not far from the truth: a freewriting challenge from the kween...

       It's been a long time since we last met. The last time was here, wasn't it? Well... in there. The doors are shut now. Probably a service in progress. I remember what it was like to be in there, to see the King children in the back row with their coloring books and little baggies of Cheerios, old lady Shaw and her warm smile and penetrating eyes, and Miss Jeanie sitting straight as an arrow behind the piano. Is she well? She used to give me the biggest smiles, the sweetest hugs. She and her husband took me out for my birthday last year. I miss them. I miss all of them. I'm still the same person, after all. It was their smiles that faltered, their breath that got caught up in the battle between me and what they think you said. But it wasn't you, was it? No, you wouldn't say something like that about me. Yet, here I am, and there they are--the doors locked more securely than before, the narrow windows more tightly shuttered. I used to preach from their pulpit; now I'm here, behind these bars, the once shiny black paint chipping away and showing the rust beneath. Looking up at the cold stone stained by centuries of weather and creeping vines, it's hard to imagine you living there. But you're not contained by stone halls or iron bars, are you?  How could you be? No... you're right. Neither am I. They're the ones behind the bars, kept in the stone vault and looking out narrow windows. Maybe, one day, they'll venture down that old gravel path and discover you waiting for them in places they didn't expect. And I'll hug Miss Jeanie again and wink at old lady Shaw and see how much the children have grown.

---

Three things I'm thankful for, day two:

1. Warm, whole-wheat bread fresh from the oven with peach preserves I made a couple nights ago.
   
   
2. Quiet nights in, complete with conversations with good friends and Netflix movies on tap.
   
   
3. Course schedules from a helpful graduate assistant assuring me I didn't procrastinate too long and that I will graduate. Finally.
   
   

because i promised. and because i should...

       so i've just finished up this essay rounding out the romantic period of english literature with shelley and keats and ...my brain hurts. quite appropriately i've turned to xanga and netflix to lull me to sleep. it's been too long since this impotent noodle has seen this kind of action. ha. it's exhausting, but it reminds me of something i haven't seen in a while that kinda gets me excited ...perhaps prematurely. thinking about grad school. i know, right? i am truly the professional student. but i kinda want to see where it could go. it's not often that i have real potential energy buzzing inside me. usually it's just a flicker of heat that curls up from the cracked earth--a mirage that might keep me going for a bit but withers as i get close. we'll see how long this one lasts. i'm supposed to have this class finished by the end of the month, though. i've had exactly one year to complete it, the last of my requirements for graduation, and i wait until the last month. what does that tell you, hm? well, if you thought i was bad about replying before, you were right. i'm only going to get worse now. i think i owe about a half dozen people some fairly involved emails, so i'll ask you to bear with me a little longer.

       anyway, i've promised this guy that i'd start doing these with him. i'm supposed to do it every day, but i have a feeling i'll be missing some. just a slight inkling given my consistent posting record and such. it's supposed to help me think more positively? something like that. seems to be working for him. he has a boyfriend, though. i have netflix. and my mirages. so... three things i'm thankful for, day one:

1. new ideas for old stories. sweeping out a few of the cobwebs from the cranium has had some interesting side effects. studying romanticism (again) has had some, too. i'm an instinctual postmodernist, i've been told. kinda interesting, but these postmodernist types sometimes like to take bits and pieces from other periods and stitch them together, a favorite being the romantic period, and william blake and john keats have provided some crazy-effective fertilizer. it's been awesome.
   
   
2. not being sued. yet. long story. remind me to post about it sometime. there were four, now there's just one. hopefully that will be going away soon, too.
   
   
3. new friends. even if they are just online.

hasta luego, mis amigos.

i really hate spiders, part four...

       every day i want to be a hermit a little more. an author i admire, madeleine l'engle, once said "when we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. but to grow up is to accept vulnerability... to be alive is to be vulnerable." well i'm tired of being vulnerable. i want to move to a nice little tunnel and be a hobbit. i like air conditioning too much, though. and i don't like spiders. or snakes. or bugs. or dirt. and i'd need a power outlet for my kindle. hm. my plan is rapidly crumbling.

       by the way, i HATE spiders. yes, that word deserves all caps when considering what follows it. the two people who've read this blog since the beginning may remember this and this and this (hm. those will be linked eventually, but i am way too tired to go looking for them now. lol.). basically, though, i hate spiders. so, last weekend, one decided to crawl in bed with me. friendly little brown recluse. oh, and he thought he'd also help himself to a nice little piece of my inner thigh. yeah. let's just say i'm very glad he wasn't facing the other direction. i'm on day three (or is it four?) now, though, and there hasn't been any necrosis and the swelling is going down, so i'm good. it was just bruised and painful and scary for a while. and i'm so having my apartment sprayed.

       so i told dani i'd start the whole "come up with three things you're thankful for every day" thing. i'll start... tomorrow. lol. yes, this is another pointless post. lots to do. lots of emails to write. lots of homework to get done. lots of sleep to be had. yes, i think i'll go do that now. the sleep bit. later, taters.

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protected because i like the sprite in you...

 

Due to the, erm, sensitive nature of these answers, I've decided to make these posts protected. You should all feel loved. Stealing the format from Maureen, who stole it from Maddy. And in the fashion of Dani (and kinda Maureen), I'll give two answers, one for the time the photo was taken (about two years ago), the other for the present time.

1. Do you think I have a significant other?

• Yesh
• Yes
• No
• yes

I didn't. I was hopelessly in love with someone at the time, but, alas, it was unrequited. C'est la vie. Currently? Not really. Working on that.

2. Do you think I am happy or sad on the inside?

• Contentz.
• Happy.
• Sad, angsty.
• happy most of the time.

Maureen got this one. Lots of things going on at the time. Because of said unrequited love, I was having to start coming to terms with myself. This was also at the worst of my bipolarness. Almost downed a bottle of meds, but was interrupted by said unrequited love and he took me to Fazolis. I wrote a story about it.

3. Do you think I am a virgin?

• No
• No.
• Haha. Depends on how you define sex. (Actually, true. Take this into account and I was 24.)
  
• no way.  this photo makes you look way too hot.  haha. ( Rora, you make me blush)
  

Hm. At the time, yes. As of very recently, no longer.

4. How old do you think I was when I had my first kiss?

• 16
• 17...?
• 16
• 14

Hm. Haha. I've kissed, sure. But my first real kiss? 25. I know. Sad.

5. How many relationships do you think I've had?

• 2
• 3-4.
• 2
• 3

This one is more tricky. I really can't say how many girls I've dated. Not many. Probably not far from 10. For the time of this pic, take away a couple from that. Tim is the first guy I've dated. And I've fallen hard for two people (didn't date either of those). Technically they're all relationships, but if we're talking serious "in love" relationships, I've yet to have my first.

6. Do you think I'm shy or loud?

• So loud the walls blur.
• Shy.
• Too shy, shy.
• loud.

Thank you, Rora and Tasty, for giving me the benefit of the doubt (even though I'm pretty sure Tasty was being sarcastic). I'm very shy at first. Very shy. I'll warm up after a bit, or if we just click like that. Really depends who I'm with. I usually feed off other people's energy. As far as volume goes, though, I'm always being asked to speak louder. I feel like I'm yelling half the time. Tim is one of the few I don't seem to have this problem with. He must have big ears?

7. Do you think I was a good kid in school, a rebel, or a skank?

• Hussy.
  
• Good kid.
• So good it hurts.
  
• good kid.

Thanks, Good. Really. I went to a small, private, Christian school, K-12. My mom was (and is) the Kindergarten teacher (but not mine... she didn't start until I was in the fifth grade). I had to be good. I was most of the time.

8. Do you think I've ever smoked weed?

• Smoked? No. Had it? Hm, probably?
• No.
• No.
• yeah.  that's a weed smokin' beanie.  and the blur makes it seem like you're tripping. 

Hm. Also a new thing I tried this semester, so for the purposes of this pic, no. But G's right, I didn't inhale it. I made brownies. They were amazing brownies, too. I only did this once--wanted to try it.

9. Do you think I'm hiding something?

• Yes
• Yes.
• Yes.
• your wild side!

At the time this was taken I was hiding lots. Lots. Even from me. Not as much anymore. I've certainly been able to open up more in my old age. Not completely, though. This post is protected, after all.

10. How old do you think I look?

• 21
• 21 or 22.
• Umm...21
• 22-23

I was 23. 25 now.

11. Do I look mature or immature?

• Mature
• Mature.
• Mature.
• mature.

You better all say that I look mature, haha. Am I actually? More than some, perhaps. Still surprising myself with how much room I have to grow, though.

12. What kind of music do you think I'm into? (ooh, I like this question!)

• Music is a touchy subject
  
• Rock or classical. (Don't ask how I got that combination, I have no idea.)
• Alternative.
• soft rock

My music tastes haven't really changed since this pic was taken, but I have discovered more music that I love. I really enjoy a lot of different kinds, though. Depends on the mood, I suppose. All of the above. Except rap. And most country. And screamo stuff. Rock and classical is probably closest. Recently falling madly in love with Jay Brannan.

13. Do you think I have any body piercings?

• 7 of them. I just know.
• No.
• No, but you want everyone to think you do. (hee, hee)
• no.

I don't. Never have. I won't say never will, but it's unlikely. I wouldn't be able to pull off most piercings, except a couple friends seem to think I could pull off guages. Those scare me at the moment, but I'm not ruling them out. Small ones.

Well that was boring and pointless.

jumping on the bandwagon...

 

So, here's the deal: Just by looking at the picture of me above (oh god, please don't look), try to answer the following questions. (Don't take into account what you know about me currently. Try to answer for the time you think you see in the picture.) Whatever, no one's actually following these directions. Do what you want.

1. Do you think I have a significant other?

2. Do you think I am happy or sad on the inside?

3. Do you think I am a virgin?

4. How old do you think I was when I had my first kiss?

5. How many relationships do you think I've had?

6. Do you think I'm shy or loud?

7. Do you think I was a good kid in school, a rebel, or a skank?

8. Do you think I've ever smoked weed?

9. Do you think I'm hiding something?

10. How old do you think I look?

11. Do I look mature or immature?

12. What kind of music do you think I'm into?

13. Do you think I have any body piercings?

Give your best guess as to what the answers are. I'll post the answers later. If I feel like it.

wine and chocolate and toasty fires...

       currently cozying up to the fire with a bit of chocolate and a glass of the blush that we never got a chance to open when you were here. starting to feel a slight flush in my cheeks after only a few sips. always was the lightweight. wishing that you would call, but i know the phone won't ring tonight. we connected, yes, but you're also starting to see how crazy i can be and it scares me--scares me how much i like you, scares me how desperate i am for connection. you were going to come see me next weekend but something came up. isn't that the way it goes?

       i should be writing. replies to send to people who are expecting them and new e-crushes who aren't expecting anything but in whom i've found that sort of soul-kin that i rarely come across, but whom i'm too nervous to start talking to in case they start to see how crazy i can be or in case we have those awkward silences and they find me boring and unintelligent. had an idea earlier that fleshed out an old story i've been working on for half a decade, but it makes me nervous to put any effort into it in case it fails. yes, even a little flushed with wine i seem to play the part of the coward quite well. they should make pills for people like me. oh wait, they do. i'm just the guy with the minimum wage job who can't afford them. i'm scared of pills anyway.

       i finally start to come out of my little hole in the ground and i'm being scared by my shadow. i don't think i can stand six more weeks of winter.

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What is your favorite kind of ice cream? Why do you like it?

       dude. this is the most important question ever, and one of my favorites to ask people. i have many favorites: chocolate, chocolate chip cookie dough, dulce de leche, coffee, and raspberry. but my all-time favorite would have to be peppermint stick ice cream, and unless i make it myself i only get it at christmas because it's seasonal. mmm. i love it.

       what's your favorite?

       p.s. home for the weekend and not much xanga-time, so i apologize to those i'm needing to keep up with. i'll be back soon.

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happiness is...

       late-night talks with good friends; sleeping in on rainy sunday mornings; banana pancakes and ripe, juicy pears for brunch; new-found genius playlists on iTunes (currently based on the fray's "you found me"); slight day-after soreness from a 12-mile walk/jog; endless possibilities for the afternoon.

       self-discovery; being struck speechless by the kindness and openness of new friends; old friends who still love you despite your incessant flow of crazy; the touch of a beautiful stranger's hand at the movie theater; a whisper of beginning to be comfortable in your own skin -- despite everything else; looking on the bright side... or at least trying to.

       favorite songs that speak to you in new ways; sprouting herb gardens; feeling creative; music from another room; re-reading old favorites; being excited for the next one; crossword puzzles; used pink iPods that hold half my music collection (my last mp3 player held about 20 songs ); feeling infinite and connected.

       slightly manic episodes.

      

question of the whenever-the-heck-i-feel-like-asking-one...

       what makes you happiest? please be very detailed.

weekend getaway, part two...

       oh, what a lovely weekend. good friends, good food, good views, good times. starting where i left off, saturday afternoon brandon and i went to old chicago to watch the mizzou elite eight game. good game, but, alas, mizzou lost. really, i didn't care much, but it was a lot of fun stuffing our faces with stuffed spinach artichoke pizza and loaded nachos and gossipping like two old church ladies. we got a slight touch of food poisoning, but nothing serious, and we had some interesting laughs over our stomachs' competition to be the loudest.

       that's when he brought out a gift for me. he was in thailand several weeks ago, doing some research for school, and he had quite a bit of time to get out and see the city and experience the culture, including getting a chance to go through a few of the markets. he got lots of cool trinkets and various foods and carvings and a few randoms, but then he pulls out this bag stuffed with what looked like some red herb. he tossed it to me and i read the package. he bought me two freaking ounces of saffron! for those who don't know, saffron is one of the most expensive spices you can buy. it's amazing stuff, simply the dried stigma of the saffron crocus flower. i priced it last night when i went to wal-mart. it's about $15 for 1.7 grams. i'm not great with math, but it's a little more than 28 grams to an ounce, which means that he gave me nearly $500 worth of saffron. i still can't get over that. it's good saffron, too. the greatest part? he bought it for $3.

       that night we went back over to his girlfriend's house (who isn't really his girlfriend, but for the sake of keeping it simple we'll pretend) and i taught them how to make chocolates. lots of fun. while we were there, simon, a guy from kenya who was there studying political science, stopped by for a visit and to try some chocolate. he was so animated and passionate and funny, i was enthralled just listening to him speak. we talked about the two cultures and politics and food and life. it was so great being in that atmosphere with people my age who had similar interests. then val, brandon's not really girlfriend, asked him, "what makes you happiest?" his reply was simple: "dancing." he said the music didn't matter so much, but he loved to see a crowded dance floor where the people were moving together and forgetting the rest of the world for a moment. i thought that was a beautiful answer, and it made me want to dance, but then i remembered i'm a 5'8" chubby balding white guy with two left feet. continued to have some excellent conversations, including one with leah, val's roommate, who is going to hungary in the fall to teach english for a year. exciting stuff, no? we left around one a.m., but we stayed up 'till three anyway, talking about the evening and half a dozen other things.

       sunday morning (when we finally woke up) we decided to skip church in favor of whole-wheat blueberry pancakes with portobella mushrooms and sauteed onions (sounds odd but they were amazing) and a trip to the konza (the prairie i mentioned in the last post). it had snowed the night i arrived, but it was 50 degrees on sunday and most of it was melting fairly quickly. unfortunately that left the konza trail pretty wet and treacherous, but we braved it anyway. so worth it. it was amazing. so beautiful. i took some pictures with my crappy camera phone (i really need to get a good camera), but they don't do it justice. i wish you could have been there. it was more of a workout than i was expecting, especially trudging through snow and trying to keep my balance, but coming up over the top of one of the larger hills and being able to see forever -- made me feel infinite. we sat on some boulders on top of the hill and enjoyed the breeze coming off the prairie and the smell of grass and snow, and we watched the little streams of snow-melt glinting in the sun as they wound their way to the larger streams in the valleys. i wish i had a spot like that where i could go all the time -- because i would definitely be there all the time. everything felt connected and peaceful, and being there with one of my best friends made the whole thing perfect. we had a slightly awkward but pretty important conversation up there, and we shared about our lives and our loves and our hopes, and it felt for a while like everything was going to be ok.

       we parted there at the konza and i began the four hour drive home, listening to lifehouse and coldplay and feeling pretty darn amazing.

       i had today off. went to the store and bought seeds for an herb garden (and some chocolate don't tell!), then i returned the car and enjoyed the walk back to my apartment, stopping for a while in the park to read and watch the people and the squirrels. now jordan is banging on my door wanting a walk, so i'd better go. later taters.

              

l-r: brandon on the konza trail, view from the top, the konza trail-river, flat kansas driving home
(click to enlarge)

weekend getaway...

       so yeah, i'm a credits whore (see widget below). i use them to support my premium habit, and i generally get just enough every six months to avoid paying the $15 for the next term. i rarely give minis, so if you ever get one from me, it must be special. anyway, i'm on a little weekend getaway of my own. one of my best friends, brandon, has been trying to get me to come visit him for quite a while, but without the use of a properly functioning (or licensed) vehicle it makes such things difficult. i needed the getaway, though, and i just happen to be old enough (i'm getting a kick out of this because it's the first time in a while that i'm enjoying being old), so i rented a car for the weekend and drove the four hours to the little apple: manhattan, kansas, where brandon is finishing his masters in food science and nutritional sensory analysis. there's not a whole lot to see in kansas, but manhattan is in the middle of the konza prairie and that last little bit of drive is quite breathtaking.

       it's been an odd one, though, starting with the car rental. apparently you need a major credit card to rent a car? yeah, i thought it was odd, too. i have a debit card (that can be run as credit) and i had the money for the rental and the deposit, but they wouldn't let me use it. kinda dumb, if you ask me. fortunately my responsible little brother who messes with such things as credit cards was a few blocks away on his lunch break and came to my rescue. so we got the car worked out. so now i'm in manhattan, and we have a blizzard. oy. haha. it's almost april, we've had 60-70 degree weather for the last couple weeks, and we get several inches of snow (which stuck, oddly, and it's still falling). it looks really pretty on the dogwood blossoms, but it's so random. i just hope it clears up before tomorrow because i absolutely hate driving in the snow. i very nearly killed myself doing that once.

       other than that, though, it's been a lovely weekend so far. we made dinner at b's girlfriend's place and the theme was "tiny foods." very fun. then we went out to a live jazz thing, which was cool but they really needed a jazz pianist. i was a little too far gone to care anyway. and today we're going to watch the mizzou game and see manhattan a little. i'm excited. pray that the snow melts, though. i'll update as the weekend continues. later taters!

As a child, what was your favorite book? Have you reread that book since your childhood?

       easy. the chronicles of narnia. we used to get the scholastic reading program fliers every couple weeks or so. at the time i didn't know what the story was, but i wanted it so bad. i was always allowed a book or two from the flier, but this was a big one and a little more expensive so i had to reserve it as a birthday or christmas present (don't remember which). i was so excited when i finally got it. i tore through them, then read them all again. don't know how many times i've read them since, but a fair few, and i'll still pick one up now and again and spend an hour or two on it. doesn't take me nearly as long now as it used to. those were the books i'd stay up late into the night reading with a flashlight under the covers.

       other childhood favorites included "the little engine that could," "tuffy the tugboat" (when i was really small), and i very much enjoyed the boxcar children series, or at least back when they were still written by the same author. also about a hundred million others that i can't remember at the moment, or i can and don't want to go through all of them.
  
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qotd: when did you become a foodie?

       got this from here. kind of a lame-ish title for a site, if you ask me. anywho. my love affair with food goes back a very, very long way. probably my first memory of cooking was when i was set to bring snacks one day for my kindergarten class. i had this awesome noah's ark toy boat that came complete with animals that doubled as cookie cutters, so i made sugar cookies (with generous amounts of help from the parentals, i'm sure -- actually, they probably did most of it, but i do remember cutting out the cookies from the dough). damn giraffes were a pain in the neck. but they were so beautiful and i was so proud of them. i loaded up the cookies into the boat (because it also served as a cookie jar) and took them to school (i went to a private school where such things were allowed). but as i was proudly carrying the cookies to mrs. vaughn's desk, somehow i dropped the boat. it was plastic, so it didn't break, but all the cookies inside it did. i was devastated, but we ate them anyway.

       my next food memory would be of my grandparents, when my grandfather was still alive, so before i was nine still. i loved peanut butter. hmm. no, i was obsessed with it. george washington carver was my hero because he invented it [i learned later that he didn't (i can thank the aztecs for that -- hmm... which might explain my fascination with ancient native american culture) but he still came up with 100 or so uses for the peanut]. for my 5th or 6th (or somewhere in there) birthday i requested (and received) a peanut butter cake with raspberry filling. and for one of my birthdays my grampa gave me a whole gallon of natural peanut butter. best. present. ever. now my obsession has since abated, but i still love the stuff. hmm. i think i'll have that for lunch.

       my real passion for food, though, comes from my grandmother. she was the oldest girl of about a dozen children (not really, but there were several of them) and as such often made the meals. she grew up on a farm in the middle of the depression, but they were fairly self-sustaining and didn't really know that the depression was happening. she would use whatever she could to make sure the family was fed, throwing together some very interesting (and very tasty) culinary delights. her love of cooking and her whimsical techniques are definitely what inspired me, and she encouraged me to experiment and find my own method of creating while having fun with it. some of my favorites of her creations include her cottage cheese pancakes, which sound less than appetizing but they were amazing, and her cranberry-orange-nut bread. oh, and her fudges. she'd usually just do a chocolate or peanut butter (mmm!) but they were awesome.

       i guess i'm still mulling over the desire to go to culinary school. thought about going to le cordon bleu in scottsdale, az a couple years ago. now i have the cia after me. culinary institute of america, that is. probably the top culinary school in the nation. it's fun to think about, but i'm not sure i'd like to do that as a career. my year as a confectioner/chocolatier put me off that a little. and that macbeth remake with james mcavoy that was set in a kitchen *shudders*. and i don't have the 100K it takes to put myself through. and i still want to write. and go places. but i love to cook. probably always will. it's very therapeutic for me, and i guess that's another reason why i don't want to make a stressful career of it.

       hmm. i'm hungry now. lunch time. long walk later. bit of a crazy night last night, so i'm looking forward to a long walk to help organize my thoughts. hope you're all having a good one! later taters!

<edit> i just remembered that when i was little i used to love watching a cooking show on pbs and the theme song was harry mancini's "baby elephant walk." i think i loved it just for the theme.   </edit>

just a quick mini-rant...

       Ok... so is anyone else completely fed up with the whole Christians vs. Homosexicals debate? No matter which "side" you're on, and no matter how progressive you think you are, unless you've been there you're probably not going to understand where the other is coming from. You're not going to change them. They're not going to change you. It's a moot point. Drop it. Let it be. Agree to disagree. Seriously. Enough. Is. Enough! Why can't we all just get along?!

to start a fire...

       so i promised you this post ages ago, but i'm just now getting around to it. i've been pretty distracted, and even now i had to force myself to put it down and pick up my laptop. i'm reading six or seven books at the moment, but like i mentioned in my pulse, i recently uploaded my harry potter collection and i became absorbed in the sixth when i opened it to make sure it worked. not my favorite of the series (that spot is reserved for the seventh), but it is one of the better written of the bunch. and while harry and dumbledore walk towards slughorn's house for the first time, i'm being soothed by the minimalist themes of philip glass's brilliant score to "the hours." yes, it's an mp3 player, too. for someone on a shoestring budget (who's already bad with money), it's fairly expensive, but i haven't for a moment regretted hitting that little "add to shopping cart" button. i love my kindle.

       for those who aren't sure what it is, you might find it easier to go here and learn all about it. i think they represent it fairly accurately. one of the first things i noticed about it as i tore into the box was how sleek it is. it's fairly pretty. very thin and lightweight, it's the perfect size -- not too big, not too small. the second thing i noticed, and the one that surprised me the most, was the little clear plastic protective cover. yeah, doesn't sound too surprising, but wait for it -- it had some printing on it over the area of the screen. except... when i removed said clear plastic protective cover, the printing didn't come off with it. it took me a minute to figure it out. the first cover was the size of the entire kindle, so i thought perhaps there might be a second just for the screen... but no. it wasn't printing. it was the screen. i was baffled how clear the writing was. they aren't kidding when they call it "electronic paper."

       so i had ordered it on a thursday and i received it the following tuesday. in that time i had browsed amazon's kindle store and purchased somewhere around 80 books to download, so i was expecting to have quite a wait while all of the books were delivered. when i finally figured out how to turn it on, though (i'm sometimes technologically challenged), i was pleasantly surprised to see that my entire collection had already downloaded while the kindle was being shipped. i opened my first book, neil gaiman's "the graveyard book," and read it in a day. i couldn't really decide where to go from there, hence the reading several at once thing. i now have 93 files (many more books since a handful of those are the complete works of such and such) and i still love it. i still can't get enough of it. the only thing i don't like is that not every book that's ever been published is available for it, but you can upload your own documents, pictures, and music files (including pdf, text, and word document types among many others -- which is how i got hp on there) and have enough to go on. people who say that it will be the end of print books are wrong -- i've always been an avid reader, but purchasing this thing has nudged that up so now i'm even buying more print books than ever before (just received ursula k. le guin's "the left hand of darkness," jonathan barnes' "the somnambulist," and eiji yoshikawa's fourth installment of "musashi" within the last couple weeks). now all i need is time to read them all!

       but i'd highly recommend it. if you're sitting on the fence, just do it. :) you won't regret it. i also purchased the standard leather cover and the clip on lcd book light (the kindle isn't back-lit). i've been able to sit and read it for hours without eye strain (something i can't do with a computer). the battery lasts forever as long as the wireless is turned off (i've already lost the power cable a couple times because i'm rarely using it). hmm...what else? oh, i also love the dictionary feature, where you just scroll up to a word and a little window appears at the bottom of the screen with a definition. you can also add notes and highlights quite easily. and i love that you can access wikipedia or search google from anywhere for free. it's really quite wonderful.

       ok, this is getting too long and geeky and fan-boyish. real update to come soon enough, but some of you were asking for this one. later taters!

writing challenge the second...

A writing challenge from Kween of the Queens!

How dothe mild days and freshness of spring affect your mood and outlook on life? Does Spring make you hopeful of good things to come? When winter ends and spring begins, do you really notice the transformation of life happening all around you? What do you notice the most?

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       I've always been a fan of autumn/early winter, myself, but spring is the next best thing. When late winter starts to be too cold and bitter and brown, it's nice to shed some layers and go for a walk with all of the new life springing up. It doesn't quite hold the same magic for me that autumn does, but the feeling of a new beginning--another chance at life--does take over, and it gives me more a sense of physical energy than autumn's ethereal sort. And yes, I suppose that makes me hopeful in a way. It's always nice to have another chance at things. Right now I see it as an opportunity to reinvent myself, and I've been trying to take advantage of that. I've been making some more serious attempts to get back in shape, I've been trying on some new ideas, and I'm discovering more about myself and what I want to do with my life.

       Yesterday was the first official day of spring, but around here it came a couple weeks ago with all of this beautiful weather that we've been having. Maybe it's my imagination, but there seems to be a new bounce in everyone's step as they walk down the street. I walk to work every day, and I've definitely noticed more smiles on people's faces, even if they are on their way to a class. I went back and read that autumn post and I realized that I've come further than I realized since then. I've been feeling a little down with the recent verbal renewal of my position here at the house, fearing that I've been too stagnant, but knowing where I was back in September and sensing what's ahead of me now, I smile in spite of my usually negative self. There are still choices to be made. There will always be those. But the things I want don't seem quite as unattainable at the moment. It's a nice feeling.

       Happy spring everyone! Take care.

from the twenty-fifth floor...

       greetings from st. louis! i'm currently sitting at the desk in my hotel room looking out over my balcony to the magnificently lit gateway arch and the darkened ribbon of the mississippi waters below. i love the city, the lights, the diverse architectures, the strange collection of people. i love the energy. my brother and my parent's young ward are watching the end of saving private ryan while my parents sleep in the next room over. i'd probably rather have the room to myself (or almost to myself), but i still felt the need to tell you about my day. i know i owe you lots of updates. especially about the kindle. i'll have to get to that later, but know that i'm in love with it and it has been everything i've dreamed it would be. but back to my day.

       i had every intention of going to bed early last night. around eleven or so. that's early enough. i was going to get up at six this morning to talk to david. i try to do this as often as he and my sleep schedule will allow it. other friends intervened and kept me up until around four, at which time i wasn't about to go to bed for just two hours and david was online already, so we talked and he continued to brilliantly crush my dreams of becoming a grandmaster in chess. in my defense, it was between four and eight in the morning, i had had no sleep, and it's been about a year since i've played chess. that's my story and i'm sticking to it. but somewhere around eight i realized that my parents were going to be picking me up shortly, so i took about a forty-five minute nap, showered, and tried to persuade my sagging eyelids to remain open long enough to climb into the rental where they could close again for a blissful two hours as we drove to st. louis. well that didn't happen either. somewhere between my brother, my pseudo foster brother, and the road and engine noise, i could only let my head loll heavily on the headrest.

       but then the redwings won. it's been a family tradition for several years. all but my brother were born in or around detroit, michigan, so when my dad's favorite hockey team visits our not-so-new-anymore state we have to visit them and cheer them on. i was fine through the first two periods, and it was between the first two that i was able to snap this picture of the junior blues scampering around on the ice. they were very cute, which i know isn't the right word for young men of roughly ten years but i can't find another that quite fits. it was a good game, though. the wings managed to score three times within a thirty second period, which was pretty incredible, but not horribly surprising considering it is the wings and they were playing the blues. started getting pretty sleepy around third period, but no worries.

       after the game, though, we were able to walk around the city a little, including a dangerous foray into grand central station. it's st. patty's weekend, you see, and there were green drunks everywhere you looked. green drunks, i might point out, that very much prefer the color blue to the color red, especially after their favorite team was just trounced by ours. it was interesting, but it was cool. and i loved this room. crappy camera phone and crappy photographer, but it was nice.

        once we finally made it back to our rooms we were given a short respite before venturing out again to search for our dinner. currently living in collegetown, usa, i haven't seen many of the effects of the recession, but walking through downtown st. louis on a saturday evening i was shocked by how many stores were closed, how many restaurants had shortened their hours. compared to all of the other times i've been in this bustling city, it was nearly a ghost town. pretty eerie. but eventually we found a little restaurant/bar called kitchen k and i had a good meal of a caprese melt panini with homemade sweet potato fries and baked beans while sharing conversation with family and friends. it was a very interesting meal, but that part will have to be saved for either a protected post to come at a later date or you can ask me if you bump into me online. anyway, we were there for quite a while. i was getting pretty tired by the end, but we got to come back to our rooms and see the city so beautifully lit up. i know my phone doesn't do it justice, but i had to share anyway.

       not sure what's on thedocket for tomorrow. there are rumors of a visit to the st. louis zoo, which would be cool, but i'm being a little cranky with lack of sleep and i would probably rather head home. we'll see what happens. i'm pretty much exhausted. i love being in the city, though. i'm a city boy at heart, even though i've spent most of my life living on a 22-acre plot with two ponds and lots of trees. i would very much like, when i'm rich and famous, to be able to keep two places, one in the heart of a large and energetic city, another in a semi-secluded area with fresh air and brilliant stars. mhmm. it would be lovely.      

       i thought it was pretty. hope you're all having a great weekend! update on life and the kindle and everything coming... soon. maybe. you know how i am about posting. anyway. later taters! sleepy time for me... finally!

rambling and aimless...

       i think i've successfully sustained one of the longest quarter-life crises of anyone i know. i am the eldest, after all, and according to diana wynne jones, "everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst..." well, i have to admit that i'm quite successful in my failure. i don't mean to boast -- it's just the truth.

       new theme, as you've probably noticed. simple seemed nice. and it's a breath of fresh air not having that ugly face in the corner.