fishbowl full of fireworks

Earlier today, Ash and I were walking to my car on The Avenue when we were stopped by a man and a woman and asked to officiate an impromtu foot race. The man won.

I freakin' love this song.

I've been cooking with seitan a lot lately. Seitan and assorted Indian sauces that come in jars. Seitan may very well be my new favorite food. Here's something I whipped up today, with pictures! It's super cheap and super easy. Like, seriously, you put stuff in a pot and warm it up.

( seitan with calcutta masala and basamati rice. )

Pretty basic (dump thing one into pot, dump thing two into pot, etc) but over the years I have gotten a lot of people who wonder JUST WHAT IN THE HECK DO YOU EAT IF YOU DON'T EAT MEAT?!... and the answer is, well, spicy savory stuff like this. Usually just a bunch of different componenets dumped together, made tasty, and eaten from a single bowl. (You know, like KFC's Famous Bowls! Only without the dead things and the potential for a heart attack!) And lately I've been trying to make more of an effort to cook my meals instead of, like, going to Wawa or Panera Bread out of sheer laziness. So far I am spending much less money on food and saving gas by not having to leave the house every time I get hungry and I've also been trying to monitor my caloric and sodium intake. And it's fun. I kinda wish there were people around to cook for but oh well. More for me.



In exciting news, I am going to have a new car on July 12th. Well, newish. A (handsome) pal of mine hooked me up with his brother, who was selling one of his cars for a very reasonable price. Both the pal and his brother are car geeks who like to tinker and there's been a lot of work put into this car. My mom and I drove all the way down to La Plata to check it out yesterday and I think I'm getting this car for a steal. It runs beautifully, nice pick-up so I can speed without much effort, it's clean, and it's all shiny and new inside. Homeboy even replaced the nuts and whatnot inside. And he's got ridiculous anal-retentive records of what he's done to the car and what parts he's put into it. He even has the receipts for the parts he's bought. I think my mom worries that I am gulliable and that the car was probably a lemon, but she feels good about the car too. It also gets WAY WAY WAY BETTER gas mileage than the Grand Marquis (and I won't even get into what a gas hog the Crown Victoria I've been driving is), does not leak oil all over the road, and won't require me to dump 2 quarts of oil into it every couple of days. Now that a new car is on the horizon, I'm realizing just how much of a burden has been lifted. I had a lot of anxiety about the car just breaking down -- is today the day it just gives up? Am I going to end up stranded on the side of the road and get in trouble at work for not making it to a shoot? Every time I saw the number of miles roll around, I got anxious. No car makes it to 247k miles. That's insane. It's running on prayers and good will. And then there was the anxiety about having to buy a new car -- I can't get a loan, my credit is awful, and I couldn't afford a car payment even if I were able to secure a loan in the middle of a damn recession. But this car is going to be paid for, wham bam thankyoumam, and that's the end of it. As long as I maintain it, I think I should be able to drive it for years to come. SO. Bully for me! My mom is actually PAYING FOR THE CAR, which is awful nice of her.




Oh, and I made myself significantly blonder than I previously was. No one really noticed, unless I pointed it out. Boo. But with one or two more colorings, I should be blonde again! Yay!



I'm pretty happy witht he strawberry blonde thing I've got going, though. It's rather nice, if I do say so myself.

You sing the truth, Really Tall Black Dude With Pedophile Glasses!



My week basically consisted of sweating. And whining about sweating. And being hot. And whining about being hot. I was shooting at a day care in a government facility in Rockville and they had me in this teeny tiny room that had a door that was too heavy to prop open by normal means. So I spent several hours each morning breathing in warm, stale air. Everyone who came in exclaimed, "Oh my stars, it's warm in here!" Why yes! Yes, it is. Try running around trying to make toddlers laugh under two hot lights. Just try that for a few hours and then we will discuss it being warm. I turned beet red and periodically had to step out into the hallway so I could, you know, breathe. We tried opening the windows, but as it was well over 90 degrees outside, it just made matters worse. And then I went home and sat in my ridiculously hot bedroom, sweating, and unable to sleep. My one oasis has been the car. That shit gets arctic. I need to move to where it's arctic all the time. I prefer arctic to sweltering. Or if I could just travel around in a hermetically-sealed bubbled that is consistently kept at 73 degrees, that'd be sweet.

I really really do not enjoy this weather.
I do not understand people who do.
Y'all are freaks.

I have to go to a birthday shindig for a friend today. I am fairly certain he is going to make me go outside because he likes to fuckin' do that, even when inside is preferable, and has less bugs, and air conditioning. But he's all LET'S GO FIND A FIELD AND SKIP AROUND MERRILY IN THE DISGUSTING MARYLAND HUMIDITY WHEE! Oh, it will be terrible.

I actually don't mind the heat as much as I mind the humidity. I just can't stand the moisture, and feeling sticky and dirty and moist, and feeling like I am trying to breathe warm pudding when I go outside. I probably just need to live in New Mexico, where it's warm and dry and you'll never ever break a sweat. And where the sky looks like this:



Man, I am missing New Mexico a lot these days.





So, because I am a hypocrite, I got a Twitter. This is me. Don't worry, though, I plan on Tweeting on Twitter only. Because Livejournal is for Livejournaling, and Facebook is for Facebooking, and Twitter is for Twittering, and never the twain shall meet. What the hell? I don't want to be the only kid on the block without a Twitter. I also started a film & music specific blog elsewhere, but I want to build it up a little more before I start telling people to check it out, as right now it only has two rambling entries.

Something fantastic happened at the Double T last night with Jay and Ash. We had this waiter who was an amusing mix of creepy and awesome and he was taking Ash's plate and he asked if we wanted to hold onto our silverware and Ash frantically exclaimed "I WANT TO HOLD ONTO YOUR PICKLE!" and snatched Jay's pickle off his plate. Oh, it was hilarious. A true unwitting That's What She Said moment. About 10 minutes later, when we had all recovered from the hilarity, the waiter silently came up to our table and laid an entire plate of pickles in front of Ash and walked off without saying a word. COMIC TIMING: Ur doing it right! Maybe you had to be there. But, trust me, had you been there, you would have been doubled over and in pain from the funneh.

And, because last night was just a freight train of ridiculosity and hilarity, here is a picture of The Pug that Ash made with a handlebar moustache, a top hat, and a monocle:

I maded a LOLPUG!



Still no cheezburgers for him, though.

I just dyed my hair the same color it was. A little redder, a little lighter. But the same damn color. ARGH.

Amazing discovery of the day: I can take pictures with my fancy new phone, send them to the T-Mobile website, and put them on the internet! Gosh golly gee whiz! This is very exciting.

Conundrum of the day: A really awesome (and attractive!) gentleman I know has found me a super deal on a car. A good car that the person selling it has done lots of work on. And the gentleman I know is all, oh, well, you can go look at it and decide. And I'm all, DOES IT LEAVE AN OCEAN OF OIL UNDERNEATH IT WHEN IT IS PARKED? No? Okay. Sold. The pickle, of course, is coming up with the money. Without, you know, working the street corners. I do not have any pennies hidden under the couch. My mom is kind of useless where money is concerned. I couldn't even, like, get her to loan me the money because she does not have any money to loan. I have more dollars than her at present. She owes money to the IRS. So she's not going to be of any help. If I hadn't, you know, gotten into a huge argument about boxes with my grandmother last time I saw her, she could have been of some help. She probably could have loaned me the money and I could have paid her back slowly. But I done burned them bridges. I mean, obviously, I plan on trying to patch up my relationship with my grandmother. She's my grandmother. But I don't want to be like, "HAI GRANDMA. Sorry I yelled at you and stormed off crying and you're mad because there's still stuff at your house. I love you and don't want to fight. Can I borrow a large-ish sum of money?" That would make me a huge dick. I wish my car were worth, like, something. But it's probably not. Part of me wants to just drive the motherfucker into a tree, total it, collect the insurance, and be done with it. Then I'd never have to look at it again. I don't even have anything of value to sell. Unless I covertly sold the pug or my body to the night. (And I don't think either would earn enough cash to get me a car that doesn't dump oil everywhere. Sigh.)

The only good thing is that my stepfather thinks my tire can be patched so, if that is the case, I do not have to buy a new tire. Hooray?

"Saved by the Bell" is on. Zach and Slater are having a dancing duel to see who gets to dance with Kelly. <3

is genius.

OMG LITTLE PRICE EARRINGS.
HOLY SHIT TOM SERVO EARRINGS.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT TOM SERVO AND CROW T. ROBOT EARRINGS.

WANT.
COVET.
DESIRE.
LUST
LACKING
WOULD LIKE
I WOULD CALL THIS MY "TWIN PEAKS" RING
WHY DO AM I SUDDENLY SO INTO WILDLIFE
AND ALSO ANATOMICAL HEARTS
AT LEAST THE BIRD THING IS NOTHING NEW
<3
<3 <3
I CAME HERE TO DO TWO THINGS...





BOUGHT. My sparrow necklace is looking a little rough and I couldn't find a suitable sparrow replacement. So, I figured, a giant octopus is definitely an upgrade. An octopus could totally slaughter a sparrow in a fight. And I only wear winners around my neck.

I need to clean my room like woah. I don't even know how it gets so gross so quickly. I also want to find someone willing to put up my shelves this weekend; my gnomes and giant plushie diseases and Hello Kitties have been sitting in a box near my closet since before I moved in. If I can get my hands on a studfinder, I can probably manage it. I'm planning on heading to Target soon in search of Neopets plushies (shut yr trap, it gives you a code that gets you a new icon in KeyQuest, damn it!) and it would be nice to have a suitable place to display them so that they do not because pug chew toys. I purchased this. Am pleased with my decision.

I turn 26 next week. Why god why. There will be a tiny birthday get together at Vegetable Garden in Rockville, the day of or day before, depending on the work schedules of involved parties. Old GSC pal (and Pd.D student?!) Abby will be in town, which will be awesome, as I haven't seen her in a million years. I don't want to make too big of a deal out of this birthday because, well, I don't wanna turn 26. Next week will be hectic enough that hopefully I can forget about being so old, and maybe drown my sorrows in drink and dance while seeing Math the Band at this place I've never heard of on Charles St. Hilary and I saw Math the Band at the UNLIMITED ENTHUSIASM EXPO! (i.e., Harry & the Potters/Uncle Monsterface Summer Ridiculothon) last year. They were amazing. I don't think I've ever danced that hard at a show.

I love that several channels on Fios seem to be entirely devoted to enabling me to watch blocks of "Twin Peaks" on Saturdays, thereby ensuring that I will not be showered and functional until 4pm.

The shoot I had scheduled for tomorrow morning cancelled. I have off Friday and Monday. So you know what that means? FIVE DAY WEEKEND, bitches. I don't have anything at all to do and the massive amount of pollen in the air has more or less rendered me house-bound but it's still a five-day weekend! Woo!

I'm watching "Ghosthunters." They're doing the Lizzie Borden house. I'M GOING THERE THIS SUMMER. Awesome.

I need to Neti myself again. Pollen can kiss my ass.

My booker decided to give me a two-week vacation before the fall season kicks in. I have off August 24th through September 4th.

I am determined to spend at least some of this time on an honest-to-god vacation. A trip somewhere. I don't have the dough to go anywhere that requires a plane ride, and a train would even be stretching myself a bit, but I'm kind of a road warrior. A 7 or 8 or 9 hour trip is not intimidating to me at all. I've been thinking of where I want to go all day, since any sort of long-distance trip would be something I'd have to start saving for as soon as possible, and I arrived at Salem, MA. I've always wanted to go. There's tons of shit to do: Salem Witch Museum, reenactments, ghost tours, House of the Seven Gables, loads of Nathaniel Hawthorne statues and whatnot, a few awesome-sounding wax museums. (Wax museums are usually pretty awesome, though.) I've been pricing lodging and it looks like, on average, everywhere is going to charge $120 and up per night. So 3 nights is probably the maximum I can afford to stay. I could also take a day trip up to Fall River, MA to tour the Lizzie Borden house (now a B&B way out of my price range).

Obviously, a travel companion would be nice.
Maybe someone with a GPS. And able to help me pay for lodging and gas.
It'd be cool to split the driving, too.
And with some sort of enthusiasm for ghost tours and Salem Witch Trial stuff.
I'm going to be bugging my friends about it soon.
I am estimating that we will each need about $80 to $100 per night for lodging. (So $300 or so for the trip, just in lodging.) I want to borrow my mom's Civic for the trip since I don't even know if mine will make it there & back and a Civic gets better mileage than my old hoopty. I dunno what gas prices will look like in August but let's just say we'll operate on a 1-to-1 ratio when it comes to gas, and I'm willing to eat up any overages.
The rest of the budget is up to you as it will be for food and shopping and fun. Most of the attractions seem to be under $20. And I'm planning on eating cheap, and bringing a cooler of food with us to save monies.
I'm not opposed to going alone. After spending a month in New Mexico all by my lonesome, 3 days just 7 hours north is nothing.
But, you know, friends make stuff better.
More than 3 people, though, and accomodations start to get more expensive. Most B&B's are very clear that no more than 2 people can stay in a single room. But I figure it'll probably be hard to find one friend who is up for the trip and can afford it, let alone 3 or 4.
(At this point it looks as though Ash is going to be my companion. YAY!)

I figure that instead of getting tattooed, I can put any birthday money I get away for this trip and put away some money each paycheck and I'll have plenty of money for the trip and shopping and souveniers and stuff.

I'd also like to take a day trip up to Philly so check out the Mutter Museum since I have been wanting to go for a million years, and maybe head back to Chinatown, since Chinatown is Philly is insanely awesome. It's only like 2 hours away, easy peazy. I travel 2 hours for work at least a few times a month.

I just know that if I don't DO SOMETHING with those 2 weeks, I will end up sleeping it away and wearing pajama bottoms the whole time. And that would be awful.

I want to wallpaper my room in this dude's artwork.

Earlier this week, I was sitting at my computer with my window open and my face just suddenly felt full. From that moment on, I was only able to breath comfortably for short periods of time. One side of my nose was always useless. At first I thought, "Okay, I have AIDS. Seriously. I just recovered from a cold. After that cold I started taking immunity support vitamins. And I have been extra careful with little kids' runny noses. The only way to explain how I am sick again is that I do not need vitamins but AZT." But I didn't feel sick. Just stuffy. So, I determined, it was not AIDS. It was allergies.

Cold medicine and nasal decongestants did not relieve my constant stuffiness. They just made me tired. Last night, at Walgreens, there was a Neti Pot next to the saline nose spray. I thought, "Why not? Right now the idea of pouring salt water into my nasal cavity sounds awesome. Flush that shit out. Be done with it." I bought it, took it home, read the instructions, and gave it a whirl.

In short: HOLY FUCKING SHIT. The sensation that using the Neti Pot produces is, well, wrong. It's not painful or unpleasant, just unbelievably strange. You can feel the water filling up the cavity and then when it starts to pour out, well, it's just terrible. You've got warm salt water and snot and tears running down your face because the Neti Pot, apparently, triggers involuntary tears. There really isn't any decent way to keep that salt-water-snot combination from running down your face, regardless of what videos and people tell you.



That woman in the pink sweater must have gone through some rigorous Neti Pot training in order to do it that neatly and gracefully. Because using the Neti Pot is the most disgusting, weird, messy thing in the world.

That said, the Neti Pot made my stuffy nose disappear. I blew my nose, got the rest of the salt water out, and could breath freely for the first time in days. So it works. But it's also worth noting that this morning, I sneezed and my nose bled steadily for about 10 minutes. If you can put up with how awful it is to use, it's pretty damn effective. And who knows, maybe I just used more salt than my nose was able to handle.



I've done nothing all day. Okay, well, that's a lie. I finished my paperwork, sorted through boxes in the living room, made ramen, started to clean my room, watched "Twin Peaks" on the Chiller Channel (<3 Fios), played like 6 games of KeyQuest on Neopets. But, still, I haven't done anything notable. YAY SATURDAY.

My birthday is creeping up on me. 26. Goddamn. I don't know if I'm going to do anything to celebrate it, I'd be perfectly happy to let it go by unacknowledged. Math the Band is playing at some place on Charles St. the Friday before, which should be awesome. According to Patton Oswalt, I am not allowed to celebrate this birthday anyway. I am hoping that my mother wants to give me a present, that present being money, money that will go toward getting tattooed. I was thinking of collarbone rocketships but I'm holding off on that, mainly because it makes me nervous about work, since your collarbones can be kind of hard to hide. I have an idea for a half-sleeve on my other arm. And this one is so open ended that there's no way I'll get stuck for ideas like I did with my Little Prince tattoo (which I'm happy with as is, really). I want an Arm Of Cute. Cupcakes, kittens, rainbows, baby animals maybe, some candy perhaps, possibly a Rainbow Brite or a Care Bear, some happy little clouds, the sun, hearts. It'll be awesome. And I know Beth will be stoked and have tons of ideas, it's right up her alley. I just need moneys.

This song makes me IRRATIONALLY MUDEROUSLY SCARILY angry.
Oh, sure. It sucks.
Oh, sure. It's vapid saccharine lovey dovey bullshit.
But I'm not sure it warrants my anger. Like, I will HIT MY DASHBOARD if I am driving and it comes on the radio. Not just turn the station. I NEED TO HIT THINGS. Sometimes they play it in stores and, good lord, it's hard not to go on a destructive tear when I hear it. You know how Spike from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" had a "trigger" that the military dudes implanted in his brain-chip that made him all Super Mega Kill Spike? This is probably mine.

FUCK THIS WEATHER, man. Fuck long and hard and good. I hate it. Hate hate hate it. I was not prepared for it. Last week it was cold. And today it is hot and humid and awful. What happened? Can't I be eased into the heat? I am rarely more miserable than when I am sweating. It ruins my mood. I could win the lottery, be granted magical powers, and ride a unicorn in the same day, but if it was over 85 degrees that day, I'd whine nonstop and be angry at everything. I'd probably rip the unicorn's horn off and stab people with it.

Sunday, Ash and I went to a Maypole Ceremony held by Turning Circle, a group that Ash is part of. It was fun, although actually weaving the ribbon around the maypole was a chaotic process that was supposed to involve joyous singing and tambourines but instead involved everyone moving in a giant clusterfuck asking "DO I GO UNDER? NO YOU GO UNDER AND I GO OVER. THEN YOU GO OVER. OKAY. WAIT I LOST MY RIBBON..." And as it was in a field with shade only along the edges, I got sunburned. I will get sunburned just thinking about going outside but, again, I was not prepared for the glaring sun and intense heat that sneaked up on Maryland this weekend. So I didn't even think about sunscreen. We ate foods, drank May wine, and were merry. (And sweaty.) Then we went to the GSC reunion, which turned into just a cluster of girls from our year (2000) comparing tattoos. Classy. This is a picture of Ashleigh and I at the Maypole Festival:



We are cute.

I do almost nothing but work and play Neopets these days. Awesome.

SCRIPT OF THE PAST FEW HOURS OF MY LIFE:

[AJ THE PUG scampers into LINDA's room, with a slimy wet rawhide in his mouth, and jumps on LINDA's bed]
LINDA: Oh my god, AJ, get that disgusting shit off my bed or I will throw you against the wall.
[AJ THE PUG cocks his head to the side and continues to chomp on his rawhide whilst sitting in LINDA's bed]
LINDA: Jesus Christ, AJ, I'm fucking serious, that's fucking gross, I will punch you in your flat fucking face.
AJ: chomp slobber nom nom smack chomp slurp
LINDA: It's not a joke, I'll gut you like a fish, get off my bed.
[LINDA pushes AJ THE PUG off her bed and he stares at her with big, sad pug eyes]
LINDA: Take it to Wells Fargo and save it, you flat-faced fuck.
[AJ finds a slipper and brings it to her, seemingly as a peace offering]
LINDA: Why the hell would you think I want that? I do not want that. I'm wearing socks, dumbass.
[AJ sulks off, finds his rawhide, jumps onto LINDA's bed and resumes his Chomp & Slobber routine]
LINDA: What does it take?! You can chew the rawhide, and you can sit on my bed, but you cannot do both at the same time.
[LINDA takes rawhide from AJ after a long struggle and puts it downstairs.]
LINDA: Chew it down here, goddamn it.
[AJ brings rawhide back into LINDA's room and jumps on her bed to chew it. Again.]
LINDA: Oh my god. I hate you. I have to sleep there. I have to sleep in your rawhide slobber. Fuck you.
[LINDA shuts AJ out of her room.]
AJ: Whimper, scratch scratch, whimper, lonely bark
[LINDA feels guilty. Lets AJ back into her room. Opens door to find that AJ has brought every single toy he owns to her door.]
LINDA: Ok. Ok. Come it but if you chew that bullshit on my bed again I will poison you with arsenic.
[AJ chews rawhide on LINDA's bed again.]
LINDA: Jesus motherfucker stupid dog gross go away fuck fuck fuck.

This has been going on for hours. I am by myself in the house, engaged in psychological warfare with a dog, trying to rationally explain why I do not want a rawhide chewed on my bed to a dog and flinging empty threats. I lead a life of adventure and excitement.

My back hurts, really bad, and I don't know why. Maybe it's the stress of Rawhide Struggle '09. But, either way, holy crap. I think it might actually be the computer chair, which also hurts my butt something fierce.

MY LIVEJOURNAL IS SO EXCITING.

I've been in New Mexico for a month at this point.
Holy crap. A MONTH.
I feel like I live here now.
The mountains and blood orange sunsets are more familiar to me now than the gray days and bright lights of Baltimore.
I fly back on Saturday.
It'll be jarring, no doubt. Just when I'd gotten accustomed to how dull and dreary everything is, how the kid working the counter at Starbucks can't even be bothered to spit out a Have A Nice Day when he's giving you your change, the traffic, the smells, the stars that are hidden my smog, I got the call asking if I wanted to come back.
But these few days are my last few days. There's not going to be another trip here for quite sometime.

Despite the fuss I made over coming back (and it was pretty inconvenient due to a series of unfortunate events), I'll miss this place. I used to be really into the music Rent. (When I was fourteen, dudes!) There's a song in the show about "packing all your junk" and flying far away to sunny Santa Fe to escape a cold bohemian hell. And I have indeed seen many a sensitive aesthete brushing sauce onto meat while people discuss Heidigger over glasses of wine. At a "Auryvedic" restaurant that promised "healing cuisine," people were reading books about Buddhism and holding hands while sipping coconut milk straight out of a coconut and having intimate, intense discussions about their feelings. And the East Coast snobbery overtook me and I found the scene hilarious. I was reading Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore and remembering that 90% of all vegan food is hopelessly bland and eavesdropping on the uncomfortably earnest conversations people were having around me. And, you know, I felt like I didn't fit in. I overheard a woman say to man she was clearly on a second or third date with, "When your heart is open, bold relationships can occur." And I had to shove tasteless "healing" vegetable pakora in my face to keep from laughing. But maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe those people are onto something. They all seem a lot happier than the self-conscious hipsters you see in Baltimore, in too-tight jeans and band-billboard t-shirts. Maybe I'd be happier if I, you know, opened my heart. Maybe bold relationships would occur. And maybe the reason they don't is because if anyone had said that line to me, the date would have been over. Like, right then. And I might have bonked them on the head with their coconut, too.

Maybe I belong on the West Coast.
Maybe not New Mexico. Maybe San Francisco, Portland, Sedona.
I should just go to all of those places and see which feels most like home.

I met a fellow Baltimorian today. He brought his cute redheaded daughter into daycare. He was large and burly and had graying dreads and lots of tattoos. He wore a lot of black and spoke with a booming, sarcastic voice. I could tell he wasn't local. He was too high-strung, too ironic, too sarcastic. He walked like he was walking into combat. People who are from New Mexico either shuffle or swish. People from the East Coast do not swish. They are too important to swish. They have places to go, things to do. The director pointed out that we were from the same town and we talked for a good long while about how different New Mexico is, and how we find urban decay comforting, and how the people seem to be a different species.

But maybe it's not so bad. I think I've got a little West Coast swish in me, hidden under my combat-walk.

I haven't been feeling too well this week. I've been sleepy and feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me. I've been told that it might just be the altitude. Who knows. My stomach has been bugging me too. And today, I was helping at a pass, and I felt like I was in an oven. It was almost 80 degrees outside and someone at the school turned on the heat. And there was this volunteer, who barely spoke English, and touched me everytime she talked to me and stood so close that I could feel her body heat radiating from her, and it made me want to throw up and also possibly punch her. I do not like people I don't know touching me or standing close to me.

Maybe I'm destined to be on the East Coast forever, after all.

But, either way, there are people in the hotel's business center speaking in Spanish and chewing their gum very loudly and I need to leave before I get violent.

I never made it to Taos yesterday. I woke up late and it was really too late to head up there. So I went to Santa Fe instead.

I had a frozen chocolate covered banana with rainbow sprinkles on a skewer. In case you are ever in an argument about what the best thing on a skewer is, the answer is frozen chocolate covered bananas with rainbow sprinkles. A Latino dude with lots of tattooed leered at me while I was eating it. Fun!

I picked up a deck of tarot cards and a book and I spent last night brushing up on the whole subject. I'm not one for mystical mumbo jumbo, but tarot cards are fun, and they were eerily accurate this weekend. So I want to get good at reading them. Plus, it's an awesome party trick! And if you get good at reading them, doofuses will pay you a dollar a minute to read them!

I have the rest of the day off. I am considering driving all the way back to Santa Fe for another chocolate covered banana.

I spent the day wandering downtown Albuquerque, drinking chai and eating cardamom cookies at this place called Annapurna's World Chai House (where they cook it in pots with actual spices and ladle it into cups instead of dumping chai mix from a plastic bottle into some milk!), buying a ridiculous amount of Hello Kitty merchandise and miniature food at a store called Tokyo Hardcore, and generally having a nice time by myself. I got my tarot cards read by this lady named "Mendy Lou" and, I have to say, my cards were awesome. Apparently I will be successful, innovative, and fertile (???) as long as I learn to trust myself. She also told me that I am involved with a "toxic man" who "conceals the truth from me" and is stifling me. Interesting, eh? And that I will become involved with a man who is "communicative and respectful and chivalrous" soon. So bully for me! But she also told me that I was created to "channel the elements" so who knows how accurate ol' Mendy Lou was. Mostly I just channel Strawberry Shortcake.

I also slept until noon. That was pretty great.

Tomorrow I am going to drive to Taos to see if I can hear the "Taos Hum."