Oh, yeah, I need a title.

Did half an hour of stretching and crunches, then half an hour of buzzing on a trumpet mouthpiece. I'm feelin' pretty good right about now. Blood's flowing, breath is moving, lips are tingling. I feel good. I should do this every day. That's my goal, anyway, especially since the upstairs neighbors are gone to Mexico for two months. (That means embarrassment-free practice time on the trumpet, in preparation for the mellophone later on.)

I came up with a shitload of random snippets to post up here today, so bear with me.

This weekend, while spending our respective gift cards and certificates, Aaron and I found ourselves in Waldenbooks at the Woodland Small here in BG. And as Aaron was perusing the manga section, I overheard a couple of high school kids talking down the aisle: "Man, too bad you didn't wear your other jacket, with all the big pockets..." and so forth. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, It's not too bright to talk about shoplifting from a store while you're still IN the store. Kids these days. Sheesh.

And speaking of gift certificates, I may as well list the stuff I got with mine: A silky-fuzzy robe, comfy pants (the stretchy fuzzy kind with snaps at the bottoms of the legs), a teapot, new Skechers shoes, and... um... I think that's it. I really like everything I got, though, despite the shoes being about half a size too small. They're cool, and I'll break 'em in. Really.

So, at work today, I think I was finally offended by the people in my work area. These women are in their early 40's, I would guess, and very irreverent. OK, some are in their fifties. Anyway, listening to them talk about getting totally drunk and one of them trying to use pepperoni or salami or something to make a bikini—that finally just turned my gorge. The swear words at work I can handle. Even the F-bombs. But mental images like that... ugh. Something should be done, but I'm not going to be the one to rock the boat. As it is, I'll just sit back and pretend I'm not there. They seem to do a good enough job of that, anyway.

And if the woman who sits next to me at work, with four kids and income quite similar to mine and Aaron's, can be approved for a $130,000+ mortgage loan, certainly Aaron and I can qualify for something. I mean, really! They're not even married. They have no downpayment. Do you mean to tell me that if I'd gotten knocked up instead of doing Life in the correct order, they'd give me a home loan, too? Well, shit! If I'd known that was all there was to it...

That's not fair of me, I know... but it doesn't stop me from being bitter.

And, goddammit, I am sick and tired of sneezing! Aargh! I wish I'd either finish getting sick or get over it. (And, yes, I do have a preference.)

A few days ago, I made Amaretto & Coke candles for Mark and Amy. I poured them into these nifty stemmed glasses, smoky colored and squarish. I'll post a photo eventually. Anyway, in order to get the wax to stick to the glass right, I've been warming the containers in the oven while the wax is cooling. This time, though, I turned the heat up instead of off, since I had brownies to attempt afterward. (Stupid brownies... bah.) So, silly me was used to reaching into a warm oven and pulling out warm glass containers. So what do I do? I reach into a 350° oven and touch a blistering hot glass stem. I now have this intriguing blister on the inside of my right index finger, where I scissored my two fingers around the stem to pick up the glass. (The middle finger was saved by my massive writing callus.)

And, in lieu of an actual page with this on it, I'm going to post my Atkins-so-far pics here:

July 2003	October 2003	November 2003