I've written 8 out of the 12 pages that stand between me and winter break. As I'm working a shift between 2:30 and 5:00 in the library this morning, it seems likely that I might finish a first draft of this paper by sunrise. Then all I have to do is edit it, print it and other 3 short papers I wrote out, and turn them all in tomorrow. A day early. So that I can have an extra day of vacation.

The actual due date for this paper is Friday at 9 PM. I don't think I've turned in a final project this early for a very, very long. If ever.

Maybe the key to prevent myself from procrastinating is to just constantly set up small rewards to motivate myself. Dinner out. Hookah. A drink at Putter's. Quality time with my gentlemen friend.

It seems to have worked.

I'm going to take a nap before my circ desk shift. The next time I post to LiveJournal, hopefully it will be something celebratory.

He: I really liked your stories.
Me: Thank you.
He: Ever since I read them I've been craving diner food. It was your description of the diner coffee.
Me: Maybe we should go to a diner.
He: Maybe we should.

Hashbrowns, eggs, bacon, and three cups of hot watery coffee later, I think I'm finally ready to start doing research for my final paper.

Life is very good.

"It's not that we're codependent, it's just that we can't bear to be apart from each other."

I don't usually get like this. But I am like this. And while I'm vaguely self-aware of it, I've also lost all concept of the passage of time. Which is why it's easy for me to entirely disappear for two days and not really be aware of it.

My last class of the semester is Tuesday night. Afterward, let's catch up.

Sincerely,
A.

While I have many issues with Juno the film, the soundtrack is really the thing to listen to when I'm feeling incredibly sappy and the playlists my music robots make for me just aren't cutting it.

I'm going to have to make a very twee playlist of some sort. Tweepocalypse! That'd make a terrible cartoon, actually.

Hey, it's only Monday! Ugh.

Dear all,

I'm thankful for a lot of things today, and you're probably one of them.

Happy turkey day, you crazy kids!

Love,
A.

Yesterday I posted a new rough draft over at A. is A. It's called "Gainful Employment" and it's an absurd crime story. If you're into that sort of thing, you might want to check it out.

Thesis Stories So Far:

Goodbye, Invisible Man
Win (not online yet)
The Fourth
Gainful Employment

Thesis Stories In Progress:

Champ
Satellites

I should have five or six drafts by the end of the semester. Probably around 70 pages. Hot damn.

This song has been stuck in my head for about two weeks. I'd like you to suffer with me. Though the version I have is a slightly longer remix.

I'm not really sure how it got to be nearly three in the morning. Apparently I've lost all sense of day and night.

Time flies?

Interestingly enough, I spent a good portion of this evening talking about my insomnia. Ha!

I'm not looking forward to seeing Scott McCloud on only six hours of sleep tomorrow. But I am looking forward to other things.

Shit, guys.

On my way back from the library I saw the coyote for a second time. It was walking in front of me, going down the path towards the RCAS between the new dorms and the canyon.

I started quietly making noise so that I wouldn't surprise it and continued walking. The coyote kept trotting in front of me, occasionally stopping looking over its shoulder. I got a very good look at it this time. Definitely a coyote. I was surprised by how big it was.

When it became clear to the coyote that we were going in the same direction, it veered off into the tall grass at the edge of the canyon. It stood there and peered out at me while I walked by. When I turned around to keep track of it, it was still standing in the same place.

The coyote seems like a normal, nocturnal, shy coyote, the sort that's perfectly harmless to human beings. But I'm a little worried about the RCA cats and kittens that people let wander about all the time. Where I'm from, coyotes are known to snack on small domestic animals.

I'm considering making some sort of RCA PSA, but I don't want to cause a big freakout that gets animal control involved. The canyon's a nature preserve, right? Why not have a coyote in it? You know, to keep the nutria population down.

I just finished a draft of a 16-page absurd(ist) crime story called "Gainful Employment". It's the fourth story draft that I've written this semester. I'm going to try to write at least one more before winter break. It looks like this collection is going to be much more closely linked than I originally thought it would be. 3 out of the 4 stories take place in Portland, and every single one involves the character of Rivka Balshemennikov in some way.

So far I've written 57 pages over the course of this semester. Wowee.

People continue to make me nervous, but I guess that's a good thing. Social anxiety! It's like crank for your writing!

The Atlantic talks about it here.

I expected them to be a little angry about the Meatless Monday concept, but I was surprised that Janet Riley's reaction was being a lying, lying jerk.

Meat is not the only source of protein in the world. And the kinds of things they're serving the kids on Meatless Mondays seem to be dishes like beans and cheese. Beans (protein) and cheese (more protein). If you don't eat a big slab of meat one out of the seven days in a week, you will not magically become protein deficient. Shut up and stop spewing false statistics, Janet Riley.

Enjoy your contracting industry, fuckers!

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I recently updated both A is A and the long quiet Knives Out.

A is A has the first draft of a story called "The Fourth".

Knives Out has a template for a quick vegan snack.

This is one of those things that I really want to do before I leave the Northwest. Mmmm, chanterelles. If I looked up a local mycological society event, would anyone be interested in going with me? It's basically a mushroom hunt where you dump your haul in front of an expert and they make sure that done of your mushrooms are poisonous or otherwise unpleasant.

This video is 1 of 4 in a series. Click through if you want to see more.

Now that's it getting colder I've been wanting a hot breakfast. My apartment still doesn't have a toaster, mostly because we lack the counter space. So I decided on oatmeal, preferably one I could make in the microwave.

I hate those little packets of instant oatmeal. They tend to be far too sweet and artificial tasting. So I figured I'd get a bulk can of quick (not instant) oats and spice it up myself. The fact that the bulk oatmeal is cheaper than the unnecessarily portioned packets was a bonus.

I discovered Trader Joe's has quick-cooking steel-cut oats with microwave instructions. Yes.

I tried making them this morning. If you get these things, I recommend covering the bowl with a small plate while making the microwave version. The instructions don't tell you to cover the bowl, but if you don't you'll end up with oat glop all over the floor of your microwave.

The oats weren't as chewy as traditional steel-cut oats, but they were still way better than the rolled oat Quaker mush. I threw a bunch of stuff I already had lying around the kitchen on the oats when they were done. Two spoonfuls of ground flax, a spoonful of Grade B maple syrup, and a splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

And it was so good. Amazingly good. The combination of chewy-nutty-maple-vanilla was so awesome that I entirely forgot about the tea I made to go with it and brewed it for twice as long as it needed. Tannins, anyone?

In the future I might cook a larger batch on the stove and then nuke individual portions in the microwave.

I'm a little late to this foodie bandwagon, but... Steel-cut oats, fuck yeah!

The Russkies take on the flying magic car genre. With great wheels comes great responsibility. I had fun trying to translate the trailer in my head. "I need this car. Find it!"

You know what's kind of weird? The YouTube comments in Russian are way better spelled and constructed than the ones in English. One fellow uses bullet points and complete sentences. Mr. President, we must not allow a grammar gap!

I found this via Warren Ellis, of course.

Won't somebody make a LiveJournal post about their lives for me to read while I try to occasionally distract myself from a very depressing paper about pogroms and the February revolution?

Give Bagritskii a run for his whiny money.

Fun fact! Bagritskii died of complications from his severe asthma before Stalin could kill him! Way to stick it to the man, Bagritskii!

This is perhaps my favorite scene from Happiness. NSFW, by the way. I mean, it is a Todd Solondz movie.

I was convinced that I saw Bowtie at the Hawk And A Hacksaw concert. But I figured it couldn't possibly be him.

Around midnight I got a voice mail message from him. Bowtie said that he saw someone who looked suspiciously like me at the Hawk And A Hacksaw concert, but he wasn't sure if it was really me.

How serendipitous!

Except at that point I had already gone home. I called him back, though, and we had a pleasant talk on the phone for about half an hour.

His band is having a show on Thursday, but I have a midterm to finish. Then I'll be in Seattle for the next few days, I told him. He told me that was weird, because he might be in Seattle that weekend too.

I don't believe in fate, but I think this means that I really have to meet this guy. Eventually it's gonna happen.

I don't know if it's just all the yoga I've been doing this quarter, but I keep waking up in the morning feeling happy and compassionate towards all my fellow human beings. It doesn't last, of course, but it's certainly a nice thing to wake up to. Is this what is means to get a good night's sleep?

I just can't be angry. Aum.

Find more videos like this on ProjectExplorer.org's Good Global Citizen


Seriously, I could watch Anthony Bourdain all damn day.

I've been feeling incredibly restless lately. I want to go somewhere. But I have to wait until after graduation. Here are the next couple places on my list.

Costa Rica
Israel (yay free Birthright trip)
Southern and Eastern Europe
driving tour through the American South

Anyone want to come with me?

Today for breakfast I had half a Costco muffin and black coffee. All I wanted was a pan con chocolate and a café con leche.

I need to go to the store and buy bread and fruit and eggs. Maybe I'll make a Spanish tortilla tonight. Yeah.