I made taro fries last night and they were good. Simple to make: just cut up a taro root; toss with olive oil, garlic powder, and pepper; place on a cookie sheet; and throw in the oven at 450°F (230°C, 510 K) until crisp.

I haven't made them since I moved out of the house_of_clocks, mostly because I don't make it down to the Super 88 very often since I moved here. That probably won't change, as I cook mainly for purpleglitter now and she doesn't like the food from the Super 88 except Pocky, taro and a very few other items. We only ended up getting the taro because we went with invalid_userid to pick up food for her stay.

The weekend before last, I lost the cane that Christian had given me. I left it in the shopping cart at the Super 88 and it was gone.

This past weekend, my serpent staff broke. The cane I can brush off as being spacy when I got in purpleglitter's car, but when something happens to the serpent staff it is generally means I've strayed off course. It broke in an entirely new place than it did before - after I repair it, it will have three different sections. I lost my spiritual path of late, life has overwhelmed me.

Life has overwhelmed me because I've let it overwhelm me. I've become frustrated and impatient with things that don't matter, and have been neglecting things that do. I need to be more mindful of my thoughts, actions, and intents. I need to right my path and fix my staff.

On the way home from the Super 88 today, I was chatting with purpleglitter about my walk to Lexington Center several months ago. I noted that the walk was easy until I got the the edge of Arlington and crossed over to Lexington, because in more densely populated Arlington there are a large number of landmarks and businesses that I am familiar with while Mass Ave in Lexington is mostly mundane single-family dwellings spaced apart with wide lawns. In Arlington I could keep easy track of how far I'd gone and how much farther I had to go. In Lexington I had no way to judge where I was and how far I had left to go. I had no feeling of progress, and the walk seemed like it would go on for ever. I became increasingly weary until finally the center came into view. In actuality I traveled less distance in Lexington, but without a gauge it seemed longer.

purpleglitter suggested that this could apply to my life as well, and that clicked. I don't feel like I'm going anywhere, and I don't entirely know what progress would look like. I want to work towards getting being able to get a job and have a function and productive non-work existence as well. It will be clear when I've gotten there, but I need to know that I'm making progress along the way or I simply become lost. The road, as in Lexington, becomes endless. I'm not talking about goals. Goals are good, but I'm more interested in landmarks. I need something along the line of "progress is when X occurs or when I have been constantly doing Y or when I no longer have problems with Z". Making a list of these things could be a very helpful exercise, because I may never make it to where I'm going if I never know where I am.

Thursday, zarthon took purpleglitter and I to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Michelle, Howard, and Alex. I had little doubt that it would be amazing with the combination of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton. Depp was truly unique as Willy Wonka, with a very grown-up child performance. Something was definitely amiss in Willy's brain, and I like that. Crazy is good, and positive crazy characters are even better. I've never seen the 1972 adaptation with Gene Wilder, I have read Roald Dahl's book so I already knew the general plot.

After the movie, the six of us went to dinner at Bennigans. The veggie burger there was so realistic that I thought they had actually gave me a meaty burger. But, zarthon (an avid meat aficionado) tasted the burger and assured me that it was most definitely not meat. I was still a bit hesitant to eat it, but I was hungry and trusted zarthon's meat tasting abilities.

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scattermew came over to the house_of_clocks today. We hung out in my room watching the light show in the sky. A house across the street got nailed. It was actually the building that houses the electrology office that I had some work done at in 1999. I never ended up getting the whole job done, only about 20% of it. But that is a tangent.

In the middle of the storm we decided to walk to the Chai Café. We stopped briefly in front of Video Horizons, where scattermew hid under the overhang. I stood between the street and the sidewalk and held the umbrella as high I as could yelling "lightning!". The pole in the umbrella is metal, but not 10 feet long, so I it really wasn't quite the right tool for the Ten Foot Metal Pole Dance.

At the chai café I had Chole Kulcha and a Limca, my usual. It was as usual, quite good.

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This evening purpleglitter and I went to the Super 88. It's a large Asian supermarket in at the South Bay Plaza in Boston about a half hour drive from the house_of_clocks. Unfortunately, when we got back to Arlington, I realized that I forgot my pocketbook in my carriage. We had to drive all the way back to get it, causing purpleglitter to miss all her Sunday shows. I'm always making stupid mistakes like that.