I am Jack's broken mouthpiece Fuck fuck fuck fuck.....

FUCK.

Did I really say those things? Why will my mouth not listen to my head?

A conversation that should have been about ten minutes long, due to exhaustion from an 18 hour day, should not extend past that. Stupid things will be said, and important concepts will be fumbled, and basically, the feelings one will leave the conversation with will be awkward and embarrassed...and yet, one will be stupidly smiling at the promise of more conversations with that person anyways, no matter how they go. In fact, one might not even care where they go, just as long as they go. Destination = unimportant.

But fuck, I say stupid things sometimes. Enough that I walk around lamenting myself for about ten minutes afterwards anyways. I'm so awkward to talk to when I'm tired. Nothing clever this way comes. I need sleep.  ¶ 11:44 PM 0 comments

  Death to the air-crack The last week....oh my head. I've been really entrenched in rearranging the apartment, and doing some "spring" cleaning. I finally cleaned the big monsters out of the washroom, which was nice.

The little cat and I have been bonding, although it's been interesting because she's insanely full of energy at times and goes on mad homicidal tears. She's making up for her fear of feet with a vengeance, as she's now become quite adept at the suprise attack. But it's the "attack and cling/slash." Also, the table manners are not improving but getting steadily worse, as I was jarred into alertness on Wednesday morning when she scaled my body to take a peek into my corn pops. The good things though....she's amazingly cute, and still loves to cuddle when she's not getting into absolutely everything possible. Everytime I see her even if she's being the hugest shithead ever, I'm still like, "awww man...you're the greatest cat EVER..." Ad
nrtqw[1] nauseum, I know.

Otherwise...I've just been busy with either puttering around the house, working, or dealing with school. I found out two days prior to the final, about the final, but also realized that my summer session was thus compressed, and not ending on the 16th as I'd originally supposed. The final went ok, but the last week or two of classes were just really annoying. Where once my prof was really awesome, in the last two weeks or so, he became really obnoxious. I'm just glad it's over. I'm super glad he felt the need to warn us all for five minutes on the last class not to "Ever sleep with your students", because ...well, I'm stupid like that, as I'm sure the rest of the class was. Woo. Saved our asses on that one.

Work has been going well. I still get hopelessly annoyed at the tedium of Geek Palace, and have developed a huge aversion to the Copy and P center. It is the most annoying thing to do ever. I think if I worked in there solo, it would be ok, but otherwise, the girls drive me crazy. I like cash. I also got specifically named and praised in the city-wide online Geek Palace Survey ("You have been randomly selected to take the geek palace survey....it'll take five minutes, and you'll have a chance to win the shopping spree! It'll take five minutes, and is based on your service today.") for my mad customer service skillz. I got a new nametag promptly after that that no longer says "in training." So, I figure I'll die happy now.

The deli...what to say. I've decided that I should (well, got nudged with the idea that I will pursue, rather) start journalling after each shift, to better equip me in the writing of "le book." Because out of all the ideas I've had so far, this one...this one I still completely see as occurring. Now that my desk is in my room too, it will be a lot easier. I have a feeling I might hole up a while until school kicks in again and just commit myself to it for a while, while I still can.

In other news...there is no other news that I care to divulge on the air0crack of the interwebs. I'll probably just gush all over about it in meatspace.[3] S'all good.

GYHhhhhhh44444443hg 0p-gf-=vjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj [2]

[1] & [2] My cat also strives to be literate, and to blog her daily endeavours. She's complex.

[3] This term is so outdated, but I'm overtired, so fuck you. You know what I meant.  ¶ 12:53 AM 0 comments

  So this might be old news to some...but good news from the Vet's office today. My cat is worm-free, FIV-free, mite-free, and perfectly healthy, although the jury is admittedly still out on whether she was feasting on the flesh of her brethern. She's been settling in quite nicely, and her stay is going to be elongated for another three weeks apparently, as she cannot be around other cats until she's cleared the vaccines she got today. And, this doesn't bother me a bit, because I've been enjoying her company immensely. She's insanely affectionate when she's not pre-occupied with exploring, playing or being afraid of people's feet. Today too, she proved how resilient she is, as she was incredibly cooperative and uncomplaining of the visit to the vet. She didn't cry at all, and she held still for the whole time. She ended up weighing in at an incredible 2 lbs and 4 ounces also, just in case you wanted to know. Even numbers = good luck, as far as I'm concerned. Normally kitten vaccines make them pretty sick for a day or so also, but she's already back to climbing the furniture at this point, and eating Fenton's spilled tuna off the floor. Maybe it tastes like kittens. Who knows?

I have been thinking more seriously about just keeping her here rather than turning her over to Kat. It seems feasible the more I think about it. I could fit her litter box under the cupboards in the bathroom and she'd still be able to get at it, even as an adult I think. I won't even be here long enough for her to grow that big though either. Plus....I know of at least four other people in the building who have had cats for a long time and have thusfar evaded Allan the super's "hallway allergic reactions to fur." However...it's something I will have to clear with the new roomie as well, with the stipulation that he wouldn't have to take care of her or share responsibilities past affection-giving.

In other news...the summer session has been going very well. It's only been two weeks, and I already feel a lot more confident about staying in the program, and a lot more comfortable that I am doing the right thing by becoming a teacher still. Fuck, my grammar sucks lately...I apologise. It helps too, that the more we do teaching analysis and such, that I realize my past mentor teacher was a complete headcase, moreso than I'd realized before.

All in all...I'm in an incredibly good headspace right now. I know I'm going to quit Geek Palace at the end of August, go on vacation, do good in practicum (like try fucking hard) and generally kick ass at this game of Life. And that in itself is uplifting. Plus, now I have a furry side-kick. How effing rad is that?  ¶ 12:10 AM 3 comments

  Interstellar Galactica

Lately I've been wearing my hiking boots a lot, especially to work in the store. I've had them since the age of thirteen, and they thus are the longest lived foot-carapaces I've ever owned. Part of the reason I've been wearing them, is because they are so exactly molded to my feet that my feet thus do not slide around. They are hugged snugly, and my step is light, rather than plodding, like I feel the rest of my shoes do to my gait, with the exception of my converses. And admittedly, I've been wearing them because they remind me of home, and all the exploits I've had in them. It sounds strange, but I've been really fixated on my hiking boots for the last week, and everything they embody to me. I wrote a poem about my hiking boots, I've been talking about them with random people, and now I sit and wonder what the significance of them being in my mind so much is, because really, it's so material. But at the same time...what they represent is adventure, discovery, travel (I've always travelled in them...they've been everywhere man...) and squishing through muskeg. I love the smell of muskeg. So kill me. I have an old Heaney/Muldoon poetry section from my Irish lit class, and I've half a mind to just drive out to a patch of muskeg, walk around in my hiking boots, and read all his bog poems again. That would be fantastic. I wrote an essay on the irish bog poems once-- it was the first time any prof had ever told me that I could make a Masters project out of something I'd written.

Really though, I just need to get away from here. I've decided to take my vacation time in September, rather than the end of August, because Semene is leaving on vacation the same time I'd intended to. As well, Vanesser has been working a lot of extra hours lately, and hopes to have a vacation with her son sometime in the end of August too. Additionally, I was talking to my mom this morning (making peace, essentially) and she informed me that my sister-in-law was really counting on me coming in September and painting the mural for the baby's room. So...rather than two seperate complicated vacations, I'll just do it all in one go. I doubt I'll spend the whole time in Nevermatter Land though, that would drive me crazy. I have a feeling though, that I could borrow a vehicle from my brother and take a personal road trip to wherever from there though, if I wanted. I think I might drive to Washington and get to the beach for a bit. I was at Save-On today and stood by the lobster/crab/mollusc tanks for an unnaturally long time and just thought about the ocean and how much I loved the pacific beaches for being so much more colorful than Atlantic ones. [1]

Today, I thoroughly enjoyed being single. It was completely freeing to not constantly be thinking about another person, what another person thought of you, or all the muss and fuss. It was also nice to just "be."

In other news....J-dawg and I saved a kitten yesterday. She's a wretchedly small little thing (12 weeks at the very most), and is still too terrified to come out from under my dresser, though, mercifully, she has been eating when I'm away, and using the litterbox. It was like "baby's first steps" when I found out she actually used the box while I was at work. As for being under my dresser, at least I know where she is now. All of this morning, while getting ready to go to school, I was looking for her, and couldn't find her anywhere, which freaked me out [2]. And yeah....turns out she hadn't really gone anywhere. Anyways, the security guard found her in the stairwell [3] last night and punted her outside, and we coaxed her (hauled her) out from under a car. If anyone wants a kitten, please let me know, because I can absolutely not keep her. Of course, I'm tempted, because I love cats, but it's just not feasible. I could get kicked out of my building (sort of...although I could pull strings, it's not worth the risk), and I just can't afford it, timewise, or monetarily. But she's super cute, although she seems somewhat unused to human contact past "the bad kind." I was thinking of maybe finding temporary lodgings for her until I go to Nevermatter Land, and then bringing her with me in a repeat of "the incredible pet present suprise! (re: Elaugh), but I'd be too worried about her fate around the rotteweiler.

But anon...to bed, to bed.

[1] To a certain degree. The tidal pools are really what I'm talking about. I could spend hours exploring them, and on the Atlantic, only the really dramatic Fundy tides yield a lot of interest to me (i.e. guarantee that there will be something in the tidal pool to look at, though, more often than not, things are just swept away and you have to run after them and catch them. On the Pacific side of things though....it's easier to find anenomes for one, and crabs. And not just rock crabs, but hermit crabs. Ok, I'm not phrasing this well at all. Basically, you can find the same things in either place (though they differ obviously by virtue of water temperature/location etc.), but it's always been my experience that it takes a LOT longer to find everything you hope to see on the east coast, as opposed to the West, where you can find things all in one spot, and often more than you bargained for.

[2] "What if it dies and we don't find it before it starts to smell?" Perhaps this is going too far, but I'm sure you see where I'm coming from.

[3] This is the frequent, if not only, purpose of our stairwells--to dump kittens-- other than smoking pot in them.  ¶ 12:00 AM 4 comments

  Emerson Well...I had a good day today. I started out this morning by skipping my summer class and cleaning out Mr. Trapper's kitchen until five thirty. And it was silent blissful alone time for thinking. I may have killed my hands and my back, but it was definately worth it. And in the meantime...I really enjoyed Mr. T's company a lot. We talked intellectual and had tea twice ("forced breaks. I insist.") and he bought me a muffin. The kitchen itself was also not that bad of a job for the $70 I earned for it. And by not bad, I don't mean that it wasn't dirty-- it made up for the years old grime by just being interesting. He has a carpet bug infestation (he's in utter denial of it, like he has selective hearing about the word "infestation", and convinces himself constantly that they're just common drosphila), and so I sat there for most of the time pontificating on the cycles of insect infestations, and how they even start, and the reasons why. Well, in between sorting out to myself what all happened last night. I've really been going overboard on the livejournal aspects of things lately, I realized. Even moreso, I've been worrying about things that I can't really improve or alter past one day at a time. And...definately lost track of whose life I'm supposed to be living. At the same time....there is great comfort in the knowlege that even if it is impossible to ever vocalize how I'm truly feeling about something to another person, I can cry while listening to terribly sad music on repeat, then, laugh at myself for being a booger covered moron, go to sleep and discover all my common sense in the morning.  ¶ 1:51 AM 1 comments

  Keeping cool I realized today that it is too easy to pretend everything is "a-ok" on the internets, when you are a blogger. I've also realized that I've become pretty much incapable of telling anyone how I'm truly doing. So blog, you get the brunt of it, that is to say, that it isn't cool. Things have not been cool in me-land for a long time and it all just sort of came to a head tonight. Pretty stupid actually, that I would have a mental breakdown on the first day of the summer session that basically means, "yes, you are finishing this fucking awful degree, even if it kills you. In fact, you will continue to do everything you've been doing up until now, even if it kills you, because there is no other alternative."

"You are the wrong shape and size for this puzzle Will Robinson. Now you shall die."  ¶ 12:21 AM 0 comments

  I generally feel like doing nothing right now, but it doesn't stop me The last few days have been reminiscent of a ....[insert weird nature/hippy analogy here], and things are on the up and up. As most know by now, the boy and I have re-negotiated our relationship to that of friends, which is good, because he is one of my best friends and always will be. There is still some talk of me going to Alaska at the end of August, but I'm realizing that this is not financially viable, which is unfortunate. I do need a vacation though, definately, and not just one from my mind.

Otherwise...I work, I sleep, I eat, and really have not a lot to look forward to. I set up a scavenger hunt for my co-worker's son today in the building though, which was sort of fun, and involved me parting ways with a lot of my childhood "toys". By "toys" I mean collectible and highly detailed/crafted collection of insects, amphibians, reptiles, bats, and arachnids. I knew I'd have to get rid of them eventually, but I still sorted through them and kept the best ones for myself and future me-generations. The scavenger hunt didn't take very long, but the booty was vast, and I watched him pore over them the same way I did when I was his age.

I recently got trained in the Copy and Print center at Geek Palace- lots of things to learn, and ultimately more fun and challenging than customer service. And time passes more quickly. I've been finding myself doing a lot of stand in a la computer section as well, which is fun, because I actually get to share the knowlege of technology that I have accumulated and make "ronin ninja" sales. I keep sort of pestering to be allowed into computer sales, but they like having the men there, plus, they dangled the carrot of print and copy.

Shakespeare in the park last night was also a ton of fun. I realized I'd forgotten a lot of reasons why Hamlet was the most problematic Shakespeare play (alternatively, the most interesting) until last night. Memento mori! It was really nice to have the whole thing outside too.

Right now....it is muggy. And I am blah because it is muggy. The air is so vapourous that it is condensing on everything. And our ceiling is leaking in the hallway. That's fucking awesome.  ¶ 4:18 PM 1 comments

  Day 7 of utter self-destruction Ok. So I'm a walking wreck. I'm dehydrated and basically all the fluids have been replaced by toxins or other substances. What have we learned? The pain is not going the fuck away. So, tomorrow I clean up. And sleep. Merciful unaltered and unfreakish sleep.  ¶ 2:04 AM 0 comments