Spring has arrived. Soon, the plants my sister and brother are sending me for my birthday will start arriving and I'll be able to put the compost to good use. They are sending me 3 butterfly bushes, 3 red latham raspberry bushes, and 6 oriental poppies. I'm very excited about gardening this year.

I haven't done any gardening since I rented the house in Columbia, Missouri and grew carrots out back. It was a very small house with a small yard, but it was a house with a yard and it was $185/month. Wow, that price seems great now, I couldn't rent a room for that around here these days. It's a different season here, in more ways than just not being winter anymore.

invalid_userid should be arriving within an hour or so. She's coming down for my birthday (tomorrow). She'll be at the house_of_clocks thru Sunday. I'm very excited to see her. This is going to be fun.

I completely missed a friend's birthday gather today, because I screwed up when it was. I feel like such an idiot.

swiped from dan4th:

another year I thought that the version of PhotoShop that came with Orac (the name I have given to the used computer purpleglitter recently bought me) was the scaled down version, unlike the professional version on Clementine. I woke up well this morning and was hoping for a very productive Project Schedule. Skye is egg bound with a soft shell egg. sometimes the only thing that makes death unappealing is that I do not believe it ends existence. dan4th took a couple pictures of me in the sunlight last weekend. Take also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it. I thought that I could not be any more disgusted by the Bush administration, but his response to the Israeli assault on Lebanon has proved me wrong. I've improved some of my old userpics. I had a great time this evening celebrating purpleglitter's birthday with zarthon, recoiling, and of course purpleglitter. The paste of purity has run its course and I have scrubbed it off the wall of corruption. Yesterday, President Bush told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."

Me standing in front of the pastel I make of purpleglitter for her birthday present earlier this year:


photo by purpleglitter

I had a great time this evening celebrating purpleglitter's birthday with zarthon, recoiling, and of course purpleglitter. I made blackberry sours which were loved by all and gave purpleglitter a framed picture of her I did in pastels. I hope she had a good birthday. Berv love Lake.

Tickets are confirmed and I leave Thursday for St. Thomas. It will be an overnight bus trip, and I arrive in St. Thomas on Friday morning. I'm going to be spending a week visiting goldmourn, who's birthday it is today (happy birthday to you). If I'm lucky I might get to see lovecraftienne over the weekend. I haven't left the United States in over a decade, I'm very excited.

gacked from kyrene:

How Spoiled Are You?

( long survey )

I had a pretty good birthday yesterday. Mellow, laid back, and nice.

purpleglitter woke me up with coffee and breakfast. I heard frying and was very confused, as she usually doesn't cook. The faux sausage was very good, and it was a wonderful way to begin my birthday.

Later in the morning, I went with merryperseis to South Station, where she departed for kitsunekaboom's and spaglet's wedding (which is today, and I wish them a happy longtime together). On my way home, I ran into iamacliche in the pit talking to some guy named Bat. Me and iamacliche headed back to my place together where we listened to music and chatted. He left when my mom (myenergy) called.

zarthon took purpleglitter and me out to Grasshopper for my birthday dinner. I had never been there before. There are very few places where as a vegetarian I can order anything on the menu. The food was so impressive that even zarthon, a die-hard meat eater, left raving about it. The three of us headed back to purpleglitter's place and had Peachy Keens (peach juice & Southern Comfort).

Tomorrow I be turning 100,000 years old.

And yet, I often feel as if I've never really existed.

The is a difference between knowing a thing and living through that knowledge. The difference is mindfulness. For instance, Sunday I was talking to my mom (myenergy) on the phone and didn't realize I should say "Happy birthday" until she said "Isn't there something you want to say to me.". It's not that I didn't know or had forgotten her birthday was February 5^th. I can recall that date from my mental database with ease. The problem was that I was not mindful that February 5^th was her birthday. The knowledge did not influence my thought and action when it should have.

Mindfulness is an important concept I'm become acquainted with. Much of my realizations have come by weaving together many things I have learned over my live so far. Many of these things were filed away in the dust recesses of my brain. But, through mindfulness, they can interact as they could not before, and have merged and grown . Through mindfulness they have changed me, they have given me hope and led me to a dawn I thought would never come. It never came, because I wasn't watching for it.

Learning is the eyes opening. Mindfulness is the eyes staying open. Learning without mindfulness has a place in business and scholastic pursuits. However it is ineffective as a spiritual tool and a tool of living.

Over the last several days, I've been going out more than I have in quite a while.

Wednesday night, zarthon took purpleglitter and I out to Uno's to celebrate purpleglitter's fabulous new job. zarthon accidentally spilt my entire Second City Whisky Sour on me as soon as it arrived, and I smelt completely like a brewery. I used the foamy handsoap in the Uno's bathroom to wash the aromatic drink off my clothing. The rest of the dinner went wonderfully and their new olde fashion tomatoe soup was quite lovely.

Thursday night, purpleglitter and I went over to iamacliche's and recoiling's apartment for a small holiday gathering. I always love hanging out with them and it is convenient that they live so close. They gave me, among other things, a turtle coprolite and a polished fiber optic piece of ulexite. I went through a phase in the early nineties that I was very into geology and rocks and minerals. I lost my entire rock and mineral collection when I was homeless, and am glad to add some nice new specimens to my very small current collection.

Friday night, I met dicotomygrrl at the Diesel Café. We shared a chocolate mint square and played a game of chess. I still remember dicotomygrrl's speech about chess at my birthday party last year, which was the last big party that has happened at the house_of_clocks. She gave me a rose, which I was hoping to put in some water when I got home, but unfortunately left in the back of Glen's van.

Last night, I went to sophiaserpentia's birthday gathering. Early on in the evening I committed a minor faux pas. I'm not sure if anyone noticed and if they did I don't know if they cared. However, I felt really bad about it. It took me a little bit to get past my embarrassment and guilt to get back into the feeling of the gathering, but once I did I had a swell time. I got to hang out with friends as well as meet a handful of new and interesting people (all on LiveJournal), including galaxygrrl, who has been on my friends list for some time but never have met in real life.

That's a whole lot of social activities in a short number of days for me. I'm used to sitting at home the majority of my evenings. I like getting out and if I can get my neurological problems taken care of and find a way to bring in a small amount of extra cash, I would like to make a regular habit of it.

When I arrived home from the asylum, I found a letter stating that I had yet another overdraft charge. I seem to be utterly incapable of keeping track of my balance and the $25 fees add up. I decided that I should just cash my SSDI check instead of depositing it and handle things in cash. I headed out to Arlington center, and only fell once on my way there and was able to get up quickly. I did end up sitting on a bench for 15 minutes shortly thereafter waiting to regain my coordination.

My first stop was Leader Bank. There I was told that since they are not publicly traded they are exempt from being required to cash treasury department checks for non-customers. No luck. I went on to Bank of America. There I was told as a non-customer I had to have two forms of identification for them to cash the check. I only had my licence with me. Strike two.

I decided to try my luck at Cambridge Savings Bank. I knew my account was negative there, but I hoped they would cash my with just one form of identification anyway. The teller told me the system wouldn't let her do it because my account was overdrawn. I asked by how much, and it was only $3.76. Aparently I had a little over $20 in the account when the overdraft fee hit. Seeing as the amount was so small, I told her to take the $3.76 out of the check, cash my check as a customer with one form of identification, then close my account. She did, and I'm now done with banks (except what will be my monthly trip to cash my check).

-----

purpleglitter drove me to my therapy appointment at 5:15. I signed in at the front desk and waited. 5:30, no therapist. The receptionist paged her. 5:45, no therapist. The receptionist paged her again, then noted that my appointment time was actually at 6:00 and not my normal time, and that's probably why my therapist wasn't responding. I had things to do, so I just left.

-----

purpleglitter dropped me off at the corner and went up to her house to bake merryperseis's birthday cake. I fell heading from the corner to my house, spilling my Monster. Several people asked if I was okay, but no one called anyone on me. I got back in the house and ended up lying in bed for some stupid reason and fell asleep. I drifted in and out of sleep and seizure for a couple hours, having nasty dreams that everything was getting worse and that I was being locked away forever. Finally, merryperseis came into my room and helped me out of bed. I ended up falling on the floor in the hall and sat there until I felt balanced enough to go down the stairs.

-----

recoiling, purpleglitter, and iamacliche were downstairs and we had quite a wonderful time celebrating the anniversary of merryperseis's birth. Towards 1:00 I started feeling very twitchy again, and couldn't really get up from the couch. All the non-residents of the house_of_clocks had left, and merryperseis had to go to purpleglitter's apartment and pick up my meds, my Metamucil cookies, and mazzycat's tuna for me. I was planning on just crashing on the couch, but did eventually make it up to my room and to sleep.

-----

Everyday is an adventure nowadays. Some moments I feel so elated I could fly, others I feel suicidal hopelessness, and others I'm simply on the ground. I have some very difficult moral choices to make. The kind where there is no good choice and I must find the one that is least wrong.

Another day today. Another day again. Days just seem to come one after another these days.

zarthon took purpleglitter and I to the Franklin Park Zoo on Sunday for purpleglitter's "second birthday". I saw ostriches poop and perform their impressive mating dance. Those things are big, but they looked friendly. purpleglitter wouldn't let me step over the little fence to get to the big fence which one of the ostriches was trying to stick it's head through. I think it wanted to be pet, but purpleglitter was probably right and that would have been a bad idea.

I also saw a baby gorilla, a lion, some tamarins and lemurs, lounging kangaroos, black swans, Brazilian giant cockroaches, fruit bats climbing around, zebras, peacocks, a capybara, and many many other interesting animals. I wish purpleglitter had brought her camera, we could have had many awsome pictures to post. Alas, a lack, and I can only post my words.

As predicted, yesterday follow the plan to well and I'll make the same prediction for today and tomorrow because of planned activities. Monday hopefully I should be back on track. Anyway here's the damage:

No exercise. Macaroni and cheese for breakfast, Rotini with tomatoe sauce and cheese for lunch, bean quesadilla for dinner, and fruit with dip at purpleglitter's birthday party for my healthy snack. My unhealthy snacks were key lime pie (purpleglitter's birthday "cake"), pre-popped buttered popcorn, and a Milky Way candy bar.