In the realm of personal hygiene, I got a spiffy ultra-short haircut and grew out a full-mouth goatee. I now officially look like a journeyman sorceror. Go me and my bad ass goatee.

I haven't heard back from Dr. Crisco or Sara for a good month now. To me, no news is good news. The guy knows I can use Macs and PC's, and that I've fairly kinda sorta interested in this sub-discipline within Psychology called 'Behavioral Genetics'. Here's more info for any of you bored intellectual masochists.

The game project that I do freebie work for was taking a beating two weeks ago. Forum people were pissed off (and rightly so) that the site hadn't been updated in 4 months. Since neither of the current team leaders were addressing the PR catastrophe, I stepped in and gave my best pitch to the ringleaders. They generally seemed to like what I had to say and backed off, just in time for a new update with new content to come along.

From what I gathered when one of the leaders was trying to seduce me via IM, though, the project is probably gonna die pretty soon. Y'see, leader dude thought I was the only other female on the team, and worked his way up to saying I'm someone he'd like to get to know and, hey, could we exchange pics. Beforehand, though, I picked his brain and found out that he's sick to death of the whole thing. Now while he was disappointed at my having a penis and all (thankfully), I got a clear message: only chip away what you have to, because it's likely all gonna comet straight to Hell like a fiery pillar.

Boom indeed.

I went out with GE about a week or so ago to eat sushi and see "The Manchurian Candidate". The meal was excellent as usual, hurried teenagers fluttering around each other outside while we laughed our asses off about this or that. The sushi chefs were in high gear and very talkative; best of both worlds that way. After some strange usher confusion about if our movie had a line and where, we finally found the right one, sat down, and watched the thing. GE thought it was disappointing; I thought it was good from a non-conventional character development angle, but he was right in that it doesn't work as a thriller.

We spent the next hour sitting outside a jamba juice, with me nursing some strawberry banana citrus ultra medium juice thing. Somehow we got on the topic of whether engineers in general are far more competent than most people. GE told me that you have just as many know-nothing space fillers as any other profession. I thought that was hard to believe since, as an engineer, you had to produce or maintain stuff that worked. In the end I did see his point, though.

During this whole time, I saw a young unnaturally red haired, oval-faced Edgar Allen Poe woman stroll by. What was curious was that she looked very familiar, and she came back around two or three times, occasionally glancing at me. I couldn't place why I thought I knew her, but I wanted to ask. Finishing up the smoothie, though, GE and I decided to stop over near his work place.

Y'see, GE kicks ass for many reasons, one of which being that he's interested in my photography and giving me some spots to check out. That late evening, I saw an impressive set of structures fanning out into the darkness, green pyres with blinking cherries on top. Across the man-made river we'd parked nearby was a glowing ball of industry, orange and hoary in its fumes and columnade glory. Not 3 feet in front of us was an entrance to a walking/biking path running parallel to the river, with a clear shot of hoary orange ball and green pyres. I've gotta get shots of those before I leave.

I saw "I, Robot" with The Captain. I was extremely surprised. The ads had made the movie look like typical empty action sci-fi, but there was some substance to the story and I liked the twists; it's no "Minority Report", but it was very good. I think The Captain and I discussed abstract things afterwards--since that's our verbal drug habit of choice. I'm pretty sure we also had the traditional ritual meal at Ruby's. Or did we eat at Del Taco.

Anyway.

I finished off the first three books in the "Sandman" series. The curious thing is that these books really live up to being 'Graphic Novels' instead of just comic books. I find myself inspired and intrigued by them, how surreal and thoughtfully dark they are. I'm thinking of seeing The Captain tomorrow, as much for watching 'Outfoxed' and having our ritual Ruby's meal as getting the next set of Sandman books.

They are that good, and I normally don't like the comics style.

As a last hoorah with Gran, we'd decided to get dinner reservations at the Inn of the Seventh Ray, an upscale restaurant founded by a few hippies back in the 60's with a message of honing one's esoteric development via food. It's a lovely place located in Topanga Canyon, nestled right above a ravine bed amidst trees and vines. The car parked, our clothes smoothed, we slid-shuffled along a hard-to-negotiate stone table booth with shifting cushions.

The food itself was magnificent, which wasn't a surprise considering the price. The price part was funny, actually, since as you began to look at menu selections that had a lower and lower vibrational quality, the cost kept getting higher. For the enlightened tofu eater, one merely paid 16 dollars. For the savage motherdrinker who would feed upon lamb, you paid 33 dollars. I had the modestly sinful chicken.

Only downside to the whole overly expensive dinner was the wedding reception the hostess hadn't bothered telling us about. Apparently they had them every saturday and sunday. Now I have no problem with wedding receptions, but the D.J./assholes planning the thing decided to (loudly) play bad 80's, R&B and rap. The piped in harp music and semi-formal dress of the restaurant go'ers sorta clashed a little. None of us were happy about it and Mom apologized for me not getting the true Seventh Ray experience. She'd knew the restaurant and its owners well, having lived in Topanga Canyon for a few years around when I was born and a baby, saving up enough to go there once a month.

The place redeemed itself, though, when we went into the bookstore located on the property. It was your typical New Age bookstore for the most part, complete with a crystal section. I've always been partial to semi-precious stones, so I took a look to see if anything stood out. Sure enough, there was this lovely almond-shaped piece of Spectralite set in silver, it's blue-white sky ocean reflecting a gentle blue gleam every time it caught the light. I very much liked the piece and bought it. Ma seemed quite pleased that I got a taste of what the Seventh Ray was usually like (since the New Age music inside mostly drowned out the thuggish ruggish rap shit outside).

Mostly I've been sorting and packing all of my stuff, trying to find a way of getting all of it to fit in my car and in this snazzy 10 cubic foot luggage thingy on top of a roof rack I don't yet own. The sorting part was what sucked the most, I think, since I've kept every notebook of every class I've had since I was a freshman in high school--yeah, high school--and straight through college. It's a humbling, numbing experience when you read through old papers, like wading through a sea of knives that's only in your mind. I'd read through the suggested comments or the grades, and continually be suprised by how I remembered doing in a particular class and what some papers actually stated. I wasn't meticulous with going through every class, but it was still damned sobering. I kept having to remind myself that I wasn't like the high school 'me' anymore, that I'd grown from all of that. It felt good to get rid of most of those notebooks. Not surprisingly I mostly kept my favorite course material from college, like the Sufism or Medieval Japan ones. So far as current packing goes, I'm mostly done. Today, for instance, I vacuum-sucked nearly all of my clothes into those space bags, like flash-frozen slabs of compressed chicken.

I found out on the way to Vegas that, somehow, I'd been driving in 3rd gear for about 120 miles at around 80 mph. You can't tell which gear you're in on a flat road, y'see, and at the time I thought nothing of it. All I knew was that I was 500 miles overdue for an oil change after the Vegas trip. Well, that was definetely true--but apparently the transmission oil was 'baked' also, all because I'd been in a lower gear. Now I'd just had the trans fluid replaced 6,000 miles ago, so naturally I was pretty pissed off. Combine that with having to get my rear brakes adjusted (done about 8,000 miles ago) and my front tires apparently 'wobbling some', and you had a mountain of new car expenses. I love my Buick, hell I adore the thing, but maintenance costs on a used car suck giant wang.

As of today, I've got 5 days left until I start my 3 day 'God, why 2,000 miles in a car?' odyssey to Madison. I plan on driving 9-10 hours a day, stopping every 3-4 hours to let the car rest and refuel/eat/read. Since I'm going out there alone, at least I have my choice of whatever I want to listen to. Only downside is the whole 25+ hours sitting in a car, then moving into an apartment that I thought I saw from the outside back when I visited Madison, but I'm not quite sure if I did see it. I've lived in less for more. Way more.

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