I just got the following e-mail.

"I have no set up to work from home - Please deal with this as I need to work from home now and then.
Now is today Friday but I did not want to bother you so I came to the office!!"

Let me explain, as i have mentioned before, Friday is not a workday here, where I live.

The funny thing about this email is, I really don't care.

I just… DAMN (I loaded MS word for the spell check, I thought I’d get by without it… guess I was wrong)

As I was saying, I just saw “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle” on DVD, with some non-native English speaking people who I had to explain most of the jokes I laughed at too… which weren’t really funny in the first place… which made me feel quite like an idiot.

I got to see my friend’s niece, which was weird, considering his sister is like 20 years old, and her having a child is just so damn strange to me. I remember when she was in the forth grade. (Yes, I know 16 year olds are having babies, and she had one at like 19… but it was still weird, especially since he never mentions either of them)

Dinner was fine, cool watching the police take the Orient House on TV, I really enjoyed it. I don’t watch TV at home, or read the newspaper or anything, so going to my parents lets me catch up with the world a bit. I sometimes feel stupid for buying a brand new 29-inch TV, but I’ll just get me a Sony Playstation and everything will be fine.

I feel like writing so much more, but I have nothing really to say, I told my folks I was thinking of moving in April, they were pretty surprised, even though I’ve been saying it for ages, I guess I sounded serious this time.

Ok, that’s all I gotta get some sleep so I don’t wake up late tomorrow so I fall asleep early, so I wake up Sunday on time for my bike lesson and work.

And the real bitch is,… I didn’t even make any spelling mistakes this time.

I was all prepared to write up a standard 'woe is me' kind of a daylog, but then I let the world sink back in, and now I think I'll be OK with something a little bit less selfish.

Never mind, I was lying. This is mostly a woe-is-me after all. Oh well.

The afternoon was a disaster. A complete and total disaster. I was supposed to finish my physics degree today. All I had to do was "observe the superconducting transition temperature of tin and obtain its superconducting-normal phase diagram in the presence of an external magnetic field". Sounds simple enough, right? (eep) And we were doing just fine indeed until I remembered that this task required me to touch experimental equipment and that I was therefore doomed from the goddam start.

If I were an actual physicist I would SO be a theorist, goddammit.

Nothing worked. Nothing nothing nothing nothing. It was 90 degrees in the lab with no ventilation (and about 1.5K inside of the cryostat ... lucky stupid cryostat ) and tons of sun pouring into the painted-shut windows while I tried to find little 0.1% fluctuations in the circuit frequency. Here I am going back and forth and back and forth painstakingly on my voltage with sweat pouring everywhere and nowhere to sit and great big hot sweaty yucky leather boots on because it was raining this morning AND MY FEET HURT. My 0.1% transitions were oddly enough masked by the 500% random fluctuations brought down by God to smite my heathen ass and keep me from getting this stupid degree over and done with. The lab techies abandoned me to get back to their air conditioned offices, and when I had to run upstairs to get one I actually started crying in front of him. The stupid little girl who thinks she can be a physicist is crying. How cute.

You can't have patience when it's ninety degrees. You just can't.

We jiggled the cables, we changed the frequency meter. There were bubbles in the mercury manometer. It got better. Then I got a 50% critical field change over less than a tenth of a kelvin. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

My professor told me we'd try to run again a week from Tuesday. That was my ONLY week off for the entire summer. Classes start up again less than a week after that. I need time off. I do. I really really really really do. This was supposed to be my triumph week. I finished teaching my class, I think I got everybody through, I think I did a really good job. I SURVIVED. I was supposed to earn myself a fucking degree today. It was supposed to be easy.

All my friends left town, so I went to work and started crying, and the woman who sits next to me who is old enough to be my mother gave me a hug. I felt a little better then until I could get to my car and cry for real. And it was so fucking hot.

I'm lonely. I realized there wasn't anybody in the world I could call. I either don't have their phone numbers or don't know where they are, or they're coming into town tomorrow or ... or .. or I don't really want to bother them with all my bullshit anyway. I hate being this whiny complaining bitch. But I was so upset I was shaking and feeling so sorry for myself.

I haven't had a real boyfriend in a year.

I went home and had some supper and half a pint of Ben and Jerry's (Chubby Hubby, mmmm, my favorite). I took off my clothes, took a shower, took a nap. I woke up and couldn't get up. Talked to somebody I know who's still in town and felt a little bit better, but mostly I just listened to her bitch about her car that caught on fire.

(Last night the apartment building across the street caught on fire and burned to the ground, and the people who lived there were left with nothing. I could have been them. I'm glad I'm not. I was passed out on the floor at four in the afternoon when it happened, I was so tired, and so I scarcely heard the sirens.)

My friend on the phone told me about the Perseids, and I remembered this time of year last summer. I remembered S. and me in the ocean out in Vieques watching glowing stars in the water and falling stars in the skies and being naked and brushing with seaweed and him hating me and hating me and hating me, and the horrible thing that I did, and how much I hated myself after when I realized what I'd done. I remember believing him because I loved him.

It's been quite a year, I say.

I don't know. The chat was good for me. I went out shopping and blew all my birthday money on clothes I don't need and dishtowels. I bought a dress to wear to an old friend's wedding next month. I can't believe we're starting to get married already, and I can't even get some. I can't believe I don't want any even though I'm so godammed horny I could scream. I don't want any. Any any. Anyone. I bought a Frappuccino because Starbucks was the only thing still open and I wanted a coffee. It was good. Really really really really good. I'm taking a shower once this is done to wash off the Starbucks filth. I'm licking my lips as I say that, though, it was so damn good.

My apartment-mate is moving in tomorrow and I still haven't found the floor. It is going to take a miracle to get this place respectably clean in less than 24 hours. The fellow who's moving in emailed me earlier today to let me know he was coming, and that he wouldn't be in email touch for the rest of the night. He emailed a few people. I realized as I was looking at the list that the only people on it, though, were me, his parents and his girlfriend.

Sometimes you forget how high you still rank on your best friend's list until you see it.

Somehow I feel OK again.

I bought a mouse today, along with several other computer accessories that will be essential in the following months. I have become incredibly, disgustingly intolerant of the built-in touch pad on my notebook after a lifetime of mouse usage. I thought I would be able to adjust, but I am too old to start from the beginning again.

I woke up decently early thanks to an premature bedtime that was caused by extreme exhaustion after these past few days. After catching the end of Jerry Springer (”Firey Sex Secrets Revealed!”) and sitting through an entire episode of Sally Jesse Raphael, I was too tired to watch The Price is Right. So I decided to go shopping for a few things on my “To Buy” list I started this summer for school.

First I went over to Staples and looked at their mice. Actually, I was walking down one of the aisles and a nice dude asked me if I needed help. I could have found the mice on my own, but it was easier to have him lead me there. I only had a few specifications in mind for my mouse: a scroll wheel and two buttons. My standards were not hard to meet. I found several mice that fit the bill, and some that surpassed it by far. I was attracted to the wireless one, but once I realized it required batteries I changed my mind. Too much maintenance. I decided I should shop around a bit before settling on one mouse, so I headed over to Wal Mart. It was painful.

I have a lot of friends who work at Wal Mart. All of them except one (Norman) are asian. Norman is black. I found him working a register, and hung out there for a bit before venturing off into the electronics department. He told me Bobby, a mutual friend, was working in the lawn care section and was most likely busy getting a wicked tan instead of being productive. I didn’t doubt it. I eventually asked someone where the mouses were, and began my search amidst the cluttered mess that is Wal Mart.

The mouse I purchased is very small, black, and made by Belkin. It fits in the palm of my hand nicely, although that is not a useful feature considering one does not use a mouse by holding it in the palm of one’s hand. It is definitely cute, though. I also got some disks and a surge protector, as well as a plain back mouse pad that cost a little under two bucks.

I also visited Debby & Company, an arts and crafts/children/miscellaneous Hallmark store. While I was busy looking at the Hello Kitty display, two girls were holding a deep and meaningful conversations to my left. They were both probably about 11 or 12 years old. They were talking about how cute everything would be if Hello Kitty wasn’t on it. I nearly offered to fight them over it. Hello Kitty is a childhood and current collection I have. Badtz Maru is a lesser but almost equally cute character. I ended up buying two pens for a total of almost nine dollars. Of course they were worth every cent.

Upon my return home, I ordered pizza for my brother and his friends and breadsticks for myself, all from Papa John’s. Adam and I ran over to a friend’s house for a little while in order for him to complete some business. My friend gave me a couple hundred dollars towards the car I sold to him a little while ago. In turn, I attempted to fix his back. But alas, it was not to be helped.

I slept for a few hours after consuming my breadsticks. My dad woke me up with a large oreo cookie blizzard from Captain Sundae. It was delicious, but made me quite ill. I can’t decide if the ice cream was worth the pain it caused.

Now I am off to bed and due to call Aaron, who is in St. Louis for some sort of business meeting where all the people who are interested pay money to learn about some new product. Not something I was too interested in.

Goodnight.

Today I have embarked on a new hobby. Today I sauntered down to my favorite Twin Cities' game shop, Pheonix Games, and bought two brushes and 10 little pots of paint so I could begin painting the steampunk miniatures I bought at GenCon last weekend. It took me all afternoon, but I really like how things went. If things continue to go well, I may do a writeup on how to paint metal miniatures or something.

Of course, what I really should be doing is:

  • Work on honors' thesis
  • Review Japanese
  • Study for Computer Science GREs
  • Make stuff with OpenGL for my portfolio.
Jumping Jesus onna Pogo stick! I feel like such a crappy student at times like this. At least I'm doing my yoga again so I feel a little more in shape.

I suppose I do feel justified in that, in painting that little metal figurine, I made art today. Of course, "I don't want to make art, I want to be happy."

I'd like to start writing poetry again. Perhaps I can sit down and work on that tomorrow. I also want to try drawing again. Of course, none of this stuff has any relation to anything that I should be doing. -sigh- Mark Twain would have mentioned something about fences and whitewash, but he's dead. Oh well.

So then, I guess I'm reviewing kanji tomorrow. I will be an ii gakusei yet.

Today we some work and then decided to pop up to Marin for the first time. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, went to Muir Beach, and then had dinner in Sausalito and went to their farmer's market and jewelry stores. It's a pretty easy drive; I was surprised (fyi, we left around 4:30 pm from Oakland and got back around 10). On the way back we got out at the Palace of Fine Arts which was all lit up over the lake. It was really beautiful. Nobody else was there...I don't know, maybe the park was closed. It felt like it belonged to just us. Anyway, next time Starrynight visits we'll take him up to Muir Beach and Muir Woods.

I've been seeing a lot of cop activity lately. Seems like every time I go down Valencia street I see someone getting busted, with multiple police cars or paddy wagons or whatnot.

For instance, last night, I was coming back from seeing some music at 26 Mix at about 2 am. Walking by the police station at Valencia and 17th I see 3 or 4 cop cars peel out of the parking lot and zoom up the street. A few minutes later as I get to Guerrero and 16th, a block from my house, I see where they were going- at 15th are 4 cars and about 8 cops standing over about 4 black teenagers sitting on the sidewalk. One cop has a dog on a leash and a couple others have flashlights and are looking for something on the street and sidewalk. Probably they think the kids ditched some drugs and they're trying to find the evidence. Apparently they fail because as I walk by (on the other side of the street, to be safe), they let the kids leave, and they walk off toward the projects. One interesting thing is, this guy in a car is rubbernecking while waiting at the light there, and when the light turns green he is still there, staring out his window trying to figure out what the cops are up to. One of them yells at him, "you got a green light, sir, move along." Cops are sensitive about being watched, aren't they?

Anyway, that was at the end of a big but mostly fun evening. A dinner party/meeting of the SFEMF steering committee at Miya's house, and then over to 26 Mix to see Christopher Willits and Taylor Dupree play. Willits is local, recent MFA grad from Mills, who does Oval-style glitch/click electronica. Dupree is from New York and does very minimal, "lowercase" ambient electronics. It was nice. The visuals were cool too, some algorithimically generated colored shapes squirming and pulsing. I drank a whiskey sour and a mojito (if there's no mojito node I promise to node it tommorrow, cuz that is a godammned great drink. Probably my favorite drink for the last couple of years. Though the bartender last night didn't make the best I've had. In fact I think I can make a better one.), and I sat and talked with Wobbly and Xopher Davidson and David Kwan and the guy doing the video, "christmas grave" (Chris Musgrave).

It's great seeing good live music but even better when there are cool people there that you know to share the experience with, and make the time more of a social experience.

In Oxford city center, usually full of tourists and shoppers the daily routine was broken today by an animal rights protest.

A mass of protestors, surrounded by police, pressed down Queen Street blowing shrill whistles and shouting. At the Carfax tower a grey-haired lady spoke through a loudspeaker above the din. She decried the abominations being carried out by Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Everyone then paused to observe a minutes silence as bemused bystanders and stoical police stood by. They proceeded into High Street brandishing appalling pictures of vivisection and embryonic research.

Huntingdon Life Sciences carries out research on animals. It is alleged that they have treated the animals with cruelty. The animal rights activists would like to see that place, and others like it, shut down. Militant activists have targeted shareholders of the company. Their activities almost resulted in the bankruptcy of the company but the Government intervened to save it.

For a day now, I've felt hungry. It's good to feel, good to eat and enjoy the food, good to taste. Last night, I slept well. I had my usual morning insomnia, waking up at five and not going back to sleep, but I went to bed at ten and didn't wake up during the night. I slept through the night. And the night before that, although not as perfectly. Yesterday, I played guitar. My voice became hoarse after only two songs (I've a bit of a sore throat anyway), but I played five or six. It was good, to play, to feel the strings again, to feel my voice filling my chest, to touch some kind of passion.

I've been empty for so long. There's been so much nothingness, so much lack. The only thing to fill the space between has been self-hate, self-rage, suicide thoughts, and desperation. The only passion I could get to was blood curling under the water. And that wasn't me; that was just a way to express what I couldn't show. The blood is still beautiful, but so is my guitar.

I haven't wanted to get better for a long time. That's not quite right. I haven't thought that I could get better for a long time. I haven't dared to hope for a long time. I haven't dared to care. And I don't know how far my dare extends right now. This isn't a revolution. Everything is not different. I am cautious and careful, guarding my hurt self zealously. But the newness... it's a gratefulness. Grateful for good friends who love me so much, and are so giving. Grateful for a therapist that actually cares, with her own self. Grateful that the Goddesses I love and feel are merciful, compassionate, gentle, loving things. My faith (for lack of a better word; I guess spirituality sounds better) has always been such a gentle, truthful, constant, lucky thing. My girlfriend mostly isn't able to believe in anything, because of how she is set up and because of how she's been hurt. And sometimes I get distant from it, sometimes I think it's stupid and nothing, sometimes, many many times, I cannot feel the presence at all. But every time i am able to come back to it, what a presence. I don't know how to articulate it. I am just glad that my gods are not harsh, like the Christian god is to some people, or the impression I get from a friend's Norse faith. I'm not following a warrior path. I'm not vindictive, I don't believe in revenge, or any violence. I love Gaia, who is my mother, and I love Kuan Yin, who is endless compassion, and I love Morgan le Fay, my sister, namesake, and inspiration.

I am not better. Things are not easy. I curl with anxiety many times during the day, I have moments where I don't know what to do and the world feels harsh and pointless. I get triggered and I spin in circles and I hide from myself and I yell at myself and I think how good it would have been if I had died three days ago. But I want to fan this spark. I'm ready to not be in hell, anymore.

"It tells me how it feels to have been you, a thousand voices whispering true, and every voice belongs to you" The Cure

Saturday morning refuses me the sleep I need so badly, even after being up all night. Kyoto Song is playing as I sip my morning coffee, camel smoke wafting about my head, like a fugue of cancerous decay.

I made the attempt to go out last night. I've been sinking into the eternal abyss of computer chat, and feeling a wee bit guilty. Spent a hundred bucks on some new clothes (shopping is easy in NY..just buy anything black) Went down the the local lounge, a swank little place called Saints and Sinners. Paid my three bucks to get in, and ordered a Long Island Ice Tea (when in rome...gorge yourself, puke, gorge some more, and grab a little greek boy). I only stayed a half-hour..I was overdressed for the inane frat-boy crowd. This place is so unpredictable. I'm getting ready to just walk around with a placard saying Man Whore for Hire. Any takers?

I've been trying to get ahold of some people in Florida via email. No response. I know they're getting the emails, they're internet junkies like myself. Maybe they're just not Garryn junkies anymore..who knows. Out of sight, out of mind seems to be their way of thinking, I've concluded. Ah, anyways, I think I overvalued the worth of my friendship anyways, to quote Digo. It was a mean thing to say, but I think she was right. What value does friendship have anymore? I'm beginning to believe it's all shit. People build you up to the sky; when you're there to fly with them, but as soon as you start to soar, they yank you back down, leave you looking for something more..pardon my rhymes, my bad. (I hate that expression, I'm slicing my arm with razorblades to punish myself for sinking to that verbal low).

Wow, I sound like a whining bitch.

(Note to readers in the murky future..many people of the 20/21st century are indeed whining bitches with no insight of humanity save their own vapid, desolate, and pathetic existances. It works quite nicely for us, though)
Well it FINALLY happened. Yes MANY can now say I told you so. If they are doing it because they need to prove something go away. It just won't help me or my family. It was a whirlwind yesterday. My daughter got an inheritance check from her great grandfather (on my ex's side) then I left work early because we had a friend coming over. I got a call from a possible job from a bunch of applications I had done from monster.com Then less than 10 minutes later I got the call from a partner. With the merger they are not offering positions to everybody. I didn't make the cut. 6 DAMN years for what? Well now I have time for a lot of hobbies now...
I spent last night at the club and it made me feel better andd I'm going again tonight (thank god for being comped) I just can't sit at home too much.
While egosurfing - that is, looking up (my name here) in the Google search engine, I discovered that among the usual suspects - abandoned homepages, collaborative web art projects and online artifacts from the BBS era - some great wit at the search engine has seen fit to point people looking for information on me to this very site as the final search result. Seekers aren't directed to my homenode, nor to the node of my name - no, the frontpage suffices as the gateway to my world.

So here I must thank you, my minions and sycophants, for helping fill in and flesh out the web's greatest resource yet on Rowan Lipkovits with your tangential and parallel scavengings, scurryings and sharings. Having invested the past few years setting the ball in motion, I feel comfortable enough in the momentum achieved that I feel I can perhaps sit back and permit all of you to fill the database with everything else about me and my life, all of my as-yet untold salient and sordid details.

I would perhaps feel a bit differently if it also came up as a default return on Nate Oostendorp or Ryan Postma, but apparently what we have here is much more about me than them. Imagine my surprise and delight to find otherwise! All this time I mistakenly thought we were about something somehow more...

in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...

when i first woke up, i had the distinct feeling for a brief brief moment that i was back in my bed in san diego. but alas, no such luck. here i am in omaha - without a place to live. the dorms will be kicking me out for their real students to move in tomorrow, and i have yet to find a place to move into! exciting!!

two months ago, everyone was so eager beaver to help me find a place to live post dorm. now, when i call them and ask for help, they ask "what? why haven't you left yet? i thought your professor wanted you to go home early!"

only two more weeks - i keep telling myself that.

looks like my only option left is the run-down motel with corridors strewn with human and dog feces. my self defense class will really come in handy now! it's not as if any doctors within 4 miles of the medical school residential area has an extra room. the same doctor that told me that he wouldn't sleep in the motel if he had a loaded shotgun under his pillow didn't seem interested in helping out a girl half his age and a stranger to the city. i must be real seedy looking or something.

come tomorrow, i'm going to take my two suitcases, buy a copy of the omaha world herald and curl up on a nice park bench for a few hours a night. our lab has plenty of emergency showers - if you don't mind cold industrial water. i can't wait for tomorrow to get here.

woe is me

I feel slightly victimized by nature. You see, I don't have an honest face.

When I ask people for their honest opinion on their impressions from my face, I keep getting words like demonic, shark, or even "kinda-evil-looking-y'know?"

To say the least, this makes is very hard to lie to people blievably! Well, I'm kidding about the lying thing. It's not that I'm bad at it or anything, but I try to give people a complete picture of the truth as often as I can. I guess it makes me sound like a lecturer or a preacher. Maybe the whole face-thing is because I'm trying too hard. I think I'll take a more relaxed attitude to the complete of the truth. You never know, it might even work.

Which brings me to the next issue, my struggles to become a Stealth Geek. I wan't to be able to look normal, but somehow the geekyness shines through. The only time it failed to peirce my clothing was when I was wearing a tuxedo during a wedding overseas. The whole concept of trying to become more attractive to the opposite sex is also giving me some problems. I'm fairly sure that women aren't attracted to the same things men are. But I'm at a loss as to what. Except for acting like a jerk. If you display the confidence born from an ego the size of Denmark, you can't go wrong. (Here's something I couldn't believe I said in public: ... yes, and on a clear day I can see all the way to the horizon and possibly to the edge of my ego! ... But, I mean, why bother looking around? The world revolves around me, it'll come 'round eventually, I guess.)

Hmm, I'll go search for opinions of the other noders, I suppose.

I'm not a smoker.

In fact, I'm such a non-smoker, that merely being in the same room as a lit cigarette can make me sick.

Last night I wanted to drink. And drink I did. I also wanted to smoke, for reasons unknown to me. Smoke I did.

After my third rum and coke and Marlboro Light in an hour and a half, I started to not feel so hot.

So I went upstairs and chucked the contents of my stomach into Beltane's toilet. I think if I had stopped after the first or second cigarette, I would have been ok. But that third one proved to be my undoing.

So I wake up this morning and tell my dad about it because he thinks I got totally wasted last night.

Later on we're at Albertson's. We start talking about the pizza we had last night, and how it caused my father to run the Chug-A-Lug© on a 2 liter bottle of Coke. I make mention of how I got to have a face-to-face meeting with the pizza again later that night, and he laughs.

Then he describes the whole fucking scenario to the hot cashier girl.

I was the only person who didn't think it was all that funny.

I used to could write.

Seriously. I mean I was no Bill Shakespeare, in fact english is by far my worst subject in school, but that doesnt mean I was bad at it. It took some trying, but with a little effort and motivation (by motivation I mean the paper being due in fewer than 12 hours) I could sit down and write an intelligent, coherent paper that wouldn't blow your hair back, but it would get me an A or B so I was happy.

Then about a week ago, I stumbled onto this little community. I was immediately attracted to the wit and intelligence displayed in the first nodes I read. After reading more and reallizing this site was written by users I was excited to possibly contribute my knowledge. Then I remembered writing really isn't a passion of mine, in fact when I'm forced to do it I can down right loath it. So I spent a couple more days as strictly a reader. Finnally I came around and decided that I would enjoy writing a few nodes.

Here is where my problems started. When I sat down to write a node I wrote bumbling thoughts and sounded like an idiot. The things I wrote were horrible, and recieved the downvoting they deserved. I don't know if it was the pressure of my audience being so large, or trying to stick to guidelines I had read in the FAQ or what.

Today I tried to write a couple nodes about my school. They were borderline incoherent and I was completely embarassed for myself and my school for representing them with this crap. I recieved some critisism and have tinkered enough with them to where I don't feel quite as horrible about them, but I still know I'm not writing to my potential.

I have to go back to school next week and I sure hope I can get over this writing slump I'm in before my first big paper or I could be in trouble. Hopefully not only will i get out of my slump, but this practice and experience will make me a better than ever.

What is going on?

Imvincible Me has a congested head and a sore throat of dark yellow mucus proportions. I went into work yesterday on my day off, but I got so sick in the warehouse between my head and the heat that I went home earlier than planned. I did get much done whule I was there. My associate manager misunderstood my request to move all of the boxed merchandise to the storeroom in the front office and, instead, moved them into the vault. The vault will be open to the public; therefore, storing large boxes in it would be counter-productive. In a little over an hour I moved every box into the proper storeroom. Thank G-d for hand trusses!

I am now the neighborhood parrot trainer. We went over to our neighbor's house for Friday night dinner. They are some very cool and crazy Sephardi Israelis. Over a year ago, the father won a parrot in a hand of poker. He won the cage in the next hand. He no longer plays poker, but he now owns Paco, an unidentified Amazon species. Paco has had two previous owners and shows signs of abuse, as he plucks his feathers, rarely talks as he did at first, and is morbidly afraid of people, especially hands. Paco likes the middle child, a teenage girl, but neither she nor the family know how to go about making friends with the bird. Not wanting to deny myself the chance to be around another parrot, I volunteered to try and help them.

Today we began with speaking to the parrot in soft voices as to calm and reassure him. I brought over a spray for parrots that adds shine to their feathers and makes the feathers healthier, stronger etc. First, I turned off the air vent next to his cage. Between itinerant spraying Samantha and I paid a lot of attention to Paco and talked to him with our hands behind our backs. He almost stepped on her arm, a major improvement, spoke a little, and preened himself. I can't wait for my next visit!

Speaking of which, my parrot has perfected his NPR mumble. My mom leaves the radio on for the parrot during the day, and it is usually set to NPR. Being that the voices are so sedate and sometimes mix in to one another, the parrot has interpretted this into a string of mumbles accentuated by the occaisional variation due to a commentator finishing off an op-ed piece.

Must go now. Eyes are slowly being pushed put of frame. Damned cold.

My Detailed Teen Angst Bullshit Day Log

I went to bed excited tonight. I was busy thinking of songs to learn and people to play them with.. computer games to play and fun to be had. And then I heard the front door of the apartment open.

It took a moment, but I realized my dad is back in town. My mood changed to an odd mix of anger, sadness, and anxiety. Now the only thing I can think of is getting a real job and moving the fuck out.

This was the day that five guys picked up my car. Or rather, four guys picked it up; the other was busy shoving the tire on. I was biting my nails and hoping that they would neither drop it nor tip it completely over.

In the morning, I was home alone. I *love* being home alone. My uncle had a birthday party, which surprisingly my oldest brother actually went to. He tends to avoid family functions even more than I do. So I had the freedom of moving through an empty house, leaving doors open and playing my music as loud as I felt like it. I love having lots of space all to myself.

My excuse for staying home was the plan to do something for a friend's birthday. I had been told that we would leave around five, but I got a call at two forty-five saying to meet at T. J. (the birthday boy)'s house at three fifteen sharp. So I ran around like crazy, and lost my keys at the last minute while I was airing up the tire with the slow leak, but I made it. In time to wait half an hour for our driver, a maniac with his parents' mini-van.

I was the only female. I love that. Guys can be so much more interesting, especially when there are no girly-girls around for them to worry about impressing. These were three old friends and two new friends, and I could have been amused just watching them interact. These guys were awesome. We talked about Heinlein, haunted houses, A&M's computer science program, and 80s music. I missed a lot in high school -- I was worried about the wrong things, hanging out with the wrong people.

We watched American Pie 2, which was absolutely hilarious, and so much funnier than the first, although I must admit I've become a lot less uptight since then. We went to the mall, where T.J. spent his money on computer games. Then we went back to Teej's house, so I could go home and they could continue to another house for a LAN party. I halfway wanted to beg to be included, but part of me felt like enough of an intruder as it was.

My slow leak had turned into a fast leak by the time we got back. They wouldn't let me change my own tire or call my father, but they still complained. Because I was parked on uneven ground, the jack wouldn't reach all the way and they had to put boards under it. First they tried one board, and they got the flat tire off, but they needed another half inch to get the spare tire on.

That was when they picked up the car.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.