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2006.06.29

(pout) Got stood up to look at a house today, but ah well, am looking at several more in the next few days and likely will be looking at more over the coming month(s). If only we could pick up this condo and plunk it down on a lot with a small yard near a busline in North Seattle! Perfect amount of space, perfect layout; I love it here except for the fact that it's here.

Two completely different topics:

  • Bryce is coming to visit me at work tomorrow, which makes me extra happy.
  • I would totally do a testimonial ad for Singulair. It's the fucking wonder drug of asthma so far as I'm concerned: five months ago, I was using my inhaler 2+ times a day... since I started taking Singulair, I've used my inhlaer once. And I didn't even really need to. All praise chemistry!

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2006.06.27

House hunting has begun. As much as I love the interior of my place, I just cannot stand living in Bothell. It drives me directly up the wall to have to drive everywhere, to be so isolated from anything resembling a neighborhood with a soul.

And so! Looking for houses (2br+, < $1500/mo, cats ok) in North Seattle... finding one that's not a shithole or tiny will be a challenge, but at least I've the luxury to wait until I find one I really really like.

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2006.06.26

Restless and hot and in that irritating state of bored where there is more a lack of desire to do anything than a lack of things to do. The beginning to this summer has just not been spectacular.

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2006.06.24

Recipe:

1 memory of food in Japan
1.4 lb flank steak, marinated in yakiniku akadare
2 small green peppers, cut into half inch pieces
1 medium onion, sliced into rounds
1.5 large lemons, juiced into dipping bowl
2 Asahi Super Dry beers
1 very hot grill + griddle pan
1 airy deck
=
Complete contentment on a Saturday evening.

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2006.06.22

Normally, I avoid the conceit of identifying with a song in the guise of the person being sung to. It's much more common for me to identify with the voice of the song, the narrator's perspective. There are exceptions to every rule, however. Ever since Precious started being played on the radio recently, I nearly burst into tears for the sense of being sung to.

Nine times out of ten, I will tell anyone that I am bad, that I need fixing, that I should be stronger. But the tenth time, tears will well up in my eyes and I will ask why must it always be me that is in the wrong? Why can't everyone just value me for who I am, rather than expecting me to be better? Even if you want to argue that I have a stupid complex that limits me from seeing how people value me, the implicit judgment is that I must fix something about myself in order to be a good person.

On the tenth times, I feel very fragile indeed.

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2006.06.20

I wonder what it is about finding out that a friend is pregnant that immediately triggers the hugging impulse? Yesterday, I thought it was just me, but I've now observed it multiple times over the day or two. All of us have seemed to have the exact same reaction: eyes light up, hand goes over mouth, "really?!?" gets excitedly uttered, and then arms go around shoulders.

I do suspect this could be a female-only reaction.

I must say, however, that I was surprised at the intensity of my reaction to the news. When my eyes lit up, I just about cried I was so happy for her. Of course, afterwards, it was all looking to me and going "so when are you having a baby?" (eye roll). Not for a bit yet, thank you very much!

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2006.06.19

First sunburn of the year: acquired. A little bit late, really; normally I get toasted at least once in May. Today was the yearly picnic for my group, so we all blew off work and thankfully the weather cooperated reasonably. Julia convinced me to go kayaking with her after lunch. We paddled around the lake for almost two and a half lovely hours, having great fun but also exposing poor delicate me to water reflections (let's ignore the fact that poor delicate me is a big girl, a big girl who forgot on her ownself to put on sunscreen before heading out). Miraculously, my face is only lightly burned, but my forearms are pretty funny given that I was wearing 3/4 length sleeves. Afterwards, I waited a too short period of time before heading out to play frisbee with S and a couple other people... by the time I got home, my upper arms were extremely displeased with me. Man, you'd think that I normally didn't exert myself much or something.

Thank you, ibuprofen.

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2006.06.18

Good nerd day. We play Iron Heroes once a month, and today was that once. Good times were had: delicious lumpia were eaten, funny jokes were made, evil cultists were dispatched, and gigantic spider demons were glimpsed as a cliffhanger. Not every roleplaying session allows every single character to shine, but all of us managed to pull out some serious special abilities or stunts during the main combat sequence, and that's just neat. Hooray nerdity!

(My contribution? I play a mad tokenizing hunter, and I got to build up and blow lots of tokens on buffing everyone and powering other people's abilities. I'm such a team player.)

Very much appreciated, as I became so depressed on Friday night that I barely slept, and then essentially didn't get out of bed all Saturday. I needed a good day.

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2006.06.16

Who knows what else I was intending to write about tonight; it's all been obliterated out of my short term memory. All I can think about now is The Itch. I've been lying on my bed crying about it for the last several minutes, so hell, why not try to write it away? I'm not sure why I'm so upset about it this evening; it's not been as bad today as it sometimes is. But a little while ago I caught myself rubbing my finger raw, and when I looked up, my scabbed and scaly heel just set me off. Once upon a time I loved spring and summer... loved the long days, loved the gentle warmth. Now April means that the months of The Itch of have begun; June through September means rampant itch sleep deprivation and vast swaths of disfigured skin.

I need to figure out a way to wrap my entire body in ice at all times in the summer. The cold is the only thing that truly makes The Itch go away.

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2006.06.14

Make-me-happiest quote of the day: "Jen, you should totally be on a product build team." My ego was majorly stroked no fewer than four times today, which was most appreciated. Thank you, karma!

Carina and I snuck off to get a pedicure last week. Toes came out pretty!

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2006.06.13

I have a conflicted relationship with my knowledge of the local HOV lane rules. On the one hand, that I know at 7pm on the east side they cease being carpool is often a great boon to me (I start using them as the ultra fast lane when necessary). On the other hand, I feel marginally guilty, as if I should continue to reserve them anyway. Note that I still drive in them after 7pm as a matter of course... I just feel a wee bit bad about it every time.

For once, I must point out, my guilt is not motived directly by other people... any time people give me the "you're not a carpool!" glare when I'm over in that lane in the evening, I want to laugh in their faces for not reading the fucking road signage. Compulsive reading for the win!

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2006.06.10

It's not like there's not been stuff happening the last few days... rather, I've been too tired or out of it in the evening to write anything. In past years we would have been in a week-long run of "I'm tired, going to bed now," but doing so just hasn't fit my mood lately.

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2006.06.07

Jeff took me out to see Cirque du Soleil's Varekai tonight. It's been four years since I last went, to Dralion, and I was just as blown away this time as before. I laughed at the clowns, cried out in alternating delight and terror at the acrobats, and wept at the sheer beauty of the aerial twins. My face hurts from being so happy for so long.

I frigging LOVE the circus.

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2006.06.06

Mission Impossible: III was nowhere near as bad as I'd thought it might be; I'm even glad that I saw it in the theater as opposed to waiting for a rental. If only people who bring their children to movies would teach them proper etiquette... instead of being just as loud as their six-year-old.

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2006.06.04

Oh, I am amused!!

But when they came to letters, "This," said Theuth, "will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit."

Thamus replied: "O most ingenious Theuth ... this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

- Plato (Phaedrus: 360 BC)

I am so going to print this out, strike out "letters" and replace it with "computers," and post it on my wall.

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2006.06.03

Amusing to me, to spend an hour or so looking up old boyfriends. My tastes have run so true over the years (smiling). Any surprise to find them as programmers, technical support specialists, engineers, lovers of good sci-fi books, quality television, dark humor? None at all.

I found some pictures I took on my team's morale event in April, up the Space Needle. Some of them came out ridiculously nice.

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2006.06.02

This week was just not conducive to anything.

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