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I’m not terribly good at fashion.  Not high fashion, I don’t care about what’s on the runway/who designed what/that guy that just died who made uncomfortable shoes.  I mean regular, every day what-people-actually-wear fashion.

I’m certainly not “unfashionable,” you don’t see me in khaki cargo pants or um, something else that is unfashionable.  But most people/art-students-seen-in-the-halls/gays seem to dress better than I.  Perhaps I’m simply not working with enough.  Take a gander at Douglas’s closet, for example, and I’ve seen bedrooms more well-stocked than the Swan station.

Inventory Time!

9 long sleeve shirts

16 tee-shirts (my most well-stocked category)

3 pairs of jeans (black am appy, gray, blue w/knee hole)

4 pair shorts

12 pair underwear (boxer-briefs, fyi)

6 pair socks (white)

3 zip-up hoody sweatshirts

1 spring/autumm jacket

1 winter coat

3 pair shoes (no-stitch, D1, and painted black vans)

not listed:  “work” clothes (probably 3 pants, 6 shirts)

Listing it all out makes it seem like more, but compared to 57 v-neck sweaters, not so much.

Of course, I know that “fashion” is just a scheme to get us to buy new stuff every year, despite the old stuff still working just fine.  It is a time, money, and resource waster…  but check out these shoes!!  They are on sale!!!

Ones that I would want, in the order I would prefer them, from most to least, although any would be grand.  As they say, I wouldn’t kick any of them out of bed for eating crackers.

1. Time-Turner - Imagine sleeping in till noon, having a relaxing breakfast, and then turning back time to 9am to go to class.  Brilliant!  This would immediately improve my life and my grades and just everything.  Really, this is all about oversleeping.  If there were, say, a magic pillow that made me wake up at 7am every day fully rested, that would work too, without the risk of paradoxes/hippogriffs.

2. Seven-League Boots - These are boots that allow the wearer to go 7 leagues with each stride.  That’s 21 miles.  In many ways, these resemble the super powers Teleportation and Flight, reviewed here.  Their application should be obvious.  I hope they are fashionable.

3. Magic Bag - This is a bag that can hold anything, sometimes called a “pocket universe.”  Link has one of these; he keeps his hammer, goron sword, bow, and deku shells in it.  I would use this for everything.  I assume things in there are preserved in the exact conditional they went in, so I’d put sandwiches in there, cold drinks, all my art supplies…  This would have been real handy back when I was moving every 3 months.  I wouldn’t be able to defeat the White Witch or anything, but this is way more useful than a horn or the juice of fire-flowers.

4. Invisibility Cloak - I guess this would be cool, but not much practical use.  I’m not sneaking into the restricted section to look for books on Nick Flannel, you know?  I guess I could walk around in dangerous neighborhoods without fear of being rape-mugged.

Other Possibilities: Power Gloves (lift boulders), Deluminator/Street Darkener (“to siphon away the clarity made from mankind’s bulbs”)

A few months ago, I was talking about schooling and our chosen majors with my friend Matt.  He’s in medical school now, and told me a story about a time he volunteered at a free clinic.  When he got there, a nurse immediately handed him a clipboard and told him to go see X patient in curtained-space Y.  The patient saw the white coat, stethoscope, and chart and started describing his ailments to the “doctor.”  Meanwhile Matt was thinking “wait whoa I’m just a student!  I don’t know what I’m doing!”  I’m sure he soon collected himself and did a fine job helping the patient; he’s a smart guy.

But the point is, doctors have uniforms, and uniforms have power.  Firefighters, police, military, repairmen, Dharma Initiative workmen, salespeople at Best Buy, they’ve all got a cute lil’ outfit that says “this is who I am, this is what I do.”

Architects don’t have that.  I suppose if you are on a job site, you can pick out the architect as the one inappropriately dressed in nice shoes and pants, but otherwise, we’ve got nothing.  I suppose you could say that dressing in all black, with thick black glasses, and potentially a bow-tie is a uniform of sorts…

Anyway!  I think architects need a uniform.  The pants need to be able to be cuffed, for fashion, muddy worksites, and biking to work.  The shirt should have a pocket.  We’d carry around a big metal T-square (yeah we don’t draft anymore, but it would be cool to have) and some sort of sextant-esque device, with a little scope to look through, and I don’t know, dials to determine if a wall is plumb or something.  Someone figure that out.  Let’s make this happen!

The Internet is a continually changing media format.  Web sites (or to be increasingly accurate, web applications/platforms) are updated frequently, with features removed, added, changed, and so forth.  Throughout these updates, I am confronted with one truth: I use these platforms for fundamentally different things than what the makers presume.

Most recently, Facebook changed its layout.  This change ruins my most clever solution; lists.  I made a list called “Interesting,” of 98 people out of 333 friends on FB.  I put this list above “News Feed” on the sidebar, so that instead of seeing updates from all 333, I only see info about people I am actually interested in.  This effectively reduces my friends list, without actually defriending anyone.  The new layout does not allow this, so I am back to seeing uninteresting updates from people I don’t care about.  This Facebook “upgrade” directly decreased my enjoyment of the site.  A previous “upgrade,” which severely restricted the functionality of Search, also directly decreased the utility of the site.

On Tumblr, my list of things to improve is simple: it not crashing so often.  Not on my list: reply with photo, tumblarity, directory w/ categories, “radar,” “tumblr tuesday,” and on and on.  A while ago, the layout of the “followers” page was changed.  Instead of showing all of them, it is broken into pages.  I suppose this is good for people with 1000 folllowers.  But for me, having them all on one page allowed me to quickly ⌘F a username.  The in-site search feature requires you to type the entire username in, exactly correct.  Not useful, and includes no link to the tumblr when you “search.”

Why do all these upgrades result in a reduction of utility?  I must use these technologies in a different way than the majority, or at least, differently than how the makers think people use them.  Why can’t the Internet work the way I want it to?

I’ve been reasonably faithful to my decision to stop drinking because of the crazy effects it has on me the day(s) after (see here).  I had a beer on Halloween, and a margarita a few weeks later.  The second day of school this quarter, I had several beers with my classmates.  This was a mistake; I didn’t go to any classes the next day, and struggled the next.  Friday night I had a beer and a gin and tonic, over a period of 5 hours.  I woke up at 6pm yesterday.  I had slept for 15 hours.

In October I called it a “correlation” but I’m more confident in my theory, and shall declare it to be a case of causation. I have thus renewed my resolve.  And, looking back, it hasn’t been that bad.  I certainly spend less money; a sixpack is $10, and I’d be lucky to get 2 drinks at a bar for that much.  I wasn’t a huge drinker before, but I definitely have a few dollars more each week now.

As well, my friends have not questioned me, as I had worried.  Turns out I have friends, not fratboys.  (Indeed, apparently the day after I went to the bar with classmates the second day of school, a friend chastised the guys I was with.  Hardly necessary, but swell I suppose.)

The challenge continues to be getting in a similar sort of relaxed/care-free mood one gets when drinking, getting into the right state of mind so that I don’t feel awkward, so that I can dance and laugh and have fun.  Basically, getting out of my head and into the world.  I raise my glass of water to fun nights and clear-headed days after!

I’ve lived my whole life in places that experience seasons, where it’s cold in the winter and warm in the summer, where the axis tilts, where Persephone visits Demeter.  I suppose the variety is nice, but damn does winter just suck.

It makes me question the early settlers.  Who in their right mind would decide to live here?  Sure it’s only a few months a year, but the other 9 months would have to be full of gold and ambrosia and sexy dudes for Settler-Kevoh to think this was a good place for a log cabin.

The worst part of winter is how everyone tries to pretend that it just isn’t happening.  School and work still go on, hours don’t change, we are all supposed to behave the same on January 8th as July 8th.  I think we should basically hibernate in the winter.  In the autumn we make sure all the power plants and machines are in full working order, we all stock our pantries and can our vegetables, and then, perhaps as a new version of Thanksgiving, we have a big party and say “see you in March!” to our neighbors.  Hooray!

Earlier today I spent 15 minutes freezing my fingers off brushing four inches of snow off my car so I could drive to the pharmacy to refill drugs.  At least I used the opportunity to buy a space heater, which I shall run non-stop until the gold, ambrosia, and dudes arrive.

Something I just don’t “get” is working out.  There must be some switch in my head turned to off.  I never think “yeah I should lift some weights!” or “I could sure go for a run right now!”

I’m 6’1” and 139 pounds after a hearty meal, so I don’t need to exercise to stay thin or whatever, but I certainly don’t have “muscle mass” and I actually have high cholesterol, so exercise would probably be a good idea.  But… mehhhhhh.

As well, I feel like with just a bit of work, say for a month or two, I could be quite sexy, in a modest way.  I’ll never be a beefcake (nor do I want to be) but something in the range of Example A at the minimum and Example B at the just-maybe-possible-if-I-really-dedicated-myself level. (warning: scantily clad dude-pics!)  (I could even recreate Example A, I think I have that comic book!)

I think, for me, the best place to start would be just daily push-ups and sit-ups (I guess they are called “crunches” these days?).  I could start today.  Even right now.  But I didn’t sleep at all, and I’m hungry.  The excuses begin.

Back when I had to “pull all-nighters” for studio, I dreaded the occasion.  All night under the unpleasant lights, surrounded by cranky students, eating garbage from the vending machines, hacking away at tiny models or CAD drawings… The Worst.

The Peak: The last 3 days of freshman year were terrible.  Awake all day normally Wednesday, spent all night working on a project due Thursday morning.  Classes Thursday, then up all night in studio working on the big final group project due Friday.  Presentation in the morning, and then finally the sweet release of bed.  I was awake and productive for 54 hours straight.  Then I slept for 21 hours straight.

Nowadays, however, the all-nighter is less dreadful, as they’ve all been for writing assignments.  I can do these at home, in the comfort of my room.  I can play music of my own choosing (I always play music softly, waking housemates is not a concern), there is a pleasant bathroom nearby, and I can eat normal food from the fridge, and make tea.

Full Disclosure, of an Uncouth Nature (Because if I can’t share personal things publicly and indiscriminately to the entire world, where can I share them?): Guess what is a good break from writing that will reinvigorate you, that you certainly can’t do in studio.  That’s right, masturbation.

Anyway, to me an all-nighter makes some sense.  Sure, I could have worked on this project more over the weekend, but there is something special about having this uninterrupted block of time with no other responsibilities.  There aren’t even things like “lunchtime” getting in the way. Just me, Microsoft Word, peppermint tea, The Hood Internet, and only 2 more pages!

The past 2 years have been rather chaotic, location-wise.  I remarked to a friend a while ago about how I was looking forward to being in the same house for 6 months, and he was rather shocked that I considered 6 months to be a long time.  To recap, September 2007 through September 2009, in 3 month increments.  The abbreviations:  “cincy” is Cincinnati, OH, “clev” is Cleveland, OH, “chi” is Chicago, IL, and “cph” is Copenhagen, Denmark.

clev, cincy, chi, cph

chi, cincy, cincy, clev

I am in Cincy again, until March.  Then I go to some yet-to-be-determined city for 6 months, then Cincy for 9, and then somewhere for the mysterious “Real Life.” 

Despite all the chaos of moving every 3 months, there is something exciting, perhaps even romantic, to travel.  When I was in Europe, I started to develop this dream of a life of sailing.  I’ve never sailed, but living on a boat, and traveling around the world, staying docked in a city for as long as it interested me, really captured my imagination.  But the crushing details of how I would make money, can I really dock anywhere, would I be able to cross the Atlantic or Pacific, and so forth remain unsolved.

I also really enjoyed flying to Seattle, and the excitement of being in Seattle all day Sunday, getting on a plane at midnight, landing in Cincy at 10am, and completing and turning in a project by 1pm.  And then someone mentions light rail plans, and I say “oh I was on the Seattle light rail yesterday, it went through…”  International jet setter!

On the question of where I’ll spend “Real Life,”  if not On A Boat, I can imagine ending up in Chicago.  I really enjoyed the 6 months I lived there.  But, some friends are ending up in NYC.  It really captured my attention when I visited, yet I have this vague notion that the people of Chicago are more my sort of people, perhaps its the midwest influence…  Copenhagen would be amazing, but so far away from family/everyone I know.  Plus I fear the super-dark winters.  And there are so many cities yet to visit (LA, San Fran, Orlando…) and so many yet to fully explore (Seattle, London, Boston…)

I just got back from the grocery store.  Every time I go, I am confronted with this reality: I don’t know anything about food.

I don’t know what food is what, which to eat, how to prepare what, and so on.  I have a vague notion of the food pyramid (aided by a recent refresher course on Clone High, of all places) which I keep to, and I know my own capabilities, which governs what I buy (ie, what would I do with raw chicken?  Canned tuna, I know how to handle that)

An example:  Once, while eating yogurt, I messaged Nate, asking what yogurt is.  He first questioned “are you serious??” but eventually confirmed its status as “a dairy.”  And yet, it’s always fruit flavoured (sometimes it even has actual fruit bits!), so the jury is still out on that one…

In other respects, I go by whatever the labels say.  I buy “whole grain” bread, “heart healthy” orange juice, “50% Less Sodium” canned soup, “Light” yogurt, I think turkey is better than ham or roast beast or whatever for lunches, apples and bananas, “Skim” milk, etc.  I don’t buy “Diet” soda though, because that’s just gross.

Special Note, For Prospective Mates: Obviously someday I need to settle down with someone who knows how to cook and enjoys it (so that I don’t feel guilty with him always doing it).  Also, I’ll totally do dishes. (Might be better if you do the laundry, though.)