our surroundings hid ferocious beasts aplenty

Alright, goddamn. A few people have told me how depressing this blog has gotten lately (the last six months?), and I fully agree with them. It's been a depressing blog, and what's more, I'm told, it's been creepily intimate. Apparently (and I'm not going to confirm this myself because reading back in time would probably destroy me, eyeballs first), I've talked a lot about my health (blegh, spittoo) and my feelings? My bad feelings and dark, dark emotions?

Well, yes. Yes. It was a fairly incredibly shitty winter, all told. Now things are looking up and I'm only freaking out once every few weeks, and by freaking out I mean feeling (mature content warning) pitifully sad. And I'm still taking wads of beautiful (shield your eyes, mother) MEDICATIONS that my doctors tell me to take, and it feels like they're having (don't say it) an effect. And I've been running around and going out of town a bunch, and there's serious travel lined up to thrill and amaze, and it's finally the sprinnng, so shut up! I only feel peculiar these days when I push myself too hard by driving all night or talking all night (but half the time it's a good peculiar, like giddy as hell followed by a slightly hung-over - though not related to drinking - day of introspection), so there. So now I'll stop talking about it forever. Except whenever I FEELS like it, nyaa.

I went to Seattle a couple times and then to Portland, where I semi-attended the Stumptown comic con. There were good people to see and meet, and though I know they'll never see this (this being a cryptic, frightening little blog akin to a doll fashioned from my own hair and nails), thanks to Farel for putting us up, Brandon for shelling out more than his share of gas and board and then lending me a library of comics I've never read, Eric for driving endlessly around Portland when nobody knew how to get where we needed to go, J-Fish for being a very good fellow about sorting out directions and then giving them, Jacob for talking me through the blues one night, and Marian for the virtual chalice of Godlord held to my chapped and pallid lips at every opportunity. And Doug for getting us in on the second day, us being such cheap-asses and all. Plus other people too, I'm sure. Oh yeah, thank you COREY (who doesn't read my blog) for drawing two of the most sublimely fetishistic fan-arts of There Will Be Blood right in front of me in a Denny's and then refusing to let me buy them because they were too good to exchange for crude, dirty currency. Well, alright, np, I'll just break into a museum and steal them 3000 years in the future. Then I'll thumbtack them over my bed. Um um!

I was going to be on the island this weekend for some well-needed (I say) relaxation and so forth, but my car has had its check engine light on for some time now, like back in Portland, and the garage can't look at it until Wednesday, so no go. No me go island. But that's alright. I'll get there later.

The other night I had some adventures with Caleb and Nick. I'm too lazy to go into it in detail (mark of a born writer) so I'll list some highlights. Not to entertain or interest anyone reading this, but to serve as a memory tool when I'm older and my memory has been erased by, uh, the net... and this blog is my only map home. So: Hot Berry Lychee Latte (no pearl, obviously), Burnaby, bowling, one strike, hands hurt, shrill judgments made, amended, bad Chinese food on Hastings, great revelations, "life choices", further revelations demanding deeper conversation, the crazy soap opera of two girls who were just in a car accident, hilarity ensues (for us, not them), finding their lost keys in the gutter later, hilarity enhanced, ridiculous beautiful downtown from across the water, freezing cold, a cat/raccoon, dog called "it", magnolias out all over the city.

That ought to fix it. I should have done the same thing for Seattle, and Portland, and the Seattle before Portland, but I'm lazy and I have a notebook I mostly keep to. Lest I forget myself and post the horrifying truth on my goddamn goddamn ghost city of a blogharu, correct?

Notes in closing: Playing Final Fantasy Tactics (the reissue) on my brand-new (already well-used) PSP, and reading lots and lots of comics. I'm annoyed that Odwalla Superfood is better than Happy Planet's Clean Green, which is all that's available in Vancouver. Somebody wrote me a nice letter today that I'm going to respond to after this. I wanna live on vacation.