Bitscape

April 9, 2006
21:45

Much to my delight, yesterday, the landlord called and brought over a brand new stove. We carried the old one out into the yard; he said he would have somebody haul it away at some point in the near future. Upon attempting to put the new one in, we discovered that the connector he had brought to hook it up to the gas line didn't fit. He apologized for all the delays, and asked if I would be around on Sunday.

This evening, he brought over a new connector, and within minutes, I had a working stove! What a glorious event. Almost immediately after he left, I cooked up a nice big kettle of spaghetti. Mmmmm, hot food.

At this point, I'd like to officially make clear that any readers of this site are welcome to drop by the Penguinista Palace and say hello at any time. Of course, I can't guarantee I'll always be here, or that the condition of the place will even resemble anything civilized. But if anyone happens to be on the way to Open Harvest or something, and wants to check out what's going on, please, feel free to ring the bell and see if anything happens.

(Or, for those who like phones, (402) 742-4473. If it's busy, there's a 90% chance I'm online. If it rings endlessly, I'm probably out. One of these days, I'll probably get an answering machine, but it hasn't happened quite yet.)

(One of these weeks, I may attempt to host something resembling a coordinated gathering, inviting all sorts of people from various venues, and see how many I can convince to show up. I probably won't go so far as to call it a party; we'll see. Maybe I can bribe some with bean dip, others with beer, and still others with the promise of scifi of some sort.)

Anyway, I still have a lot of stuff that needs to be handled, but at this point, I feel much more upbeat about it than I did a week ago.

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April 7, 2006
10am

So much going on these days, I haven't summoned the energy to do much posting about it. But my mood and outlook have improved significantly over the past couple of days.

Wednesday I had the day off. So after setting an appointment for my stove to be looked at (the landlord called and profusely apologized for the delays; apparently the guy he tried to hire to look at it was now ignoring his calls, so he found another shop, and they called me within 5 minutes to setup a time), I walked over to Open Harvest and went about the business of getting my Thursday evening shift covered -- another thing I had been procrastinating -- so I could attend the community crops meeting. L was super nice about it, called to find out if the delivery truck would be coming in early, and then said I could just come in early at 1 and leave early for the evening on Thursday. Sweet.

Rather than spend the rest of the day drudging through the crap I "should" have been doing, I took a long bike ride around town, during which I made several stops. One was at the church, where I gave the secretary my new address. I also hoped to talk to the pastor, because I wasn't going to be able to make it to the young adult meeting the next night (commitments being what they are), but I still wanted to talk with him about my spiritual challenges and opportunities. Unfortunately, he was engaged in another lengthy meeting, so I wandered over to the meditation room, where I found a fascinating book on about how to use Crowley's Thoth Tarot as a spiritual guide, which I ended up reading for over an hour. (Yet another sign that I picked the right church. How many other churches in town could you walk through and randomly happen across a Tarot guidebook? Not many, I'd imagine.)

I stopped by DIT Computers, and decided to go ahead and spring for a replacement for my now-virtually-inoperable DVD drive. I considered the options, and decided to get one that also had cd burning capabilities. (I considered a dvd burner, but ultimately said, "naah.") 2006, and I've just now gotten around to obtaining a cd burner. Hah!

I rode until sundown, and returned to the recently dubbed Penguinista Palace physically exhausted, but emotionally and spiritually renewed.

Thursday -- Stove diagnosis: Likely too old and too many leaks to be reparable. Uggh. I suppose this means the landlord will have a replacement hauled in. A new stove might be cool, but still.... uggh. I was hoping they would just be able to plug the leak on the charming old thing, and that would be that. Oh well.

In the evening, I attended the orientation meeting, where we were given an intro on just what this whole Community Crops thing is all about. We learned about the various volunteering opportunities with the project, and started into the nitty gritty by putting bulk seeds into little packets to be distributed among the gardeners. It also allowed me the chance to meet several of the other volunteers. I am cautiously optimistic about the possibilities ahead.

Later, I went down to the Chatterbox, where the opening DJ had a most unique bit of performance art going on. In front of the booth, he had a makeshift altar with a semi-circle of candles burning around it, and at the front, a life-sized cardboard effigy of George Bush with a tv screen showing black-and-white war footage. Every few minutes, he would walk down and sacrifice a stuffed animal by cutting it open with a knife (complete with red liquid spurting out, and some sort of edible substance resembling meat on the inside, which he then consumed). The ritual concluded with the toppling of the Evil President, which several people then stomped on and danced on top of.

The main act DJ, who was heralded as being really good... well, the crowd was definitely into him, but I didn't find his stuff terribly compelling. Competent, yes; he definitely had enthusiasm and energy, but his music didn't blow me away. I left before the end of the set.

Tomorrow night, I plan to attend a Gnostic Mass (of the Thelemic tradition), said to be the first ever such event held in Lincoln. To this end, I have arranged an elaborate shift-swapping deal with one of my gas station coworkers. So instead of working the day today as I normally would, I'll be going in to close the station later this afternoon.

As of now, I see it's after 11am. If I am to call T for a possible coffee appointment today, I need to get off this computer and do something about it. So that will conclude this update about what's going on in my life.