twenty-five seconds of silence

insane in the brain

i am not well. yes, tics.

i wonder if the 4mg of haldol i'm now on is causing this low rumbling in my brain. i feel like i'm on a plane or something, with this constant noise in my ears. *RAAR*

poor alan. he lost out on his bid for this townhouse, and on top of that, he's buried by work. he was all stressed out yesterday. *comfort*

it looks like i won't have a meal today. i skipped lunch (as usual) after basketball, and i'm headed up to the city right after work. hm. this can't be good for me, skipping not only one, but two meals. i had a snickers bar, though, and hopefully that will keep my stomach from going crazy with hunger.

so my tics have morphed from a right-directional neck twist to a left-ways neck crunch towards my shoulder. and that's bad news. why? because i wind up crunching my nerves, and they're really burning right now. and the more a tic hurts, the more often i'm inclined to do it. tourette's is a masochist disorder, i know. *RAAR*

does anybody have problems with mavi jeans tearing prematurely? i mean, all three of my mavi pairs have torn in the butt pocket where my wallet goes. i think they use shoddy denim or thin denim or something. i've spent a lot of money on these jeans, and now i have spend MORE money to repair them! arrgh!

so it turns out that my ex-boss and ex-favorite-coworker at my old company are leaving to start their own business together. man. that seems like a fun thing to do, but also very stressful. i.e. getting funding, setting up shop, hiring good people. it's a lot of work!

i can't believe september is over after today. the year is 75% over! and what bugs me about that the most is that i feel like i've done NOTHING in 2004. ok, i went to europe, but aside from those two+ weeks, what have i done? have i accomplished anything worth being proud of? nope. nada. zilch. *hangs head*

my birthday falls exactly on thanksgiving this year. i wonder who i'll celebrate with on that day, as i think everyone will be with their families or something.

you know what scares me? girls with tongue studs. why? because if they're giving you a blowjob, what if they jam the stud into your meatus (hole)? wouldn't that totally HURT??!! ick, i cringe at the thought of that happening.

does an artificially widened meatus heal? does it close back up? what if it's a one-way irreversible process, and your peehole just gets bigger and bigger? what if the entire penishead is ripped in half? does it stay like that? oh, the questions!

ok. time for a smoke. toodles!

upswing

i'm feeling happier today (a rare event), mainly because of a good lunch break with some coworkers (sans the usual griping) and an IM from jo-ann. for those of you who don't know, jo-ann was the girl i was head-over-heels in love with in 2000 and part of 2001. she's rad. and hella cute as well. (she's taken now, but that's ok with me. yeah, i finally got over it. :)

but yeah, the tics are still bothering me. i saw my psych today, and we're upping me to 4mg of haldol and 2mg of benztropine. we'll see what that does, but i'm sort of determined to keeping upping the haldol until something happens, either i go crazy (the drug is a powerful antipsychotic) or the tics get better.

in the meantime, i want to thank mr. ken for doing some research on alternative holistic (vitamin and mineral) treatments for TS online. i may go this route is i decide that my current two methods of treatment (meds and chiro neurology) aren't working. i will never stop searching for a way to get better. i will never give up! *RAAR*

but anyways, it's the middle of the week, and i'm feeling better. what more can i ask for?

the big news from jo-ann is that she's back in the states. which is GREAT news, because that means i don't have to fly all the way to singapore to see her (which i've never done). of course, she *is* all the way clear across the country in NYC, but somehow, her being in the states gives me comfort.

i never really got why (for a man) shooting your spooge all over a girl's face is such a turn-on. i mean, it's one thing is she's blowing you and you spunk inside her mouth, but what's the point of shooting your load on her face? is it the degrading factor that is a turn-on? *ponder* personally, i'd much rather come inside her; it's more realistic, anyway, and i think it feels much better than wanking off for a facial. and hence my personal fetish for internal comeshot porn.

i think alan's going to bid on a townhouse today. good luck dude! *sigh* but on the flipside, i'll be so sad to see him go. the last time we moved away from each other, i think i was depressed, or at least that's why my mom's theory is.

ok, i just got an IM from amy. gotta go!

down on life

man, it's only tuesday. not much going on today (which seems to be the usual these days), except that my team actually won one (out of like 5) game today. my teams mostly suck, probably due to me and my lack of coordination in playing defense and grabbing loose balls. i just don't have the reflexes!

so now i'm supposed to wear the red eyeglasses for 2.5 hours a day (in two 1 hour 15 minute sessions). damn, that's like my entire night after i get home from work! lately, i start to feel frustrated and agitated near the end of my red sessions, probably due to the color and the fact that the acetate itches my face. and i am highly reluctant to wear them at work, either, for fear of having to explain them to everybody and their mother.

but hot damn! last night's cowboys/redskins game was great. of course, the cowboys won, otherwise i wouldn't have been in a good mood. had the redskins had better clock management and managed to salvage a final timeout for a field goal, they would have pushed the game into overtime. *phew* the halfback option play was brilliant!

still, though, i'm not sure if the cowboys will make the playoffs. the eagles will most certainly win the division, and i doubt the cowboys could get a good enough record to make it in as a wildcard. but we'll see. i still have hope!

so i see my psych tomorrow. not sure what new drug he's going to put me on, but i'm thinking about asking him to keep me on haldol and up the dosage. i'm already on 3mg, which was enough to drive me nuts the last time i was on haldol, so that tells me that my body is resistant to the drug. so maybe i need more? *ponder*

but lately, my tourette's has been ruling me. it's nearly impossible to work, and that's really bad news because i have a shitload of work to do. sigh.

so alan is going to bid on a house tomorrow. if he gets it, then i don't know what i'm going to do when he moves out. i'll most likely stay at my current place a little while longer, but i can't afford to pay the rent by myself for long. hm. what to do...

i had a semi-panic session about the state of my life the other day. i feel "behind" all of my good friends, who are all married/committed, own houses (or are about to), and generally in a good state of mental health. me? i've got none of that stuff, (especially that mental health bit), and it's sort of freaking me out. what's wrong with me?

yeah, i'm not in a such a good place right now. and i'm sort of fretting about how i can make things better. that europe trip showed me that being away from work cause some improvement in my TS, but then again, i can't NOT work, can i? i need money!

on a brighter note, i got this google phrase of the day:

"easy sexual positions for short chubby people"

ha! i can see how two big people's bellies can collide and prevent coitus. my recommendation would be to lay her on her back on a table, and for him to enter standing up. either that, or doggy style. just my two cents.

ok, i've got to get back to work.

ticcing hell

i am not well these days. my tics are coming back full force, and i find myself unable to focus on anything at all. sigh. i long for the latter days of my europe trip, when i actually felt like *myself* some of the time.

i think this weekend habit of sleeping 16 hours has got to stop. but, the thing is, i don't really have a *reason* to get up in the morning/afternoon, because the moment i roll out of bed, i start ticcing, and i HATE that. so why not just stay in bed, especially if i don't have anything pressing to do? so that's why i do the 16-hour thing.

before this gets to be a gripe session about my tourette's, let me just say... it's ON. cowboys vs. redskins. i'm going to grab some fast food and plop lazy ass down on the couch and watch the whole game. should be good, parcells vs. gibbs.

at least i've made a mid-week plan. i'm going up to the city on thursday night to check out an 8-minute film on oedipus animated with vegetables. sounds fun, right? well, the story is that the guy who made the film was k1's boyfriend right after me. we (he and i) had a weird relationship, but in the end, we're sort of friends now (though we only talk once in a blue moon), and i want to go support his film. neat-o!

do i have any readers who live in new hampshire? a good friend of mine, jeremy, is running for the state assembly, and he needs to some support! i'd vote for him 500 times if i could (but then again, i'm not even a resident in NH), because he's a good guy with a solid head on his shoulders. sigh. i miss jeremy and his wife kate.

anyways, not much going on here.

my left ear has been bothering me for two reasons. first, i have a ton of earwax that crunches and crunches when i'm lying down on my right side. and second, i have a cut on the edge of my ear from constantly scratching it. the skin is all dry and stuff, so i just keep attacking it with my fingernails. yup.

i've noticed that i have a lot of skin problems. yup, i'm a dermatologist's wet dream. eczema, dry skin, psoriasis, weird growths (eww), you name it, i've got it. i think i inherited it from my dad. he's got this nasty growth on his shoulder that's all pink and looks like an aborted fetus. ick!

anyone out there still eat their scabs? :)

sportswatching

didn't do much this weekend except, as the title suggests, watching sports. then again, when you're only awake 8 hours a day, how much can you do anyway?

that was the case, as i got up at 2pm both days and was in bed by 10. lazy ass i am, i know.

saturday, i watched the giants beat the dodgers on a grand slam. usually baseball bores me to tears, but now that the pennant race is in full gear, the games actually mean something. so i watch.

after that, i watched stanford barely lose to #1 ranked usc. damn, that was a great first half, where we led 28-17. during the game, i also talked to dave and carolyn (carolyn's birthday was the day before) on the phone, and they were fun to talk to.

i couldn't finish the game, though, because i had to meet up with the bowling gang at pasta pomodoro at 7. i got the mafaldine, which was good; i switch off between the gemelli and the mafaldine, my two favorite dishes at p.p. then, i just went home, putzed around, and slept.

sunday, i woke up and immediately turned on the niners game. even though i have no sympathies for the 49ers, i felt bad that they got shut out for the first time in a league-record 420 games, dating back to 1977. wow, that's a long streak indeed.

for dinner, i met up with ting and alan (a tired bunch) at gombei for their wonderful chicken katsu curry (which isn't on the menu, but it's usually served most nights). great stuff, i kept burping it up that night. then, i went home and watched the end of the tampa bay/oakland football game. tim brown caught his 100th touchdown! good for him.

see? how much more boring can my weekends get? just a bunch of tv and lying down and sleeping. sigh. i plan to get out more this upcoming weekend. *cheer*

malaise

so sorry i was out yesterday. i was sick. wednesday night, i must have had a full-body fever or something, because i was shivering and shaking. so i took off work yesterday and just slept the day away... i even got a headache from sleeping so much!

so! what is up with the crazy girl from _the apprentice_ getting fired? i didn't see the eight ball episode, but was she really "crazy?"

it sort of irks me that donald trump says he can't hire a person with neurological problems. i mean, *i* have neurological issues, so does that mean i'm limited by what kind of job i can get? am i not qualified for a high-ranking position just because i have tourette's? hmmm... *ponder* seems like premature discrimination on donald's part.

i was sort of disappointed yesterday when fox chose to air the giants baseball game over the OC special, but i was happy to find out that they bumped the special over to channel 6 (action 36). watching the OC gang just makes me happy, i guess. yes, you could say that i'm attached to the show and its characters.

so, let me ask you a question. suppose your significant other has an ex that he went out with a long time. and suppose that makes you feel insecure. why is that? what are you being insecure about? are you worried that your SO will go back to the ex? or are you just feeling all weird about the fact that your SO had a deep-long-lasting connection with somebody else? i don't get it.

i mean, i used to get really insecure about k1's previous relationship to her ex, but one day, during the summer break, i just got over it. i realized that she was with ME, and she loved ME, and that, really, was the end of it. hm. i sometimes wonder if other people can get over it and just move on as easily as i did.

anyways, just a wonderment on my part. i went to a party the other weekend, and my friend asked me if (ever) she could be friends with her ex, who is also a friend of mine. i couldn't answer.

so stanford plays #1 USC this weekend. i wonder how that's gonna shake down. go cardinal! go go go!

hump day blues

i sometimes wonder what people say of me. like, when i met a friend's new girlfriend the other day, she said, "oh, i've heard a lot about you." and my friend followed up with, "only good things." hm. i wonder if that's true. *ponder*

so today, i'm especially agitated for some reason. i'm ticcing more, and what bugs me is, i start doing them the MOMENT i get out of bed. *RAAR* back in the day, i used to be ok out of bed for like half an hour before they started storming in. what gives?

it's only wednesday. damn, this week is going by slowly. i'm tempted to go home early today and just lie down. while coming back from my latest cigarette break, i felt a little sick, like feverish or something. i wonder if my body's breaking down.

AND, i still have no plans for the weekend! i gotta call some people up and see if they want to hang out.

so tired. so tired. i've been going into work later and later, because sleep is just so GOOD. this weekend, i'm definitely gonna sleep in. it's funny, because the week i got back from europe, it was blazingly hot, and now, it's chilly at night! i definitely prefer cold to hot.

and no, i was too lazy to order some new porn yesterday. once i lie down on the couch, it's very hard for me to get up. call it inertia. *shrug*

my right knee is hurting. hm. maybe it's time to give up basketball for a while. i've noticed that i don't sweat as much when i play anymore. maybe i'm not playing hard enough?

ewww. gross. i was scratching my head, and i just picked off a scab on my scalp. how did i get that?

oh! yesterday, i was plucking nose hairs (a painful thing to do, but ultimately satisfying), and i plucked out... a WHITE NOSE HAIR! weird! so now i've not only had one of those, but i've also got three white eyelashes. my body's aging prematurely!

hehe. just wait until i get my first white pube. i'll definitely post a picture of that.

pre-meeting randoms

hm. i'm sitting here, wanting to blog some, but nothing's coming up.

so i was rooting for the vikings to beat the eagles last night, but sadly, the result was the opposite of what i wanted. you see, the eagles in dallas's division, so i have to cheer against all of those co-division teams. this gives dallas a (faint) chance of making the playoffs by winning the division. capiche?

penises that curve downward turn me off. that's not to say that there exist phalluses that turn me ON per se, but i just don't like watching porn where the guy's schlong is bent that way. mine, fyi, curves slightly up. i find that kind of cool. it's like, a bit perky and stuff. droopy just looks sad and unmanly.

i need to buy some new porn, methinks. but i'm not about to shop for it at work, hehe.

i'm excited to _scrubs_ tonight. it's about time i had a good laugh or two; my chironeurologist says that i should watch comedies to stimulate my brain, but with a caveat: i am suppose to keep the television on the left side of my field of vision. so that means that when i watch the show tonight, i need to turn my head to the right. weird, i know.

i'm also supposed to meet new people and keep them in my left field of vision, but i think that would just be weird, you know? like, i'd be talking to someone, and i'd have to orient my body (or my head) away from them. yeah, best not to do that.

he did this experiment with me the first time i saw him... first, he measured the sizes of my blind spots with the pencil test, and then he did two things: he shined a bunch of lights at my right eye, and then had me look at some black and white photographs of people on my left side. and for whatever reason, my left blind spot shrunk, while my right blind spot stayed the same! weird, huh?

anyway, i just hope all this blind spot shrinking and other neurological response changes (like my reflexes, etc.) aren't just done for the sake of themselves, and they actually correspond to some reduction in tics. otherwise, i'm paying this guy for doing nothing important. hrmph.

i have a meeting in ten minutes. work has been sort of slow, but i have a feeling it will pick up soon. i'm slated to design THREE blocks for the new chip. that should be interesting stuff, although i'm looking at one spec, and it seems unwieldy.

ting is supposed to come back from her conference today. which is good, because hopefully i'll have someone to talk to when i get home. i don't mind living alone, but having roommates is certainly a good thing sometimes. which reminds me, i gotta make plans for the weekend; i'm on my own this time!

cool glasses rock my socks!

just another silly useless monday...

i find that when i look through online dating profiles, i tend to gravitate towards women who wear cool glasses. i guess you could say that i have an eyewear fetish, haha.

i spied a cool pair of frames when i was in the city, i think on union or chestnut street. i had just gotten a new prescription, but 1) i didn't have it with me and 2) i was too lazy to have to drive back up to pick them up. sigh. yeah, i'm a lazy bastard, i know.

i am itching to go home to watch the vikings/eagles game. ok, i'm just making an excuse to leave the office, but still, i think the game will be good. two good QB's and two good WR's go toe to toe!

i'm going to be alone tonight. alan's on a business trip, and ting's at a conference. i wonder if i should make it NAKED NIGHT tonight. hehe. but the truth is, i haven't lounged around naked for quite some time now. it's just a little uncomfortable because we have some windows which can't be closed, and i don't want to be caught in my birthday suit by some snooping neighbors. and plus, it's a little chilly at our place these days.

speaking of chilly, sleep has been BLISSFUL these days. funny how one week, we had an unbearable heat wave, and the next, it drop to like 65 degrees at our place. i love snuggling. i love it!

i miss italy. i don't miss the people i was travelling with (although i wouldn't mind hanging out with maybe three of them again), but i miss the freedom and the *feeling* of not having working looming over my head. i swear, my tics got better when i was there, and my body is starting to get sore and painful once again. *RAAR*

i am pinning a lot of hopes on this hokey chiropractic neurology stuff. i'm doing my exercises faithfully every day, and i just hope that in a few months, my brain will be "adjusted" and i won't tic as much. shit, won't that be a dream... i'd be normal again!

hm. i wonder what i'm going to eat for dinner tonight. yesterday, i had taco bell for lunch and a quesadilla for dinner. too much mexican food, methinks.

i need to get out more.

a weekend of nothing

nothing worth reporting this weekend. i did pretty much zilch.

friday night, we went to togo's for dinner since alan and ting were going to catch _hero_ next door at the movie theater. the moment we sat down, the place was bombarded by a bunch of teenagers wearing only white, red and black. it was pretty damn annoying.

saturday, i was supposed to go up to the city to see kevin, but he basically pull an all-nighter, and was too tired to do anything. so we just talked on the phone for about an hour and caught up with each other's lives.

then, alan and ting came home, and for once (this rarely happens), we just watched television. _fear factor_ featured some brain eating, which was sort of gross. we had a late dinner at ryowa ramen and went to sleep.

sunday, i woke up and immediately turned on the tv to watch my beloved dallas cowboys barely beat the cleveland browns 19 to 12. it's good that we held them to only four field goals, but then again, we got penalized for over 100 yards, which was very sloppy play.

i went upstairs and took an afternoon nap, and alan woke me up to have dinner with peter at taqueria los charros. it was good to see peter again after over a month of no contact. i showed them my europe pictures while they drank tea, and later they played videogames while i went to bed.

see? nothing happened during this weekend. which was ok, because i got some rest and reprieve from my tics, but... yeah, it's boring to talk about.

i got a drunken call from ehg2 on sunday around noon. she was loud and nasal, which was kind of uncomfortable for me. i thought the plan was for us to drink *together* (meaning, we start sober), but apparently that wasn't that case. anyways, she left a message that night (in a much better voice) apologizing. hm. i'm not sure about this girl.

flexible biting

ho hum. another week over. i'm sort of excited about the weekend, simply because that means i'll be away from work for two whole days. i swear, this job (or any job, for that matter) is sucking my soul away from me. cubicle life blows!

next week might not be so fun, either; alan is gone to north carolina for a business trip starting on monday, and i won't see him for the entire week, including next weekend (wedding in denver). sigh. i miss hanging out with him.

at least i'm leaving the office soon. good riddance to working life!

i just got back from seeing my chiropractic neurologist. he wants me to wear red shades for long stretches of time throughout the day, but i think that would be just weird for me to do at work. apparently, it helps, though; he did all these funky tests on my nervous system comparing the left side of my brain vs. the right side. it's a hokey form of medicine, but i'm giving a shot. i don't have any other options, i guess.

anyways, i don't have anything fun to report. except this one google phrase:

"biting my penis"

who the hell would want to do that? what if you bite off the head, and you bleed ot death? i mean, if you're flexible enough to bite your own schlong, then why not just give yourself a blowjob? wouldn't that be more pleasurable?

can anybody out there do it (autofellatio)? does it feel good? i would imagine that it might be like tickling yourself... meaning, you anticipate how it feels, so you can't get yourself off. but if you can, do you swallow? hehe. i probably would; i actually don't mind the taste of my own spunk. snowball!

but anyways. i should make a few calls and see if people are around. i want to hang out, despite my overriding tics which have been ruling me lately. :( and maybe sunday, i'll just watch football.

has anybody out there seen _garden state_? is it good? i LOVE natalie portman (as i've mentioned before, i'm sure), and i think zach braff is cool, at least from his _scrubs_ performance. word has it that he's one talented mofo.

bite my penis. hrmph. one should love, if not worship, the penis. biting is is a bad bad thing!

feeling bad

something is not quite right with today. i meant to go to work earlier (because of my wasted day yesterday), but i just couldn't get out of bed this morning. it was just too comfortable.

and right now, i feel... lethargic, restless. moreso than i usually feel. i wonder what's wrong with me.

i had a cigarette break with a coworker today. i get the vibe that he doesn't quite like his job, sort of like me. in fact, i don't know of anyone at this place who loves it here, and that is disturbing me a lot. how did i get into this mess??

my best friend in high school wants to meet up, but in my current mood, i'm feeling lazy, too lazy to drive up to the city and look for parking. hm. but the thing is, he only frees up once every few months, so i *should* go up and see him. sigh. what to do?

no plans this weekend. maybe it'll be another boring one. alan and ting are planning to see _hero_ tonight, but i've already seen it, and i'm not inclined to see it again. i'm pushing for _garden state_ (go go natalie portman!), but i know next to nothing about that film to make it a good sell.

i just want to go home.

last night, there was this _OC_ special on fox. i enjoyed every minute of it. i miss this show terribly, and seeing the actors' faces again was like seeing old friends again. and, i might add, i was pleased that even though there were no interviews with her, anna stern snowed up in a few of the montages! *sexy*

i am, however, getting more and more attracted to rachel bilson (or her character). i think it's her eyes... they're so dark and big. i love her eyes. it's too bad, though, that the show starts so late (november 4th)... and i am curious how they're going to bring all the characters back together again. (like, how's ryan going to leave teresa and his unborn baby?)

ah, tv can be such good stuff sometimes.

my left earwax clump is bothering me. whenever i go horizontal, i can feel/hear it crunching and rustling around. i try to attack it with my pinkies, but i think it only compacts it even further in my ear canal. *RAAR*

work is a drag. oh to be financially independent!

wasted day

didn't do much today. or, rather, i haven't done much today. i've got an ISO-9001 training meeting (what the hell is that?) and then... a MASSAGE! i hope the meeting lets out early enough for me to go get rubbed down; my neck and shoulders sorely need it, literally!

at least it's thursday. *huzzah* after my massage (if i get one), i'm going to treat myself to some thai food takeout on castro. flat noodles (spicy, hopefully), here i come! i love thai food, although usually i need to add hot sauce to make it tastier. spicy = all kinds of goodness!

what types of things cause variations in the consistency of spunk? is it based on dehydration? what types of liquids you've ingested before having sex? the reason why i ask is because i've seen all types of spunk, from almost clear to milky white. *ponder*

not much going on this weekend, so far. i hope to see peter sometime, since it's been over a month since i've hung out with him. and mallory'll be coming back from her first wedding anniversary vacation to hawaii, so i want to see her, too. aside from that, i don't have many plans.

so the drunk phone call from ehg2 might not be happening. why? because if she calls past midnight (or whenever i'm sleeping), i'll be grouchy and not inclined to talk. i am, however, curious about hearing her voice, though. she says it's very deep, and that could either be very sexy or not. hm.

so i have a quandary as to what to watch tonight. it's going to be either _joey_ of the _oc_ special. i mean, the _oc_ isn't going to be a real episode, so it's not really worth much (in term of viewing necessity), but i just miss the show a lot, and it'd be good to see their faces and even try to catch a sneak preview of what's going to happen this season. more hm's.

i'm heading up to bed earlier and earlier. last night, i was in my room naked by 9:00. i think i started this early bedtime kick first because i was jetlagged from the europe trip, and then, it was because ting's dad was staying with us. but now? i have no excuse to be in bed that early.

re: plucking my cheek hairs. yes, i have obsession with them. and i've plucked them for so long that it doesn't hurt anymore. it actually feels good to have that tension and release (like a mini-skin orgasm) when i pull out each follicle.

it's neat, though, because after not plucking them for a while, they start to hurt again. i noticed this with my chin, because i used to pluck them all out too in college. but now? fuck! it stings!

oh, and i guess i should let you know that i pull out my nose hairs too. now THAT hurts. it makes me cry. haha.

hump day, finally.

today's going ok, except that my tics are starting to really hurt my neck and shoulders. what's interesting is that closing my eyes relieves some of the ticcing, so it seems like life in general (or a full-visual view of it) stresses me out and causes my brain to misfire all over the place.

and fyi, i am NOT like the girl with tourette's in _deuce bigalow_. she has vocal tics, like shouting out profanities. while that would be a much more amusing (and difficult, i would imagine) form of tourette's, i just mainly have a motor tic, namely jerking my neck around. it sounds funny, but let me tell you, it really sucks. i'm developing bone spurs on my cervical vertebrae, as shown by my x-rays last month. :(

by the way, if you ever ask me a question in my comments section, it's best that you leave a valid e-mail address in case i want to reply to you privately. just a note for you readers out there.

i had giovanni's pizza today for lunch. good stuff. i guess since i'm not in italy anymore, i have to get used to american pizza. some of it is good, but some of it pales in comparison to the stuff you can get in italy. so light! so tasty! go go melanzane (eggplant)!!

so i'm a slightly more chipper mood today because i finally resolved my gatesim coredumps. that just bummed me out yesterday... i went home all depressed and stuff, because i just felt USELESS at my job, not being able to get anywhere in my assigned task. days like that just suck. i was so stressed out i had eleven cigarettes yesterday, which is a few higher than my average.

echoing in my brain this afternoon is the horrendous karaoke singing that i witnessed at nelson's birthday party last friday. particularly, this one song that two girls sang, "heartbreak hotel" or something like that. *cringes*

lately, my memory's been going. fading slowly. i couldn't remember the name "rivers cuomo" the other day while driving to work, and it drove me bonkers. i'm getting senile!

so ehg2 and i have tentatively to drink over the phone this weekend. she'll be in vegas, and when she hits a bar or something, she's going to dial me up and i'll bust out my whiskey and have a drink with her... over the phone. yup. the thing is, though, i really need to meet her in person to see if i'm physically attracted to her. i know it sounds terribly superficial, but i just need that. is that horrible of me?

ok, off to do some more gatesim.

work frustration

damn, my gatesim coredumps on me! what the fuck? i've never had to deal with this type of shit before, so it's just terribly frustrating. sigh.

ok. enough complaining.

this week is already feeling long, though. and it's only tuesday, that's the bad news. i guess i've been spoiled with three short workweeks plus a two+ week vacation, but man, five-day workweeks are tough to get through. i'm already looking forward to the weekends, and in the meantime, the main attraction of my day is going to sleep.

so i've been diligently doing the exercises that my chiropractic neurologist assigned me. so far, no changes. and in fact, my tics are getting worse and worse as the stress from work gets to me. hm. i know that i should be patient as these exercises attempt to rewire my brain; i'm just impatient, though. i want relief NOW!

so tonight's the last night with ting's dad (he leaves for home tomorrow). it's been interesting have somebody else's parent around. the cool thing is that he's a good cook (apparently he ran a restaurant in denver?), so last night he made us shrimp/snowpeas and a seafood noodle dish. it was good, and for the first time in a while, i had two dinner. (i had taco bell before that... they brought back the spicy chicken burrito!)

so i'm not meeting ehg2 (e-harmony girl #2) this weekend; she's going to be in vegas, so we're tentatively meeting the following weekend instead. correspondence with her has been really good; she writes well, and she writes a lot, both of which are good signs. i just wish that the pictures she posted were larger, so i could get a better feel of whether or not i find her physically attractive.

but for now, i look forward to her e-mails, which usually arrive at night. she actually wants to have a drink with me over the phone this weekend, which is a neat thing to do, except i don't want her to be ignoring her friends while in vegas. heh.

i think it's time to get another massage. my nerves HURT!

i got really horny in my cube earlier today, after basketball. i think wearing loose-fitting basketball shorts contributes to my boner. but anyways, i popped one after coming back, and for a while, all i could think of was sex. it was like my brain was getting bombarded by sexual visions, and i couldn't stop it. it was kind of neat. :)

the monday blues

i don't like eating meals alone. (unless i'm at home, of course.) i've only eaten by myself in restaurants a handful of times in my life, and nowadays, i would heavily resist the idea of doing so. it just seems so... lonely, i guess.

thus the reason why i usually get takeout or fast food on weekdays; alan and ting usually cook for themselves, so i just get food for myself. sigh. i wish i had an eating buddy, but then again, that would most likely take its form as a girlfriend, wouldn't it?

i asked eharmony girl #2 today if she wanted to meet up over the weekend. we've had some good e-mails going back and forth, so we'll see what happens.

man, i am listless today. and, to counteract my worsening tics, i've been smoking a lot more, every hour, on the hour. and seeing how i got up early today (to take my car in for its 60K inspection), that's a lot of cigarettes! man. i wonder if my tourette's will ever get well-behaved enough to allow me to quit.

yes, i still use smoking as an excuse to calm down my tics. but the thing is, it *does* work, for the moments that i'm actually puffing away. i don't tic much (if at all), and that short break from the tics is really nice.

i am itching to go home and watch monday night football. not that i really care about either the packers or the panthers, but it'll get nice to veg out in front of the tv (with that red piece of acetate on my glasses).

hey, i have a question. does anybody get these messages on IM saying that you've been logged off because you were signed on on another device? what does that mean? did somebody hack my password and log on as me? *shivers* i hope NOT. my password(s) are precious precious secrets!

not much going on today. like i said, i hate mondays, and especially this one because i couldn't sleep until my regular time (i.e. bringing the car in). sleep was been totally BLISSFUL lately, because the weather's cooled down. cold weather sleeping is the BEST! *snuggle*

*tic*

DAMN THESE TICS!

still haven't gotten wind of any good shows on television. i only watch _scrubs_ on tuesday nights, and i'm going to give _joey_ and (maybe) _the apprentice_ another chance on thursday.

btw, are lex luther and clark kent enemies on _smallville_ yet? that's the only thing that i care about in that show.

so let's talk about plucking cheek hairs. while in europe, i let them grow out, so that i looked like a cat with very short whiskers. and when i finally got back to the states, i plucked them ALL out in a five-minute tweezer flurry. and now, after two weeks, they're starting to grow back again. i can't wait to pluck again!

yup. that is all. toodles!

5-day workweeks SUCK

so this is the first five-day workweek i've had since the first week of august. let me tell you, it sucks.

:(

damn, my tics are bad today. i've developed a crunching tic that really hurts the nerves on the left side of my neck. *RAAR* someone help!

i am, however, being diligent on the odd exercises that my chiro neuro told me to do. they involve the following:

1) staring at my left thumb 5 seconds at a time, for 4 minutes, 3x a day
2) dry gargling for 1 minute, 3x a day
3) taping this red acetate to the left side of my glasses for 45 minutes, 2x a day

yeah, weird, huh? especially that last one... i warned alan not to freak out when he sees me with the red film over my glasses. yes, it's all hocus pocus magic stuff, and it's costing quite a bit to see this guy, but i'm all out of ways of combatting my tourette's, so i have nothing to lose (except $$$), right?

so it turns out that speed dating is a no-go. ben and yuji both can't make it, and no way i'm going by myself again.

oh! so at the housewarming party on saturday, i bumped into this girl who seemed familiar. she said the same thing, and when i asked her where i knew her from, she looked uncomfortable and said hastily, "i'll tell you later." and then, i realized... i saw her at speed dating! she was with a guy, so maybe she didn't feel comfortable telling me in front of him that we were at such an event. hehe.

small world, i guess.

my cowboys lost yesterday. :( i don't think they're going to make the playoffs this year. sigh.

but still, it was a wonderful thing yesterday, getting home and watching some football. sundays are great once again!

being at tony roma's yesterday, i noticed a large number of obese people eating there. man, i'm just not used to seeing overweight people after being in europe for two+ weeks. the only fat people i saw in europe were american tourists (aside from one large british woman at the airport). it makes me wonder how unhealthy american culture is.

ok, maybe more later. i'm going to get some fresh nicotine air.

semi-social weekend

so friday night, we celebrated nelson's birthday. the dinner itself was sort of a travesty/disaster, though, because we had it at dave & buster's in the showroom, where they were having... A KARAOKE PARTY. yup. horrible, loud singing with an annoying over-hyper DJ and some pretty bad singers. not to mention the food i got was disgusting.

but afterwards, we headed back to mike and paul's place, had cake, a tequila shot, and played dominos (TWELVE dots?!). that was much better.

saturday afternoon, i went with rainbow to ted's housewarming party. there weren't any really interesting people there, so luckily i only had to stay about 45 minutes before i left to have dinner with adam and rae. we met at los portales, and i got the arroz con pollo, which was pretty good. the crab quesadillas were a bit too "crabby" though.

i went home and watched the stanford/BYU game, which was good for us because we knocked out their first two quarterbacks and forced them to play with their third-string signal caller. we won handily. *huzzah*

sunday, i woke up and headed up to the city to hang out with hr girl. we hit an irish pub (i got the fish and chips, which were pretty greasy but good) and watched some tennis/football before hitting crate and barrel and virgin megastore, where i bought two cd's. that makes 3 three purchases for the year so far; i'm trying to be frugal here! (but i couldn't resist picking up the new thievery corporation cd and the new future sound of london release.)

i managed to hit 49er traffic going up AND coming back down. but after i got home, i rested up for a bit before going to tony roma's with jay and margaret. i'm not a big rib eater (too messy for my tastes), but i had a half a rack of their redhots (which weren't that spicy anyway) and some of their famed onion loaf.

and that was it for my weekend. i got some much-appreciated social interaction, and a good amount of alone time. :)

a visit to a new doctor

hm. so i just got back from my 2.5 hour consultation with this chiropractic neurologist. he did a lot of tests on me (it was a rather grueling evaluation), and concluded that the right side of my brain is messed up. he was more specific about it, but i just didn't understand his jargon.

so, i have a whole bunch of exercises (like taping a red piece of film to the left side of my eyeglasses, or staring at my left thumb for 4 minutes at a time), designed to "stimulate" my right cortex or basal ganglia or whatever it is. very interesting stuff, although i admit that some of it is sort of hokey and unbelievable.

but i'm resigned to try anything and everything to get rid of my tics. we'll see what happens in a few months of seeing this dude.

on another note, i'm glad that my weekend is about to start soon! i've got a potential dinner with jay plus a birthday party tonight, a housewarming party plus dinner appointment tomorrow, and an hr girl rendezvous on sunday. i'm excited to be doing something for a change rather than sitting on my ass all weekend long. i just hope my tics cooperate. :/

let's see... what else has been happening? the garlic burrito i got yesterday was MARVELOUS, except that it gave me a rather sphincter-stinging dump this morning. oops. too much hot sauce, i suppose. and the football game was pretty good, although i watched _joey_ in the middle of it, and the tv show was rather disappointing.

i had the gemelli at pasta pomodoro today for lunch. it's really good! i usually stay away from pasta restaurants because i think $10 is a lot of money to pay for a bowl of pasta, but this gemelli tastes great. it gave me sort of a food coma afterwards, though, but i still liked it. in fact, i'm burping it up as i type this. yum!

next monday, i'm taking my car in for its 60,000 mile checkup. sigh. it's been a great four years with my beloved car, and i hope to keep it indefinitely. i'll be sad when i have to say goodbye to my trusty honda. *sniff* i can't believe it's been 60K miles already!

ok, not much else to report. i just want this weekend here already. i'm sort of bummed that it'll be a full workweek next week, as i've had 4-day workweeks these past two rounds. ick. i hate work.

social happenings

so plans for the weekend are shaping up. i know that the best thing for me is to stay home and rest, but as my friend told me earlier, nothing will happen in my life if i just sit on my ass.

so! saturday, i'm tentatively going to a housewarming party of someone i don't even know, and then i'm having dinner with adam afterwards at los portales. and then, sunday, i'm going up to the city to visit hr girl. we might just eat at a sports bar and watch football, but i'm cool with that.

i'm feeling slightly more chipper this afternoon. maybe it's linked to the fact that i got some of some exercise this month (my first full-court basketball action), and made a few shots. maybe we shouldn't underestimate endorphins and such, huh?

anyways, i'm still pondering going to that speed dating thing on the 25th. i don't have any problem with speed dating per se, but i'm just worried about my tics and whether i'll bump into anybody from the past two rounds. the latter problem is just so awkward!

so the conversation with eharmony girl #2, g, is going well. she's a good writer, and what's cooler, is that she has SIX pairs of glasses! she posted up two small pictures of her, so it's a little hard to see what she really looks like. but maybe i will meet up with her next weekend or something.

i plan to get a haircut today (a badly needed one), grab a burrito at bueno bueno, and go home and watch part of the patriots/colts game (GO FOOTBALL!) and _joey_. sounds like a good plan, huh? the prospect of having a good weeknight is lifting my spirits.

tomorrow, i'm meeting with the chiropractic neurologist for my (rather expensive) consultation. my regular chiropractor has been recommending me go see one for years now, but i guess the reason why i finally caved in is because nothing else is working. not him, not the 3mg of haldol, nothing. so i'm getting a little desperate now. my tourette's really sucks. :(

on a happier note, i'm glad the weather is gettling *slightly* cooler. the blazing summer heat gives me pms! and worse, i can't sleep!

anyways, i'm getting a little frustrated by not being able to contact that five-letter-name-girl that i realized i sort of liked. i e-mailed a few of her friends asking for her info, but i haven't gotten anything back yet. *ponder*

i need to shave.

adieu, _time_

so after over two years of slogging through reading my _time_ magazines cover to cover, i finally cancelled my subscription yesterday. i just wasn't becoming as well-informed about the world as i had hoped, no doubt due to my horrible reading/retention abilities.

i'm actually sort of relieved. being an anxious person by nature, unread back-issues would stress me out. and i'm looking forward to being free of that stress. :)

anyways, i was talking to yuji yesterday, and i was impressed with his new carpe diem attitude towards life. i should adopt some of the similar proactiveness that he's been exhibiting. what does that mean? more social situations, more hobbies, more partying! haha.

by the way, i thoroughly enjoyed ryowa ramen last night. even though i think their gyoza is sort of bland, i had a good meal. i guess i just missed asian food after my 2.5 weeks in europe. we had chinese food once (in siena, italy), but that was some really nasty shit! haha. and nowhere to be found in europe was thai or indian food.

i'm sort of regretting not venturing out and trying more specialties (i.e. local food) in europe. i mean, i did find that wonderful sopa castellana, but my paella (for instance) was just undercooked and really disgusting. anyways...

so what tv shows do you guys recommend i watch for the fall season? i might watch _joey_ simply because i miss _friends_ (even though its latter seasons sucked), and catch _the apprentice_ afterwards. but other than that, i might just wait for _alias_ and _oc_.

my tics are getting worse. which is totally a bummer because they actually got better while i was on vacation. i remember the first few days in rome (the first city we went to), i was holding my neck just about the entire time to keep myself from ticcing. but by spain, i was able to walk around with my arms simply at my sides, and i would go for extended periods and forget about my tourette's! that was quite a relief, but it seems to all be reverting back to my old twitchy ways. *RAAR*

it seems that stanford has a hot hapa cheerleader now. i dig that. hapas, i mean. and the best thing about a cheerleader? they're flexible! (yes, i'm talking about sex, hehe.) i wonder if gymnasts would be even better. and contortionists? that's just freaky!

well, it's about time to go home, according to last week's jet lag days. but i gotta stay at work a little longer, so i'm going to go putz around a bit. toodles!

hump day already!

so i saw my chiropractor today, and he showed me some xrays that he took of me the last time i was there. bad news. apparently, my C4 vertebrae is developing a long bone spur from all the ticcing. :( :( :(

at first, i was afraid he was going to recommend surgery or something (which would have freaked me out), but he said that he seriously requested me go to a more "powerful" chiropractor: the chiropractic neurologist! hm. it sounds like a hokey kind of doctor, and it ain't cheap either! but we'll see... i have an evaluation with the new doc on friday. i'll be sure to ask him how many people with tourette's he's treated and what his results were.

other than that, it's just another humdrum wednesday. man, work really sucks, doesn't it? i think i'm starting to panic because i don't want to work forever, but i don't know what else i can do to generate an income. oh, to be rich! =P

yeah, i know money doesn't solve everything, but i do think it solves a lot of things. if i didn't have to work, i'd just rest at home most of the time. i mean, i wouldn't *spend* a lot of money, but just relax and nurse my tics into oblivion. and THAT would be nice, wouldn't it?

so this weekend, alan and ting will be gone again. i think i'm headed up to the city to visit hr girl, and i've heard of some housewarming party where i can go wallflower. hehe. it's all about fending for myself in social situations!

anyways, i like girls with glasses. i've said that many times before, haven't i? i mean, glasses just make people look *cool*, and on women, i think it's terribly sexy. terribly! *shudders*

i have never, though, had sex with a girl while she wore her glasses. which seems to be something that i'd ask for, doesn't it? but strangely enough, it's never happened before, but i'll be sure to request it the next time i take a woman to bed. :)

what was the movie where heather graham shows off her boobs?

i hope you guys liked the picture i just posted. i don't think any of the other pictures i have (i mean, i only took like 70 of them!) are that interesting. i think i've lost my passion for taking pictures, though. very few things (if any) catch my eye these days. :(

anyhoo, i'll write more later. i'm feeling sort of lack-of-inspiration-ish right now.

some europe pictures

	so this is the dome in saint peter's basilica, one of the main attractions in rome. we hit this place on our second day in italy. some of the girls were giggling very loudly, and one of the priests came out, admonishing us, "this is a CHURCH!" sigh. so embarrassing. anyways, i like the fact that you can see the rays of light entering the windows.
	so we got lost quite a bit during the trip. mostly, we were following one of the guys, patrick, and he led us on some wild goose chases throughout italy. (he didn't go with us to spain.) one the third day in italy, we got lost somewhere in rome, and while roaming around, we saw this view. i think it's the vatican, but i'm not sure.
	this is the view from the front door of our hotel, at sunrise. i like the golden sheen that the sun put on the building facing us. as you can see, the hotel was right next to a canal, which made it convenient when we took the taxiboat directly from the station to our lodging. but otherwise, getting around venice was a pain in the ass.
	this is one of the famed gaudi churches in barcelona. personally, i think it's a visual mess, sort of like an optical incarnation of what cancer would be like. while three of our travelling companions went in, van and i just sat outside and chatted, which was possibly far more enjoyable to viewing this beast from the inside. *shrug*
	yes, my hair is horrendous. i brought along my hairgel with me, but i never used it. too lazy, i suppose. but anyways, this is me atop a hill overlooking barcelona. the statue over there is of christopher columbus, i think. against my wishes, we took a cable car to get to this place, which aggravated my acrophobia. *shiver*
	so, as you know, barcelona was the site of the 1992 summer olympics (i think), and this metal sculpture on the beach must have marked some of the beach and water events. btw, this is where i saw some topless women. only one had a decent pair of breasts, and the others were sort of saggy and droopy.
	if you can believe it, this is a post office in madrid. i don't know of any other post office that is housed in such a fancy building, but anyways... we stayed in the colon district (the accent is on the last syllable), and walked around there the first day, hitting three major fountains. but other than that, madrid was a bust; we didn't explore much of the city.
	so this is in segovia, which has a (working?) roman aqueduct. i found the structure sort of impressive, as it spans the entrance to the main part of the city. but aside from this, segovia was very boring... just a bunch of little shops and restaurants. we actually ate outside of the city, at this place that served roasted meats. i had a "suckling lamb" which didn't taste so good.
	this is a flower in one of the gardens of this big castle in alhambra. we took a tour of the castle an hour before it closed, so i was feeling a little rushed. but yeah, lots of europe was churches, cathedrals, and castles. kind of boring, if you ask me. i was all building'ed out by the end of the trip. i just like the flower because it's sort and fuzzy and sort of reminds me of a vagina.

nailbiter

it seems mondays/tuesdays are my nailbiting days. i guess that's when my nails grow out long enough to get some satisfying chews.

i started biting my nails ever since i can remember. my parents tried all sorts of embarrassing things in elementary school to get me to stop, like putting PINK nailpolish on me. (yes, i was traumatized.) i still harbor a little bit of bitterness at the social trashing that i got from their (failed) attempts. *hrmph*

the good news, though is that i don't bite them aggressively anymore, meaning i don't bite them so short that it looks gross. i just get rid of most of the white parts. *shrug*

it's nice to not have to rely on nailclippers. but then again, i know that biting nails is a really unsanitary habit. oh well.

anyways, i'm off to dinner. toodles.

work sucks

it really does. i think my tics are slowly getting worse, and i dread going into the office every single day, despite having yet another 4-day workweek.

and what is up with _alias_ starting in JANUARY and _oc_ starting in november??!! what am i going to watch? none of the new tv shows seem interesting. but then again, i've been in europe for the past few weeks, so i don't even know what new shows there are. all i do know is that _scrubs_ is at least on. :)

anyways, today's been really frustrating. i wanted to go exert myself and play some basketball for the first time in almost a month, but we only had 7 people, so we wound up playing half court. sigh. half court sucks, compared to full court.

it's interesting having an elder come visit and stay at my place. i feel like i should be on my best behavior (i.e. no burping or farting or cursing). after dinner last night, he and ting were watching tv while alan was working, so i just felt a bit out of place. i ended up going up to my room around 9:15 or so and just hanging out by myself.

these days, it's so fucking hot that i can't sleep until it cools down near midnight. which means i'm tossing and turning in my bed for a good two hours or so. *RAAR* damn this weather! damn not having AC!

william (a coworker) gave me a cd today with my old microsoft outlook .pst file on it. the mails from there are over four years old! and i was looking through some of the stuff, and i got a little sad that some of the people i had good correspondences with are people that i don't talk to anymore. sigh. (as you can guess, these were girls that i liked back then that i wouldn't mind keep in touch with today.)

but, i guess it's best not to dwell on the past, hm?

i'm excited for dinner today. i'm meeting up with yuji at ryowa ramen. first, it'll be good to catch up with him, and second, i LOVE their ramen! i think i'll also get the gyoza as well, as i'm consciously trying to eat more to gain back some weight. i'm hovering just below 160 now. and that's a little scary for me.

and this sunday (or thursday, rather), football season starts! *woot*

i got excited last week over this girl that i only met for a few minutes last month. i don't know why, but my memory of her (however murky) is good. now i just got to find a way to contact her. her name is 5 letters long. and i dig that.

ok, maybe i'll write more later.

superboring

well, the second half of my weekend was pretty boring... i barely saw any "live" people, so...

anyways, friday night, i came home at the same time as ting and her dad, and it was refreshing to speak mandarin (to her father), as i haven't done that in a long time. alan made fred's steak, so yeah, i had some beef.

saturday, i woke up, said goodbye to the folks (they were headed off to sf, dinner in the city, and then yosemite, coming back on monday), so just lounged on the couch and watched the rebroadcast of the mtv video music awards.

afterwards, i met up with taiko alums dishi and barden for a big dinner at gombei, followed by watching _hero_ at shoreline. overall, i thought the movie was very pretty (i loved their long flowing robes), but the plot was almost nonexistent. oh well.

sunday, i didn't see a single person except for mike, whom i met up with at tea era to chat and catch up over some roasted barley milk tea. we talked for about an hour about stuff, before i went to king of krung and got some thai take out (the flat noodles with pork).

monday? lots of television. i enjoyed watching the espn 25th anniversary show, but that's about it as far as interesting television went. needless to say, i was superbored during the day, and i was more than happy to see alan and company head back from yosemite. went to bed at nine, fell asleep at midnight (it's too fucking hot in my room to sleep!).

that's about it. hopefully my upcoming weekend updates won't be so drab and pointless. :/

more friday ramblings

so i think my comment spam issue has been resolved for the most part; the thing i'm going to do from now on is that the beginning of every month, i'm going to close all of the previous month's comment sections. (i have closed most of the existing entries already.) so let me warn you again, if you try to comment and find that you can't, now you know why. no offense! :)

so i found out that my abercrombie belt (which came with a pair of shorts i bought there) sets off metal detectors like mad. at every airport checkpoint i went, i had to remove the belt to pass inspection. and keep in mind that these shorts are too big for me, so my pants would pretty much fall down after i removed the belt. what a pain!

there's a speed dating event in san jose in three weeks. i'm thinking about going.

my hair was unbelievably bad this morning. i washed my hair last night and went straight to bed, so when i woke up this morning, i had a 2-inch fro on my head. it was pretty embarrassing passing by a few people on the way to my cube, because i had left my hat at the office the previous day. but i've been wearing my trusty blue marlin baseball cap for most of the day today, so the hair's been pretty much tamed.

i was sort of bummed that i didn't get a chance to meet up with my friends jeremy and kate a few weeks ago. (they got in from new hampshire on the same day that i flew out to europe.) i miss them. they're the only friends who were happy to just lounge around with me when i was feeling boring.

so what am i doing to gain weight? i'm drinking a lot of dr pepper! i missed that drink, as it was nowhere to be found on my vacation.

in europe, though, i did drink a TON of coke. it's ironic that coke was my first choice to quench my thirst, because it (with its caffeine) actually dehydrates you, right? but either way, i would have up to four cans of coke a day there. (and it would cost me about $5 total, at least.)

i don't feel tired just yet. i think that's a good sign.

so ting's dad is staying with us for at least a week, i think. as in sleeping at our place. i don't know how the sleeping arrangement is going to work out, but i think i'll have to be on my best behavior. which doesn't really bother me, but i'll just to tone down whatever foul language i have stored up, and maybe not lie on the futon as much (which will be hard).

i am excited for the weekend. it'll feel like an oasis.

i love fridays

so i feel better today. probably because it's friday, and i only have a few hours left in the office. and... what follows will be a LONG WEEKEND! *woot*

sleep has been *very* nice lately. i've been going to bed early, sleeping about 11-12 hours a day. in MY bed, with MY blankets, hugging MY cool pillows.

what i've been sacrificing, though, is my _time_ reading (i'm behind by FIVE issues!), and more importantly, hanging out with ting and alan. i feel bad. but i promised myself that next week, i will be back to my regular schedule, and make no more excuses of jet lag.

i just wish football season started this weekend rather than next, so i had some games to watch this sunday. oh well. it'll come soon enough. i'm worried about my beloved cowboys, though; we have an old running back and an even older starting quarterback. i hope it all works out and we make it to the playoffs, although i'm not holding my breath or anything.

not much planned so far this weekend, except for maybe hanging out with some friends on saturday. maybe i'll call up mallory and hopefully her hospital schedule will let her be free on sunday or monday. but i foresee a lot of sleeping and lounging ahead...

how much did i smoke while i was in europe? i estimate that i had about 12 cigarettes a day, which isn't bad considering the tics and the heat and the fact that i was up for more hours than i had previously been in the states. our days started off at like 7:30, which was a whole 3 three hours earlier than they start off back home.

i sort of miss europe now. i don't miss most of the people i travelled with, but i miss being a tourist with no obligations to work or paying bills or even blogging. yes, i love blogging, but it was nice to get away from it and not have to worry about coming up with material every single day. although the comment spam was really annoying; when i logged on for the last time in london heathrow, i had like 500+ comment spams!

so, aside from my previously-state loner moments, what were my other favorite moments of europe? i have to say that they were hanging out with just one other person, which allowed for better conversation and more in-depth exploration of another person.

so my first one was in rome on the 2nd day, with this woman named teresa. the others had to go to the airport to check on their lost luggage (long story, but basically our flight out of SFO was delayed by a broken toilet and an unruly passenger who got kicked off the flight, so the connecting flight to rome from london missed the luggage. luckily, i had carried mine on.) and left teresa and us behind.

so, i hung out with her for a bit near the spanish steps (cue the _roman holiday_ footage with the beautiful audrey hepburn and handsome gregory peck), and we talked for a bit. that was nice.

and other bits and pieces of the trip where i was just hanging out with one other person were nice too... with van in florence, with hai in seville, etc. i guess i just didn't like the group as a whole.

anyways... sorry for the late rehashings, but i guess europe is still on my mind. after all, i've dreamt about it every night this week!

haldol fucks you up

i wonder if it's the haldol. but yesterday, i came home early (just like i'm about to do today), and i tried snuggling for a little baseball nap (i.e. napping while listening to a baseball game) with the blanket on the futon. but every 30 seconds or so, i would tense up, i would feel this clutching sensation in my chest, and i would have to toss and turn a bit.

it felt like a mini panic attack. i know i've mentioned having this while in europe, but it's really fucking ANNOYING.

*RAAR*

i just hope it doesn't happen when i try napping when i got home today. *crossed fingers*

i know, i know, i shouldn't be napping. but i can't help it. i'm fucking tired!

anyways, i didn't get so see any free broadcast tv porn while in europe. alan mentioned that while he was in sweden, hardcore porn would be on tv, and i was excited to see some of it in italy/spain. but nothing! maybe i didn't look hard enough, as usually, i would come back to the hotel room and immediately turn the tv on to the olympics.

just for my ocd in remembering things, here is the list of hotels that i stayed in:

rome: hotel turner
florence: hotel corona
venice: laconde la corte or something like that
barcelona: hotel catalonia berna
madrid: centro colon
granada: hotel guadalupe
seville: hotel regina

some hotels were nicer than others, of course. barcelona was the swankiest place, and the only common thread was that all of the hotels that served breakfast had croissants. hm. i thought that was a *french* thing. *shrug*

the cool thing about travelling with guys, though, is that they're chill. so when we shared a triple in italy and a double in spain, we would just walk around in our underwear and sleep in our underwear as well. it was nice, because i was worried about being able to sleep non-naked. but my boxers didn't bother me as much as wearing a shirt would have. :)

ok, i'm heading home soon! wish me a good night of sleep!

i miss pti

still tired. i was itching to go home at 2pm today to catch _pti_ (my favorite sports show) on espn, but i decided it would look really bad if i disappeared that early from the office.

so here i am. blogging for you. what dedication! what loyalty! :)

thank goodness it was a short workweek. and thank extra goodness it's a short workweek next week! woo-hoo!

the only problem is, i don't have much going on this weekend. like i said yesterday, my roommates are occupied with ting's dad this weekend, so i have to fend for myself for those three days. there was a guy's night out (and a corresponding girl's night out) planned for labor day weekend before i left, but it seems those plans have gone down the drain. sigh.

i am, however, excited about the impending football season. when i got back from europe this past monday, the first thing i did was turn on the tv to abc and watch parts of the dallas/tennessee game. go cowboys! go vinnie testaverde and drew henson!

but i'm still bummed out about life these days. i dunno... maybe a part of it is the natural feeling when coming back from a long semi-relaxing vacation. and maybe a part of it is (like i said) the fact that my life sucks. i'm going to give myself a week and re-assess and hope that things turn rosier given some time to readjust to the grind and the routine.

i mean, you know something's wrong when sleep is the best part of your day. and that's how it is right now. *ponder*

so comment spam has gotten a lot better lately. i spent a few hours and INDIVIDUALLY closed the comment sections of most of my entries. yes, that was fucking tedious. but i refuse to be bombarded with spam, and i'll readily tackle the issue when it crops up. so if you comment on an entry and find out that you can't, don't be offended, please. :)

i need a girl. i crave the soft warmth of a body of estrogen.

i can sort of feel my tics slowly getting worse. i wonder if it is indeed related to my being at work. when i first go to italy (rome), my tics were super-bad. but as time passed, i noticed them get better and better. hrmph. that tells me that i just can't with my professional life. what to do?

eyes half shut

sleepy, i am.

no great television on tonight, so i think i'm going to crawl into bed early. *huzzah* during my whole jaunt through italy and spain, i missed my bed dearly. *pout* the thing is, in the seven hotels i stayed in, the sheets/blankets were really really thin, and sometimes, with the AC on full blast (remember, i like it cold), it was really uncomfortable to be freezing in bed throughout the night.

but no longer! i get my two layers of blankets once again. and what's more, i have a cool (temperature-wise) pillow to hug! despite the insomnia i've been having, sleep has been totally *blissful*.

i am worried about my dropping weight. like i said earlier, i'm about 160 now (remember that i was over 200 last christmas). today, after my small lunch at the company cafeteria, i got up and actually got myself a small box of fruit! that's saying something, because i never eat fruit and vegetables.

i don't want to be stick-thin again. like alan says, i used to look emaciated, undernourished, and sick.

i am dying to hang out with my friends again. being gone from them for over two weeks was sort of a real bummer for me. not having familiar faces around me, the usual conversations, etc. it was sort of bleak, socially speaking. the problem is, ting's dad is coming to down, so alan and ting will be accompanying him to touristy spots in the city and yosemite this weekend. so i need to look for some other people to hang out with. give me a call!

i'm not sure why i am so sleepy, though. i mean, despite waking up at 2am, i got a total of about 11+ hours of sleep last night. but i guess my internal clock is telling me that it's 1am europe time, and thus, the bed calls to me right now.

i noticed today that i may be slightly depressed. i touched on this earlier yesterday, but there's just nothing much going on in my life. no exciting job, no girlfriend, no exciting hobbies, no good television, nothing that makes me anxious to wake up and start my day. hm. *shrug* maybe it's just a phase, but in the meantime, it sort of blows chunks.

i can't believe it's september already. where did this year ago?

jetlagged? or lazy?

man, i feel like shit today. the only thing that's on my mind is the next time i'll get to curl in my own bed and go to sleep.

now, i don't know if it's because i'm terribly jet-lagged, or whether it's because the vacation made me really lazy and not wanting to work. either way, it makes my days suck. but the good thing is that at least i have an excuse to go home early.

i'm excited for the new television season. it's september! last night, i caught the premiere of _scrubs_, and i have to say, it's probably my favorite show right now. and at least elliot's hair doesn't look as jacked up as last season.

it was sooooo good to see my roommates again last night. (i know i got back on monday, but by the time they got home, i was in bed already.) we went to chili's for dinner, and i got the southwestern eggrolls despite already having had some food at jack in the box before. i'm trying to eat more, because my weight is in the lower 160's, and i think that's too low for me.

i saw my psych this morning. he was alarmed that i had dropped so much weight (about 40 pounds since last christmas), but he was happy to hear that my tics seem to be better. i'm not as anxious over having my next tic, and they hurt less, and the overall news is that they're bothering me less. BUT. i still tic, though, and i still have storms of tics from time to time.

but anyways, i want to sleep. the past two nights in the states, i've fallen asleep around 10pm, and i wake up at 2am and have a bit of insomnia. that's not good news.

i gave alan his souvenir yesterday; it was the only thing that i bought while i was in europe besides food and drinks and train tickets. and souvenir was a bronze miniature of a wolf with eight breasts feeding two kids. i think the original is in the roman ruins somewhere (we couldn't find it), and i heard from someone that they represent the founders of rome. *shrug* it's a unique thing, that's for sure, i.e. a wolf breastfeeding two babies.

that's one thing, though... i'm not in the habit of buying souvenirs of places i visit. one of the other guys spent a couple of hundred dollars on trinkets and such! hm. i wonder if i'll regret not having anything tangible of my own to remind me of my european vacation.

anyways, i promise i'll post some (just a few) pictures of italy and spain when i get the chance. ok? :)

*yawn* i've got a meeting in 6 minutes. i might write more later.