It's like my lips are shedding, dropping flakes of skin to my absent-minded chewing - except the absent-minded chewing is entirely motivated by the fact that my lips feel like they're shedding stuff. It has been highly annoying. Worse, I don't think the effect is visible (apart from a sore at the corner of my mouth). It's all in my head, my flaky lips.

Now I will open my mouth and waggle my jaws like I am trying to speak French into gale-force winds.

I walked out into the living room to discover that everyone else had vanished from the house - even the random guy currently living on the futon. Do I become suspicious and puzzle out the abduction conspiracy, or do I take this opportunity to take my pants off and bakes some cookies in my hole-splotched undies?

Decisions, decisions.

I walked up to the bank at ten minutes past four, tried to open the door, and peered in the window. A woman frowned at me and shook her head. I hate when people do that. What on earth is wrong with a simple, apologetic shrug?
Especially when your workplace keeps wonky hours and doesn't post them anywhere sensible. Sheesh.

So, the yankee blogger wants everyone to write a list of 100 things about themselves. Who am I to ignore someone who lives so nearby? It'd take about an hour for him (or her?) to drive to my house, beat me up, and drive back - plus or minus traffic and how many times I get kicked while I'm down.

(link via simon lintott)
$viewMore = "see my 100 things" ?>
(more...)

Peter and I went to Malibu yesterday, to start the next round of the photo competition and so I could collect my prize for the last one. I still can't think of Malibu as anything other than a giant stage for Malibu Barbie, with her long hair, skimpy bikini and painted pink eyeshadow, but of course the place is overrun with old yuppies in hawaiian shirts. Having neither bleached blonde beauty nor money, I felt completely out of my demographic boundaries the whole time.

In sympathy, or spite, my camera broke. The motor now has a reflexive twitch so that whenever I try to zoom in on something, it brings the lens completely back into the case instead. I already knew I was overly dependent on the zoom, so I didn't learned anything from the experience. Luckily, the local camera repair place offers free estimates and student discounts, but my wallet still hurts. Ow.

For the past couple of days I've been thinking of things as types of situations. There's a "no clean bowls" situation in the kitchen. In the case of a dirty laundry situation, I'll turn my underwear inside-out.

Horrible! Gah! I don't know where the expression came from, but I want it to go away again. Die, foul language demons, die!

Ever since my flatmate returned from an anarcho-hippie border-crossing conference in Tijuana, we've been mocking C-SPAN as our paths cross in the living room. As a result I've been quashing the urge to blog politics. Yelling at television is fuzzy liberal bonding and a good show of wit, but that kind of serious writing is a trap. Read Ann Coulter, express outrage. Hear Bush's decision to prevent forest fires by chopping down all the forests, apply basic ecological principles, explode. And so on ad infinitum.

I get into a mode where I'm trying to convince everyone that I'm right, and that's not where I want to be. When I'm in that mode, I can't listen. I can follow along and rebut in the right places, but I can't admit that my beliefs might change as a direct result of the discussion. Listening requires that admission.

It's thorny. I don't mean to disparage the value of speech as an agent of change —or rather, I don't mean to disparage the value of discussion as an agent of change, where discussion involves both speaking and listening—but I think there's a lot of formulaic political discourse that masquerades as true discussion. Given that I would like to promote and participate in true political discussion, how can I speak in ways that encourage me to listen to others, as well as encouraging others to listen to me?

I'm beginning, a little, to answer that question, but my prose is getting impossibly heavy so I'll leave it alone for now.

I'm finally in the Mirror Project. Woo woo!

Meanwhile, I'll show off my superior intelligence by playing a game that squeaks and boings.

compulsive? feh! intrigued, mesmerized and bamboozled.

Yeah, me too. I'd come up with a wittier rejoinder, but I'm too busy reloading the results. There have been two groups of people voting: one group likes black and white, the other likes vivid color. The power struggles last night were fascinating. I think this officially qualifies as one of my Favoritest Games Ever (and it doesn't hurt that I'm winning).

quiz results: exactly why I think my dictatorial rule would be better than democracy.

I've always thought your enlightened fiscal policies and social programs would make the difference, but okay.

I think I've neglected some people, when they're trying to give me important advice, too:

Remember darling that you can never have too many shoes or hats

This is true, especially about the hats. The more shoes I have, though, the more missing shoe-partners I have, so it's a wash.

Martians made my morning miserable.

That's because you didn't brush your teeth with a Mars bar! Mmmm, nougat.

how long does the friggen vote take, anyway?!

Oh, long enough. There were some bugs in the script early on which gave me a bit of an advantage (since I have more pictures in the pool) and it needs to keep going until that's been made insignificant. Luckily, I see some bored, compulsive individuals in the logs...