Fish Tales

I promised updates.

This fact dawned on me as I stood in front of the corkboards in the student lounge browsing the posters to avoid staring at my herb notes.

I wish that I could say that finals are over, but they’re not. Five down, two to go. This afternoon I actually constructed a seven day schedule for myself. It looks like this:

Friday: study

Saturday: study

Sunday: study

Monday: take final #6 and then study

Tuesday: study

Wednesday: study

Thursday: take final #7

Sadly, 98% of the studying I am going to do over the next seven days is for one class. It’s that intensive. I’ll be relieved when it’s over.

Right now, I am cramming as much information into my noggin as possible because, tonight, we are going to venture to Balboa Park for the December Nights festival. Every December for two nights, the park museums are open to the public for free. The Museum of Art, the Photographic Arts Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Air and Space Museum… all free admission. I love it. Of course, the international food and drink provided by various venders is also quite attractive. Eric and I went last year and had a blast. This year will be even more exciting since it will be a welcomed break from studying. Mmmm… I can taste the perogies and Turkish coffee already.

Anyway, I will continue to update regularly so don’t go anywhere.

Peace.

Do you know what it is I fear most when I ride my bike to school and back?

It’s not the buses and cars with whom I share the road.

Or the bumps and divots in the pavement that rattle my bones.

Or the jackasses that fail to look both ways before pulling into the street.

Nor is it the freeway merges or the bums on the bike paths or the thick, gray morning fog.

It’s the parked cars. I don’t trust the fuckers.

I am sitting here this morning keeping a watchful eye on a matching pair of gray Hon brand steel four-drawer filing cabinets that were orphaned in the alley overnight. Anyone that knows me well, knows that I have a penchant for all things container. And they must also know that the fact that I do not have a hand truck at this moment is not dissimilar from a stoner with a pound of pot but no bong (Yeah, yeah I know the toilet paper roll and apple workarounds. I’m just trying to make a point … Shut up!). Anyway, so these filing cabinets are just sitting there taunting me with copious holding capacity free for the taking. Yet I have no metaphorical shovel with which to uncover the treasure chest. Fate is such a harsh mistress.

Oh man, I could totally use a treasure chest.

My friend Garth just started a kayaking video Web site. Yay, Garth!
Check it out!

Okay, the video of the falls I posted was just annoying. Especially since we (and by we I mean I) have been slacking off on blogging. So … I deleted it.

Once upon a time, I wrote poems.

I wonder if I’ll ever come to write them again…

I dreamt of fire twice last night. In the first dream, someone I know very well was reenacting a story of a man who died by fire and she lit herself on fire to show me how it happened. She continued to tell the story as her skin charred and peeled away from her body and as her limbs fell off one by one. In the second dream, I stood in the living room of my house and watch as a wild fire crept closer and closer to my home. The fire moved quickly like the cloud of destruction we see in movies after a nuclear blast. I was on the phone with my father giving him a blow by blow account of what I saw: people running for their lives. By the time I realized the fire was upon me, it was too late to run. I remember vividly feeling the heat of the fire on my skin before it consumed me.

Today, I made a second pot of coffee for myself. I rarely drink more than a half a mug of a coffee a day. But lately, I crave it all the time.

Tomorrow, we are leaving to spend a long weekend in a town called Mammoth Lakes located somewhere in the mountains of Eastern California just shy of Yosemite National Park. This is my attempt at little R&R before finals. Regroup and recharge.

Wow. Has it really been weeks since we last posted?

Hmmm… the last few weeks in a nutshell:

1. Eric was hired full time at the company where he has been temping. Let me get a “woot!” for stability and a “woot! woot!” for the benefits package.

2.  I have been studying my tiny, firm behind off in a desperate attempt to keep up with the tremendous amount of material my classes cover. Grades are good. I am preparing to register for next semester which I am looking forward to.

3. We paid $4.39 per gallon of gasoline earlier this week. The prices are as high at $4.50 in some areas of San Diego.

4. I rode a bike for the first time in ten or fifteen years. I rode it all the way to school and back. Take that oil gurus!

5. Eric is a carpooling machine!

6. We discovered the beauty of the local Asian food market. We love you pickled ginger!

7. Someone stole my ONLY bathing suit off our back porch along with a $40 pair of board shorts. Why? Who the fuck knows! Did Eric’s bathing suit disappear as well? No! Lucky bastard.

8. I woke Eric up at 2:30 a.m. a few weeks ago and had him drive me to the emergency room because I thought I was having a heart attack. I wasn’t having a heart attack, just serious indigestion. Oh, good times.

9. We have been checking out the local housing market. And by checking out the local housing market, I mean drooling over houses we can never afford. Apparently, I am supposed to be impressed that a 1,300 square foot home with an ocean view is ONLY going for $995,000 instead of $1.2 million.

10. We acquired a grill thanks to the generosity of our friends. Its a long term loan that won’t go to waste. Oh yeah!

Caught a bug.

And I am not talking about the kind I like to suck up with the dust buster when they invade my home. No, I caught the “sore throat wreck my body” kind of bug which is a bummer because it is not like I have time to rest and recover.

But just between you and I: I did sleep until 9:30 a.m. this morning. A luxury I cannot necessarily afford, but it did make me feel better. Now, I have to study for a Fundamentals quiz for the next four hours until I rush off to see my new acupuncturist who will hopefully give me some stinky herbs to sooth my throat.

Bless me. I just sneezed on my keyboard.