vegan ice-cream soothes aches and pains

oh, man. my upper arms are sore, i think i may have strained them. i've trained twice this week, and both times i was tired before i even began. i've been careful about my caffeine intake, so i don't think that's the problem...

---wednesday:

i sat at starbucks and worked on my comics for an hour, making interesting and satisfying progress. i did some shopping and was on my way home when i passed a house where the dog was standing at the gate barking incessantly. there were neighbours around, and none of them were doing anything about it. i walked up to the gate and proffered my hand. i tried to make myself as non-threatening as possible, but the poor dog continued barking and slowly backed away until he disappeared around the corner, at which point i got up and left. if i'd been one of the neighbours that would have been the point at which i walked up to the front door and hit the buzzer with the same frequency as the barking.

*bzzz*
*bzzz*
*bzzz*
*bzzz*

until the owners came out, at which point i'd ask

"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"

and then shout at them for neglecting their dog who's in obvious need of some attention. your dog is outing you as assholes. you should see to that..

---boxing was high powered in spite of my feeling weak. i bowed out of impact and beat the crap out of the bags instead - having to be careful with my neck does inspire a fair amount of frustration that needs release, i'll admit - and watched as the big dude from two weeks ago took weak-ass punches from some new guy. why a new guy is allowed into the advanced class is beyond me, but i called the big guy out for not telling his partner to go harder. while he manned up with a sheepish grin on his face, the assistant coach saw what was going on and walked over to demonstrate; i don't think he'll be messing around again anytime soon :P

one of the guys bought my sparring headgear, so that's done. at least someone's going to get use out of it, and the extra cash in my pocket certainly doesn't hurt.

---yesterday:

i awoke in the middle of the night with my neck at an unfortunately awkward angle, i got up to stretch it out and returned to bed with a strange, itchy little welt on my left bicep. i was half-asleep and decided to deal with it in the morning, by which time it had disappeared. what the hell am i supposed to do with that experience??

there were odd dreams, some about normal experiences, then an exhibition of augmented reality tech followed by standing in a line for a club playing "fringe" with the bouncer saying "i hope you guys like country music"; a bald black man put on a an amusing fake afro ruby-rod-style and then i woke up.

...

i accompanied gd on her first steps to getting her divorce formalized: she separated from her husband years ago and he's remarried since, but that's in a different country and none of her paperwork here has been filed...

[arguing about the weather with montrealers requires safe words]

we went to several places, and on a number of occasions i experienced the weirdest phenomenon: strangers walking straight towards me only to go around me at the last moment... when i wasn't standing in their way. what the hell is wrong with people?!

i had a meeting with vector scheduled, so gd joined me for yeh! (i took too much, but their sorbet is so good i handled it like a champ) and we milled around a book store for a little while. i find myself in book stores lamenting the senseless waste of paper and the immense stupidity of selling digital copies at similar prices. can we 2014, please?

vector and i had a good meeting, we went over what we'd already discussed and refined a couple of ideas. later he'd send me his sketches - the dude is talented! shit, if things with the present four illustrators don't work out i'm going to propose he works with me on my comics!

speaking of comics, i'm excited because airplane's finally ready to start scripting his own comic. this is going to be awesome ^_^

---i was thinking about the angry girl from last week's sexism arguments and something that gd suggested: it makes sense that she's a man-hater if she approaches every man with suspicion, brutal judgement and penis-shrivelling tactics. self-fulfilling prophecy, the only guys who would sleep with a girl like that are desperate or callous, regardless of whether she's physically attractive or not.

---the afternoon reminded me of a poem i once wrote about feedback. only it was very different.

kickboxing was decent, though i was sore and tired and at the end was dizzy and slightly nauseous. i learned that my shoulders are positioned badly when i kick and that my feet are badly aligned for anything other than side kicks. that's not good.

for the second night in a row i felt dehydrated after training. i was going to meet with the slam team but only rabbit and i were ready... we talked about it, and it seems that the team is in dire need of leadership; i'd happily take on the mantle if i wasn't the last in and therefore the most likely to rub everyone the wrong way. we're going to have to be tactful. not my strong suit.

...

rice dream's cocoa marble fudge just joined so delicious in making an unbelievably strong case for non-dairy desserts! they're not good substitutes for dairy ice-cream, they're better than. if you like ice-cream, you need to try these brands!

---we got a decent night's sleep last night, and i woke up with alter bridge - zero stuck in my head. i showed gd my high school yearbook photo, and found myself retelling the story of the only time i've ever classically bullied someone. who was a real bully himself, so i don't feel so bad about it.

two of us ran into him in the washroom, dragged him into a clean stall, grabbed his legs and dunked his head into the bowl - only bumping him once accidentally, and fortunately not too hard. i flushed once or twice, we laughed nervously in the face of the absurd, and escorted him back to his class. the top half of his body was soaked, but before the teacher could say anything i gave him a very serious look and said "please excuse him, sir, he's having a very bad day."
which did the trick, and the incident was never formally addressed.