2m^2m&m

i forgot to mention that when i got my tongue re-pierced, the girl took the opportunity to create a teflon bar for my helix to assist in the healing process. it's definitely more comfortable, and it's easier to clean - but it's still teflon. in my ear. that's odd.

also - gargling with salt water? yeccch.

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chc and i have been having off moments, and one of the things that was worrying me as i made my way home on wednesday night was how annoyed i'd be if she bothered me while i was trying to work. i was a bit cold towards her in anticipation, but aside from a couple of minutes here and there she was fine. i got a fair amount of work done, too - only i eventually distracted myself by writing up the story of our vtm game so far.

then i realized that i was too tired to think, and kicked her out of my bed so that i could go to sleep.

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i woke up a bit too early for my body (thanks, urchin, for the annoyingly misplaced sms), and a bit late to get my blades fixed... first order of the day was discovering that i'm now fully paid up for the next academic year, the second getting on my blades and gliding to the skate park. i made it in time, but the day was already super-heated and i had to sit outside so that i could take my shirt off :/

the fix was quick, clean and relatively cheap, and i whiled away the minutes gawking with the sensation that i'd been transported back to the 80's, circa gleaming the cube and thrashin' :)

i was on my way back into tel aviv when i thought of lipgirl, so i called her up and then skipped over to her new place for a visit. she has an amazing apartment! i sat for a bit until she was ready to go, then we walked (i rolled slowly, at least) to a nice place in florentin. she is undoubtedly one of the unluckiest breakfasters i've ever come across - anything that could have gone wrong with her meal, did. mine was all good. oh, well.

i had a quick chat with my kibbutz cousin, who told me an amusing story:
her daughter, serving in the military police, was handling a roadblock in the middle of the desert. they pulled over a van and asked who was being transported: "it's a group of south african tourists".
without cracking a smile, she instructed the driver to open the side door.
"hoe gaan dit met julle?"
(surprised) "goed, dankie, en jou?"
"goed. totsiens - geniet julle vakansie!"

on our way back i rolled over some water, and thought at the time that that wasn't a good idea. i was proved right when we discovered that the next road was super-slippery, and i landed on my arse and elbow... scoring myself a solid roastie at 1kph.

how embarrassing.

on a completely different note: lipgirl plays bass, and has been having trouble finding employment. i've convinced her to consider taking her music more seriously, and we talked about the possibility of forming a band...

i went shopping for a chain, but gave up and went to see urchin's new pad. it's a real poor student's studio, very cool and highly alternative: the bathroom is literally a tiny shower and a toilet next to it, and there's so little space that the taps are attached to the door-frame :P

aside from us having a bit of a tiff, one of her friends who were painting has been the object of her affections for a while, and she wanted my opinion... i don't do dramas.

at least i know what i want to get her for her housewarming gift - she has a 180x80 segment of her wall free, so i reckon a canvas is in order - i surreptitiously took a couple of photos while there :)

i found a simple chain that i like, and paid ten shekels for it... at least, i *think* it was a valid coin, only i can never tell between the forgeries and the authentic ones anymore :/
i dropped it on the way home, and that ten shekels never felt more real - i'm very glad that i managed to find it again :)

it was boiling hot and i'd spent my day rolling around the city - i jumped in the shower and took siesta with the airconditioner on. waking up from that was hard. really hard. but i did it, and i made it to the park on time to meet up with scrapper for taekwondo. we spent a couple of hours killing ourselves - it was so humid that sweat couldn't evaporate, and we worked.

i'm very pleased with the progress we're making!

dusk was phenomenal - it was a beautiful evening, and the whole way back was a struggle between nature and the gorgeous tel aviv girls vying for my attention ^_^
i ate a quick dinner, caught up online and had a proper shower, then walked to work. i definitely wasn't going to sweat on the way there :P

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our manager for the night is just finishing his BA in english lit, and not only provided a highly amusing run-down on what i'm entering into but has kindly offered to avail me of his resources :)

getting the skinny on my co-workers, being entertaining by the girl training me (an asimov fan and a wannabe misanthrope), and remembering how to handle the helpdesk (it's ingrained - i still have what it takes, apparently) was the order of the night.

also: 2m²m&m is the approximate volume that matches my body weight. i wondered if i could eat that many...

the 5am walk back was quiet and pretty.

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today began with the continuation of a quick discussion that chc and i had had the night before; it was all about who we are and what we're about. that discussion carried on until just an hour or two ago - it's about the fact that there are no answers.

nobody can know that they're doing the right thing, and we're all faced with a lot of choices. this isn't hollywood, so there's no magical prolonged disney moment that lets us know that we're on the right path, and the montage sequence involves a bit of misery.

you need to choose who you want to be, and you need to choose what you want to do, and those choices need to be made continually. choosing not to choose is the only choice that guarantees failure; any of the other options might be mistakes, but you'll only know if you try.

and while you can't control your past - you don't have to let your past control you.

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i began the day (yesterday's breakfast as well) with araq and grapefruit juice while chc and i cleaned the apartment. it appears that she's not into ac/dc :/

i hopped off to the ginsburg for breakfast (apple croissant? interesting.) with a couple of ze germans; it was so hot that we could barely move, and ze irish german gave me a ride home afterwards. i repeated yesterday's siesta, this time being woken up by an old friend that i tried to get in touch with a while back. i was glad to hear that he's doing alright :)

i spent the evening chasing facebook comments, trying to blog, having a heart-to-heart with chc (i just stumbled across this quote, it's rather appropriate), being given a much-needed and excellent massage, chatting with the doctor, and in theory being about to get some work done...

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lions... or tigers... or bears
my next apartment

no mothers!

it doesn't matter how many times i see this, the no arms, no legs, no worries dude kicks ass!

the r. u. sirius autobiography looks like another book i might like to read :)

say "no!" to ashdod - because you hate israel anyway

bad-ass bible verses? have i linked to this before?

that last link offended scrapper:
scrapper: you guys are full of crap.
you keep talking about love and peace and harmony and happiness, but when i ask you what's awesome what do you say?
"double edged swords! he killed a thousand men with an ass's jaw bone!", you say, "white death, and extremely violent rodents!", you say!
well fuck you gentlemen, you and your hypocrisy.

scrapper: and the whole story of ehud's story was that he was left handed, that's why they didn't find the sword. who writes this stuff?

me: the left-handed thing bothered me, too - maybe they don't learn the *whole* story in sunday school :P

it's not hypocrisy, dude... i didn't say that we should all run out and kill people with the body parts of the dead, nor did i think it was necessary for david to *kill* all those philistines in order to get their foreskins, but it's definitely "bad-ass".

instead of doing that shit ourselves, for real, we enjoy reading about or watching movies of other people doing it, or playing games (like vtm) to get all that inherent aggression tightly packed away... then we realize how stupid fighting really is, and when faced with an enemy who *doesn't* check his aggression we're fucked.

and then we ask: "why can't we all just get along?" while simultaneously re-learning the joys of war. because fucking shit up gels with our evolved crap-flinging gene.