I had a dream about my dad last night. It's left me feeling rather melancholy so I think I should purge here...

We were back in our old house, with the really old furniture, although that doesn't fit in the timeline. Mom was doing something in the kitchen, Sarah was at the table, I don't know where Jenny was. I was either watching an old movie or examining the liner notes to 'Die Fledermaus' to see if I recognized any of the music (?!) and Dad started talking about world politics and the crazy scary shit that's going on in various places, where I should never, ever go. After a while, Mom wanted to try to take a picture, and she was a little teary eyed. We tried to gather around but the setup wasn't right, and Dad had disappeared. At some point in there I realized that he had been there as a ghost, and it was not an uncommon occurence. There was still a dent in the sofa where he had been sitting, and I started to cry.

So, melancholy. Speaking of sad people, I'm glad the radio up here has been playing 'Pennyroyal Tea' from Nirvana's In Utero. I always liked that song when I had the CD, I wonder what the hell I did with it. I probably Repo'd it like an idiot to get extra spending money. I did that with a lot of good albums when I was a teenager. My worst, I think, was to trade Tom Petty's Wildflowers to my sister in exchange for, god, I think it was a Gin Blossoms CD, in order to trade that to Caron's little brother for his No Doubt CD. Don't know what I was thinking, I loved that album. Teenagers are dumb.

Maybe I'll spend some of my new 'disposable income' on CDs... I should be able to afford about one a year, probably. ;)

Jobfulness! Jobulicious! Joborific!

I have been hired (once again) by Barb Kviz of FMS to work on recycling - basically continue the projects that Alexys and I got rolling last summer. Funny, we kept talking about how it would be nice to stay and see it through... and now I am!

The pay's not tremendous, and there aren't any benefits, but eh. I can do artsy stuff or deliver pizzas or something. Okay, maybe not deliver pizzas. But who cares?! Paychecks! Purpose! Productivity! Yeehaw!

I think of some weird stupid shit sometimes. Worse, I feel the need to share it. For instance:

If I were evil, what would I name my child?

My answer: Chinese.

Followed by: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner (perhaps triplets?) and finally, the ignominious Discount. Ouch. Hmm, perhaps Seafood, but I really don't see myself having that many kids. Actually, one is pushing it.

I would then sit back and cackle as they tried in vain to convince everyone that the 't's in my last name are not silent. (Which is true, by the way, there are TWO t's in my last name, and they are *not* silent. Buff-ett, regardless of what everyone seems to think. *frustrated muttering, eye twitching*)

Sigh. Do other people have thoughts like these? And more importantly, what would you name your children if you were evil?

Let there be light.

And let me never again live in a room with an overhead light contained by a large glass dome, which is invariably filled with insect dust and what look like little iridescent slivers of glass, which are in actuality wings.

Then, standing on a stepstool in the middle of a room attempting to hold up that large piece of glass without it crashing down on your head while attaching it with a ludicrously small screw mechanism. I now expect to be woken up in the middle of the night by a shattering crash. Terrifying..

Well, after a couple of harrowing days of no DSL due to credit card issues, I got back online to check if Barb had written regarding a job offer or denial. There's nothing from her, but someone else is guaranteeing that I can enlarge my penis. I'd like to see how they accomplish that. Of course, if they did, it would open a whole new realm of employment opportunities...

In other news, guacamole night tomorrow at 7. And every time I drive anywhere, I am reminded that I am Not A Good Driver. Luckily I haven't hit anything yet (knock on veneer), although I made a couple of people catch red lights on my way to Giant Eagle. Heh. And I still can't park worth a damn, parallel or otherwise. So, look both ways when crossing the street, kids, you never know who's behind the wheel.

Hmmm... maybe I could go to bartending school, since truck driving is obviously out. Ack. Employment. Gah.

Waaaaah. The place I wanted to move into is now filled, which means I have to find another place to move into in the (increasingly less likely) chance that I can sublet my room.

I just want to leave! Why won't this room DIE?! Aaaargh!

I went to take a nap today until 3 p.m. so Laura and I could check out Charlee's exhibit, but I set my alarm for 3 a.m. by accident and woke up at 5 pm, when the place is closed. D'oh.

I had my interview this morning... it was actually kind of a nice day to walk around, as it wasn't ass-cold out or anything. The problem ended up being that because it was warm yesterday, the snow melted on the sidewalks and then froze over last night, turning the majority of the Beeler sidewalks into glaciers. Especially in front of my house, where I did some neat little tap-dancing moves before I decided that it was safer to walk on the street.

I'm not entirely sure if the interview will be fruitful or not. Supposedly I'll find out Monday after they talk with the boss (ahem, budget). I may have been a little too casual, and maybe a little too honest (one of the possible job descriptions didn't seem quite like my cup of tea), but the fact that I didn't sleep last night may have had something to do with it. Of course, with my schedule, it was more like 'staying up late' than 'not sleeping'.

Hmm. That's always a dilemma, isn't it? Take a job that's not really your thing and see how you do, expand your repetoire, etc., or just admit that someone else could really do a better job than you, and it's just not a good idea for either of the parties involved? It's hard to know when you haven't done the job before. Maybe I could do it well, maybe I would suck and waste everyone's time. It was a little too much responsibility for my taste, for a 2 month-or-so job, in an area that I have little/no experience in.

Basically I just want a job where I can be stupid for a couple of months while I get my portfolio in gear and find a real job. But then, that would be a bigger waste of time than doing something I could actually talk about later, and put on my resume and stuff. Conundrum.

Laura and I were going to try to catch Charlee's exhibit today before the closing (and before Laura goes home for the weekend). Maybe after I take a nap. *yawn*

Well, guacamole night was ... unattended, but that's okay, because I didn't have any guacamole anyways. Nyeah.

I actually woke up before 10 am today (fell asleep before 4 am, I think). Without an alarm, although the loud machine-created noises from one of the neighbors helped a lot. I did laundry, took a shower, and didn't have time to go to Giant Eagle without driving in the snow, so I made couscous and tomato soup (read: added water and heated) and Laura and I watched The Princess Bride. You just cannot see that movie too many times. I would say it's the best movie ever but I really love Rushmore, too. Also, I haven't seen it in a while but I recall being completely enamored with The Usual Suspects for quite some time, and referentially, Casablanca. I don't remember hearing anything about good movies out in theatres right now, but then again I didn't hear about the terrorist threats for a while, so I'm not really surprised. By the way, if it's playing near you, go see Heaven, with Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi (directed by Tom Tykwer of Run Lola Run fame). Beautiful. A little strange, with 1 awkward sex scene (not main characters) so don't bring any horny roommates. ;)

Anyhoot. Interview Friday morning. If I get a job, I'll celebrate by buying something! And then by paying the gas bill, which now totals over $500 for the last two months. Damn cold-ass winter.

I have a semi-scheduled interview later this week with Barb and Brad of Green Practices/FMS fame, so hopefully I will soon be employed! We'll see.

The last couple of days I actually did manage to wake up at a decent time, and then both times fell back asleep and woke up later that afternoon. Bah. One time, I actually talked to my sister for a while, talked to Laura for a while, then went back upstairs and made the mistake of snuggling back in bed for a bit, only to wake up at 3 pm. Today, Laura woke me up at 9:30 this morning to ask if I wanted her to take Alexys' care package to the post office (so nice!). I stumbled back to sleep, since at that point I had only been asleep for about 2 or 3 hours, and just woke up a couple hours ago.

If I can make it to G'eagle tomorrow to prepare for guacamole night, I'll have to make sure I pick up some sleeping pills to try to regulate my sleep. It's getting pretty ridiculous. I had just fallen asleep this morning, sometime around dawn, when I began fighting back to consciousness because I thought I heard a girl screaming for help nearby, like someone else in my house or outside or something. As I was clawing my way awake I had the sudden image of some guy standing at the edge of my bed pulling on my ankles. That woke me up pretty damn quickly, but everything was silent and there was nobody in my room. I was sufficiently creeped, however, that it took me another half hour to relax and go back to sleep, even though I was dead tired. Whenever I'm fighting to go to sleep like that, I keep getting woken up by people trying to pull me off the bed, for some reason. Last time it was an evil witch who was trying to kill me. I wonder what causes that reaction? Why am I so scared to go to sleep sometimes? Urgh. Well, it's on to better living through chemistry, I suppose...

How come no one tells me about these things?

Jenny asked me what I thought about all this 'terrorism stuff' when she called me the other day. I thought she meant just the situation in general, the war escalation, etc. And how she felt relieved when mom said that she had to deal with this stuff growing up in the Cold War. I thought I might be missing something, but I was too embarassed to ask.

Then I'm listening to the radio and the DJ starts making fun of the weather guys who were all dooming-and-glooming a 6" snowfall last night that never happened, and starting talking about how everyone was freaking out this week and stocking up on bottled water between the snow and the terrorist stuff, and everyone's buying all this duct tape. I'm like... huh?

Perhaps tuning out and locking myself in my room during terrorist threats and an escalating war is not the best idea. Or at least, unless I seal my windows and doors. Cripes.

Happy Fucking Valentine's Day.




To further complement this glorious day, I got another omen-of-death horoscope. Either that or absolutely nothing will happen tomorrow, which is more likely. :P (By the way, thanks to my sister Jenny for the little love note above.)

I semi-applied for a job today. I heard from Ryan, current President of Earth (loved that title) that FMS is looking for people to help with Energy Fest and whatnot for a couple months. Unfortunately, as soon as I shot off the e-mail to the guy who's hiring, I got an automatic response that he's out of town for the next week. :P

But I did do something! Yay! (As Ayako would say, 'Hey, look, Wendy moved.')

The other evening I was in the kitchen, around midnight, having lunch, and bumped into Pam and one of her friends. Pam asked what time I'd gotten up that day. "I'm always curious", she said. I couldn't remember exactly, but today I was actually out of bed before most offices had closed for the day, which is a vast improvement on yesterday, when it was already dark outside. And you thought I was joking when I said I was becoming nocturnal.

Apparently it's been snowing.

And yes, guacamole night will be occuring tomorrow evening. I'm showing a German robotics researcher the house at 2 in the afternoon, so I'll actually be getting dressed at some point. This week's round of Designers vs. Food should include sweets of some kind, as tonight shall be baking night, if I can catch Laura. And please, no references to 'Mr. Allen's Marvelous Candy' being a euphemism for pedophilia.

Yes, it's almost 5 am and I'm posting on Blogger. I'm slowly becoming nocturnal.

I just read every blog entry I've made since I started it almost 2 years ago. Why? Xanga. Where all the cool kids blog nowadays, apparently. Half of the Design 2002 class is on there, so I set up an account. So, of course, now that I'm letting my secret out to people other than Willy, I had to make sure I didn't have anything incriminating on there. Which I do, of course, but it's buried somewhere within rants about classes, work, computers, and Caron. Oh, and the results of now-defunct quizzes.

So anyway, everyone go cruise around Xanga and read my friend's weblogs, and see what a designer's life *should* be like. ;) Now that I have this on my server, I should work on getting some comment action going on here.

And I would like to thank benevolent Fortune, who, for reasons I dare not question, has seen fit to shower me once again with attractive men from Spain. Our housemate Pam is going to visit her study-abroad-friend in Spain pretty soon, after swinging by San Fran to see Ayako. Aya and I chatted for a few hours this evening about various things, and I mentioned the strange shipping of men between Spain and Pittsburgh. There was an ensuing discussion about the Attractive Male Foreign Exchange Program (a possible non-profit opportunity). We agreed that if she sent me pistachios, I would send her some Spaniards.

So anyway, I'm doing the Xanga thing because at some point early in the conversation she said, 'Well, you should really check my weblog for updates.' Ayako. Said this to me. Me, who has had a weblog for more than 2 years. The irony was too much, and I was forced to submit. All yinz designers, expect some eprops, and invitations to Wednesday's guacamole night. :)

Well, I didn't get anything done today, as usual, although I frantically tried to help Ayako fix her resume before her interview. I don't know what it's for, it's not Industrial Design, I know that, but she needs her resume.

I did, however, show a hot Spanish guy around the house (he wants to sublet). I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the hot Spanish guys in the world, and hope that your numbers increase.

I'm cooking over a lot of different projects in my head right now. Dare we hope that today is the day that I actually begin on some of them? If not, I get a distinct feeling that tomorrow.... tomorrow may be the day.

Yes, I will definitely accomplish something tomorrow. Either that, or I will smother myself and save the world's oxygen. Jeezus.

'The Wind Cries Mary' came on the radio the other day and I was reminded of something...

The crazy conspiracy-theorist guy on public transit in San Francisco, during his conversation with the didjeridoo player (again, sp), was rattling off the names of great musicians alive today, and mentioned Hendrix among them.

"Jimi Hendrix?" Mr. Didj interrupted. "But he's dead."

Mr. Crazy paused. "Do you really think they would let a guy like that die?"

Rock on, man.