Another Day Another Dollar.

Today was eventful, and it's not even half over. But first I shall cover the preceding week.

As posted below the required material for my computer's elective surgery arrived and were subsequently employed to good effect. With the replacing of my motherboard, CPU and RAM the performance of my computer has improved as follows: 200% additional sexy, 300% additional awesome and (if I've done my figures correctly) over 1000% of my daily recommended rock. Total price (including a new Power supply to keep up with the additional sexy) just shy of $400.

The other day I applied to be a substitute teacher in the Ann Arbor public schools. I thought that there might be somesort of review or selection process but the secretary at the administrative building made it seem like all I had to do was show up at orientation and I'd be allowed unfettered access to impressionable young minds. So long as I brought a current set of fingerprints.

I should also keep applying for 'real' work. If only because once the month ends I really can't in good conscience list my employment as July-current. I might get a job in the same lab my sister works at, we'll see.

Yoga this morning was slightly hampered by the 4 slices of unexpelled pepperoni pizza I enjoyed last night in a certain familiar state of altered consciousness. I was so worried about them...impeding my asanas, I also had a bowl of raisin bran this morning in the hopes of encouraging them be rid of me. No dice. It made me view the practice in a new and interesting manner. And I'm glad we didn't do any inverted poses.

Shortly afterwards I went to the library book sale, which is having it's big winter sell off this weekend. Today I purchases How Good Do We have to Be, Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, Lolita, My Antonia, The Best American Short stories-1998, Fifty Major philosophers, Emma, and Madame Bovary. and all for the low low price of 4 US dollars. Tomorrow is even more promising, as for that same price you are given a large, brown, paper bag which you can then fill with whatever it is that catches your eye.

Afterwards I lunched in the Cafe Felix to unwind and examine my purchases. Perhaps over this preceding week I'd built up somewhat unrealistic expectations of the place. Still whatever I hoped to find, the place came up lacking in every respect. The booth was torn and lacked certain supporting strings. The decor was pleasant but threadbare. The bathroom smelled of raspberries which I was thankful for as I unleashed my cramped and urgent burden. The service was nice but unenthusiastic, and the strawberry and banana crepe with nutella spread I selected felt burdensome to finish. The coffee tasted watery. Total price: $10 with tip, or 20 books.

Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I look forward to reading all of it, and I fear I must restrain my time on the computer or I'll have another sore and teary eyed night from overexposure to awesome. Such is life.

Eeeeeeeeeeeee!

My hideous computer pieces have finally arived! Now to get to the getting on...

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Woah hey now

My new Yoga class is awesome, and I didn't realize how awesome it was until the very end of class today. That's when the strapping young man who teaches me and a half dozen women rubbed my neck and shoulders with some kind of minty icy-hot balm that stops soreness. It was really wonderful in that teacher/student I-wonder-if-he-like-likes-me kind of way. And my neck and shoulders feel great!

I visited another coffee shop and now I can definitly draw up a list of things I want

1. Nice ambience, with a comfy chairs.
2. Cermamic mugs.
3. Bagels
4.*

The Starbucks (baseline in this study) have so far only supplied 1 and 3 on the list, and sometimes not even 1. Sweetwaters (local place) has more potential, but suffers in that I think a former co-worker of mine might go there at some point. That's a totally stupid reason to avoid it, but I never claimed to be that smart. Espresso Royale (semi-local, the place I went today) was fine on all three counts but the whole time I was there I was wondering what it would be like if I had gone to Cafe Felix down the street. One day (maybe tomorrow!) that terrible knowledge will be mine.

This whole endevour of mine is starting to seem a bit too metaphorical for my tastes. But now I have no choice, science compells me.

Speaking of science, I'm preparing to gut and rebuild me computer. If I'm lucky I'll reformat half a hardrive after hours of work and several hundred dollars for an improvement that will last another 4 years at most. If I'm unlucky, two hardrives. The prospect fills me with fear, hope and sleepiness. Well the sleepiness is probably due more to the Yoga. Anyway, I order on Monday, only because I swore that I would think about it over the weekend.

...

*The 4th and final criteria is a high % of cute girls. Please don't tell anyone else.

The day so far.

A few quick vinyasanas this morning after I woke up which is good, but I slept in longer then I'd like which is bad. The weather was nice though so I went to get cash, margarine and a coffee at the grocery store. Starbucks is having a free coffee day, which is good. But it tasted like ass, which is bad. I drank most of it anyway-just to be sure-which is probably worse.

And now that I have the margarine I'm all ready to make cookies, which are delicious. Also, since Thom and Sam haven't been playing CoV I've not been playing it much myself. Camaraderie or somesuch. Thing is, I don't miss it much, which is interesting.

And that's that, at 2:13 pm January 19th. It's all right for now.

Edit: Well! The rest of the day turned out more interesting then I expected. Watched the movie Duma which was great, and then drank margarities from a leaky blender and whatever else was hanging around his house. Smoked a bit as well, and then when we (I, my friend, a half dozen of his roommates) were sufficiently impaired we all decided to make vegan chocolate chip cookies. It was a strange time.

A pleasant night indeed.

Damn it all

I had a longish post ready to go to push the pic below down a bit so's not to take up so much of the real eastate. And then Firefox crashed, lost the whole thing. That's a first. Perhaps I'll take a more serious look at that 'Save as Draft' button.

I won't retype but the gist of it was I submitted to job apps today and am ambivalent about the possibilities they hold.

The other bit was about this young woman. As it turns out she is a fellow alumni of Community High School in Ann Arbor. This knowledge has left me feeling a much more personal fear then I have before in these situations.

End communication.

Murderful: A combination of Murderous and Wonderful

If you have to ask, you don't need to know.

A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!

I find myself as one might expect with much more free time on my hands these days then I am accustomed to. Like all commodities, having more of it, I value it less. That needs to change. And so a provisional plan of how to fill up my days with more than enough crap to keep me occupied.

1. Awake! Like a vampire but with more string music. And also in the daylight. Early daylight if possible, but I'll settle for before 10. Except on Saturdays (see below).
2. Yoga. Perhaps not everyday at first, but this time before breakfast or a shower is ideal. Needn't be a long practice, but enough to get limber and sweaty.
3. Food-I need it to live!
4. Showar-I need it to live (in polite society)!
5. Two possibilities A) On a day with pleasant weather I'll walk 20 minutes into town to continue my plan of visiting every cafe, coffee shop, and espresso machine in Ann Arbor. At the rate of one a day I should be done in ~3 years. B) With rain, snow, sleet, hail, slush, or whathaveyou putter about the house doing odd chores, cleaning or preparing something for dinner.
6. Lunch.
7. Read something of nominal usefulness. Books on science, or social issues, or somesuch from the realm of nonfiction. Maybe something I missed out on from avoiding so many English classes.
8. Job searching-either from the computer at home or on foot in the city. Also graduate programs, just in case there's one that catches the eye.
9. Dinner.
10. Waste time! Not so long that the eyes rot from the skull but relaxation and escapism has it's place.
11. Brush teeth, read a book fall asleep. Shoot for around 1AM, or earlier if it's a boring book.

I've started a new Yoga class that meets Saturdays at 9:15, and has so far left me feeling sweaty sore and a bit lightheaded. Of course I've signed up for the whole winter term. It's called spirited yoga and for now is more focused on the physical side of the adjective then the spiritual. I like the instructor, he reminds me of a young James for anyone who's taken a dance class at Allegheny.

I've also received a notice from a friend of mine about a research assistantship at Mass. General hospital in their Bipolar clinic. It's a bit of a switch for me but I'm going to put an application together. It would be nice to look at neuroscience from the human side of things. And also nice to work in Boston. We'll see.

I'm just a brightside kind of guy

I am looking forward to sleeping in again.

Mysteries!

Yesterday managed to solve a couple niggling questions I'd had. The first was early in the evening: Playing City of Villains is very hard with an unstable connection!

The second was after I drove off to watch Firefly at a friends house: The secret to good margaritas is adding more Ceurvo!

The third and fourth were solved simultaneously at a party I went to at a different friends house. Why has he been to busy to hang out with me lately? And then, why didn't that Maggie girl ever call me back?

Yes, yes I'm afraid so. Once again I remain in a state of barely perturbed equaninamity. Ok that's a lie, but only because of mystery number five: The secret to a troublesome headache in the morning is mixing beer margaritas and whiskey. Still I'm happy to know that anyone is happy in this crazy mixed up place we call the world. And if they're two cool people I happen to know, all the better.

That's all what's new from the mystery machine. Zoiks!

So

Now that I've told my parents I might as well tell anyone who doesn't play City of Villains. Boss lady informed me on Tuesday that for a number of well founded reasons she would not be extending me a permanent contract after my probation period ended on January 31st.

Me: Huh, you've uh made up your mind then?

Her: Yes Tom I'm afraid so and, (science science, mistake of mine, more science) so...

Me: Yeah, huh.

So that left me feeling fairly sad. I don't know about you but feeling sad is no fun for me, so I thought I'd share with you how I managed to feel better. First I browsed the internet for a while until I found this picture. And looking at it made me smile. Then I searched some more and found this one too. And then I just left both of them open and flipped back and forth for a while. That made me if not exactly happy, then a whole lot less sad. Then I came across another picture all together the opposite of the two above. At first it shocked me, and then it made me feel pretty horrible. I'll link to it, with the caption that I found on the BBC website.

...Casualties on all sides continued to rise, with over 2,000 US soldiers having now lost their lives in Iraq. Many Iraqi lives have also been shattered, including this young girl whose parents died when their family car came under fire from US forces in Tal Afar.

I won't comment on that, it rather speaks for itself. But I will say that after a few minutes of thinking and flipping back and forth between the first two pictures I realized that, yeah, what's happening to me is pretty bad, but fucking shit, compared to probably 99% of the human population I have a perfect life. Even without a job.

So if your curious, that's where I'm at right now. Also talking with my Mom helped a lot since, oddly enough, as I've gotten older her advice has become much more sensible. We'll see what the next few weeks bring. Feel free to comment, like my brother did when I told him about this.

Sean: Wait, you were doing that at work? No wonder they fired you.

Sensitive lad. The only other big news is that I've shaved and now I can feel my chin for the first time in over a year. And let me tell you, it feels wonderful. Mmmm.

Yesssssss

Well as New Year's go, this past one was unmmemorable. By which I mean, I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what it was I did. But it was fun, good good fun.

And oh god the vomit.