1/31/2011

Marriage - what brings us together today

"It's alive! IT'S ALLLLIIIIIIIIVVVEEEE!" Said as I plug my shiny new computer cord in and see that beautiful blue power light come on.

I am, once more, connected to the world.

It's odd, being without something one is so used to. I saw so many funny things over those two days, gone from memory now since I didn't have anything to type on and am too lazy to actually write anything out with my hands. I've always been poor at writing out anything, my brain moves too fast and my hands can't keep up. Or I write down something I'm hearing in place of what I'm actually thinking. That last thing it partially my own fault because I'm always under this impression that a much more interesting conversation is occurring nearby me. I could be talking face to face with Nick and really tuning into a discussion happening at the next table, maybe they have an interesting story. Maybe I could chime in...

Who are we kidding, I would die before actually engaging. I'm just a busybody.

One issue with this is that whenever too many people begin talking at once, I have a mini panic attack. I don't know where to focus my energy and even if one of these loud voices is directed at me I can't make it out. I don't do well in bars because of this. I wonder if this is because I am antisocial or if I'm antisocial because of this.

Recently I've also started to realize I can't read signals to save my life. In the not so distant past a friend informed me a boy was crushing on me pretty hard for about a year. My initial response was one of the WHAT!? variety. I had no clue. We had done plays together and became friends. Not good friends. More of, "Hey we have the same major. Let's chat together at parties." After my vehement denial of this apparent fact the friend gave several instances where this crush made himself known. I remember one of them very well.

I was in the green room, full of people, prepping for a show. I had my dinner ready for me, some various snacks I had stolen from the trunk of my car where I used to keep my food and a PB&J sandwich I had made the night before. This boy sits on the couches across the room and starts chatting with someone else, bemoaning the fact that he didn't have time to grab dinner for that night. For some reason Theatre kids are terrible at eating food on a regular schedule. I offer him my sandwich which he happily accepts.

"Wow. This is pretty good actually." He pauses, examining the sandwich, "Did you put peanut butter on both slices of bread?"
"Yeah. It keeps the jelly from making the bread all soggy."
"That's...ingenious. Well thank you for giving up part of your dinner. You didn't have to do that."
"Well I most likely wasn't going to eat it anyway. I made two last night, overestimating my hunger and ended up eating one in my bed while watching 30 Rock and drinking red wine."
He then gives me this look, it's very quick, almost like he's trying to visualize me doing this. This amusement comes over his face and a quick burst of laughter escapes his mouth and he sputters.
"Oh my god..............Will you marry me?"

1/26/2011

Luminescent - The light so emitted

I am under the impression that wanting to sleep a lot might mean you are depressed. Though I'm slowly tricking my brain into thinking I'm just 'catching up' from the four years of poor sleep habits fueled by endless rehearsals, work and attempting to be a sociable human being. Or I could just be seasonally depressed.

Any other day I could look this up on a resourceful website like wikipedia or about.com. Not this morning though.

I woke up to the sounds of our fourth roommate moving out. I had set my alarm for much later hoping to be able to sleep in this morning. But it was almost 10 so I can't begrudge her that. 10 is a perfectly reasonable time to move out. So instead I sat up and pulled out my computer hoping to clear some more disk space so I could transfer some files to my computer. Last night Brandon gave me Dune audio books that would be perfect for me to listen to while I travel to the exotic locales of Akron, Bolivar and Mingo Junction (it's a real town, look it up).

Hoping to at least get the first book on Dudley, my ipod, I start to mess with my power cord. This is the second cord I've had for this laptop. The first, after five years of use decided one day it'd be a great idea to stop supplying power so I bought an off brand replacement in the meantime until I could save up the money for a proper new computer. Funny story though, this cord is starting to suck too. I have to create just the right amount of tension and tuck the cord under the laptop to get that little blue power light to go on.

However, this morning no matter what I did the light just wouldn't come on. I look closer, squinting without my glasses on and see that one side of the cord has been completely stripped. Little golden copper wires are sticking up in all directions and resemble a child's hair if they were to put a fork into an electrical socket. Without a second thought I smooth out the wires with my nail and begin to attempt a reconnect when sparks, literally, fly.

In retrospect this sounds like a dumb thing to do. But in my job we operate under the idea that you can fix almost anything that is broken with a little gumption and ingenuity. That and duct tape. I did this multiple times with electric conductor detectors in the energy show, so why shouldn't it work now? Though on further thought this may be the reason I've been sitting on a power cord with exposed wiring for a few months now.

Attachment - a feeling of affection for a person or an institution

I've got nothing.

My character got close to dying in D&D tonight and I didn't realize how attached I was to her till just then. I got snappy and mean and afterwards felt bad.

I also feel like I'm overdue for some sort of emotional break down. I can't pinpoint it but something has just felt off lately.

1/19/2011

Botulism - food poisoning from ingesting botulin

Lately I've tried to get more creative with my food. Tonight I made grilled cheese but decided to add a small portion of goat cheese I had that couldn't really be used in anything else. I also had one can of tomato soup and found a bag of pita chips that weren't really chips anymore but rather crumbs. So that got added to that.
The grilled cheese was magnificent but when I went to heat up the soup I noticed the can was dented.

Having recently finished Y: The Last Man I developed a fear of botulism. At one point Yorick eats a can of dented soup and almost dies. After I move my food out to the table I eat my sandwich but suddenly I think that soup doesn't quite look right. I eat a bit but halfway through my fear overcomes me and I let it go cold. When I google botulism I see if you cook things at 250° for three minutes it gets rid of it. But now my soup is cold.

Static - inactive: not in physical motion

I'm sitting at my desk for the first time in over a month. After flittering around the state for two weeks it's nice to sit at my desk and complete mundane tasks. Catch up on silly work gossip. Looking at Gecko's.




I did get to spend the night in my own bed a few nights my last week of training. One night, Nick and I decided to spend our evening doing, 'booze, food, and netflix'. Toward the end of the night I picked up my phone which had been on silent all night. Upon opening it I received a text from my dad essentially telling me my grandma had a stroke and was going to die very soon. The highlight being '...thought you'd want to know. Dad. (SAY A PRAYER)' Sometimes I want to give up on technology. The sheer ease with which some information is sent and received astonishes me. My brain turned to static for a bit and I made the mistake of calling him which only served to upset me further.

I then called my mom who, after some time, was able to calm me down. Funnily enough, I was heading down to her neck of the woods the next day to perform at a nearby school. Knowing a hug from your mother is only a mere hour away is an unexplainable comfort.

Once in Chillicothe I was driving around the downtown area and noticed the old comic shop there has closed. Boo. In its place is now a store which serves no purpose to the former tenants patrons. A mountain bike store. Replacing what was once the swinging sign that hung about fifteen feet in the air is now a bike. Obviously serving the purpose of a more three dimensional type. This bike sign seems to be hanging mystically from the pipes on the side of the brick building. I squint as I push my glasses up my nose trying to discern what is holding it up.
Fishing wire.
Really?
I can't wait for the article to come from that days paper.
"Pedestrian crushed by falling bike"

It was also this evening in Chillicothe I started to feel the tickle in my throat that led to my sickness. I began to mainline Constant Comment Tea in hopes of deferring it till the weekend.

After returning home I was awoken Saturday morning by a phone call from my dad. Sometime during the night my voice decided to run off and take a break elsewhere so I did not answer. I already knew what he was going to say. My grandma was cool. She lived in a pink house, taught me how to cook eggs and love vegetables. She was also 95, it was time.

1/15/2011

Adventure - An undertaking of a questionable nature

So I'm sick and don't want to go back to sleep. I also don't want to leave my warm bed. Time to start the manic checking of all my Internet haunts.
No one gets on Facebook on Saturdays.
No good fanfiction is around.
I've watched all of Dr. Who.
Let's see what's on Twitter.
Oooo! An article of 10 Wikipedia entries for their 10 year anniversary. That'll do.
Fan Death.
Dance Plague.
List of unusual deaths?
This leads me to what will inevitably be a three hour session of what I like to call choose your own adventure wikipedia.

I could go into detail, but you probably already get it. Read article, click related links or links to things you don't know about. Know more. In the past I've wasted entire days doing this. Once I went from Disney Golden Age to Beauty and the Beast to Stockholm syndrome to Patty Hearst and Lima syndrome. It's incredibly addictive and a great time waster.

For example:
I start off with a List of unusual deaths page.
The first one states that Draco, Athenian law-maker, was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre on Aegina. Holy crap.
I then scroll down to read that when Kind Herod died he had foot drop. What the hell is foot drop? Thinking it may have to do with limbs randomly falling off I learn it is more akin to sciatic nerve pain which I am woefully aware of.
Continuing on I read Sigurd the Mighty of Orkney strapped the head of his defeated foe, Máel Brigte, to his horse's saddle. The teeth of this head grazed against his leg as he rode, causing an infection that killed him.
What the what!?

This will undoubtedly go on for hours and I will end up reading up on some random topic like Codex Seraphinianus. Which, if you've never heard of it, you should read up on.

Ill - affected by an impairment of normal physical or mental function

It happened.
I got sick.
Now it's just a matter of who to blame. Casey, Patrick, or Nick.

In a misery loves company way I was glad to find out Brandon got sick too.

1/10/2011

Travel - change location; move, travel, or proceed

I've been traveling for my job for two weeks now and have been stupid busy and tired. Not to mention a wave of sickness that has come over my house in the past month. The first down in the battle were Nick and Parv. Nick is just now getting better and it has been almost a month. Now Casey is down with something. I wish I had one of those bio hazard suits from E.T. that I could crawl into. I would sit in my room breathing funny and watch TV on my computer, which when you really think about it isn't too much of a departure from my everyday routine.

Really none of this excuses the fact that I haven't been updating.

A short list of shows I'm currently obsessing over for the first time or re-watching:
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Battlestar Galactica
Doctor Who (Series 5)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Arrested Development

1/06/2011

Segment - a portion cut off from a geometric figure by one or more points

I have spent the majority of this day, playing the part of a shady hotel shut in. Eating M&M's and watching a CSI marathon....lots of people are killed in hotel rooms, this is not conducive to my current mental state.

Travel days (days where I have most of the morning and afternoon off between schools) always make me feel like a waste. If I want to go out and do anything touristy or adventurous I must be out of bed before 10 am. This proves harder than is actually sounds.

Most of the time I end up doing what I did today, watching SVU and CSI marathons and playng 'choose your own adventure' on Wikipedia. I miss the good ole' days when I'd travel to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and geek out for four hours.

As of today, I'm in Dean Martin's hometown. Steubenville. Something I've gained from this week is I still don't like traveling with people. I worry I'm starting to get sour to a point that no one will want to be around me at all anymore. I spend all my positive energy on hugging five year olds and small talking with parents of five year olds. I can't segment.

1/03/2011

Birth - the time when something begins (especially life)

I turned 24 today. I have this theory that 21 is the last milestone birthday before you turn 25 and can rent a car. Everything in between and after that is just sort of a wash.
So I thought instead of making resolutions for the New Year, which are always broken, I would make a list of things I still don't or can't do after all these years. Things that I may want to change, or not change. But when I was a little kid I assumed these were the things I would have figured out by now.

A small list of things I still haven't learned to do in my twenty three years of life.

Cook food without burning it. Grilled Cheese and Eggs are the main victims here. I also can't do toast very well.

Analyze the deeper meaning of anything. I've always hated doing this in school: books, movies, music. I only take things at face value, this almost always leads to problems down the line, mostly in conversation.
Read signals. Any kind. This deals with the above mentioned but more so with people.

Drive stick. I feel there is something innately bad ass about this.

Knit anything besides a scarf. Or a knit stitch. I have a book. I have friends who knit. I have the ability to break this pattern. Yet I don't.

How to call people and/or talk to them on the phone. We are still old enemies, the phone and I.

Let my anger out in a healthy way. When I was little I boil over and bite people. Hard. Now I just turn into a total bitch and give a biting remark. Wordplay!

When to say 'no'.

Not burning my tongue on hot chocolate, coffee, or tea.

Moisturize.

Hop a fence. I mean like both legs over at the same time.

Ride a skateboard, surfboard, ski, or learn any kind of coordinated sport besides bike riding.

Put my folded laundry away. The cleaning and drying part always go fine. There is still a little kink in the step where the clothes actually find their way back into their homes. This leads to picking random outfits from piles and many, many mismatched socks.

I'm sure there are more.
What are some things you thought you would've figured out by now?