About Being A Mad Science Writer...

So, last quarter, I found out that I wasn't accepted into UW Bothell, a couple weeks later I found that I didn't get my transfer degree anyway, and then at the end of the quarter, I found that I once again failed my English 102 class, and now I'm all out of Financial Aid!

I guess my only chance to move forward in a timely fashion is to start freelancing.

Now that I have a lot of free time on my hands, I've gotten all the way through the emails in my inbox, and have deleted all but 274 of them (down from some 2,000 yesterday).

Well, I have to leave in a few minutes for an audition, so I must go.

Soooo tired from all the blogging... but not here yet!

You wouldn't know by looking here at this blog, but I'm actually keeping up with my blogging! I've already written all about my ape fiasco as Dr. Orang U. Tan:

However, it's on my Wackmobiles blog. You should really check it out -- there's actual video and everything!

Ah, well, at least this monkey mayhem is not as strange as the last time, years ago -- oh, but most of the pictures gone, argh!

Not to mention, I've also been keeping up with the art blog.

So, between my life's story and the art blog, the sheer time needed for working on blog posts has been decreasing steadily, since I've been doing just a little at a time, each day. Tomorrow, I'll add a little of this blog to the mix, and so on, until I have everything going at once.

Doing this is a little bit tricky now that I have homework, but I'm confident that I can do this. Be prepared to read about sewage worms in the near future.

You heard me -- sewage worms! Mua ha ha ha haaaa!

I've come this far... and here comes more!

Let's go back to the beginning, as in, the beginning of this blog, nearly four years ago. What were my stated goals?

~ Procure a suitable laboratory.

~ Rebuild MAL 9000 and install him in the new lab.

~ Earn my Ph.D -- before someone discovers my twisted and malevolent schemes!

~ Start a blog. (Well, at least I have that one taken care of.)

In the intervening years I have, to my great surprise and relief, done all of those things, except for my Ph.D. Of course, I didn't really expect to get it in one year, but of course I did start college within that year, which is the first step, thanks to superhero/rock star/now-fiance Lou Ryan.
` Before that, I'd never really gone to college -- besides a couple art classes where I didn't learn anything -- and had had no other education to speak of up until I started college at EVCC.

That was rough because, not only did I not know how to study and be in public, but I was constantly prevented from learning because I'd lost my lab and had some very frightening and stressful living situations in which I had to constantly be on-guard, and could go for months at a time with no breaks for basic human needs such as quiet and privacy.
` Homework was something that I was constantly being prevented from doing, and completing it became an impossible, but crucial goal to my success.
` At the worst of it, I became suicidal from having to go back to 'survival, no-brains, no-personality, fight-or-flight mode' all the time, and being picked on for this by people who took advantage of this and used me as a taxi service among other things.
` It was a huge interruption in my exponentially-fast learning of life skills -- which I had been prevented from before because of being abused and tortured and then treated like an invalid by people like Phil -- and the fact that I didn't have these skills already was also a source of ridicule.

So, it's understandable that I wasn't able to get many schemes underway after I began having psychotic loser roommates and living in seriously ghetto conditions -- in fact, I wound up hating myself and feeling incompetent because I was constantly being traumatized and abused, which was something I'd grown up with and was trying to break out of the habit of being a victim of.
` Finally, that's worked, it's just taken that long to get away from such people and situations.

How my life has changed, and changed, and changed again!

And speaking of my first post, I've just gone back to it -- January 1, 2006, and I've found that... MY READER'S COMMENTS ARE BACK!!!!
` It was some time ago, when I was going through the task of re-archiving my blogs (because I had failed the first time) and found that almost every single post up to certain points (apparently the points which I'd installed those comment spam guards) had removed all the previously-made comments from them!
` But now, having just gone back to the first post again, I've found that ALL MY COMMENTS ARE BACK!
` Oh, the memories! All my bloggy friends at the time, and others, including crazy people, and all their witty comments and whatnot -- just the comments were like half my blog posts, and sometimes, were even better! I feel so relieved!

Well... it's time to re-archive my blog posts on my new MAL, and with the comments, now, which will probably take forever but it's worth doing in case my blogs 'disappear' online, which happens to some people occasionally, like poor Aaron, whose blog was gone with no explanation!

Anyway, so what are my plans, once more?

Well; I've changed my opinions in light of new facts so many times that it is hard to see across to those days when I wrote those posts. Too many things have happened.

So, I think it's time I paid those days a visit!

Not only do I have some new posts started, but I've learned so many things that I realize I've made many factual errors in this blog -- and others -- that I think that as I go back to archive this blog, I should also re-write the same posts, for the good of anyone who looks at them, and for material to put on The Corrigendopedia website, which I am now writing for once more.

I've been planning for this for a long time, but it's been hard to get back to serious blogging because of school and other busy activities and working at getting my sh** together so that I can do more than just that.
` I've said many times in the past that I would be back at blogging, but just when I thought I'd had my life under control, I'd find out that I was wrong and would get blamed for that, even though it was more bad luck and getting beaten down constantly that was the problem, and I still blamed myself, especially when Lou Ryan didn't see the problem and encouraged this.

That doesn't happen too often now, although something of this kind did happen last night:

One of the things I've been working on is going to bed early so that I can get up before ten in the morning, but it is so cold at night without firewood to heat the house that I'm so tense from shivering under my blankets that I can't get to sleep.
` So, yesterday I got up at 6:30 in the morning to shoot a really elaborate TV commercial and didn't get home until evening, and then went to the gym, and I was so happy to be exhausted for once because finally, I would be able to get to sleep early, no matter how cold it was.

Lucas had also put the fan heater downstairs by the fireplace so as to blow hot air towards the stairs and throughout the house in the same way as he would put the mini-fan by the fireplace when we did have a fire going. It worked almost as well, but was much more expensive.
` For some reason, it seemed as though I was very cold and couldn't warm up. I shivered and sat on my feet and wondered why Vada and the kitten, Rusty -- whom I have because Violet died -- wasn't there to help keep me warm.
` Instead of investigating, I fell back into my habit of just blaming myself for my problems. If I couldn't fall asleep, it was my fault, I thought. It couldn't actually be that much colder than it was the previous night, because the fan heater had worked then.
` Besides, I was too exhausted to get up and investigate -- I'd seen the heater on before going to bed, and I knew that none of the roommates would turn it off because it was heating the house, so it must be working. If I felt cold, it must be all in my head, right?
` That's just destructive thinking, and I admit I fall back into that habit as soon as I'm really tired or otherwise mentally taxed and am experiencing some trouble or other. Which I was.

If I'd just spent two minutes actually using my problem-solving skills, I would have found differently:

I didn't get to sleep until the wee hours, and as usual woke up the next morning at ten, feeling discouraged that I had not been able to utilize my morning to do everything I needed to do in the morning and then have the entire rest of the day in front of me.
` Even worse, a friend here at the house, Anthony Soto, was in the living room and called me something like 'Gotten-Up-Late Hair' because I hadn't been able to comb my hair into shape from all the tossing and turning, and I explained to him that I had gotten up late because I hadn't been able to sleep from the cold last night.
` But then, Lucas -- I mean, Lou Ryan -- came onto the scene and told me what had happened last night, just after I had fallen asleep:

He had been asleep in bed, and despite wearing his sweats, with his hood up, even, he was so cold that he woke up and got out of bed and discovered that the entire house was freezing! He went downstairs and found that the heater-fan was gone!
` A few seconds later, he found it in the den, with the door closed, and he said it was about ninety degrees in there. He swore a bunch and turned on the light, to find Anthony -- and a girl! -- in the bed in the den!
` He had stole our heat! So, I was right to think that our roommates hadn't done anything with the heater. What we didn't know was that Anthony was spending the night -- I'm not sure why -- and this is why it's always important to use your critical thinking skills, even when your critical thinking centers want to rest -- especially then!

Not only was it my anti-victim mentality, but Anthony who had caused me to ultimately wake up in the morning late, and then the same guy teased me for it!

CORRECTION: It wasn't Anthony, it was JOEL! As a roommate, Joel ought to have known better! I guess he just doesn't think that much, but he's eager to learn.

It is bizarre, but once-in-a-lifetime flukes have pretty consistently interfered with my life over these four years, many times in critical periods where I had absolutely needed to exercise some control and gain some self-confidence:
` This includes everything from de-brainwashing and de-traumatize myself (no thanks to the 'mental health' non-psychologist idiots) and being in a state of vulnerability state because I was opening myself to the possibility of learning something scary but necessary for my continued development, all the way to more common difficulties such as changing my bad habits through discipline.
` I'd be in some critical period or moment when something bizarre that I couldn't have seen coming that was unpleasant, painful, or just plain discouraging, would happen.

This is just one example -- however, since this doesn't happen every day anymore, I believe that it is so little that, while it is upsetting, I can take this level of discouragement and continue on trying to take control of my life without having to be too afraid to try again for some time.

And thus, I believe that I am in a better position to be more consistent with my blogging and other activities.
` Although outside, unpredictable factors out of my control will always interrupt me, as long as they are not virtually constant (as they literally once had been, with the constant mind-deafening noise of the Su Chiang house of condemned doom, for example, when I had to literally leave the house and trudge down the street in the snow or rain, in order to find those abilities I thought I'd been developing, such as focusing, planning, thinking about things, remembering who I am, etc. but was not able to use those abilities or continue developing much more at all), I really think I can deal with these problems now.
` Only looking at it now do I realize how delicate I've been, and how wrong it was for others to laugh at me when I told them what my needs were -- privacy and quiet -- in order to, not just make progress, but to stop backsliding into habit and unthinking, mindless oblivion of hanging on and hoping that I'd be able to come up for a breath of having my mind to myself, and at the same time being hurt by the way-too-high expectations of myself that I, and especially others, held.

But now, I've gone through many more childhood developmental stages, which I had been prevented from going through before, we've gotten rid of abusive ass****s living in our house and in our lives, plus I have been able to put myself together and set my life up so that discipline is no longer equated with a mental (or even physical) gauntlet of certain intense pain and disruption.

Therefore, I should be able to run a simple blog -- or even a set of four. And why four blogs?

When I started my first blog, I had been writing so many blog posts each day that I would often have two or three in one day. When I finally decided to be true to myself and blog with my true identity, here, I was able to shunt some of those extra blog posts over so that the other blog wasn't as clogged with writing.
` Then, once I was able to get my art online, consistently, I started an art blog so that the posts I had specialized for my artwork could all be in one place. Then, it just sorta got out of control.

My mission now is to get all that stuff back under control. I'll write/fix my websites, get my blogs going, figure out what to do with all the unpublished drafts and so on.
` It's going to take a lot of work, but now that my life is so much better and improving, I don't doubt that I can figure out how to do it, even when I have homework to do.

The Spanish Spongebobs: ¡Traducir los Bob Esponjas es muy divertido!

Believe it or not, this 'stupid video post' actually does have something to do with what I'm learning in college. I'm almost done with fall quarter, and am about to have the time to share my more serious articles, and even other schoolwork.
` But, for now, I thought, just to update this blog if nothing else, something of a less serious nature.

You see, October 19, 2010 was the best day ever of my life, because I had just gone through a childhood developmental stage attained by most people at 2 1/2 years old, thus acquiring some more efficient brain-processing skills. Unfortunately, my life quickly went downhill for other reasons despite this (i.e. I got the flu, my favorite cat died, etc).
` On the best day ever, however, I remembered having seen on YouTube the title, 'Spongebob Squarepants -- The Best Day Ever', so I found the 'sing-along' version on YouTube, which featured such strange sights as Spongebob with an oversized butt flying through the water, leaving behind a rainbow trail.

'Dare I speculate?' I thought, having never actually seen the show.

However, in the sidebar, I noticed another title, 'Bob Esponja -- El Mejor de Los Dias'! This Bob Esponja sounded eerily similar to Spongebob, but it was in Spanish-Spanish, that is, the kind of Spanish spoken in Spain. (The most noticeable feature is the pronunciation of 'c' and 'z' as a 'th' sound.)
` This one wasn't a sing-along video, it only had still pictures, and also the song was different because it only consisted of the first verse and then had a bunch of dialogue.
` I thought it might be fun to try to translate the dialogue, but it would help if I could see what was going on. It would also help if I had the Spanish lyrics, but when I looked them up online, they did not match the ones I'd heard!

And then, I found out why:

I was going around YouTube, looking for a version that shows the original video and came across a completely different translation of exactly the same song, in a different key, as sung by a much different-sounding Bob Esponja -- this one with a Latin American accent!

I later looked this up on Wikipedia -- sure enough, there are both a Spanish and a Latin American version of Bob Esponja! I don't know why that is, but it is.

The first thing that popped into my head was, 'Great! Now I can listen to both and compare the two and from that, figure out what they're saying!' You know, kind of like the idea behind deciphering the Rosetta stone, but with Bob Esponjas.

Amazingly, I managed, with the power of listening intently, to figure out that he was talking to his pet snail, who I knew was like a cat, about the new generation of Crab-burgers, fishing for jellyfish with Patricio (whom at least I knew must be the sea star, Patrick), having a karate session with 'Arenita', whom I figured must be the squirrel in the diving suit, and then going to the clarinet recital of 'Calamardo' whom I figured must be a squid.

That's seriously all I knew. I felt lost in this pursuit, however, so I decided to go around YouTube, watching videos, and was able to confirm that much of this made sense. As for the show, I didn't know quite what to make of it.
` And then, I saw the chocolate-selling scene with the dried-up old lady! "You just can't wait for me to die, can you?" It was wrong on so many levels...



Hooray for lying! This, of course, convinced me to start viewing the show on Netflix, which we had just subscribed to at the time. Importantly, I decided to use my newfound mental skills to analyze it as TV shows are meant to be analyzed!

I liked the way the characters play off one another, especially the way that Spongebob and Patrick so greatly annoy the sarcastic Squidward (Calamardo) the bald, middle-aged, self-absorbed, curmudgeonly octopus (i.e. not actually a squid) who fancies himself to be an artistic genius trapped in a dead-end job, and who secretly wants to join in their silly games because they're so happy, despite being innocent and lacking in intelligence, while he's not.
` I also quickly figured out that the stupidity seen in the show is not the punchline -- it's the way they make fun of the stupidity. The inappropriate wholesomeness reminded me of the very twisted Strangers With Candy series (about a graying former prostitute back in high school), whereas the parts with fast-paced flashbacks reminded me of Family Guy, and then the weird tangential stuff was reminiscent of Monty Python. Other parts were... well... more special. In a short bus sort of way.

My mental health will never be the same.

Anyway, the show did help me translate what was going on in the songs. And do you want to know what I came up with? Well, I think I did fairly well, considering I'm only in Spanish Level 2 and haven't even formally learned the future tense. Of course, my instructor also helped me, but still, I got most of it by myself, even parts she couldn't understand!

So, I'll present the Spanish-from-Spain translation first, along with the Latin American Spanish version, so you can actually listen, if you dare:



Ya ha salido el sol sólo para mí
The sun has come up just for me
?? Qué día va a ser tengo que salir
What a day it's going to be, I have to go out
Saltar al fin de felicidad
To jump, at last, for joy
Es lo que tu descubrirás
It is what you will discover,
!Todos es especialo! (!Este ya!)
Everything is special (This already!)

¡Ey, Gary!
Hi, Gary!
?Mrao?
Mrao?
Te preguntarás por que es el mejor dia a mi vida?
You would ask why it's the best day of my life?
Porque, Gary, voy a ?? este maravilloso día trayendo al mundo a toda
Because, Gary, I'm going to ?begin this marvelous day bringing to the whole world
una nueva generación de deliciosas ?burgers Cangreburgers!
a new generation of delicious ?burgers Krabby Patties

Seguida ?? una vigorizante sesión de karate con Arenita al mediodía,
It continues ?with an invigorating session of karate with Sandy at noon,
Y una tarde de caza de medusas con Patrício donde estrena mi
And an afternoon of catching? jellyfish with Patrick where he'll first use my
poseción más prefiere y nueva ¡El caze medusa profesionál de lujo!
most preferred and new posession; the profesional deluxe jellyfish hunter!

Y por el gran final, ¡todos mis amigos más intimos
And for the grand finale, all my best friends
nos reuniremos para el recital la clarinete de Calimardo!
(we) will come together for Squidward's clarinet recital!

¡Estoy tan emocionado que creo que voy a explotarrrr!
I'm so excited that I think that I'm going to explode!

¡Todos es especialooo! (¡Este ya!)
Everything is special-o! (This already!)


I don't know what 'especialo' means, but whatever -- if any Spanish-speaker would like to comment on my translations, it'd be great.
` Oh yes, that's right -- translations-plural!: If that wasn't enough for you, here's the Latin American version, which is slower and easier to understand, and thus a huge help in translating the Spanish-Spanish version:



El sol ha salido y me ha sonreído
The sun has come up and has smiled at me
Que sería buen día me ha prometido
What a good day it will be, promised to me!
Salté de la cama con mucha alegría
Jumped out of bed with much happiness
Sintiéndome cómo nunca y
I'm feeling like never before, and
¡El mejor día es! (Best day ever!)
It's the best day! (Best day ever!)

!Hola, Gary!
Hello, Gary!
?Mrao?
Mrao?
?Preguntas por que es mejor dia?
You ask why it's the best day?
Porque Gary, comenzaré este maravilloso día dando vida a
Because, Gary, this marvelous day will begin giving life to
una nueva generación de deliciosas Cangreburgers!
a new generation of delicious Krabby Patties!

Seguida por una vigorosa sessión de karate con Arenita
It continues for a vigorous session of karate with Sandy
Y una tarde pescando medusas con Patricio donde revelaré
And an afternoon jellyfishing with Patrick where I'll reveal
mi más ?presciente preciosada posesión; el atrapa-medusas de lujo profesional
My most ?prescient precious posession; the deluxe professional jellyfish trap!

Y para el gran final, iré con mis mejores amigos
And for the grand finale, I'll go with my best friends
a presenciniar recital de clarineta de Calamardo
to be present at Squidward's clarinet recital!

Estoy tan emocionado yo creo que voy a explotaaar!
I'm so excited I think I'm going to explode!

El mejor dia eeeessss! (Best day ever!)
It's the best day ever!


And right when I was putting my paper together, I happened to go on YouTube (yes, for research purposes!) and I actually found the English version of this song, with the same dialogue -- it's actually just the beginning of an episode.
` Unfortunately, it was taken down the day after, but while it lasted, I wrote down what's in the original video:

Mister Sun came up and he smiled at me!
(The sun actually comes through his window with a -- ARRRGH! -- hideously cute smile!)
Said, It's gonna be a good one, just wait and see!
(Awkward pause where Spongebob and the sun stare at each other, then then Spongebob's bed GOES UP IN FLAMES, and Spongebob escapes the creepy underwater sun's fire just in time, and goes running around on the outside of his pineapple house.)
Jumped out of bed, and I ran outside, feeling so extra-ecstatified!
It's the best day ever! (Best day ever!)

(Spongebob find his pet snail on the roof and says,) "Hey, Gary!"
(Gary says,) "Mrao?"
(We can see what Spongebob is thinking via the magic of thought balloons.) "Why is it the best day ever, you ask? Because, Gary, I get to start this wonderful day bringing life to a whole new generation of delicious Krabby Patties! Followed by a vigorous midday session of karate with Sandy! And an afternoon jellyfishing with Patrick, where I'll unveil my newest, most prized posession, the Deluxe Jellyslayer Composite Pro!" (Spongebob demonstrates its capturing powers on Gary.)
"And, for the grand finale, every one of my closest friends joining together for Squidward's clarinet recital! I am so excited I think I'm going to explode!" (Gary backs away for safety purposes.)

Spongebob explodes and keeps singing, "It's the best day everrr!" while dorking it up along his way to work, and he is in such a good mood that he fails to notice that his workplace is covered in yellow tape that says 'Condemned' and giggles like a moron when he puts his hand on the doorknob.
` The video ends before we see his reaction -- well, I wanna see the rest! Better order some more Spongebob!

While the good-quality English language version of that video is down, I at least found a bad quality Latin American Spanish version of it... at least you can see what I was talking about.



Anyway, translating this all was indeed one of my Spanish projects this quarter. I hope it was... uh... special enough for you.

And if you think this was a horrible idea for a post, just remember that part of the reason I like Spongebob is because I went to Retard School and I have a tendency to love laughing at retards.

In any case, I have my Spanish class to blame!

Yeah, I'm blaming it on my education!

Hey... wait a second!

I just remembered, I left out one of my favorite characters. He's into world domination, like me -- it's Plankton, the one-eyed copepod! He also has an A.I., his computer wife, Karen, and a secret lab at the Chum Bucket, a restaurant nobody goes to because the food is that bad!
` Unfortunately, most of the Spongebob clips on YouTube are really not worth watching, so this was the best I could do:

Here's what happens when Plankton tries to be buddies with Spongebob -- of course, he's actually after Mr. Krabs' secret Krabby Patty recipe... but what they don't know is that Mr. Krabs is watching!

F is for Fire that burns down the whole town,
U is for Uranium bombs,
N is for No survivors...



Spongebob is such a moron, it hurts, and it hurts so much that I have that tingly sensation... no, it shouldn't stop!

Uhhhh....

This reminds me, I'll need to be getting back into gear for world domination soon. Be expecting that.

And, as a reward for making it all the way down to the bottom, I also found a video that reminds me of the Good Ol' (not really) Ghetto Days. Here's three short episodes of what Spongebob Squarepants would be like if all the characters came from the crackhouse I used to live at!

Are you ready, stoners? Ooooohhhhh... (cough! cough!) hold on, 'kay? Oooooohhhh, who lives in a bong in a dormitory?
SpongeBong HempPants
Disgusting and green and sticky is he....



Yes, for real!

I'm so sorry if this post is lame. Which it isn't. But if it were lame, I would apologize.

Ahhhh, I'm feeling more like myself now!

Well, I must be on my way. Finally, I'll have a real post next. But which one? There are so many to choose from by now....

Where have all the mechanical henchmen gone?

I started this blog because I had given myself the freedom to self-determination in life, and that was exciting. I was finally starting to take on the world for the purpose of taking over the world, no amount of abuse, torture, lack of education, lack of socialization, or indifference of other people would stand in my way.

After four years of being made to feel unsafe, unwelcome and unwanted in my own dwelling, and facing considerable opposition to my ability to think, learn, complete tasks, plan, organize and sleep, I have learned the importance of sticking with mechanical henchmen as opposed to unpredictable human roommates.
` I have also learned that I am more willing to continue to be the victim to the point of constant suicide contemplation than I am willing to stand up for myself (and possibly give myself away).
` This greatly disappoints me, and it's clear that I don't have what it takes to be a mad scientist, so I've relegated myself to 'mad science writer', hence the title change of this blog.

Granted, I have always had Superhero-Rockstar Lou Ryan there for me, to help me through tough times, but I remind myself that the only reason I suffered so much was because I couldn't make myself move away and stop helping him make rent each month on his production company.
` Everyone else on the production team started getting addicted to drugs and replacing their money with destructive behavior and left. To fill in the empty rooms, we moved in others who eventually wrought their own havoc.
` However, not having had time to learn how to be anything more than a victim of household adversity, I continued being a victim. My ability to function, much less enjoy myself or be creative, was eventually sapped right out of me.

And no minions there to help me!

Now is the time for change. I may have had to sell all my henchmen and lab equipment in order to catch up on debts, but I now have new privacy, a desk, a functioning computer, and enough peace and quiet to be able to hear myself think, read comprehensively, and even sleep at night.
` Those daily struggles I used to face on top of attending college with no prior school experience took my brain down to the level of only surviving to the next day -- planning was a pipe dream.
` There was very little guarantee that any of my plans would not be halted, for example, by someone who needed a ride or a babysitter for that moment, and most of all by those who detested me for not being gracious for the short and unpredictable breaks they gave me to do things like sleep or homework, though they didn't give me time to think or act deliberately beyond survival habits.
` Planning just wasn't a realistic option. My daily planner had to be re-written every half-hour, and the only thing I was capable of completing was sweeping the floor, doing laundry, or showering -- routine tasks that I could do without thinking.

When you live with constant menaces, you don't notice or react to them as much. Thankfully, I have a new perspective now that the would-be-cat-killer roommate has practically been hauled off by the cops, and I expect to not have any more roommates in the foreseeable future.

That is why now is the time for change.

It's too bad that these years of self-discovery have led to living situations which resulted in my loss of internet habits, thus resulting in the lack of reasons for other people to visit my blogs, or for me to visit theirs.

I'm not surprised no one's said they're sick of Captain Disillusion yet, even though my last post all about him was amazingly uncreative and unthoughtful.
` I did discover that the actor's name is Allen something-or-other a couple of weeks ago... I'll get you, Allen! Mua ha ha ha haaaa!

However, since before my last post, I've been planning to correct and update my old posts, publish some of the countless posts that have been sitting in the draft pile, as well as throw in some new and original material.

Now that my tenth crazy roommate is gone, and my mom is back home from visiting, I feel the urge to re-develop my blogging habits -- better and more sustainable ones, at that!

I must go now, children. It appears that Lucas -- I mean, Superhero Lou Ryan -- has just said to me, "Are you ready for the greatest dinner ever?"

Don't mind if I do!

"Oye Cerebro, ¿qué vamos a hacer esta noche?"

"Lo mismo que hacemos todas las noches, Pinky. ¡Tratar de conquistar el mundo!"

As you may know, I've been taking Spanish classes for the past several weeks, which slightly alters my plans for the future.
` You see, instead of just taking over the world, I'm now planning to take over the world, specifically in Spanish! Just like my new-old cartoon semi-heroes....

Sing along, everyone!

Son Pinky y Cerebro
Pinky y Cerebro
Uno es un genio
El otro no es tan cuerdo
De laboratorio son
Con genes insertados
Son Pinky
Son Pinky y Cerebro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro!


Antes del amanecer
Desarrollarán su plan
Y cuando salga el sol
El mundo conquistarán


Son Pinky y Cerebro
Pinky y Cerebro
Su motivación
Es fácil de explicar
Para probar su valor
El mundo conquistarán
Son Pinky
Son Pinky y Cerebro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, NARF!

If you were dissatisfied with this post, please see this much more satisfying one, which features my superhero fiance, Lou Ryan himself, as a substance-abusing hooligan who thinks he's pregnant.


Isn't he cuuuute?


P.S. How am I doing for my madness quotient today? Too much?

Setbacks have long since been nullified

So, I got into three of the four classes I had originally enrolled in, and that is quite enough! I would write more, but I am literally plotting for world domination on The Board of Doom.
` One fifth of the board is all Spanish homework! I am doing very well in the class, and I got 100% on the first quiz!

Why take a foreign language? Not only is it required to get into any university, but languages are like entire worlds and multiply the number of connections one can make between concepts.

I'm figuring this will boost my intelligence since people who only know one language are not as smart, on average, as everyone else.

This has long troubled me, as I knew I wasn't living up to my potential. I hope to learn many more languages as well!

Well, I have a lot on my board right now, so I should go. Hasta pronto!

Minor setbacks for world domination...

Well, I miscalculated my college credit availability and all four of my classes for Spring Quarter have been dropped.

I know.

So, I'm filing an appeal to perhaps get more funding for future quarters, and as for Spring quarter, I may be able to scrape up enough money for one class and get on the wait list (which I was not on before!) because I know I am guaranteed to get in even if I don't make it off the wait list.

In other news, I think I may be getting straight A's this quarter again, though I am not sure yet. Especially since I still have to do my math final tomorrow morning, but that should be a piece of cake.

Another disappointment -- I've gone back to the earlier posts on this blog and one other and have found that THE COMMENTS FOR HUNDREDS OF POSTS ARE GONE!

In posts that had formerly been teeming with comments, they have been erased, and it seems to me that this happened because I activated the Captcha screening devices so that robots could not leave spam.

Did I back up the posts on my hard drives? Yes. Did I think to back up the comments afterward? Of course not. Instead, I waited until now to do so and found the earlier ones, back to 2007, are missing.

I really must work on my lack of foresight.

What a lively and humorous bunch those people were, back when I was part of the blogging community. I've been rather down and out of it since I've been so focused on school, not really able to keep up with all of their blogs, and so the comments have diminished.

Here's hoping I get more efficient with my time and stop bungling everything up. I mean, if I'm going to take over the world, I had better not make these kinds of stupid mistakes.

Thus, I continue to struggle in my endeavors, now without the benefit of mechanical henchmen to make my life easier. I suppose it is all for the better. I must learn to manage myself before I can manage such a tremendous undertaking as world domination.

I'll be back after the post-finals celebrations are over this weekend.

Why have I failed to take over the world? A confession.

Oh, I think we all know the answer to that.

Because I haven't been trying! Not that I could have helped it.

One of my great plots involved becoming a superstar actress. You may recall this. I actually got a part in a movie pretty much immediately after auditioning for it. Apparently I was really good at acting terrified. I have the terror in me. In fact, the movie was called Spaceship Terror (by Harry Tchinski).

Shooting was to start more than a year ago, if I recall correctly, so it's been a long time past since this opportunity went by.

Sure, it was a low-budget film, but I was really enthusiastic because it was my first real 'part' in a movie. Plus, I would get to be graphically killed again, AND run around in underwear!
` But then, you may also recall that one particular jerk named Matty, with no conscience, who lied all the time, stole from me, had us shoot an entire music video for a band without telling the band (and telling us that the band knew but kept flaking out on showing up), threatened to kill Johnny the Slob (though I don't blame him), actually did kill someone in an auto wreck but didn't stop, and, well... is really messed up.
` This guy told me to not humiliate myself on camera, and that Harry Tschinski just wanted to use me for my body on camera and that's all I was to these filmmakers. Well, what was I supposed to do? Play some ugly chick?
` I was about to leave to go to the shoot, but in the end, I felt so ashamed that I could not live with myself, and I didn't go, leaving Harry to scramble to get someone else in my place. I felt so guilty for that, I did some bad things. Like, FOR ME bad things.

Yet, I never told anyone. Not even my darling Lou Ryan. It wasn't long before I realized what a jerk he was, and felt stupid for even listening to him, too stupid to tell anyone, except Harry.

It seems, I am recovering my trajectory by now. I no longer have Brad making me feel bad for going to school or blasting his music or the TV all the time in that house with no insulation, which could be heard loudly in every room, and outside as well.
` I had no home. I was displaced. There was no place for me. I had many nervous breakdowns, and the only time I had to vent was whenever I was driving (and not giving anyone else a ride) and I would SCREAM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS because of the constant music all the time.
` Not only did it rob me of all my thoughts, when I heard this music (or tried not to hear it) I felt as if I were hearing a wildly crying baby all the time, and there was nothing I could do. I don't know why I was feeling that way, all I know is that it was really upsetting, and I could not tell anyone because then I would be picked on.

Well, emotions don't make rational sense. They just are. Hence, my obsession with rationality to counterbalance the fact that I've had PTSD for most of my life. Even so, I was too embarrassed to tell Lou Ryan for some time, rock and roll superhero that he is.

Now, without being constantly thrust into anxiety attacks and the present moment, I can back up and look at what my plans REALLY are.

That's been how it is all along, right? They distract you away from your life, and you stop living, and you blame yourself for not being able to just block it all out and just do better, but how can you ever grow and learn new things and get away from the whole post traumatic stress disorder thing if you don't let a little of the world in? How can you change if you cannot learn or experience anything?

It is no wonder that I did not develop new habits while my old ones deteriorated.

I had no foresight or a sense of the world around me, but I'm starting to develop a decent amount of it by now.

Let's just say, though my relationship with Lou Ryan has been great, my life with him has been as bad as it could be. No more will we associate with low-life roommates who stiff us $900, or make up a story and call the cops on us, nor even pour their own urine all over the house.

It anyone is to live here, it will have to be... our own minions! We have one minion, and we really like him.

The other guy, well, he's not much of a minion. In fact, he blasts his music a lot, and despite all the sound paneling, it still is disruptive.

I will have to 'off' that one. Just as soon as I can find a replacement.

Well, I'm slowly rebuilding my mind. One neural circuit at a time. (Like I haven't always had to do that anyway?)

My improbable scheme...

You know, I've thought it was strange that I've been using this as a place to tell everyone about the photo updates for my mild-mannered exterior, and now I think I understand why:
` I've been dealing with crisis after crisis from living in the same house as so many psychotic people and drug addicts and all kinds of crazy situations! I've been having to guard my lab, and all of my important secret stuff has been in storage!

So this is it! I've found a novel, new use for this blog... my originally-intended purpose!

Irony! I mean, I'm a struggling mad scientist, my frontal lobes have been working inconsistently for the past few years, but now they seem to be working well enough for introspection, not to mention plotting my world-domination!



Indeed, my unwilling subjects, I am finally going to go back to being a mad scientist here. I don't know what I'll be doing. It's been years since my creative juices have gotten a hold on my brain, but I'll think of something.

One thing that does help is this song I've got stuck in my head, as sung by a certain lab mouse who is hell-bent on taking over the world.

To scheme the improbable scheme,
To plan the unthinkable plan,
To build when your arms are too tiny,
To walk in the suit of a man!
This is my fate, to conquer the earth!
To play with the big boys, though I lack the girth,
To reach for the stars, on a whim or a dare,
I could climb to the top if I only could reach the first stair!
And the world doesn't know what they'll miss
If a mouse doesn't follow his dream,
To scrawl with his last bit of graphite,
To scheme, the improbable scheme!

What I will be doing, I'm not sure yet. But rest assured, I will be hard at work. Just like Brain....



As for the photo updates I will continue them on the Science, Wackmobiles and Spurious Brainchildren blog, together with my milk-mannered journal updates: The latest journal/photo update is here.

I'll be back with something... worse... or better?

It is done.

I HAVE FINALLY EDITED AND UPLOADED ALL NINE THOUSAND, THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN (that's 9,316) OF MY DIGITAL PHOTOS ONTO FLICKR! It took months, and it was a real pain, but finally, it's paid off! Behold - December 2009 back to December 2005! Or was it January 2006?
` Whichever; it is now the time to rejoice! Also, it is the time to get ready for bed: I have the first day of class in the morning! At last, I am to begin schooling for becoming MASTER OF THE WORLD! Mua ha ha ha ha ha!

Ah, I remember when I was first being seduced by strange and unusual creatures... back before I had a bedtime!

Yes, that's an actual photo of me being literally seduced by some troublemakers!

And now... I will no longer be distracted by uploading old photos, for now I will only have new photos to share, like the ones on my camera from the past few days!

In at least as good news, not only are crazy Brad and Char gone, but so is Alcoholic Steve! I'm free in so many ways! I'm freeeeeee! Everyone say it with me now; YYYEEEAAAAHHH!

NOW LOOK! LOOK AT THE CRAZY CRAP I USED TO GET INTO!

Where's my mechanical henchmen now?

ARRRGH!! My new AI suddenly shut itself off, then turned back on, so I lost this entire post! Basically, I have been terrorized by the cretins that are apparently hell-bent on stealing stuff from us before they get kicked out. This is going too far. In further frustration, I apparently cant type apostrophes anymore, and my arrow keys dont work either.

` Okay, so I apparently cant type worth a damn, but luckily I already have written about it over on one of my other blogs. Basically, Im guarding my stuff against a couple of psycho-loons, one of whom called the cops on us for hiding in our bedroom, and Ive been up all night with my stomach churning! Read about it in sickening detail here!

MAL, 2.0 - my new computer!

My previous AI, MAL, has been getting rather snotty with me, so I've replaced him with a newer, better AI - and it's portable!

At last! I shall be able to be online each day, and for as long as I want! No more waiting in line! No more writing my emails on paper and then typing them when I get the chance! That is BULL HOCKEY -- my least favorite game!

Anyway, I'll be back soon enough, with some more interesting content besides just photo uploads. I am, after all, a mad scientist. I'm worth more than just that!

I've spent an hour trying to upload a small number of photos...

...And now it's getting to be time to go to the gym - it closes at 8:00 today. (Much better than the other branch, which closed at 4:00 on Sundays.) I may have gotten my computer working again, but it's still screwed up, so I've basically spent since five o'clock trying over and over to get October's photos up, and this old computer's done nothing but freeze up!
` In other news I've been really sick with a week of sinusitis, another week of nausea, and now I'm presumably starting a week of 'bloody throat'. Fun, eh? Just thought I'd try uploading some photos but that isn't even working out!

Update, at 7:06... SCREW THE GYM! I'm sick anyway. Finally, after a few more tries, got it working long enough to upload all my October photos! Including this one of the moon on Halloween.




There's more exciting photos in the rest of the set, so why not look at my October photos! It's not like I have anything else to offer right now... Things were different back when I started this blog, but you know, I've lost my lab and everything....

One Whole Year Of Photos On Flickr!

What an exhausting time I've had, spending about six hours putting titles and captions on all 467 photos I took this September 2009. Don't congratulate me or anything.

This one is called 'Crazy The Alligator'. Lucas took that one from the boat in Okefenokee swamp! (I think that's part of the boat at the bottom of the picture, just to show how close we were!)

Also, last week I uploaded all of my photos from a year ago in September 2008. That was back when we were preparing to move from the ghetto apartment to the ghetto house, the one we got kicked out of because the landlady refused to bring it up to code. Ah, those were the days....

Now it's time to go to bed and get up for school!

If you don't have to do the same, I recommend browsing through my photo sets on Flickr! I have a lot of cool stuff on there, including the photo I took just this past night, a la Chef Brad: Defiled Halal chickens! Too funny!

BTW, both Brad and Lucas are hosting their own shows! The Angry Chef and Max Deluge! Apparently, their personalities are made for TV (albeit local TV)!

Wow. The stuff just keeps happening!

Okay, I haven't done this in a while. It's a good recollection for me of all the crap we were going through before the move, so I can look back on it and say "Ah! Glad to be out of there!"
` So here's the last days of March and some of April, and though there are no photos up here, you can view some of them in my Facebook's April 2009 photo album!

No, I'm not addicted to Facebook. You can see that.

March 30, Monday

Why does stuff stop working when I use it? Do I just break stuff because I'm me?

I did tons of housework this morning while a cool worker, Roma, took the new shower in the master bathroom (the old shower is also still there!) out of the wall so he could make water spring forth from it. Imagine that! A shower which sprays water!

When it came close to leaving-for-school-time, I spent 25 minutes looking for my water bottle and didn't find it. Still got to Surviving the Holocaust class early (Holocausts are important to survive!) and discovered... separate desks in a classroom?!

Then I found Stephen - I mean TallGuy - who helped me out by holding onto my bag while I went into the bookstore so that it didn't have to be sealed by the security officer.

I had to get 8 books for the Holocaust class, but they didn't cost much.

Then I got to math class, on time. ALEKS is such a cool program. I love it.

Got home and found my water bottle (of course!) and the missing page of my screenplay, which had somehow gotten blown into our bathroom where Roma was working, and he somehow put it on top of an empty box and then put another box on top of it so it was squashed down inside. Jeezus! Leave my screenplay unattended near a stranger and it goes from being with the rest of my stuff to in the midst of a trash heap!
` The brightly-colored cardboard cat carriers, unfortunately, went from being in perfect brand-new condition to crumpled and torn up.

While I'd been gone today, Lou Ryan took a man named Patrick, who came to fix something in our main bathroom, on a tour of our house and explained everything that was going on. He said; "You know what she told me? That you're bad tenants who are kicking holes in the wall, and we're here to fix the damage."
` Now, that is such a Mind-Boggling Lie that I am betting it is only crazy enough to befit a landlady.

I was almost done with homework when I got interrupted by Lou Ryan, who told me to go to bed, and I did.

March 31, Tuesday

So, Roma is back, to finish up the shitty work. We also got to kick C.L. out of the house.

I went to do some math on the computer, but the computer turned off and wouldn't come back on because the button for turning on the UPS is stuck in the off position. But now, with music blasting through the house, there isn't much chance for me to finish the homework I'd started last night.

What happened today while I was at school: Crazy Landlady brought her little church friend to help repair what was supposed to have been a basement kitchen. We were supposedly the 'mean, criminal tenants' and she was the 'poor fretting landlady', and B-Gangsta got down there and said, "we haven't been able to use this space the entire time we've lived here, but we've been paying full rent. You are a thief!" and the church friend knew what was going on and he refused to help.

So, the shower has been re-installed so that it works this time, except now it's dripping.
` Fixed the computer UPS though - the button was stuck and wouldn't come on. Watched Trekkies on it with my free rental.

April 1, Wednesday

Didn't realize Trekkies was being showed IN CLASS! I could have been doing something else.

It was raining like hell when I got home. The first thing I did was answer the cat when she said something to me in 'mommy I'm glad you're home' talk. It was almost dark, fish tank trickling sounds echoing through the hall, drowning out the sound of the stereo blasting in the basement. First thing I do as usual when I come home is put water in the fish tank. IT IS FUCKING LOUD.
` The kitchen, of course, is a mess and all I can do to get it that way is not be there and it happens magically. THis morning I had pancakes and coffe and washed my plates and there weren't piles of dirty dishes everywhere - now there are.
` Then I went into the basement and turned the stereo off. No one else was home.

Vada talked a lot with me, but where is Violet? Locked in the computer room, really cold as it is at least once a day because the window is always left open when I'm not around to shut it, so I did. Well, time to clean up the kitchen and start on my homework.

Went to Johnny's concert. HE ROCKED! The other guys were not rocking out - the one guy's guitar was constantly blaring out feedback because he was so timidly picking at the strings.

April 2

After watching Night and Fog in class, I met Nymphomaniac in the Gray Wolf building. She convinced me to have a birthday party - today is my birthday - and we had to move because a bulletin board was being put up. It will be finished soon!
` Came home to a birthday check, bought gas, strawberries, yogurt, etc. And then... there was tons of food at home, including a CAKE. And a balloon attached to my cats, and some chocolates! Then we fired up the barbecue.

April 3, Firday

My smoothie plans went perfectly- peaches, strawberries, rehydrated cherries (since last night) and even honeydew and yogurt... until I was pouring it into a cup and Lucas was standing way too close to me with Violet in his arms, when he bumped me and I yelped and spilled it and Violet just about tore his nipple off. Of course I was repremanded for the screaming.

Re-calling the people who didn't answer their phones last night. Mmm, smoothie.

Pictures of Gray Wolf inaguration.

People were over! They came, they conquered, then went. I tried to make Harlan feel bad about not coming via phone molestation.
` We had the pizza, asparagus and cheese, and was much rejoicing and they were going to spank me but because someone was watching Wolf and it was audible house-wide, we wound up watching it.
` Timmy fixed the computer! Roma fixed the shower leak, too!
` Crazy Landlady's former insurance agent and former tenants also came over today.

April 4, 2009

Today I woke up to sunlight and the sound of mucus rolling in my sinuses very loudly. Because I wake up when I snore. Started cleaning the kitchen, sun is glowing through the mist. Immediately got up, ejected so much mucus as possible, in pretty colors, and started laundry.
` Was taken on a nice walk that went a little too long - now to face the fact that I'm behind in homework.

April 7

Had a long converstaion with TallGuy at school, while drying my shorts taht had been attacked by an exploding water bottle.

April 8

Woke up before my alarm went off when Lucas coughed a huge loogie in my mouth! Then went to school and discussed that I am way overqualified for Mensa.

April 9

It's so cute how Vada is destroying a mosquito killed on the inside of the sliding glass doors whilst Violet paws at it in vain from outside the glass!

Hung out with Nympho, we proposed our own Nine Foot Nation and it sown language, etc, and went to the Food Bank. Also, I saw Stephen on a bus, so I called him and saw him suddenly reach for his bag, but he didn't answer his phone, then called back later and told me he couldn't even hear his phone ringing!
I'm at the gym, preparing for Zippy's - Justin walked by the gym, but didn't come in, and instead left me an answering message that he's rally busy.

What a time at Zippys'! Zippy was there, and HairyGuy, Jesus, Adam, Nympho, Xenophon, Cheshire Human and Flinch.
` Interesting time as usual with Xeno afterwards on the sidewalk. I noticed that Cheshire was bummed out, so I decided to stay perhaps an hour just to console her. She was bummed because she got rejected by two people. As we were walking to my car we saw Lucas, Johnny and Matty at this club by Tony V's (Formerly Jimmy Z's) called Haley's. Lucas was pisssed because he got stood up by a musician he was supposed to meet, so he playd his guitar for us a minute, then went inside and we went on our way. By the time we were several blocks away he called me and asked where we'd gone!
` We'd gone to my car by then. After that, it was onto Denny's, where we checked to see who was there, then I drove her home. As for Lucas, the guy did show up, and he was a horrible jerk so Lucas left.

So now I'm folding the laundry that I did earlier today and Johnny and Matty are at it again. "What are you gonna tell my family if I die?" Johnny said: "Matty's gone, baby, we're in the clear!"
` As for a eulogy for Matty: "He was a crackhead and a puto." Uproarious laughter is the only good part about their constant bickering.



Wow, I'm glad he's out of the picture. Anyway, I have to get back to the real world. The rest of it later. Ciao!

Lou Ryan makes a good Pinhead.

Crypticon Idol, a project my superhero boyfriend stars in, turned out to be funny stuff. For the sake of soup, WATCH IT!

Oh, and how to make a UFO... that'll be next post. I promise. Loves to all my unwilling subjects!

Keeping this up-to-date...

These Journal Entries, by the way, will be going up on my photo website, followed by photos. They're quite engaging photos, actually. They're the entire focus of this project, really.
` (Today's entry updated.)

March 26, 2009 Thursday

I was at the gym late, with the intention of giving John a ride home if he still needed it. As I was approaching, he called to say that he got his new truck today, which was funny. He was still staying there late because he needed to fix a treadmill, which was quite fascinating to the little Russian boy, Ole, whose mother and grandmother comes in to clean the gym each night. The problem with the treadmill? I'm not sure, but it may have something to do with the fact that there was a large hoop earring stuck in it!

March 27, Friday

Early this morning, I learned that the author of the book called Hillary's Bush changed his book title to Hillary's Bush Connection because Johnny's band is called Hillary's Bush - and has been for a year now, thank you very much!
` He was trying to get them to change their website url, because he wants theirs - HillarysBush.com! He's out of luck, however.
` Also, 48 hours ago, Crazy Landlady posted a 48-hour notice on the door for her to come over with some inspectors, but didn't show up until I got to the gym. I heard some interesting things had happened.
` While I was at the gym, however, I couldn't help but noticed JustIn waving to me in the dark outside. He came in and I coaxed him to get on the elliptical beside me where I could admire his new tongue ring, sans thrush!
` Later on, I went to his house where I molested his friend Josh, who in turn molested him with the head of a guitar. It was hot. JustIn's brand new computer seriously has a crashing problem, I discovered. Anyway, JustIn's tentative girlfriend Christinathor came over. Can you believe, she's still in the FriendZone? I'm way in the FriendZone now, too. Damn monogamy!

March 29, Sunday

Not sure I remember what's been happening lately. All I can say is that Lou Ryan has been studying for his role as 'Pinhead Simon' by watching Hellraiser movies for the past few days. I've been busy, but feeling crappy, probably because the air has been so cold and damp in the past few days.

Last night, I got to sleep at around nine so that I could wake up bright and early. Didn't work out that way.
` For Mysterious Reasons, the bird alarm clock my mom sent in the Christmas Box went off at midnight, chirping up a storm, which I was sleeping through (thank you, earplugs!) until Lou Ryan woke me up to demand that I turn it off.
` I admitted that I had no idea how to, and he kept telling me I did, obviously, because it's my alarm clock and I've had it for a few months now. Heaven forbid I have never found a use for it!
` So, I did the only thing I knew how, after sliding sliders and pushing buttons to no avail - I removed the plastic card that contained the bird chirps, which I had done before sometime last month the last time the alarms suddenly began going off for no apparent reason.

Amazingly, I got back to sleep. And that was when John got home with a friend who set my car alarm off! This stirred Lou Ryan into a panic - he levitated right up to the window, being a superhero and all, trying to see what was going on.
` I tried to relax and not be worked up or anything, but to no avail. So, I got up, ate some fruit cocktail and some intoxicants and finally, after two hours, got back to sleep.
` Finally, when I woke up, sunlight streaming through the window, it was almost noon.

I was SO pissed.

Nevertheless, I got up and did my first two orders of business - get some caffeinated beverage going and figure out what my school schedule is for tomorrow (because I seemed to have lost my second copy of it).
` Looking online for the schedule was quite a job for my pre-caffeinated brain. When I finally managed it, I grabbed my scheduler, which I haven't used in months, to write it down.
` No sooner was my pencil poised, but the teakettle began screeching very loudly, so I ran to the kitchen, removed the kettle from the stove and ran back as fast as I could - as the suspense was killing me! - only to find Lou Ryan sitting at the computer!
` I screamed incoherently and he ran away.

How pathetic is that? I go to bed at nine in order to wake up early in the morning, and I'm still a wreck by lunchtime, not yet having had my morning coffee.

I'm telling you, no matter what I do, getting up in the morning remains out of my control and it's ruining my life! Is there some kind of conspiracy?
` If it isn't alarms going off, it's Lou Ryan rolling on top of me or snoring, which my earplugs don't do much against, or a really loud vehicle is being driven past the house, etc.
` Crap like that wakes me up every night. I am constantly a wreck! And yes, that is why I wear earplugs to bed!

Luckily, after I wrote down my school schedule, I noticed that I have afternoon classes this quarter instead of morning classes, as I had thought they were, so it looks like I won't have to be getting up early anyway.
` Well, the gym closes at four o'clock today. Better get a move-on!

By the time it was necessary to go to the gym before it closed, I'd gotten a few things done, but still hadn't called anyone nor was I able to upload many pictures because of the number of times they just won't upload at all.

Feeling somewhat sleepy and sad (or S.A.D.?), I took a break to lie in the sunlight coming in through the balcony doors. Both of my cats lay down on either side of me and it was such a Kodak moment that I asked Lou Ryan to take a photo.
` His response was; "Honey, come on!" You'd think I'd just asked him to show Vada how to climb a tree!
` In disbelief, I said, "Why not? No one has ever taken a picture of me besides me! It's someone else's turn for once!"
` But then, there was a crashing sound and a lot of swearing, so I didn't push the matter any further.

Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit!! I'm trapped! Someone help! If I had only known this was going to happen, I would have had Lou drop me off on the street so I could walk home instead of getting my brain all primed for being productive and then letting it all rot again.
` Anything is better than being a third wheel, being dragged along to do something that involves sitting and sitting and sitting in this godawful truck.
` I don't even have my phone so I can't make any phone calls. It's been two hours since I left the gym, so it's too late to call anyone by now anyway. Worst of all, I have a million things to do and I'm just expected to sit here while the sun gets closer and closer to the horizon, like I'm a sack of flour!

It's such a beautiful day and I'm wasting it sitting in a truck so that other people can move some furniture and can't even do what I need to do to get ready for school tomorrow! Sit sit sit sit sit! GOD!!
` All that work getting myself awake and I'm sleepy again because all I can do is be PASSIVE! There's nothing for me to do! There's no reason for me to be here!
` I bet that if I were dropped off at 41st street, I would have walked the two miles home and been there alone with no one to bug me, getting done what I need to get done instead of taking up space in Lou's truck, which doesn't even have room for me!

By the time I got back home it was seven o'clock, and I was so exhausted from sitting there in the truck doing nothing for three hours that I fell asleep finishing up what I'd been doing earlier, so I just went to bed and slept for another three hours.
` See? Typical day full of wasted time - now you see where all my time goes!
` After I got up, John came home. The night owl. With a nice steaming mug of hot chocolate at hand, I sewed the button back on my pants and fixed the enormous hole in my shirt. Who knows what late night projects he is working on now? Sometimes I hear him Dremeling....

When it was bedtime again, some blasting music kept me up until 2 in the morning, and I finally got up to find nobody listening to the stereo, so I turned it off, wondering how the others could sleep through it.

Have I written about how Crazy Landlady brought in two contractors, who didn't even do residential construction, and who fled in terror because of C.L.'s insanity? Well, that happened. Now you know.

WOOHOO! Everything from the end of last post until today!

My photos will have to wait until after the gym. But here's the text, from all the way back when!

February 11, 2009 - Wednesday

Another clear day as I watch the traffic go by from the elliptical. And seagulls. Mike was pretty brilliant in his depiction of 'Cliff' (opposite me in The Woolgatherer). He almost upset the teacher, in fact, because he said he had to pee because trucking gives him a weak bladder. Even funnier, he was back in one second!
` I dragged someone from my Humanities class and some other people to Drama Club, saw Hot BiGuy from such a long time go, and on my way I ran into TallGuy, who I also dragged in, and he also participated. He shoved me into the incinerator with his martial arts skills!
` And then, after some amount of physical contact with someone else, I hung out with TallGuy and X-Dan in the library! It was awesome.

February 12 - Thursday

Blocking The Woolgatherer scene in Drama class. We have to have it down by Tuesday!

Window washers on side of office building! (Photo.)

Was going to type more journal entries into the computer because I have to stay current, but was told to do something else. I never have the feeling of making progress, you know?

The door was wide open today, and I had to go get Vada before I could take my shower. I suspected Johnny. And, speak of the devil, just as I was getting dressed, he came home, opened the bathroom door, turned off the light, turned it back on and came in.
` Then he saw me wrapped in a towel looking at him with crossed arms and shrank against Matty's door.
` "Now," I said, "When the door is shut, the light is on, and the fan is on, that means someone in here."
` "I'm sorry," he said, terrified out of his wits. "I guess I'm too stupid to remember that. Oh my God, That's the second time that's happened, just lock the door and it won't happen again."
` Who is stupider? Him, or me for not locking the door? Or Crazy Landlady for not letting us finish our bathrooms?

February 13 - Friday

I just heaved a ton of books home, almost could not lift them all at once! They are:
` Asking the Right Questions; Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric; Foundations of Critical Thinking; Thinking For Yourself; Patterns For A Purpose; Writing Arguments; Making Sense; Thinking Critically; The Structure of Argument; Elements of Argument; Dialogues; Discovering Arguments; Convergences; Cultural Attractions/Cultural Distractions; Essays From Contemporary Culture; Many Voices; One World, Many Cultures; Acting Out Culture; The Everyday Writer; Evaluating Online Resources; Writing Analytically and; A Reader For Developing Writers.
` Expect my writing to improve!

In other news, I went to file taxes, finally! for the first time... but it turns out that, once again I have not made enough money to get a tax return this year. Perhaps next year's tax season will break my tax virginity.

Later in the evening: My feet were so black on the bottom I was called Nigger Toes!
` That's it!!
` Later, as B-Gangsta was messing around with a scratch card called Fabulous Fortune, which he found on the dining room table, he was saying; "Five dollars for a worthless piece of paper! You can pick your nose and flick it at your partner! You can pick up a basket! You can dunk it in some coffee!"
` I held my foot up and said, "You can scrape the Nigger off my foot!"
` Oh crap!!!!

February 14 - Saturday (Valentine's Day)

You know how they do on MySpace?

Current Location: Elliptical, Gold's Gym.
Current Music: Don't Let Your Love Lie Down (wish I could change it!)
Current Mood: Triumph in Beating Elliptical, but kinda bummed because I left my water bottle on the table after filling it this morning.
Current Focus: The Old Guy With Crazy Gray Hair Who Always Works Out Wearing A Sweater and Jeans, on the treadmill just now.
On TV Closest To Me: Bull Riding.
Bodily Feeling: Refreshed, especially since I have had so much garlic that Lucas had to open the car windows, and for once in my life I don't have a ton of sticky snot that has to be blown out my nose every two minutes or else I'll get a sinus infection. These pipes are clean!

Had lunch at Cherry Blossom with Lou Ryan.

Just sitting down to finish an essay, which I have been sitting down to do for the past few days, when Matty came over and said "there's a special friend here to see you!"
` "My Handycam charger?"
` Nope. It was his tiny daughter. What is she? Two and a half? We played "Where's Jimi?" with a Jimi Hendrix songbook.
` I actually said; "Can you say Hendrix?"
` And she said; "Enrisss!"
That is so cute!
` Then, we looked at my bookshelf, as I said; "Hmmmmm" and rubbed my chin with one eyebrow raised. When I got distracted, she looked up at me and then looked back at the bookshelf, going, "Hmmmmm" as I had done, and then I was like; "Oh yeah! Hmmmmm...."
` We even drew on the White Board Of Doom, which was supposed to be on my wall by today.
` Okay, so she was cute and all, but I don't appreciate when people expect me to watch their kids just because I'm present in the house.
` After that, I practiced being Rose with Lou Ryan as Cliff, and finally, starting back to my assignment, it's 8:30 at night! How does this keep happening?

February 15 - Sunday

I didn't know I was supposed to go to Redmond for the commercial shoot, and thus would not have a chance to go to the gym, as the gym closes at 4 today. B Gangsta was pissed too because he didn't know either!
` I'm sorry, but I can't be standing around for 8 hours when I have a ton of homework to catch up on! Since the only thing I was supposed to do was take pictures during this entire time, I sent my camera along without me.
` Luckily, though I will have no camera hijinks - save for one sneak peek at the giant cat this morning - I am free to stay and do homework!

After sweeping the floor, retrieving Violet from the neighbor's yard, etc. I realized I was too hungry to do homework so got some peanut butter and toast - as there was no other food in the house because craft services all went with Lou Ryan, B Gangsta and Joe to Redmond.
` So, to quiet down the house, I turned the loud fish tank filter off for a bit, stopped the toilet from running, turned the microwave vent off and sat down to eat and read something that isn't too taxing on the mind. In the living room. Which I've never done before, with or without earplugs!
` No sooner did I sit down, a new noise started up; "Rrrrr rrr rr rrrrrrrrrrr...." It was a guy going around and around and around the neighbor's small backyard (to our left) on a minibike. I was surprised he didn't get dizzy.
` It's always something!
` After trying to cope with this using my earplugs for about twenty minutes, I gave up, turned the fishtank back on and went to my room.

An observation: I increasingly see the utility of window ledges, which we don't have: The cats jump into the windows, try to stand on them and fall off!

February 16 - Monday

No school today!

Lou Ryan and I were at the Way That is Safe on the Way that is Broad, at the checkstand, when the woman ahead of us said of her change in the change-spewing machine; "Oh, don't put it in the donation box, just give it to him (Lou). I don't donate to anything unless it's for animals."
` "Yeah," I said, sarcastically, "screw the humans!"
` And would you know, she agreed!

Later, B-Gangsta was in our backseat, trying to get a hot chick's attention, and so was I from the front seat, but she was so absorbed in her cell phone conversation that she couldn't hear us.
` "That cannot be safe," he said. "What if the backseat was on fire?"
` Lou said, "Brad, you are not allowed to go out with such a dumbass."

February 17 - Tuesday

Walking ten minutes from my car to Drama Class, my path converged with Hannah's and she asked, "Is that something in your hair?"
` I said, "Yes, that would be Smart Balance."
` It was then that I realized the magnitude of my Freak Status - and damn is it great!

Rose and Cliff went pretty good, by the way - it was the end of Act I, starting with "I have to be careful because of my hemophilia!" and we turned in our assignments as well.
` Then I had gym, came home, played with the cats, and then napped extensively with Vada: I actually fell asleep listening to Lou Ryan talking with whoever was home and woke up listening to them as if they'd never stopped talking. It was so weird.

Gangsta is getting some Apple Loops down, learning how to use Garage Band.

Also, Lou Ryan is suing Crazy Landlady. She keeps coming in unannounced, even without our knowledge, even at night when she might have her head blown off if one of us thought she was an intruder. (Assuming there's a gun somewhere.)

February 18 - Wednesday

Lou Ryan just dialed Crazy Landlady's number, and the first thing he says is... "Hello, Su. No, you know that isn't true. I know that's not true because I talked to the man myself. It's okay, it's okay...."
` Now I'm at school, sitting around the table with the Cake Squad. Frank is Banana Bread Boy, Harlan is Creme Brulee, Nick is Key Lime Pie, Aries is Strawberry cake, etc.
` Later on, I got a chance to play with something that isn't abnormal. I'll just let you think about what that might be.

February 19 - Thursday

Lou Ryan videotaped the unfinished work around the house, went to the judge, got a restraining order for Crazy Landlady, who didn't show up in court, and she had just left home when Lou Ryan went to her house to give it to her; Johnny saw her leave on his way over here.

Today at school, I brought an apple, and was looking for a small knife to cut it (because my front teeth are too loose for apples at the moment), but Lou Ryan said, "What's wrong with this big knife?" I just left both in the car - it's not worth getting in trouble with security again for stupid stuff.

I spilled water in Harlan's car because of a faulty container. However, faultiness was not a major theme of the evening.

However, now that I'm at the gym I can say I was running towards the only working elliptical and someone else got on it! How often does that happen?

Later: I locked myself out of the house, for probably the third time ever (since the door's been fixed), and got back in the window. How does this happen? The sliding door has a tendency to lock behind oneself if you don't slide it shut slowly enough.

So, it's late at night and I was lying awake in bed, feeling the numbness start to 'peel off' my body, like the feeling I have been unable to sense for years was starting to uncurl. My lips and fingers, even, and my eyes felt like they were really there, not just disembodied windows in front of my face.
` I felt, physically, better than I had since... I don't know when!

And then, the asleep Lou Ryan slapped his hand across my face, scratching me in the eye!

"Owwww!" I yelled, waking him up. Then, just as I was starting to relax again, he rolled over on his side, putting both knees on one of my legs. I tried to scoot out from under him but almost fell off the bed, so I told him to move back.
` He did. I kept my eye open so that I would have less trouble feeling my eye better, trying to re-create how amazingly wonderful I had been feeling before. But then he kept asking me what was wrong. I said my eye hurt.
` A few minutes later, he asked why I was staring at the ceiling. I said I was holding my eye open because it hurt and I asked him why he was watching me instead of going back to sleep.
` He told me it was because me 'staring at the ceiling' was so creepy it was keeping him awake! Creepy?! My wonderful breakthrough, creepy?
` That was too much: The breakthrough reversed itself once more.

February 21 - Saturday

OMG! I'm in this playground right now and this 8 or 9 year old girl is on the phone with the cops because the other kids in the playground weren't playing what she wanted to play! The other kids were telling me how she broke things and, just a few minutes ago, threw a large rock at one kid's head.
` Apparently, the girl's mom is crazy. I feel pretty bad for her.

HOLY SHIT what a night! Just when I thought I'd be going to bed, though restless, Nymphomaniac called me, informing me of a party going on, so the guy, JustIn on the phone, who I'd said 'I love you' to because he sounded like such a hyper guy, persuaded me to go and so we went to Twisted where we were making up dances and all kinds of stuff.
` Poor JustIn's homophobic brother. I feel sorry for him.

(tons of pictures!)

Then we went to Rucker's pyramid and I found that JustIn has a little something not abnormal in itself, and then I wondered where Nympho and Jesus and JustIn's little brother had gone if they weren't nearby, and I reached in my pocket and my keys were gone!

(pictures of Rucker's tomb!)

Nympho had taken JustIn's homophobic brother home, and she had called while I was, er, busy, and she was wondering if my Jetta takes diesel (why does everyone ask or tell me that my Jetta takes diesel?) and then they bought food!
` Meanwhile JustIn and I were having one of those crazy, witty improvisational discussions like I had with Harlan before, which is odd, because he supposedly isn't a major improvist. I guess guys who are into me are easy to improv with.
` Anyway, we walked down Broadway towards being picked up by Nympho and Jesus, and just before this one picture, I was saying something like, "Naturally, that's because my dad is a psychotic, psychopathic, paranoid delusional, bipolar...."
` And JustIn was saying, "Stop describing... my father."
So we went to JustIn's apartment, hung out with Slagathor (the cat) and then after Nympho and Jesus left, he stole my pants and wouldn't give them back until I threatened to leave without them!

A disturbing thought - Justin is a lot like me and he looks like a cross between me and my brother! Weird!

February 22 - Sunday

The fish tank filter is finally dead. But the fish are alive and kicking, thank goodness! In fact, the Oscar cut Lou and Gangsta pretty bad as they chased him across the floor! Finally, they got the whole thing cleaned. Next time, they need to buy a net.

Poor Lou Ryan. Me and Gangsta have been pestering him for 15 minutes - I have crap to do and they need to go to the pet store. Oh, and Matty just called to see if Lou was around.
` At least Lou feels my frequent pain and pressure to get off the computer when I say, "Leave me alone so I can finish this and get off the computer!"
` I know this because he said; "I'm going to finish this whether anyone likes it or not!" and slammed the door.

Oh, and the neighbors across the street got burglarized. Apparently, no one lives there yet, and new appliances had just been installed. The burglars came by in a truck, parked in the garage, then used an electric saw to cut out the door between the garage and the house and stole all the appliances!

Also, I've officially gone insane because I can't seem to locate my own will when the house is polluted with beats all the time, yet Gangster won't use the headphones. Lou says that other people live in the house besides just me.
` Will my office continue to collect dust? Will I ever catch up on homework? I'm constantly toting it around the house because there's nowhere to go that's quiet enough that I can hear myself think - yes, WITH the earplugs! I wear them constantly around here!

February 25 - Wednesday

After having a mental breakdown, we have a schedule going where I can do my homework and he won't be blasting music throughout the house. If I want to use my office, which I have all my stuff/computer in, for other things besides homework, I'll just have to wait until after bedtime.

Today I talked to the Harmonic Singing guy (Seattle Harmonic Voices) and he showed me how it's done. I missed the show because I had Humanities class - and I participated heavily in a presentation, but at least I caught him after the show and can now work on it myself.

What else?

Oh yeah... I was driving home from somewhere and was trying to turn left to get back onto Broadway but instead got on the ramp that loops around and goes to The Flats - the giant drawbridges to Marysville - where you can't stop. Just then, my tire blew out, my car veered to one side, it was raining, and I was stuck on the damn bridge!
` It was cold and dark and soaking wet where I found a place to pull over, and I couldn't figure out how to get the hubcap off.
` Well, Lou Ryan, being the superhero that he is, came down straight away, got the cover off the bolts, then discovered that one of them was a freak star-shaped bolt that no tool he had ever seen could take off.
` So, after such floundering around in the cold rain with a flashlight, he drove me back home where I had found that Johnny had bought me a salmon steak and I ate it! Johnny also said that the alien star bolt was actually a security bolt and there's a tool hidden under the floormat for getting it off.

We never would have guessed.

February 26 - Thursday

It snowed! Except out between the drawbridges where my car was at. (Score!) We discovered that my spare tire is a regular tire, so now I went from having a crappy, leaky tire that needs to be filled every day to a Brand New Tire! For free!

But what if another tire goes flat?

Had to speak gibberish in Drama class, using a stool for a barrel for Niagra Falls jumping. Beth, of course, laughed hysterically. I wonder why she does that?
` Other scenes involved tying people up, guns, and wacky gestures all in combination with gibberish. The Halloween Killer's publicist, when he encourages him to practice saying "Trick or treat!" before blowing someone away was translated as "Derka derka, Mohammed jihad!"

After school I was using the last of my Handycam battery to videotape Lou Ryan mailing a check to Su via Priority Mail at the post office. As we were exiting the post office, we saw her park behind my car on the street and hurry, in a panic, to her lawyer's office.
` By the time I was sure she hadn't noticed us and raised the camera to my eye, she had already disappeared up the steps.
` She had been carrying a large envelope - probably the demand she'd received from Lou Ryan today in the mail.

February 27 - Friday

Very busy day. Violet chased the neighbor's Pomeranian. (photos)

Serious Weekend!

Lou Ryan had to prevent some wackos in need of Ritallin from smashing the back of my car at a red light by pulling into the intersection!

Also, JustIn just got his tongue pierced and has mysterious white stuff he thought was gingivitis. He had just got tired of waiting at the ER and then called me, intending to go back later.
` I told him it was probably thrush, because it just so happens that Lou Ryan was telling me about it recently.

March 2, 2009 - Monday

Another sunny day! I just got home. I have a test tomorrow.

After dinner, Johnny and Matty scoffed at the invention of anti-aircraft lasers. Matty, who works for Boeing, said, "Oh, that's right, I forgot we made those!"
` But Johnny still said, "No, there is no such thing" and wouldn't at first read one of many articles about the military having developed a working prototype. Apparently he stopped at the words, 'targeting sights' at the top of a paragraph and said, "Okay, like I said, it's a giant targeting sight."
` I said, "Look at the bottom of the paragraph! What do you think 'high energy laser' means?"
` He said "Great, like I said, it's a giant pair of targeting sights, that's all it is," and left the room.

He eventually recanted, however.

March 3 - Tuesday

Whoops. I didn't file down enough the part of my new retainer that goes around the gumline. It pushed my gums back from my teeth.

At least it's a nice day.

Cleared off the rest of the living room bookshelf, and Lou Ryan was able to put his things on it instead so the dining room table is not covered with all his stuff.

March 4 - Wednesday

Sun streams outside, but not in the gym where I'm on the elliptical. Lou just walked in to say that our dear old Crazy Landlady broke the restraining order, so he called the police! That woman....

Late at night, as we were going to bed, Johnny and Matty were in the dining room and Matty was playing with Lou's tape recorder, which has the C.L. saying something incriminating on it. Understandably Lou freaked out.

March 5 - Thursday

LOLOL! In court this morning, Crazy Landlady and her new lawyer were most pathetic. He took like an hour to make photocopies of everything, and there was a long period of time where everyone in the room was sitting with nothing going on, even after other people had gone ahead of us.
` I actually said to a guy who was with C.L. - who also thinks she is crazy - "I wonder if the lawyer just ran off?"
` Finally, when the trial was underway, one of the things he'd copied and showed to the judge was C.L.'s demand letter to Lou Ryan, which starts off describing an incident she made up where Lou was threatening her with karate and punched a hole in the wall.
` I almost peed my pants laughing.
` Her new lawyer didn't know what to make of this, other than perhaps the reasons why the other lawyer wouldn't take her case.

Also, armed with his briefcase, Lou was so full of evidence - photos, the tape recording from over the phone, insane documents from her, etc. - that he did something that Johnny later called The Lucas Jig. Very early on, in fact, the judge said, "Please don't interrupt me, sir, I get enough of that from my wife."
` However, he didn't even need the evidence because this trial was not about the state of our house but rather her intrusion.
` The judge told her, "Leave them alone," she said, "Thank you, sir!" and that was the end.

March 6 - Friday

Nice sunrise photo! Here's another photo of me between my listening to World War II Japanese internment camp presentation and practicing lines with Patience.
` Argh. Children in the house!

When Gold's John got home today from working on the new gym building, he grabbed something from our front door - a 10-day notice to comply. In legal terms, it is retaliation for our protecting our rights. It just goes to show how Crazy that Crazy Landlady is.

March 7 - Saturday

The snowstorms have cleared from the sky via wind. I meant to do some homework yesterday but was too exhausted. So, when I finally sat down to do some homework, the cats both came in my office, stepped on the improperly-mounted shelf that Lou Ryan said was fine... and all the books on it came tumbling down on my head!

After some oatmeal and pancakes, I'm back at it.

Also, I called JustIn to make sure he wasn't dead. Apparently, his mom had some thrush medication and it worked! No Emergency Room bill! Yay!

March 9 - Monday

The hearing with Crazy Landlady went well, though I didn't go. Once more, C.L. got thrown out of court. Also, there was a surprise snowstorm, which was picking up on my way out to school.
` By the time my Jetta had made it to the top of the hill, there was so much snow that I couldn't go any farther - being that there were no tracks on the road yet since the snow had started falling.
` Luckily, Lou Ryan, who was watching my progress from the house, hopped in his truck and rescued me. He even parked my car by the side of the road.
` At this moment, I'm in his truck - he's driving me to school. I hope the cats aren't freezing right now - I'd let them out earlier and they went straight under the porch.

We're just coming up Broadway and passed a mailbox-no-more next to a minivan-no-more!

Now we're in downtown - it's a total grey-out! It's so weird I wish I had my camera! Barely anything past the next traffic light can be seen.

Just got into the north end of town, towards the college... there's no snow in the air, but there is a tiny bit on the grass.

Wow, Drama class was so fun! We were singing with the voice instructor's piano accompaniments, but not songs. Instead one would hear "Smurf!" "Zucchini!" "Noodle!" "Knives!" Since my word was "Tomato" I made sure I got up there to oppose the girl whose word was "Potato." But we didn't call the whole thing off.

I had/got to walk from 10th St to the gym on 29th St, after Lou Ryan called to say his truck had gotten stuck in the snow on the way back home!
` There was a little bit of snow on the ground at first, but as I made my way into town, there was more and more snow on the sidewalks and a guy almost got hit at a school crosswalk and pretty soon I was marching quickly through deep snow with my tote bag slung over my back! (Marching was the only way I could run.)
` John hadn't even made it to the gym until after I got there, as his truck had gotten mired in the snow as well! He showed me a picture he took on his cell phone of the ruler on the porch railing sticking out of the snow. It eventually got to 6 inches deep!
` I took the bus to Albertson's on Madison (about the equivalent of 68th St.) and then, as the snow was continuing to quickly melt, Lou Ryan was able to extract his truck and Johnny was there too and drove us home after shopping there.

Violet had 'lost' the collar I'd just bought her (because she'd just 'lost' the one she'd had before), and Vada had been nowhere to be seen all day. It was getting colder and darker, and was probably below freezing when I finally I went out there with a flashlight and climbed over the fence.
` Immediately I heard the bell ringing on Violet's new collar! So I'd found that, hanging on a bramble. Vada was right there as well, crying at me, apparently too cold to come back across the snow. The pussy. Cat.
` So, I picked up the collar, tossed the flashlight into the middle of the yard, made note of where it landed (in plain sight) grabbed Vada and then went over to get the flashlight, but I couldn't see it anywhere! (It should have stood out in the snow, you know?)
` But hey, I scored a cat and a missing collar. That's better than what I'd hoped for.

March 11 Wednesday

Our front door had been hanging wide open all night. We suspect Matty, who had come by sometime late. It was amazing the cats didn't go out - but perhaps they found it too cold.

In drama class we got a sneak peek of Sketch Night... "It's Morphin' Time!" "Joint Ranger!" "Cell Phone Ranger!" "Key Ranger!"

My front teeth are disturbingly short today. Is my homemade retainer damaging my enamel that much?

Had an awesome conversation with Bev Farb about my screenplay today. She seemed rather enthusiastic.
` However, I missed Sketch Night. Damn.

March 12 - Thursday

Violet confronted the orange cat outside. B Gangsta got a really close look.... (photos)

March13 - Friday

Awake at 4:30 in the morning because of my teeth - but I discovered that they were just 'short' because they were being pushed up into my skull.
` Then I watched the sun rise. It was cool. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I did get a couple of Violet in the neighbor's yard staring at the birds (but not knowing what to do).

March 14 - Saturday

It's been rough today, and I don't want to talk about it. But there has been good news:

With a seafood sandwich from Subway in my hand, I returned home after getting my Jetta an oil change - only 30 bucks because it was customer appreciation day, so I could save my coupon! - and Lou and Brad were hanging out also eating Subway. But Lou was covered in fake blood stains! (photos!)
` They were telling me and Johnny how, in filming more of Liberation with Nils Osmar, that Gangster got to shoot at someone with not just one but two guns before being shot in the neck, which exploded. Then, with his face disguised via a gas mask, he drowned poor Lou Ryan in a sink of icewater in an unheated room, where he had to pretend to be dead on a freezing cold concrete floor!
` I know he's resistant to that stuff - Former-Director Nate got some good footage of him doing Sanchin barefoot in a blizzard, also completely bald and shirtless. Even so, Lou had to huddle around a stage light in order to maintain his composure.

Also, they got a veggie sandwich for me. I got to eat half of it later.

March 15 - Sunday

Snowed for a while. I spent a while honing my pep talk skills. Does anyone recall that a long time ago, I was with this Phil guy (who I never had a physical relationship with), and I started my Mad Scientist blog when I was in the process of moving the hell away from him?
` I no longer feel guilty for doing that. Who cares if he got me a ring before I could tell him I needed out? Best of all, I feel even more relived for never having had sex with him.
` Turns out that he's been rather controlling and cold towards his mom, who has many problems, among them being overworked both at school and work. Also, the property's gone to hell and she has no way of fixing anything because of really disabling arthritis, not to mention a severely ingrown toenail that grows back, which she tears out every month herself with a pair of pliers!
` This year she was also not able to remove the snow from a greenhouse during one blizzard and it caved in!
` Worst of all, a faithful worker over the past few years refused to help with this, saying it's "women's work", and the only person who ever made her laugh has gone off to Europe and hasn't answered his phone and got irritated at her because he interpreted something she said as kind of weird because she didn't say it right because she was on pain meds for her arthritis.

Yes, for the past few years, Phil has been disrespectful to his own mother, who shielded him from his abusive, maniacal, gun-slinging psychotic father, often taking the blame for things he did. And yet, Phil doesn't seem to quite believe this, and when he goes back home for a visit he spends most of his time at his dad's!
` When he got married, he even invited his mom's worst enemies - the even crazier parents of his dad who used to try to kill Phil when he was a baby - to the wedding even though they proposed to make a scene to embarrass Phil's mom!
` Wow, I'm gladder than ever that I got out of there. He gets some of that stuff from EdgeWalker, who's a smart guy, but is sometimes overbearing, and has apparently turned the both of them into intellectual snobs.

Also, I practiced the scene with Patience in the studio room in Ranier building. We even did it backwards once, and were fairly successful! Also struck up a conversation. She was also abused as a kid, but apparently it's less funny, and so bad that her dad got caught and she was adopted. She also lives near us.

March 17 - Tuesday

It's late, I'm at the gym. Violet ran out the door after dark, so I hope she comes back before we go to bed. Me and Brad got $120 worth of groceries at Grocery Outlet for $60! (Wow, everything really is more or less half off!)

March 18 - Wednesday

I got a hundred percent on my poster project. Other presentations included Irish Dance (NOT Riverdance!) and Philippine Tinikling Dance, which involves jumping in between pieces of bamboo that are being clapped together really loudly.
` Right now I'm watching some people push a car down the street near the gym. The crane is also up really high today!

March 19 - Thursday

This morning, we dropped my Wolfsburg off at the VW dealer's to check out why it's making a loud rattling noise. Then, onto school! (We saw Mike at the bus stop along the way, dressed as usual in his long coat and Fedora.)

The performance went well. It's Scene 2 from Wonder of the World. Bev laughed all crazy like usual - other people laughed too - when I pulled the blanket off the 'barrel' in my lap to reveal a milk crate with a large drawing of a barrel on it!

Friday (20) - Tuesday (23)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bastard warranty won't cover the repairs for my Jetta, which have been needed since I first got the car from the Chevy dealership. I knew those bastards would get me somehow. Worst part is, I need $234 just to get my car back from the Volkswagen folks, instead of the expected $100.
` Zzzzzzz. I've been sick, but at least it's not a sinus infection this time.

Also, on Monday, I called Phil's mom, who said that Phil actually appreciated the confrontation and did more work for her that week than he had in the past five years. Wow!

March 24 - Tuesday

I went off to the gym in Lou Ryan's truck, not having my car back yet, with the intention of working out and then driving John home, as he doesn't have a car right now. Except... I couldn't figure out how to unstick the clutch when coming up the hill!
` Lou Ryan wasn't answering his phone, but luckily a cop happened by so I flagged him down and he pushed me into the turnout with his bumper bar thingy. Best thing was, Lou Ryan and B Gangsta could see the whole thing happen!
` Only then did Lou tell me about the trick to keeping the transmission from getting stuck.

March 25 - Wednesday

Beautiful sunny day, of which I spent 4 hours getting disability tested. Disturbing amounts of Jones Pure Cane Cola in the house. Lots of cheap/free food for us. Hooray!
` Finally got my car back. There was a note on the door from Crazy Landlady. Apparently she's going to let us resume work on the house in two days. Quick! Everyone take pictures of the wiring before she has a chance to cover it up!
` God! I was asleep the entire time they were gone, now they're back and bugging me while I'm on the computer. But at least I got this done! Onto the gym! And then I'll drive John home, as he doesn't have a car - but I do because we got my car back from getting it looked at and the warranty not covering anything.
` At least I got my car back, and I know what's wrong with it!