Obviously not going to finish by 2017...
5/1: Dad is picking up the D&D crew {which also happens to be the newly re-united online crew} from a major crowd outside a convention or theater or high school or somesuch. {Shift} With a family of four bears, the parents are talking, the cubs act more like one would expect baby bears. I’m running around a neat standing-stone-and-water area, playing tag with the cubs. The parents are encouraging the cubs to run around, and also something with books. {Shift} I’m in a tux getting ready for a lesbian wedding, Dodd is also attending, there’s a 3-story house with an excellent library and a grand central lobby overlooked by balconies. {shift} I’m remembering something that just happened in an “Opus” book, but I’m not sure about people’s reactions to to renting. Cuddly morning. Disorganized start, couldn’t find all our things, kept mixing up. Watched a bit of “Golden Girls”. Checked out, started towards Huntsville. Met cousin and uncle, sat and chatted far longer than we should have. Cousin finally got dressed, we headed out to the Von Braun Center. Other cousin’s GPS gave us bad directions, but we found free parking within walking distance, and were far enough away that there wasn’t as much traffic, so it was a happy mistake. Plenty of time before the commencement commenced. Sweetheart picked up a t-shirt they were selling outside, with the graduating class’s names printed on the back. Some jokes about how the seating and the fact that they were selling refreshments made it seem like a sporting event. Liked the senator’s message, but mediocre delivery. To the contrary, the invocation was much better than expected. Reception afterwards was a great idea, I feel like the graduation preparations I remember were somewhat haphazard; we stayed until security started ushering people out. Walked through a loverly park with a natural spring and a creek filled with carp and small fish. Made our way to one shopping center where we had planned to go to a Mexican restaurant that apparently had a half-hour wait, found a Thai place with no wait instead, got them to join us there. Cousin got it completely backwards, he picked up the check; too sweet for words. We figured different travel times. At first Sweetheart’s GPS was saying “due to construction, this information is unavailable”, so there was no way to drive home, although it was able to determine that we could walk it in 2 days and 14 hours. Eventually it started working again. Due to darkness, with worries of deer and fatigue and visibility, we decided to take the interstate, despite it being about 20 minutes longer than the more direct hillside route. Sweetheart took the wheel, while I did my best to fill in my Habitica habits with spotty internet.
5/2: Arrived after midnight, did some cursory cleanup and preparation, went to bed. There’s some kind of fantasy-themed setting in which I have a monstrous shadow. (Devil? Dragon?) Sort of like Magi-Quest, there’s a maze and some of my friends are around (I can only specifically remember moonchain), and I’ve managed to trap and trick a few of them. {shift} There’s a massive museum or other fancy public building. Walking through it to one side, there’s a shop advertising Christmas shopping. I go down to the basement to get the car with John. Someone is messing with the locks or battery, somehow flipping it back whenever I unlock/turn it on. John says something like, “Hey, not cool bro,” and they stop messing with it and climb into the back seat. Museum is obviously analogous to the lodge, no clue about the rest. Two mornings in a row I’ve woken up right before the alarm went off and remembered my dreams. Sweetheart dropped me off at the clinic to take blood in preparation for next week’s doctor visit. Ate at T-Killaz, tried to go with eating less but the portion sizes were unexpectedly generous. Saw a very different path between the bank and President Park than I remember from long ago. Caught up from weekend gap, including laundry that was quarantined for possible nervous ticks. Sweetheart made a fantastic sauce with leftover butternut, freshly-grated coconut, and some kind of tasty paste we found. We watched the first episode of Animaniacs - not as funny as I remember, but I have hopes for further episodes.
5/3: Restless night. Dreams included something about X-Men: First Class, using Microsoft Outlook on the pocket computer, and turning a watermelon into a sauce. I think that last one was related to the coconut from last night. Computer was dragging today. Saw Bill during “Coffee with a Cop”. Met cousin and uncle at Madras Mantra for lunch as they were passing through Atlanta - got our revenge on cousin by picking up the check. Felt like I was trying to get too much done today, and the slow connection/processing wasn’t helping. Came home, tried to open key safe, failed, will have to try again later. Met one of Sweetheart’s colleagues for dinner at Chef Liu, very pleasant. I missed parts of the conversation, but Sweetheart says she gets that way sometimes as well. Stayed up later than I should have.
5/4: Dreams were obviously inspired by politic news from last night - some kind of political game. Biggest chunk of the day was trying to come up with a good system for work flow. Went to another Zumba class, lots of fun. Took the shuttle home, strong reminiscence of “the old days”. Lots of wind, spatters of rain. Sweetheart was very snuggly after not seeing me until late night. Tried new “Tidy 10” method. Disappointment - found that the koku program is finished.
5/5: Sweetheart was having tummy trouble last night, up and down, so I couldn’t sleep either. Although apparently I did eventually. I wasn’t in this dream.Antisocial? Autistic? Alien? woman is crossing the street, weaving her way through a slow-moving special education class. She gets a job at a factory store of some kind - like Ikea? She completely renovates the roof, with which the business owners (a couple) are very happy, and turns it into some kind of salon. Time jump to her marrying a husband like Starlord. Except someone from space is after him. They send a few tracking missiles (kind of like the crimelord’s killer whistle stick) after him, which he manages to dodge. She closes the salon early and ushers everyone out and she and her husband hide with the business owners and their kids, much to their surprise. UFO comes down, and husband gives himself up to prevent anyone else being bothered. He’s sitting on the edge of a ledge with the crimelord, and they’re talking about superhero movies, and looking at a huge poster/display with the complete lineup, and pointing out which ones they can identify. Somehow that moves to going to a flea market to pick up movies they missed. Some days, my dreams take up more of my journal than my waking life. Pretty good run on the start of my to-do list, met Sweetheart for lunch at Tin Lizzy’s, was lightly drunk the rest of the working day. Lots of writing for Pathfinder.
⅚: Woke up to cuddling. Forgot my pocket tricorder. Keyboard and mouse non-responsive, had to restart the computer. Non-starter day. After Tai Chi, found one of the five hundred graduation parties around campus, had soup and salad, secretly left sweets for Sweetheart. Tried looking for the car, found out Sweetheart had never come to work. Did a few Board things, read a lot. Shopped at Farmer’s Market, lots of back-and-forth and indecision. Swung by Pallookaville; open again but no parking, and I’m assuming a wait inside as well. Ate leftovers at home instead. First round of cleaning, watched “Intolerable Cruelty”; latter was amusing but not good, could have used a lot of help propping up, and some stuff just didn’t make sense. Weak characters. Bed relatively early, went to sleep with arms curled around me. God I hope it was her.
5/7: Multilevel MARTA, larger than Five Points and kind of a megamall feel; train is on an angled track, the conductor slows down and speeds up in particular areas to jump across gaps in the track, not unlike a video game. Some kind of catastrophe. {skip} I’m a very young boy, staying behind during a recess or field trip or somesuch. Teachers seem unsure how to handle me being around. The school is more like a modified house. I’m coloring cloudscapes, using surprisingly advanced techniques. {skip} I’m driving around the island, and online at the same time, getting Marsha’s password wrong. Not sure if there was some advance interface, or I was just being bad and texting while driving. Spent the morning cleaning, doing a little bit of party prep. Went to gym, Zumba instructor didn’t show up, and the staff didn’t know where she was. Came back, pre-pared (literal word origin) food. Started at Maria’s place a while after noon, got the dog to fall in love with me. Maria poured us each a full cup, which kind of hit me. I didn’t think she got the memo that we were doing tastings. Lightly buzzed the rest of the afternoon. Met neighbors, got to check out a few places, very nice afternoon. Next went to one of Sweetheart’s former roommate’s son’s birthday party - not quite sure what I was doing there, everyone but the nextdoor neighbors had kids, but I had a good time regardless. Forgot to get cards from anyone. Got home after 10.
⅝: I’m walking around the neighborhood with chris_warrior, 1coldbeer, and ?{maybe my sister?}. chris_warrior is trying to prove that magic exists, and keeps pointing at things that should be obvious, but apparently they keep disappearing right before I see them. 1coldbeer isn’t saying much one way or the other, but seems to be supporting chris_warrior in his silence. I finally think I see a plant floating in midair, but when we get closer it turns out to be a green plant that’s grown around a power line. (I’ve seen a section of tree that did this in real life.) We join a group in a small clearing, open plank-on-log benches (akin to Scout Camp), surrounded by a dozen tiny five-by-five seclusion rooms; like half a “tiny house” or a doublewide outhouse intended for meditation instead of evacuation. The rabbi is giving a sermon, and after overhearing our conversation about magic he shifts his talk to tell us how magic is evil. We decide this isn’t our gig and walk away with a crowd, which turns into helping my Scout Troop cross a street. There are some kind of military/police officers at the crossing, and there’s some concern that they might give us trouble, but between the fact that we’re well-organized and simultaneously act like we don’t care about them, they peer at us but don’t hold us back. We go into some kind of spook house, where I’m overlooking the kids having fun and getting a sort of contact high. Some connection to the Cartoon Network “Adult Swim” series, and a flirty woman joins me. I decide there should be an artistic touch to the movie we’re making, since this is a really great house, and take a long shot walking down a beautiful purple hallway. She stops me before we get to the end, somewhat embarrassed, and I notice scattered bras and whatnot barely visible in the distance. (Probably a metaphor for Sweetheart cleaning up the bedroom.) I instead turn into a great study with green and yellow accents and red window frames (two of the places we visited yesterday had bright colors). I also got a great shot of a gorgeous staircase (5 stories at least) that seemed to shift when you looked at it from different places. Mostly writing during the morning. Initial plan was to meet Ambuj and Arch for hiking, but after consulting the weather, decided to play games instead. Had fun with Robo Rally and No Thanks - I won the second hand, Sweetheart won the first. Munched on wine tour leftovers. Bought gift certificates for various mothers. Then we went to meet Seth & Suzanne for dinner. The place they suggested had closed, they were afraid of that, then we stopped by Desta, which had a 45 minute wait, and ended up at Himalayan Spice. Loverly time hanging out. Returned home, sent some information to remote D&D peoples.
5/9: A group is sneaking among what appear to be statues of enormous serpents. A saber-wielding man is confident that he will discover the real snake. He chops at the wrong one, and the real one comes up behind him and devours him. He seems remarkably unconcerned about being eaten. {Skip} I’m at camp with a few other kids. One of them is a psychopath, literally knife-wielding at times. Another friend and I are trying to get him towards the adults where they can take care of him, without him catching on. Even in the office he pulls out a knife when the Ron Swanson-looking man isn’t looking, but hides it again when the (councilor? ranger?) turns back to face us. The campground melds to a campus, and I walk into a fancy magazine studio. Woke up just before the alarm again. Got everything lined up, tried sneaking around the side of work to get past the hordes of people going to graduation. Doctor said she declared me healthy, although I’m not really happy with the answers of not doing anything about hand pain or stomach acid. Hilarity in the gym: “Call on Me” on the radio, and observing how people who are almost going the same speed on the track are like people who are almost going the same speed in a regular hallway, except it’s even more awkward because there’s no end to the track. Walking down the trail seemed incredibly lush - like only 10% of the sun was reaching the ground. Met a new student at work. Tried getting in touch with fellow board members, no luck. Watched Star Trek and ate risotto.
5/10: Slept through alarm, Sweetheart finally woke me up at 8. Read most of the day. Realized I needed to do something right before I left work. Stopped for a Redbox when I realized I had a coupon about to expire, then after pulling the disc I realized I missed the chance to put in a code, so I got charged for one. Insisted on getting the free one, pulled another disc, decided to make a movie night. Picked up microwave pizzas and popcorn (and a few other groceries), watched “Sisters” (very good) and “50 Shades of Black” (very bad).
5/11: Found a notepad, presumably my dreams: Dad making breakfast. Playing “bad side” in Star Wars, card games, etc. J commenting on “new” Scooby Doo cartoon, set in 20s. Got back into groove of getting stuff done, although I did still read a lot of 9gag. Cleared desk. Set agenda for tomorrow. Did half of the zumba class, still a little concerned about overextension. Took off for Zeppelin’s party, got there early, but there were still people already setting up. Wonderful time chatting with people. Got a smidge drunk from sangria. When we got home, the car gate was acting up. Tried fixing it, but no luck. Went to bed relatively early, early departure tomorrow. Discovered a mosquito bite on my stomach.
5/12: I’m going around someone’s apartment. There’s a sore or something on my stomach and gunk is coming out of it. I push at the edges and it comes out like toothpaste, and I keep doing this periodically and it just keeps coming out. Somewhere along the way I wonder if this is going to affect my health. Someone makes a reference to “Seinfeld”. I tried the car gate one more time and it starts working. Left early, forgot my phone. Hey, the car gate started working again! Got back on-track with work process. Nice chatting with office mates. Relatively fast board meeting, ended sooner than usual. Lots of absences. Watched “Akira” - not impressed, but some neat ideas. Made some really nice maps in Roll20, not sure if we’ll end up using them.
5/13: Dreamt about board meeting (clear overlap), gathering supplies in the desert (no idea), and Disney’s Baloo/Little John - somehow the same character in my dream (still no idea). Got a little bit of tidying and preparation done, met the AC inspector. I asked if they had any weird calls recently. Apparently someone asked for them to repair the heat last week - when it was in the 90s. Went out for a fancy shop, decided to divert to Burlington, found a rather stylish suit that fit splendidly, and several dresses for Sweetheart. Chatted with someone in line about pending wedding and weekend getaways. Romy showed up while we were still getting ready, but had wisely planned a bit of leeway. I gave her a letter, since I’m still getting mail for her. Pleasant drive up, discovered on arrival that it was the same place as Gil and Gretchen’s wedding. Awkward getting into discussion groove at first, eventually got to talk to everyone. Jason wed Lynn and Rob on a deck overlooking the water. All kinds of nice touches - they gave out sunglasses as memorabilia, had “sketch the couple” as placemats, had an ice cream truck as a transition between the wedding and the reception dinner. Highly alcoholic lemonade was available, a bunch of people made “Tipsy Arnold Palmer”s. We walked along the river a little bit until we decided we had enough mosquitoes… they definitely got me. Barbecue dinner (I went for sides). Danced until one of my shoes literally split - Arielle said, “I forgot how much fun it is dancing with you”. Danced several times with Sweetheart, and one swing song with Theresa, mostly did freestyle. Apparently did a really fun breakdown of the Cabbage Patch, since people clapped afterwards. They insisted we take a lot of stuff home. Curiously, barely talked to Romy at all during the party, but lots of chance to catch up during the drive.
5/14: Dreams included a class reunion, Anthony Mackie, Christmas shopping, and a gift fakeout (something fun inside a vacuum cleaner box, I think?). Chance to sleep in, but I got woken up. Called gym, no Zumba planned, decided to go downtown with Sweetheart. Couldn’t connect, read a lot. Decided to have brunch at Tin Lizzy’s, still took a really long time to connect, wasn’t editing well. Sweetheart surprised me. Got stuck in traffic with really bad driving. Shopping was terminally boring, and I was confused about the lack of clear goals. Had fun running with a shopping cart. Left a box of leftovers that she had specifically packed for me somewhere in the store. She scratched her ankle on a corner at home. I lifted one of the shelf boxes myself. After taking care of that, it was almost time to go again - nowhere near as much time as I thought we had. Got caught in pointless FaceBook arguments, and annoyed at the whole “Trump chalking” media explosion. Nice time talking with Oakleys, admiring art in the house. Almost the same dinner as last night, right down to the alcoholic lemonade (and my Tipsy Arnold Palmer therefrom). Saw a carnival in front of Northlake Mall, and the Ferris Wheel had colored lights. I loved the psychedelic pattern. I can’t say it was the worst day in the world, but it definitely had its disappointments.
5/15: My brother has a date with Morgan at a carnival {obviously inspired by last night}. I happen to be at the same carnival, but once I realize the situation I don’t want to intrude, despite S’mom calling and asking me for details. I see her leaving early-ish, and I want to try to meet up with him in case he needs consolation. Transition to a mini-mall (reminiscent of larger groups of artist buildings next to Gatlinburg) that still has a few nods to the carnival atmosphere, like a hall of mirrors and an indoor bumper car place. Assembled Ikea shelf. Had a really fun time with game on roll20 - all kinds of useful capabilities! Also haven’t heard from some of these friends in years. With very little time between game and dance, felt like I tried to do too much this weekend. Finally got back to tango after months, but at the same time, a little disappointed in the whirlwind state of the house.
5/16: Late wakeup - must have left the computer outside of hearing distance. Great energy in morning, getting through my daily ritual. Went for lunch at Tin Lizzy’s, Matt told me he was leaving in a week, menu was completely revamped. On the way back, I felt a pressure I thought was gas, and let it out, and it was liquid instead. Called Sweetheart to ask if she could take me home. Long period at home wandering around, picking up tidbits here and there, cooking, and whathaveyou. Did a lot of Roll20 stuff. Felt disconnected from Sweetheart.
5/2: Arrived after midnight, did some cursory cleanup and preparation, went to bed. There’s some kind of fantasy-themed setting in which I have a monstrous shadow. (Devil? Dragon?) Sort of like Magi-Quest, there’s a maze and some of my friends are around (I can only specifically remember moonchain), and I’ve managed to trap and trick a few of them. {shift} There’s a massive museum or other fancy public building. Walking through it to one side, there’s a shop advertising Christmas shopping. I go down to the basement to get the car with John. Someone is messing with the locks or battery, somehow flipping it back whenever I unlock/turn it on. John says something like, “Hey, not cool bro,” and they stop messing with it and climb into the back seat. Museum is obviously analogous to the lodge, no clue about the rest. Two mornings in a row I’ve woken up right before the alarm went off and remembered my dreams. Sweetheart dropped me off at the clinic to take blood in preparation for next week’s doctor visit. Ate at T-Killaz, tried to go with eating less but the portion sizes were unexpectedly generous. Saw a very different path between the bank and President Park than I remember from long ago. Caught up from weekend gap, including laundry that was quarantined for possible nervous ticks. Sweetheart made a fantastic sauce with leftover butternut, freshly-grated coconut, and some kind of tasty paste we found. We watched the first episode of Animaniacs - not as funny as I remember, but I have hopes for further episodes.
5/3: Restless night. Dreams included something about X-Men: First Class, using Microsoft Outlook on the pocket computer, and turning a watermelon into a sauce. I think that last one was related to the coconut from last night. Computer was dragging today. Saw Bill during “Coffee with a Cop”. Met cousin and uncle at Madras Mantra for lunch as they were passing through Atlanta - got our revenge on cousin by picking up the check. Felt like I was trying to get too much done today, and the slow connection/processing wasn’t helping. Came home, tried to open key safe, failed, will have to try again later. Met one of Sweetheart’s colleagues for dinner at Chef Liu, very pleasant. I missed parts of the conversation, but Sweetheart says she gets that way sometimes as well. Stayed up later than I should have.
5/4: Dreams were obviously inspired by politic news from last night - some kind of political game. Biggest chunk of the day was trying to come up with a good system for work flow. Went to another Zumba class, lots of fun. Took the shuttle home, strong reminiscence of “the old days”. Lots of wind, spatters of rain. Sweetheart was very snuggly after not seeing me until late night. Tried new “Tidy 10” method. Disappointment - found that the koku program is finished.
5/5: Sweetheart was having tummy trouble last night, up and down, so I couldn’t sleep either. Although apparently I did eventually. I wasn’t in this dream.Antisocial? Autistic? Alien? woman is crossing the street, weaving her way through a slow-moving special education class. She gets a job at a factory store of some kind - like Ikea? She completely renovates the roof, with which the business owners (a couple) are very happy, and turns it into some kind of salon. Time jump to her marrying a husband like Starlord. Except someone from space is after him. They send a few tracking missiles (kind of like the crimelord’s killer whistle stick) after him, which he manages to dodge. She closes the salon early and ushers everyone out and she and her husband hide with the business owners and their kids, much to their surprise. UFO comes down, and husband gives himself up to prevent anyone else being bothered. He’s sitting on the edge of a ledge with the crimelord, and they’re talking about superhero movies, and looking at a huge poster/display with the complete lineup, and pointing out which ones they can identify. Somehow that moves to going to a flea market to pick up movies they missed. Some days, my dreams take up more of my journal than my waking life. Pretty good run on the start of my to-do list, met Sweetheart for lunch at Tin Lizzy’s, was lightly drunk the rest of the working day. Lots of writing for Pathfinder.
⅚: Woke up to cuddling. Forgot my pocket tricorder. Keyboard and mouse non-responsive, had to restart the computer. Non-starter day. After Tai Chi, found one of the five hundred graduation parties around campus, had soup and salad, secretly left sweets for Sweetheart. Tried looking for the car, found out Sweetheart had never come to work. Did a few Board things, read a lot. Shopped at Farmer’s Market, lots of back-and-forth and indecision. Swung by Pallookaville; open again but no parking, and I’m assuming a wait inside as well. Ate leftovers at home instead. First round of cleaning, watched “Intolerable Cruelty”; latter was amusing but not good, could have used a lot of help propping up, and some stuff just didn’t make sense. Weak characters. Bed relatively early, went to sleep with arms curled around me. God I hope it was her.
5/7: Multilevel MARTA, larger than Five Points and kind of a megamall feel; train is on an angled track, the conductor slows down and speeds up in particular areas to jump across gaps in the track, not unlike a video game. Some kind of catastrophe. {skip} I’m a very young boy, staying behind during a recess or field trip or somesuch. Teachers seem unsure how to handle me being around. The school is more like a modified house. I’m coloring cloudscapes, using surprisingly advanced techniques. {skip} I’m driving around the island, and online at the same time, getting Marsha’s password wrong. Not sure if there was some advance interface, or I was just being bad and texting while driving. Spent the morning cleaning, doing a little bit of party prep. Went to gym, Zumba instructor didn’t show up, and the staff didn’t know where she was. Came back, pre-pared (literal word origin) food. Started at Maria’s place a while after noon, got the dog to fall in love with me. Maria poured us each a full cup, which kind of hit me. I didn’t think she got the memo that we were doing tastings. Lightly buzzed the rest of the afternoon. Met neighbors, got to check out a few places, very nice afternoon. Next went to one of Sweetheart’s former roommate’s son’s birthday party - not quite sure what I was doing there, everyone but the nextdoor neighbors had kids, but I had a good time regardless. Forgot to get cards from anyone. Got home after 10.
⅝: I’m walking around the neighborhood with chris_warrior, 1coldbeer, and ?{maybe my sister?}. chris_warrior is trying to prove that magic exists, and keeps pointing at things that should be obvious, but apparently they keep disappearing right before I see them. 1coldbeer isn’t saying much one way or the other, but seems to be supporting chris_warrior in his silence. I finally think I see a plant floating in midair, but when we get closer it turns out to be a green plant that’s grown around a power line. (I’ve seen a section of tree that did this in real life.) We join a group in a small clearing, open plank-on-log benches (akin to Scout Camp), surrounded by a dozen tiny five-by-five seclusion rooms; like half a “tiny house” or a doublewide outhouse intended for meditation instead of evacuation. The rabbi is giving a sermon, and after overhearing our conversation about magic he shifts his talk to tell us how magic is evil. We decide this isn’t our gig and walk away with a crowd, which turns into helping my Scout Troop cross a street. There are some kind of military/police officers at the crossing, and there’s some concern that they might give us trouble, but between the fact that we’re well-organized and simultaneously act like we don’t care about them, they peer at us but don’t hold us back. We go into some kind of spook house, where I’m overlooking the kids having fun and getting a sort of contact high. Some connection to the Cartoon Network “Adult Swim” series, and a flirty woman joins me. I decide there should be an artistic touch to the movie we’re making, since this is a really great house, and take a long shot walking down a beautiful purple hallway. She stops me before we get to the end, somewhat embarrassed, and I notice scattered bras and whatnot barely visible in the distance. (Probably a metaphor for Sweetheart cleaning up the bedroom.) I instead turn into a great study with green and yellow accents and red window frames (two of the places we visited yesterday had bright colors). I also got a great shot of a gorgeous staircase (5 stories at least) that seemed to shift when you looked at it from different places. Mostly writing during the morning. Initial plan was to meet Ambuj and Arch for hiking, but after consulting the weather, decided to play games instead. Had fun with Robo Rally and No Thanks - I won the second hand, Sweetheart won the first. Munched on wine tour leftovers. Bought gift certificates for various mothers. Then we went to meet Seth & Suzanne for dinner. The place they suggested had closed, they were afraid of that, then we stopped by Desta, which had a 45 minute wait, and ended up at Himalayan Spice. Loverly time hanging out. Returned home, sent some information to remote D&D peoples.
5/9: A group is sneaking among what appear to be statues of enormous serpents. A saber-wielding man is confident that he will discover the real snake. He chops at the wrong one, and the real one comes up behind him and devours him. He seems remarkably unconcerned about being eaten. {Skip} I’m at camp with a few other kids. One of them is a psychopath, literally knife-wielding at times. Another friend and I are trying to get him towards the adults where they can take care of him, without him catching on. Even in the office he pulls out a knife when the Ron Swanson-looking man isn’t looking, but hides it again when the (councilor? ranger?) turns back to face us. The campground melds to a campus, and I walk into a fancy magazine studio. Woke up just before the alarm again. Got everything lined up, tried sneaking around the side of work to get past the hordes of people going to graduation. Doctor said she declared me healthy, although I’m not really happy with the answers of not doing anything about hand pain or stomach acid. Hilarity in the gym: “Call on Me” on the radio, and observing how people who are almost going the same speed on the track are like people who are almost going the same speed in a regular hallway, except it’s even more awkward because there’s no end to the track. Walking down the trail seemed incredibly lush - like only 10% of the sun was reaching the ground. Met a new student at work. Tried getting in touch with fellow board members, no luck. Watched Star Trek and ate risotto.
5/10: Slept through alarm, Sweetheart finally woke me up at 8. Read most of the day. Realized I needed to do something right before I left work. Stopped for a Redbox when I realized I had a coupon about to expire, then after pulling the disc I realized I missed the chance to put in a code, so I got charged for one. Insisted on getting the free one, pulled another disc, decided to make a movie night. Picked up microwave pizzas and popcorn (and a few other groceries), watched “Sisters” (very good) and “50 Shades of Black” (very bad).
5/11: Found a notepad, presumably my dreams: Dad making breakfast. Playing “bad side” in Star Wars, card games, etc. J commenting on “new” Scooby Doo cartoon, set in 20s. Got back into groove of getting stuff done, although I did still read a lot of 9gag. Cleared desk. Set agenda for tomorrow. Did half of the zumba class, still a little concerned about overextension. Took off for Zeppelin’s party, got there early, but there were still people already setting up. Wonderful time chatting with people. Got a smidge drunk from sangria. When we got home, the car gate was acting up. Tried fixing it, but no luck. Went to bed relatively early, early departure tomorrow. Discovered a mosquito bite on my stomach.
5/12: I’m going around someone’s apartment. There’s a sore or something on my stomach and gunk is coming out of it. I push at the edges and it comes out like toothpaste, and I keep doing this periodically and it just keeps coming out. Somewhere along the way I wonder if this is going to affect my health. Someone makes a reference to “Seinfeld”. I tried the car gate one more time and it starts working. Left early, forgot my phone. Hey, the car gate started working again! Got back on-track with work process. Nice chatting with office mates. Relatively fast board meeting, ended sooner than usual. Lots of absences. Watched “Akira” - not impressed, but some neat ideas. Made some really nice maps in Roll20, not sure if we’ll end up using them.
5/13: Dreamt about board meeting (clear overlap), gathering supplies in the desert (no idea), and Disney’s Baloo/Little John - somehow the same character in my dream (still no idea). Got a little bit of tidying and preparation done, met the AC inspector. I asked if they had any weird calls recently. Apparently someone asked for them to repair the heat last week - when it was in the 90s. Went out for a fancy shop, decided to divert to Burlington, found a rather stylish suit that fit splendidly, and several dresses for Sweetheart. Chatted with someone in line about pending wedding and weekend getaways. Romy showed up while we were still getting ready, but had wisely planned a bit of leeway. I gave her a letter, since I’m still getting mail for her. Pleasant drive up, discovered on arrival that it was the same place as Gil and Gretchen’s wedding. Awkward getting into discussion groove at first, eventually got to talk to everyone. Jason wed Lynn and Rob on a deck overlooking the water. All kinds of nice touches - they gave out sunglasses as memorabilia, had “sketch the couple” as placemats, had an ice cream truck as a transition between the wedding and the reception dinner. Highly alcoholic lemonade was available, a bunch of people made “Tipsy Arnold Palmer”s. We walked along the river a little bit until we decided we had enough mosquitoes… they definitely got me. Barbecue dinner (I went for sides). Danced until one of my shoes literally split - Arielle said, “I forgot how much fun it is dancing with you”. Danced several times with Sweetheart, and one swing song with Theresa, mostly did freestyle. Apparently did a really fun breakdown of the Cabbage Patch, since people clapped afterwards. They insisted we take a lot of stuff home. Curiously, barely talked to Romy at all during the party, but lots of chance to catch up during the drive.
5/14: Dreams included a class reunion, Anthony Mackie, Christmas shopping, and a gift fakeout (something fun inside a vacuum cleaner box, I think?). Chance to sleep in, but I got woken up. Called gym, no Zumba planned, decided to go downtown with Sweetheart. Couldn’t connect, read a lot. Decided to have brunch at Tin Lizzy’s, still took a really long time to connect, wasn’t editing well. Sweetheart surprised me. Got stuck in traffic with really bad driving. Shopping was terminally boring, and I was confused about the lack of clear goals. Had fun running with a shopping cart. Left a box of leftovers that she had specifically packed for me somewhere in the store. She scratched her ankle on a corner at home. I lifted one of the shelf boxes myself. After taking care of that, it was almost time to go again - nowhere near as much time as I thought we had. Got caught in pointless FaceBook arguments, and annoyed at the whole “Trump chalking” media explosion. Nice time talking with Oakleys, admiring art in the house. Almost the same dinner as last night, right down to the alcoholic lemonade (and my Tipsy Arnold Palmer therefrom). Saw a carnival in front of Northlake Mall, and the Ferris Wheel had colored lights. I loved the psychedelic pattern. I can’t say it was the worst day in the world, but it definitely had its disappointments.
5/15: My brother has a date with Morgan at a carnival {obviously inspired by last night}. I happen to be at the same carnival, but once I realize the situation I don’t want to intrude, despite S’mom calling and asking me for details. I see her leaving early-ish, and I want to try to meet up with him in case he needs consolation. Transition to a mini-mall (reminiscent of larger groups of artist buildings next to Gatlinburg) that still has a few nods to the carnival atmosphere, like a hall of mirrors and an indoor bumper car place. Assembled Ikea shelf. Had a really fun time with game on roll20 - all kinds of useful capabilities! Also haven’t heard from some of these friends in years. With very little time between game and dance, felt like I tried to do too much this weekend. Finally got back to tango after months, but at the same time, a little disappointed in the whirlwind state of the house.
5/16: Late wakeup - must have left the computer outside of hearing distance. Great energy in morning, getting through my daily ritual. Went for lunch at Tin Lizzy’s, Matt told me he was leaving in a week, menu was completely revamped. On the way back, I felt a pressure I thought was gas, and let it out, and it was liquid instead. Called Sweetheart to ask if she could take me home. Long period at home wandering around, picking up tidbits here and there, cooking, and whathaveyou. Did a lot of Roll20 stuff. Felt disconnected from Sweetheart.