Free form poem by Missy

where is that paperclip
i cannot find the paperclip
i just had the paperclip
paperclip is in my mouth


3/30/07

Jeff's challenge try #2

red incandescence.
on us, the moon has less pull.
joy : her laugh, Puck-smile

v8 #2 down

I slammed this one down on the table when the can was empty as well. :(

I had my yogurt smoothie drink open and ready so I wouldn't have to even hesitate to open it before I could follow the mind slaughtering taste of the v8 with something else.

Yay May 12th! I'm gonna be so healthy I'm gonna regret not signing up for the timed race. :p

Jeff H's challenge

Rebecca is nearing four decades worth of life experiences. In honor of this momentous achievement, I propose a challenge commensurate with the gravity of this milestone. Since you are all represented on the World Wide Web by your blogs, post a haiku that embodies the spirit of Rebecca's impact on the world at large (and your small corner of it).


Here's my first, inspired by some of the lessons I've learned from R:

Haikus are five beats
Followed by seven, then five
My rules > chinese ones

the life of IT

So one of the main servers go down last night and the lady responsible for it, fixed it, but this morning our boss, the IT director, sends us all this email:

If something happens during the evening, I need an update, either by phone or email. I don't want to wait to hear in the morning.

So I reply all and say

omg! I forgot to tell you the other night when I hit 75 ninja in ffxi! I'm so sorry!

I ran down the hall to peek in his office and he grinned in a "go away" way.


EDIT: I started an insurrection!
Tim replied all and said "one of my piano students didn't show last night"
and then Art replied all and said "I fertilized and mowed my lawn"

I'm sure Dennis appreciates me a lot now.

Bumpersticker

I love this bumpersticker. This guy parks near me everyday. Of course Dems supported Valdemort too. It was sorta like the Simpsons episode where Kang ran against Kang.

My Sunday morning 5k

I drove to the Rivery park and jogged the 5k trail this morning :D

YAY ME

I'm hoping I can make this my Sunday morning habit, but next time I start out earlier. I came home and took the longest best shower lol, it was so humid this morning.

So now I need a watch with a good timer so I can see if I'm getting better each time. I wish I could take FinnDog with me - lots of people had their dogs with them, but Finn would make me stop every ten feet so he could mark his territory. How do people get their dogs to not feel like they have to do that? But I'm really grateful human males don't do the same thing. What a different world that would be. I told James once that that would make an interesting premise for a scifi book, where travellers encoutered a planet where the people were just like us except the men had to stop at all the lampposts and fire hydrants and the main characters had to try not to act disgusted by this new society's culture.

Theres this neat part of the 5k trail where you're going by the cliffs under the condos (if you're from here, you know which ones). The cliffs are grey and black and cut in really cool awesome ways from the river. I'll take a picture someday soon. And as I was going through I was thinking how really neat it must have been to be a native American finding all this stuff for the first time.

coolest hood ornament

There are cool logos in the world, but the one on the front of the Quint 1 firetruck is the best of all of them.

I hope...

I hope they have another kid and his name is Mario.

This is my day today

I got a new haircut and I got bangs, which I haven't had since I was a kid. I asked her if she thought they would look good, she said "I think so. If not, it'll always grow back". Not what I wanted to hear, but whatever. This is a new me right and I can always shave my head, no? Maybe get a tattoo on my scalp of a skull with a snake coming out of the eyesocket, red rose beneath that says "rock on" maybe.

But then it was done and she was so happy, she said it looked wonderful. I thanked her, payed her and walked back to work, looked in the mirror and omg I look like a soccer mom. So now I want to trade in my SUV for a sports car. If I wasn't so used to this whole no-car-payment thing, I would go out today and get a new car. A red one. Convertible.

Also, at work I have been converting the site to an XML based structure and to do that I have to copy and paste every single page of the site into the XML documents. So far I'm on page 245. Additionally, I'm having to make a site diagram for the XML programs and in essence, for the past few weeks I've been doing the following::

copy paste copy paste copy paste copy paste copy paste *scream in terror* copy paste copy paste copy paste copy paste copy paste

When people talk to me now I can't think of anything to say on my own. I just want to copy what they say like a parrot.

10-12 years ago I got it in my head that I wanted to get married on St. Patrick's day, and even though I'd put it off year after year, it became James and my sorta unofficial anniversary. It was more of an anniversary than the real date. But he'll be in Houston tomorrow with Spike and I'll be at home living with the ramifications of what I've done. Blah. So I'm sad today. The soccer mom haircut just kinda tops it off. How did I get here anyway? I don't remember any of this. I'm ready to be a kid again.

Speaking of which, I'm gonna try to make cookies again this weekend shaped like shamrocks. I bought green sprinkles. Need to make sure I go to the grocery store so I don't put it off with a out-of-whatever ingredient excuse. I also have to rake tonight (again), but at least its all down so in theory this is the last raking I'll have to do for a year. I also have to be online some tomorrow to do some CoP's and cutscenes tonight. And I'm gonna watch a bunch of movies this weekend I think. Frida, for sure, I'm gonna watch again. Pitch Black again. We watched Little Miss Sunshine last night and it was funny. I don't know what else.

Wow I did it again

I decided before I had time to think about it and lost my nerve, I wrote to Mr. Goldade to find out what the prices are for Kenpo and Kickboxing classes. That was scary too.

But ok if I'm gonna be gung ho about this I'm gonna change my eating habits hugely and try to eat what I imagine Katherine would eat when training for a marathon. I'm ready for my Gabrielle Reese body :p

Wow I did it.

I sent Hiruke the PM asking to be demoted to social status. I can't believe I found the spine to actually do it.

I have an awesome new camera :D

I've been using my phone's camera but that means everything I take a picture of has to be ABSOLUTELY still and also the resolution is kinda crappy. Don't get me wrong, I love my Razr, but it was time for a camera. James took me to Frys (he wanted to look at the speakers) and after much deliberation I picked a Panasonic. I love it so far. The first picture I took was of my ceiling fan. You probably dont want to see that.

But I also took pictures of the peach tree and pear tree in my backyard - both of which are in bloom. If you click on the picture you can see a larger version. The photos of the peach tree blooms are especially pretty.





I also took a picture of one of my favorite signs at Walmart. I like this because it looks like the little guy actually set the fire by the way he's running.

(I'll have to post the picture of the sign when I get home.. I accidentally deleted it.)


Also I made some important decisions today:
1. I am going to send Hiruke a PM to let him know that there's a lot of things going on right now and I want to be demoted to "social status" in the hnmls. I don't want to quit outright, because I like these people and I will need the company in the near future and also because I want to fulfill my obligations to Moonjay because the CoP ppt needs melee and because he's depending on me, but otherwise I can't committ 3-4 nights a week to ffxi. Then I'll let him decide if he wants to boot me or not. That means I won't get to lot on anything in dynamis, but that's the way it has to be. Partly I'm doing this because of #2

2. I am going back to martial arts. I want my black belt. Unfortunately, the school is now a Kenpo school so I'll have to start over at whitebelt, but oh well. I know for sure I want to go to Mr. Goldade's school and not some other. I want to feel like I'm going through a real program. And I want to take the black belt test that I video taped several years ago. The six hour ordeal. I want to know my own limits. So I'm going to write to Mr. Goldade a formal email asking him his permission to return to school. I'll let you know what happens with that. Maybe I shouldn't go because I should be more tight with money right now, but I really want this. I'm scared though... going back will be hard. I almost wish they didn't know me.

Why Do I Have To Dream About Him?

That's three times now, which is way too many.

So ok, I'm this egyptian sun goddess kind of person and I'm in this underground chamber that used to be a subway station that even longer ago than that had been a sacred temple of sorts (how many sacred temples have been converted to subways and then abandoned?) and I go to sit in this one throne chair and the sun starts to set and this beam of light comes in through the window because its this special time of year and the beam of light shines directly into my one eye which is some kind of sacred gem. Anyway, this beam of light shining into my one eye triggers this chain reaction of earthquake like tremors and everyone in the room turns to look at this opening that appears in the floor across from me. A single arm reaches out of the grave, black and partly decomposed, and people wait in horrified suspense. Out crawls Chief OBrien as a zombie/mummy king.

So ok, I'm really good at dream interpretation but I have no clue what this one is about and I'm really starting to be offended dreaming about Chief O'Brien. I later became him and had to solve this mystery of the curse on my Greek mafia family before time ran out.

YAY ME!!!

My gait increased tonight for the first time in a long, long time!!!!

I am so happy ^^

I should thank Sheryl Crowe who is on my itunes playlist for running music (Gonna Soak Up the Sun). I was headed to Pflugerville at 6:00 tonight to check out the new Chinese tea place and try the bubble tea when she came on the radio, which reminded me of jogging and I realized it was the perfect time of day, perfect weather, so I turned the car around and went inside to change clothes and decided to get bubble tea afterwards ( which is right now :P )

I need to bug Katherine when she gets back from Spring Break what I can start to start measuring to track progress. I wanna get one of those overpriced watches from RunTex now because I'm so hyper with my awesome new gait!

I can feel it already in my thighs though ugh... I bet I ache tomorrow from this and from all the raking.

YAY ME!!!!

My Saturday morning

I had the dumb idea of raking the yard today. A friend of mine joked that he'd do it for $750 and I'm wondering if maybe I should have taken him up on it. I started like at 9 and just now ended at 2:30.

Here are two of the three piles. Its hard to see in the picture but they're about 3.5 ft high. No I didn't manage to get the whole yard done ; ;



Spider helped a lot. He'd climb in the piles and look for monsters. We played a game in one of the piles for a short break. He also made one into a litter box. He's a good kitty. And there's one my legs that wanted to be in the photo, but unfortunately, not a good angle. I'll have to take more pics of my legs later so they feel more appreciated.



The saddest part is that not all the leaves from the trees have fallen. I took a break and lied down under one of the trees with Spider on my belly and looked up at the very blue sky and soft clouds and the countless leaves still unfallen. Every now and then when I was working, one would fall on me as if mocking me.



Yes 8 bags.

Interesting Die-Cut Marketing

I was at walmart yesterday dropping off some pictures to have printed and also to buy lawn sized trash bags. I looked at the movies on the way out and saw the most interesting die-cut. This is the front of the package of the Riddick Trilogy.


This is the back of the packaging. Can't imagine what it means. Rebecca, any idea?

Today at the park

Today I went to the park to think, instead of run which is usually why I go to the park at lunchtime. The reality of things are starting to sink in and I wanted to use this time for quiet.

Ever since Sunday its been really hard to concentrate on what has happened, even though I know it to be a fact, I can't force myself to comprehend the enormity of it. I've always been like this though with big tragic events, which probably makes me good to have in a pinch - my brain stores the bigger picture in a little box in the back for later so I can deal with getting through it. Then, several days later, it hits.

I know this is the right thing even though it is incredibly hard. I know this is something I have to do. And I keep trying to remember those two things and keep them as pillars around which I continue with everything else. Its just so hard and I'm so afraid of losing him completely. Selfishly I hope that he comes to understand why I've done what I've done and not just blanket hate me for it.

I'm generally pretty self-aware but never before have I been so atuned to everything as sharply as I am now. I notice symbols in the music I hear, notice details in nature that almost seem to be speaking to me personally. Don't get me wrong, I'm not assuming the world is magic somehow and is shifting these things for me; its more that I am noticing things because of the mindset I'm in, things that my brain feels might offer me some insight - like the Radiohead song. I've heard it before, its been in my itunes library since I got itunes. But now it means something very different to me and I hear it everywhere I go, even though it is an older song, because, I think, my subconscious identifies with it, and it picks it out from the background. But it startles me that the song is everywhere. It does seem to be more than random.

The tree (above) with the twisted roots, I've seen before a bunch, but now it stood out for me as something to notice. I thought of Golem who, in the Lord of the Rings, was obsessed with the roots of things, wanted to follow streams and trees and mountains to their roots, and I think that is a good metaphor for myself right now. I want to find the origins for my life as it is now, understand beginnings, because I am currently in one.

I have spent most of my life looking for answers in other people and right now I need to find those answers within myself, so I think I'm gonna focus on being alone these next couple days. I might even go stay somewhere quiet with no internet and figure out where my life is headed. Rebecca and Jeff have offered to let me stay at their house while they're gone next week and I might do that. And I'm very tempted to rent a cabin out at Inks Lake, where there's no internet, and sit in a chair and stare at the water. I think I need to be near water.

Main event

Sunday night I went to Main Event with Sam and Billy and Terry and Missy and Rebecca and Jeff and Meena. Here are some pics.

This is Sam making a face because he doesn't like to have his picture taken. Sam repeatedly made a point of telling me and probably others that he's really bad at pool, but of the three games we played, he was the one of the winning team each time. That was the only consistency.



This isn't a good shot, but the only one I got of R, Missy and Jeff H. At this moment we were all kinda playing pool because its the one thing I really wanted to do because I wanted to be better at playing pool. Only problem is, I'm really untalented.



This is Sam and Billy playing.

Also, later we went to bowl. I happened to bowl a 112, which is an all time personal best (I think). I seemed to do better when I wasn't trying to bowl well, which bothers me lol. The highlights of bowling is Missy inventing the new sport called "Cardio Bowling" which involves running from the table to the lane and running back, Terry bowling around the back and then between his legs (he's gonna rip his arm off one of these days), and Sam bowling too fast for the gate at the end and hitting it with the ball.

And then she opened her mouth

I ate lunch today with my mom at Nona's, which is this local sandwich joint, which is pretty good. We had this waitress... she was beautiful. Young, long healthy brunette hair, she was wearing low rise jeans and a too short too tight shirt that accentuated her thin waist and push up bra that she honestly didn't need. Her eyes were bright and just in general she's the kind of girl you watch as she moves gracefully through the restaurant. The kind of girl, that if you're female, you wish with every wish you have left, that you could look like someday, if you would just spend more time on the treadmill and eat more celery; though in your heart, you know that isn't gonna happen. Those kind of looks, you're born with under a blessed star.

But then she opened her mouth.

Unasked for, she told us that she was sorry she didn't get to our table sooner, but there was an "old lady" on the phone trying to order food that they just didn't have and she kept telling us that she told her "honey we just don't serve that here" and "sorry sweetheart we don't serve that here". With more speed than gravity could create, she was this obstruction to my view of anything I'd rather be looking at.

Which brings me to the point - my newest pet peeve:

3. Don't call people 'sweetheart' or 'honey' unless:
a. you're closely related to them and have a genuine affection for them (my mom can call me sweetheart, for instance);
b. or if you want me deputize you as the queen of white trash. I'll even give you one of those metal deputy stars.

I need to order some of those stars and keep them with me to give out. I'd put "WT" on the star so they'd put it on and I could have my world justice.

Actually maybe I do understand

Reading them like this just now, written instead of just listening to them, I think I see what its trying to tell me.

There, There by Radiohead

Since starting to make what is likely to be the biggest decision of my life, I've been hearing There, There repeatedly on the radio, from the "random" playlist on my ipod, in stores (way more than random for 1000 total songs should pick it), on TV, and its not a new song. I'm really good at analyzing metaphors, and interpreting themes, as most of you are aware, but whatever cosmic being is trying to communicate me, I still have yet to understand what they're trying to tell me.

Here are the lyrics:
There There

in pitch dark i go walking in your landscape.
broken branches trip me as i speak.
just because you feel it doesnt mean it's there.
just because you feel it doesnt mean it's there.

there's always a siren
singing you to shipwreck.
(don't reach out, don't reach out)
steer away from these rocks
we'd be a walking disaster.
(don't reach out, don't reach out)

just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there.
(there's someone on your shoulder)
just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there.
(there's someone on your shoulder)

there there

why so green and lonely?
heaven sent you to me.

we are accidents
waiting waiting to happen.

we are accidents
waiting waiting to happen.

Boots to match my jacket

I bought these boots to match my new jacket, even if they're Harley boots. I hope I ordered the right size from the site. We looked at motorcycles yesterday and talked about next steps. Its likely I'll get James's Rebel when I've passed my class and he can move onto a bigger bike.

I saw a dead person yesterday. Not a sudden change of subject, btw, it was a motorcycle accident. It was in Round Rock. We saw a gang of crotchrocket type motorcycles off to the side of the road, a squad of police cars, some fire trucks, and some people sitting to the side of the road. When we passed the center of the gathering, I saw a silver tarp covered a body and a long smear of blood on the asphalt.

Life is weird right now. Things are tense personally. I wish I could make them better, but I'm trying to stay focused on what the right thing to do is, and not do what gives me comfort. I'm scared though.

Committed now

I bought a new motorcycle jacket today. We went looking for one for James (he didn't find one he liked) but I saw this and it was $50 off so I had to get it.... but it means I have to finish the motorcycle class now.