I've seen a bunch of journals with these future-dated 'friends only' posts, and I think that's a really neat idea! Thing is, I don't have my journal friends-locked, and I don't plan on ever friends-locking it, so that's not a problem I really need a solution for.

I am, however, a very forgetful person, and often forget which LJ-name or net-handle matches which cherished friend/interesting person/new acquaintance. So here's what I'm doing: introduce yourself! I've done pages like this before, but they become outdated and I forget where I put them, and new people never see them. So, putting it here, at the top, where it can't be missed.

Who are you? How did you get here? If you're not going to friend me, feel free to comment anyway, like it's a guestbook. If you've already friended me, introduce yourself! Already done so? Certain I know you? Do it again! Like I said, I forget, and this will be the final copy, the last time I ask. I promise (I hope?).

So... hello! I'm Adam, and you are? :)

Apparently 'FIRE LANE - NO PARKING' doesn't apply if you're driving a giant bouncy castle. There are two of them set up in front of the nearby Walmart with the entire fire lane cordoned off with upturned shopping carts (right along that convenient red line). Not only is this highly illegal, it means that pedestrians such as myself walking to the far door have to walk in traffic instead of on the sidewalk.

That's not the ironic part.

They've also got a couple of folding tables set up under little tents, giving out cotton candy and snow cones for all of the kids who're drawn by the bouncy castles. On the central table is a poster showing what charity this is all for:

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
"Together we can find a cure!"

I actually LOL'd.

First day of classes was on the 24th, starting at 9am.

This proved troublesome, as Famous Dave's Amarillo location was opening at 11am and giving a year's supply of free ribs to the first fifty customers.

This means that I did not sleep the night before my first day; instead I was in a camping chair in front of a restaurant all night, with Garr. Turns out we could have shown up at 9am and still been within the margin of error. This surprised us because... FREE RIBS FOR A YEAR! From Famous Dave's, no less.

Fortunately they were good sports and gave me my certificate early so that I could go to class. Since it was just orientation of Acting 101, it ran short and I got back in time to see Dave himself make an appearance with the mayor (go ahead and guess which of these figures I recognized on sight) and cut the ceremonial ribbon, as well as the ceremonial ribs. I was officially the store's first customer, enjoying an All-American Feast with Garr and my dad, who also got free ribs for a year.

Then it was back to class, only to realize that the 'W' next to Freshman Composition (where all the other classes have 'MW') meant there was no class on mondays, and I had no need to hurry. American History 1 was fun; good, engaging teacher with a good sense of humour.

The only bad part is that I spent much of yesterday in agony due to a pinched nerve in my upper back. It ranged from 'oh right, ow' when I moved to moments of truly paralytic agony which locked up my entire torso. Upon waking today, however, I seem to be well, so. Yay.

I've been psyching myself (slowly) toward vegetarianism, free ribs for a year notwithstanding. When life settles down more, I've been telling myself, I'm going to take the hard look that I need to at the ethics of killing things to eat them. I was concerned about the health element of vegetarianism, particularly regarding protein and calcium intake, but those fears were assuaged, primarily by soy products.

Then griffen rolls up in my hood and tells me about glucagon and triglycerides and shit, and informs me that everything I know is wrong, that carbs are the devil and fat is king, and I say 'FFFFFUUUUUUUUU--'. I'm not taking it at face value, but it was enough to make me want to do the research. Research is pending, because life is full, but dammit. Just as I was getting myself okay with 'No more steak ever, but at least I still get cake and baked potatoes and chips and bread and...' now I'm looking at having to say 'I get to eat steak, but I can never have cake or baked potatoes or chips or bread or...' In the midst of this two-party schism there is, of course, a strong impulse from the middle-ground, the dietary liberalism lobby (also known as 'ME AM HUNGRY!'), to say 'Fuck them both, eat all of everything IN THE WORLD!' This platform is unique in that it is the most immediately satisfying in addition to being the only one which I know is wrong. So... fuck.

(The following ruminations are based upon the assumption (research pending) that the low/no-carb and high-protein/fat information Griff gave me is accurate.) In all the talk of triglycerides and the metabolizing (or lack thereof) of carbs, the phrase 'intelligent design' keeps coming to mind. Given true intelligence, one hundred percent accurate prescience, and even the barest shred of forethought, one would expect God to build bodies which could effectively run on anything, particularly on the foods which are so common now. Like a Mr. Fusion! Throw anything you like in, boom, powered up. Instead we're running on comparably ill-made gas engines; they run perfectly well on the intended fuel (dead animals and their fat), but put anything else in the tank and it falls apart.

Mind you, that's merely a criticism of the creationist argument; omnipotence plus omniscience should yield something better. As far as evolution goes, on the other hand, it's a testament that we're as flexible as we are. We don't just conk out like a gas car with a tank full of water if we don't eat a very specific one thing; our bodies have coping mechanisms and ways of making due with the materials at hand. Hell, even our failure to metabolize carbs as effectively as fats isn't an evolutionary failure; carb-heavy diets can easily bring an individual to the evolutionary finish line: reproduction. If you live long enough to fuck and make more of you, evolution has done its job. Think on that, ye atheists and science-minded folk; the principle in the universe which is our closest equivalent of a creator deity literally washes its hands of you the moment you're old enough to knock up or be knocked up, plus the span necessary for your brood to become self-sufficient. It's no wonder evolution doesn't care about diabetes; everyone over the age of 20 has already exceeded the manufacturer's warranty on their pancreas.

It occurred to me today in Acting that we are all, essentially, repurposed machines, and have the limitations thereof. We remember and are effected by negative incidents more powerfully than positive incidents because that is the way of survival ('That cat almost killed me.' weighs more heavily than 'Those berries were tasty.'). We make spurious associations because survival, rather than demographics, lead us to a value system in which false positives ('The fruit fell when I made the noise, so it must be the Fruit-Calling Noise.') are more rewarding or less detrimental than false negatives ('Surely that lion won't come back for a third day in a row.'). Human psychology is riddled with such vestigial tendencies and structures, and only in recognizing and accounting for them can we truly leave them in the past.

That's reprogramming, repurposing, like making an auto plant robot follow a new routine in order to manufacture bicycles instead of Buicks. What we do not (yet) have the capability for is rebuilding. We don't yet have the technology to make that AC robot run on direct current. For all the adaptable programming in our CPUs, we still have hardware built for killing mammoths and surviving winters. If all that Griff explained to me is true, then the prosaic 'I have teeth made for cutting meat, so I eat meat.' evolutionary argument gains a lot of credibility simply by going a few millimetres deeper and saying 'I have cells that need meat to continue running, so I eat meat.'

It is all, I suppose, food for thought.

Nothing in this world has a scornful glare quite like that of the ornate box turtle. I can't believe the spoiled little bitch doesn't like watermelon. Turtles can be incredibly expressive if you have the patience to watch the kabuki-esque pantomime.

It is fucking impossible to find the Joker's theme music from Batman: The Animated Series online. Every link ends up being either the Why So Serious stuff, or some guy playing it on his piano. I can't even get the series soundtrack off of Pirate Bay! All I want to do is hold my frelling phone up to my computer's speaker and grab it for a ringtone! >:(

I had a dream that I bought a huge sack of weed for a friend and was driving home with it when I got stopped for a 'random drug check'. Somehow I kept it hidden while the cop searched my car, then he said he'd 'escort me home'. I got home, went inside, stashed the pot, and suddenly the cop's knocking on my door. 'I figured I should check your home too.' While he's searching I get the pot, fake a stomach malady, and flush it all down the toilet.

I wake up to a text from Jeremy asking me to check the mail. I go out to the mailbox. Halfway there, I turn and see a cop about twenty feet away in front of the neighbor's house. Like, out of his car and looking at me. The whole dream comes crashing back, and I manage the Herculean task of neither screaming nor defecating. Fuuuuck. Bad wake-up.

I'm highly annoyed that the Eberron race I've wanted to play for years, the changeling, has such a stunningly small amount of support. One paragon path and four feats. Two of those feats are specific to divine classes (one is just Avengers), and the other two have nothing to do with actually being a changeling. They use shapeshifting to justify mechanical benefits (escaping grabs more quickly and rolling a save to turn a received crit into a regular hit) which are relatively minor and don't serve the changeling's natural trickster role. This pisses me off because I'm trying to design a changeling fey pact warlock trickster, and it's hard as hell not to notice how frelling uber the gnome's feat selection is by comparison. >:( They really need a Dragon focus article like so many other races are getting.

I need to get back to sleep. Going out to Do Stuff in three hours or so, and I've only slept for about five. ~_~;

...but I get to them eventually. As an honorary /b/tard I have, of course, lol'd at my share of macros. For the first time, though, I've actually pointed my browser at icanhascheezburger.com.

( Like a postcard from the grand canyon, I shall now inflict upon you the captions which I have wrought. )

Loud-mouthed asshole (and, I guess, author?) johncwright has deleted all of the comments made to his hateful screed. I have sent him a private message telling him what I think of this.  Because he is clearly askeer'd of dissenting opinions, I have hidden it behind the subject 'Your words...':


Yeah, I reused the line from my other reply as a kind of call-back, but the ignorant fuck probably didn't read anything that disagrees with him anyway.  Don't care.  Felt good, even if the dickhead never sees it.

So apparently johncwright, a science fiction author of whom I haven't heard, is a fairly standard nutball bigoted asshole.

I haven't replied to his post proper because better people have done a better job than I could already. I've made my presence known, though. When someone answered his claim that 'as a lawyer, I could not find a non-arbitrary distinction that set apart homosexuality from other forms of sexual deviance' by saying that 'If that's true, you're the dumbest lawyer I've ever encountered.' I helpfully pointed out that his legal practice went into bankruptcy years ago.

I answered one of his comments ('Promoting evil is so delicious, ain't it? All you have to do is pretend the good people are over-reacting. And to do that, all you have to do is ignore the last six decades of Western history.') directly:

I'm glad I wasn't a fan before this; it would've been demoralizing to realize that an author I enjoy is such a stupid fucking asshole.

EDIT TO ADD:

Apparently, I did have something more to say. I read through many of the comments and, finding myself staring at a blank comment field, ended up adding the following:

EDIT AGAIN TO ADD:

The son of a bitch just deleted the seven or eight pages of replies he'd received (the overwhelming majority of which being intelligent, rational condemnations of his bigotry), complete with a condescending notice of how we've failed as commenters to engage him reasonably and blah blah blah.  What a prick.  I'm glad I saved my contributions, because I hate losing even the most insignificant of my thoughts to someone else's petty caprice.

My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 5.19, Libertarian: 5.56

Political Spectrum Quiz

So about a month ago, our neighbor's dog died. He was left outside 24/7 in the hottest days of the Texas summer, when the temperature was in the 105 to 107 range, fahrenheit. We were afraid to start a feud by calling the authorities, since the neighbours could get us legally entangled in a way we simply couldn't afford. We don't know what killed him, but we know his life wasn't very good. The other dog they left out front was lucky enough to escape, and was taken in by the crackhouse at the end of the block. The owners know where it went and couldn't be buggered to go and get it. Why? They got shiny new dogs to replace them.

Pit bulls.

Now, I'm hesitant to judge any dog by its breed. I have a hard time believing that any type of dog is predisposed to violence, but I admit that I don't have a firm understanding of the genetic element of domestication. Maybe some breeds retain the wild sense that even domesticated, born-in-captivity lions and tigers have? I don't know.

Anyway, the brindle male and the red bitch showed up fully-grown and were very sweet, if rambunctious. Jacki made the guy next door promise they'd be inside dogs, which he was happy to agree to. Not for their well-being, of course, but because pit bulls are valuable and he wouldn't want his property stolen. Anyway, they were inside dogs for all of a couple of days, then their potty breaks started getting longer and longer. Within the first week, they were 24/7 outside dogs.

As they were sociable, they wanted to play with Jacki's husky, Kodiak, so badly that they'd bash their heads into the wooden fence and knock its slats off so they could come over into our yard. They did that three times, with us nailing the boards back up, until their owners chained each of them to a separate tree and left them out all day and all night.

Over the past couple of weeks, their demeanor has steadily changed. They used to whine and yip for attention when we walked past their gate. Of late, they either lay lethargically in the shade or, if they have the energy, growl. They've just been reaching the point where we're genuinely concerned and were considering anonymously reporting them to Animal Control.

Today they broke through the fence for the fourth time, this time to attack Kodiak. Kodiak is not a fighter. He had no idea what to do. He didn't bite back, he just tried desperately to get away. I heard the snarling and ran straight out to the back yard wearing nothing but a bathrobe. I had the split-second flash of the two options before me; go in and get my unarmed ass mauled, or stay at the gate and watch them kill Kodiak.

So I'm in there, uselessly yelling 'hey!' over and over again, and trying to shove our patio table in between them and Kodiak, but they wouldn't get off of him long enough for that, so I threw the table at them to absolutely no effect. My conscious brain managed to catch up with my instinctive flail and I pulled a leg off of the table (it's that hard-baked plastic kind; not much, but all I had) and began beating on the red bitch with it. She broke just as the leg did, fleeing as Jacki jumped in and tried to get the brindle male off of Kodiak.

Finally the neighbours who own the damned things showed up, one of them beating the dog with his belt until he let go of Kodiak, at which point they dragged both of them back into their yard. We got Kodiak inside and examined him. He's got some punctures and a couple of lacerations; one is shallow and several inches long, the other is deep and short. Peroxide has been applied, and he's not bleeding any more, but we're worried about the way he's limping. Also, I got a piece of the cuticle of my thumb ripped up pretty bad; I didn't notice when it happened, it was just like that when the fight was over.

We called Animal Control, and while we waited for them the woman who owns the dogs came over and said she'd taken them to the pound to be destroyed, and that she'd 'help' with any vet bills. Animal Control showed up, and it turns out that she'd dropped them off as strays rather than as hers in order to avoid paying for the drop-off. They received a further two citations for not controlling their animals, which will be destroyed immediately.

The bitch tried to tell Animal Control on us because Kodiak 'keeps going into their yard'. The only time Kodiak was in their yard is the time that their dog busted our fence and then their little bastard kids called Kodiak into their yard before we saw what had happened. Just the same, the AC officer said, our neighbour said that she intends to call Animal Control on him the next time he's in their yard. Apparently one of the guys at the neighbour's spit at Jacki when he saw her after that. Good people, huh? They're already talking about their next dog, too.

Sometimes the answer is to put the animal's owner down too. Fuck.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Ugh.


Still, I guess I can't fault it as a writer's block breaker because, check it out.


Yeah, I've been a bad blogger. Stuff going on all the time, so I feel kind of overstimulated, and some of the stuff going on is difficult. I must blog, though.

Jacki and I went to Roswell for our road trip instead of Boston, mostly for budgetary reasons (though not hearing back from thewinterfox didn't help; where are ya, man?). We had a lot of fun, but not because Roswell is cool. Man, it suuuuuucks. Shitty attractions, god-awful souvenirs, nothing to do. The coolest thing I did was get a tat with half of the birthday money my rents gave me. I wanted a crop circle glyph behind my ear, and Roswell seemed like the perfect place to do it. Couldn't find a good crop circle, though, so I killed two geek-birds with one stone; Doc Manhattan's hydrogen symbol, in 'freckle brown', to look like a mysterious organic brand. I'll post pics once it's descabbified.

After Roswell we drove down to Carlsbad to see the caverns, which was frelling awesome. I need to bring my D&D players so they have good imagination fodder for our next trip to the Underdark.

From Roswell to Carlsbad, we were stuck in a horrible storm, which played hell with Jacki's fibromyalgia and made driving at night an absolute bastard. It got worse when we got to Carlsbad; it was flooded at several points and at one point we had zero tires on the road as momentum carried our little Scion through the water. I shit you not, the street we were floating down was called Canal Street.

We stopped at a hotel, Executive Suites and Hotels, and asked the Indian guy at the counter how much for a room with a king bed. $135, but it has one of those huge jacuzzi tubs. I used the rest of my birthday money to make it happen, and DAMN, was that worth it! We were cold and wet and needed some cuddlin', and that tub was a dream. We seriously want one someday.

Jacki asked the Indian guy ("Robert" my ass) if there were any restaurants of his nationality about. Nope, nearest was two hours away in El Paso. I asked about vegetarian food, and he lit up. 'You're vegetarian?!' 'Actually, I'm a vegan.' (said Jacki) 'Oh, wow! You're one step up from us! We are vegetarians!' With that, Robert ushered us into the dining room, which was closed, and had his wife make us fresh chapati and several other thing I don't know what they were. We tried to stop him, but there was no negotiating, especially with his wife who was very sweet and friendly and didn't speak a word of English.

We thanked them profusely and wished there were some way we could repay them (when Jacki gave the room key back in the morning, Robert flinched away from her at first; he thought she was trying to give him more money, which she would have if she thought he'd accept it). So wonderful. So! If you're ever in Carlsbad (and I recommend it for the caverns if you're in the area), try the Executive! It's got (owned by?) good people.


I got stuff for my birthday! Trip money from my folks, an AWESOME t-shirt (Decepticons in a Stalinist motif with 'PEACE THROUGH TYRANNY' underwrit), an Autobots messenger bag, two (one from Jacki, one from me to me) Nerf Maverick pistols (as seen in Penny-Arcade!), a reversible Autobot/Decepticon belt buckle, two nifty tie-dyed t-shirts (one looks like a bomb pop), the 4e Eberron Campaign Guide, and the first volume of the Real Ghostbusters on DVD.

Hmmm. If you don't mention that the trip money was spent on a tattoo and a sexy jacuzzi room, that looks a lot like the gift list for a twelve year-old. Damn I love being old enough to act like a kid again. ;D


Okay, there's more to talk about, but that's puh-lenty for now. We're heading out to see that G-Force movie in 3D. I'm not crazy about it, but Jacki goes gaga for the guinea pigs and I know we'll have fun. It'll be my first 3D movie, actually.


It's good to be posting again! Also, hello to flouritephoenix, who's new to my journal and awesome. Hello to all the rest of you too, of course. Hugs! Okay, bai.

So I just saw breaking news that my old apartment complex, the one I just got out of five days ago, is on fire. Three-alarm. Actually, they reported the Jamestown apartments while I was in Colonial Arms, but that only puts it closer to my apartment than Colonial would; Jamestown are the apartments on the east side of my old apartment's building, sharing their back wall with our west-facing units.

Talk about a message from the gods that I made the right choice, eh?

Things have been way too busy for me to blog lately. Ironic that the events I'd most like to write about preclude my doing so. I can feel myself right on the cusp of staying away from this thing indefinitely, though, which I don't want, so I'm taking advantage of this time to post.

Things aren't so busy now. Jacki's convalescing, but is past the point where she needs constant aid. I'm still in her presence pretty much constantly, but that's more a want than a need. Her surgery went splendidly; the hysterectomy was textbook, no endometrial cells had adhered to her organs as they'd feared, and her tests came back cancer-free. The only complication is that a horrible cunt of a tech gave her a bladder infection by mishandling her catheter bag. At this stage, that infection (and the nauseating antibiotics) is the worst of her recovery. Hopefully she'll recover from that with the same alacrity with which she's recovering from the surgery.

As for me, I'm doing pretty well. I'm rather grateful for that five-day prorate into June the manager saddled us with, because I can't imagine all the hell and chaos of the last week of May culminating in the rush-job we did on the apartment. Garr and I were up until dawn getting everything moved. I seriously underestimated the last of the crap in the apartment; I figured half a vanload tops, but it turned out to be more like two vanloads after moving Garr's stuff to Becca's place.

I've got everything unloaded into the garage here at the house, and my room is pretty cozy. I'll take pictures at some point. The only thing I haven't moved into the room that I'm planning to is my computer; it turns out that a warm, dark, undisturbed place like the inside of my computer is just the sort of environment in which roaches like to nest. I bug-bombed my van with the box of computer stuff (and a whole bunch of other boxes) in it, but I don't think the toxic stuff got in deep enough because there was a live roach waving at me from on top of the box when I opened the van. Time to buy a can of Black Flag and get personal about it, then I can move my computer in onto the long, low table on which my guinea pigs and television reside.

Last but not least, I've named the guinea pigs at last. The one with the rough brown coat who's always picking fights is Mal, and the one in smooth black and white who's quiet, calm, and observant (not to mention always on Mal's bad side) is Simon. I don't doubt that I'll come up with perfect awesome ideal names that beat the hell out of those names in exactly one week, but that's just life.

Friction continues with Jeremy, but that's something for a whole other post some day. Right now I've got to head to Wal-Mart to arm myself for my own reenactment of Starship Troopers in the back of my van.

We've got the art of drawing out a couple of days' work to an entire month down to a science, I think. Now I'm back at the apartment, picking up clothes, the big pleather chair, and very probably my computer set-up. Oh, and closetstuff. I'm sleeping at the house now, and I haven't seen Garr for more than a couple of minutes in days. I miss him. D&D doesn't do the trick, because we're not really hanging out, and while I draw satisfaction from the game, it's very different from actually relaxing and having fun. With Jacki's pre-op stuff coming up, I'm going to have to put D&D on hold for a while. I'm also feeling a bit of burn-out (last session felt particularly unsatisfying), so a(nother) break would probably do me some good.

Jacki bought me guinea pigs! I was saying how I'd like to have a small, manageable pet of some kind, something like ferrets with less energy. Enter Buttercup and Oreo. Jacki gave me permission to change their names, which I intend to do, so I'm doing some deep pondering. One is a brown 'teddy bear' pig, curious and energetic, while the other is black and white, and very timid. I love unique and referential names (be they fandomish, mythological, or just plain nerdy), so feel free to pipe up with suggestions!

Okay, I've got to run. Got to throw my shit into the van (including a fuck off huge chair) in time to unload it at the house, drive to the other apartment to get Jacki and Jeremy's next load of stuff, and have us all to the theatre in time for Bad Movie Night.

We should be Totally Done Moving just as Jacki goes in for her surgery, at which point there'll be a lot of staying in and being quiet, so it'll be a much valued rest. Okay, running off, now. Later, babes!

So my dad's staying in some kind of hotel (I think it was La Kiva on I-40) and, because he's recuperating from surgery, I have to sign for his daily expenses at the desk. Walk up, sign, keep walking on my way to see him. He's staying in the hotel because our trailer (yeah, way back in Minnesota) got flooded. Somehow, I managed to piss off a secret global organization, like the Skulls and Bones or the Illuminati or someone, and I had just been notified that I was on their shit list. So I was in a bad mood.

I go up to the desk, sign where I'm supposed to sign, and begin to walk away. 'Actually, sir, you need to sign on this line too. It's a new policy.' I look down, and she's pointing to a row of a half-dozen different places to sign. I ask which one, she says that one, no that one, no that one, hang on, let me check. I sigh and wait. She goes over to someone else at the desk, asks about the signature, gets an 'I don't know', and then falls into gossip. For fifteen minutes, ignoring me as I try, with increasing frustration, to call her back to the desk. Finally she comes back, points at a random line (I could tell because her finger landed between two) and says 'That one.' I sign, then go to a man whose attire suggests management and ask if I could have a word.

I complain that it took twenty minutes to do something that normally takes twenty seconds. All I needed was a deferential apology, a promise to do better, and the notion that he'd give the clerk a talking to. I didn't get that. The guy (who looked like Will Farrel with thinning hair combed over a bald and jutting brow) gave me snark, attitude, and threatened my father's continued presence at the hotel. I told him that his combover was the reason he'd never gotten laid, then turned and walked out into the parking lot.

Apparently the insult touched a nerve, because he coldcocks a cop that's standing in the lobby, steals his baton and gun, and charges out to attack me. Realizing that I'm unarmed, I follow suit, cold-cocking the nearest person to me and taking his weapon. This turned out to be a five-year-old child with a squishy foam lightsaber. I apologized to his mother and then charged the night manager. He fired off a shot and missed, then we were grappling. I knocked the gun away, locked his baton arm, and jammed the lightsaber into his mouth. Eventually he suffocated into unconsciousness, at which point I victoriously dragged him back into the lobby for the hundred-or-more bystanders to congratulate me on my courage in dealing with the maniac.

I left the night manager with some EMTs who were on the scene, then got mobbed by a throng of what I thought were fans. It turns out that they were angry with me. They didn't believe my story, or my complaint of the signature taking twenty minutes. I pointed at the clock and saw, to my horror, that it said no such span of time had elapsed. 'But that doesn't matter! That man attacked me with a gun and baton!' 'Impossible,' they cried, 'he doesn't have any fingers to hold them with!' I looked and, surely enough, he didn't. That's when I realized what had happened. The EMTs had amputated his fingers while someone else set the clocks back, all so that the sinister secret global organization could frame me for making an unnecessary fuss at the hotel's front desk.

As I was taken away by the very cop that the night manager had knocked out, the dream continued on to follow the night manager covertly escaping from the parking lot by spinning a hot air balloon out of web (you see, in return for his cooperation, the sinister secret global organization had made him Spider-Man) and filling it from a propane tank. He floated away as a calm and measured voice began instructing him in the safe operation of a web-based hot air balloon, like a safety training video. It was difficult, being Spider-Man without any fingers, but he pulled it off. Eventually he reached the Pacific Ocean where he released enough gas to hover just above the surface, reach down, and use his spider-sticky to grab and redirect a huge nuclear torpedo that'd been fired by a Japanese fleet who were, inexplicably, decades late for Pearl Harbor.

The torpedo hit the lead ship, destroyed them all, and democracy was saved, all thanks to Spider-Man, the fingerless night manager of La Kiva on I-40.

Jamming a king-sized mattress into the back of a minivan should be one of the Ninja Warrior challenges. I'm going to go die now.

...so they won't be so long. I'll try to keep it relatively brief.

( Friday I got together with Jacki and Jeremy... )

( Saturday, Jer went off to work and Jacki and I... )

( Sunday morning! We got up, had some McDonald's... )

Anyway, that's my long weekend with J&J. Fun, crazy, and enriching. Today I am to spend moving as much of my stuff to the new house as I can. I'm going to see if I can jam a king-sized mattress into the back of a minivan. Wish me luck.

Recent goings-on in Something*Positive made me realize that my long history of cybersex (which always drew rave reviews) combined with my improvisational DMing skills and my newfound level of comfort talking to strangers on the phone make me a natural choice for phone sex work. I might consider it if I could work for Aubrey's company, but I fear that any place that exists in the real world would be as soul-destroying and corporate as any phone-slave job.

It is now the 15th, and I have two weeks remaining to move my shit to the new house. So far I have sorted the contents of three boxes, paring them down to two boxes in the process. Mmh. I'm going to have to move my mattress over there, and my dresser, and my bureau, and my book shelf, and my other book shelf, and the little cabinets, and my mirror, and probably a big comfy chair from the living room, and the table we're using for the computers... and THEN I'll have to move my STUFF! Mmh.

Inhale, exhale.

Does anyone have any good advice on the process of moving? Little tricks, big solutions, sage wisdom that will give me the necessary perspective to make the hard decisions of what to let go, what to keep, and how to organize it all?

I hope so.

Today, however, is calm day. Today I go and play Scrabble with Papa, and then I go hang at the park with J&J, then we'll go bowling! I love bowling, when I remember to bring painkillers for my hand. For some reason swinging a massive weight over and over again with three fingers aggravates my carpal tunnel a bit. Then... dunno! Prolly just gonna stay the night at J&J's. They are awesomesauce. Jacki tells me that Jeremy really enjoyed last night's birthday celebrations, which makes me all kinds of glad. She also said that he said that things felt kind of empty without me around, like we're only really complete as the three of us. That made me happy too. They're both awesome. :)

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we move heavy things!

Not that these days are dreadful or anything, they're just busy. My batteries are going to run down sooner or later at this rate. Sure, I'll still have a few things to do tomorrow, but it won't be hectic; seeing Papa in the rehab centre, going to the skate park with Jacki and Jeremy, going bowling with Jacki and Jeremy, going home with Jacki and Jeremy. Oh, but I think Rondo's back to work on Friday too, so that's a few more miles to go before I sleep. Hrm. Ah well, it should still be fine.

One of these days I'm going to have a 'stay home and veg' day. Except then I wouldn't see Jacki... hrm. This 'life' business is tricky.

So last night we gave Jer a skateboard for his birthday. Apparently he's a skater! Jacki got a silver marker and we wrote little messages on the underside of the board for him. Mine was 'If Einstein knew how to grind a rail, he'd be you!' He dug that. He says he did very well on his engineering test yesterday, so he was feeling good, enjoying his Two Worlds Xbox game.

I'm still getting used to the situation with me, Jacki, and Jeremy. Last night, for example. He really wanted to play his game. Other nights it's stuff like his energy project or... more of his energy project. He focuses on something else for hours on end, and I end up worrying that he feels excluded when Jacki and I cuddle and talk and have fun. In poly terms, it almost feels like he's voluntarily stepping into the role of 'secondary', making me feel kind of guilty and awkward for filling a more 'primary' role. Jacki's talked to him about it, and he seems to be happy with things the way that they are, so I guess I just need to relax. I'll keep on keeping an eye on the situation, though.

Yesterday, at the mall, I convinced Jacki to buy a few turquoise-coloured peace sign things. A bigass pendant of pretty, a set of tiny peace sign earrings in every colour, and a cream-coloured scarf with turquoise peace signs all over it. I saw the scarves and thought Jacki'd look good in them, and I heard the self I used to be say 'but she doesn't wear them, so she obviously doesn't like them, so you're stupid and wrong.' I'm learning to ignore that guy, who's pretty quiet these days anyway, so I pointed them out to Jacki and she said 'Oh, I've always wanted to wear these but I didn't think it'd look good on me!' I made her try one on and convinced her otherwise, and now she's even more of a radical hippie chick than before. She looks awesome. :D

I continue to be amused by the presence of a woman who, though she is currently engaged in a transaction to buy items from the adult section of a shop, turns red if I mention those items to the person who is ringing them up. Isn't that adorable?

Okay, so it looks like my phone minutes didn't just mysteriously vanish as I'd thought. They're just going very, very quickly. With 88 out of 90 days remaining, I'm already down to 237 minutes out of 300. I never spent minutes this fast before Jacki came along, but now I'm texting all the time and I'm actually talking on the phone, and... mmf. Gone are the days when, at the end of those 90 days, I'd have 100 minutes left over. At this rate, I'll be out of minutes in a week. u_u;

Okay, I need to get going. I've got to clean up the moving mess in the living room and finalize plans for today's D&D session. There just isn't enough time in the day, y'know? More than ever, I wish I had Multiple Man's powers. Pop off a dupe to clean the apartment, pop off a dupe to post to LJ, pop off a dupe to run D&D, and I'd never have to leave Jacki ever.

Yeah, I'm in love. Dammit. :)