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Today was splashy and squirty and sunny, and also had things, such as cake and frisbee and Apex Community Park, for which no suitable adjectives can be created. The nominal occasion was an early celebration of Cassandra's birthday, but I think my presence was mainly due to my friendship with the conspirators Megan and Morgan, as well as my eagerness for regressive behavior. I left happy, sunburned, damp, and marveling at the arcane protocols governing physical contact between friends of the opposite sex -- and I don't mean to sound detached, for I feel their influence at least as strongly as anyone else.
After I got home Daddy and I shot targets for a while and talked about guns, which, despite perfectly fitting a masculine stereotype, is quite unusual for us. My airgun and bike both need cleaning and oiling. I should do that soon; as mechanical devices go, they're very near my heart.
Prior to today, I'd only seen Diana, Erica and Hannah this summer, and them only once each. I've been very halfhearted about applying for jobs, and haven't gone to bed before two for as long as I can remember. Perhaps regressive behavior is in order; I've definitely still got some growing up to do.
posted on Sunday, May 28, 2006
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I'm ensnared in a vicious loop of lip-biting. Why it started I don't know, but I accidentally bit the inside of my lower lip between my incisors, and the lip swelled a little, pushing it closer to the normal zone of biting, eventually resulting in a second bite and a second swelling. The cycle is now on its dozenth iteration, and is by far my greatest worry at the moment.
Also, after years of effort, I got MechWarrior 2 running on Windows XP, thanks to a simple patch. Words cannot describe my jubilation.
posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006
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Chapel Hill is waking up around me. The sky's diffuse gray glow isn't yet bright enough to deactivate -- no, the closest set of streetlights just turned off. The past couple of days were very wet, but now it's just cold, especially here on the 8th floor landing in the north stairwell of Granville South. From the looks of things, the sun won't be making much effort to improve that today.
Sunday night was the last all-nighter (at least, the last academic one). The Linguistics exam began at noon, and I must've nodded off in mid-sentence at least a dozen times. Somehow, I stayed coherent -- it wasn't until I jerked back to full consciousness that I forgot what I'd been writing. It came out fine, eventually. And then I got some lunch, or whatever one calls a three o'clock meal after thirty hours mostly awake, promised myself that I'd postpone sleeping until sunset in order to regularize my schedule, sat down on my bed, and immediately blacked out for seven hours, interrupted only to bid Sam a brief and groggy farewell when he came in to say goodbye.
I finally woke a little before midnight, showered, dressed, and got a nasty cheeseburger from Time-Out, then puttered around on the internet for a while, then wandered into the lounge and turned on the TV. Not expecting to find anything worth watching, I was happily surprised to stumble upon a few hours of X-Files reruns. And now I'm sitting here on a concrete step, tapping on my laptop.
It's been harder than I expected to see everyone go. Not the people that I tried to develop meaningful friendships with with, but the people I've lived with and incidentally grown close to. Dav, who has often paused his fervent defenses of Christianity to point out the hottest girl in any given room. Wilkes, who insisted that I have some fun on the last day of classes, and, finding all the good parties already ending at two in the morning, gave me one cheap beer after another along with a fair fraction of his life story. Dan, with whom I recently had an inexplicable and spontaneous conversation about certain problems males face, which shall not be detailed here. Sam, who persistently refused to let me embrace my introversion to too dangerous a degree. Steve and Jay and the rest of the Halo 2 crew. Oh, it's been fun.
posted on Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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At one in the morning, riding back from campus, I think I was looking as much for an excuse to explore as for a way back into Granville. Between two houses, a small alley led to overgrown steps and a chain-link gate. Dismounting to check the padlock, I stepped over a smashed bottle, from which beer trickled, puddled, and evaporated, mixing with the scent of honeysuckle nectar. And back on the sidewalk, one girl called out of a passing group, "I like your bike," at which I laughed uncertainly and said nothing, too bemused for wit.
Summer is near, and morning nearer. Blinds down, eyes closed.
posted on Saturday, May 06, 2006
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I'm feeling pretty good about the English final I took this morning. Three essays, with an hour for each, on a laptop -- they came out sufficiently polished, I think. I'm still not happy with the standard essay format I've been practicing since middle school; for short essays, lengthy introductions and conclusions are purely rhetorical, and require an affectation of swiftly broadened perspective that I can't usually summon after trudging through minutiae. Whatever. Also, the Biology final yesterday was easier than I expected, although I probably did badly on it anyway.
I finally finished Romancing SaGa 3 last weekend. The final battle was frantic, desperate, and stunningly cool, and the epilogue was appallingly cute, but I was dismayed to discover that my meticulously collected Salves, Waza Potions, Fairy Herbs, Barrier Stones, etc. were completely unnecessary -- damn my packrat instincts. I'll definitely be keeping the soundtrack around, especially the orchestrated version.
And speaking of game soundtracks, I'm starting to wonder if MechWarrior 2 was a homeschooler thing. Dav is the only person I've met here who's played it, and he was homeschooled. So was Mitchell Greene. So were my brother and I, at least at that time. So was Clint Maddry, I think. Mysterious.
posted on Tuesday, May 02, 2006
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