cyber-maiming

i have weekend travel stories to share but first let me get this "meme" out of the way because a certain ninny is getting antsy.

Here is how it works: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog with their 7 things as well as these rules. You need to tag 7 others and list their names on your blog. Remember to leave a comment for them letting them know they have been tagged and to read your blog.

i agree with the one who memed me, forget tagging 7 people, i'm going with the 2 who won't hate me for tagging them.

let the meme-ing begin:

1 - i have a constant fear of internet surveillance. even as i type this i think there may be some "blogspot" red alert on the server and there will be a knock at the door to my office cave

2 - i have an irrational passion for peanut butter, clif bars, and coffeeshopgirl. specifically, peanut toffee clif bars consumed with free coffee from the girl.

3 - i just finished reading Boomsday and have once again been reminded of my political ignorance.

4 - i listen to Iron & Wine's "Faded From Winter" at least once a day... on days that i go to my office job, this number may reach as high as 7.

5 - i've almost perfected the art of self sabatoge. when i'm done, i'm going to write a book detailing the process. expect it to be published in 12 years when i'm done freaking out about how much of a failure it will be.

6 - my father and i are freakishly similar in feature, gesture, and temperament and polar opposites in our ideas of what is socially acceptable.

7 - on crisp fall days i miss the coffeeshop in my college town (and the usual suspects that loafed around with me). to combat (and by that i mean: augment) the nostalgia, i play "faded from winter" again.

and now to spread the misery! tag, you're it:

jo or dave
coffeeshopgirl

a veritable hooligan

5:30 is apparently the magic number for the week. they've changed tactics... the fat one waits in the kitchen by the food bowl and the wiley one makes rounds across the pillows, past coffeeshopgirl, pausing at the foot of the bed to knead and scratch at the comforter, and then back up to my shoulders... pretends to relax, drools a little and then, just when my muscles are no longer tensed to grab the squirt bottle, he leaps onto my pillow and frantically circles again.

yesterday was a long one. woke up feeling like someone had spent the night jabbing carrot sticks at my eyes, but my mood slowly picked up over breakfast, which was spent laughing with hannah and jim. (if you want design/illustration commentary check out his blog, but if you want a taste of the quippy jim i'm used to, you won't find much of it there). after brunch, we met up with a couple of other school friends for the great road bike search in Athens, GA. it turned out to be a huge failure, because Ben's Bikes was very CLOSED. it would have been nice of this Ben guy to put up a notice on his myspace page. or possibly a phone number with a recorded message?? at any rate, we got a taste of athens (lunch at the grit) and coffeeshopgirl hit the Love and Rockets jackpot in a comic book store. sadly, i think this means a lot of mouthbreathing non responses for me while she makes her way through her wares.

today we fly to DC to celebrate my dad's 50th and have a few a coffee dates. my interest in the party is lackluster at best because of a recent email exchange in which my dad related my labret piercing to sliminess and politely "requested" that i remove the piercing for his party. i'd like to believe he has my best interest in mind when he expresses his complete lack of understanding as to why i would want to impress upon people that i walk with the scum of the earth. somehow i think it has more to do with his embarrassment and less to do with my reputation or living a hard knock life. i'm already a big homo that gets gender-assessed and gawked at on a regular basis. how is a little bit of metal going to make things any worse? maybe coffeeshopgirl and i will make out in the middle of the party to account for my piercing concession.

knocked out

it's been a day of movies, notecards, and woodblock painting (coffeeshopgirl's schoolbreak obsession). oh, and an hour long walk around the neighborhood. today's route included the creepy mannequin house. i didn't zoom in on the mannequins all the way because i wanted to get the red paper lamps in the shot, but you get the idea. it's an upstairs window in an otherwise beautiful victorian house.

on a gay side note, this was the first thing i saw when we got back from walking. why can't they do that at 5:30 in the morning??

we went to see "knocked up" over the weekend. well, i should say, we tried to see knocked up, but our plans got railroaded by a couple of extremely rude people that wouldn't move over ONE SEAT. i wasn't there for the encounter (standing in line for overpriced soda with my brother), but i did see the aftermath, which included a very angry isabel and a tearful coffeeshopgirl. having already purchased tickets, we decided to salvage the evening by watching Ocean's 13 instead of waiting 2 hours in a ritzy asshole mall for the next showing of knocked up. there was talk of spilling soda all over the Hag, but the satisfaction would probably have been short-lived in our world of tort. as coincidence would have it, we kept running into the buckfuck* silicone hag and her impotent companion all the way back to the parking deck.

things that make me sweat:
- coffee in the summer
- georgia humidity with single pained leaky windows
- thinking about interviewing for massage jobs
- coffee in the winter
- meeting new people
- indian food

*buckfuck = buckhead, a particularly blonde and affluent neighborhood in atlanta

have a coke and a smile

the whelming continues... was completely unproductive on the studying front yesterday, but coffeeshopgirl and i did brave the world of coca-cola. sensory overload doesn't even begin to describe the exhibits. i kept waiting to be accosted by oompa-loompas sporting head to toe coke garb. the highlight of the trip was a 9 minute 4-D movie, complete with squirting water, whooshing air, moving seats, and a dig in the back timed with a couple of pesky dragonflies flying at our faces. we were surrounded by kids (i figured they're short, so it would be wise to sit behind them), which of course heightened the scream/laugh factor. by the time we exited through the gift shop (tricky how they route you through their wares after they've weakened your reserve with sugary samples of international coke products) i felt like i had sold my soul coca-cola.

our foray into the cult of coke was preceded by breakfast at thumb's up. good company and fantastic biscuits. even the coffee passes muster, which is saying a lot for restaurant coffee.

back to that studying thing...

spicy salmon for 2

chocolate and sushi are essential for combatting brain atrophy... i've also heard that harry potter stimulates action potential, so i'm doing my best to fully embrace the theory by watching the movies while studying for the nationals.

i've started 2 different books in the last week and i can't say that i care for either one. coincidentally, they're both lawyer-centric: No Way to Treat a First Lady and A Man in Full. First Lady is relatively amusing, but the pace is annoying, and i'm not convinced enough to care about what's happening. Man in Full is riddled with exclamation points, which is so irritating that i can't make myself focus on the buildup.

okay, fine, i could try to hide my geek flag, but it takes too much energy. the real problem (besides the exclamation points) is that neither of these books can hold a candle to the impending harry potter. i admit nothing in the way of fanatacism. i'm simply waiting on the edge of my cat littered couch to see what rowling will do next.

and now back to memorizing the attachments for head and neck muscles...

flash over substance

here's a haiku that coffeeshopgirl and i wrote for the friends who were in summer wedding #1 (and are now working their way through India's circus of stomach troubles). the first version is mine and the alternate version is coffeeshopgirl's. you can imagine which one i prefer...

excrement is key
to a long lasting marriage
you're both full of it

::alternate::
excrement is key
to a long lasting marriage
buy stock in pepto

morning drive observation: there was a guy walking on the streets of buckhead wearing duckhead (shorts).

and now back to being industrious at octane

BYO-OT (oxygen tank)

every time i walk up the back steps of the hospital there are smokers perched along the low brick wall that runs the length of the lawn. what better way to relax after visiting your dying uncle than to light up? hopefully some of the wall flowers have the sense to return their uncle's lighter so that when he gets wheeled out to the same back patio, he too can enjoy a smoke. can't say i'm envious of him though... it must be hard to get a satisfying pull with a tube up your nose and your hospital gown flapping in the breeze.

i sent a personal entry to a magazine back in february, and it may or may not be in next month's edition. will get back to you when the mail finally comes through. i think about writing constantly, sometimes even fondly, but i'm such a weenie when it comes to exposure. maybe i can find a surrogate who will promote my work with gusto. what i mean to say is, maybe one day i'll figure out how to stop being such a coward. socially and intellectually.

the neighbor across the way has a new puppy. some sort of lab mutt that has recently started competing for the air waves with the other dog in the apartment (previously thought to be mute). we've got our own canine percussion section, complete with syncopation and unexpected rests. somehow i don't think they take requests.

revenge of the massage nerds

watching the food network at 5:15 in the afternoon is never a good idea. luckily ,it's the ice cream throwdown, so i'm only half interested. if it were the burger throwdown, i'd have a harder time avoiding my latent carnivorous ways to write something about nothing. you have to wonder how much food gets wasted on cooking shows...

my world is full of 3x5 notecards. white. lined. mountains of them. and i'm only a 1/4 of the way through the study guide. why study when it's just touching people? licensing, and certifications oh my. i found this during my morning cup of coffee. i'm so excited. i can test myself until the cows come home. and then i can test the cows until they run away.

the living room exploded and the cats are swarming. coffeeshopgirl is painting somewhere across the room under a pile of 11x17 watercolor paper and plexi glass. i'm only going to start worrying when I can't hear the swish and clatter of her paintbrush in the water cup.

..time to go outside and get some much needed exercise. we spent all of yesterday in the apartment being wholesomely productive and have since turned into caged animals.