i'll have another double...

       it's been a busy weekend. i knew that this last week would be kinda crazy, but i wouldn't have guessed this. i'm not entirely sure yet when i'm going to be able to pack, lol. i'll have to schedule that around everything else, i guess. hopefully i'll make some major progress today, because it's my only free day this week. it kinda sucks, because through hanging out with friends this weekend i've been meeting new friends that i would genuinely like to get to know, and i'm leaving this saturday. last night i went out with a friend and a group of his friends, all 'mos but one really cute breeder who's either really secure or questioning like crazy, and we saw a movie then went back to my friend's place and hung out. it was awesome. great guys. and we have plans to go out again thursday night with more friends, both new and old, and i keep wondering why i didn't move to kansas city every couple weeks. it definitely has been and is looking to be a great last fling in columbia, but the pocketbook is starting to protest and i'm not sure where all the emotions have been flying. and i think i'm experiencing my first hangover. it's not bad, i just feel a little woozy. i hope this isn't a bad thing to say, but it really makes me appreciate my online friends more. not the hangover, all the other stuff. i get to keep you guys. =) kinda.

       i missed yesterday again because i was out on the town, so it's another double dose of the 30-day challenge thingy today.

---

days eleven and twelve. share a story from your childhood and explain how you got one of your scars.

       this kinda worked out. is it cheating if i kill two birds with one stone? i'll say not. i don't really have any great stories from my childhood. i lived in the pseudo-country growing up, with my brother and my cousins next door as playmates. and my books. my parents have a relatively large amount of land (22 acres -- nothing compared to a lot of country folk, but we're still city folk) so there were lots of opportunities to explore. hills and hawthorn thickets and three ponds and a crazy ravine system courtesy sugar creek gave us plenty to work with, so we'd go wild. when i was pretty young i had a cocker spaniel named sunny. he was a lot of fun. super nice, but unfortunately had a taste for chicken, which in the end was how he met his rather tragic end. one day when he was still a puppy (i might have been anywhere from 5-9?) we were visiting his momma down the road. my parents bought milk from her owners for a while (they do the regular grocery store thing now), but despite the dangers i really loved skimming the cream off the milk and making butter or ice cream or other fun things. anyway, once when we were visiting sunny's momma, sunny's momma's owner's daughter, samantha, who was a little older than my brother and i and occasionally babysat us, came out with sunny's momma and we were playing with her. i don't think sunny was present at the time. but somehow sunny's momma got between samantha and i and she somehow thought that i was threatening samantha, so she attacked me. it was quick, and i think she realized pretty quickly because she backed off, but she bit me just beneath my left pec. it wasn't a bad bite and i didn't really need stitches, but it did leave a kinda cool L-shaped scar on my upper abs/lower chest. only the vertical line is visible now, but i'm too white and my abs aren't where i want them to be in order to show it off.

       and then i found $20?

because i promised. and because i should...

       so i've just finished up this essay rounding out the romantic period of english literature with shelley and keats and ...my brain hurts. quite appropriately i've turned to xanga and netflix to lull me to sleep. it's been too long since this impotent noodle has seen this kind of action. ha. it's exhausting, but it reminds me of something i haven't seen in a while that kinda gets me excited ...perhaps prematurely. thinking about grad school. i know, right? i am truly the professional student. but i kinda want to see where it could go. it's not often that i have real potential energy buzzing inside me. usually it's just a flicker of heat that curls up from the cracked earth--a mirage that might keep me going for a bit but withers as i get close. we'll see how long this one lasts. i'm supposed to have this class finished by the end of the month, though. i've had exactly one year to complete it, the last of my requirements for graduation, and i wait until the last month. what does that tell you, hm? well, if you thought i was bad about replying before, you were right. i'm only going to get worse now. i think i owe about a half dozen people some fairly involved emails, so i'll ask you to bear with me a little longer.

       anyway, i've promised this guy that i'd start doing these with him. i'm supposed to do it every day, but i have a feeling i'll be missing some. just a slight inkling given my consistent posting record and such. it's supposed to help me think more positively? something like that. seems to be working for him. he has a boyfriend, though. i have netflix. and my mirages. so... three things i'm thankful for, day one:

1. new ideas for old stories. sweeping out a few of the cobwebs from the cranium has had some interesting side effects. studying romanticism (again) has had some, too. i'm an instinctual postmodernist, i've been told. kinda interesting, but these postmodernist types sometimes like to take bits and pieces from other periods and stitch them together, a favorite being the romantic period, and william blake and john keats have provided some crazy-effective fertilizer. it's been awesome.
   
   
2. not being sued. yet. long story. remind me to post about it sometime. there were four, now there's just one. hopefully that will be going away soon, too.
   
   
3. new friends. even if they are just online.

hasta luego, mis amigos.

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth...

       everything's so strange now. while i love the job, i really hate the full-time thing. just don't have time for anything anymore. i feel like i'm beginning to get used to it, though, finding a sort of routine. it kinda scares me, though, that i'm missing something. i feel like i'm missing something. suddenly friendships, writing, church--in short all of those things that are most important to me--aren't priorities anymore. and my best friend is my co-worker, kris, who i've known for not quite two weeks (but is eerily very much like me). my life is that job. i don't much care for that thought.

       i'm not going to explain the title, but you'll probably be able to pick up on the source and extrapolate the situation. it is a good song. i'm just tired of excuses and run-around and hearing one thing and seeing another. i'm mostly referring to one situation, which i'm not going to explain but which i've mentioned before, but it's also generally applicable. for example, yesterday was supposed to be the final check-out for our duplex (she found a couple very minor things in the first check-out that she wanted fixed and which were fixed), but she didn't show up. i had taken a long lunch break to meet the lady, even called her fifteen minutes before to confirm, which she did, then she didn't show up. after waiting a half-hour i called her (left a message) and said that i had to get back to work and was leaving. she called when i was half-way back to work and asked if i was still there and could we get on with it. well, she's holding $800 ransom, so i had to be nice. i didn't want to be. but i didn't go back. she's going to "get back with me."

       it's been a while now since i've finished it--last sunday night, actually--but harry potter (as a series) is my new favorite book. surprised? haha. of course not. but it was amazing. and all you people who said that rowling was doing the devil's work can join him. last time i checked, the devil doesn't use scripture as the centerpiece of his work. and i've seen only good come of this. that right there is the greatest tell. kris asked me when i was going to read it again. i told her it'd be a while. but now it's in my mind and i want to read it again. haha.

       well, i need to get ready for work. to borrow from synthia, later on, lonely xanga journal.

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind...

       this part of the roller coaster is called the downward spiral. or perhaps the plunge straight to the bottom. yes, after such a good week, i guess this would rather be the sudden drop where you have to close your mouth to keep your heart in. unfortunately, i forgot to close my mouth and i think i won't last much longer now without a means of supplying oxygen to my brain. you remember that friend i mentioned earlier. well, i don't know what's going on there. we're 800 miles apart and we still can't stop fighting every time we talk to each other. now i'm afraid that our friendship will be one of those that we'll both try to forget and that when we do see each other, what passed between us will only be a vague memory and we'll be forced to endure polite and meaningless conversation until one of us can come up with an excuse to leave.

       how do you stop loving someone? more often than not i find myself hating him. it's not a loathing. i'm just so angry with him. i hate him for being so far away. i hate him for taking away the few things that we could do together in the end, distancing himself from me. i hate him that he's been able to jump back so quickly and he hardly seems to spare a thought for me anymore. he keeps himself so busy he can't even talk. and i hate myself for being like this. i mean, what the hell? why am i like this? why can't i just forget and move on with my life? why can't i enjoy the friends i have here? why do i miss him?

       listen to me, i sound like a disgruntled ex-girlfriend. get over yourself and get on with it. i mean, that's not normal, is it? to be so torn up about some stupid friend? and i have been all summer. i just want to forget and pretend there was never any friendship at all. i don't want to remember a thing. i don't want to feel a thing. i don't want to care.

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

       i decided to change my layout back. i never planned to keep the chocolate one for long. it was purposed more for a sort of hope that the job would come my way, which it did and i'm grateful for that. this old one's a little bit more to my taste, though. it's cleaner, more soothing. like rora said, the other made me feel fat.

       i don't think i'm going to say anything more about this. i'll probably get myself into enough trouble just by posting this to the small handful of you who can read my protected posts. don't think bad of me, please. i'm just not sure how to deal with this. the biggest reason that i hoped i would get this job was not for money, even though i needed it, but so that i would have something else to think about--something to pour myself into. i haven't been able to write because it's such an emotional process and your mind has to be clear. my feelings would come out too much in what i was trying to write. and i just haven't had the will for it. the things i hold important in my life are not the successes or accomplishments or how many good deeds i do or how many people i witness to. the most important thing to me is my relationships. in the end i don't think it's going to be so much about the things you did, but how much you loved. and lately i've felt neither loving nor loved.

dudley demented...

       i don't know what it is about thunderstorms. maybe it's the electricity in the air or the change in pressure or the saying that "God is in the rain," but for some reason they're kinda magical to me. i'm always at my creative best during a storm. love them. it's raining now, by the way. i've been having lots of ideas lately, both for short stories and the longer one i'm working on. might take a crack at that after i finish this.

       second interview tomorrow morning at eleven. very nervous/anxious/excited. i'm not so worried about the interview itself as i am about the prospect that i might or might not have this job. i really want this job. i hope they like me.

       so...big night tonight. going to see order of the phoenix at midnight with keira and a bunch of people i don't know. wait, i kinda know one of the other guys. but yeah. i'm excited. probably pretty stupid to go to a midnight showing when i have an interview the next morning, but you know... it's harry potter. not quite sure what to expect yet, new director and all. cuaron was the best so far, i think. but this is a good book to adapt to screen, except it's also the longest so they probably cut most of it out. this book wasn't my favorite of the six so far, but it has one of my favorite endings (with the exception of the death). i hope they do the deathly hallows well in this one or they might be kinda stuck come the seventh movie. cause i'm pretty sure that's what that room is. anyway. we'll see. i'm excited.

       a certain hiatus that i mentioned in a previous protected post is backfiring. not feeling happy about that.

       it's already stopped raining. i should go run. ha. probably won't. i'm hungry. must have food. food is better than running. think i might bake some bread tonight, too. i go through it a lot faster when i make it myself. later.

pathetic fallacy...

       it's dusk now. light enough so that the dull-yellow street lamps aren't effective at all, but dark enough that i can hardly make out anything outside my window except for the headlights of the occasional passing car or the square lights of the windows in the apartment building across the alley. kind of a boring time, actually. the sun has already set but the stars aren't quite out yet. i definitely feel like i'm in a sort of limbo. or perhaps a purgatory. but i'm not catholic, so i don't believe in purgatory. we just name it something else. haha.

       i've spent so much time living to please others that i think i've forgotten just how to be me. that's one of the biggest things i think i've learned so far this summer. i've mentioned it before, but all of this "me" time is getting downright strange. i don't know what to do with myself. when my friend from high school came up last weekend i was a little surprised when i realized that i couldn't remember how to act around him. i definitely wouldn't describe myself as a social chameleon because i know what i like and what i don't like. yeah, for the most part i still try to go with the flow. things just work better that way. but i think i have a better sense of self when i'm around other people, if that makes sense. right now, though, i feel like i'm trying to shape this entirely new identity. i'm getting kinda bored with it. it's so weird to me, though, that i feel like i've lost myself. well, probably not lost. when i finally find me i'll most likely realize that i'd been here all along. but i wish i'd hurry up. i'm really slow.

       i remember a time when i would work out for me, when i would go out on the trail and run or take a leisurely walk for the sake of enjoying it and for being healthy and for looking my best. and i was those things. now i wouldn't consider the last few years in any way wasted, but for some reason i stopped doing that. i forgot how. i got so wrapped up in trying to please others that i lost track of who i was. and suddenly i became ashamed of myself. their expectations were impossible. but i had shaped my life around them, and now they're gone. so that shape begins to lose its form. it's not a crumbling or falling to pieces so much as a slither to the floor--a fluid motion of old habits and old dreams sliding away like an unveiling curtain pulled away to reveal nothing.

       it's night now--a relatively clear night with a few stars visible through the light pollution from the city. the light from the street lamps is cold and artificial and it makes me feel the same. i think about the people in the passing cars and wonder where they're going and who they're going to. the curtains in the windows in the apartment building across the alley are drawn and i wonder what's going on behind them. kind of a boring time, actually. i think i might go take a walk and feel the summer's night air on my face--just to enjoy it. later.

workin for the weekend...

       i just finished some of the best pancakes, courtesy of alton brown, and some awesome sausages, courtesy of rachel ray. that's right. breakfast for supper. good stuffs.

       had an unexpected afternoon. helped my friend fix his computer from 600 miles away and got to have a nice conversation in the meantime. the quiet of the house has been increasingly pressing in on me. i'm one of those that gets pretty attached to people, so the fact that one of my closest friends is that far away just makes it all the more difficult. i'll dig the hole a little deeper and add that this has also been the longest time since i've known him that i've gone without seeing him. it's just not the same when it's e-mail or facebook. i knew it was going to be tough, but i wasn't expecting it to be like this. so hearing him again made a world of difference. and i probably shouldn't be posting this. haha. i just miss my friend.

       well, i suppose i could say also that i had an unexpected weekend. brian and riff and brandon c. came up to visit. well, they weren't visiting me, but i can pretend. definitely broke the silence, which was awesome. i wish you all could experience what being in the same room with brian and riff is like, if you haven't. brian has one of the sharpest wits i've ever seen and his best friend riff (his real name is aaron, but he has a cool last name) is crazy to boot. it's impossible to not laugh. brandon c. was here helping his girlfriend move out of the house because she couldn't stand being with me. well, i tease her that that's why she left, but she claims otherwise. she was the only other native english-speaking person here. ho jong is cool, but i don't know him very well and there is a certain language barrier. i'm sure i'll get to know him better. good weekend, though.

       i think i'm going to try to go into the candy factory again tomorrow, if i don't hear from them. bj and sue are also getting on me to write more. for those who don't know, bj is my pastor. he's six years older than me and a great friend. one of the best guys i've ever met. when he found out i was writing a children's novel, he got all excited and asked if he could read it. his wife, sue, was telling me today that every time he'd sit down at his computer to read it, he'd constantly say how good it was and how he had to find out what was going to happen next, making notes and such along the way. i have yet to read those notes, but i'll say that he's definitely one of the reasons i'm still writing it. seeing his excitement and hearing his encouragement have been such a help. it's so difficult to put so much of yourself into something then let it lose. j.k. rowling likened it to pregnancy and childbirth. fortunately i'll never have to know what that's like, but in some ways i can kind of understand what she means. so tomorrow i sit down to write chapter five. out of, what, thirteen planned chapters? haha. i'm almost a third of the way there. oy.

       bedtime. later.

five days, eighteen hours, thirty-eight minutes, and twenty-three seconds...

       that's how long my mp3s would play. and yet i know that doesn't even come close to some of yours out there. how long will your music play? i'm curious. a buddy of mine just sent me a bunch of gordon lightfoot songs in preparation for the concert in a few weeks. looking forward to it--he's an awesome songwriter.

       told you the posting influx wouldn't last long. haha. i'm back in como as of tonight. took a load over to the new apartment earlier, but i'm back at the duplex trying to pack as much as i can before my mom and dad get here tomorrow with the truck, expecting to move everything over. i think i've figured out where everything's going to go, but i'll probably switch it around a few times before i'm satisfied. i have so much junk. it's not funny.

       went to an awesome bbq last night. it was nice to remember that i have friends other than the ones i've spent the last three years with. i mean friends from a previous lifetime that are still my friends. those are always nice to have. had a really good time. except an hour before i was supposed to be there i decided to check my invitation to see if i was supposed to bring anything. i was. the host is a really good friend of mine that had told me about it all already, so when i got the invite i kinda glanced at it and put it aside. his wife used to live with my family, so she knows all about my love of making desserts and requested i make one. haha. so in one hour i made a chocolate cake with a raspberry filling and chocolate icing. i was rather proud of it. made a mess of the kitchen, though.

       so, anyway, i'm happy to be back. once i get somewhat settled i'll tell you all about the new place and my high hopes for it. right now, though, i should pack. i rather liked this movie, but read many negative reviews and heard from a few friends that they didn't. what'd you all think? later.