For those not in the know, I burned my wrist pretty badly last week – the day after my last post, actually. I tend to heal pretty quickly (go go mutant healing powers) so my wrist is back in action now, just really raw with reddish pink skin visible and the rest of my poor charred skin slowly peeling away. It’s sore and painful to the touch or to pressure, but thankfully I know how to treat a second-degree burn (not by research – I had a second-degree burn on my left hand back in 2002…through pretty much the same circumstances…hot oil will wreck you, take it from me) so I didn’t have to go to the hospital or anything.

I mean, let’s be clear – I could have gone to the hospital, but I opted not to because I burned myself at 10pm, would have gone to the ER and had to wait until someone saw me (even though I live close to the hospital, it would have been difficult getting there alone) and then had them treat me the same way I was treated in the ER back in 02 when I burned my hand. Thankfully that’s the kind of experience you remember through and through, so I knew to keep my hand in cold water, sleep with it wrapped in an icy towel, and then keep it covered and covered in antibacterial ointment and silver cream until your body recovers. I’ll spare you the gory details, but thankfully I’m coming around to normal, and hopefully in another couple of weeks I’ll have pigment back in it.

In other news, the week has been good, if not a little stressful what with everything going on at the office and trying to take care of my poor burn at the same time. As usual, I could definitely use some time away from the office, but alas, I don’t think I’m going to get any until Otakon comes around at the end of next month. Still, it’s something to look forward to, for the most part.

Speaking of which, I should pre-reg. Sheesh – still haven’t done that.

Aside from that, I’ve been doing a little work behind the scenes to get my writing in-line for better and brighter things. Still doing the usual routine over at Gearlog and AppScout, and thrilled to do it – my editor’s allowed me to post a bit more often, so that means I make a little more come the end of the month from freelancing. Supplimental income is good. Also, I’m on two separate assignments now for Tom’s Guide, so those will be tidy projects to turn in at the end of the month, thankfully.

Signed up for affiliate programs in a couple of places so when I link to goodies on any of my blogs, especially sites like Gears and Widgets or The Classy Geek, I can make a little bit if people click on them and buy what I’m talking about. Hopefully that’ll help a touch too.

Still, thinking about other places I can get my foot in the door. I’ve been a little troubled that I may be reaching my writing bandwidth cap, but I don’t think that’s the case – I think I still have some room to grow, it’s just getting to the point where it’ll be challenging to manage my time such that I can enable it. Right now my weekends tend to be pretty well eaten, and while I don’t want to change that right now, I might carve out a little more evening time to pay more attention to my writing time – and myself, for that matter, and get back on the DDR pads, for example.

If anyone has any ideas, do let me know. Always eager to take suggestions from friends or those who have some advice. It really does seem sometimes like I just don’t have the time to do all of the things I really want to do….unless I remove the things that I don’t want to do from my life.

You probably know where this is going – I’ve been reading things like Danny Choo’s “Pursue Your Passion” story, but I keep thinking I’m just not there yet. I don’t know if I’m at the point where I want to make writing a full-time gig, or I want to keep doing what I’m doing now and write on the side. I don’t know if moving to New York will enable me to take writing full time or not. I don’t know what the right financial situation that would enable me to do it looks like, although some of the things I’ve been doing are designed to help me get there. I don’t even know if I’m just letting myself be “comfortable,” as Danny puts it, waiting for something to happen to me instead of taking this thing by the reins while I have the time to do it.

I just don’t know. And I don’t know if I’m actually trying to find out, or if I’m sitting back and going through the motions without really giving it much thought, or if I’m just afraid there are too many significant external influencers on my life right not to keep me from making the leap that I may want to make.

Whoa. This got kind of heavy, huh? That was unintentional, but it’s good to have out in the open.

In any event, this weekend it’s up to see my family for Father’s Day, and to set up his gift. He’s already opened it, so it’s no secret that I picked up a ASUS VH242H 24-inch Monitor and a pair of Gunnar Computer Glasses to help reduce eyestrain when using that nice big new display.

The best part? I already know he loves it!

Now, I’d better go get a cup of coffee before I kick off this weekend.

Militant pengi might make you think that I’m unhappy, but quite the contrary – I just love this image.

That aside, I’ve been paying close attention to where I live these days, a bit more than usual. Aside from some of the lovely things I’ve noticed already, like the brilliant view of the trees and the leaves outside of my windows (which are starting to turn fall colors and look beautiful) and the rabbits scurrying about the brush behind my apartment building, the people sometimes make for more interesting observation.

For example, my geek neighbor in the basement who I saw walking inside with a shiny new computer case. I didn’t think much of it until I saw him again wearing an XPS t-shirt (as in, Dell’s XPS high-end computer line) and noted that he’s driving a pretty beat up mustang with stickers on the rear bumper that give him away completely. One of them is the same as t-shirt I used to have and has an NES controller on it with the words under it proclaiming “Know Your Roots,” and another on the other side of the bumper that says “I’m not a geek” in large print, and in small, “I’m a level 12 paladin.” I like him, and given that he smiled at me the last time I got into my car (my own license plate says “ph34r”), I think he likes me too.

Aside from my geek friend, there’s an older couple who lives on the ground floor right in front of where I usually park. They have a huge – and I mean HUGE, probably 65-inches – HDTV that’s facing the glass sliding foor that leads out of their apartment and onto their porch, which is a few feet from the parking lot. When I pull in from work at the afternoon they’re usually watching the news or something else interesting with the blinds open so they get some light and can see the world go by. When I’m leaving late or drop in to the apartment in the middle of the day, the lady of the house is usually out on the porch tending to the myriad of flowers and other plants that decorate her porch and essentially half of the lawn leading from the apartment to the parking lot. The couple is incredibly kind and sweet, and always encouraging – the last time I passed her on the way out for the day she told me to “go hit em!” since it was clear I was on my way to the office.

Just above that couple is a family of some middle-eastern decent – one of whom actually werks where I werk, just in a different unit. They’re always cooking something that smells delicious, the children are always boisterous and happy, and if I’m leaving at just the right time of day I’m treated the the beautiful sound of the morning call to prayer singing through their apartment and filtering out through their door. I’m not of their faith, but I have to say the morning and evening calls to prayer are melodic and beautiful to listen to.

Above them and diagonally across the landing from me are probably the people closest to my age in the building. I don’t know them very well, although the youngest lady in the unit (and probably closest to my age) paused one day to welcome me to the neighborhood at the front door and introduce herself. She told me if I needed anything to let her know, and I saw her a while later and she remembered my name and said it without hesitation. She’s confident, clearly, but it shocked me because I’m ashamed to say that I forgot hers.

I dig this place, and it doesn’t hurt that I live right across from one of the best Afghan places in the area, a half-dozen pizza and sub places deliver here, and I’m also across the street from a grocery store. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m any better at getting there when I’m out of something – I’ve been all but out of shaving cream for the past week and every day I neglect to stop by and get more. I was using the all aerosol, soapy liquid in the bottom of the can for a couple of days now – thankfully I went to the store this evening and picked up a few things.

The weekend’s datacenter move went well and I got my Saturday back when I wasn’t really expecting it – I just slept in good and long, and I feel much better even though my dreams were horribly apocalyptic. At least now I know what I would do if I were at the office and heard the news that our world was about to end. There’d be some well placed phone calls to let people know I love them, and I’d probably wander out to the huge field next to our office building with my cell phone and talk to some loved ones as long as I could until it all came down. Better, I thought, to have my world end while I’m looking at the bright blue sky than to be huddled for comfort inside a pre-fab office building made of glass and steel (with, mind you, no place to seek refuge).

I know, it’s kind of depressing to think about, but the moral of the story is that it’s a poignant reminder to me to make sure the people I love know that they are. As my parents used to tell me when I was young: you should never go to bed angry, at yourself or anyone else: make sure your loved ones hear you say you love them – you don’t know if you’ll wake up the next morning.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I love you.

(Answer to: Share the longest road trip you’ve ever taken.)

It was the spring of 2001. Back in the day when I was a bit more into the whole partykid thing, my girlfriend at the time (who was also a partykid) and I and a couple of our friends decided we would make the ultimate pilgrimage to one of the biggest parties on the east coast, Ultra – the 12-hour beach party at the heart of the Winter Music Conference.

Now, I’ve traveled father than Miami – I’ve lived on the eastern seaboard for the majority of my life, in places as north as Maryland and as south as Georgia, and I have family in Nova Scotia in Canada – so my family and I have regularly driven to see them from any point on the coast we’ve lived. What makes this trip different is that I drove. The whole way. In one shot.

The whole story, behind the jump.

Since we only had a few days in our respective spring break vacations, and every day we each took off unpaid from our respective worthless jobs meant we had less money in our pockets (not that we had a lot to throw around on this trip in the first place), we hurried to make arrangements to get down there. We would stay with a friend to save money, and everyone would chip in for gas, and since my car was incredibly ancient at the time, we’d have to rent one.

The only problem was that I was the oldest in our group, and I wasn’t the minimum 25 required for most car rental companies to rent to you without strings. I managed to find a compay that would rent to me anyway, and even though they charged me a fee, I managed to get us a shiny white 2001 Ford Taurus.

I made the reservation, we pre-ordered our tickets for the 12-hour event, and we packed our bags. I wished my parents goodbye, telling them I’d be staying with my girlfriend at the time for the weekend (which they HAD to see through) and drove to the airport, where I picked up the rental. I parked my car at the airport, intent on retrieving her after the trip, and slid into our shiny, brand new rental. She only had 250 miles on her, and she was gleaming white. We named her Ivy.

I picked up my girlfriend and her two friends, packed the trunk with our bags, and set out on the long drive to Miami. just as the sun was setting that early evening. Since I-95 was our route of choice, we got onto the interstate and didn’t look back – it was a straight shot south.

Now you don’t know life until you’ve driven 20 hours straight, watching the sun set on one side of your car, rise on the other, and then set again on the other without stopping to sleep. With no breaks outside of gas stops, bathroom stops, and the occasional distraction for snacks and beverages.

20 hours after we departed, we pulled into a McDonalds parking lot in downtown Miami. i was delirious at that point, stressed from driving and sleep deprived – a few hours earlier I had been seeing things; like danicng yogurt cups in the taillights of the cars I was driving behind, testing the limits of cruise control and how long I could doze at the wheel without losing control of the vehicle. (terrible, I know!)

So we pulled into this McDonalds to phone our friend who offered to house us; begging him to tell us where he lived so we could hurry there and pass out. Our friends in the back at this point took the opportunity to tell us that he lived not in Miami, but in Clearwater, FL.

If you know Florida, you’ll understand how morbidly hilarious this is already. If you don’t, let me explain. Miami is at the tip of the Florida peninsula – at the southernmost tip on the Atlantic side. Clearwater, however, is about 4 hours north, in the center of the state, on the Gulf coast.

So back into Ivy we slid, discontent at the 4 hour drive ahead of us. I kept telling myself that if I could do 20 hours, I could do 4 more. Instead of taking 95 north along the eastern coast of Florida and cutting an hour or so across the state, we decided to drive through the Everglades, around the cape of Florida, and up the Gulf coast.

It would have been beautiful if I weren’t incredibly tired. I can remember flashes of the drive; beautiful waterways, and billboards every couple of miles advertising "HOVERBOAT RIDES! COME SEE THE CROCS!" to which we laughed and pressed firmly on the accelerator, no desire to stop.

Around hour 2 in our 4 hour trek north, something happened. Ivy stopped running so smoothly, and while she still ran, she would rev loudly when I tried to get up to highway speeds. Low gears worked fine, but no matter how much i tried, she wouldn’t kick from 2nd gear to 3rd and take us up to highway speeds. The only way I could get past 45 mph was to let the car drop into 1st and then slam my foot down on the gas to get it to kick into 3rd, bypassing 2nd gear entirely.

We pulled over and I grabbed my cell phone, only to realize that no phone ever made could stay on and uncharged for 20 hours. I had left my car charger in my car at the airport and had packed my wall charger instead. Somehow I managed to be the only person in a car of four people with a cell phone. My battery was dead, and pulling up to a roadside emergency phone revealed three buttons: police, fire, and ambulance. Since it wasn’t an emergency and the car would move, we decided to press on anyway.

So on we went, shuffling and slipping and shivering between gears all the way north, with the sparkling Gulf to our left, and swamp to the right. Several hours later, we managed to get to our destination – more delirious than we started, desperately needing sleep.

We met our friend, and he took us into his condo, where it turned out a few others were flopping in his living room. We was designated sleeping space on his bedroom floor, in between his piles of clothes – my girlfriend at the time and I were lucky – at least we were able to bed down in his closet. We had a door, at least.

In the meantime, my allergies (and at the time undiagnosed allergic asthma) had been acting up the whole time. It was springtime, and I was already miserable; the discovery that our benefactor was not just out of crash space but also owned probably the most evil, sheddy, long-haired feline I’ve ever seen in my life (even to this day) didn’t help matters any. So popping Sudafed like an addict was the order of the weekend.

I plugged in my phone to the wall and tried to relax, sure I was going to be able to find a pillow without quite so much fur on it somewhere and crash for the night, to try and be refreshed for the party the next afternoon.

But our friend had other plans! He had to, he said, take us to a street festival in downtown Clearwater that night, and show us his favorite record stores! Never one to deny the opportunity to see a record store and thankful for his hospitality, we I grabbed my 30-minute charged phone, grudgingly got back into Ivy and shivered downtown to the street festival.

I picked up a few records, and remember eating the best Cuban sandwich I’ve ever had (nothing here at home has ever come close), but that’s about all I remember. I had been up for over 32 hours at this point after having gotten all of maybe 4-5 hours prior. My logic center had already checked out.

We shuffled and shivered the car back to our friend’s condo in just enough time to get 2-3 hours of sleep. After all, we had a 4 hour drive to get back to the party, and we wanted to be there at noon sharp for the opening of the event on the beach. My girlfriend and I laid down on a blanket in the closet and managed to catch some wheezy sleep.

The following morning, we took the car to the local branch of the same rental company, who gave us a 2000 green Ford Taurus of the same model (without a CD player, dammit). We named her Shiver, after the shivering and shuffling behavior of her predecessor.

Into the car we hopped, and drove south to Miami. We were a touch late getting into the party, but nothing serious. We stayed essentially the entire time; all of our favorite DJs and musicians were performing (and if you know Ultra at all, you’ll know this is completely normal. If you can name them, they’re doing a set at Ultra.) and it was an amazing time.

What’s probably ironic about this is that a couple of my friends from college were making this same pilgrimage, except they did the right thing and stayed in a hotel and drove down with their cell phones charged. While we were driving to Clearwater, they were in their bathing suits on South Beach checking out the hot bods. In the end, I wound up getting underpaid by my friends for gas, I spent way too much of my own money on the car and the trip itself, and there were some disagreements with my girlfriend at the time and her friends over when to leave the party and such.

That all being said though, and even though I would hesitate to say that it was all worth it, it was an amazing experience. From the road trip to the party itself; the furious dancing among the crowds who all loved the music, the people I met and the photos I took, it was all a blast; an experience I’m glad to have in my memories and one I’ll take with me fondly forever. I’m still friends with my girlfriend from that time, and I’m sure she’d agree – we could laugh over those memories now.

But seriously? The next time I want to go to Ultra? I’m booking a hotel room and hopping a plane. First class, dammit. Seriously, that was bullshit.

I can hear string instruments in my head today. They make me think of empty seasides, somewhere chilly but warm enough that I don’t need a jacket, somewhere I can put a cello down and play. I don’t even know how to play the cello, but I’d love to learn if for no other reason than to make this dream come true. I also hear violins, rising chords that compete with the rushing sea and dark clouds rushing past overhead.

It’s funny how music can inspire, can make you dream, and then how much you long for those dreams as if it’s a reality that’s just within reach; something just too far away to get your fingers around but close enough that you can taste it – close enough that it fools you into thinking that if you just wished for it hard enough it’d come to you in an instant. Something that makes you think on it, fantasize over it, and just sit in one place, close your eyes, and wish.

Someday I think I’ll find that escape. I don’t know when, but I will.

just to be wanted. Is it worth it?

It seems ridiculous, the more I observe it, the more I let it eat away at my psyche, burn away my conscious understanding. The more I dance, the less I think about the experiment; it’s a line I don’t want to cross. Would I toss it all away in the face of a lack of understanding? The accomplishments, the security, the happiness I know I shouldn’t believe to be so elusive?

What happiness is this that I can’t see? Perhaps the truest of all.

Things haven’t been quite as frenetic as they had been, but what has been going on has been sufficiently mind-encompassing that I’ve hardly had time to think, much less put those thoughts into anything remotely resembling a coherent sentence. Regardless, the thoughts have been swirling around in my head, waiting for the right time to come out. I’m not promising this is the “right time,” but it’s sometime.

The freelance gig is going swimmingly, and I’m still enjoying myself. It can definitely be hard work, but I didn’t expect anything else, and I don’t think I’ve ever worked on anything for this long without taking a day off. I could do this professionally, if I didn’t live in completely the wrong town for it.

Speaking of the town, sometimes I love this town. I love Washington DC. The place is electric all the time, alive with power and energy, and hums quietly, almost nervously, after dark. When the streets in the Capitol area go dark, the streets around town gain an eerie quiet, like the life is right there under the surface if you’re willing to peer a little deeper in order to find it. I used to be far more involved with that life than I am now, but what can I say; I just don’t have the free time and the free energy that I had when I was an undergrad with nothing to worry about except class the next day. That’s no total excuse though, I very much miss some of the evenings I spent downtown.

Part of what reminded me of all of this was a post by Veronica, writer of one of my favorite daily reads, about a moment that could have easily happened to me. While my spinning activities have languished for far too long, the last time I spun out, a scene nearly like this played out. It brought memories rushing back, the anger from the end of that night that wound up keeping me from the scene for a long long time, the pride at having the highlight set, and the sheer happiness of looking out over a dancefloor full of people. It was a great night, even if it ended more annoyingly than anything else with an abrupt stop and rapid departure, lest the club-hired “security” thugs demanding an early close but certainly no cut in pay lose their patience with us. Even so, I know what it’s like – to be tired of being “out there,” but to live for the thrill of being “in here.” It’s a strange concept to describe, being tired with something but being irrevocably tied to it, wanting to be the heart beating at the center of something that lives and breathe around you, but not wanting to define it. It’s funny, I didn’t (and likely still don’t) understand what its like for Veronica, but after her post today, I think I’m starting to get it. Or feel it at least. Perhaps that’s more important.

In other news, most of you know I’m a hideous Alton Brown fan, wishing I could waltz through the kitchen with his scientific skills, his geeky personality, and his culinary technique (have you seen his knifework?), so take it as no surprise that I don’t think I’d ever get tired of owning The Good Eats 27-DVD Pack. It’s a hefty $250, which is a bit much to drop on a DVD collection at the drop of a hat, but if anything else, it makes me glad that those DVDs are out there to buy when I’d like them. In the meantime, I need to finish Gear For Your Kitchen.

I admit, I ranted a bit after having to wade through a disastrous thread at Lifehacker about climate change, and being put in the position where I simply couldn’t stop myself from staring down a few people that I probably shouldn’t have – I despise getting into discussions like that on message boards and forums and things- it’s why I started my own blogs on my own interest topics, so I could say what I want to say and discuss what I feel without having to feel in my own space. Flame wars in comments never change minds, no one’s going to wake up after being rebutted on a message board and say “You know, you might be right – I’ll research the matter more, thank you for opening my eyes!” So rather than simply absorb other people’s content, I like to, when I can, create my own. Still, it’s maddening sometimes. I did rather enjoy the hybrid myths over at Yahoo! Green, nearly as much as I enjoy the entire site as a resource. I need to perfect my “Green Plan,” but there are a lot of good ideas there. Click “Count Me In” to develop yours, and get some energy (and money) saving tips. Yahoo! has kind of re-captured my attention with Yahoo! Tech, but that’s partially because they brought on one of my favorite people ever for their flagship technology show.

Speaking of politics, at the behest of Pastilla, I think I might have to pick up Lee Iacoca’s book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone. I read the first chapter after checking out this post from a blog I had never read before but will surely check back on now, and had the exact same reaction. I’m incredibly impressed.

Anyway. That’s enough politics.

On to sex. Seriously – I’ll warn you now, some of these following links aren’t going to be work safe. I’ll denote with [NWS] but tread lightly, okay?

So I love Digg, if only for the news that people submit. The comments and the Digg community are absolutely worthless, but the news that the site provides is usually interesting enough to click on and digg. So imagine my surprise when in the same day, Digg alerted me to the existence of my new favorite superheroine, Captain Schoolgirl. [NWS] Seriously – she’s my favorite. And it has nothing to do with the motorcycle (lies) and nothing to do with the shirt (nothing at all!), but I have to admit, I dig the idea. I don’t like to think of myself as one of those guys who has a thing for schoolgirls, I mean, I’m young enough to know a lot of women who wear uniforms like that for school. I think my fascination really grows out of the fact that I never knew anyone who did wear anything like that. And maybe too much anime. Moving on.

Perhaps the next best thing in the world that I couldn’t adequately examine at the office was when I discovered that Posh Suicide [NWS] is Macenstein’s “Mac Chick of the Month.” [NWS] I love Posh Suicide, even though I generally stay away from the whole Suicide Girls thing (more power to em, assuming the stories about them being performer-oriented, self-empowered ladies doin’ it for themselves are true…hell, more power to em even if they’re not). Still, Raevyn and I both have crazy crushes on her, and when we found out that she’s an avid World of Warcraft player as well as a Mac user and lover, it just made us love her more.

Seriously, I’m not normally into drooling over personalities like this, I can count on one hand the number of celebrities I lust after and still have fingers left to flip off the celebrities I don’t care for, but every now and again I’ll make an exception. The photos from the shoot with Posh’s Macbook Pro don’t hurt either. My poor Io never had it so good. What? Hey, I’m human too, you know.

Anyway, summer’s on its way, and the air conditioning is going on. If temperatures keep up, it might be time to start thinking about Mojitos, barbecue, and warm summer nights. Mojitos I can do, but I might need some help with the barbecue. This’ll fit on our tiny little porch quite nicely, I think, and accommodate some friends gathered on the steps at the same time.

I can’t help but feel like I’m wasting my time sometimes in the office. I didn’t get into this line of work because I specifically thought it would be rewarding spiritually or personally – I thought it would be a good career move, and help me make use of the degree I worked so hard on. I have to admit, my other job is far more personally rewarding, from that whole “this is what I’ve always dreamt of doing” kind of perspective. Even so, it’s still remarkable sometimes. Right now I’m spinning my wheels, but I should really just be grateful for the downtime.

One of the hardest things I’ve learned about management is not just making other people do the things they’re assigned to do, but trusting them to get it done. The former is easy enough – my personality isn’t the strong-handed type, so I try to make people want to do the things they’re assigned to do, with varying results. Usually it’s a matter of helping them realize that this will clear their plate faster, or look good for them in the long run, or help me out where I can in turn help them out. Either way, it usually works out alright. The real hard part though is trusting people to get the job done completely and correctly. I’ve always been such a hands-on person that I’ve been pretty impatient and quick to take up the “I’ll just take care of it myself” mantle when I find myself explaining a task to someone else. I know how I want it done, so I’ll do it. It’s something that’s extended into other parts of my life as well, from doing the dishes to putting away the laundry, to stocking our pantry with groceries. (Raevyn will attest to this) But now, when you become a manager, you have to let some of that go. You can’t take on every task you get, and you can’t manually work on every issue that comes across your desk – you have to learn to delegate, how to choose the right people for the right tasks, and how to balance both your workload and theirs. It’s actually pretty difficult, and I’m still learning. Granted I’ve only been in this new job for about six months now, but I’ve already learned a lot, and there’s a lot more to learn, from what I understand.

In other news, I had an odd dream last night. I was at a counter, ordering lunch from one of my favorite places, and a ghost from my past appeared in front of me. She had changed – she was known for dying her hair interesting colors but had chosen to dye it kind of a “blue raspberry” shade of blue this time around, and her features seemed to have softened a bit. She was smiling at me broadly when she walked behind the counter to get my attention (even though I could tell she didn’t work there) and said simply “heya, sweetie.” In my dream-world, in that instant, it felt like something crashed – like glass shattering into large pieces. I felt tumbled to the side, and the next thing I was doing was driving down a street that was similar to the parkway leading away from my house here and a lane shaded with trees like the roads near Raevyn’s house in PA. We were driving together and she had the window down, looking wistfully out at the passing trees. It was springtime, and I was feeling the romantic tension that always lingered between us, but there was something different this time, an innocent poison – a jagged edge that seemed to perfectly controllable but undoubtedly there. My subconscious mind rebelled against the notion of the tension entirely, remembering the bitterness between us, the high-flying rapid ascent of our “relationship” and then the sputtering stall at the peak, and the almost blind tailspin that it descended into – a roller coaster ride of the truest sense. My subconscious remembered, but I was acting out, in my head, the only thing I would know how to do if the situation were real – play it out as kindly as I could.

I woke up feeling kind of surprised at myself. I hadn’t thought of this particular person in a long time, and while I do kindly wonder how she’s doing and what she’s up to – literally we haven’t spoken since a random IM a while back – and I don’t wish her any ill will, I wonder how I might deal with her if she did just happen by me one day and ask to hang out and catch up. Or how I’d deal with any of those ghosts, if I happened upon them.

The company that I werk for is planning a move to Columbia in summer 2008, and with it comes the murmurs among the current employees of whose commute will be shorter, whose will be longer, and who’s planning on moving to the Columbia area to be closer to the office. Raevyn and I thought about moving back to my old hoometown, if for no other reason than rent would be a little cheaper and it would be closer to my office, but it would present some significant downsides for her, what with being farther from friends and from the metro to take us into the city. Even so, I’m not totally sure I’d want to move back there- back to where I couldn’t go to the grocery store without running into someone I want to high school with and their child, or I can’t go for a long walk without seeing sights that hold memories for me. I don’t know if I’m running from that past, per say; I feel comfortable with where I grew up and what happened there, but at the same time I can’t help but want to resist going back there- as if going back there physically, even if I’m in a different place in my life, represents some form of travelling back to where I used to be, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. It’s an internal conflict I don’t think I want the privilege of dealing with.

Sometimes, it really is just best to move on.

It’s been quite a week. Werk has been keeping me more than busy, I’d say something more like frantically and frenetically occupied. It’s been more than busy, it’s been mind-bogglingly, frustratingly, constantly in motion. From the beginning of the week to the end of the week, things have been kind of up in the air. Last week I wound up kind of sick; as soon as we got back from a very special someone’s birthday, my throat decided to swell up on me for some reason. Nursing my sore throat, I wound up feeling better for a while, until my uvula decided to swell up to something like three times the normal size. Not knowing what happened, I wound up in the emergency room because I thought I had some fleshy or mucousy mass in my throat. At about 4am. Scared and worried that the doctor would have to shove something down my throat, I went to the emergency room with Raevyn, trying to figure out what the problem was. Turned out the doctor explained what a swollen uvula was, and prescribed me a steroid to help deal with the viral infection that had been bugging me from the get go. I spent the rest of the day home nursing my illness and werking from home, and in a few days, I was good as new.

In the process though, my throat, while feeling better, was somewhat dry and felt often parched – I needed something to soothe it. Water, tea, other cold and hot drinks helped, but only for a while, and then I went back to feeling kind of dry and uncoated, if you know what I mean. While we were grocery shopping last weekend, something caught my eye. I went through a morning smoothie phase for a while, drinking some Stonyfield Farms Smoothies in the morning for a while, and while they were tasty, they were kind of expensive and only came in a few flavors. In reality, I wanted something like it, but thicker – kind of like having a yogurt in the morning, but portable enough to take with me. I had all but forgotten about it until last weekend, when I discovered Kefir. More specifically, Fresh Made Kefir, from a local farm. Not everyone digs the stuff, but personally, I’m surprised I’ve gone this long without trying it. I downed the first bottle in something like a day, and subsequently stocked up. I’m on my second now. It’s great for a sore or achy throat, and delicious, too.

Just as well that I felt better at the beginning of the week though, as I mentioned before. Werk’s been keeping me pretty busy, and it’s been getting a bit in the way of my freelancing for Gearlog and AppScout. Hopefully next week will be a bit more stable and serene.

Right now? After a nice big dinner, I’m relaxing with a bottle of Blue Nun white – an artifact of my father’s tastes in wine, which doubtlessly was derived from our years living in Germany. Still, I can’t complain, because the wine is sweet and drinks smooth. Makes for a relaxing Saturday night.

The day, however, was another story. Raevyn got up earlier than I, and between her and our honored guest managed to rouse me from bed to head downtown to see the sights. Every year, Raevyn and I make a special trip to the tidal basin to see the cherry blossoms and take in what we can of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and our honored guest wanted to accompany us to see the blossoms as well as see everything else we could on the way. So fresh off of the metro, we headed to the Washington Monument, and then through to World War II Memorial, and then down to the tidal basin to see the blossoms. We missed peak bloom by about a week, but no matter, it was still gorgeous. We walked around the tidal basin, stopped off at the FDR Memorial – a memorial that seems to get more and more important each year we visit it.

We passed through, taking pictures the whole way, and headed up to the Jefferson memorial, where we were in time to see a rather chilly band by the name of Lucky Day, which wasn’t half bad, but similarly not much to write home about – the guitarist and bassist were amazing, the vocalist was good (I thought so more than Raevyn), but after checking out their MySpace and website I decided sounds much better after some post processing than she did live. Still, I thought they were fun to hear, they all had talent, and it was a lot of fun to listen to while we were on our way by. Then it was up to the train station to head home and take care of the weekend errands, like grocery shopping and such. A huge, full day.

In other news, I could use this guy on our display shelf downstairs. If anyone’s seen Raevyn and I’s shelf of dorkitude (a black bookshelf on which we keep all of the action figures, capsule figures, and little toys we’ve picked up from anime conventions and the toy sections of music shops and indie stores, including a bunch of comic book figures) then you know he’d fit right in. He’d just be…way more expensive than anything else in the house.

But anyway, back to now. A glass of wine, some aimless web surfing, and catching up on my blogging. Finally, a chance to relax.

The bed broke again last night.

Although it’s not so much “again,” as I had managed to affect repairs from the last time the bed broke and last night while we slept, those repairs kind of came undone. We can still sleep in it, mind you, if we don’t mind sleeping at an angle and with the center of the bed kind of caved in so we roll into each other every time we move around in our sleep. Either way, we did buy a new bed and put it into storage for just this occasion, I just shudder at the notion of putting a bed together on a worknight. I might try to affect more repairs by trying to goop the mid-bar back to the wooden frame like I did last time, but I’m not sure how well it’ll work. I might try to put something under the midbar to prop it up until the weekend, when we’ll be free enough to disassemble the old bed, throw it out, and assemble the new one. It’s an awful lot of work.

Sometimes I feel like I’m all but tapped out.

Werk has been a frenetic mess lately, our new administrative assistant that was supposed to help make my job easier by taking the menial stuff off of my plate is probably more of a timesink than she is a help, and projects that have arbitrarily moving due dates and expectations winding up in my inbox because other folks simply don’t feel like dealing with them; there have been ups and downs, accolades and disappointments, to be sure, but all in all next month it’ll be 5 months since I got here but it feels like an eternity. The honeymoon is definitely over, and while I’m not nearly as stressed and burnt out as I was in my last job, and as eager and motivated as I am to keep on top of things, I’m learning that for as organized as I am, I’m not organized enough, for as attentive as I am, I’m not attentive enough, and while I’ve got the energy to make it all happen, I don’t have the attention span and I simply can’t remember everything that gets dumped on my plate. I’m trying to find the right tools to help me remember, and I’m learning that David Allen’s Getting Things Done strategy is a good one-it’s looking more and more attractive. In the meantime though, they gave me a shiny new laptop, so between that and my beloved Io, I’m pretty much set from the technology perspective. Now if only they’d spring for a new Blackberry, maybe that shiny Blackberry 8800 or the Blackberry Pearl.

In other news, Valentine’s Day was absolutely wonderful. Raevyn and I both took the day off to spend together and do something memorable. It just so happened that Wednesday was also the day after a night of snow and ice that’s probably the worst we’ve seen this winter in the DC area, and probably, given the temperatures today and predicted for the rest of the week, the worst we may see before this winter ends. Even so, we lazed about the house for a while and finally got up the nerve to head out, even though the parking lot and sidewalks in our townhouse complex were barely after the previous night’s treachery. The parking lot had one narrow plow lane that had been cleared but was subsequently solid ice, and because of that plow’s half-hearted attempt, all of the cars were now plowed in, sitting on top of ice with snow on top of that. We brushed off the car and hopped in, thinking we might get lucky and gun it out of the parking space, but promptly got stuck on the ice, half in and half out of our space. With the help of neighbors and an exceptionally butch mailwoman (who literally redescribed to me what it meant to be masculine – one of our neighbors gave me a shovel to try and dig the wheels out, and she promptly took it from me and dug the car out for me. She even offered to drive the car for me out of the ice. She’s my hero. Seriously.) we managed to get ourselves out, and despite the horrible roads, make it to the metro station to head downtown.

We parked in a relatively clear space and headed into the city, planning to catch lunch at the Java Green Cafe, one of Raevyn’s favorite destinations for lunch, (and dinner, when she chooses to bring food home) but found it closed when we arrived. Not too much of a surprise, since the snowfall had closed a great deal of things downtown, including the schools and many businesses, although the DC government had decided not to close. We instead stopped by a nearby Chipotle for lunch, and promptly got back on the train to head further downtown to the Smithsonian stop from where it was a quick jaunt over to the Freer Gallery, our destination for the day. We saw the beautiful Peacock Room, and partook of the exhibits on display, from the Landscapes in Japanese Art to Daoism and the art of China, and Tea Bowls in Bloom. We saw an incredible amount of pottery and bowls during our tour around the Freer, but all of it was beautiful. The landscapes on massive bamboo screens and elegantly decorated Shoji screen doors, adorned with gold leaf (like the one above) and beautiful paintings were inspirational to say the least. I could easily go back and spend more time seeing everything we saw, especially since we managed to traverse the entire gallery over the course of the day.

We left and came back home, managed to get out of the parking lot safely, and retreated to Yuan Fu Vegetarian, a local all-vegan place where Raevyn could close her eyes and point to the menu and find something delicious she could eat. We filled our bellies and happily went home to curl up and recharge for the werkday following. It was a beautiful Valentine’s Day.

The weekend came too quickly, and we had a world of fun at Tim and Brooke’s Crush Party, meeting new people, catching up with old friends I hadn’t seen, and having a surprisingly wonderful time drinking shots with oddly sexual or romantic names (like Chunky Pannies and The Bleeding Heart and The Happy Ending) and surprisingly low alcohol content but lots of flavor. We hit the Paper Moon Diner before heading home, and relaxed the rest of the long weekend.

So we’ve been pretty busy. This weekend is looking pretty clear though, aside from perhaps heading downtown to see Tim spin, and I’m not too eager to fill it up with appointments. Sometimes I just need a little time to stay home and play with my geeky toys – something that’s been a bit overdue.

In still other news, I’m starting to ramp up posting at my home away from home, Gearlog, and I’m going to start posting other tidbits over at AppScout, Gearlog’s sister blog. I’m really thrilled about this.

And since all of that, the Lunar New Year has turned, and all of my Chinese friends are celebrating (to you, I say the above!) the year of the boar, symbolizing prosperity and good fortune; (someone correct me if I’m wrong here) and today of all days it Mardi Gras. Hey mister, give me some beads.

I think I’ve pretty much caught you up. I can’t say how many times I’d sit down to write out my thoughts like this and wound up with a frustrating, disconnected disconcerted mess over the past several weeks, trying to explain how things were going at the office, and new things with blogging, and so on. I’ve finally managed to break through a bit and start writing again, and I’m glad for that. Let’s see if I can keep it up.

It’s been too long, I’m afraid. I wish I could say I took something of a delightfully relaxing vacation or something, but then I’d be lying, and I don’t like to do that. very often, anyway.

A lot has happened since I had the opportunity to write. We broke our bed…again, and had to buy a replacement. I managed to repair the current one so we have the replacement sitting in our storage room, waiting for the inevitable moment when the current bed finally breaks again, but at the same time as breaking the bed is a cause for bragging rights, it’s awfully expensive bragging rights considering each time we get to go to Ikea to get a new one. At least this time we wound up finding some pretty nifty ottoman things that would fit perfectly along the wall in our living room that desperately needs additional seating. The best part? They open up on top to provide storage as well! How cool is that?

Okay, I think it’s pretty clear I’m a design nerd. Speaking of which, we’ve been in our place for coming on two years now, we really ought to put something on the bedroom walls. The computer room is set, the library is set, even the living room and music rooms are set, but the master bedroom is sadly bare-walled because we wanted to make sure we decorated it in a way we’d both like, considering it’s such an important room and we both share it. We still haven’t seen too much that we really want to put on the walls in there, but I had a thing for some beautiful paintings we saw at Otakon last year, inspired by traditional Japanese wood block art. We’ll see if the vendor is still there this year, or head down to his showroom in Georgetown someday.

In other news, I had to lay down a ton of money on a car repair, and the dealer went ahead and tried to fleece me for the 90,000 mile maintenance knowing it would probably be the last time he saw me (it’s the last manufacturer scheduled maintenance for the vehicle) and my car’s now out of warranty. Sadly, because the repairs were so expensive, I’m thinking about a new car. Maybe I’ll wait a year and see if I can pick up a hybrid Nissan Altima since there’s a whole world of rumor that one will be showing up this year, with all the techy bells and whistles under the hood as the Prius, which I’ve also been ogling, although it won’t get quite the milage that a Prius gets. Still. Good stuff, zero emissions.

We had our first anime night, thanks to Zach and Laura, which we proudly rang in with episodes of Escaflowne (I’d all but forgotten how much I love that anime) and a few shorts from Mystery Science Theater 3000, which was a pleasure I had long forgotten, sadly. I love that show so much. Either way, we all had a blast watching anime and laughing and getting sleepy as the night wore on-Wednesday nights are pretty tough, what with work the next day, but it was a good time. We’ll have to do it again, soon!

Other than that, I have to admit a blushingly embarrasing newfound love for cheesecake. And I don’t mean of the edible variety, although I could certainly eat it up. I’ve had a penchant for erotic art lately, of all kinds. It’s remarkable how intellectual the fascination has been, and it’s had me prowling sites like DeviantArt just to see how many different ways people can interpret the human body beautifully. It’s really an enjoyable pastime, when I’m not reading. Speaking of which-I’ve extended that cheesecake fascination to Manga and other reading material, so I’ve picked up a few artbooks I bought here and there and have been reading far too much Because I’m the Goddess. Check out the covers at Amazon. You’ll understand what I mean.

Aside from that, the pile of reading material is growing ever so creepily and quietly next to my bed. But then, I only have so much attention to give, and now that I managed to hook up my PlayStation2 controller to my PC, I’ve been MAMEing the night away and rocking some Twinkle Star Sprites and Giga Wing, not to mention other cracked out top-down shooters from Japan that I used to love while living with my old roomies at bumhouse. One of them that I regretfully can’t remember has some art in the art book I mentioned just a little while ago. I’ll have to go home and find it. And then wreck my thumbs playing it.

Seriously, I played enough Twinkle Star Sprites one morning that my thumbs hurt the next morning.

I’m such a geek.