Archive for February, 2006

Published
by
Mike
on February 27, 2006
in Books and Nonsense
. 0 Comments

I finished reading Falling Leaves sometime last week. I thought it was a pretty good book. I wasn’t always enthralled, but it was definitely worth reading. It is a pretty amazing story when you consider that it is a true one. That woman went through so many ordeals in her life. I can’t imagine I could have done something with myself after experiencing the things she has, yet she has accomplished far more than most have. I may buy her other book. I’m not sure yet.

I’m reading Life of Pi right now. I’ve just started it, but I’m already laughing and extremely intrigued. This one is going to be a good one. It had me looking up sloths on the internet this morning, if that gives you any idea of its strangeness. By the way, sloths are so cool. They are perhaps one of the cutest animals, and also one of the most interesting. I like the idea that they are some sort of eternally happy enlightened beings puttering around in the trees oblivious to all of our nonsense.

I had a bad dream the other day. It was pretty horrible. It involved my sister dying during an explosion. Blood was pouring out of her ears so quickly and we couldn’t stop it. There was nothing we could do. I woke up with a start and I was very relieved. I don’t know why I had that dream…maybe there isn’t a reason. I think I had been talking to my mom earlier about my sister, and how she was doing in school, etc. That may be why.

I can’t think of anything else to say other than the fact that we switched from the whole learning Italian thing to learning Spanish instead, which I prefer. We’ve caught up to the same point we were at in Italian, and hopefully we’ll make progress slowly but surely. Anyway, I’d better get to work.

Published
by
Mike
on February 21, 2006
in Military, Work and Writing
. 0 Comments

Cracked lips spew forth words across the tattered conference room. Like so many dry dust motes, the words float toward me. I bat them away in irritation and chase pen and paper dreams.

mess of paper
on the table
three o’clock meeting

I drew a character I like to call BatDogMan, and another character called Verbiage. Verbiage is a monster consisting of the word verbiage, some squiggly lines, some sharp teeth, and those raised up eyes people use when they are drawing snails.

I had an interesting exchange of words today about my evident lack of desire to be at work. Believe me when I say that this shouldn’t be a surprise. I have 30 days of leave available to take per year. My leave total accrues 2.5 of these days per month, and am free to take these days whenever I see fit. For some reason people in leadership positions understand and admit these things, yet get angry when someone does what they have been instructed to do. They all have obsessions with emergencies. For reasons I don’t understand, they think that I should maintain at least 14 of these 30 days per year for emergencies only. It is as if they expect my life to consist only of one hardship after another. If there are any hardships that never dissipate, they would have to be work itself and their constant meddling in my affairs. I take my leave when I want so I can be happy in life. I’d rather not base my existence after some robotic entity which would probably work forever only to be rewarded with some lube and a box in which it would store itself.

I’m home now and I’m happy. My cat is meowing so I’d best go poke her in her belly.

 

That one book…

Published
by
Mike
on February 17, 2006
in Books
. 0 Comments

I just thought I’d mention the book I posted about the other day. I couldn’t remember the title. Here it is:


Falling Leaves : The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

I’m only on the second chapter, so I guess I’ll talk about that later.

Not much new to talk about. Steph is teaching me to knit. Don’t judge me. Yeah, a guy knitting. There appears to be a quite a few of them, though. Also, there is a theory that knitting may have originally stemmed from men working on fishing nets a long time ago. There isn’t anything more manly than fishing, so I feel relatively ok with that. Don’t lay your social stigmas on me!

I keep peeking at myspace. I don’t have an account, because I don’t know if I want to talk to anyone…but I must admit that the whole thing is fascinating. 2 of my friends got married to eachother. That was pretty interesting. I’ve been away from my hometown crowd for so long.

Published
by
Mike
on February 14, 2006
in Nonsense
. 0 Comments

I forgot to say Happy Birthday to coolstring. Happy Birthday.

Also: I checked out myspace for the first time and found a bunch of people from my high school. I was going to make an account, but I decided not to. It’s amazing how little some people change. I’m so different now, and it’s hard for me to imagine staying the same as I was back then…I don’t think I have very much in common with them anymore. Oh well.

Published
by
Mike
on February 14, 2006
in Books, Nonsense and Religion/Spirituality
. 0 Comments

I just ordered 3 books which look interesting:

Life of Pi

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
Adios, Havana: A Memoir

I just finished reading The Kite Runner, which was fantastic. The way the author depicted the kite scenes really made me feel like a kid again. I want to get a kite and fly it. I haven’t done that in so many years. The book also got me really interested in the culture, food, and language of the people in it. I’ve never been that interested in the past, but the way this book was written made it all much more exciting.

At the moment, I’m reading An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life and it seems to be helping me with my meditation. The past couple days things have gone really well. I feel much calmer now, and life is pretty good overall. I’m also reading a true story about a chinese woman who was unwanted as a child and treated poorly by her parents. I can’t remember the name of the book, but perhaps I’ll post it later. I just started reading it last night.

As you all know, today is Valentine’s Day. I’ve been reading about how it is all nonsense here. That being said, I love you Steph! Happy Valentine’s Day!

My friend Ryan came up to me today and asked if I wanted to learn Italian with him. It is an idea, since I’d probably be more likely to learn other similar languages after I learned that one. We have both been toying around with learning languages for a while now, but always different languages. If we both tried to learn the same one we’d have a better chance, since we’d be able to help each other at it. So I think maybe we’ll try it.

Steph and I are still doing our organic box scheme which includes vegetables, fruits, and eggs. I think it’s really changing the way we eat, and I really love it. We’ve made some really delicious soups and stir fries, and the fruit is really good. I tried an avocado for the first time in my life yesterday, and I loved it. Anyway, more on that to come in a later post.

I might post a little bit later, but I’m starving and I really want to go to lunch.