Owww. Those *were* my feet.

digitalambience and I rescued a pair of beat to hell rollerblades in my size from the apartment laundry room recycling section. He was peeved that they weren't his size.

Tonight I soloed with them. Well, I did have a spotter, marxdarx, and I carried my oaken staff, as this is the second time I've been on rollerblades, and the first time I've been on them without a solid immobile object (the hall railing back at the Bachelor Apartment from Hell, where I used BJ's blades for about ten minutes (and less than 100 feet all told), wobbling all the way, and dreadfully pained) to hang onto the whole time... and I didn't fall down!

These are without brakes, mind you, so the staff is probably a very good precaution, especially until I get used to the idea.

I skated halfway down the parking lot, my muscles remembering how to do this from skiing so long ago, and the odd rollerskating adventure besides. My feet wound up hurting like anything, so I turned around and we came back. Marx had to run to keep up with me, as I was moving along at a fairly good clip.

I'm going to go out skating more often, as soon as my foot/leg/ankle strength permits. I may eventually be able to do like ralmathon does and skate everywhere; that would be cool. Would contribute to my being earlier for breakfast, certainly.

Digital

Playing with Microsoft Paint and a quasi-random online image of digitalambience. It still looks a lot like the original photo, and it still looks a lot like him, but it's getting manipulated in ways that I could probably do a fuck of a lot faster with Photoshop or some similar tool, but I'm content to do by hand for now as I'm not really high-powered in artistry, just having fun.

I suppose it's across between my former hobby of portraiting from photo and my other hobby of drawing quicksketches (like my blue-haired selfpic and teenagewitch's user pic... it'll be interesting, and it'll be all Adam when I'm done with it.

Testing... ten, twenty... thirty?

Today was due to be our A+ practice test thing, the overview of how we did in the class, how much we learned: the post-test.

Sheldon failed to show. I went up to Academics at 8:20 to inquire as to where he was; evidently he hadn't called in sick; I uttered an incantation of "summon professor". The guy there told me to just leave if he hadn't showed by 8:30.

It's 8:40 now, and I'm chilling in the lab.

Morning: snuggles, shower, salacious sniping, sorrow

Worked out last night; forgot shower. Woke up with alarm clock. Adam turned it off. Snuggled. ( None of your business. )

Eventually, showered. Found that I can help lift Adam to his feet with ease. Got dressed. Mixed up a far-more-diluted version of the same yick I was drinking last night.

Walked to school (ankles are not in any shape to rollerblade anything more than up and down the parking lot of the apartment complex; I should get me a helmet just for appearances with Nephew). On my way to school, noticed that a guy was eyeing my cleavage appreciatively. He whistled at me.

When I walked into the cafeteria, I announced that evidently tanktop season was over, because leering season had started. Darkside, after hearing the exchange (him: leer and whistle; me: ignore) suggested that perhaps I should have slapped the fellow. Darkside's more violent than I am. He also suggested buttoning the open button-down shirt I wear overtop the tank top.

Had a short breakfast with Darkside. He and Bald Guy looked dubiously at my drink and inquired as to its basic nature. Bald Guy got off onto the topic of Vanilla Coke and dared Darkside to drink some. Evidently Darkside likes neither vanilla-flavored beverages nor butterscotch-flavored beverages. Good to know. Who does he think he is, me, to be a picky eater?

Darkside left for lab; I gulped down the rest of my pseudo-chocolate yick now that I didn't have to be refined and ladylike and avoiding getting any on my lips (evidently this grosses Darkside out completely) and joined him. He looked up DBZ attacks after looking into what, exactly, his one course required for graduation will in fact cost. Owww. Ow. Ow. Ow.

I had test planned for 8 am, and therefore departed. Evidently the hug/strangle move is more annoying than I thought it was. Sorry, dude.

the strongest ties

Spent the morning, most of it, with Darkside.

It's the little things that make a friendship worthwhile, sometimes. The joking, the laughter, the serious bits... the feeling that you're in the company of a friend.

I'll miss him very much when he graduates. There's no one else in the school who's got quite that level of connection for me, though I know there will always be others, someday.

...It's just he who makes me smile.

Would-be test

Evidently today was not a good day for Sheldon. He mistook his schedule and came in an hour late for class. His own class. The one he teaches. The one that had a test today.

He's un-cancelling lab tomorrow in order to hold the post-test, to measure how much we learned. I proposed that he assign extra credit according to how much you'd learned.

All hail she who just shut up Darkside's lab partner

The "help" feature, and a thesaurus for a brain, both work well in getting the lab partner of Darkside to stop whining about something he doesn't know how to do. I got him using the help files himself, ...

...and managed to monkey with the things enough to get us all in trouble. Great.

Darkside to the rescue.

Glad that was only a copy.

Eh. It's doing better now. Darkside's hacking at it diligently. I'm offering unhelpful suggestions.

The threat of NIN

I think I've figured out just what it is about Nine Inch Nails and similar goth-type bands that is causing certain Christian people to utterly flip their lids.

Listening very closely to the music, many songs speak of a deep faith that's been undermined and betrayed. The songs are full of Christian imagery and comparisons; a nasty girlfriend's treatment is likened to leaving the unfortunate lover nailed to the cross suffering for her sins, among others.

One of the Christian doctrines is that no one is made to suffer trials beyond their strength to endure. If you fail these tests, you are lacking in something essential, yet may be forgiven if you repent your sinful ways. The act of repenting proves you worthy.

The heresy of NIN is in that their lyrics claim that there are some insurmountable problems that cannot be solved, not even with faith; God has deserted them. And you know what? There's still beauty, dreadful beauty but still beauty, to be found in the ashes of betrayal.


That's why some parents flip out. It's not the sex. It's not the violence and self-loathing. Those are just symptoms of the underlying heresy, the falliability, the untrustworthiness of God, and the suffering of man because of it.

Worked out

Yay! Spent the entire length of Pretty Hate Machine working out: weights, bike, stretches, then walking to cool down. Got in at least 50 minutes; not sure exactly how long it is.

Adam's home from fighter practice. First on the agenda: dinner. We're accomplishing this about right now.

I had no clue that an 8 oz serving of milk had 12 grams of carbohydrates. Lactose, duh. Silly 'Ni. I can only make the scale hit 280 now by leaning on it really hard and standing where you're not supposed to be standing.

Issued a warning to all residents and frequent guests of household that if they noticed me losing too much weight, or, more importantly, not eating, that they were to make sure I was fed. I recommended to them things that I do eat, no matter what: apples, carrots, tuna salad. The thought of ice cream lately has been turning my stomach. Probably a good idea for my system to react that way, as I don't need the sugar and grease and the following military coup and governmental purges in the occasionally embattled region of Gutonia. silmarian has been covering the battles in that region in the alternate universe of wiredferret: mock-journalistic high-level toilet humor.) Celery works too. I drink milk. I eat crackers. I eat meat. I just don't always notice these things in the kitchen when wandering, and will occasionally not feel it worth the effort to prepare things to eat, even when stomach says, "Hey, me want FOOOD!!!"