometimes fairly mind-numbing process. Sometimes I look across the room at the girls all chatting away and I feel a bit left out, but then Dude totally redeems my initial choice of seating by being on it like he was today.

I was rejoicing about something or another, proclaiming my brilliance, and checked myself with a "...and humble. I am humble." to which he didn't miss a beat, responding with "yes, what I enjoy most about you is your humility....and your immune system". How on point is that? I actually felt pretty good today though the little bit I would eat would cause some ping and pangs. My energy level has remained up, surprisingly since though I went to bed around 9 last night I didn't get to sleep until probably 11 because the couple decided to have not only people over but their dogs.

I woke from almost sleep to the beginnings of a chorus of dog and human howling and I still don't remember how I got from bed to door but I wrenched that sucker open and looked out at Kristie being a total inconsiderate cunt, howling her head off. I just stared, eyes still adjusting to the light. Then I went back to my bed, knocking my knee against something on the way (been paining the whole day now) and put my earbuds in to block out some of that shit. It doesn't take just noise to keep me awake. I can stay up from pure rage just as well.

Day 321: Vom

I don't think you can say you have really experienced life until you have held the contents of your stomach in your hands. Needless to say - I didn't make it through the night without getting sick. The hours were ticking by and I couldn't fall asleep for all the uncomfortableness, but I really needed to because I work an 8 to 5, Monday through Friday job and there are no sicks days for newbies. So I did the hovering thing but I didn't want to hover over the toilet because it hadn't been cleaned in ages. I hadn't vom'd in a sink for many years...like since I was a sickly child. It became a dual war, one of vom and one of receptacle.

I chose the sink which I regretted almost immediately. After three heaves I was starring at everything I had ingested that day. It wasn't pretty. And it wasn't diminishing. The sink has been pretty crap as of late but we drain-o'ed it the other day and it was going much better. Voming in the sink stopped that...literally. So I did the only thing I could think of. I put my hand in and scooped up a handful then tried to time it properly to cross the two feet to the toilet without making more of a mess.

That wasn't working too well so I went for help in the form of a tupperware container. First I had to wash my hands which proved difficult because of the oils or whatever was in my partially digested food. I tried to clean the tupperware after using it for vom transport, but I quickly nixed that and did an uncharacteristic thing by throwing it away. Even with the bulk of it transported the drain wasn't having it. After fixing it and cleaning everything, I finally went to sleep sometime after 12. And woke up at 4AM.

Day 320: Faulty Vessel

There has to be something wrong with me. Internally. In my stomach area. I thought I was over a bout of horrible internal fluid letting from yesterday. I ate some rice today and had veggie soup, no problem. I then went out with Sandra for some Kerby Lane, and I was really craving some fries so I ate all of them and saved my burger (minus two bites) for tomorrow. I also ate quite a few pieces of candy in a two hour span of time at work because it was there and we were confined to a small room with a movie playing.

Then there was a margarita at Kerby Lane and the fact that Sandra had me suck it down real quick toward the end there so we could get out a do something else before it got to late. Some time after that the pain started. We still played a full game of dominoes. I just felt really uncomfortable throughout and I almost threw up as I was spitting out my toothpaste. I would have just gone ahead and done it if it werent for the fact that I was indeed cleaning my teeth and mouth, and I hadn't spent money on the food I just ingested. So it is still there, stretching my abdomen, being all painful and such.

So now I am asking myself if I am just that stupid to think I could eat and drink like a normal person or if something is really fucked up with my digestion. And if so - why? I don't understand how vegetarianism could so severely mess with everything so I am hesitant to blame it on that. There is no other change that I can equate it to. I will have to research how common this is and what other people do, because I do not want to stop this way of eating- I don't even think about meat anymore. I will have to look that up...when I don't feel like a mostly liquid containing vessel.

Day 319: Quotas and Accuracy

Apparently I did really well yesterday at work. We came in today and were e-mailed our scores. I completed 11 certificates with over 91 percent accuracy. That one rejection screwed the pooch, but that's okay. I got a message from my Supervisor saying I did good and then later on in the morning he came by in person to say the same and explain that they were slow and I wouldn't be getting much today.

Which I didn't. After lunch I only worked on one cert. I asked for more, but the one I got was blank. Like there was only a signature block. It was bizarre. So that didn't go anywhere. I got one rejection and then a pseudo-rejection. That one occurred because the requester didn't know what they were talking about and even when I asked questions, I didn't get much of anywhere with it. So I just did what I figured would be right. The QCer didn't understand all that though so I had to defend some of my choices.

She didn't audit for that one, but it still kind of sucked to be expected to make sense of nonsense. In some respects, that is all that this job is, but there has to be a point. If you can't ask basic questions of the requester and get proper answers, then there is a flaw in that mode of operation.

Day 318: Internetless World

Written at 10:30pm on 11/14:

The internet is dying!!! That's what it feels like when you are leeching off a free unsecured supply. I am watching the mbps fluctuate every few seconds. I am reloading page over and over, seeing plenty of "Problem loading page" bars. Pretty much, every click is a chore. It is like moving through molasses and hitting some cement along the way.

It fucking blows. To distract ourselves from the tortuous ruin that is our favorite pastime, Sandra and I have started to play dominoes. I should say, we have played dominoes twice in two days now. I created my own version of Mexican Train (almost the legit way, I think, but I took some liberties) and Sandra got addicted to it pretty quick though she has yet to come close to winning. It is kind of fun nonetheless.

Ugh! Now I finally have a bit of luck and the internet is allowing me to watch a video but the speed being all sporadic makes my computer lag in a particularly delightful way. It makes a bluuurt sound that I have fondly equated to a fart. It is farting all over the place while I try to watch this ONE. SINGLE. VIDEO. If I disconnect from the internet for a moment, just long enough to watch the video, of course no more, it would play perfectly. But then I would be disconnected.

Day 317: Housing Hesitation

So I'm not sure if I am conducting an experiment in self-sabatoge or what, but I am hesitating about this studio apartment. I went with Sandra today to check it out and I don't know what I was expecting. I feel like I knew it wouldn't be a fancy place, it is cheap for a reason. But it had faux-wood floors and plenty of space for me. It also had a warped door and a pesky stove top. I could fix it up though...but is it worth it? I don't know. At this moment, typing it out, I feel like it isn't. But nothing else will be either. I mean, nothing that price range is going to be better placed than that place.

I tried to talk it out with dad and he tried to impress upon me that I shouldn't feel pressured to make a decision, but I do. I have to make up my mind quick before someone else takes it, because they will. Then I start thinking I am being a princess and I need to suck it up. The mere fact I feel hesitation makes me wonder if it's an intuitive thing. Maybe I am trying to warn myself. If something was meant to be, wouldn't I be more sure of it?

I'll sleep on it to be sure. Then there is that inkling anxiety about work tomorrow. We start the live-cases full on. We can pretty much take our time on them which is what I plan to do. I don't want to start dreading this stuff just because it is challenging. Watch, a few months from now it will be the opposite - I'll just be bored and it will all be old hat. The people make it good though. I like those kids for the most part. People who will collectively Wing Stop with me are people to believe in. One is a Whovian, so even better.

Day 316: Drugged up Saturday

I took a sick nap around 12 o'clock or so today. I woke up around 2 to the landlord calling out, asking if anyone was home, and the dogs flipping shit. I just tried to ignore it since I was naked, undercovers and sick. Also, the dude is the little bit eccentric enough to make conversation a challenging affair. Not something a sickly one wants to engage in. But he wasn't leavings, so I finally got up and put on my penguin pajamas and faced him. It ended up being for the best since I got to tell him about my plans to move out and he now knows what to expect.

This sickness is a traveling thing. It started in my throat and chest, then left the chest and was solely in the throat. I woke up this morning to find it painless to swallow but my nose was paining with every breath and my cough was a bit more raucous than before. Now as I type I have mouth/head pain and the nose thing. I also have taken some NyQuil so I am just waiting for the shit to come into force so I can pass out.

Had some laughs with Sandra tonight when we decided to listen to Eiffel 65 (the first cd I ever owned) and her dog got all kind of frisky with her arm, her back, her side, almost her head. It was hilarious. Who knew Europop was an aphrodisiac for dogs? We also listened to some 80s music because her insistence that she hates all things 80s is just to egregious to go unchallenged. We played Last Christmas by Wham and Sandra put on a mini lip sync of it, using my blow up Dragon Age II sword as a "candy cane". 

Day 315: Nasal Drip

Dripping, dropping sludge in my throat. I had to take the big test today with that annoyance wracking me the whole time. I had a serious fear that I skipped questions afterwards when everyone started chattering about a specific question as we were leaving for lunch. They laughed when I began freaking out that I couldn't remember it, but I was legit worried for a while there.

That was until I was able to spy my score from a distance of a few feet away. Grading near me is not a good idea. My eyes are too good for that shit. I didn't trust that I was seeing it right though. I thought I saw a ninty- four percentage but was more sure that I saw a 141 out of 150 fraction. I had my male buddy next to me do that math and it was aces from there.

That was until they made us take on our first live cases. I kept doing these slow, long exhales because must not have been breathing well or at all. I was flipping shit over every little thing I was doing. It was seven types of crazy and doing my head in a bit. Like my head was literally aching and my throat was raging and it was just a generally uncomfortable time. Why they couldn't have left us with the comforting thought that we knew what we were doing as was made evident by our tests- I don't know. I hope this new, unsure about everything feeling goes away quick because it is cramping my style.

Day 314: Sicky-Time Frank

I was trying to get comfy last night, laying down on my right side as I do, but it wasn't immediately comfortable. I had to kind of turn my night shirt around so it wasn't pulling at me and then I got hot and had to pull the covers away. Then just had to turn onto my back. I noticed I was a bit stuffed up but I figured it was the weather change and didn't think much more of it.

Then I woke up this morning (early again, around 6:30) and it didn't take long to realize the watery eye/urge to close my eyes thing from last night was still going strong. Then I noticed my chest felt congested and my throat was awfully scratchy. I got up a did everything I needed to just fine though. At work I began to feel a bit worse. I joked with the male trainee friend per usual and one of the girls gave me some DayQuil. I think that just made me droopy eyed or something because they were all cracking up when I talked.

I ate Bugles and a banana for lunch. It was pretty good. Had some awesome chocolate peanut butter cookies one of the other girls made, too. Then we had to do a mentoring session in which I watch someone in the team I am going to work with do the job. I tried hard to be present and alert. I worry that I didn't thank her before I left though. I hope I did. I kept thinking I was missing things or getting things wrong during the day, but I way actually pretty on point. Sickness may suit me.

Day 313: Ice Mining

I am way too tired for 8:30. There is no inbetween with me as of late. I am on it at work, functioning just fine. Then I get home and the energy dip is ridiculous. Today I took a shower first thing since it is fairly cold and I wanted my hair to dry before I fell asleep. It is currently in its crunchy to soft stage, undoubtedly more frizz than it should have been if the following events hadn't occured.

My mini-fridge stopped closing. The ice on the top part built up so much that it wouldn't allow the door to close completely. I had to get out my hammer and attack the huge block of ice that had formed, moving most of my produce out to do so. That's when I broke the glass. I forgot I had my standard drinking glass on top of the freezer so after a good five or ten minutes of thwaking away, the glass fell off a shattered. Trying to distinguish small pieces of ice from small pieces of glass was impossible. I had to get the vacuum and struggle with its odds and ends before finally managing to get most of the piece up.

All the while, the block of ice was slowly melting. Not quick enough as I still had to hammer away - this time with a make shift chisel (flat head screwdriver). That works significantly better. In the end I had to empty two large bowls of ice into the bushes outside. Never again. I was thinking while giving the ice hell that this could be a good stress reliever, but really...too tired to want to waste energy. The time change has made me out-of-wack. I wake up an hour early but want to go to sleep well before an hour earlier than I normally do.

Day 312: Pictionary

We played Pictionary today. I tried to explain that the mere mention of the game makes my anxiety ratchet up, but they didn't seem to understand. To try to convey to normal people that something that is suppose to be fun, a game, can actually be a source of stress, is hard to do without getting a lot of weird looks. Sure enough, my turn comes up and it was a travesty. I drew my clues okay, but they just wouldn't all come together and I was red faced as hell by the end of it.

That was just one embarrassment in a day full of guessing at the right thing to do. We were given a quick walk through of the last puzzle piece in the certificate creating process. Last, but definitely not insignificant. I kept trying to get my shit approved only to have it returned with notes I could not understand. Once I decoded it, I was ace, but it was a painful head desking process there for a bit.

We are really clicking as a group of friends, me and the three other girls in my trainee class and the one guy who I sit next to and it pretty on point humor wise. We say we are going out for lunch on Friday. I'm just wondering if it will actually happen. It is hard to make plans like that with so many people and their personalities involved. While we all click, it is like everyone else in the building are aliens. I was kind of shocked today when one of the girls greeted someone from outside our training class, but apparently it was the gal who is going to be her supervisor. She was real chill and normal, not imposing at all, and was all agog of my curls.

Day 311: Groceries and Living Arrangements

I have an amazing ability to get overwhelmed at stores and forget important things. I don't do the list thing, I just try to go through the store slowly, checking out everything thoroughly. Problem is people make me anxious and people on my ass as I am looking at something in an aisle makes it impossible for me to think about what I may want or need. So there was a lot of going back and forth on today's shopping excursion. I still forgot some pretty basic things, but I will just hit up HEB tomorrow since I did the Central Market rounds today.

I am looking into other places to live. I want my own place, devoid of loud laughter, barking dogs, and messy people. I want my solitude. But I also don't want to spend an exorbitant amount of money to be on my own, so that makes it a bit difficult. I will have to make some sacrifices, no doubt. Perhaps I will have to go to a laundromat. Or move more north than I'd rather (really don't want to budge on that one). I do know that there is a lease sitting in the living room that I have yet to sign because I have been on the edge of this for a while now. The push is the new job and income that could make a move possible.

Dad was kind of giving shit about it in his noncommittal way. He said he never figured me as the type to get spend more money when I could save it, and while that is true and I would love to save this additional money, I have wanted to live by myself since I decided I would be leaving my mother's place a year ago. It is a move that needs to be made regardless of the missed savings, unfortunately. My sanity and daily happiness will be greatly increased. I will miss living in a house, though.

Day 310: Noisy Ecstacy and Giving Up

I don't like hearing my housemates have sex. And yet, I keep on having to hear it. A few minutes ago Kristie was all yelling out in ecstasy, once again, and I had to wait for that to pass by before I could resume what I was watching. You just can't ignore that type of shit. Also once again - it is only her shouting out, not a peep from Ran. She just repeated the same "OHMYGOD" a dozen or so times. I don't get that either. Maybe I come off as as much of an idiot as Karl Pilkington when I say this but, why is that necessary?

You could just as easily say nothing at all, right? Like, that doesn't inhibit the pleasure. It surely is not vital information, definitely not deserving of repetition. Call me a naive virgin, but it seems a bit much. I know I have written about it before, but that just happened, so I felt the need to reiterate.

On another note, I think I am giving up NaNoWriMo. I have zero passion in continuing writing on what I have. I need to majorly rework the story before I do something as intensive as a month long writing thing. I thought it would just flow after the first scene, but it isn't really flowing, and I am not really interested in the overall story. I could continue just to get something down, and in a way that is tempting just so I can have something to mine for good bits, but I am also starting a new job and wanting to relax when I am not soaking in a lot of new information that makes my brain hurt. So...next year? Or later on when I start getting bored and have the brain energy to dedicate to it.

Day 309: Duvet

Whoo-e. It was a mixed emotion day. I woke up early and did my volunteer thing. Didn't have any problem folding and arranging men pants for two hours. Though, I found I have no idea what the difference between women and men pants are...I just don't shop enough. So there were probably some womens mixed in. Oh well. I felt energized by the time I left (after needing assistance from a police officer to get an EMS vehicle to move so it wasn't blocking me...awkward) but I ended up just going home a shivering in bed.

It was cold in the house and no amount of bundling up was working so I finally gave in a changed out my comforters. There is something about changing the bedding that makes the season change real. But now here I am with a warmer night and a heavy down duvet. Hope I don't have to turn on the fan. So I was cozy and watching television and debating whether I should contact someone or not. Then I was sure I would but I was hesitating. Then he signed off and I couldn't. So I watched more television. Then he got back on and before I could convince myself to say anything, he did.

I was going to bed last night, wondering what to do. It's almost been a year since we last spoke and yet he has been floating around in my mind hard core as of late. I've tried reasoning with myself. I've tried warding him away with the power of thought, picturing all memory of him being tossed into the ether to never return. Nothing worked. So I felt pretty good with a conclusion I came to as I was falling asleep. I can't quite remember what it was, but I'm sure it was something associated with the fact that he isn't leaving anyway, so why not check in, in a controlled way as not to be a detriment to myself. I feel pretty good about it, all in all. It's another one of those we will have to see about.

Day 308: Candy Jar, Abdominal Pain, Community Service

A candy jar and community cake had made this day kind of shit eating wise. I did at least have a decent healthy lunch of stuffed eggplant and zucchini before I ate a piece of cake someone put out. It was apparently from Halloween and the icing on it was making all our mouths black. Still tasted pretty good though. Then the candy...oh the candy. It was like Bookkeeping but worse because the work was easy enough to walk away from and the candy was so plentiful.

Something may be wrong with my abdomen. It is still aching since Sunday night. It isn't as severe but it is more all over now, still mainly on the right side though. Nothing else is wrong though. My energy is good considering the new work schedule and my appetite is obviously, fairly regular. I found our health insurance kicks in a month in so I suppose I will just wait til then. Hopefully it will be gone by then but we shall see.

I turned off my alarm this morning, so excited that I would get to sleep in the next two days. Then I remembered I signed up to help with a homeless convention thing tomorrow morning. I was unemployed and feeling particularly useless so of course signing up to do something many weeks away is the way to go. I did have the sense to avoid crowds, as per my own set preferences, and signed up for set up when surely not many people would be there. Set up starts at 7AM. So I will be waking up earlier than I have all week. Way to go. For a good cause.

Day 307: Wichita in Texas

I don't know what is going on with people at the new job, but every time I've been asked where I am from and I respond, "Wichita Falls", it's like their brains stop at "Wichita" and or they think I add an addition word or something. Today was the funniest though with the HR guy asking me if I have had a winter here and that it would change my mind about going back "north". I totally didn't understand what he meant but I said something about how the weather is much the same since WF is still in Texas.

Then it clicked and I kind of turned to look at my fellow classmates and they are all a'smirk about it. When we had our break they were ragging about it, really getting giddy about how much it is happening. But then one of them asked if WF was in the panhandle an I just lost faith in Southern Texans altogether. One of them thought my reaction to their ignorance was particularly amusing as I was acting like they were uncultured for no knowing about a small city up state. I thought that seemed rather amusing myself.

It wasn't such a good day in terms of getting all the material. We really only worked on examples all day but I would miss something or another on each one and it was cold and I had to bundle up with my legs to my chest which made me sleepy...lalala, whine. I also didn't write anything today. I got home, took a shower, and gave in to Thursday night television. I am not going to kill myself to write something that isn't even going to hit the per day word limit. I will make an effort to write throughout the month and get a good chunk of something down though.

Day 306: Half-Ass Task

I am kind of bunging up this writing thing. Not even close to the daily quota for yesterday and today. Today I even spent two hours after work writing at Mount Bonnell but only got about 600 words. I am going to keep with it, but I am not expecting 50,000 words by the end of this month unless I suddenly can pick up my pace. And the shit I am writing is that..pretty shit. Sure the idea is on paper, but the shit of it is rank.

Work is going alright I suppose. The concepts are not all that difficult to understand but they are fairly challenging in practice. Hopefully it will all click together sooner rather than later. I am getting along with two of the girls really well. One is married and in many ways reminds me of one of my friends from my hometown. The other is loud and vivacious which normally annoys me to no end, but she has a twang to her voice so it translates to a hometown-like person as well. Cheery and loud and Texan.

Instead of coming home and continuing writing, I went out to eat with Sandra. We went for Chuy's so we could have a margarita. I was looking forward to some refried beans but they are made with lard as the waiter was so kind to inform me. So not only did I ruin the vegetarian thing with eating them the last time I was there, I had to go without them this time. The creamy jalapeno sauce made up for it a bit as I slathered that shit on everything.

Day 305: NaNoWriMo Snippet #1

The woman above continued her run, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, leap. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, leap. The distances between the buildings were more than most people could cover. For her it was second nature, the pacing, the length of her strides, the placing of her feet just before release. She almost allowed herself to reflect on time when her strides had not been so long, her foot not so sure, but that was a long time passed. It puzzled her how all the old feelings were flowing up to the surface, so long suppressed yet so easily awakened as she closed the distance.

She could see it now, the collection of fire globes surrounded by the growing mass, the collection of people of all sizes but all dressed the same. Or all seemingly the same. She wasn't fooled. There would never be a moment when she wasn't hyper aware of his presence on the planet they shared. He was huddled there amongst the lot of them as if he belonged there, as if he was only another sheep in the flock. The vapor of her breath clouded around her head and then faded with the breeze as she slowed to tiptoe around the edge of roof she decided was close enough to the center.

He was hooded and covered up like the rest of them as if the cold could affect him. Pinpricks of anger created a trail up her spine, but the emotion, sudden and unbidden startled her and she quickly quelled it and refocused on him below.