ghosts are good company

i’m almost afraid to tell you about how things are going well and seeming to come together, because it seems like whenever i tell you that things fall apart again. but. i’m pending on a job, have a pretty-sure-thing place to live, and am going to probably buy a car sometime next week. yes, after a summer of not growing up, this is where we get to. more plans, but pretty secure plans.

i’m still feeling pretty young, so recently graduated and recently smitten. every time i tell myself i’m not going to get seriously involved with somebody… i do. i mean, i was single for a year this time, which is… better for me than the, what, month or two between my last big relationships? but i’m surprised that i’m letting myself fall this hard. i’m trying my best to trust, but also to be prepared for implosion at any point. i think we both are.

so yeah. staying in olympia for a while. this boy also dreams of running off to amsterdam, so maybe (when our powers combine!) we can make that happen at some point.

i need to head to sophie’s house to water her plant. i like when she’s gone and i can sleep at her house, but i like even more when she’s in town and i can spend time with her! i have this evil plan that by being her only friend left in town, i can be her newbestfriend. don’t tell her, though. i’m keeping it on the down-low. only telling the internet, nobody else.

today i programed what may be the gayest python “programs” ever, so that’s awesome. also it was one teacher’s birthday and the other teacher brought cupcakes and golly it was cute.

also today! my grandfather brought me a real!mattress, which is so much warmer than the air mattress that it is now on top of. I Have Learned that air mattresses are colder if it’s cold in the room because they (duh!) hold cold air!! this real!mattress instead holds, uh, fluff and springs. and my body heat, i love that part.

also since the video that nobody commented on, i am borrowing a nice armchair and side table from my housemate, and there’s a chair in the study!closet. you all so care about the exact details of my room.

20% of school done, with a 100% record so far. not bad, not bad.

most boring post possible. perhaps. but! warm!

corgi and bess

Originally uploaded by capnpuck

per my previous post. his name is peter.

aww.

for my first valentine’s day single in seven years, i worked until 3:30 am. it’s now 4:20 am, i got home and found a precious punny card from my mother – “thumb bunny loves you” (it’s me. and few other people).

later i have lunch with my friend kelly, and then even later i have working again. even though this job is a normal-length shifts, the weird schedule really makes it seem like longer days.

i love a lot of people, i thought i should let you know. if i know you, you’re probably one of them. i just thought i should remind you.

[[are puns de rigueur for valentine's day? my grandparents have informed me that i'm a "tweet-heart."]]

my friend amy is not feeling super awesome today, so it is for her that i have uploaded this photo (hard work on this connection!) and set down this poem from it.

The Mirror Poem

No mirror’s big enough for Snuff
    to see all Snuff at once.
He could try doing it in bits,
    but that would take him months.
So I walk all around him
    and tell him what I see.
And then, because he is my friend,
    he does the same for me.

i’m not sure if this book is from when snuff was still an “imaginary friend” or not… that would make the meaning quite different. i think my favorite part of the image is snuffleupagus’ eyes in the bottom left of the right-hand page.

i’m sitting in a coffeeshop in portland, typing on my macbook. it’s a stereotype i don’t usually fit, but i’ve got four hours still until my train leaves. i should go soon and catch my bus downtown – i might go to ground kontrol and play video games for the rest of the wait, but they don’t open until noon (and that’s just theoretical).

i’ve only been here for a bit – twenty hours in portland, almost as long as my next train ride – but it’s been nice, i was able to visit with a friend and find a place to sleep, which is about all one can ask. next stop sacramento, for even less time than portland, and then i’ll be back in san francisco… at least for a bit.

first thing on the agenda in san francisco is to go see bishop allen when they play live there. i haven’t bought a ticket, but i don’t thiiink it will sell out… a concert alone is going to be weird.

anyhow, those are the travel things. in seattle last week i went to see a rat city rollergirls bout, which made me wish that i had seen the film about them, and also that i could be in seattle for the championships. there’s a special on derby from kbtc up on youtube here, which has just a basic intro to what derby is and stuff. other than how i will describe it, which mostly includes the word “awesome.”

so, yes, now it is later and i should really leave this coffehouse, because my joints are feeling like they would like to moooove.

things are feeling a little better, planswise – i had double advice to let time figure things out, so while that’s hard to explain to people sometimes… that’s what i’m doing. mostly. :D

tonight i made seitan. well, today i made a few things. we had a stale loaf of bread, so i had some of that for lunch with garlic and butter, and then i wanted to make…. something… so i made breadcrumbs and then wanted something to fry in them, so i made seitan. it wasn’t from the ppk recipe, which i had used before, but it was very similar…. here! i used garlic instead of powdered garlic, and… we didn’t have some of the flavorings, so i used extra veggie stock for simmering. and molasses. it turned out fine, a bit soy saucey (becuase i used the high end of the suggested amount – i wanted flavrs!) and was completely underwhelming when baked in breadcrumbs. alas. now we have a bowl of seitan and a bowl of garlic butter in the fridge. i’m not sure what to do with them, but it’ll be… something. i stood on the phone with my father and cataloged things i could cook in breadcrumbs – green beans? a beet? squash? … none of them seemed appetizing. i wouldn’t have done well cooking on rations.

tomorrow i have a midterm, and then after that hopefully maybe i will go to a self defense training for trans and genderqueer folks. we discussed hate crimes in one of my classes recently, and that was a major suggestion (of course) for survival. but, i’ve never felt comfortable in any of the self-defense classes that i’ve taken. this one seems like it would be optimal, but it actually starts *during* the midterm. rawr, says dinosaur puck.

sleeping is optimal for children and other living things. and extinct things. including dinosaurs. goodnight or goodmorning or whatever works for you. xo

we have been working on the Getting Getting Things Done project with our household, and while some things have been highly delightful, others have stalled.

we went to ikea last week and bought a handful (truckful, actually) of shelves from the gorm ’system,’ and i’ve been putting them together bit by bit. i have one shelf constructed, except for the top extender piece – because i really need a drill to do that. also, a drill would be optimal for the brace which will keep it from… slumping over. kind of important. i could just drive the screws into unscrewed holes, but i don’t trust myself in that being secure. another challenge in our gorm experiment is that our favorite piece in the series, the hangers with five knobs, apparently have been discontinued (and are missing from the website, now?). as have the hangers with three knobs. this is super disappointing because 1) we need to hang things up and 2) one end of the shelving is next to the heater, which would have been great for hang-drying clothes.

speaking of drying clothes? i did laundry. well, 2/3 of the laundry. which is an awesome start! i also cleaned out the closet. the next step after that was to install the hand-shower that we got for christmas, but… our waterpik mist and massage showerhead leaks from its “control ring.” it works, as a shower, but it doesn’t work as a mist and massage shower – it works as a spray and dlub shower. dlub being the sound and experience of water dripping in masses from the showerhead. apparently, according to the, hugely obnoxious automated assistant, i will have to get a replacement – however, the website failed me after that step, so i was forced to ask her “how can i contact a real person?” after filling out the form, they will get back to me in three days. maybe.

i just deleted my account with flickr because they insisted that today i merge my flickr account with my yahoo account. which is difficult for somebody who really doesn’t want a yahoo account. i need to figure out a way to easily host and display pictures hosted on my own webspace. thoughts? i could write something myself, but the moral of the story is that i’m lazy (which is why flickr was so nice!). i’m tired of big companies (yahoo, six apart, etc.) buying things that i like and “making them better” but actually making them not so good.

which reminds me that my friend taylor posted a link from her music blog informing folks that it’s boycott the riaa month. the most useful thing i’ve learned about from this (i don’t have money to spend on music pretty much ever) is about the riaa radar, which will tell you if your favorite artists (or their parent company’s parent company’s parent companies) are controlled by the riaa.

and again a speaking of – wanna get me a present? no sweat’s high tops in pink are on sale for $10.71 here, and $5.00 of the sale goes to benefit code pink for peace. i approve of that. civic center blog has been posting some good imagery about war protests recently – both the peace march about how we’re in the fourth year of this war now, and almost weekly coverage of the weekly quaker vigil.

this has been quite a tangental post. hi folks. how are you? oh! and don’t forget to celebrate st. cuthbert’s day! it’s today. my own cuthbert is sleeping to get ready, and i should do my best to join him now.

yesterday, before class, i went to glam.  queer youth are always the same, it seems.  it was awesome.  i couldn’t hit the high alto notes, but i felt comfortable in the baritone range.  also awesome.

today i visited a myofunctional therapist, who told me where my tongue is supposed to live, where it would if i were a normal person.  afterward, cubbie and i wandered around a bit – we went to the palace of fine arts (before actually), and afterward we walked along the marina, and then we took the bus down fillmore, where we had lunch at crepevine, and then dessert at bittersweet.  and then we went shopping for paper products.  and i found an umbrella that was being thrown out because it didn’t have a handle.  it is yellow and pretty.  it was a lovely day.  i like cubbie.
now it is movie night.  yay!

in one of my classes, i’m doing well – getting each week’s work (because it’s online) done quickly, being on top of things… and it was just mentioned that i hadn’t signed in, yesterday, since the fourth. which is only a week, but apparently in the world of the internet, that’s a Long Time. what can you do?

so, i also haven’t updated here since then. so that’s a Long Time as well. i guess.

it’s been a busy world for cubbie and i, full of lots of delicious drama. we’re working it out, which is lovely. we’ve been Going Out and Doing Things, having dates, which we haven’t done for a while.

in searching for things to do with cubbie, i’ve also found things that i want to do on my own. gay shame meets every week, which is great because i had thought they were defunct.

trouble is, though, i keep finding things to do and then… not doing them. i have one in-person class and the rest are online and you’d think that maybe i would want to get out of the house more, but… no. this is why i haven’t been updating, see, because then i’d have to tell you about this and that’s certainly no fun.

what else, though. something is fun, and i’ve forgotten what it is. cleaning the house? no. um, oh! we’re thinking about moving to a new apartment in our building, if we ever make an appointment to see it. apparently there are studios that are only $50 more per month that are bigger and overlook the bay! i’m so hopeful.

that’s all i got.