A rich, full day.

Today, I woke up ridiculously early after going to bed ridiculously early the day prior- I blame a food coma, despite my obvious lack of turkey consumption. I made muffins and cleaned my house. The muffins were a gingerbread with cranberries and yogurt chips. I was experimenting. They were awesome, freaking delicious. They were so good, in fact, that I invited a friend over to try one. He agreed that they were, indeed, freaking delicious.

Along with cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming, and all that jazz, I decided to be a good fish owner and clean my fish tank. It needed to be topped off anyway, but what it needed more than anything was to be cleaned, conditioned, and have its filter replaced. Done, done, and done. There was more than a little complaining on the part of my five fish- especially my plecostomus, who is huge and could probably best me in a battle. I offer to your photographic evidence:

Compare him to the platy. It's like having Shamu in the tank, if Shamu was completely terrifying. I am scared of this fish, yet endeared to him at the same time. Classic Stockholm Syndrome.

I have avoided any retail stores today. I think that Black Friday is a disgusting tradition. Sunflower, the market, was not busy, and I therefore purchased a few meaninful items to om nom at whilst at work. I will need it, as I have not slept much today and I work in twenty minutes. Humph. I suppose I will go now.

,

So I finally got around to getting my car checked out. It's been making an unpleasant noise since about June, but it had been running fine, so I did what most people would do: ignore it under the assumption that if something was really going wrong, my car would subtly tell me of its problems. You know, subtly, like spontaneous combustion while I am in the driver's seat. Turns out all the trips to Phoenix were probably not the best idea, as a water pump was falling apart (hence the noise) and on top of that, the fan belt was wearing down. But the point of this blog is not to talk about how seemingly intelligent people do incredibly stupid things. The point of it is to say that I've gotten these parts fixed, and now my vehicle is running just fine. I no longer have to listen to my music at a higher decibel to mask out the grinding, gurgling noise that it was making. Points for my ear drums!

Speaking of intelligence, grammar and usage has really been getting me down lately. No, I've not been messing it up more than usual. I just assumed that anyone who had gotten through basic eighth grade English class would be better at speaking and writing their native tongue than they truly are. I guess I begged the question. I use this term less because I want to and more because this is the correct manner in which it should be used. Begging the question means to beg (assume) that there is truth to something without seeing real proof. Another painful usage error is the term "for all intensive purposes". Really guys, you should know how to say it before you try to act smart, irregardless of your true IQ. (Irregardless is another pet peeve of mine, and therefore was placed in that context purposefully.)

Will found this sentence on a slashdot.org forum the other day, which is why I bring all of this up:
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. Which begs the question, "Who cares?"
Please tell me that someone else is as annoyed by this as I am.

xo,
B.

PS- My birthday is in approximately ten days, depending on where you live geographically (this means you, Robin). This means that I have succeeded in proper metabolic function for twenty-three years!

Dreamscaping.

It's not that I am feeling mopey or pathetic, but I am having mopey and pathetic thoughts run through my head I may as well dump them out into some sort of medium before I go to bed in the fond hopes that I sleep slightly better.

I have had unsettling dreams for the past three nights in a row. Though I have yet to wake up from said unsettling dreams to find myself changed in my bed into a monstrous vermin, things still haven't been rosy. Each night, these dreams have caused poor sleeping, waking up more frequently and more fatigued than anything else, and uncomfortable night sweats. I wake up remembering my dreams and the feelings involved in them better than I remember the previous day, and I am caught in some sort of haze that I'm not fully freed of until I actually leave the house completely.

This is not a new development. I am not sure why this happens to me as often as it does. All my life, I have had vivid dreams. They became particularly unruly when I got in to middle school, and I usually can't go a month without having something that, for me, is truly a nightmare. As far as I know, there is nothing I can do about it. I am not one who can trim and tailor my dreams to fit my wishes; I am a terrible dreamscaper. I can't just will myself to think of something else. I just hope that it doesn't last much longer. I want a good night's rest- never mind the fact that it will be during the day!