no alcohol part ii

[... continued]

after thursday morning's incident, followed by surprisingly pleasant blood and breath tests, i sat on yehuda maccabi eating grand muesli and laughing at leary on drugs. the man was blessed with intense insight and his scrawlings are supremely entertaining and enlightening!

otherwise - no smiles. this week has been down, because my body's feeling kak. no energy, mental cloudiness and almost constant abdominal discomfort.
i've had better.

i had a nap when i got back home, which brought on a strange dream:
i was watching a movie in 3D, with some old lady in the chair in front of me. on the screen was the back of hulk hogan's head, as if he was sitting on a theatre seat in front of the old lady; he turned around to say something to the audience, and suddenly the old lady disappeared - apparently also part of the illusion.

i began to faint, hearing "cthulu, cthulu, cthulu" being shouted from somewhere to my right.

...

and then i was on a roof, talking to some guys before a golden otter rocked up and chased us all away.

i snoozed my alarm way too many times before eventually getting out of bed and heading to work. it was a hot day, my brain was lazy and i almost pasted myself onto the front of a bus... at least the wind tunnel i entered in the industrial area was nice.

filling out forms? terrible! i hate doing it. i hate the incorrectness of the questions asked. i hate the fact that i *need* to do it, and probably soon, in order to be covered for any medical procedures i hope i don't have to undergo.

*sigh*
being a grown-up sucks sometimes.

---i called up the english department at the university (after sorting out more mail problems) and discovered that i can't register because registration hasn't been opened yet. that'll only happen while i'm away, when i won't be able to do anything about it... i began to suggest possible solutions when i suddenly remembered that i hadn't mentioned my status: "but i'm a special student".

"oh! nevermind then. you can register for whichever courses you like up until the day they begin, and you don't need to bother yourself with the bidding process."

sweet ^_^

---i farted around with flex and began to familiarize myself with the apache server, then moved on to wiki editing. the derision coming from the crew discussing parents who give their children terrible names was distractingly hysterical :P

---vampire the masquerade: *BOY* do i have a lot to learn.
before we began, i was feeling weird... we shopped for food and munchies, and in my quest for protein i picked naturally smoked tuna in oil. it tasted pretty good, but what does "naturally smoked" mean? is this tuna from the gulf of mexico? did it smoke naturally in an oil fire?

scrapper's primary concern for the evening: "how much junk food do you eat?! how are you still alive?"

i need to read up on my character stuff; i'm not familiar enough with the mechanics, and definitely not enough with the etiquette. when presented with an interesting opportunity, i screwed it up because i wasn't familiar enough with obfuscation. the next few rounds took a fairly long time to get through - plenty enough for me to figure out what i should have done.

at least that experience set me up for a better attempt:
i angrily stalked up behind one of our targets, super-focused, cloaked with obfuscate and silence of death. three rounds of stalking towards my prey, desperate to sink my fangs into him and tear him apart.

i grabbed his shoulder, and took a deep bite - out of my thumb. the poor thing was left dangling from my hand... as my target felt the pressure, he jumped forward and *just* managed to be out of range when the giant frog landed on me.

i survived, only slightly crushed into the damp ground... and launched myself at my fleeing prey - catching his foot and taking a good bite into his ankle. i'd managed to draw out some blood before we were both caught by a giant, sticky tongue and swallowed... at least i continued to feed.

that was one hell of a botch. there's a perfectly good explanation for the giant frogs, i promise.

---i was tired, i'd just been aggravated by a couple of arsim on my way home and was about to push my key into the lock when the door flew open with chc cheerfully standing there to welcome me. awkward :/

we decided to do the white night thing together. it was a particularly ratty walk - she's pmsing (admitted) and i wasn't in the mood to hear about how her telepathy is improving. i didn't share my thoughts, because they went along the lines of "you're an idiot".

i met up with a guy from my old unit, who was all excited to see me with hair. i showed off my tongue piercing, but exactly at the moment he was looking elsewhere and i felt a bit foolish waiting for him to notice. meh.

rave awkwardness: the party was pretty damn good! what a pity that chc and her friends ditched me with a guy who'd come a long way to meet her, and i didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone. when we eventually caught up with them and i could make my getaway, i milled around and found a bunch of friends...

at least, i thought they were friends. they weren't being very friendly, and i decided that i didn't need to be treated that way (or ignored) and called it a night. i walked back home contemplating the trance scene in israel: it's not like back home. there's so much "show", posing and politics and stuff that i'm really not interested in. it's difficult to meet people, which is exactly the opposite of what i'm familiar with, and i think my bubble has been burst.

there are some awesome people, of course, but most of the community is better appreciated and loved from a distance.

i stopped for a toasted sandwich, and was thrown a comment by a cute girl as i walked past - why is there always a reason for me not to do anything? why could i not have been feeling well?

i managed to get a good night's sleep, and woke up on time even though i hadn't set an alarm... i was sure i had :P
i went straight to the square with a frisbee (just in case), my ducks and my bubble pipe. nobody arrived. nobody. i wasn't in a happy enough place to enjoy either the ducks or the bubbles - and i tried - so after almost half an hour waiting i went to have breakfast with one of ze germans.

i ran into an old university buddy before she rocked up, and hopefully he's a good contact for work - he was one of the nerdier dudes, and i had to smile when i saw him and his cute girlfriend walk off holding hands :)

when she did arrive we talked about relationships and work and interrogations and grootbek, with the most interesting topic being that most of the others (ze germans) are doing fine career-wise but appear to be lacking in the personal growth department. everyone's doing the same things they've always done, or not much at all - that's kinda sad.

on the way to back home i walked through the square, meeting up with a random bubble-loving geek girl who was headed to the water war. things appeared to be under way, and i decided to sit on the side of the fountain and observe. i used my frisbee to protect the pocket with my phone in it and the girl asked me to look after her bag so that she could get stuck in... it was shaping up to be a pleasant afternoon.

and then the organizers pitched up. one of them stood right next to me and called for everyone to gather around - there were a lot more people in the square than i'd noted. by way of explaining the need for a water war, a man dressed as a turkish flag paddled into the fountain making threatening gestures (so it was a little political). he was soon attacked by another man dressed as an israeli flag, and then war was declared!

the initial moments were complete and utter mayhem. hundreds of people letting loose, flinging buckets of water and screaming righteously - my frisbee offered scant protection. i grabbed the purse and the frisbee and ducked and wove through the crowd to what appeared to be a safe area, the first innocent victim of the war and completely drenched.

at least my phone survived; i hid it under the frisbee. i stood observing with my first full smiles of the day and with gleeful fascination - that initial mayhem didn't die down and more and more people kept arriving, with outlandish costumes and feverish enthusiasm.

---that was when i had the revelation - compounding what had happened the night before. we are social creatures, and we *adore* letting loose and being crazy and loving our fellow man. but that's only really possible when we don't know our fellow man. the second we feel some sense of obligation or requirement aside from mutual respect, it all goes to shit. so it's better for the experience if we can maintain anonymity, but that way we'd never really get to know anyone.

---the geek girl appeared from behind me, saw that i was guarding her purse and breathed a huge sigh of relief - she hadn't seen me duck and had thought that i'd scaled her bag :(
i felt really bad, and i'm not sure how i should have handled it. i actually had to make an effort to convince her to head back in and enjoy herself :(

my ducks were missing. i headed home to put down the frisbee, phone, wallet and bubbles (a lot of people had found my "make love not war" prop amusing) and pick up a water bottle and balloons - i was ready for the daring rescue attempt.

a) i never did find the ducks
b) filling a water balloon ain't easy
c) half filling a water balloon turns it into a bashing weapon, and i didn't need to hit more than one person before realizing that it wasn't a cool thing to throw
d) i had a lot of fun
e) i had a lot of fun in spite of feeling guilty about wasting water - we managed to drop the level of the fountain by about a foot :$

i showered out the chemicals when i got home, and sat down to eat lunch and watch house after taking out trash that had drawn gnats.

[continued... (seriously? after all that?!)]