I'll post later

Roll out your stars

I stepped off the bus and into the frost, waited to cross the street to go home. The moon looked odd a couple nights ago. I'm not sure how it looked because I was indoors and downtown but my dad left a message on my phone about how I should go take a look, that it was something he'd never seen before.

The sign on the telephone pole at the intersection told me that I missed something important that night. UFOs or something, and a connect-the-dots coded message. I should repent my sins.

But instead I started singing this song:



The words came out in a dense fog, so I sang louder, to see if I could make the cloud bigger. Normally singing in public would get me stared at, but there's noone out tonight, not even the swallows.

I won't lie. I really haven't been having a good month and I've got a lot to feel crappy about right now. I don't want to be so wide awake.

Defying all expectations

This week I've felt absolutely swamped. I've got too many things going on.

One of those things is a group project where we're supposed to be making policy recommendations to the school for reducing the amount of waste trucked to landfills. In addition to the policy report we have to prepare a presentation and I was looking for pictures I could borrow from flickr, using the flickr tags search in the top corner of firefox.

My part of the presentation is on the public relations strategy for the Toronto Green Bin Program and other similar campaigns to get people to compost.

I typed 'city of toronto' in the search box in firefox, but forgot to change the search from flickr tags to google. I got the following four photos as a result:









I am so confused.

I'm going to go to bed.

Revisions?

I'm not sure I understand this writing intensive course thing. I mean, I understand the point. I'm supposed to get better at writing through writing lots and getting feedback.

But what I don't get is when I write a draft for a paper, tear out my hair in frustration writing it, resign myself to it being the crappiest piece of shit I've ever written and hand it in in shame only to have it returned to me with nary a mark but an A.

What am I supposed to do with that? How does this help me? I refuse to believe that there is nothing that could have been improved. Something can always be improved.

I realize that I tend to hold myself to different standards than others but it is by no means the best paper I've ever written. I don't really see how these writing intensive classes help me if that's the best feedback they can give me.

All they're really saying is that I'm perfect and it's all downhill from here, which is crap. I need challenge.

Feist

You know the problem with having your favourite music go mainstream is suddenly it's everywhere like ipod commercials and Saturday Night Live and then suddenly it rushes to the top of the charts and then suddenly no one believes you when you say something like "oh yeah, Feist, I've loved her for years."

Oh, but I have. I first discovered her through these guys:



They're called Kings of Convenience and they're from Norway. Bergen, to be exact, which seems like an entirely charming and liveable place for the following two reasons:

1) It is near the ocean.
2) It has a museum dedicated entirely to leprosy.

Surely this is a place I could see myself living in.

But that's beside the point, because this is a post about Feist. I first heard her voice through this song in 2004 around the time when France pretty much kept her to itself:



Which she sings all by herself on French TV (a version I like better):



But no one believes me when I say this. And when I ask people to go with me to see bands they've never heard no one will.

Lou

Further to what I said earlier about telling you about some of my favourite photos, this is Lou.

It is also the very first picture I ever took with my Canon Digital Rebel XT that I had bought with my SFU entrance scholarship earlier that day on July 3, 2005.

If Lou was human, she'd likely be considered to be highly functioning mentally challenged or developmentally delayed. Physically she's an adult, but mentally she's stuck at kitten, which for a cat really isn't much of a problem.

She has epilepsy and a slight habit of hanging herself in the venetian blinds. She has an immense vocabulary of squeaks and squawks. Sometimes she sits outside on the kitchen windowsill and watches us eat dinner as if it were TV, and as you can see from this picture, she likes sticking her nose in your face. We're really glad we refused to let the vet put her down so many years ago.

Things I learned from TV, part 2

Ie. my literal reading of primetime commercials.

Kia vehicles cure emo.

Tim Hortons coffee, when supplemented with hockey, either watched or played, mends family rifts and puts to rest old feuds.

Westjet staff love you. They must use Nicorette because that's what makes airline stewardesses pleasant.

Eating cheese keeps you barefoot and pregnant.

Purolator helps auctioneers ship things because they talk too funny to help themselves.

Booking trips on Expedia.ca makes you speak far too quickly to be able to communicate effectively.

Volvo really, really, really badly wants to break into the Canadian market.

Listening to Sigur Ros in your car is the leading cause of pedestrian deaths in Canada.

Everything I do, nothing seems to turn out right.

I scared another one away today. We were at a dialogue downtown about Afghanistan and Canada's foreign policy, he singled me out, seemed friendly and nice and then I scared him away somehow. I don't know how I do it. I open my mouth, I guess. I should just shut up.

I do the same with job interviews and trying to make new friends. I open my mouth and then it's all downhill from there.

I suck at life.

Must recapture muse.

How do you explain this? My nail clippers were on my desk beside me and now they are not. I heard them drop off the edge on Monday and went looking for them a few hours later. I didn't find them, but I didn't worry either. I figured they'd show up when I cleaned up.

But now I've cleaned my desk, the floor surrounding it and the bookshelf beside it and there are no nail clippers to be found.

Now my fingernails are getting dangerously long, as in they're starting to look like normal person fingernails and this is beginning to irritate me. I'm going to buy a new set of clippers tomorrow, even though I know that that way I'll find the old pair right away. I just can't win.

School ends in a week. I've promised myself that I'll go forth and take interesting pictures like I used to. Like in 2005:

I think I'm going to mine through all my old photos on flickr and tell everyone about them. They've already been on this blog, but rarely if ever do the photos on here match the posts. Not to mention, for most of its history, not a lot of people have read this blog anyways.

Bucket loss, and other trials

All my compost buckets were full, so my parents came to take them all away, and somehow forgot to bring them back. That means I've been without a sealable compost bucket since Friday and I'm not quite sure what to do.

I called them on Monday, but nothing's changed yet. I'm kind of at their mercy because I sincerely doubt my ability to purchase and eat an entire four litre bucket of ice cream in one sitting. Besides, I don't really eat that stuff anymore, and I don't have the room for it anyways. Right now my freezer is filled with peas.

And pumpkin. I have a lot of pumpkin in my freezer right now, which is partially my problem. I cut a large pumpkin up on Friday and baked it so I could freeze it for muffins and soup and such. Consequently I have an entire pumpkin's worth of guts sitting out on my kitchen counter and nowhere to put it.

I was faced with a dilemma. I could stick it in an airtight plastic container and run the risk of the plastic absorbing the smell, or I could stick it into a ceramic bowl and cover the top with plastic, which is what I did. The upside is that I will definitely be able to clean the bowl and use it again, but the downside is that for whatever reason, the plastic wrap doesn't seem to be 100% airtight. I wouldn't go so far as to say that my apartment smells particularly bad, but it is noticeable when you enter the kitchen, and I can see it getting worse if I don't get a bucket soon.

Putting it out on my balcony is out of the question because the crows will get at it. I guess I could flush it down the toilet. I don't know. Sticking it in the garbage is out of the question. Compost goes in the compost.

Some days I really don't feel like I'm particularly in control of anything and this is one of those days. I wish my city had a curbside compost program like all civilized cities so that I wouldn't have to rely on my parents, because they're bad at remembering this stuff.

And, for the record, since January 1st, 2007, I have taken five half-bags of garbage out to the dumpster. I will most likely finish one more before the end of the year. That's it. I challenge everyone to do the same because it's really not hard.

Damn you, November

November's never been a good month for blogging for me.

November is when all the papers are due.

November is when my social life implodes.

November has no holidays except for Rememberance Day, and that one doesn't count because it's not something fun that you can look forward to.

November is when it gets cold again.

November is when they switch the time zones on you and all of a sudden it's dark at 3:30 and you are in very real danger of being hit and killed in an intersection multiple times per day.

November is when the inedibles in my fridge begin to outnumber the edibles.

November is a month when no matter how hard I stare at my bank statement, the numbers just keep going down.

It's when I run out of decent pictures and lack the time to go shoot more.

November

November creeps by
cold, barren, pictureless blah
mind, screen, both are blank.

Scandinavian craft fair

It's a giant dala horse!

We saw the sign last week so we had to make it down to the craft fair at the Scandinavian Cultural Centre because we'd never heard of it before and certainly had never been. The closest we've come to it is passing some Norwegians rowing a viking ship in False Creek while we were on the ferry.

I was kind of surprised at how many people were there. The place was packed and it seemed to have some interesting things for sale. Part of it was sort of like a swap meet, where they were selling old books in Swedish and other such stuff. Mom picked up a book that she thought was a cookbook, but it had words in it like Langfredag, Paskedag and names like Jurgen, Rebeka and Urban so I think it was probably more like an almanac or a calendar. My sister entered a raffle and she won, like she always does.

There were friendly ladies in bunads serving leverpostei, rice porridge and open-faced sandwiches, though no brown cheese, which is sad.

Overall, pretty entertaining.

After that we went to see the CBC Radio Orchestra play a program of Spanish music. It was the most cultural of days.

Commercials

PBS was advertising a night's worth of shows, but somehow all of them got mixed together for me. What I heard was about a dark drama, full of sex, murder and bizarre, grotesque animals. I was mildly interested until I realized that they were two separate shows.

Then later, on another channel they were advertising for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition with Ty Pennington, and then immediately afterward, a commercial for White Spot's 'Taste of Thai.' Thai food, at least at White Spot, is ruined for me, at least temporarily.

All reasons why I really shouldn't watch tv.

There's also a commercial for Campbell's Soup on right now where they take you out to a carrot farm, you meet the farmers and they talk about how wonderful their carrots are or something. There's a guy in there with a name that sounds kind of like Jackson Pollock, and my sister wants to know if Jackson Pollock the farmer makes Campbell's soup by flicking it all over the place.

The doorcruncher

I had a dream last night that I walked into a nice looking little coffee shop that sold huge muffins with odd flavour names like 'The Doorcruncher.' I went up to the counter, where a man and woman were talking. The man's cheeks were a tad sunken. He leaned over the counter, between two glass cases of massive muffins and looked straight at me and shook my hand.

"You're Erin," he said.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

"You work here," he replied.

My job happened to be writing poems that were given to customers every time one of the muffins was sold. Who knew?

Laundry

I'm up because I'm waiting for my sheets to dry. I put them in the dryer before I left for school today but they're still damp right now. I use the timer rather than the sensor thing, and obviously fourty minutes wasn't enough.

The last time I used the intelligent dry setting on my dryer, I forgot about my laundry until about four hours later, thinking that it would beep when it was done. When I finally went to check it the dryer was still running and the clothes inside were practically humming with electrical charge. Handling them made my hair stick up and I burned my fingers on the zipper on a pair of jeans. I decided it was too much hassle, so I decided to leave the load inside the dryer for a couple of hours to let it cool down. I forgot about it until a week later.

I'm not all that good at this domestic stuff sometimes. I do the cooking thing reasonably well, but for some of these other things I'm hopeless.

But now my sheets are dry and they smell good so I'm going to bed.

If I was a major television network I'd charge you a dollar to vote via text message to nominate this post for the most mundane thing I've written all year. But alas, I am not, so I'll have to think of a different get rich quick scheme.

Alarms

Someone's car alarm is screeching in the parking lot outside my window. It's one of the fancy ones that goes through every possible permutation of alarm sound twice before turning off. I'm not sure how that makes it more effective.

I can just hear it saying "What? You weren't deterred by the squeal? Well now I'm going to BEEP! And when I'm finished that I'm going to HONK and then SOUND LIKE A SIREN! You don't want to mess with me, asshole!"

Clearly one of the available sounds turns potential car thieves into incoherent, quivering puddles of goo. They're just not sure which one so they cover their bases by playing them all. Persistence is the key. If that's not winning logic, I don't know what is.

I want to make a car alarm that has a human voice that says something like "don't even think about it" or just "piss off." It doesn't have to be mean or yelled. It could be quite polite. We could get some celebrities on board. Wouldn't you want a car alarm that had Sean Connery's voice say "I wouldn't touch that car if I were you"? I certainly would.

I would also like a ringtone for my phone that says "answer the phone" or someone saying "ring ring". And since I have call display, some custom rings would be nice too:

"Your mom's calling."

"Don't pick up. It's only your sister."

On craft fairs and handmade gifts

I wandered down to the Burnaby Craft Fair on Saturday and I'm sad to say that I was a little disappointed. I mean the crafters no disrespect when I say this. They place a great deal of effort into creating their products and and take pride in their work. But the number of people involved, both selling and buying, seems to shrink year after year.

A family friend who was selling her weaving there echoed the same sentiment. Fairs are just not getting the same amount of traffic as they used to, and it's getting to the point, she says, where it's just not worth it anymore. As someone who was quite active in that community for many years, I find it a little upsetting.

Stepping out to the car, I heard an advertisement for Circle Craft, which is one of the few places that seems to be able to attract crowds anymore. The last time I was there, someone told me that nearly half of all the people selling that year were new, which according to them, was a good thing. But what the high turnover says instead to me is that people don't come back because they don't sell enough to make it financially worthwhile.

I find that the problem with Circle Craft though is that the cost of admission is high, the table fees are high and the commission percentage is also high, so consequently the prices once you get in are all way higher than they would normally have been. I realize that the higher fees cover the cost of advertising and the rental fees for the convention centre, but still, they can make the cost of things a little prohibitive, especially for kids like me who have tight budgets.

One good thing to be said about Circle Craft is that their jury process is very good. They obviously take great care to ensure that everything is hand crafted and of good quality, which is more than can be said about a lot of other local craft fairs.

The last year we sold at the Mission Craft Fair there were two new vendors who also sold silver jewelry. One man was quite open about the fact that his goods were handmade, not by him, but by people in Mexico. The other was selling plain chains, bracelets and lockets that were ordered straight from the Rousseau Chain catalogue. For years there had been friendly competition among a group of jewelers there who were all playing by the same rules, then all of a sudden we were all at a disadvantage because we couldn't compete with mass production.

I can't help thinking that this is just another facet of the erosion of the public sphere by corporations. Maybe I should be writing my Frankfurt School critical theory paper on this instead. If only I had more time.

In spite of my disillusionment I still have faith in buying handmade because supporting real people instead of Wal-Mart makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Not to mention, handmade things are unique. As long as the option still exists I'll take the time to visit local craft fairs and galleries, and when I finally get my shop together on Etsy you'll be sure to know.

I have a mystery to solve.

Collapsing a kleenex box for recycling at my parents' house, I found a key rattling inside the bottom. It's small, silver and looks like it's either from a cashbox or a cabinet and it has a smiley face sticker stuck to one side. Figures I forgot to take my camera out with me so you're just going to have to imagine it.

I am wondering why a key would be hiding in the bottom of a kleenex box, and who would have put it there in the first place. My parents seem to think it has nothing to do with them.

Looks like I'm going to have to do some investigative work like Oskar Schell from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I can visit people I looked up in the phone book and hear what they have to say and maybe I'll find the answer. It's hard to say. Not everyone's in the phone book anymore.

I'll think up some likely scenarios and let you know what I come up with later.

Bryter Layter

Stormy. There are a lot of power surges right now, so I'm unplugged and sans internet. I'm listening to Nick Drake's Bryter Layter - an excellent album.

When Du and I went to see Matt Good at the Centre in September, we arrived really, really early, and this was the music playing in the theatre while we waited.

At one point in time, some of the DJ's from the Fox came out to introduce the show and they seemed majorly out of touch with everything. They were talking about how he's "kicked ass" for years and that he was going to "kick ass" tonight, ignoring the fact that he shed the asshole rocker persona years ago and he's now the sensitive, wounded, bipolar, acoustic guitar playing human rights activist.

In addition to that they said that the rockin kickass music we were listening to was coming from Mr. Good's own ipod. And while I love Nick Drake, kickass? How can a sensitive, wounded, possibly suicidal acoustic guitar and flute player be kickass?

the power is now out

Not to mention, CFOX is far more likely to play something like Puddle of Mudd or Nickelback than anything remotely like Nick Drake.

The same thing happened when he had an interview with them on the air. They were completely out of touch with what he's been doing lately. But what do I know? I'm sitting here, at my computer, typing to the light of an oil lamp. At the lowest setting, my screen is too bright and it's burning my eyes so I'll be signing out now. Good night.

Hole

I woke up this morning to the sudden realization that after spring is over, I have two courses left to finish my degree, two evening courses that I could be doing while working. In spite of that, I don't have quite enough credits completed right now to apply for grad school, which means I'm going to have to wait a year to apply. That means I've got a year of absolutely nothing to do.

Curled up in a fetal position in bed, I began to sing (to the tune of Hole in the Bottom of the Sea*):

there's a hole in the middle of my plans
there's a hole in the middle of my plans
there's a hole
there's a hole
there's a hole in the middle of my plans

there's a year in the hole in the middle of my plans...

there's an abyss of nothingness in the year in the hole in the middle of my plans...

I have no idea what I'm going to do. I don't have student loans and my financial situation is actually pretty good, so it's not like I'm going to be really pressed for money the moment I'm out. But I still need to do something. I wish it could be school.

Other than that, my day has been so uneventful it's not worth talking about.

* It was either Barney or Veggie Tales. I picked the lesser of two evils. Sorry.

Lost cat

So, once upon a time I answered the phone and a person on the other end told me she had found my cat. I hadn't been aware that she was missing so I asked her where she found the cat. She replied that it was wandering around the park.

I wandered over to the window and looked out across the lawn and into the park. A couple was standing in the middle of the grass and they were holding Frick. I thanked the woman for her concern and asked her to put the cat down.

I think they were confused, because they didn't let the cat go. I assured them that it was alright, and that the cat knew the way home. They really weren't expecting that at all.

Finally Frick struggled her way out of the man's grasp and stalked home.

Poor people. They were just trying to be nice.

Ye olde waste audit.

Reasons why you should take sustainable community development at SFU:
- the people you meet are really cool
- the projects are really cool
- you get to save the world, which is also really cool

We're working on a bunch of different group projects right now. My group has been asked by facilities management to make recommendations about ways that SFU can reduce its solid waste.

We decided to do a waste audit to see what exactly we are dealing with, and I suggested that maybe we should make it a public thing. The rest of the group jumped on that so we got permission and then dumped a bunch of garbage in the middle of the convomall at SFU.

Personally I'm pretty glad that we did that because lots and lots of people approached us to ask what we were doing, or to tell us we were really cool. Who would have thought that digging through garbage could be so fun?

But now we have to find a way of convincing people to bring their own coffee mugs to school, because as you can see from the picture, there were a lot. Far too many.

More (north)American sentences

(north)American sentences for the past week or so:

Take out sushi comes in plastic bags, perfect size for bathroom garbage.

Good night Marcuse, I've had enough alienation for today.

The fog squats defiant; it will be noon before we see the ocean.

The second dinner wasn't needed but I needed the company.

Eating olives is more expedient than picking them out of food.

Only person to touch me today: down syndrome woman with warm coat.

Leak in my shoe would not have bothered me if bus had not broken down.

I check my email eagerly anticipating what's not coming.

A bit of an explanation here.

Winds of change

My dad once told me about one of his teachers in elementary school. Grade four, maybe. Her name was Mrs. Swaghoffer, she spoke with a harsh, German accent and her arms were always folded underneath a pair of enormous breasts. While he was in her class he secretly feared that one day while she was standing over his desk looking at his work, she would uncross her arms and he would be crushed to death under her enormous bosom.

I don't know why I remember this now. I just do.

The cadets are marching to a drum and uninspired band music just outside my window. For a while I thought they'd be cooler if they had syncopated beats or something, but Adorno and Horkheimer have wrecked jazz for me.

I have not adjusted to daylight savings time at all. I'm convinced it's an American conspiracy to make it more dangerous for me to get home after school. It takes the light away from the time when I have to dodge cars to cross the street at poorly lit intersections and puts it when I am either asleep or studying at home. It means that I suddenly can't go for runs in the evenings because the forest is dark. I'm not convinced that it saves energy either. It just leaves me tired.

The eggy scent of sulphur is hanging on the air tonight. I don't know why it's so much more noticeable today than it is any other day. I noticed the other day that the Downtown East Side smelled unusually fishy as I was bussing through. The smell comes from the canneries at the docks, but most days you don't smell it in that area. Maybe the air is moving differently.

Winds of change, only different.

A year ago today: Showering 8:15

Everything is always hiding in the couch.

I'm writing a paper on meta-silence and another on a Frankfurt School reading of the movie Waydowntown. I'm starting to have fun with them because I don't have anything due for more than a week. In fact, with the holiday I don't really have many classes next week either. Life is good.

Somehow I ended up staying up a lot later than I should have last night and add that to paper-related sleep deprivation from the weekend and now I'm completely dopey.

I ran down to the library to get a book today and couldn't find it on the shelf. I went back to the computer to see if maybe I'd gotten the call number wrong. I combed the shelf to see if maybe it had just been reshelved in the wrong place. I ended up back at one of the computers to check if it was signed out and it was.

Somehow I forgot to place a hold on the book which is just as well because when got home tonight, I found it in my couch. I don't know when I signed it out.

And then I wonder why people tell me I'm airheaded sometimes.

I'll try to get some sleep so I'll be able to do better than crappy pictures of my cats and talk about school.

I'm getting spinsterly in my old age

My dad was working late tonight so he called me to see if I wanted to go out and get a salad or something because he seems to have something against my cooking. The doctor's put him on a crazy restrictive diet so our options were pretty narrow but we managed to find a place.

And it suddenly comes out over dinner that my mom secretly thinks that I'm going to die old and alone and my dad thinks I'm probably getting too comfortable living alone in a penthouse. And what am I going to do for the rest of my life? And do I have any plans? And what about this Tom guy?

Well, obviously they don't read my blog because I've already written out the reasons I'm not your girlfriend, but mostly it comes down to me being perpetually uncool and perpetually not interested in anyone. The world is full of a lot of people who make perfectly fine friends or acquaintances, but not very many that I genuinely feel are worth my time. So it's just as well that I get zero attention. (That is, if you don't count this guy, but I'd rather not have him count.)

I maintain what I've always said. I really wouldn't mind being a brain in a jar, especially if they could feed me with some sort of cheese flavoured nutrient water. Preferably oka, but a good sharp cheddar would suffice.

If not that then maybe a tenured position at some university somewhere. I want my own office with so many stacked books it's hazardous, a thick wool rug and ivy on the windows so that I can refuse to retire and expire over one of my books one day, only to be discovered a week or two later.

My other name is Tato.

I have been writing the paper from hell. I just keep working and working at it and it doesn't seem to get any longer or more coherent. Luckily I have good help, as you can see above.

"Steve, get out of the shower. Abby needs to use the bathroom."

"What? Gazemi needs to use the bathroom?"

"Khezemi is her Arab name. Abby needs to use the bathroom."

"Abby, he just called you Khezemi."

"That sounds like a magician name."

"Not like your warrior's name, which is Fergus."

Sometimes my mom calls me Angus. That's when she's not calling me Auswyn. This randomness is why I come home on the weekend.

My sister's starting to call herself that now. I might have to stop calling her Du.

In other news, someone took all the mp3's from my computer when I wasn't looking and is using them for tv commercials. They're all there. I'm such a trendsetter.

And that's my day

I woke up and then I worked on papers. And then I baked some muffins and worked on papers. Then I made some cauliflower and leek soup and worked on papers. Got to take breaks here and there.

Around sixish mom called me and asked if I wanted to go for dinner. She had found the perfect place. They have authentic Swedish food. It's called Ikea.

I never got my dinner though, because about half an hour later, my sister called and said that she was stranded somewhere because my parents were stranded elsewhere with a flat tire. I ate soup instead.

My sister arrived out of nowhere to watch tv. She has some sort of inflamed thingie in her stomach/abdomen area that came from being hugged too hard or falling over, so she needs a pillow to lay on the floor.

Did I tell you a daschund tried to bite my leg off yesterday? I was walking by it and then it started growling and running after me. I outran it, but it was vicious. That's why we call them viciouses around these parts.

Or maybe only I do.

I'm home, writing papers.

This is an important update. The umbrella tree that I repotted a month or so ago has sprouted five new leaves in quick succession. Just after I repotted it it looked a little unhealthy but it must be happy now.

I came across this recipe for rhubarb cake and it reminds me of something my mom always made, so I'm making it minus the salt and with cinnamon instead of the orange zest. My version also has whole wheat flour instead of white because at the moment that's all I have and fibre is my friend, and so are B vitamins.



It's in the oven right now and I can smell it. It will be consumed warm with large volumes of whipped cream, Habermas, Gadamer and Marx. Ah, papers.

Somebody once said that I do a good job of making the mundane interesting. I hope this is one of those days.

Hi.

Here's the thing.

The only thing I did today that is remotely interesting is I ended up at the pub before class because it was a student union thing and I never pass up free alcohol. Because I was going to class, I didn't drink very much but what I did have went straight to my head.

I blame it on being kind of dehydrated because I probably haven't been getting enough to drink lately. I've been low on milk for a week and I'm too lazy to take an hour out of my day to walk to the store. It's not the walking, really. It's just that it's been kind of chilly out and I don't want to hold a cold jug of milk and freeze my fingers off.

And since I don't like the way the water tastes in my apartment, I drink a lot of tea so a lack of milk means a reduction in tea...

I make this way too hard for myself.

The other two reasons are that I'm still not as used to weighing less than I used to as I'd like to think, and that last night my dad arrived out of nowhere and took me out for dinner. I wasn't thinking at all when I ordered a salad and ate it. It had spinach in it, and as I've said before for some reason or other over the past year I've suddenly developed some sort of intolerance to raw spinach. Cooked is fine, but the raw stuff works like drano on me.

Needless to say I was a little out of it by the time I got to class, but not too bad, because I was also full of yam fries and that spicy mayonnaise dip stuff. Whoever invented such things is my hero.