Lately, I’ve been reading of various methods of forcing myself to write on a regular basis, which, like exercise, flossing, laundry, dishes, work, removing soda cans from my room, and not eating Chipotle four times a week, is hard to do. I’m rather taken with the Seinfeld Method at the moment, though not quite taken enough to commit. Making a big calendar like that seems like a lot of work. Still, promising idea, and certainly charming enough to smile at from a polite distance. I’ll give it further consideration at a later date, like perhaps once I’ve finished A Song of Ice and Fire.

On the other end of the artistic spectrum, I cooked some quiches the other day for my brother’s self-organized ‘Pie Party’, though one was in reality a strange sort of alien pseudoquiche that impersonates the real thing just long enough to jump down your gullet and bore your gustatory faculties to death. I plan on taking that one back to the drawing board later on, but not until the holocaust of dishes in the kitchen is cleared away. All we see of parties are their old dishes. – D

This is just a short note to express my profound distaste for this dog’s pooping habits. Peeing, he could go either way. Inside, outside, doesn’t matter to him. Wherever he’s standing when the mood strikes him is where he’s going. Pooping, however, is a different issue entirely.

Rufus (that’s his name) literally prefers pooping inside the house, for some esoteric canine reason. I take him outside and we stand in a field together waiting for something to happen. He snuffles around and occasionally sits down out of boredom. I can tell he has to poop. He paces around, as if to say, “Could you hurry this up, so I can go inside the house and poop?”

All of this is compounded by the fact that Rufus hates going outside. And I don’t mean pooping or peeing, anymore; I mean that he actually hates leaving the house. Whoever heard of a dog that hated the outdoors? The leash is like a harbinger of doom, to him. If I can coax him out the door, he stands at the top of the stairs and frowns at me. Sometimes I have to pick him up and put him down in the grass, where he immediately moves for the stairs to go back inside. After I refuse to take him inside, he fixes me with a stare that says, “You leave me no choice. Look, now I have to poop ouside. Is that what you want? Is it?“

As a matter of fact, it is, but I don’t speak dog. We both speak Dogtreatese, however.

I’m trying to carve out time to write some new reviews for HeiBräu, but meanwhile I’ve got work pressing down on my back, homework, paper writing, the prospect of my entire evening devoured by exercise (+ recuperation), and the fact that my entire living space is coated in dust and cobwebs. Let’s not even discuss the Febreeze-proof staleness of my debris-peppered futon-bed.

This blog, and my commitments to HeiBräu, have been the first casualties of my mind’s inability to cope. Apologies to all. We’ll get them back on track here at some point, promise.

Back to the mindless drudgery of Telecom.

In other news, the Virginia justice system is hardly just, at least if you’ve got Judge Diabeetus hearing your case. Some of the stunning BS I heard in court yesterday:

Defendant: “Your honor, I have the school’s schedule here, saying the school zone speed limit ends at 3:00. The officer said he pulled me over at 2:59, my own clock said 3:01, and my watch said 3:03. The lights were not flashing as I entered the school zone, nor were they as I left.”

Officer: “Nuh-uh.”

Judge: “I find you guilty.”

***

Several Defendants: “Your honor, the HOV signage is blocked and rendered unreadable by the construction at 495 and 66.”

Judge: “Not my problem. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. I find you guilty.”

Someone needs to update that idiom for the modern age. Perhaps “Ignorance of the law is no excuse if the law makes any [redacted] sense.” Which it really doesn’t in the case of Virginia’s inane “NOW THE WHOLE HIGHWAY IS HOV LOL” policy for 66 inside the Beltway.

Oh well. That’s life in a faceless bureaucracy.

Pleasant passenger. Didn’t talk much. Dug the new Islands album.

Dropped him off at Mason near a nice, foresty area. Hopefully I didn’t just sentence him to exile in a place where his kind do not exist. At least, I prefer not to consider it.

This crushed, diseased-looking clump of mayonnaise purulence cowering in my meal bag cannot possibly be even tangentially related to the regal-looking beefcake in the adverts. It is not dinner. It is a crime. And at $6, it’s a crime that could buy me an actual meal at Five Guys, minus the blog post and the sepsis.

The machine-extruded french fries did not help much.

But, at the very least, this particular creature will no longer horrify children with its quivering bulk. I’ve done my due diligence, and this time the Lesson will remain learnt.

Meanwhile, on the school front, work has abated slightly, and I’m saddled with a workload that’s merely heavy, rather than inhuman. I can only hope that I won’t (again) be stuck in a position where I have to cut 10 hours of work in order to get my stuff done in time, but one must be careful not to ask too much.

And, in a familiar scenario, the specter of extracurricular writing floats patiently overhead. I think Heibrau might call out a hit on me if I give him any more delays, so there’s that to manage. I will give it some attention soon, yes? We’ll see how the week pans out.

- d

But what shall I do for a follow up?

Decisions, decisions.

Sophie’s choice aside, yesterday was a good one, overall. Had a pleasant lunch with Heibrau and my roomie, a deep discussion both of Subway’s disturbing lack of a mandatory Cheese Tesselation Workshop and of the quickest way to cool warm beer to the proper temperature (dry ice may or may not have been involved), a short visit from my lovely girlfriend and, most importantly, homework completed without having hurled myself out the bedroom window. I believe I must claim that as a victory.

Onward, ho!

On the other hand…well, there is no other hand. I’ll be locked in my room with a word processor and a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper.

Things I like: reading, games, film, music, my lady, my friends, my family (mostly), etc, etc.

This is not unique. I am a totally average person. Average people don’t keep blogs. Or if they do, they’re bad ones. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

I suppose that until I define a clear direction for this little enterprise, it will continue to frustrate me like a blank page just before a deadline. I’ll have to give it some thought, yes?

Meanwhile, please read my good friend Heibrau’s blog at heibrau.com. Maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll allow me to become a contributor.

love,

- d