I got so many things done, today. Goodness, considering I woke up so late in the day, I've rather surprised myself. I had a leisurely breakfast and whatnot, before heading out into the bleakness of late November, and I must add, that though it was a sucky day, it was still warm. Really, it's been overly warm since just before Hallowe'en. Seems weird, but as we all know, living in Canada makes for weird weather. Anyway, I went to my bank and got my loan documents filled in, then headed for the post outlet at the UofT Koffler Centre. I stopped at She Said Boom, a lovely second-hand books and records store where the staff is knowledgeable and pleasant - not snotty like so many other places. I bought a book there which will make a lovely present (therefore I won't discuss the book's content) and the fellow at the counter (I think it was the owner) said as he gave me my change, "Wait, no, I want this book. Find a different one of equal or lesser value !" And I wrestled it out of his hands. Then we chatted for a while.

After handing in my documents at the Koffler Centre and buying leads for my 0.7mm pencils, which have all been suffering from lack-of-leadedness lately, and a new mechanical 0.5mm pencil, I continued along College St until Henry St. I turned south and then strolled along Baldwin and had some tasty food from the Chinese Dim Sum pastry shop. Then I made my way through the winding sidestreets to City Hall to renew my parking permit. They were setting up for the Cavalcade of Lights with people skating on the mushy ice and people in costumes being merry with glo-sticks. There were all these crafty shopping booths, which I'll return to because there were some nice handmade ornaments. It was merry. If it had been cold and snowy, it would have been better. I went to the Snail - the Silver Snail, that is - and bought myself the reissue of Akira 1-6, and further presents. Then I went to Heretic and helped Nicole and Sandra make gift baskets and to set up for the heavy leather display coming in tomorrow. I stayed late, and Sandra's going to make me a furry sweater. I'm pleased.

Now I'm home and am waiting for Ryan to drop by at this late hour to go for a coffee. He seems needing to talk or something, so I will oblidge. I haven't seen him in a dog's breakfast - er, AGE - anyway, so he deserves some attention. Toodles.

Well, it sure is nice to sleep in, and boy, did I do just that. Wow. I woke up to make coffee for Rick, who had to get to work nice and early this morning, and then I went back to bed. I set my alarm for 10:30am and turned it off when it sounded. I woke up again around 11:30am considered getting up and then rolled over and slept some more. I didn't finally get out of bed until a quarter to one in the afternoon, which, I must admit, was most pleasant, especially with a sweet bundle of loving fur rolled up behind my knee. I love my cat. Willi is a little destructive heathen at times, but she's so sweet and so cuddly at others. This morning, she was definitely cuddly. I'd rather lie with her and listen to the rain than get up and go out into it.

Of course, I do have to go out into it. Naturally. I have to go to the bank and get information about my account (again) and then take my OSAP forms to the post office at UofT for mailing. Then I'm off down to City Hall to renew my parking permit, and then onto Queen St. to do a little Christmas shopping. I just wish it would stop raining. I hate shlepping around the city on foot, with a big umbrella in my hand.

Last night with Rick over, it was very nice. I made a lovely dinner of steak and beef stroganoff with green beans, and then we went and bought cookies to have with our after-dinner coffee. I recently bought an espresso maker, which incidentally, makes awesome regular coffee to a maximum of two cups, and I even had ground coffee in my freezer. So, that was quite tasty. And domestic, hey, ya. Gosh, tie an apron around my waist and give me an Esay Bake Oven and watch me go ! Heh, no, don't. Also, I wish to say that there are few things in this world as pleasant as cuddling with one's significant other. Rick's a good guy, and ofttimes a cuddly one as well. I like him.

Yesterday was a day of weird feelings. I don't quite know what that means, but let me explain.

It was a pretty busy day at the store, in comparison to the utter lack of busy that has been plaguing it for the last two weeks. There weren't the throngs of people out walking on the street that there usually are, maybe because it was cold out, but half of the people that came in the store, actually bought something. Not bad.

I was pleased by a fellow who walked down the street in a sort of self-percussive way. He had a big drum strapped to his front, which he banged away on in a very merry sort of fashion. He also had a cowbell that he used almost like an exclamation point. Someone must have looked out a window at him because he did a sort of drum-solo serenade and waved up to the windows above store level. It was nice. I liked him.

Having people in the store made me feel sort of peppy, which was enjoyable, and there were no unpleasant people to speak of. There was one very gorgeous woman who came in, looking stylish yet conservatively sharp, and she gravitated to the bondage collars on the shelf. In response to a question she asked, I said, "I really don't know, I'm not into binding my neck." She smiled this amazingly alluring smile, tossed her perfect salon auburn hair and said, "You have to start small and work your way up. Start with a corset, and soon enough, you'll be binding your neck and other parts, too." And then she left the store. She made me feel sort of confused.

Then Nick met me at the store around closing time, and we went to Java. Naturally. There simply is no other place where you can get good food with excellent coffee for under eight bucks. I had the omelette (with hashbrowns, a side salad, and toast) with a big fat cafe au lait. YUM. And that made me feel warm and fuzzy.

While we were there, once we'd finished dinner, we set about doing all sorts of bizarre and silly things in order to attempt to attract the waiter. I taught Nick how to hang a spoon from his nose, and we made lots of noise, and then he started taking off his clothes. TO NO AVAIL. It was like we were invisible. Bah. Finally we just asked for the bill.

We left the restaurant and I remembered that I hadn't put out the store garbage. But I decided to fuck it because it was really cold and I was already losing feeling in my thighs. Canadian Winter Tip #76: DO NOT wear polyester pants in freezing weather without the protection of long underwear and/or a long coat. Brr. Not putting out the garbage made me feel sort of half-assed, which in that situation I guess I was (and I don't mean the fact that I couldn't feel part of my bum).

Nick came over and of course we watched "West Wing" and naturally it was good. It really focused on CJ, giving her a depth we the viewers are only left to puzzle over. What happened in her past to make her feel so strongly about abuse? Always a well-written show.

Then I spoke to Rick and he was bored and I didn't want to talk to him because his blah-ness started to suck away my pep. He was at the boredom stage where he was utterly unreceptive to suggestion for how to amuse himself. No, he didn't want to read. He didn't want to write. He didn't want to be creative in any sort of way, and I didn't feel patient enough to continue the conversation. Sorry Rick, for me being poopy. *smooch*

Nick was a pest. He's always trying to stick his fingers in my mouth, or my ears, or to lick my eyeballs... Nick is gross. I guess I wasn't patient with him either and I started to suggest that he leave some time around midnight. It took another hour to actually get him to go. I was very tired by that point and had lost all sense of fun.

Like I said, it was a bizarre feelings day.

Today, at school, I continue to feel odd. My head hurts, which I blame on the server whirring in the back of the room, and the general electrical buzz. I hate those sounds. Since they located the server in this room, a few weeks back, and combined with the flourescent lighting, the room has become a lot less pleasant to be in. My eyebrows feel heavy with an un-headache, as in, I don't want to take painkiller because I'm not in pain, but my head feels gucky. I feel sort of hostile, too. Not good. Okay, I just took some tylenol. I'll feel better soon.

I'm going to make dinner for Rick, tonight, which hopefully will be nice, since I'm not really going to see much of him over the next while. School is about to kick my ass, if I don't get down with my project. Know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Uh, ya.

My head hurts and I'm not sure why, though it is supposed to rain later. Yay.

I had dinner with Nick last night, and it was good - sushi - and then he came over. I'm afraid we didn't do as much work as we ought to have, but whatever, I bleached out half my head and now I look harvesty. In fact, stick some Indian corn into it and some pinecones and an apple or two and I'd be the perfect ornament for any front door. Rick probably won't like it, because I'm partially blonde now, and he has a thing against blondes, but I'll turn it red soon enough.

Nick also got bleached and then looked even more like some 80s pop music king (or queen?) than he did before. He is thinking of growing his hair into a ska mohawk, which will look bizarre, I think, but probably cool.

I came to school late today, only to find the class watching 'Wallace and Gromit' short movies, so I don't feel too bad, though they're so delightful I sort of wish I'd seen more... not that I haven't seen it on television, or anything. And now I'm working on Alloisius' head - I've just converted it from NURBs to polys and am fixing up his isos and points. It's a little tedius, but it's nice to see his personality coming out. There isn't a lot of time left for me to work on him, but I figure, if I can get the model finished by Saturday, and the skeleton set-up by Tuesday next week, I'll be doing really good. I'm not sure how I'll do his clothing, but I'll probably keep it minimal. I'll have to figure out his cloak, which he'll have to throw off his shoulders, and the moving curtain behind him, but I'll work on those once he's all done. His stage set is pretty good right now, needs some work and playing with, but I'll pull this off.

I will. *grin* I hope Rick will understand that he's not going to see much of me until the campus closes for the holiday.

Hm, my headache has become nausea, too. This is unpleasant. Oh well. Back to work.

My bad. I did say fetus, and what I meant to say was EMBRYO. There's a difference, albeit no less disturbing as far as I'm concerned, despite all the good things one can apparantly do with embryonic hoo-hah.

Anyway, I remembered what it was that I'd meant to say yesterday. They showed "The Phantom Menace" on TV yesterday, which isn't exactly that exciting, and I didn't bother watching, though the three times I flipped past it I managed to catch Darth Maul in action. It's my Ray(Park)-dar, I suppose. Anyway, the amusing thing about it was who was sponsoring the broadcast.

On the Canadian channel, SW:TPM was sponsored by the Sony Playstation 2. On the American channel, it was sponsored by the Microsoft X-box. Frankly, I'm not all there with the X-box hype. Sure, the textures rock, but as far as I'm concerned, with my extensive experience with both systems (I -am- being sardonic), I still prefer the PS2. So, uh, ya, that's it. Pretty lame, I suppose. Sorry.

Man, you just don't get content like this anywhere, do you? We go from cloning to video game systems in just a few sentences.

Somebody, please, move me to the core so that I can write something profound.

They did it, those bastards. They did it and they're proud. It was reported today that a privately funded medical science research company cloned a human fetus. Yes. That's right. A human fetus. Cloned. I heard this while driving down my street looking for parking and my stomach turned. I had to keep from throwing up between my knees. You see, in the U.S.A., it's illegal in for a publically funded medical agency to carry out any testing of such a nature (nature is the wrong word here, I think), which is why a private company was able to do it and get away with it.

Normally, I get a little excited about amazing medical feats, but I find nothing exciting about cloning. I think of eugenics programmes and have flashbacks to Huxley's distopian novel "Brave New World". It bugs the shit out of me. If we were suposed to be God, we wouldn't be human. I have a friend who would argue that perhaps humanity is its own god, and that's well and good, and proabably debatable, but nonetheless, I do not think humans have the right to dictate how evolution works. Evolution has been perfecting itself here on Earth for billions of years. The first protozoa evolved. Eventually something breathed in air for the first time. A plant learned it didn't have to be eaten and instead could eat its predators. Humans stood upright. Evolution is cool, and it knows what it's doing.

STOP FUCKING WITH IT.

I think there was other stuff I'd planned to write about today, but for some reason, that is all that I can think of. It totally bothers me. I can't help but envision the metaphorical door - or perhaps, Pandora's box - opening. Only, instead of all sorts of horrible things coming through, I see us entering into a room we weren't supposed to be in.

Not Pandora's Box... no.

Something much more disturbing.

Bluebeard's Castle.