When I was living in Hawai'i I missed the winter.  I thought about snow drifting to the ground, the crisp chill in the air, the smell.  I thought back on my childhood and running around in the snow and cold and thought fondly. 

I moved back , as many of you might have noticed, and saw the winter return.  Little flakes of negative space floating down from the sky, weightless, like stars coming out to play.  Brisk, cold air touching my skin.  Nostrils filled with that sharp chill. 

I love it.  I really do.  I sleep with the window open, even in the dead of winter.  I still smile when I see snow tumbling lazily through the air. 

But... the spring. 

There's two seasons that not only do I love, but make me feel happy; the autumn and the spring.  And now it's spring outside.  In February.  And I know that it's going to go away. 

I've spent this day trying my hardest to have a spring day.  I've been outside as much as possible.  I didn't wear a coat.  I mixed a gin and tonic when I got home, cooked some pasta, ate a little salad, then stayed outside even more. 

I have the window open and my fan on and blowing. 

I'm wearing a fucking tee shirt. 

In a couple of minutes I'm going to make a cup of coffee and sit at my window.  I'm going to inhale that subtle, cool spring air because I know in a couple of days that winter is going to melt away my spring and it will be cold again for another two months. 

I'm going to appreciate this. 

Lately I've been tired.  It's been a real thing, apparent to people immediately upon seeing me.  I saw kfringe about two weeks back and he remarked how tired I looked.  He said I seemed... slow.  Like I had been trapped in vaseline.  It's a hard point to argue, really.  Work has been exactly what one would expect: annoying, long, and frustrating.  Also, and this is probably pretty obvious to most, last week marked one year since my girlfriend Star died.  I wasn't exactly feeling up to snuff. 

The day of the anniversary itself, one of three anniversaries I think of when thinking of Star, was strange.  I was angry for most of it, just terribly angry.  The kind where you growl your words out between gritted teeth, where you are so exhausted by your anger that you need to sleep.  I couldn't really be around people.  I spent most of the day locked up in my apartment, occupying myself with little things. 

At eleven o'clock that night I went down to see her.  That's what I call it when I go to see her memorial at Rittenhouse Square, "going to see her".  And it turned me around.  I had wanted to go earlier in the day, in the late morning, but I just couldn't bring myself to it yet.  I'd needed time.  So I went at eleven and we talked.  I just blathered on for a while about her, us, me, and after an hour or so I actually felt calmer, relaxed.  I smiled, I joked.  I felt like I'd maybe figured things out a little more. 

I rode that for days.  Quit smoking for a little while.  Saw nodeva , Tim, and the little man, sarcasmom and Glenn, which was incredible fun.  Those people make a guy feel loved. 

Today... well, today I feel different.  I don't feel so good.  I feel tired again.  But let's not talk about that right now.  Maybe I'll say something tomorrow morning.  Tonight, I just want to leave this on a happy thought. 

The new air conditioner that I just installed is humming away off to my right.  It hasn't even been running for an hour yet and my room already feels noticably cooler. 

I've been concerned over the heat issue recently.  After living in Hawai'i for a couple of years the heat doesn't bother me so much but my apartment makes like a heat trap.  I don't know if it's the way the building faces, the material that it's built from or any number of other reasons.  In any case, even when night comes round and it gets down to sixty or seventy outside, my apartment will still feel like it's ninety degrees.  This isn't good for a place that has the pure population density of electronic equipment that mine does. 

My only hang-up over this is that I can't have my windows open right now.  I like having them open wide and listening to the city move.  At least I'll have two windows I can open when it rains. 

A day that contained within it a time in which I was so angry that I actually said the phrase "I don't care who started it, but I'll finish it" and meant it definitely needed a little bit of rain hitting the asphalt to calm me down.  I can't explain why it calms me as much as it does, but hearing cars ride through puddles just takes my mind away. 

Used to be I'd post an entry here just about every other day.  Been a while since my last and that one was about some dice that I got in the mail.  I'm feeling like I should maybe put up some new stuff as I don't really get afforded the opportunity to see most of the people I know in casual social situations. 

A week ago this past sunday I spent some time with nodeva and her family.  Got together, had some dinner, had some wine, watched some children's programming.  It was good getting to hang our with Debbie and Tim.  I don't really get the chance to see them that much though I try to as often as I can.  Being around them is just good.  We talked about movies and books, travel, the army and life in an army family.  The food was spectacular; some risotto, grilled vegetables.  Delicious.  I also got to hang out with the little bug a fair amount.  That kid is way too much fun.  It was getting on late and I didn't want to be keeping the family up, so I said it was time for me to go.  Of course, the little man has to say "Don't go, Michael."  Damn that kid's got a way of breaking my heart. 

Works been going as well, of course.  Got robbed about a week ago.  Nothing too bad.  Happened after we were closed so nobody was there to get hurt.  Guy got in and stole some accessory crap and a couple of defective games.  Haven't had the chance to watch the security camera footage yet, but I have it on good word that it is "hilarious". 

Had some friends, including macgrrl, over on tuesday night and I cooked them dinner and we watched Heat.  I absolutely freaking love that movie.  I'm a bit of a heist/caper/crime/noir/darkscarybadpeople movie guy, so Heat definitely hits all of the appropriate buttons.  And the food turned out good.  The rice was spicy, the tatertots were nice and crunchy, the burgers were medium rare and, so I'm told, really quite good.  Nice to know a vegetarian can still cook a slab of meat well. 

Got word from my father the other day.  My grandfather, my mother's father, is in the hospital.  I don't know too much at all really, just that his legs apparently went numb and he wasn't able to walk.  He's also been using an oxygen tank at times over the past couple of months.  I'm far from a doctor, but that sounds like the stuff that happens when a person has a stroke, yeah?  My family is going to try and get down to Virginia to see him this weekend and I'm going to try and go along.  I should be able to arrange some sort of something at work to get the time away. 

And now it's off to work.  Iced coffee and an egg and cheese sandwich are in my immediate future. 

...make LJ Valentine's day themed?  I'm not really in the mood for this particular hallmark holiday, even with Warren Ellis renaming it into Horny Werewolf Day. 

Word of warning: do not talk to me about love, relationships, romance and other such things today.  I'll hear about it enough as noise polution. 

I've been waking up with songs stuck in my head.  This has been happening on a pretty consistent basis for the past couple of weeks now.  It has been mostly songs to my taste: a Deftones track, or maybe some Placebo, or something, though a couple of days ago I got a Boys2Men song stuck in my head.  Or is that BoysIIMen?  Anyway, most of the song are slower tempo, downbeat tracks. 

And it's immediate.  I wake up, go through my morning "getting out of bed" process, but as soon as I swing my feet over the side of the bed and they touch wooden floorboards a song starts playing.  I don't notice it at first, being half-asleep still and distracted by the things that I have to do when I get up.  But always, and for the last week at least, it has been always, within five minutes of me getting up and moving around I can hear a song in my brain, clear as day. 

I started noting them on my LJ posts.  If I have a song stuck in my brainpan as I'm typing away, I'll be sure to note it.  Maybe it's a pattern.  Maybe I could use these songs to decode the meaning of the universe.  Or predict the future. 

Things have changed at work.  My email touched some things off with my district manager.  She called me up at work and we talked about the things that needed to be done in order ro ensure a safer work environment.  Many more hours to keep the store at double coverage at all times, securtiy camera reapairs, the possiblity of adding a security guard to the store.  All in all, not a bad day's work. 

Yesterday was the first day operating under the new parameters.  I opened the store along with one other person.  It was very helpful to have him there as we could both get things done, a strange new concept for me. Games were put away, tasks accomplished, paperwork completed, and customers were helped, all at the same time.  On top of that, we weren't at any time robbed. 

...and believe me, I've got plenty to go around, but Ive got my therapist's apointment tomorrow.  So I'll take a break tonight and simply say--

Why didn't anyone tell me that Crusade was that bad of a fucking television show?  I mean, everyone said that it was really bad, but there really should be a new word invented to describe it.  Like the inverse of "scrumtrulescent".  I open the floor to those out there to come up with a new word to describe Crusade. 

Gary Cole, Daniel Dae Kim, I hurt for you both. 

The window has been replaced.  That is one item checked off of the list.  Next up, I will go to my therapist and likely talk about things.  The nature of these things will likely be very similar to the friends-only posts I make here on LJ, oddly enough.  I just get to pay somebody to hear them. 

Also, there is a maintenance man in my apartment replacing my entire fucking kitchen sink.  Apparently, it is somehow broken.  I was going to cook some lunch in said kitchen, but that seems to have become an impossibility.  Cold pizza shall rule the day. 

Hey, at least I'm eating something.