Most history is in the past. Some of it was in August, 2003.

1. Are you going to school this year?
No. (Bite me.)
2. If yes, where are you going (high school, college, etc.)? If no, when did you graduate?
Graduated college in '95 (English/Literature). Worked sporadically on my MA (more Literature) and fled the program completely earlier this year.
3. What are/were your favorite school subjects?
English/literature. Of course.
4. What are/were your least favorite school subjects?
Math.
(Xander: You know, I kinda had a problem with the math.
Willow: Uhh, which part?
Xander: The math.)
Buffy 1.01, "Welcome to the Hellmouth"
That's me.
5. Have you ever had a favorite teacher? Why was he/she a favorite?
In high school it was Mr. Rutherford, 12th grade English. He was one of the few teachers, and possibly the only one, who ever approached some students (including me, obviously) as fellow intellectuals and not merely as peons to be shepherded through the school year. He loaned and recommended books that he thought might interest me, engaged me in conversation that surpassed the topics of the class, and inspired me. And, based on all that, he took pity on me and extended some deadlines to help me pass the class (and therefore to graduate!) when my lethargy and laziness with some of the assignments led me to get behind.
In college I'm torn between Dr. Smith and Dr. Schell, but I'll go with the latter. It was Dr. Smith who inspired me (and recommended me) to enter the graduate program and then to begin teaching. But I think I found myself enjoying Dr. Schell's classes and his teaching more, on the whole. He is so deeply passionate about his field(s), and passes that on to students. And, like Mr. Rutherford way back when, Dr. Schell treats his students (especially his grad students) as his peers in the field of literature, not as underlings who can't enter his intellectual/academic kingdom. He refers to them as Mr. So-and-so and Miss So-and-so. It's a small thing, and my Babeness doesn't particularly care for it, but I think it demonstrates that he takes his students seriously and approaches them as adults; it seems to elevate them somehow.

8/28/2003 Thursday 11:06 AM
Does this thing still work? *tap tap* Hello? Are y'all still there?

First things first. My Babeness got in! She got accepted to the Music Department. Her hard work paid off and her dream is coming true. Please go congratulate her. She deserves it. She announced it on her LiveJournal, but not on her site, which she has forsaken. Oh well. But I'm still here, at least. But I am all giddy like for her.

An alligator dream last night, again, which I wrote up along with some other recent dreams. No Jason dreams since the last one I mentioned. And I still haven't seen the Jason/Freddie movie. *pout*

Next Wednesday I get fingerprinted and drug-tested for a local county school board. I told the HR head that I'd show up at 9am, ready to go...literally. She also asked me if I had any interest in being the coach of a high-school girls' wrestling team. I said uh, thanks, but no thanks, and I'm not even going to make any jokes.

Let's see, I left off Saturday.
Well, Saturday I worked all day and went over to Mariana's. I'm sure we did some more errand-running and shopping or something, but frankly, the last few days have been so hectic that I'm not even sure. I'm sure we woke up Sunday and did some stuff, some cleaning, etc., but again, who knows. Eventually I went home.
Monday is when she found out she was accepted into the Music Department after her audition. She I fetched her Monday night and we ended up joining the guys for some wings and fellowship. Her tongue had been bothering her after she inadvertently chomped it, and she was talking like some cross between Elmer Fudd and Sylvester the cat. Very charming, actually. Tuesday was more of the same. Worked Tuesday night and then went over for some more shopping and errand-running. Went out last night for some boba and dinner. Yeah, finally some boba. Discovered a store at the mall with a fantastic supply of Helly Kitty stuff and, oddly, a lot of fetish gear.
Went back to Wal-Mart to return the Mac-formatted disks I had stupidly bought and got PC disks instead. Tried the "Strappleberry" gum but didn't taste the straps like I thought I would.
And that brings us to today. Agreed, that was a very short way to recap five days, but hey, I'll do better, I promise.

8/23/2003 Saturday 9:53 AM
I have no idea what day it is. It's been such a whirlwind few days that I'm completely out of touch. Yesterday I just went to work and prayed that nobody asked me why I was there, and fortunately nobody did. I'll use the same tactic today.

Yes, she's home now. Got to Venice about 9am Wednesday morn. Spent a great deal of time packing the car. When I walked in her house, Mariana pointed at several piles of Stuff and pointed out which piles absolutely have to go, which ones she'd like to go if possible, and which piles would be cool but unnecessary to take unless we had room. I cocked my head, rubbed my jaw (which of course had been rudely violated the day before) and calculated that we'd be able to fit about 90% of the Stuff that absolutely had to go, but not much more. So I started packing the Jeep while she packed up the last of the small stuff that she'd organized and set aside. I used the 'shape' method, packing stuff according to size and shape to see where it would best fit in. That meant alternating between the first two categories of Stuff. Amazingly, it all fit, and I was even able to dip into the piles of Unnecessary But Cool Stuff. By the time we finished, EVERYTHING from all the piles was in the car; it looked something like this

and the Jeep was so stuffed we couldn't even take a deep breath. We had Stuff packed into every nook and cranny, including underneath the back seat, in the floorboards, under the seat which had been folded forward.
I needed to get my penicillin prescription filled in order to stay on the proper schedule, so we first stopped at Wal-Mart, but there the wait would have been about 45 minutes. Then we tried Eckerd, and got it filt much more quickly. Then a quick stop to get some food, and it was off to the highways.
Mariana finally dozed off about half an hour before we got to UCF; the packing and lack of sleepness finally caught up with her. When we got to campus she needed to check in and get her room keys. There was a bustle of activity, people everywhere carrying pillows and boxes and computers and clothes and toasters and assorted Stuff of their own, presumably from their own piles of Stuff That Absolutely Has to Go, Stuff They'd Like to Take If Possible, and Stuff That Would Be Cool But Unnecessary to Take Unless They Had Room. We finally got to her apartment and started trekking back and forth, taking armloads of stuff. As we shuttled in and out, we kept passing this poor, beleaguered-looking woman who was apparently doing all the work while her young'un, presumably, was organizing inside her nice, air-conditioned apartment. We took several breaks to sponge ourselves off, since it was approximately 100% humidity at the time. Finally, by mid-afternoon, we had my car emptied of her Stuff. We still had the load of Stuff at my house, of course, so we then set off to come get it.
After loading the Stuff at my house, I showered. I came out to find her completely crashed, dead asleep. This time I brought along a hand-cart to make it easier to move the boxes into her apartment, and it proved to be a fine idea. These boxes were mostly books, and HEAVY. At that point we started the general unpackingness and away-puttingness of her Stuff. None of her roommates had showed up, so we had the place to ourselves. It's a nice apartment, if a bit spartan. Her room is decently sized, has a locking door (!), and she shares a large bathroom with just one roommate. The living room has some basic chairs and loveseats, but no tables or end-tables or anything, and the upholstery is, well, somewhat severe. When we opened the refridgerator, though, we saw that the previous occupants had thoughtfully left her a pizza box with some fossilized crusts and half-eaten slices. We're still waiting for the carbon-14 dating results, but it appears the box had been there since June. At least the refridgerator had been functioning the whole time, or else merely opening the door would have been tragic. Other than that, though, the place was virtually spotless.

Her friend Kyle was also moving in on campus, and this is his first semester at UCF, so we all decided to go out to eat at Bennigan's. (It took them two tries, but they finally managed to bring me the wonderful sesame-ginger dressing for the ahi salad I ordered.) It was the first food I'd had all day; when we got food earlier in the day in Venice, I got a chicken sandwich but never ate it, since I didn't particularly want to eat at 80mph when I had so little visibility as it was. So I was ravenous. We ate and returned to UCF.
Babeness and I then went to a 24-hour Super Wal-Mart where we apparently joined approximately 3,000 other returning UCFers who were all there doing the same thing - loading up on supplies, food, and last-minute items. We got some basic foods staples and a few non-food items for the kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom, including some easily-assembled clothing racks, since her room has no actual closets in it. By the time we got back we were both pretty tired, and spend a little while haphazardly unpacking and organizing, before we finally bedded. I gave Mariana a somewhat diluted dose of penicillin before we both collapsed.

The next day, Thursday, I woke up as usual around 8:30 or 9 or so. Babeness was still asleep, so I flipped channels, occasionally dozed, and watched a couple horror-type flicks on Sci-Fi (Warlock at 10, the Wes Craven Mindripper flick at noon, and then one of them Return of the Living Dead zombie flicks at 2). Finally, midway through the zombie flick, Mariana started stirring back to consciousness. (Man, I wish I could sleep like that!) She got up and we continued the unpacking and assembling. Got her clothes racks put together, started hanging clothes, and started breaking into other boxes. She had to get a check deposited, though, so we set out to do that before the banks all closed. (It was, by this point, about 4pm and I could already feel that my sense of time and sequence was getting all kerfluggled.) After hitting the bank, we went to an Asian grocery to load up on some specialty items that Wal-Mart, of course, didn't have. Got some snacks and candies, some Cow Piss, pickled cucumber, shrimp-flavoured potato chips, and a few other items that probably made her roommates turn pale. Mariana made me drink some sweat on the way back to the apartment. I was about to drop from lack of nutrients. I hadn't eaten since Bennigans the night before, which itself has been the only food I'd had all day Wednesday, so we stopped a Chick-Fil-A for a refill, after which I felt dramatically better. Got back and continued the unpacking, hanging of clothes, etc. Watched a bit of TV, decorated, looked for stuff. Made an excursion to Barnes and Noble for some magazines and Target for some more groceries. At some point we both finally drifted off to sleep. I woke up in the morning yesterday, went home to shower and change, and as I said above, went to work just hoping that I was actually supposed to be there.

I cannot put into words how happy I am that she's home. It was wonderful visiting her on Wednesdays, but as I said to her, I hated visiting her. I hated feeling like we had to make every Wednesday together memorable, with the going-to-places, sightseeing, etc., or else feel somehow like we wasted our only day together. Being with her is never a waste, of course. Now, of course, I look forward to going to Orlando places with her, meeting her for simple, quick lunches, making her dinner, making dinner with her, and knowing that there's no deadline on any of it. And, obviously, it feels incredible knowing that she's only 40 minutes away.

1. When was the last time you laughed?
About an hour and a half ago.
2. Who was the last person you had an argument with?
My brother, when he butchered my tangerine tree a couple of weeks ago.
3. Who was the last person you emailed?
You know, I actually had to look this up in the 'Sent' box. But it was Mariana, not surprisingly.
4. When was the last time you bathed?
About 20 minutes ago.
And it's a damn good thing I'm doing this FridayFive NOW.
5. What was the last thing you ate?
Two Krispie Kreme doughnuts this morning on the way home from Mariana's. Gooey, decadent, ridiculous.
The doughnuts, I mean.

8/19/2003 Wednesday 6:17 AM
SHE'S COMING HOME TODAY.
That's all you need to know about how Wonderful this Wednesday will be.

8/19/2003 Tuesday 10:10 PM
The toof-pulling went fine, as well as I could expect. It wasn't quite as...uh, clean as the last two that I described, but that cleared up within a few hours and by now, there is no leakage. The dentist and technician muttered some details that I shan't repeat and describe, and I didn't ask for clarification. ("Bonefile"? Never mind!) Other than that, I went home with the usual instructions (no straws, no smoking, no mouthwash, no crunchy foods, be careful while brushing), one suture to be removed next week, and fresh prescriptions for penicillin and Vicodin.

The countdown is now approximately 14.75 hours. I'm all giddy like. Can you tell?

I heard on the radio that Winter Garden got approximately seven inches of rain in one hour last night during the storms. No, don't refresh your browser, you read that correctly. Seven inches of rain in one hour here. And I believe that. I was out in it during the worst of it. I've said before (here, probably) that every year, I find myself saying that I've never seen it rain harder. But yesterday, I swear to God, it was true. I have *never* seen worse storm conditions and harder rain than between 6 and 7:30 last night. Green, tornado-y skies, rain blown horizontal by the wind, visibility on straight roads down to less than a quarter of a mile, hail in many locations, you name it. It was absolutely apocalyptic, frightening and yet beautiful, despite the fact that I was hunched over the steering wheel, driving 20mph below the speed limit, trying to drive in it. The local talk-show host, who usually goes off the air at 6pm to give way to a nationally broadcast show (Dr. Laura), stayed on until about 7:45pm, just to keep folks updated about the weather, traffic, National Weather Service advisories, etc. It was THAT bad. Usually I don't listen to this guy, in fact, due to his annoying way of speaking where he emphasizes (pause) every word (pause) or phrase of (pause) his (pause) text. Listening to him speak is like being beaten down, it's exhausting. But last night, I was listening.

I've blogged the snake dream that I mentioned earlier, and also a couple other recent dreams, including the Jason dream I mentioned a few days ago.

8/19/2003 Monday 8:15 AM
My Hell is crowded - which is fine, I've assumed for a long time that Hell would be WAY too small for the amount of people who truly deserve to be there:

Hipsters, Libertarians
Circle I Limbo

General asshats
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Gray Davis
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Professional baseball players, Bill Clinton
Circle IV Rolling Weights

This one guy, you don't know him
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Militant Vegans
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Bad drivers who think they're good drivers
Circle VII Burning Sands

PETA Members, Creationists
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Saddam Hussein, Democrats, Osama bin Laden
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Well, today's the day I (probably) get cut at the dentist. The gum and cheek are vastly improved since I started doubling up on the penicillin Sunday night!). Dental processes don't really bother or scare me. The last two wisdom teeth I had out were virtually (and literally) painless. The first one, I felt the pressure of the dentist squeezing the tooth, but that's it. The tooth eventually cracked clean in half, and he calmly plucked the one half out, then the other, and I was fine. But I hate pain; he had given me a prescription for Tylenol 3 (codeine!) if I needed it. So when I got home, I took, uh, a larger dose than prescribed. I sat down on the couch to watch some TV. Then I decided, well, I'm not working tonight, so I might as well settle back on the couch. Then I decided, well, I might as well lay down. Then I noticed....wow, is it the next day already? The Tylenol 3 had knocked me out completely. Good stuff.
The second pulling was even quicker. My mouth was completely numbed. I saw the dentist go in with a mirror and the little gripper-puller thing. I HEARD him fumbling around with the instruments; I assumed he was angling for position. Then I heard him mutter, 'All right, that's it.' I said (or muttered, my mouth already packed with gauze) 'whadda mee thath ih?' Then he waved this tooth around in front of my face and said 'this is your tooth, we're done.' I said 'duh? tha cae fruh my mou?' He said, 'yup. Go home.' I went home. Before I even got home, it had stopped bleeding, and I never even needed an aspirin. I was eating normally the next day.
Let's hope today's proceedings are as smooth. I'm not worried about how I feel today; I just want to be okay tomorrow WHEN SHE COMES HOME.

I also had some very bizarre dream that I and my friends Joel and Tom were being stalked by an enormous green snake (enormous as in several hundred feet long) as we walked around the city. I don't have time to blog it, since in 16 minutes I'm scheduled to be tokkin lie thith agih. Remind me later.

8/18/2003 Monday 8:15 AM
I am surprisingly chipper this morning, despite having not slept three consecutive hours since Friday night. The past two nights have been full of tossingness and turningness, waking after what seemed like six hours only to find it had only been an hour and 45 minutes. My face is still lumpy, albeit somewhat improved. But I'm greatly concerned that the penicillin has not brought down the swelling and apparent absess nearly as much as I thought it would in the nearly four days I've been taking it. I'm pretty sure there will be no extraction tomorrow; I just don't think the swelling is down far enough. I can't really tell, but it might even be worse than when I began the penicillin. My overall face isn't as swollen as it was Thursday, but the swelling in my gum and inside of my cheek is worse...if that makes any sense. And that's mostly why I've had so little to say the past few days, despite there being a fair amount of stuff to say something about.

You know, of course, that His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadj Doctor Idi Amin Dada, Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order of the Military Cross, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, Professor of Geography and Law, Last King of the Scots and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular died in Saudi Arabia. I vaguely remember his rule when I was a child. This sounds awfully dumb, but hey, I was probably only five years old anyway. But whenever I heard his name in news reports as a kid, I thought they were saying his name as "Eddie" Amin, and of course, my brother's name was Eddie as well. And we made fun of His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadj Doctor Idi Amin Dada, Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order of the Military cross, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, Professor of Geography and Law, Last King of the Scots and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular's name, too. I would mispronounce it to say "Eddie? Ah'm MEAN!" And my brother had his response, but I don't remember what it was. I hadn't thought about that in years, until I read that he (His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadj Doctor Idi Amin Dada, Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order of the Military cross, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, Professor of Geography and Law, Last King of the Scots and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular, not my brother) died. "Eddie? Ah'm MEAN!" Indeed.

We've also just passed another anniversary of Elvis Presley's fatal bowel movement. When Elvis died, my mother took us up to a store to buy an Elvis record. I think she told us that everybody would be buying them, so if we wanted one, we had to go right then or they would be gone. So we did. I got a 45 of "Way Down," which I think was his last single. I still love that song, too, and I might still have the 45 somewhere. Maybe.
The store was called TG&Y, and we never did know what those letters represented. It was a K-Mart kinda place - some clothes, household goods, etc. The local rumour that we kids told each other was that it stood for "Toys, Game, and Yo-yos." I was skeptical about that, because it seemed a little redundant - yo-yos WERE toys, or possibly games, but whatever, it didn't seem correct to give that one specific item a place in the name of the store. It closed down years ago, and there's a discount grocery store in that location now. That shopping center also had a large grocery store as the anchor. The store was called Food World, and had an enormous globe on the wall over the doors outside. I think at some point the globe rotated, but most times it was still. They ran a program at one point where they would give you a small flag with a purchase, any of a large set of flags from some era or region in America's past. I don't recall the exact process, whether they just handed you one when you made your purchase, or you had to redeem a certain dollar amount of receipts to get one, or what. But I still have all those flags, about five feet over my head right now, all sticking out from holes drilt in a cedar plank that my father and grandfather mounted on the wall near the ceiling just for that purpose. There are 49 of them - the "Don't Tread On Me" flag, the Confederate battle flag, a "Live Free or Die" flag, a blue "Liberty" flag, every redesign of the American flag whenever a new state would enter...Well, as I said, there are 49 of them, all different. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that Food World was giving these little cloth flags away in celebration of the Bicentennial in 1976. When my dad died and we had to move out of this house, those flags were spirited away to my aunt's house in Tennessee. About five or six years ago, my aunt casually mentioned that she still had them stored away, so we brought them home with us (I think we were up there for a Beloved Cousin's graduation or something).

Anyway, I think that's quite enough rambling for one sitting. There will be more later, I'm pretty sure.

8/15/2003 Friday 8:29 PM
Let's gossip.
Babeness has this part of her site where she has a faux Q&A about her site. At one point, she answers "First of all, if you type like that again, I'll bash your head in" in response to a fictional question typed in an annoying teen-y way.
But we're not gossiping about Babeness. That's just an intro to the gossip.
Now that I'm browsing LiveJournal, I saw a post today that was written thusly:

"1ce again i made a lurvely icon but LJ whined & moaned that it was 2 big *grumble grumble* so 1ce more, i had 2 reduce it 2 the current 1 *points 2 it* apparently LJ can only handle 4 pix, but such is life..."

Now, how many times did YOU have to read that to comprehend it? In the end, this person goes on to close with "any requests?" (I was surprised it didn't say "Ne requests?") I was sorely tempted to channel my darling and reply with something like "First of all, if you type like that again, I'll bash your head in." But this is an actual, real live person I'd be saying that to, and not a purely hypothetical person like on Babeness's site, so I figured I'd be getting into serious criminal troubles by threatening bodily harm like that to another person. Upon realizing that, I was then tempted to reply with "First of all, if you type like that again, my Babeness will bash your head in." Again, though, after some deliberation I decided not to get said Babeness into the same sort of trouble. So as of this writing - and it's now 8:38EST - I have made no responses to that person about their incredibly annoying way of typing. And I probably won't. And if my face wasn't such a lumpy, misshapen mass right now, I probably wouldn't be so grumpy about reading that post anyway.

OK, now that THAT is out of my system (unlike the infection), NOW we can gossip about Babeness. There was this one time..................

8/15/2003 Friday 10:27 AM
The Frienster count is now up to 4204, and Mariana blew past that, thanks to the vagaries of the system. I am still asymmetrically disfigured, though I am keeping the penicillin flowing through me as prescribed. I made my first actual LJ post, and modified the format a little bit, though again you mustn't waste time going there, as the post itself was meaningless. I'm about to go to work for about 10 hours, and I'm thinking about the greatest gal in the world.
Yes, that's my whirlwind of a life today.

Got to Babeness's house as usual yesterday. She was a bit tired and a bit frazzled from having been packing a lot lately for when SHE COMES HOME NEXT WEEK (countdown: approximately 136 hours). Then we watched an episode of Sailormoon. (I did not subject her to another episode of The Young Ones.) From there we went to Target to pick up a few things. We got some Hello Kitty Roof-of-Your-Mouth Tape. Don't ask. She got a couple CDs (one of which, Sarah Brightman, is still in the CD player in my Jeep. I remembered it as I was about 4 minutes from her house last night after I dropped her off, and just for a moment I considered seizing the opportunity to go tap on her bedroom window. But I didn't.). I got a couple of DVDs - Simply Irresistable, starring Sarah Michelle NotBuffy, and the live-action Batman: The Movie, wherein the Caped Crusaders try to rescue the international leaders who have been turned into piles of colourful sand by the bad guys. (Rather touchingly, all the leaders turn into completely different coloured sand. It gives a nice feeling of diversity.) Really, at $5.99 each, I couldn't afford to NOT get them, right? We also frightened an old woman by looking and pointing at her cart full of Hello Kitty merchandise. I'm sure she thought we were going to sack her and pillage her stuff. (I just used the word 'sack.' Yes, it's definitely football season again.)
Then we went onto Venice Island for lunch and to visit some of her old teachers again before SHE COMES BACK TO ORLANDO. Ate at the quaint little sandwich/ice cream shop where we had gone the first time I went down there this summer. Mariana had warned me that we had to time things just right, to get onto the campus at just the right time to avoid the crush of students leaving the campus and jamming up the streets. So we had to eat in a bit of a hurry.
Got to campus fine, and first went to see one of her English teachers. I mostly dawdled in the background while they chatted and caught up a bit. At one point the teacher asked me, as an assumption, if I was a senior (in college), since Mariana had told her in our introductions that I am going to be teaching high school English; I told her no, I'd graduated, but I didn't clarify much further. About teaching, she told me not to get discouraged, that lots of teaching jobs would be opening up...in the next five years. Uh-huh, thanks for that. It's good to know that my un(der)employment shouldn't last more than five more years. I thought she was going to tell me that the jobs would be opening up after the Labor Day late enrollments, when school systems calculate their actual enrollments, or December, when school systems release some teachers after their probationary periods. (This is what I had been told elsewhere; see below.) Later on, though, as Mariana plotted with the teacher about how best to sneak onto campus today (Thursday), the teacher jokingly warned her not to bring me, the clear implication being, I'm now WAY past the point of "passing." Of course my pride was crushed, but Mariana reminded me that the teacher had also assumed I was still a senior, so I was a little reassured by that.
Then we visited one of her math teachers. Very cool teacher. Mariana reluctantly confessed that she had done other than pass calculus at UCF. The teacher wasn't too disappointed, and told her that 70% of college students do other than pass calculus. Mariana didn't feel much better knowing she was still part of the 70% majority. The teacher also encouraged her to take calculus again. The teacher also spoke to me as though she assumed I go to UCF also, but again, I didn't clarify.
By that time, Mariana wasn't feeling too well, probably as a result of having eaten too quickly in our zeal to get onto campus at a good time. So we sat for a few minutes until she felt a little better.

(I have just saved this entry, so I don't get burned again by any sudden blackouts. Quite important, particularly today.)

From there we went to Venice Beach; I had told her that I wouldn't mind wetting my feet in the surf one more time (this being the last real visit I would be making down there for the summer). So we walked, and I splashed; Mariana walked, and took pictures. I imagine you'll be seeing some of them sooner or later. But her apathy to the beach caught up with her, and I sheepishly followed her back to the car, again feeling awful about selfishly dragging her to the beach.
Then came lunch at a nearby fast-food joint. I was wearing different shorts. Mariana's dress was wet.
By that time, we didn't have any more particular plans, so we drove around a bit, exploring parts of town we'd never been to. But lack of sleep and the long day was catching up with both of us, so we stopped somewhere and rested for a long while. At one point we almost received a visit from one of Venice's Finest at a particularly inconvenient moment, so we took the hint and left. The night was ending quickly, and after another stop or two, we reluctantly went back to her house. Loaded up the car with a load of her stuff, to make sure we would have room for the entire rest of her stuff NEXT WEEK WHEN SHE COMES HOME. Annoyed her sister. Swatted skeeters. Nuzzled. Mariana sprayed me with some Off insect-repellant, since we could see that the skeeters had invaded the Jeep from having all the doors open to load it up. One rather bold skeeter actually put the Jeep in reverse while we weren't looking and was trying to back it up. But I repeatedly clubbed it with my shoe until it relinquished the steering wheel and went back across the street, where I could still see it rubbing its head and sulking.
Three hours (counting a massive slowdown through a construction zone) and 155 miles later, I gratefully collapsed into bed. I was covered with a sticky layer of sea salt, sweat, and deadly chemicals (from the Off), but I was far too tired to shower. What the hell, it was time to change the sheets on the bed anyway.

I woke up this morning feeling okay, but looking like an asymmetrical chipmunk, with a badly swollen right cheek. An old childhood filling fell out a few months back, but it hadn't been hurting, so I mostly just forgot about it. But over time the tooth gradually fragmented, and apparently it had absessed, and only last night started swelling. It's still not particularly painful, but I am aware that something funky is going on in there. I can chew on it, though, and drink cold liquids, so it can't be too bad. Went to the dentist. Fell dead sound asleep in the chair while they developed the X-ray. Got prescriptions for Vicodin and penicillin, to kill the infection and bring down the swelling. Getting it yanked Tuesday morning.

And that's where things are right now. Earlier this week I met with the Human Resources director for the school system of a nearby county. My best friend has a professional and personal relationship with the HR director and asked her to help me out, so I am shamelessly and blatantly benefitting from, uh, some networking. While talking, the HR director gave me what she calls her routine "Are you sure you want to be a teacher?" speech. The basic message of this speech is to say, teaching sucks; the students are animals; the parents are a pain; every teacher eventually gets assaulted, arrested, sued, or fired; and there's no way to succeed. I nodded and said yeah, well, when can I start? But I was told to wait until after Labor Day. Counties would have their final enrollments by then, and would know how many additional teachers they might need. Plus, perhaps ten percent of newly hired teachers would not be retained when their probationary periods end in December, so there would be another hiring blitz then. Until then, I should just be a substitute teacher as often as possible, so that's what I'll be doing.

We're down to three kittens now. My brother managed to give one of them away. But the good news is that the neighbour's cat appears to be pregnant again, that little hussy, so we're wondering if she will again choose to deposit her young'uns in our garage. I doubt she will, though.

But now I'm just sitting here feeling ewwwwy. I don't know if it's the absess, or being strung out from lack of sleep or from wildly fluctuating sleep schedules, or what. Probably a combination, of course. I'm waiting for Babeness to come online, but I'm probably going to drag myself off to bed pretty soon. I'll stick around as long as I can, though.

1. How much time do you spend online each day?
4-5 hours. It varies, of course, but that's about average, I guess.
2. What is your browser homepage set to?
Pretty basic: Netscape is set to Netscape.com, and IE is set to MSN.com. For both browsers, I've used their sign-in features to assemble custom home-pages, with content, links, etc., that I've selected from all their options. I don't always check them out, though, and mostly just browse the headlines from those main sites.
3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?
AOL AIM ("MasterRobpie"), and MSN Messenger ("RPie"). I have an ICQ number, but I never really use it, and I'm way too tired to load up ICQ to find out what the number is.
4. Where was your first webpage located?
Look at the top of the screen. This IS the first webpage.
"First website?" Have we progressed to the point where we just assume that people have had more than one? And if so, is that "progress"?
5. How long have you had your current website?
Since last September (2002).

8/14/2003 Thursday 12:24 PM
And let that be a lesson to you all, boys and girls. ALWAYS SAVE YOUR WORK. We just had a split-second power outage that killed the update I was typing. Don't you know I had already blogged my way through yesterday's shenanigans (and I always thought "SheNanigans" would be an awesome screen-name for a girl), my toof, and most of my meeting with the HR director in Osceola. And then it all disappeared into the ether. Fuck it, I don't have time to retype it all right now, it'll have to wait.

8/13/2003 Wednesday 7:26 AM
I'm alive, despite all appearances to the contrary. Just been very busy with the usual: job-hunting, working, and apathy.

I am very happy to announce that I had another Jason dream, apparently in anticipation of The Movie.

I also have created a LiveJournal, compliments of Babeness. It's The Other Hellmouth. No, don't go there yet, there's nothing there. Literally. I just created it about five minutes ago. But keep checking back there. Eventually, soon, there might be Stuff there. I have no idea what. I'm taking suggestions.

Anyway, I'm off to see my love. Wonderful Wednesday, and all that. Don't wait up.
She comes home next week, did I mention that?

8/09/2003 Saturday 10:05 AM
The Friendster count is now up to 1317, many of whom, it seems, are self-proclaimed DJs and nightclub whores. (Overheard from Mariana: "I'm connected to whores!") Sometimes I like being a dork.

8/08/2003 Friday 11:36 PM
My Friendster community has exploded from the meager little commune of 7 that Babeness and I threw together, into the unruly mob of 132 that it is today. There's one person to blame for this population explosion, but I shan't name her. (My not naming her makes her the "missing link," and don't you know I'm just laughing myself silly at that joke.) Still, though all this hoohaw, I've only just now added my fifth friend. I'm sure that still qualifies me as a Dork, and might even cross the line into Lonerville.
Update: I'm now connected to no less than 1315 people. I can't handle this much faux popularity.
If you want me, I'll be huddled up under the desk, eating tuna out of a can, wearing fingerless gloves, and reading weeks-old newspapers by candlelight.

8/08/2003 Friday 8:48 AM
I was too tired and lazy to do it last night, but I finally uploaded the pic of the holy Sam Ash store Babeness and I saw Wednesday. It's a composite of four pics, and due to the limitations of the online storage, it's heavily compressed and doesn't do justice to either the store or any one of the pics that I used to make the composite image. But just...imagine it. You can get the overall impression of the place. It's here. I also placed the link to the pic within the text, below, that I typed last night.

Made it down to Babeness's house at the usual time yesterday morning. First we watched an episode of Sailor Moon, with her patiently explaining the nuances and back-story as necessary. Then I cajoled her into watching an episode of 'The Young Ones' all of which I had burnt on CDs for her. She was not amused. I must think of a different strategy to get her to appreciate the show.
From there we finally left to go to Tampa, to see an anime shop she knew about. On the way out, we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a few items, for Mariana's apartment, and some odd zen ends. Mariana got a planner (which didn't quite meet her specifications), a dishrack, a water filter, some other stuff. I got a battery pack for my camera. She also tried to get a battery for her watch, which has been a little troublesome, but apparently the problem is not the battery itself, but rather that the batteries sit a little too loosely in the watch hardware itself.
So from there we started driving up to Tampa. Mariana was reading some magazines she'd picked up, and by the time we got near Tampa, she was really suffering from headache and reading-induced nausea. So we stopped off at a Panera Bread for a light, nourishing lunch, to try to settle her stomach. Before we even walked in, she kinda hung her head out of the window, fearing the worst. But fortunately the worst never happened.
Then we got back on the road. We saw a Sam Ash music store, and we decided to stop in to search for some particular sheet music that she needs. Wow! Apparently this building served as a Gothic cathedral in another life. It was beautiful - ornate columns, frescos, statues, ivy-covered fencing, courtyards, the whole works. I wish I had taken pics of the inside, but I think they would have shooed me away. I felt like whispering in there. Anyway, here's some pics of the outside of the place.
Then we went up to the anime shop. It was tucked away in an industrial park, mostly in the middle of nowhere.
They don't sell anime porn.
At least, not over the counter. Only by mail.
They also don't sell it to you if you discretely slip a fifty under the garage door back in the warehouse portion of their building. Nor do they return the fifty.
The anime shop itself was a bit...odd. First thing we saw when we went in was a roped-off section, down a hallway. We weren't immediately sure we were even in the right place. We saw a dog scampering around, women typing at computers in small offices, and a couple of kids playing video games in other small offices. But we went down the hallway and it opened up into the retail portion, walls covered with DVDs and videos. As I stood looking at one display, the dog began sniffing my ankles.
We were mostly disappointed with the anime shop. It was much smaller than what we expected, and they don't sell porn over the counter.
Since it was still only mid-afternoon or so, and we didn't have anything else specific to do or see, we decided to wander around a bit rather than head straight back down to Venice. Wandering around, of course, sometimes leads to wandering around utterly lost, and so it did. We saw big piles of dirt for sale. We saw cows. We saw bridges, highways, and streets, but nothing that seemed to promise delivery to any of the major highways we knew about. Finally I stopped at a gas station and...*gulp*...broke the guy code and bought a map. With that we were able to negotiate our way back to the highway system.
We drove by Raymond James Stadium, and the Yankees spring-training field, and then what the map indicated would be a large mall, but the mall, surprisingly, was closed down.
How do entire malls close down??
We then drove to another mall on the way down. Wandered around a bit. Mariana got some jeans for under $4.
How do entire jeans sell for under $4??
She also got some other stuff. We got a bag of candy and nibbled on that - malted milk balls, various of those icky 'gummy' stuff, jelly beans, etc. As we were leaving, her friend Kristen called and invited us to dinner with her and another of their mutual friends. We were over an hour away, though, so she just said we'll call them back as we got nearer to Venice. And we did. Met them at a Denny's.
Sat around at Denny's for a long while. Mariana got a Philly cheese sub; I got the mini-burgers. I was also getting VERY tired and sleepy. Mariana kept offering to leave, but I didn't want to be the one to break up the party or take Babeness away from her friends. Mariana had to turn down Kristen's offer to go back up to Gainesville with her for a spontaneous road trip.
From there we retired to Felix's house for some more hanging of outness. I was kinda feeling like the third wheel around Mariana and her friends, despite their valiant efforts to keep me included. When we arrived, I made a half-hearted offer to leave, rather than interrupt the out-hangingness after a little while by getting up to leave. But saying goodbye to her is never that easy, so I decided to stay for a bit. It was already after midnight, though, so after a little while, Mariana and I left. We were still about a half-hour away from her house, and from there I still had the two-and-a-half hour drive back home, so we knew we had to leave. We drove around and finally got her home. Somehow I had lost the button from my shorts, and as I walked her to her door and helped her carry her stuff, I had to use my elbows to make sure my shorts didn't drop to my ankles. And that barely worked. I was praying that her parents wouldn't pick that night to greet her at the door or say hello to me or something. It would not do to wave or shake a hand and suddenly display myself in such a way.
I was completely wiped out by then. Somehow I made it home. Thank goodness for long desolate straightaways on the interstates, where I can doze off without hitting anybody else.
I missed Mariana on the way home, and I miss her now. She'll be home in 13 days.

This morning I was still wiped out. I had to do some job-hunting stuff, so I got up after not nearly enough sleep. Took (and/or attempted to take) several naps throughout the day. Still feel a little groggy.

Overheard from Mariana at 4:12 yesterday afternoon:
"It's just a friendly little get-together, except something gets killed at the end."

1. What's the last place you traveled to, outside your own home state/country?
Maryland, the family homestead, for my grandfather's funeral.
2. What's the most bizarre/unusual thing that's ever happened to you while traveling?
On a car-trip from Tennessee to Maryland as a kid one summer, I was violently ill the whole trip. We kept having to pull over so I could puke. I puked until my stomach was empty, I puked up the Pepto Bismol, I puked up water. I only stopped puking an hour or two from the end of the trip.
3. If you could take off to anywhere, money and time being no object, where would you go?
Guam, with my babeness.
4. Do you prefer traveling by plane, train or car?
Car or plane. Depends on where I'm going and who I'm going with.
5. What's the next place on your list to visit?
Probably Maryland/DC again.

8/06/2003 Wednesday 6:49 AM
Mariana has been located.
Apparently, she has been living in her house the whole time, but I couldn't find evidence of it. In a few hours, I'll see for myself.
Don't wait up.

8/02/2003 Saturday 10:06 PM
This is one of the non-compelling pics I snapped Wonderful Wednesday this week. I'm calling this one 'Hope.'

Babeness is out with some friends tonight. I've been driving around in the rain all day. So tonight I'm going to relax on the couch, read through the paper or something, and commune with the houndz.