my boyfriend really has some weird effects on me. he has habits like listening to cds on random all the time and eating restaurant leftovers as soon as you get home, even if you were stuffed to the gills when you left. i've found myself doing these things to some extent over the past few months.

i ate at the restaurant formerly known as noble palace with three guy friends tonight after gilmore girls. i had some fried rice with tofu. not very exciting, but good. and i was very full on half a plate of that and a glass of vietnamese iced coffee, because god knows i didn't drink enough when my travel mug was mostly filled before leaving for work. i'm eating my leftover fried rice now.

lukewarm food rocks.

i realized at dinner that it's possible that most of the friends i'd be more likely to just hang out with are male these days. i have probably more female friends, but they are different. my relationship with them these days is also different than it has been before, especially when i lived with a bunch of them. i spend a lot of time with boys--all of my coworkers are male; i see my boyfriend a lot; half of our gilmore girls group at the harem is male. i'm planning to live with two boys starting in june.

speaking of, have i mentioned that? chris, graylan, and i are seeking a house to rent in wallingford (or fremont). we're all totally excited. it's going to be a crazy house--crazy FUN, that is. those two are crazy, intelligent, and, erm... crafty. i guess. they are creative with gadgetry, among other things.

summer quarter might be free time for me, too. well. i'll be working at the same old place, of course, and i intend to seek an internship or some other kind of journalisty work, unpaid, but it is looking suspiciously like i won't be taking newslab. i might as well hold off until fall since there aren't going to be any of the skills electives i need offered in the fall, unless something changes in the next week or so. i need to request addcodes soon, too.

i am feeling somewhat happy right now. the only annoying thing in life this second is that my cpu fan is dirty and noisy. it's not broken, though, so i can continue using it until i can pick up a new one. this is fortunately cheap to do. (yes, mom, it's not my hard drive, so there will be no hellish replacement cost. hurrah! and i paid tuition today.)

yesterday i gave myself a makeup weekend because my real weekend left me dissatisfied. it was incredibly refreshing and remarkably productive--i did a lot of necessary reading and overanalyzed daytime tv before making dinner and going to gasworks with kevin. he did stiltwalking. we made pizza on naan bread later that evening, too. and i stayed over, because going to sleep and waking up next to someone is always so nice.

listening: patti smith - free money

i suppose i ought to be reading those nasty .pdfs about some motivational theory thing, but wow. i so do not want to. i probably will get cracking when i'm done writing this, but until then... no.

i wrote my "thought" paper. i swear the prof wrote this question for me specifically. i complained to him that the level of discussion in class was too steeped in academia and i functioned much moreso on a "what does this mean in actual words" level. i have done the readings, written notes and questions, and still didn't find a place to say something useful in class last time. so. whatever.

my thumb stings like hell. i am trying to let it heal up instead of being pampered by bandaid forever, though i do need to put the bandaid on to prevent showers from becoming a living hell. it is pretty ugly and dry. earlier today, it cracked a little on the side and bled a tiny bit. ow, ow, ow. i maintain this is "improvement," however.

what else. i had a really blah weekend. i slept like crap two nights out of three. last night i went to bed around 11, couldn't really sleep until after midnight sometime, woke up at 4:45 and finally got back to sleep before waking up again at 8:30. i probably woke up a few more times before that, but i don't remember. anyway, it was crap; i don't approve. i was bored enough to consider going to the drugstore an excursion.

friday night was weird. i didn't really talk about it, i don't think, but after dinner, i wanted to go to safeway to replenish my gum supply and kevin made some offhand remark about how i shouldn't chew gum compulsively because doing anything compulsively is bad. well, yes, but i am doing it to prevent myself from snacking and/or biting my nails compulsively, both of which are habits i've had as long as i can remember, so i think this is an improvement. i ranted at him the whole walk home and he felt bad. but. he doesn't get it. he doesn't have vices. i don't think chewing gum is the worst of my bad habits by far. it was just incredibly irritating that he chose to comment on it, even though he didn't even *say* anything like, "you should stop chewing gum," just that compulsive habits are "bad." anyway, then i did a friday night bullshit thing and cried and kevin made me feel better because he's good at that, but the evening still ended on a sour note. the next day, i did absolutely fuck-all, which sucked. sunday i ran some errands but things were still kinda crappy. today is full of mundane things, which i guess is better than nothing at all.

oh, and i am seeing my mom and brother for dinner. that is always nice. i am hoping to convince paul he'd like to eat at the continental. they have beef! it's good! or so i hear! i've only had the chicken souvlaki, not the beef. and i want to get the grilled feta sandwich, anyway. paul is purportedly making an effort to Like More Things, or be more accomodating, or something, which is good because it sucks to eat out with him. mom has told me he's said that his vegetarian girlfriend will eventually convince him to go vegetarian. i think this is highly unlikely since he doesn't seem to like any vegetables, which is kind of a prerequisite for vegetarianism, but hey. if he makes moves in that direction, it's great.

speaking of boys who bend to the will of their vegetarian girlfriends, a couple weeks ago i was walking home after class in front of a group of typical dumb college boys. they sounded like freshmen who were almost-but-not-quite the fratboy types. they were talking about razors and shaving cream, saying "dude" a lot in reference to the quality of a shave given by such and such brand. then one guy said, "but dude, like, not gilette." "why not gilette, dude?" "dude, they test on animals!" his friend balked. "dude, i don't give a fuck about animals, dude!" i started snickering to myself. that was totally girlfriend-influenced.

well. now i suppose it's time to reply to an email and get back on the pdf-readin' trail. these articles are boring...but you don't have to take my word for it.