I’m going to buy my first lottery ticket this week. My first. The stars say that I am due a windfall, so a lottery ticket seems the perfect vehicle for cash money giving.

Thanks universe!

A Woman Among Warlords – Book Summary & Video.

I wonder if I maintained good posture for three days, if those crease lines on the skin of my stomach would disappear. Would it take longer or would it not happen at all. I would pretend this is an experiment that I’m going to work on, but anything that has to do with better posture seems something difficult for me to maintain with any sort of longevity.

I needed a collection of short stories for public transportation and after-work wind down. I’m rarely able to delve into the mystical or absurd when distractions abound. As such, I wanted something with substance, but light. I found it. So far I’ve enjoyed the discussion of Hamlet and questioning whether he did, indeed, see the ghost of his father or whether he saw some malevolent spirit imposing some revenge. I suppose I didn’t take enough Shakespeare classes in college because this was a discussion point I have never previously engaged.

The first in a series of gum wrappers I’ll be crinkling up and stuffing into various purse pockets.

Those Orbitz wrappers have become the confetti in my parade of shame. “Need to see my I.D.? Why yes, let me just reach in my purse…”

Flutter, flutter.

Orbitz wrappers.

And there it is.

That’s what defines me from that point on. “That girl chews Orbitz gum.” The association is made. And there I am, sans a personality or anything remotely interesting to be associated with. Shame. That’s the shame. I’ve become defined by a totally superfluous commercial product.

A few years ago, on a fall day filled with banal details, I was struck with an idea. It wasn’t a particularly admirable idea. In general, it probably isn’t an idea worth repeating, as so many of mine tend to be, but the consequent story is amusing. Or, more accurately, idiotic and cause for concern, but usually ideas that shouldn’t be repeated or recalled to others end in predictably ________ situations if these ideas come to fruition.

This one did.

On this fall day, I decided I really wanted to go to this one particular bar that had this juke box that had a wide selection of music that I enjoy. This bar is out of the way. This broad description is intended to denote the remote or inconvenient distance from the apartment I was currently inhabiting.

Inconvenient is the key. Being as I was in college a cab was not an option I readily considered. $15 is consequential sum at this point. In one’s life. In my life, particularly.

But, $15 is nothing for booze at some random tiny neighborhood bar in a neighborhood I do not live in. Even somewhat closely.

So I started walking. Walked about 4 miles (maybe longer?) to this bar. Naturally I was a bit fatigued upon arrival. And parched. Whiskey is an effective antidote for thirst. I prescribed.

Soon I am drunk, talking to random people, not knowing how to get home as buses are not running and a cab still doesn’t seem practical. Getting in a car with random dudes at a bar is though. And so that I do. And end up crashing on a random couch in a random house in Ballard. Or, rather, both couch and house were specific to the random dudes that I met (they didn’t randomly choose either that night).

The morning found me stumbling out the screen door. The metal frame slapped behind me. I had stolen a 100 calorie pack of Teddy Grahams to tide me over. These dudes had just flown? I believe the Teddy Grahams were part of one of those snack boxes airlines charge $7 for. They were mine. Then.

Now that I’m not in a house, I have to locate where I am. I can’t stumble around the heavily populated neighborhood scowling at mothers and children through my day-old mascara crusted eyes. Or I could, but I needed an escape route. And this meant I needed to know at least roughly where I was located.

Seattle. That was a start.

Ballard. Getting better.

And then I figured it out and I caught a bus. And got home probably somewhere around noon or one or something. It didn’t really matter. I was home. But that wasn’t what really mattered. (It was because that meant I wasn’t dead). But that wasn’t what really mattered.

Because what really mattered was that I had no answer for the “What the fuck?” I was continually asking myself. I still don’t really know. It’s most accurate this way. I didn’t have any intentions or premeditated ideas of how my bar walk was going to go, so I couldn’t have an answer as to what I was thinking. I wasn’t.

But, what actually matters, is that walking to bars that are over four miles away means that you will not be walking back home. That part of my premeditated plan was soon foiled.

Ta da!

From the Sartorialist.com

I love this woman. I love this look. Perfect for the oncoming dolorous winter.

Early Works of L.F. Zagalahuchi

Overall, I think I’m a healthy person. I exercise regularly because it makes me feel good and I like the feeling of having strength in my body. I cook all my own meals regularly (with an occasional meal out) also because it makes me feel energized and not nauseous and gassy and bloated. With this preface I introduce the following article mainly because it addresses a concern I always have in the back on my mind: when is the striving to be healthy no longer healthy? I think there is often a tendency to become so strict in diet and exercise that one is no longer working with the body’s natural rhythms and/or causing undue mental stress. Or cutting into the ability to maintain social relationships. Sometimes I need to go out and have drinks and hang out with people, even if this jeopardizes the next’s day work out. This shouldn’t be a cause for lashing and shame. Oh god! It won’t be five days this week! Also, the ability to be extremely picky about food is a privilege after all and while it’s a goal worth striving for in a more privileged society, food is still a gift. Blah, blah, blah.

In short, I think those extreme marathoners are crazy so I’m curious about this article. And I love running. Are humans meant to run long distances?

“For me the sketches I produce now and then are shortish or longish chapters of a novel. The novel I am constantly writing is always the same one, and it might be described as a variously sliced-up or torn-apart book of myself.”

Walk by Robert Walser