For a long time... She flew only when she knew no one was watching.

Happy Thursday everybody. Today is my day off, and normally I'm still asleep. Today though, I got up early and took my truck in for service, FINALLY. It's been so neglected this year. I feel bad. But hopefully they'll be able to get everything tuned up and working better. I haven't had air conditioner in over a year and I honestly can't remember the last time I got the oil changed. Part of that has been money, part has been lack of time to get it done, part has just been not being smart enough to learn the beauty of preventative maintenance. I never used to be this bad but I just had a lapse this last year. A guy from Jay & Dean's Auto/Body came in to the clinic last month and was doing a special, in a bid to get more customers to the shop, a full year of maintenance, something like $1000 worth of services, for $50. Of course certain materials will be extra but c'mon, what's an oil change cost these days? 30 bucks? And to get your transmission checked and flushed, aircon charged, these things cost some serious bank because of labor. So I took advantage of the deal for the first time today, we'll see what happens.

I was thinking, I know they make a "trainer" device for a bike, so that you can ride your road bike as a stationary in your home, and not have to worry about riding at night or in bad weather. Anybody know how good they are, know of any brands they recommend, or even if you recommend using them at all? I'd love to be able to ride my bike daily but I don't feel comfortable riding at night, and as my work sched would allow it, I leave when it's dark and come home when it's dark. So instead of dropping a ton of cash on an exercise machine, I thought it might be useful to have some kind of in-home training device. If anybody has any advice, please direct it my way.

I think I'm going to ride my bike up and get a croissant from the coffee shop. Nevermind, it just started fuckin' RAINING. Grrr.

I don't know what prompted me to do this. DJ, as some of you know, has a Wacom tablet, that unfortunately doesn't get much use. It's hooked up to the mac since the mac has more graphics programs and memory on it, and so recently I started playing with it, to see how it feels, and just to doodle when I'm bored. After a couple of failed attempts at actually drawing something intentional, I made a couple funny marks on a blank screen and ( Collapse )

I didn't really have a reason to be drawing such a depressing image, but I fiddled with it here and there with no rhyme or reason... and them once I reached the face I kinda left it for a while. I'm not good at drawing anything, much less a face, so I didn't want to get frustrated and scrap the whole thing.

So tonight I was talking to one of my two friends that are having problems and after listening to him vent a while I just felt so sad for the both of them and I looked over at my desktop and saw the little icon sitting there and thought, "Wow, now I have a reason to finish her." So I did. please don't mind the face. I was going for a frost-bitten, determined grimace, but wound up with a 14 year old's wanna-be-anime skill. Can't win 'em all, right?

::edit:: DJ told me early on when I first started this that it reminded him of Craig Thompson's "Blankets" - Of course that's before the face >.< hehe. ::PROUD::

First and foremost, welcome to all my new friends - Enjoy the ride.

Secondly, my two dear friends are working out their troubles and seem to be a little bit better after some mediation. Nevermind.

Thirdly, to absinthetic, sorry I missed you at Ruby Tuesday, hun, I didn't know you were still playing there. I thought it was a temporary thing through like December. We'll see you at Project Abe though! Lemme know if I need to bring anything.

...Uh... Fourth-ly?... I have had the weirdest two days ever. My main doctor that I work (for those of you new to the crowd, I work in the veterinary industry) with just got back Sunday from ten days out in Colorado, skiing with his family. He came back with a horrible nasty ugly read-me-my-last-rites case of the Flu. Seriously, they took him to the hospital, thinking he had pneumonia, had a high fever, delirious, trouble breathing, heart palpitations, the whole bit. Him being diabetic doesn't help either. So, naturally, he's spent the last two days in bed, which has made for an interesting scheduling fiasco at work. We had to reschedule 75% of his appointments, which just opened up more space for other people to bring what they thought were emergencies in, all day yesterday. In the midst of all of the commotion, one of our receptionists went to lunch only to come back to find her dog had collapsed. Being as she's 9 years old and has severe liver disease, it was a dire emergency. Then, around 3, a woman came in with her Portugese Water Dog who'd just come from a week of boarding. During boarding, the dog ingested a large rock, as PWDs are want to do. They're trash compactors on four legs, basically. So they had to do an emergency exploratory laparatomy to find the stone he'd eaten and get him back on the road. That took our doctor count down to 1, and our tech count down to 2 for the rest of the day. The remainder of the day went alright, at work.

Going home, I had to make a delivery at a client's house, as I do from time to time for special clients, and then was going to meet DJ at dinner. As my life would have it, I wound up getting stuck in traffic on the interstate. Over NOTHING. Don't you just LOVE it when traffic slows to a CRAWL at SIX-O'-FUCKING-CLOCK and there's no fucking reason for it?? *fumes* *remembers she lives in florida* *gets over it*

Anyway so I made my drop, and then went down to dinner. Now, before I continue, I have to explain that we (dj and i) have been going to Monty's Pizza for about a year and a half, faithfully, every monday night for their monday pasta special. The owners and staff know us very well - and by well I mean they know what we have every time, what we drink, where we prefer to sit, and what we do in our lives. Randy, the co-owner, has his parents into the restaurant pretty regularly and so even they know us pretty well. Got all that? Here we go. I walk into Monty's, and the girl working the counter gets all excited "She's here! She's here!" My first reaction is, WTF? Then she explains to me that DJ's been waiting patiently for me while the entire staff, Randy and Cindy (his wife, co-owner), Gina, Pablo, AND Randy's mom, they all asked DJ where I was at. So I got to the table he was waiting at after a lot of fanfaire - to discover that DJ finally got fed up with repeating himself, and had fished a piece of paper out of his moleskien sketchbook and wrote "She's in TRAFFIC - the boyfriend". I just had to laugh. It was cute.

Today I went into work to another interesting scheduling day, but thankfully no emergencies, except that Kathy, the receptionist, did bring her pooch back in to be put to sleep :( It was really slow today so I didn't do much in the office. I did get sent on an errand to pick up a dog which I found out later had a splenic mass and had to be euthanized as well - not a good day there. Doctor H was still sick and sounded awful on the phone so I'm really hoping he's not back tomorrow. I don't trust that he's well enough and I don't want to get the Flu on top of having chronic sinus problems. My head would explode. It would be a mess. It would be very, very bad.

Tonight though, was a different story. I went to the new fish market to get some shrimp so I could make pasta. No problems there. Went into the grocer and got the remainder of my shopping list. No problems there. However I got home and that's when the fun really started. First, every dish I needed to cook with needed to be washed - my frying pan, my large cook pot, and every utensil I needed was in the sink. So DJ was kind and wonderful enough to wash them for me. I started cooking and got going along when I went to add some wine to the shrimp I was cooking and couldn't get the fucking cork out of the bottle. It was a brand new bottle of Yellowtail Chardonnay, not the best on the shelf, but good to cook with, and I was about to the point where I was ready to smash the goddamn thing open just to get out the stuff I needed to cook with. I fought with that fucking bottle for TEN MINUTES, almost gave myself a hernia, but finally prevailed. Then, when the pasta was done, I put the strainer in the sink and went to dump the pasta in, when I miscalculated my aim and the pasta went into the sink instead of into the strainer. In my surprise, I sizzled part of my arm on the bottom of the pasta pot. Thankfully I managed to salvage enough of the pasta to have dinner, but not without my share of battle scars. Dinner was good, but it came with a price - we watched TV and ate dinner and I sat on the couch with an ice pack under my scalded arm, which I realized after a while was probably getting frostbitten.

That brings me to now - it's taken me the better part of an hour to write this post but I finally managed. Whew! And I didn't LJ-Cut one damn bit of it. Because I didn't feel like it. Deal! ;)

*yawn* Soooo going to bed now. All this LJ business has worn me out. I'm not used to this writing thing anymore. Cheers.

Two of my best friends are having a private battle between each other, and it's grating at their relationship. I won't go into the who-what-why except to say that I've lived their battle before and I hope for their sake that they come to an agreement somewhere, sometime. I love these guys to pieces, they're my extended family, and it would break my heart to see either one of them hurting, especially if it's because of the other party, in any capacity. I've tried to play counselor to them, listen to their venting and rants and calmly play the messenger and put the point across to the other person without all the craziness, and to a point it has worked. The mini-battles that have arose in the past few months have been cooled off easily. But this, I honestly don't know how much more I can help.

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In hindsight I know I was being an obsessive compulsive asshole. I almost wish I could go back, having the mentality I have now, and do it over again, however all the stress and pain we've both been through, emotionally and physically, wouldn't be worth it. Two years later I'm happy, content, open-minded, and we've got a strong relationship.

For my friends, I love you guys. Please if you don't listen to each other, listen to me, and heed my words. I can only hope that you both come to an understanding of where the other is coming from, and realize that what you have is a good thing, and that once you sort through all the bullshit, you have an incredible love building together... this distance that separates you is temporary, and you're blessed to have the time and technology to communicate. You can see each other nightly, you can hear each other's voices, just because you can't touch isn't the end of the world. As long as you keep all lines of communication open, both now and in the future when you're together in person for good, these problems won't be problems at all. But you have got to be open with each other, you have got to listen to each other and talk to each other and let your other half know how you feel, what you're thinking. If there's a problem, if there's a concern, if there's a question, if there's a shadow of doubt, it needs to be out on the table right away, because if you let it simmer and fester in your gut, it's going to blow up into a problem a million times worse. I wish you all the best in this hard journey and may you rediscover your happiness soon.

I think this is the first time I've used a downloaded client to update my LJ... Let's see how it works, shall we?

I downloaded iJournal in a fit of absolute boredom. If anybody has any better suggestions for a mac-based LJ Client, lemme know. Otherwise, this one works for me.

So it's saturday. I went and rode my bike today, which felt good. This morning the sun was out full-force, but the breeze was cool so it worked out nicely. I just rode down to the end of Lakewood Ranch boulevard and back around to Market Street, so not a long ride, but on my way back around to Lakewood Ranch blvd. I decided to ride around the new set of shops that's opened up recently. Man, what a cool little shopping center. There's a new fish market that just opened yesterday, and a beautiful and cozy new coffee shoppe. I went into the coffee shop first and got a croissant and a smoothie, parked my bike for a few minutes to take a break, and wandered over to the fish market. What a sweet shop! I'm such a foodie it's pathetic and so when I find a good high-quality market, I get really excited. I walked in and everybody was really happy and polite and helpful, really jumped at the chance to help me and make sure I didn't need help with anything. They were very informative about their products, and I even got to sample a few things. Then I walked to the OTHER side of the shop, where I was pointed to the sushi stand. Ohhhhhhh I found heaven right there. This guy really knew his stuff, showed me a full menu with some standard stuff and then a list of his own creations. So we got to talking and I mentioned that I really love really fresh tuna and so while we were chit-chatting, he made me a hand-roll with tuna and wasabe to sample. First of all, the slice of tuna on this roll was insanely generous. It was pretty, profesionally cut, good color, cold from the cooler, and fresh off the boat. We're talking PREMIUM grade-A fish. The rice was sticky but sweet and not gummy and overcooked. The soy sauce was a brand I've never heard of but it was smooth - not bitter and overly salty like that Kikkoman shit. The total package was unbelievably good. The rolls on the menu are a little pricey but if the roll I had was any indication of the rest of his wares, it'll be well worth every red cent I ever spend on that place.

Well, after my sushi experience I just HAD to get some fish, so I got two nice pieces of grouper out of the case, portion-cut, got to the checkout counter, and realized I didn't have my credit card on me. I thought I'd grabbed it, and apparently all I grabbed was my I.D. >.< d'oh! So I had to ride all the way back home to get it, then go back to the shop. It wasn't that bad, except that the wind I'd been riding INTO on the way out, had changed directions, and so I was riding INTO it all the way home. Suck! I didn't do too bad though.

The rest of the day has been spent just sittin around doing nothing. DJ and I watched Return of the King, the super-mega-hyper-extended-make-my-ass-fall-asleep edition, and made cracks about all the characters. It was good times.

And now here I am.

I think I'm gonna go make dinner with those lovely (expensive) cuts of fish I just got. mmmmm, yummy.

Stolen from everybody.

If you read this, even if i don't speak to you often, you must post a memory of me.
It can be anything you want, it can be good or bad, just so long as it happened.
Then post this to your journal. See what people remember about you....

For the past couple years I've been a fan of a fabulous comedian by the name of Stephen Lynch. Some of you know who he is. For those that don't, he's a kind-faced, sweet-voiced boy from Michigan, who, with his guitar in hand, spins the most vicious, crude, twisted, hilarious songs known to the music and comedy communities combined. He doesn't hold back for anything. Lynch has songs about killing kittens, molesting altar boys, hermaphrodites, gerbil-love, and other such craziness. If you have an open mind and a twisted sense of humor, you'll love his stuff, trust me. Otherwise, disregard this livejournal entry. I first saw his stuff on Comedy Central, where it was just him and his guitar. Since then I've heard stuff from him both live and from the studio, as well as performances with fellow comedians, but primarily he performs with his brother, Drew, and his best friend, Mark Teich (Tyke). Unfortunately I always miss them when they come to Florida, but that'll change eventually.

Anyway so Stephen & Co. recently released a DVD of a performance at the El Rey theater in L.A. from last year, and I can NOT stop watching it. I've probably listened to every song (including the bonus features) at least four times since we got the damn thing last week. Just when you think you've heard everything, they get on stage and start improvising. My sides still split. The bonus features on the DVD include two songs by Stephen's brother, Drew, in a sallow attempt to dupe the audience into thinking he (stephen) has pulled a random member from the audience to play and sing with him, and a song by Teich, which, I hate to say, is probably the funniest song on the entire DVD. It also has a home made road trip video featuring Steve and Teich, and a bunch of studio footage. If you've got a couple bucks to spare, please, go to Borders and get this DVD. It's beautiful.

All that setup leads me to the other day, thursday or friday, when I was bored and looking up info on Stephen & Co. I found a pretty informative fan site that included info on everybody, plus contact information. Teich's e-mail and AIM info were right there for the world to see so being the nutjob I am, I added him to my buddy list - 'cos hey, I love adding people to my buddy list.

Today, in what started as a fit of boredom, I decided to send him an IM, just a quickie, ass-kissing message. I didn't expect much more than a "thanks", so I just kinda went back to playing The Sims Online. Sure as I thought that, my window flashed with a really nice response, and what began something like a 20 minute conversation. It was awesome. Instead of being a total high-strung asshole and blowing me off, he was genuinely interested in who he was talking to, where I was from, what I do in life, didn't brag about himself or his affiliates, was just another dude on AIM. So that was one of the high points of my day.

It was of course stripped away by having to wait TWO MOTHERFUCKING HOURS to have a fucking pizza delivered. So to whom it may concern, I don't give a flying hell about who the fuck won whatever fucking game you morons were watching this weekend, but for future reference? Don't fucking order pizza on football night, get nachos, get hot wings, get something equivalent so that us normal people who just want a quick hot meal can have one! And if you do absolutely HAVE To order a pizza, for Christ sakes, call a place that has AMPLE DRIVERS!

Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.

On the bright side, I made friends with a semi-famous person. Happy day.

And with that, I say good night.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF:
» I committed suicide:
» I said I liked you:
» I kissed you:
» I lived next door to you:
» I started smoking:
» I stole something:
» I was hospitalized:
» I ran away from home:
» I got into a fight and you weren't there:

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MY:
» Personality:
» Eyes:
» Face:
» Hair:
» Clothes:
» Mannerisms:

WHAT ABOUT US:
» Who are you?
» Are we friends?
» When and how did we meet?
» How have I affected you?
» What do you think of me?
» What's the fondest memory you have of me?
» How long do you think we will be friends?
» Do you love me?
» Have I ever hurt you?
» Would you hug me?
» Would you kiss me?
» Do you have a crush on me?
» Are we close?
» Emotionally, what stands out?
» Do you wish I were cooler?
» On a scale of 1-10, how nice am I?
» Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
» Am I loveable?
» How long have you known me?
» Describe me in one word.
» What was your first impression?
» Do you still think that way about me now?
» What do you think my weakness is?
» Do you think I'll get married?
» What about me makes you happy?
» What about me makes you sad?
» What reminds you of me?
» What's something you would change about me?
» How well do you know me?
» Ever wanted to tell me something, but couldn't?
» Do you think I would kill someone?
» Are you going to put this on your journal and see what I say about you?

Another year has passed in my life. 23 doesn't feel much different from 22 or 21 or 20 or even 19 or 18. I haven't gained any other super abilities like buying cigarettes and alcohol and porn, or voting, or getting a hotel room without a guardian's signature. I haven't really become any more world-wise...at least I don't think I have. It's been a fun year though. Since turning 22 I held down a steady job, had another anniversary with DJ, got lots of fun new toys (ipod, new computers, etc), flew Stephanie down to visit me not once but TWICE, so it's been a fun year, even if not necessarily a mile-marker. So here's to me, 23 years on this earth and still kicking. Watch me as I make the trek to 24. :)

So today DJ presented me with his latest project for his History of Graphic Narrative class, which involves doing a graphic narrative of his own. And for my non-art-school friends here, I mean a comic strip. So DJ's adapting the project into his pre-existing brainchild, Drawing The Line. I won't talk about the storyline itself but what I do want to talk about is the fact that I discovered my artistic side today. DJ drew the first panel of the strip he's doing, and I got bored/curious so I told him to scan it for me. Being as I have Adobe Photoshop/Imageready and Illustrator on my mac, plus the Wacom tablet, I wanted to figure out how different it would be to "ink/trace" a comic frame on the computer versus using a micron pen. Bear this in mind, folks, I have not got a single visually artistic cell in my body. In my lineage, there have been some good artists. My mom went to art school and is a fantastic illustrator. My sister even got bitten by the bug. I'm the black sheep. But I try anyway, and once in a blue moon, the Gods smile upon me and allow me to create something from my hands that I can share with the world. Today was one of those days.

Under DJ's patient tutelage, I turned this ( Collapse )

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