Friday, April 29 

- thinking is bad.
- i may not be able to wait until my birthday for my ibook.
- i love lilac season: i want to dive into a pile of lilacs.
- my personal hell would be to spend eternity writing profiles for online dating/social networking sites.
- let's go to a movie.
- telling people how my heart has been hurting makes me feel uncomfortably vulnerable and weak.
- i'm drinking far too much coffee lately; but, i'm drinking far less vodka.
- mascara makes me feel 10x prettier than usual.
- i'm a dirty, rotten slacker.
- mayonnaise is the devil.

(1)

Thursday, April 28 

i'm again thinking that my purpose on this earth is to instruct men as to the type of women they do not want to be in a relationship with. i used to call myself transitional girl. there was a period of time when every guy i had something with almost immediately went from me to their live-in, fiancee, or bride. it was so chronic you just had to laugh about it. i even wrote out a little advertisement and stuck it in my profile for a while. i wish i still had it, it was pretty damn clever.

"looking to get married? date me! money-back guarantee that the next woman you meet will be your soul mate! don't delay your matrimonial bliss, take me out tonight!"

so, anyway, who's going to go see ariz0na at lotus with me tomorrow night? i don't want to go to the scary part of town alone.

(1)

Wednesday, April 27 

listening to the frou frou julie sent me. still amazed from the two hour conversation with paul-from-the-past i had last night. hurting for my friend whose heart is recently broken. nervous about something new for friday. loving the lilacs on my desk. wanting more sleep and coffee. feeling better, but not quite hopeful yet.

(1)

Tuesday, April 26 

i spent last night doing something i didn't think i'd ever do again: with the invaluable help of my very favourite jeremy, i am now linuxy again! four years away and holy crap has linux gotten much prettier and easier! wow. this ain't your daddy's slackware install anymore, boys and girls. and, really, other than some bootloader issues because i was installing it in an awkward place, it was pretty simple. it auto-detected pretty much everything. even if jer hadn't been there to help me out, i could have ran the auto-updater on my own to get things all current. i think. ;)

otherly, i'm completely in love with the garden state soundtrack and have had it on constant repeat since i got home sunday afternoon. if i wasn't worried about my officemate killing me for playing it again i'd have brought it back to work with me to play all day long. love it. absolutely LOVE it (even the zero 7 song, but don't tell sean that). i think it's the best $15 i've spent in a very long time.

(3)

Sunday, April 24 

home now. it's beautiful out there. go outside.

(3)

Friday, April 22 

yay! random victoria visit commences tonight. rawk! this is way better than staying home and dusting.

(2)

Friday, April 22 

i'm on day three of this headache and i don't quite know what i've done to deserve it. i could blame the oreos, but they didn't come along until last night. i'm starting to get annoyed.

ack. my coffee cup is empty. CALL OUT THE TROOPS! this is not good.

i've decided that i'm buying myself an ibook for my birthday (72 days! mark your calendars. i really want flowers this year!). hopefully, by then i'll have fedora core installed on discombobulate and, in search of my long-lost geek cred, i'll be running three operating systems at the same time! see what fun you can have when you're not taking crappy courses you don't care anything about?

speaking of stuff, i guess i really need to get off my duff and get my photocard site up and running. the plan is to put up a gallery of images and then let people pick the cardstock they want the photo they've chosen to be mounted on (white, natural or brown). how much would you pay for a photocard? $3.50? $5.50? what about shipping costs? should i eat those as a startup expense? big thoughts. gotta get planning.

(3)

Thursday, April 21 

don't really feel like typing much. not minding being around people. went shopping in the sunshine, bought a new toy. shook up my investment portfolio (yes, virginia, i have investments). daydreamed something fierce. this is day two of my headache. i'm craving broccoli.

i think i might go to the meetup/beercast combo tonight. are you going?

(8)

Tuesday, April 19 

it will take someone extraordinary to love me as i am today.

the ones i've craved have not been extraordinary. they have been intelligent, interesting, funny, freaky, caring, curious, sensual, shy; they have not been extraordinary.

i'm so done.

(2)

Monday, April 18 

yoga makes me feel bendy. until the next morning when Every Muscle In My Body is screaming at me. who the hell knew there were so many angry muscles in my back? who? and why didn't they warn me before i got down on that mat? ugh.

(1)

Friday, April 15 

while i feel a lot less attacked so far this morning, i'm suffering all the same. i could use a hothot bath, a huge mug of mint tea and a day in the über-bed reading trashy brit-lit to make it all better.

in other news, i've decided to officially put my ibook obsession to rest (unless an offer i can't refuse comes my way) and focus on getting a new monitor instead. my daytek is soon to permanently fade to black and i'd like to set myself up with a 19" lcd in its place. i have a hard time believing that i can get such a thing for the same price i paid for my 17" crt. then again, that was seven years ago. yay progress!

tonight i'm going out for sushi. except for vague plans involving kung pao chicken, photo-work and blackberry merlot, my weekend should be quite the shut-in extravaganza as long as my dvds show up this afternoon (ocean's twelve, closer & i heart huckabees). yeah, i'm a party animal.

(3)

Thursday, April 14 

today hates me. i just want to go home and cry.

wow, even my horrorscope knew i'd have it rough today:

damn, i peeked at tomorrow's and it looks like it won't be any better. bummer.

(3)

Wednesday, April 13 

i've discovered the perfect way to be able to go out on a work night and yet not be all super-exhausted and grumpy by nine-fifteen: come home, eat dinner, have a shower and then go out. this has a couple benefits: you're full of good food energy, freshly showered and coiffed, and, if you're normally a morning-shower person, the evening-shower will psych you out and make you think it's a lot earlier than the eleven o'clock it is when you get home. rawk!

thankfully i was all cute and awake for music bingo last night, where i won both first and second place in one game. go me! that's $25 in gift certificates to the pub. actually, if i do the math, it cost the pub $13.83 to have me come play music bingo last night ($25 free stuff - $12.17 tab). of course, my beer-drinking friends more than made up for my cheap night.

speaking of pubs, beer and friends, i can't even start to think about how upset it makes me that m&m are smoking again. with mark, i kind of expected it, but meg? i actually started to cry when i found out. right there in the middle of the pub. of course, i was already half-drunk, but i still get really tangled up inside when i think about it. they did so well, for a whole year! ugh. it breaks my heart. meg's smoking a lot more than she did even a month ago, too.

part of the reason it upsets me so is that one of her excuses is that if mark smokes, she can't not smoke. what a fucking load of horse crap. my mom quit while i was still smoking like a fucking chimmney inside the house. my uncle quit while my aunt was still puffing like a madwoman inside their house. anyway, i just have to keep telling myself that it's not my life, not my relationship, not my lungs... but it still makes me want to cry.

how wrong is it that i was actually excited to manage to fill up my gas tank at 99.5¢/litre instead of the 105.9¢/litre it was when i left for work this morning?

although, i have good gas-related news! with the fixed car, suddenly all those missing mileage kilometres are back! i can now drive further on a tank of gas. that takes a little bit of the sting away when i fill up.

(6)

Tuesday, April 12 

my random coffee excursion with davin last night was pretty fun. now i'm sleepy, which will only be exacerbated by going out to music bingo tonight. ugh. oh, and i need a haircut in the worst way.

i just want you all to know that if i visit your site and it has advertising which will benefit you monetarily, i will click on it. i consider it my way of paying you back for sharing yourself with me. so, if you wonder where the clickies come from, it's probably me. ;)

(4)

Monday, April 11 

i forgot to turn on my ftp server before i left the house this morning, so no photo today. i'm sorry. then again, you got two photos over the weekend so i don't think you have any reason to complain, do you?

back at work and not very glad of it. i wasn't off quite long enough to get so bored that working is a relief. maybe another three weeks would have done it. too bad i won't have the chance to find out.

mom found a bottle of sugar-free black cherry jones soda with my photo on the label. it was the only one, but i'm still impressed it found its way to sleepy little parksville of all places. have you found your bottle yet?

i feel like i'm on the verge of a windfall. i want to buy a lot of lottery tickets to enable that. maybe it's just having money in the bank and a big plan for my finances. whatever it is, it's making it very hard to resist buying an ibook on ebay. hm. internet. hi, internet! i'm looking for a gently used 12" ibook g4 for portable photo storage and mild computing while away from home. i'm cheap, so less than $800 would be ideal, as would airport extreme installed. anyone know anyone with an ibook they're looking to sell to a worthy girl with a wee bit of mac lust?

my mechanic must love me something special. after determining that the reason smoke came out from under the hood of my car when i was stopped at lights was because of a crack in the valve cover he found me a used replacement for half the price of a new one (cash, no tax) and didn't charge me any labour to swap it out. i don't know what i did to deserve such treatment, but i'll take it! i was very grateful that i didn't have to give him my "do as much as you can, but i'm not spending more than $500" speech. now i just have to get it to midas and make them replace the muffler under warranty so you can't hear me coming six blocks away. mrawr, stealtheather.

(4)

Friday, April 08 

[merci jen]

(4)

Friday, April 08 

first, and before i forget entirely, many thanks to my guest bloggers col and bruce (and bruce and bruce) for keeping the place active while i was away. of course, they did a better job than i usually do, so now i'm thinking i might not be wanted back.

so, yeah, i'm returned from victoria. it was a wholly successful vacation as long as you define vacation as eating way too much and barely getting off your ass for a week. there really was very little going on except getting to hang out with a bunch of j-named people and watching a lot of curling on tv.

i got to meet jason's obscenely large television on saturday night, then we proceeded to drink all the alcohol in his house and play need for speed: underground until two in the morning. monday, julie treated me to an amazing lunch and then we fetched a raggedy jim and went to make some photos. can i just say that it's some kind of freaky how many little things julie and i have in common? we were even wearing similar outfits. i had an inkling, but now i'm positive she's just the kind of people i need more of in my life.

now that i'm home, i'm procrastinating taking the smoking car to the garage, doing vacation laundry and restocking my fridge with some semblance of food. i was so, so, so grateful to sleep in my own bed last night it's almost pornographic. travelling is fine, but it's nowhere near as good as coming home.

(3)

Wednesday, April 06 

Ah the pressures to write. As if I don't have enough troubles on my own blog, now I'm trying to come up with something that won't bore Miss Hessie's lovely readers. No one here wants to read my rants on fashion atrocities and reckless drivers.

Instead, I will ask questions that have been floating around in my head. I don't really want an answers to them (as there aren't really answers), as much as I want to fling them out into the world:

Why is it so easy to see others clearly but not yourself?
Why must I constantly screw round pegs into square holes and then scream at myself because it doesn't fit?
Why does it feel good to press an emotional bruise when I know it will deliver a sharp pain?
What is the fascination with Desperate Housewives?

(3)

Wednesday, April 06 

This may be the last post that I can squeeze in here before Heather returns and wonders "What the hell was I thinking?". But I know I'll be looking forward to some spiffy pictures posted here soon.

It seems kinda empty with just words, doesn't it?

The general near-consensus to my query about reading material was that I should not take any classic liturature with me on my public reading adventures, because a) I want people to assume I've already read all that stuff in high school or college, and b) it will look like I'm trying too hard. I should instead leave those works for late night, under-the-covers reading. I'm going to take that advice with Crime and Punishment.

And I should most definitely not take magazines with minimally dressed girls in them. Right?

So let me see if I got this right. Reading is sexy, as long as its not skin magazines, pretentious classics or any titles that might have negative word associations?

This is hard. I'm taking a cookbook next time.

But I couldn't help but start wondering again. With all the smart and insightful opinions from such wonderful girls here (even ones that are familiar with Richard Dawkins), I really have to figure out where such smart girls are, around here.

You see, I like smart girls.

So you all really should gather in a public place and put up signs, because my strategy of blindly driving around town isn't working so well. Especially now that gas prices have gone up.

(1)

Monday, April 04 

Its bruce again. You know.. Mr. 10,000th comment?

(Sounds of trumpets blaring)

I've done the math, and I'm sure that the first threads of my welcome won't start unraveling until about Thursday, the day that Heather is destined to return. But I figure that as long as I have access to such kind and literate people, I might as well do some research on a topic of recent interest.

I have three new books that I might start reading; The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, or Crime and Punishment by Fyoder Dostoevsky. Each has its merits; social justice, personal transformation, a cool russian name...

But really, what's going to be the deciding factor, is this; which is more likely to impress a girl?

You see, a couple of weeks ago I grabbed a book I'd been reading and headed off to the pub for a drink. All was well, until the waitress, a wonderfully cute girl, with long dark hair and a sexy voice comes over, sits down at my table and starts making small talk. Eventually she asks the inevitable, "whatcha reading?" So I have to reveal my book, a geeky title; The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. If there was a reaction, I don't even recall what it was.

Next time, I vowed, I'd bring something more "impressive". Not because I'm overly concerned about my appearance; because I was, after all, sitting by myself in a nearly empty pub on a Monday night. But I'm just thinking, that if I'm going to be reading in public, I might as well make it a potential conversation piece as well?

(8)

Sunday, April 03 

Hi, I'm bruce, Mr. 10,000th comment. As part of that prize package I've been left the keys to Freakishly Prompt while Heather is off. I, as well as a few others have been invited to "guest blog", with the only instructions being "just make it literate and fun".

As an Okie (someone from Oklahoma -- its a state in the U.S.) we don't really do literate. Well, except for S.E. Hinton who also happens to live around here somewhere. And if any of you have ever ventured over to my website you'll see that I don't really do fun either, just politics.

But I do like guest blogging, because it reminds me of housesitting. Especially this sweet housesitting gig I once had, where I was given free run of the swimming pool, the DVD collection, the imported beer in the garage fridge, and Omaha Steaks.

My girlfriend and I would head over after work, feed the animals, water the garden, swim in the pool, drink beer, grill steaks and watch movies until the crack of dawn.

And this... this, is nothing like that. Except the drinking of the beer.

(5)

Friday, April 01 

three times in the last week i've stabbed or sliced my hands with knives. the chef's knife got me while i was doing dishes. the bread knife got me while i was cutting my sandwich in half. the pocket knife got me while i was trying to open a compact flash package. i swear, my knives have all tasted blood and they liked it.

so, it'll be very quiet around here for the next week. i'm running away to the island after work tonight and i won't be home again until some time on thursday. i won't have easy access to a computer, which will be interesting and challenging since i hope to take a lot of photos (see? this is exactly why i need an ibook!). i guess i'll just have to be more judicious with my snapping than i'd normally be.

my vacation plans are simple: relax, enjoy, play. i have to do a little bit of studying for my final exam, too, i guess. i'll be in victoria from saturday afternoon onward. i'm doing serious praying for a rainless week. the weatherman is trying to disappoint me, but i have faith.

have a great week everyone!

(1)