I like to think I have good reflexes; I've had a lot of "Phew! Nice save" moments when something was slipping and so on. But there are other times. Something starts slipping, and time slows to a crawl. I shift my eyes to look at it. I think about what the item is and why it is falling, where it is going and what could happen next. My entire body decides to take up zen for the moment and let it be, let it be.



Time speeds up again as my favorite ceramic bowl makes a surprisingly dull thunk against the carpeted floor contrasted by its shattering, with pieces large and small scattering in a short radius.

I want to turn back time.

I need to clear off my tabs in Chrome. These have been open for a few days, to remind myself of these projects I want to do (since simply bookmarking them will put them out of sight & out of mind--not what I want!) but at some point, I do need to clear out my tabs and close Chrome and shut down my computer. I haven't done that in a few weeks. My poor lappy.

After my other projects (some more important than others) like cleaning my room, clearing extraneous data off my HD (or buying this... someday), doing homework, and starting/doing some sort of programming project this summer--I want to do some nice cooking. "After" is a bad word to use there though. More likely "during". Cleaning my room is like 10 projects in one, anyway. I am terribly backed up on stuff I want to do/need to get done. Summer's going pretty quickly! But anyway, the cooking (images © other people):

Granola.



I made some makeshift granola a couple times already, with Grape Nuts, oats, raisins, peanut butter, and a drizzle of honey. The E-How article is a good base for actually baking some sometime, for that nice crisp that granola's usually supposed to have. Probably in my toaster oven! Easy peasy. As long as I don't burn it, it should be delish. Think oatmeal raisin cookies, but not in cookie form and crispier. I'm too lazy to actually bake cookies. I don't even know if I have the right tools for that.

Corn Potage.



I was describing how delicious potage is to someone and decided to google it quick to show a picture, not that it looks like a whole lot, just a plain creamy soup. It tastes really simple too. In a good way. There's pumpkin potage, and corn potage--I love both, maybe pumpkin more since I've had it less often so maybe it's more of an interesting treat. Or maybe because it's sweeter. I don't know. But this is corn potage and I figure it's easier to find/deal with corn anyway. This recipe is dirt simple. I got a can of creamed corn the other day. I wish I had a blender because I do love a smooth texture, but we'll try this chunky--I'm sure it'll still be alright.

Now that I can close these tabs... I need to write a few papers and study for a physics test happening tomorrow. ay caramba

Class at 7:30am. Snagged some free tea. Went to math at what I thought was 1pm, but it was 11am, and the same teacher was teaching a math class in the same classroom returning tests from the same day that my math class took a test on. I thought he'd lost my test. I was fooled until a while after I returned to my room, when someone told me to look at the clock. Felt dumb, but hey, more time to work on an assignment due at 5.

When I went to my actual math class, it took a whole hour, not the 15 minutes I thought it would take since it was just a test returning day (the class I mistakenly went to was like that). I had to go to a work meeting at 2:30, which fortunately didn't take long. I went to the library and got to work. I felt like a good student.

But I wasn't working quite fast enough. I polished my assignment at 4:59pm but I didn't give up; I saved it, and uploaded it so I could print from a library computer. The computer took about 4 minutes to log in. I anxiously looked back and forth from the clock to the computer, and greeted Officer Miller as he came by. He observed that the computer wasn't doing anything, and walked away chuckling. I chuckled and covered my face and breathed deeply, peeking through my fingers until it finished setting up Outlook Express configurations and loaded my desktop. Fuck library computers. It took another minute for Firefox to open. Whatever. It was 10 past the hour... I started to lose hope. I printed the document, and the printer made a sound, but nothing happened. I gave it a minute. Nothing. I tried another printer; same thing. Fuck library printers. I gave up. Fine. Can't be mad, it was still mostly my fault I didn't work as efficiently as I could've.

It felt so warm outside--it was a beautiful sunny day. Despite my frustration I planned forward: I had my car parked across the campus from the dorm due to construction in the parking lot, but I figured since I was halfway there, I could fetch my car and park it closer so I wouldn't have to walk as far for carpooling to Baskin Robbins at 7.

Jesus Christ it was a long walk.

It was long and I was tired and my laptop and textbook were heavy.

I got to the car and realized I didn't have my keys.



I made it a few yards back towards the dorm across the vast field before I dropped to the grass, defeated.



defeated.

You don't need long, intricate lyrics to make a touching song.

You and me melt away
Forever holding hands

Sunbeams all round us now
Sunbeams all

Hold my hand
Be with me
Hold my hand
Melt with me

I wouldn't even call "Gross Magik" the best song on this album, although so far all the songs sound similar (which is not a bad thing, since their tunes and sounds generally all kick butt). For example, "Dirt" featuring Aesop Rock is what got my attention in the first place when some random forum post linked to it.

I don't even know why I started this post by pointing out their lyrics. Since we're talking music now, not me and my emotional life, it's almost totally irrelevant since most of their music is instrumental and tune/beat/sound-centric, and you can barely make out what they say anyway. I almost want to compare this sound to Boards of Canada. It's got that electronic yet lo-fi, warm, and nostalgic sound, with a beat you can readily chill to. But this is more upbeat and involved and "hip". I put it in my Alternative Rock folder since it fits in with others there like MGMT, Why?, and Mr. Meeble though it's (they're?) not Alternative Rock at all. Yeah, my system is flawed, whatever.

More importantly, how did I not find out about Tobacco earlier?! I like this. These all came out in 2008, from their debut album Fucked Up Friends. I'm listening through for the first time right now. Favorites so far are probably "Side 8 (Big Gums Version)", "Dirt", and "Tape Eater". You can find these all on the jew tubes.

They already came out with their second full album this year called Maniac Meat, and it's got a song on it that features Beck. Yum! I can't wait to listen to it after I cozy myself into Fucked Up Friends some more.

Yeah, so, school.

I enjoy the stuff I'm learning. I should be a better student.

sort of

but

because

not really

well

I'm

although

mostly

from now

kind of

probably

my fault

I didn't

feeling like

what is

sorry

it's

should've

maybe not

There's been a lot of nothing, a lot of something. Maybe I'd feel better if I just drew it all out on a scrap of paper like I seem to do during every afternoon lecture. I'd post them here for preservation, but my scanner's not working. Lots of little nothings strung together in pencil. That's how I've always felt about my writing, too, but I don't write with pencil much anymore.

What I like about doodling is, if I ever get bored with a current "thread", I can just stop and have it trail into whatever else I want to draw or more likely jump to a different blank part of the paper. That's how my mind works; that's how I should write when I'm writing for myself.

Is there anything to write about? Probably, but maybe not out in the open. I feel like my brain wires were all tampered with by some incompetent dude looking for a problem and switching stuff around he shouldn't've been messing with. What real force is this metaphorical dude? I have no idea. It'd be nice to know, I guess. There are always scapegoats, like stress, hormones, iron/vitamin/sunlight/anything deficiencies. They are all valid. They are always all valid. That doesn't help me much. So I'll deal with it.

Nothing is necessarily all bad right now. I'm getting used to some things. I'm rediscovering the fact that I get bored and feel lonely sometimes. That is okay. Without some boredom and loneliness, there wouldn't be as much potential for awesome things happening.

I close my eyes and I see images everywhere.

Without a blank piece of paper, nothing crazy can be drawn.

I should just go draw right now. But as soon as I get away from the computer, I will pass out and lose another pencil in the sheets. (I tried to write in my journal last night from a sudden desire for "poetry" and that is what happened.) but such is the story of 4am creative constipation?

PS. This post reminds me of this last post I ever posted on my Myspace blog when I was packing my crap to take to college for the very first time. More creative constipation, and a bunch of griping about cruddy poetry, I guess. And! To bring it into the light, almost two years later, since nobody cares now! I was feeling blue because I didn't want to be away from my then-boyfriend, and was thinking about breaking up before having to endure long-distance pain. For some reason it feels good to clarify that right now.

Give an inch, take a mile? That's me. I make mistakes. Regret and apologize. Realize, revise. Planet earth.

I'm just wafting through. I need to take care of things when I'm able minded. Dry throat, dripping mind. I've always liked the analogy of trying to remember a dream in the morning to trying to keep water in your cupped hands. I am pretty good at cupping my hands--almost no leakage, I'm serious. But my hands aren't so clenchy right after waking up.

I feel like puking, and I'm pretty sure that is just my fatigue. Coffee and dehydration doesn't help, but eh. I'm pretty darn sleepy. Sleepy is what I am. And I make mistakes.

It's not all a mistake. I think long and hard and make sure about some things. Sure, I bought that bitter coffee... but I know I meant the rest of the dinner. It was past midnight and my stomach re-confirms, it was pretty certain about the dinner part. Midnight rang 4/20 and I've still never smoked but I meant every bite of that stoner meal of cheap tacos and curly fries, along with the late night giggles on our second round of drive-thru.

My stomach feels like a pulsing avocado. 6am

I've got the 5am wordings. Bug eyes and spaghetti brain. Let's see how my noodle can do actual programming that needs to get done, at this hour. If I don't get distracted by the words. Which I will.

Should've known that burning-all-day coffee at Jackinthebox at 12am is gross and never worth a try--I should get some quality coffee at the on-campus Bistro tomorrow or sometime nice when it won't turn my stomach lining inside out (so never?) but god, coffee is so smooth there. No grimace, only that involuntary ecstatic smile, the kind I also get from peppermint tea with a touch of sugar after a day at school. But I guess the budget thing about drinking coffee is that it turns me off food, probably because of the caffeine stimulant plus the subsequent all-day nausea.

I need to work on my karma. Thin line between feeling guilty about every little thing, and being careless about everybody else. Guilty because I'm selfish, selfish because I'm guilty. The past few years I have been gradually building hate for those two words. And I like words. I'd like to flush these out of my mind-sight and out of my everything. I'm so introspective, which is great, right, but how about setting my sights outwards for a while? I used to think improve the inner, improve the outer. How's trying a switch? Karma. I need to work on mine.

Yup. Sometimes you need something a little less human, a little less pop, a little less happy-go-lucky, to calm you. It's like giving an ADD kid stimulants, I guess.


YouTube

Got back to the dorm yesterday; new term starts tomorrow. I guess today is trying to be the paste between two very different modes of functionality, from doing absolutely nothing useful over winter break to revving up a term with one of the hardest classes of my major and trying to forget (but not replicate) how bad I did last term. Obviously, today wasn't long enough, but everyone's in the same boat and it really shouldn't be that bad.

I forced myself to resolve my class schedule after I got up. Part of the reason I was dreading going back to college was, I had no idea what classes I was taking exactly, and nobody likes making hard possibly regrettable decisions. I went to the bookstore to find out what books would be needed, and after seeing the book for Graphic Design which would have explained how to use Adobe Creative Suite CS2, I changed my mind and decided to take Anthropology instead of that. I ordered my textbooks online ($190 bookstore vs. $105 online? dur) and was done with that.

Jeff took me shopping. Along with the very large batch of rice I made today, I have plenty of good food for the next few days. I am going to try harder this term to feed myself, and make good and healthy food even if I feel busy and stressed and not hungry. Cooking can be therapeutic anyway. Hopefully that doesn't lead to waste. I'll probably still slack majorly on cleaning dishes though. Eh.

Then the laundry. By then I really started to feel not-so-good about school tomorrow. Though my first class starts at 10, I need to wake up before 7am for work (or at least to see if I can start work again this term, but I'd be surprised if I don't start tomorrow morning). I love what work does for me, both in attitude and income, but the 7am thing can really kill my spirit sometimes. Naps are okay, but I do need to go to bed earlier to get 8+ consecutive hours of sleep during the night... That means I should go to bed half an hour ago. Before 11pm. That'll be hard.

While running the laundry I put on some Nautilis for my nerves and started to get my binder ready for tomorrow. Clearing out all my old notes, and putting them into appropriate portfolios. Carefully jotted notes from math; doodles from assembly; tests, both great and awful, from each of my classes. I need more portfolios to store the rest of my classes. Hopefully I can snag more from the tech writing teachers soon (apparently they do not keep them!) Anyway, moving out these papers helped me move on from last term a little bit. It's all grouped with the stuff from last term now. Out of sight, out of mind? Not totally gone, but I've readied myself as much as I can to start anew. Today is the paste.

Now to fetch my dry laundry and stock this binder with fresh paper.