Bandolero by Day

I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but I figured it would be good to make some Earth Day resolutions.

1. Get into better shape so that I can ride my bike to more places. I think I'm going to follow this "couch-to-5k" running plan. I started yesterday, and man, it felt great to be exercising again. I'm so glad I found an inhaler that works; it's hard to believe that a little over a month ago I couldn't even make it up the stairs to my apartment.

I think I'll have to stretch week one into two or more weeks, though, because I am so out of shape now that you'd cry if you saw me in action.

2. Buy some fluorescent light bulbs once I run out of incandescents.


I'd like to add a number 3, "buy more locally-grown food" to this list, but for the fact that there is some sort of Tucsonian conspiracy going on where the only farmers' markets in this town run while I'm at work. All farmers' markets in Tucson: Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday, between nine and five. My work schedule: Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, between nine and five. What the fuck. Conspiracy.


So far, since moving out in August, I've done the following Green-ish things...

1. Found a local recycling center, since there's no recycling pick up at my apartment complex, and started taking all my goods there every week or so. Now that I've met some of the neighbors, maybe I'll offer to bring their stuff to the center as well? I can foresee this ending badly, though: "HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU THAT YOU CANNOT RECYCLE USED TISSUES? CAN'T YOU READ? YOU ARE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE!"

2. Got some canvas bags at Trader Joe's to use when I shop, even when it's not at Trader Joe's. The difficult part is remembering to bring the damn bags WITH me, but I've gotten much better at it. I think I remember about 90% of the time now.

3. This one always sounds a bit lame to my ears, but oh well: I've started reusing the plastic beverage fountain cups from various convenience stores. Take them home, wash them, use them again next time I have a long drive ahead of me and need a drink. Most of those cups aren't recyclable, and those motherfuckers don't biodegrade at a reasonable speed. I do the same thing with water bottles, but those are at least recyclable (even if they don't recycle particularly well). I've ALSO been cutting down on the amount of plastic material I buy, which is much easier for some food products than for others, and sometimes downright impossible.


That's about it, really, besides being very frugal with my goods and electricity and water. Waste not want not and all that. Hopefully I can keep doing more.


HAPPY EARTH DAY. Remember: the planet will long outlive anything we do to it, but that doesn't mean that we can't kill OURSELVES in a horribly grotesque fashion. Maybe if we keep pushing it we can look just like Venus in a couple hundred years. Mmm, scorched descendants.

I feel like I've gone five laps around the crazy track.

I have been feeling distinctly Not Bad for almost a half a year now, and in my naivete I assumed I'd contracted the brain cure (opposite of the brain worms). Alas, the wagon train of depression has come around the bend again. To quote the great philosopher t-shirt, "I hate myself and want to die" (not actually with the death part), and I feel this is interfering with my educational goals.

So I putz around and try to pretend things are super, but eventually at the advice of a wise metonymy I travel to the UofA's psychological services department. I assumed that, as was the case at community college, their services were free. I was very very wrong, and I left the office crying, which is my usual mode of action these days and clearly the most logical reaction to even the slightest crisis. $30 a session may be a trifling amount to some people, but I've already spent all the money I had (correction: all the money I didn't have to begin with HELLO DEBT) on trying to fix my physiological problems (current theory: it is asthma that does not respond to asthma medication, super great).

Next step is the community college counseling service (where I'm getting my math credits), which had damn well better be free or else fuckity fuckity fuck.

But the important thing is that I got out of bed this morning and made it through two of three classes without additional crying.

In the mean time, all I've got is crow + kitten = bff therapy. Consider this link my apology for all the personal drama whining.

Of a temporary sort.

I have a new phone. To answer weyrcat's question, it broke because it was ancient by cell phone standards (about five years old?). Same phone number! HOWEVER, I lost all the numbers on my phone, because I kept them only in phone space and not in meatspace.

PLEASE LEAVE ME YOUR PHONE NUMBER HERE, EVEN IF YOU THINK I DON'T WANT IT BECAUSE CHANCES ARE THAT I DO WANT IT. COMMENTS ARE SCREENED. IF YOU ARE neherenia THEN I NEED YOUR NUMBER FOR SAUCY MESSAGES.


I still have no internet access at home, but my parents are getting me one year of internet service for my birthday/Christmas, and hopefully I will be hooked up in the next couple of weeks. Finals are over on Tuesday (unless I finish this essay I'm working on tonight, in which case they are over on Monday), and after that perhaps I can spend some time sitting on my ass in a cafe, checking the facebooks and making the story posts and what have you.


I still have no friends in Tucson, but I'm starting to believe that this is part of some divine plan, seeing as I will have 0 days off a week next semester. My schedule will be SUN WORK (all day) MON SCHOOL (all day) TUE SCHOOL (two hours) WED SCHOOL (all day) THUR WORK (all day) FRI SCHOOL (all day) SAT WORK (all day). Tuesday is my new weekend. I'm honestly not sure how to fit human contact (humans =/= coworkers and classmates) into that schedule. I'VE HEARD THAT OTHER PEOPLE DO IT, THOUGH. I guess the big question here is: how much do I like sleep? Do I like it better than conversations with people who aren't me or that voice that tells me to kill things?

This weekend I returned to Phoenix to visit with the Usual Suspects.

Friday night we went to see "30 Days of Night" (vampires, Alaska, winter), thinking it would be one of those movies of the "so bad it's good" genre, like "Alien Vs. Predator" (which we also paid money to see in the theater). Turns out it was actually pretty disturbing. I am immune to scary movies, so I may not be the best adviser on the matter, but I think it would be a good Halloween film if you find yourself sick of the Saw franchise. It also gets points for not romanticizing the vampires (which mko hates, and I think jesuitfluff also has objections to this). They're not beautiful, high-society, two-fanged neck-suckers -- they're ugly, feral, brutal, piranha-jawed demons.

You will have to ignore astronomical and demographic inconsistencies if you watch it, though. I mean, that's the general idea of how the sun works, but not quite right. And if we're in Barrow, Alaska, where the hell are all the Native Alaskans? They're 60% of the town, dude.


The next day we went to the state fair. I LOVE THE FAIR. :D :D :D It's a happy, magical land where you can eat fry bread while there's an arm-wrestling match on one stage and some band called the Veritones singing about hot dogs on another stage.

THINGS Z ATE: Cajun sausage on a stick, fry bread with honey, fresh squeezed lemonade, frozen yogurt, popcorn.

THINGS Z WANTED TO EAT BUT MISSED: cotton candy, funnel cakes, fudge, anything from the taco stand.

RIDES Z DID NOT VOMIT ON: the giant slide, the tilt-a-whirl, the bumper cars, the sky ride, and the hang-glider ride.

RIDES Z VOMITED ON: NONE.

The hang-glider ride was pretty much exactly what it sounds like. mko pretended to be Superman. I held my arms out and made peace signs, pretending to be Flying Nixon.


Then we went home and watched "Pan's Labyrinth", a movie not inferior to "30 Days of Night" (LITOTES). I had only one problem with the movie, and that was not really the movie's fault: the previews and trailers, and even the reviews for "Pan's Labyrinth" all made me think that the movie would spend the majority of its time in some sort of fantasy realm. I was expecting it to be dark, yes, but I was expecting it to be FANTASTICALLY dark, and so I spent a large portion of the movie waiting for them to get to Fantasy Realm when I could have otherwise been further emotionally investing myself in the film. If somebody told me before hand that the movie would be sent in reality for most of the film, I would have had a better viewing experience, so now I'm passing this information on to anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet. And yes, you should see it.


I am deeply amused at how much "litotes" looks like LOL, TOTES.

I am having trouble making my cover letter different from my resume.

I THINK I GOT IT NOW. I'M NOT SURE.

I found a job opening at the observatory on campus for astronomy undergrads. How perfect is that? I NEED THIS JOB.

I'm going to sleep now and finish this thing tomorrow. Hopefully there will be less screaming.

AUGH AUGH IF I DO NOT GET THIS JOB I WILL KILL A KITTEN.