The Contents of My Desk

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the internet.  This is the home of your favorite/least favorite part-shy, part-sketchy, part-lonely, part-not-nearly-alone-enough, online diarist.  I'm happy, after a year-long hiatus for technical reasons, to be resuming my services as a provider of all the information about me that I may not want everyone to know.  Or worse yet, you might not want everyone to know.  But I'll try to ignore the former and beware the latter.  There's some people I probably won't talk about at all for that reason, and, of course, because we don't really talk that much anymore, anyway.  (You know who you are, baby - smile, wink, laughter to assure you I'm not conferring any seriousness in said actions).

But I suppose since I'm back in action after such a long time, I should put some background to this epic story of my life.  You know, for kids.  The last update I made to my old site was on February 22, 2002.  2/22/02.  That's a whole lot of twos.  Cute, but irrelevant.  I didn't know at the time it would be the last one.  I have one dated February 25th, in fact, that I didn't finish because I found out the site had gone down.  F2S - freedom 2 surf (thatz 2 kewl, gurl!) stopped offering free service.  Something about the internet bust, doom and gloom, can't afford it, etc.  I couldn't find another site on the web that offered the service of free web space with Frontpage extensions and no ads.  Jeez, isn't there anyone out there willing to give me a free lunch anymore?  Ridiculous.

Since that day (which will live in infamy!) I've been been through an entire quarter and a half of school, gone home for summer, and come back again to complete another quarter of school.  Surely hoards of drama has happened, am I right or am I right?  Well, yes... err, maybe.  But I don't really want to do a recap of it all here.  And I'm not just saying that because I can't think of anything to say.  I'm just writing... right now... with the purpose of defining my identity in writing once again.  I don't know that events will do that, but I'm pretty sure a good deal of talking will.

Oh, but this doesn't really work like that does it?  I really do have to talk about actual stuff.  How about the stuff on my desk?  Maybe that'll say something about me...

- There's this plain of quarters sitting on my desk like a set of those circular farms you see flying over the Midwest or near the Great Lakes or even outside the Tri-Cities, WA.  I have them there to do laundry.  I thought I was at that point where I thought I absolutely NEEDED to do it last Sunday.  Now it's Saturday night.  I lived through the week by wearing sweaters I never wear because I don't like them, and deciding I like one them, but that the other one is even worse than I thought it was, because it's so damned itchy.  But now I've run out of socks, so that's the true breaking point, and I'd better get motivated for some sweet, sweet laundry action this weekend...

- I've started keeping a cup of water by my computer and next to my bed all the time, so I don't get dehydrated, which I'm beginning to figure is helping me alot physically and mentally.  I keep it on a coaster I nabbed, along with six or seven identical ones, from the Outback Steakhouse, where I went with my parents on their anniversary, when my mom was sick and it was really hot outside, and that damned Bloomin' Onion was my nemesis, but my dad liked the food and the chicken was pretty decent...

- I'm reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which I read for the first time more than a decade ago, possibly close to twelve or thirteen years ago, when I read it because it was a cool story.  Now I'm seeing all sorts of things in it, as I read it for a class, possibly the coolest English class ever, a "major figure" class focusing on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

We've already read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which I read for the first time.  I thought they were great.  I read The Return of the King in a day in a half.  I don't know that I've gone through a book that fast since I read Charlotte's Web in one day back in second grade.  I'm usually such a slow reader.  In fact, it's gotten me into a pretty good rhythm of reading, as I managed to also read an entire novel - Christopher Rice's Snow Garden - in between when I finished The Return of the King and before I had to start The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for my class...

- I have a copy (in its jewel case) of Pocket Fighter for the PlayStation 1, which is not mine.  It belongs to my ex-girlfriend Jenny.  It ended up in my room while we were going out, like a ton of her stuff did, but then it was borrowed by my sister at one point and got lost in a vortex of her friends' houses.  Then Jenny asked for it back, and I had to get my sister to trace it down, and it took something like three months to find it.  When I finally did, it seemed like Jenny had lost interest in getting it back.

She's not really the type to play video games all that often.  Especially for a computer nerd like her (I always tease her for turning into a computer science major, because it wasn't something I'd really expected her to do).  I never see her that often, anyway, maybe once every two or three months, and when I go back home for break, once or twice.  She's supposed to be graduating early, so I guess I won't see her much at all after she gets a job and moves off to Colorado with her girlfriend or whatever she wants to do.  I'm not sure if it's appropriate to be sad.

At least the game seems to have found an appropriate use.  See, there's this damned green line that will appear on my screen (a whole column of pixels must be messed up) when I close my laptop.  When I open it back up, I'll have to spend several minutes trying to have the patience to press onto the back of the screen for long enough to get it to go away, and sometimes that trick doesn't even work.  But I don't want the screen to burn out, and I don't like it being all bright and annoying with a screensaver at night (also, I'm too lazy to turn it off), so I use the Pocket Fighter jewel case to lay down on the little button that turns off the screen when the laptop is closed.  It seems to be just the right size and weight.  I'm almost reluctant to give it up now, because it's serving so well for its purpose.  I guess I could always just buy a new CD and use that jewel case for it...

- There's a phone on my desk that doesn't work.  I bought it because I thought I'd gotten some sort of phone service.  But it was never been hooked up, and I'm not being billed for it.  I didn't want to go through with the trouble once I found out, and was starting school.  Instead, I got a cell phone.  It felt like I was selling out, like I was going all Hollywood.  But my friends Tom and Ben had both gotten them by then, and they had always been the staunchest anti-cell phone people you'll ever meet, so I felt like it was a dying cause.  Anyway, I needed to be able to call my parents from time to time, and have a local number in case someone actually decides I'm worth talking to.  They gave me the phone for free, too (including rebates), so all I'll end up paying for is the rate plan.

But, anyway, I'm stuck with this other phone, one of those normal receiver to cord to base to cord to wall phones.  I bought it at Bed, Bath and Beyond where I saw it for very cheap one day when had been looking for a lemonade pitcher before I went to Star Market for groceries (including tasty store-brand pink lemonade).  It just sits there on my desk, collecting dust, pretending like I'm a person who at all likes interaction on the phone...

- There's a fluffy stuffed walrus sitting quite contently next my wallet, keys and ID.  He's from a series of "MarineMates" sponsored by SeaWorld that are available at various grocery stores across the country.  I got mine at Star Market.  He talks if you squeeze him, saying three different things.  One is a roar that's supposed to be what a walrus really sounds like.  The other two are walrus facts pronounced in a wacky English accent.  I'm a walrus.  My tusks can pull me onto ice and rocks!  "Rocks" is said with a very hard "k" sound that I find delightful.  I can weigh up to four thousand pounds!  That one's humor is pretty obvious.  Indeed, I have never regretted buying my walrus pal...

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Oh, that was a sweet exercise in writing.  I realized after I'd started it that it seemed like something off of a writing website that would help a writer get started and find inspiration for a larger project.  But it wasn't.  It just kind of seemed like a good idea at the time, and I hope it wasn't too cliché.  I guess it filled up space, though, and at least gave you some insight into my physical surroundings, if not some into what's going on with the "inner me."  I'm glad to be back to writing.  I'll put up pictures on the pages later, if that makes you feel better.