X____X SO MUCH TO DO!

I was flipping thru DevART this morn, and who should I find but an Italian artist who made a number of self portraits...using positronic elements. It's wicked. Thinking I should send him a note, I might just use some of his ideas...

I have so much to write this week. It's not funny. It's really not. So you ask why I'm updating my journal instead of writing? Well...

I wrote half the stuff for this week two weeks ago, and I've completely run out of juice for it. That and I'm lazy and I tend to procrastinate a bit. ^_^;;;;;

But really, I'm updating because I'm having a very interesting week. My moods have been fluctuating and although I know I'm not bipolar, it's kind of disorienting to wake up in the morning and be in a good mood and then three hours later I want to stab someone with a ballpoint pen. Like Sunday! Ohhhhh that was fun. Waking up, in a fairly good mood, chatty, etc, and then I get to work and the entire day runs out and I end up having a conniption in front of friends, walking home and crying, and just not having a good evening at all.

(YAAAY FRANZ FERDINAND! |D Listening to them on the radio, "No You Girls." Love this song.)

I think it's just that I'm stressed. Tea helps but I need a specific kind of tea, I think, to make me less stressed. I might just make some in a minute.

But I hate it when people assume I want to go along with what they want me to, and I don't, but since I can't express myself, it's like I'm just nodding and smiling without a thought in my head. Disconcerting.

Where was I going with this? I don't remember. I think I just wanted to vent on something that wasn't Twitter. Now, time to openoffice and WriteRoom and see what I can churn out!

Hope I don't die...

OMG I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON X.X

It's Thanksgiving. This means utter chaos. This year, we're having it at our house. Meaning the new house. Meaning the townhouse we moved into last April. Meaning we're going to have twenty-six people here and no room to sit. This will be fun. This also means that my mum is going absolutely mad trying to figure out EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED TO DO BECAUSE WE NEED TO DO IT NOW AND NOT LAST WEEK. T_T Not happy...

I'm in the process of trying not to die from the massive cramps I've been getting...I took an Advil and it's certainly doing something, but since my mum only has three, I took one, and it's not doing as much as it should. Ah well. At least it's doing something. That's always good.

My mum needs to iron napkins. NAPKINS. Granted these are fabric, but she needs to iron them FORTY FIVE MINUTES BEFORE PEOPLE SHOW. SHE HASN'T TAKEN A SHOWER YET. OMG.

It's icy outside, and it's supposed to rain. Da's in California, with his fam, and he called earlier and asked what the weather was like. Akshully, it's sposed to SNOW. I asked Da the weather over there...and he said, "Uhhh...it's...nice?" Like I was going to punch him. Which I was b/c HE'S IN CALIFORNIA. W/ HIS FAM. WHO ARE OSM. I mean, I haven't spoken to my uncle Tom (the one who I'm not kidding you looks like Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters) in at least a year, and...well, I haven't spoken to them personally on the phone for over a year. I've sent emails to my GramMarie and Grandpa Jack, but that doesn't count. Not to mention that I haven't seen OR heard from Cousin Peter in so long I'm getting kind of worried... Although I do know Cousin Bjorn and his wife Laura and their two sons are doing excellently - Grandpa Tom and Great Grandpa Jack are thrilled. Four gens of Hamels abound! Wicked. And so far as I know my grandparents are doing just as well as they were ten years ago - they're in their 80s, and GramMarie smoked like a stuffy chimney until about ten years ago. So that's saying something.

Anyways, this Thanksgiving we'll be celebrating (though I don't know how you celebrate this) my great great auntie Jane's death. She passed about a month ago, and my family's being trying not to burst out crying ever since. But the woman was freaking 98, and should have dropped dead years ago. I'm still shocked how she died before her 100th bday, seeing as she's prolly the oldest fam member anyways. But my grandmother, Pat isn't doing well, and neither is Grandpa John, but Grandma Pat is turning 80 this Saturday...the cakes the Stefphs and I made are going to her. Even though only one of the cakes is made and it's not finished yet...ah well.

Thanksgiving! Holy CRAP! Another one! I remember last year's! God that sucked. Hopefully this won't, because the house isn't that big...and Audrey and Peter, my mum's college roomie and her husband, are bringing Peter's sons. (This is not my cousin. This is Aud and Peter, and they're much older than Cousin Peter and the sons are about Cousin Peter's age.) This should be interesting. One of them looks like Matt Damon with a beard, and the other's just cute. This should be interesting. Of course Steve's coming, he's not going to be holed up with his mum at his aunt's thing, and since his wicked cousins won't be coming, neither of us are going to that party anyways.

Anywho, I get to work tomorrow! Hooray! NOT! LOL. I need to help my mum. AGAIN. T_____T;;;;;;;

So the Stefphs and I mostly finished my gramma's cake today. My gramma turns 80 on Saturday. And the cake we did today isn't the eating one. The eating one hasn't been done yet.

But so this one. I get to Stef's house at about 1, and run into her bf John, and we sit, and chat, whilst Stef puts on her chef whites. She's wondering why I'm not in mine, but Steph told me not to wear mine, because it'd be weird having two random freak people follow her around. Which makes sense, and I don't have chef pants anyways. I've got the top, but not the pants, shoes, or neckerchief. So I just went in jeans and a T and my snakes. Which people stared at. But so Stef and I go and get down to Kendall. Steph meets us there, and I'm shadowing, meaning I have to sign in. That part's easy. We get in, grab all the shit we need, and then head out to a kitchen. The problem is, we have to FIND a kitchen. Well, the kitchen we find is right next to a lecture hall...and class is there in an hour and a half.

Stef and Steph and I make sure there's no one there, and then we fiddle about with the cakes Steph's already made. Well, basically, the CAKE cake part, the part with the baking, and that's it. The rest of it we're going to do. Stef and I joke around and just have fun, while Steph slaves over putting the buttercream on right. (Half of it I eat, only because it's tasty and I'm hungry.) Steph gets the cream...and then mentions we have to get the right dye for the fondant. Stef says something about "dirty icing" the cake, meaning the buttercream goes on first, and that gets us all confused, because Stef hasn't been to that school in like two or three years.

Steph figures out exactly what color to make the fondant, and we help and make it too...and then she rolls it out and THE ENTIRE THING CRACKS AND FALLS APART BECAUSE IT'S TOO STIFF. Joy. She has to make more. While she's doing this, Stef and I go back to her locker to get me meds so my head would stop hurting...and we go to the wrong locker. And she doesn't have the combo to that lock. I take ibuprofen anyways. We get up to where Steph is, and finish the cake. This entire thing takes us three and a half hours. We finally get it so the cake is mostly finished, with only the pre-made flowers to put on, and a yellow "sash" around the parts where we couldn't fit all the fondant. All in all, it's really pretty. Hope to get photos on Twitter!

So, I was kidding when I asked, "who died?" when my mum almost burst out into tears on the phone right in front of me. Apparently one of her good friend's niece's just killed herself. She was 18.

Okay, now I didn't know her at all, and my mum had only heard good things about her from her aunt, but this is wrong.

I was in high school when a good friend of all my classmates just up and killed himself. They said there was nothing wrong at home.

Well, evidently there was. It doesn't take much to push a teenager, even one that old, over the edge. What does it take to just have a conversation about things troubling them? The kid I knew had money. I know that. He lived near my old house. Actually, about two weeks after he did that I went for a walk and I passed it. I remember him being a jerk, but that's only because I didn't know him after eighth grade. And I'm guessing that there was something going on with this girl that no one talked about. And money may have had something to do with it. I dunno. But it's not good, the way teens will not talk to their parents, and vice versa. Everyone says everything's fine...

Also a note to Katherine: Bitch. You utter, utter bitch.

Hi!

Garrrrrrrrrrr...

Homework. Has been. A beech tree.

No, srsly. I know I've only been working on it for four to five hours over the past two days, and it's finished, more or less, but it's still a beech tree. A very large one at that. But so it's finally finished and I can have a sit and a cuppa and ponder while waiting for Steve to get here.

Firstly! Internet! WTF! And our Interwebbing RPG idea... >.> No, you can not has. It's the story of Longcat and Tacgnol, and how they hate each other, Tacgnol being the evil and Longcat being the good. Both are opposites, you see. And it's always been said that Longcat is the greater good.

Anyways.

Secondly! Stardust is an epic movie. Go see it. No rly. Robert DeNiro? Classic.

Third. I keep having these bizarre dreams. I dunno what they mean, but they can't be much good. Although it might just be that I'm suffering from severe aggravation. And you know what I mean.

Fourth. The nineteen fifties sounded like such fun. I keep going back to them and I'm loving it. Orwell was prolific, politics were on the rise, about to explode into the sixties but they weren't quite there yet, the first computers hadn't seen the internet, and crazy cool fashions were all over. Fifties ruled.

That's about it for this update, really, I don't have much else to say, honestly. Other than I think I'm crazy, and What Do You Think About Orwell Seeing Our Time Period? LOL.

I know this is my third update in twenty minutes, shut up!

I was thinking in the restroom just now that it's now about dialogue. It's all about the eyes. And the facial expression. And the way someone holds themselves.

How do you do this in animation?

x.x My butt hurts from sitting here on the floor...

Sorry about that last update. Totally forgot I hadn't actually updated it.

I got asked last night, Hallowe'en night, if I had a character named Mordecai. I almost laughed out loud. Apparently she had been asked something about that name, and it immediately went to me. Because I have so many M names.

I have a feeling I'll be writing a memoir about the M names. Wouldn't surprise me.

It's a Sunday. I am bored. I did most of my homework, at least the shit due Monday, and am currently pondering on whether to do more. The stories we're reading for fiction are boring, and although I can totally cheat and reuse something I wrote for another class, it feels like, "what's the point?" It's unfortunate; I start a new school year with the promise of doing better, getting everything done on time, etc, and not even halfway through the year I get bored, run down, and generally tired of it. I get whiny. I don't want to do it anymore. It's like when I start a story - I have to finish it in the same day, otherwise either I'll never finish it or it'll come out like crap. Like LJ updates! I didn't touch the last update. I just noticed it was there, and I didn't even read it. I just threw it in there. It almost worked. I guess. I don't reread things anyways. I think that's another flaw of mine. And also I'm vague. Like, ungodly vague. It's shit, but I can't help it. Just the way that I am.

My synesthesia's creeping up on me again. A woman on the train on Friday smelled like toxic purple mac and cheese. I don't know how that works, but that's what she smelled like, to me. I know I'd smelled something like it before, but it reeked of yellow, not purple. And this, if you want me to put it into 'normal' terms, smelled like overly sweet fake flowers. It was gross. I was sick anyways, and this stench didn't help much.

Actually, there was one assignment I did kind of enjoy, involving the imitation of another, published author's work. I did John Updike's (rest his soul) A&P. And GOD was it difficult. I've been trying to imitate authors for a number of years, but I haven't touched on it in like half a decade, and it hit me. And it was almost fun, seeing the flaws I'd been doing for so long...well, not flaws per se, but certainly I was seeing myself from another person's pov. It was really kind of cool. And kind of creepy, as Updike's been dead since January 09. Anyways.

I hate having to explain things. Either you get it or you don't, and that's always what I've gotten. I mean, authors will explain things in their stories, yes, but they don't tell you EVERYTHING, and that's what makes it good! Otherwise there's no imagination in it, it's just a telling, or a retelling. And yet I like comics. Explain that. Maybe because THERE IS NO EXPLANATION. Or at least no exposition, or not much of one. (Listening to Sting on the radio! Yaaay! I love this song!) It's all in the drawings.

I guess this is our last goodbye/You don't care, so I won't cry/But you'll be sorry when I'm dead/When all this guilt will be on your head -
I guess you'd call it suicide/But I'm too full to swallow my pride

My favourite line from that song. I don't know why. I think it's funny. I just like this song. It's all about losing a girl and the guilt trip he's giving her. I think. I dunno if there's anything else in there. Adults think too much into things. Pisses me off.

Aaaaaaand I think I should run off, as I do have things to no. Now.

No I don't. But I'm getting lazy again.

Mal: So...what fucking took you so long?
Mer: We got lost! Lemme 'lone!
Mil: Um. We didn't just get lost. Fangirls numbers One and Two here wanted to hug John Lennon.
Mer: WELL YES WE DID THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Mal: ...Why wasn't I informed?
Mer: *blinkblink* Um. It was either "save the universe and all creation" or "hug John Lennon."
Mil: Right. It was always that.
Mer: But look! We has got T shirts! Here's the, "My Comrades Hugged John Lennon and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" T shirt! And of course the, "I <3 John Lennon", and the "Hug a Lennon today!" shirt.
Mil: Please note that that last one with the lemon...yeah, bad joke. I dunno.
Mal: So you just ran over and hugged John Lennon.
Mer: Well...no, not really. You see, we had to drug 'im first...
Mil: God knows his family will love that...
Mer: And it wasn't just that, I mean -
Mil: We did the exact thing we weren't supposed to do, and we swore not to do it...
Mal: You...you fucked up the continuum.
Mer: ...
Mal: Merry?
Mer: ...
Mal: ...
Mer: ...Well...
Mil: Out with it or I'll tell it.
Mer: You see...you know that dream he had...with the man...holding the flaming pie...?
Mal: ...Oh no...
Mer: Yyyyeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh...that was us.
Mal: *blinkblink* But that doesn't happen until later on!
Mer: Ah, but you see, the brain does very interesting things sometimes! We make it LOOK like it happened when the Beatles showed up but no! It really happened about...yesterday. :D
Mal: ...Why wasn't I informed...
Mer: God, I can just see you writing your memoirs if you had done that: Yeah, didn't get Miyuki, had to stop and hug John Lennon...yyeeaaahhhh. I think your fans'd love you.
Mal: What fans?

Mal: So...what fucking took you so long?
Mer: We got lost! Lemme 'lone!
Mil: Um. We didn't just get lost. Fangirls numbers One and Two here wanted to hug John Lennon.
Mer: WELL YES WE DID THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Mal: ...Why wasn't I informed?
Mer: *blinkblink* Um. It was either "save the universe and all creation" or "hug John Lennon."
Mil: Right. It was always that.
Mer: But look! We has got T shirts! Here's the, "My Comrades Hugged John Lennon and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" T shirt! And of course the, "I <3 John Lennon", and the "Hug a Lennon today!" shirt.
Mil: Please note that that last one with the lemon...yeah, bad joke. I dunno.
Mal: So you just ran over and hugged John Lennon.
Mer: Well...no, not really. You see, we had to drug 'im first...
Mil: God knows his family will love that...
Mer: And it wasn't just that, I mean -
Mil: We did the exact thing we weren't supposed to do, and we swore not to do it...
Mal: You...you fucked up the continuum.
Mer: ...
Mal: Merry?
Mer: ...
Mal: ...
Mer: ...Well...
Mil: Out with it or I'll tell it.
Mer: You see...you know that dream he had...with the man...holding the flaming pie...?
Mal: ...Oh no...
Mer: Yyyyeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh...that was us.
Mal: *blinkblink* But that doesn't happen until later on!
Mer: Ah, but you see, the brain does very interesting things sometimes! We make it LOOK like it happened when the Beatles showed up but no! It really happened about...yesterday. :D
Mal: ...Why wasn't I informed...
Mer: God, I can just see you writing your memoirs if you had done that: Yeah, didn't get Miyuki, had to stop and hug John Lennon...yyeeaaahhhh. I think your fans'd love you.
Mal: What fans?

Was watching the trailers for Fantastic Mr. Fox. Am slightly jealous, and intrigued, and hopeful about it. Although I don't know if Cate Blanchett would've been a better pick than Meryl Streep. But anyways.

For those of you that don't know, which is most of you, I've been writing An Epic. It's Epic, this Epic, and for those of you that do know, DON'T SPOIL THE SURPRISE. (Also: just saw the trailer for new Iron Man Anime. Looks epic as well.)

But anyways, yes, this Epic is Very. And although I have been working on it for almost ten years now, I don't think I'll give up any useful tidbits except for that I desperately need to make it into a movie/miniseries/etc. IT MUST BE SHOWN.

That is all.

For now, at least. >D

So I get woken up. My alarm goes off at 5:30, and this is normal. I was planning on sleeping in till about 9 or 10. This is fine. I'm okay with this. But I'm tossing and turning until my dad shows up with my brother...and then all hell breaks loose.

First thing my dad does is he asks me if I know if Ted has any new meds, and where they'd be. I'm half asleep, so of course I can't help. Dad just uses the one in the pill box and we hope it's okay. Ted's pretty much ready for school, and it's like 7:30. Apparently his bus doesn't come till 7:50. Dad asks me when my class is, whether he can give me a ride, etc. I just tell him the migraine hasn't gone away yet, and I'm going to stay home. Dad leaves, and I see Ted doesn't have a lunch. This isn't cool. I go into the kitchen to prepare, and I suddenly realise...Ted's in the basement. On the computer. Nomming the interwebs. I yell. He yells back it's 7:35. Because that's what Dad said. I don't make him lunch. He's going to go hungry. It's 7:40 at this point, so I decide to do dishes. I know sleeping isn't going to do me any good, esp for ten minutes, so I toss everything into the washer, and run it. It's going peacefully now.

7:45 shows up. I get Ted out of the confines of the basement, have him pull on his sweatshirt, his backpack, and shoes, and tell him to wait by the front door. 7:46. 7:47. 7:48. 7:49. 7:50.

Yeah, his bus never showed up. I kept bugging him to see when the bus showed up, REALLY, if it showed up at 7:15 or 7:50. He kept saying the latter. So we're sitting there. Eventually I just give up and ask him what time his school starts. 8:00. It's 8:02. Great. I rush upstairs, grab jeans, a jacket, and run him out the door. I just drive him down the fucking street to his school. Pisses. Me. Off. Un. Happy. Face. Not. Cool. It's now 8:30. I could have slept in this morning. GARRRRRRRR.

Thanks to everyone who gave me a "Get Well" for my mum. She's fine, she's getting out of the hospital today, and everything should go back to normal. I'll relay the warm greetings. Thanks everybody! Also, to Steph: I haven't talked to her about soups yet, but I will when I pick her up today. ^^

Just watched a thing on Neil Gaiman's blog about dancing the macabray. Granted, it's pronounced makahb, but it's still funny. And the dance was rather boring. Might have to post something better on youtube later on. Speaking of, later on is soon, as Steve should be here to pick me up any minute...

Before I run off into the dismal, dank display of Chicago (so many D words! No wonder the Sandman is full of Ds!), my homeland, I want to write a quick post on how dismal and slightly dank my life is right now.

My uncle showed up today, rather unannounced, with a ladder and some tools. Turns out he had been announced, just that my mother hadn't informed me he was showing. Which was interesting, as Uncle Stevie and then my Steve came together. (Two of the several Steve's I've met, almost all of which I've liked.) My Steve was there to grab a sammich, while Uncle Stevie was there to try to fix the tailgate of my pickup, and to put in a new light fixture. Well, he did both, and although neither I'm afraid will stay up very long, Stevie and my mum and I had a good chat. I haven't seen my Uncle in months, and although I think he just turned fifty, he doesn't look or act any older than 35 - I mean, I've noticed, because I've known him for 21 years, and he's gotten a bit stiffer and maybe a mite pudgier in the past couple of years, but I'm going to tell My Steve and goodness knows he's going to be shocked. Another thing, actually, Uncle was going to fix was my window, but since I've just plugged it with shirts I'll never wear again, I think I'm good for a bit. I've tested it, and it seems sturdy enough, but come January or even December we'll have to have another look at it. Stevie never came into my room, and so for that I am thankful; I don't have to clean. My room's been a bit of a mess. And I'm afraid it always will be so. Luckily I don't live with My Steve, as his mum's a bitch. But anyways, told my Uncle about that one movie with all the stars.

And I do believe that's my cue to run off to Chicago. Farewell! Lol.

So Steve's here with me, and we go downstairs and he's got my external, Red Darwin pt 2, and he tells me we're going to watch Batman. Well, we plug in Darwin...
...And the thing is zipped so Logan, my 360, can't read it. Well. We're not happy, but I grab Merry, my MacBook, and Steve tries to feex. He can't, because of the way it's been zipped. So he gets Erys, his Dell laptop (it's actually not shite now: it's got Linux and a 500g HDD, and we're looking for another HDD, so it's not really a Dell anymoar), and messes. He unzips the damned thing, and we plug Darwin back in.
There's nothing in the folders. He undoes it again and frantically scours the interwebs for some information to get the damned thing to work because apparently he NEEDS me to see these eps of Batman. ...Wow. I just found out 360s don't use DivX. WOW. I DIDN'T KNOW THIS. (no, rly, i did, but srsly) 8O GASP. So he's trying in Terminal to fuck around to see if it up and works...and nothing so far but I swear to god if I don't get to watch the Simpson's movie tonight I will not be happy.

side note: x.x My idiot brother is absolutely nomming the intertubes. There's almost nothing left. He's eaten away at our DSL to the point where not even Steve can do anything about it, let alone AT&T. And I know what you're saying, see if the computer the internet's hooked up to can get lesser internet - well, we tried that. It's just the damned router AT&T gave us is the only router that WON'T do that shit. So I'm stuck here listening to my brother wail on about youtube vids with nothing going on in the background...I really think he should head to bed, as he's got school tomorrow. Or work. Or something, I am not sitting around listening to him rant. It's fucking annoying. No, rly, you has no idea. And we've tried EVERYTHING to either get him off or quit with his downloading of youtube flicks...nothing. ANNOYING. Okay, so, now I've got to see if Batman works, and then see if I can kick Ted off the fucking computer. I swear to god I need Guinness... Steve? (Update: NO BATMAN. V SAD.)

So...just for fun I ran thru a thing on google. "Brain cross-chatter." And what should come up but a forum post from VG Cats of all things. Crazy. And the thing is, that's the same thing I experience.

I was picking up card on the table just now. Was playing solitaire. And shuffling, as that's fun, I think; it's just that I hate the way the cards bend. Oh well these are really old cards from when my dad worked for C/K, and they did stuff for Sauder. I wonder if they're around...

Anyways, I was noticing my arms were moving...almost on their own. It was weird. Autonomous, was the word I thought of. And then I remembered that if someone puts their hand on the middle of my back (actually, any part of my back) I won't know how many fingers they've got on my back. Because my brain goes, "hey, there's some on this side of the back - op, and there's more over here!" but it reads things in double. Like, I can't tell you what people write on my back. At all. I mean, people will understand like English written on the back in finger, but I don't have any idea, because my brain (or both sides of it, I don't know) thinks there's two separate things going on. Or more. It's really bizzare. I'm going to see if the stroke did that. Or at least if it helped.

Because I was thinking of synesthesia and how it fucks me up...I think I'll finish this rant later, as I must go get books. Jaa!

Okay, I know I posted this on Twitter like a minute ago, but here's the ACTUAL dream(s) (no I don't remember what order they came in, but these are all I remember):

I'm going to dinner with friends. Somehow, we get seated next to Paul and some friends of his. Which is funny, because other than his church "Friends" he doesn't have any. But everybody's ordering and I have no idea what I want (this is from last night, mind, as we went out for dinner and I was starving but the hungrier I get the picker I am). The waiter is polite but impatient and I'm getting flustered, and I think we just up and leave in the middle of it. And I think it was a Korean place, which makes me VERY uncomfy.

I'm walking into the Botanic Gardens with friends again, and I go, "hey, let's take the back route!" and then I realise no one has good shoes on (save for maybe Elizabeth or Katherine), and we wind up going around the back anyways, as I just sort of lead them there, and on the way there's a whole bunch of people dressed in 17th century outfits glaring at us (some are in photos and things, but they're still glaring) and please note: this is NOT the Chicago Botanic Gardens. I've been to both, and this is most certainly the dream one. There's a lot more forestry in the dream one. In the real one, there's almost no forests at all, save for around the gardens. Yes there's paths and things but it's not like in the dream. There's also this exit to this one path near the beginning of the Gardens but I decided we shouldn't take it because it was an exit. So we go thru this one windmill and Katherine says to me, behind me, as I'm talking, I don't like this place. She's the ID Major, so of course she's got to be critical about things that are in buildings, so I stop, turn around, and realise we're in a building that appeared in a Mateusz Skutnik game. I mention it, as in, "hey, he musta been here to get that - there's gotta be a bird's nest up there!" The only thing is we're seeing it from the other side.

There's a Chicago Cubs game going on, at nighttime, and although it's not really dark in Chicago, this night was pretty dark. I watched as the lights went off in the buildings downtown. There isn't an actual El stop RIGHT AT Wrigley, but there was in the dream, and that's where we got off. Turns out right after that was our seats, or where we'd be standing, so we stood around. (I don't know who I was with. I know Steve was there, maybe Paul, maybe Stef, but all I know is Steve was there. He congratulated me.) EVERYONE had a cup of beer in their hands, light piss, including us, and we wandered around. We went somewhere (don't remember where), and coming up someone said to me "A Cubs game is the only place where every car on the El train and every limousine that passes by disgorges passengers" or something to that effect. It was very deep and very true: die-hard Cubs fans will do that. But anyways. We got back up and the game hadn't started yet, but it was late, and so the stadium had decided to play a game with the inhabitants: toss the ball! If it goes over the fence, you lose! And just as we were getting up to the top, this one chick totally lost it over the fence, and the entire stadium went "AWWWWWWW!" And just as we got up there, these three young adults (two blokes and a chick, all about our age) and decided to pick a fight with me. Luckily, I took the smaller of the two guys, and I kid you not, it was a dance. He took my hands without warning, tried to bash my head in, but I bit his chin and I swear I could taste the salt on his skin when I woke up. But I roughed him up a little after that, and he went and hid in this little building right next to where we were standing. His friends showed up, and I asked them if they wanted more, and the bigger bloke shuddered away from me, going, "no, no, we're just here for him..." and they left. I was SO proud of myself! Steve congratulated me on it. I didn't stop saying, "did you see that?! I just beat that guy up! Oh, man, I just beat that guy up!"

SIMPSONS! So somehow I end up in a Simpsons cartoon, an Armageddon one, much like the one where Homer totally misses Armageddon to begin with, but this one involved Mr. Burns, who turned out to be a higher demon kicked out of hell (for whatever reason) or something, and bent on destroying the world (apparently to please his superiors or something, I dunno). I just remember it involved a lot of Simpson animation, and a lot of wacky stunts and things. And Homer asking Mr. Burns if going back and forth from mortal to demon would screw him up or whatever, and the answer was something like, "Oh, not really, it's just I've only got one EYE left, SEEEEEE?" and then Mr. Burns going away. It was really weird. If I remember more I'll post it.

Happy trails!

journal.neilgaiman.com

This is mostly a post about how deadlines are massive, horrendous creatures with very large ugly heads that like to rear up when I least expect them and scare me half to death into doing something at the last minute that isn't even due till next week.

And so starts a week in which I had several hours to finish a project, and spent, overall, maybe five hours in total, nonconsecutive. And then I get to class early to print out said project, only to find, in short, that the project isn't even due until Monday. It's Wednesday. It's bloody due next week. And to that, I must say, is a very unhappy ending.

It took me a week of mental preparation to get through these finals, and I'm very unhappy to say it did me no good: I turned in a "portfolio" for which I got a very solid B (which I am happy about, don't get me wrong), I have yet to turn in this project, which is several "composite" images and then a poster for this class (god knows why), and then the actual test I am supposed to write and then take. There are flaws in all of my logics, so of course the test I need to write for tomorrow is currently nonexistent, as in I can not for the life of me find my bloody book. It's in my room SOMEWHERE underneath the piles of clothes and rubbish that are thrown precariously about. I will be so happy to get out of school for the long holiday.

Pretty much, here goes what happened yesterday:
Stef came over. We worked on a project sent to us by a friend who told us, of course, that it was due the next day. We did a project for him the previous year for a comic book. The problem is, although he told us we had time, we managed to get six pages done in six days. Which meant the final page was overall finished the DAY before it was due. And then we did yet another for him, and the same thing. This final project took us no more than half an hour, but it took a toll on the both of us: he wanted a business card. I scribbled something horrible in photoshop, and Stef scribbled a front, and we sent it to him. Of course he had issues with it, so he sent them back, and we "fixed" the issues, but all in all it was a complete waste of time. We finished that, and then I worked on my photoshop homework, the "composites", and Steve came over. We had a Serious Chat, which somehow ended with him coming back and apologising for storming out and getting all clingy and stupid, and all was well. Thank god he has a brain. But Stef and I worked on the project, and I've got one more page to finish (it's nothing serious, it's just the character reference sheets) which will take maybe half an hour. And then we come back and I attempt to print out my photoshop. My printer, at home, is an asshole. All printers hate me. Especially HPs, which this one was. I print out some things, poorly, show them to Stef who edits them, and then realise that the printer is absolute shit therefore I must come back to class the next day to print them out properly on the school's pretty laser printers. We go out to eat, eat some very tasty burgers (Red Robin is underrated), drink some, go home, watch the South Park movie, and I go to bed.

I wake up this morning with the knowledge that I have sent my photos through the interwebs via email. I get up bright and early, get to class, turn on the computer, open my email...

And there's no email. There's nothing. I got up for this.

All in all, it's not a horrendous thing - I'll be back tomorrow to finally print these things out, or over the weekend, because, as I learned, these aren't due till Monday.

I'm going to go home, and catch up on the three hours of sleep I missed this morning. Maybe eat some breakfast. I'm kind of craving a burger right now...

Last night Stef and her family and I went to this place in Evanston called Chef's Kitchen. I will say what we all got.

Me: Arugula salad, pan-seared scallops with white chocolate and grits, peach/mango delight (alcoholic drink), maple and vanilla creme brulee.
Stef: Foie gras, sweet breads, Sprite, chocolate cake (which was the wrong order, she actually got the dark and milk chocolate tart, but it was tasty nonetheless).
Stef's mum: Arugula salad, rack of lamb, REALLY good wine, banana bread pudding.
Stef's da: Boneless short ribs, REALLY good wine, some of his wife's bread pudding.
Stef's bro, Mikey: Meatloaf, mango juice that turned into mango and sparkling apple cider, nil for dessert.

I had a taste of just about everything, and it was ALL savory and thick and rich and absolutely delicious - and mind, it was just a slight touch expensive. The place was underneath the El tracks of all places! We didn't expect the atmosphere, but it was like a French cafe in a boat. We got there before the crowd, and we were sat practically right next to the open kitchen. Stef and I doodled on the table (there was paper), and we had a generally good time. They paid, so the best I could do was give them a few coupons for my work for cheaper shoes and items and fings. The most expensive thing on the menu, I should add, in terms of food, was I think the best fish (don't remember what it was), but it was like 35. The most expensive drink, in terms of bottles? 175 for a bottle of dessert wine. I never really saw the wine list. They did have Guinness, which I was happy about, but it was the most expensive bottle on the "big kid drink" menu, as Stef says. It was incredibly, amazingly deciduous. Very nice. Very nice waiters and things, too.

And last night was so cool - I think her rents don't HATE me anymore. ^^

Oh, how it is to be another year older. For some reason I felt bigger, more worldly, the day before my birthday, and then it was my birthday, and I felt even bigger. Physically and psychologically. God I hope my voice hasn't changed. Today being the day after The Big 21, I thought it would be nice to tell about how my days have really been going, starting from Wednesday.

My parents officially hate each other, they've gotten divorced, a Whole Big Stupid Legal Mess, and my mother has bought a townhome. My mother is in Mexico right now, probably getting ready to come home, but she has been there since last Saturday. Thus she left a whole townhome to myself (for the most part, we haven't actually literally MOVED there yet, still packing left, will show photos) and Steve. "Kekeke," giggled we, as we settled in for the night. My da thought I was at A Sleepover at Stef's house, and Steve's mum thought he was at A Camping Trip with Paul. Luckily both agreed to go along with this plan, and we stayed overnight at the new house, alone and happy. We had fried chicken for dinner, and played many a video game. Of course he set his alarm at like eleven that night for us to actually wake up, and it must've been the scariest thing I have EVAR HEARD, as I distinctly remember plugging my ears and curling into a little ball. Anyways, we woke up the next morning, still wearing all of our clothing. It was amazing. We had a shower that night, too, which was fantastic.

Thursday was me waking up to the sunlight, moving about, waking Steve up, hastening over to the stupid alarm clock on the other side of the room and turning it off. Going to class was fun, of course, as I didn't get too much sleep that night, and I had a few people wishing me a Happy Birthday. That was nice. Run to the new house after that, only to find I was supposed to pick my brother up at 3, which it was, and I had to run over to the Park Center to pick him up (Steve was a bit disgruntled, but I was too, so it was okay). I dropped Steve off at Paul's, and ran home to get my brother changed (which he didn't), and go downtown for dinner.

We must've sat for at least forty minutes waiting for that damned train, and my iPod of course decided to up and freeze. Luckily I didn't need it anyways, the train is really quick getting downtown. We got lost walking to where my dad was, but as it happened we ended up right next to the place we were going, so we met our da there, and feasted.

I won't talk about the Food, Which was Absolutely TO DIE FOR, right now, but I know I will later. The point is, I must go clean out the fridge at the new house (old chicken is not tasty) and then go out drinking with My Amazingly Wicked Awesome Aunt Paula and Steve and possibly my Just as Cool Uncle Steve, whom Paula is married to. Who is actually my blood uncle. Anyways, I will post again soon, I am sure. I will tell how drunk I really got, and possibly post some photos. ^^ Ta for now!

Morning, all.

It's currently 9:11, and I wish I was dead.

No, not really. It's just that right now I feel like utter utter UTTER crap. Although it's not QUITE as bad as Wednesday...Anyways.

No more writings for me for the past week or so. I scribbled something the other night, but it's less than a paragraph, and iPods are not made for constant finger stabbing. Well, I mean they are, but not the way I'd use mine. The battery would die long before I have a complete and finished sentence. And this isn't for MB, no, this is for something else I haven't touched in several years. Although I did do a quick writing in my head this morning for MB, actually, tell me how you think it is:
"So who's the adorable one there? Awwww, don't be shy, it's okay! You can come out!"
"Sorry; he's just really really shy."
"Oho, he's just a bitty malchick, inne?"
"Wait, Merry..."
"Eh?"
"Read this. Doesn't he match the description?"
"...Dude, hey, yeah, he does."
"What description?"
"You know Archimedes, right? The guy that made those five- yeah, the guy they're trying to throw in the clink for that cal? Yeah, they managed to find four of them. This might just be the fifth."
"Well, we don't know yet, we'll have to run tests - "
"Are you going to turn him in?!"
"...Are you insane...? Of course not! We're protecting him! He's so cute anyways..."
"What happened to the first four then?"
"They threw them on this planet. Make it easier for the robot their building to catch. We hope to help them, too."
"Robot?!?!"
That's all I've got for now. Just sitting on the john writing in my head, trying to ignore my stomach. Anyhow, I've got work today, open to close (which isn't bad; it's a 7 or 8 hour shift, and I think I'll get a break somewhere in it, as my boss is showing up at like four for no reason), and I'm going to have to write my mother a poem at some point. She's in Mexico right now, and she will be until after my birthday. 21, here I come! >D ...And now I must get my uniform out of my car to actually get on and then go to work. Ick.