I talked to the dude at Expressions today aaaaaand they're ordering Starbuzz and Al Fakher! No idea when it'll get there, but they finally took the initiative, and that's what counts. Good job, college head shop! Having never ordered Starbuzz because it's too damn expensive online, I'm excited.

Also, Al Waha's After Nine is my new favorite cheap shisha. Smoke was a little wimpy at first, but I think that was a matter of the coals I'd been using not having been hot enough. Not having a stove with coils sucks. The side-dish part of the grill is my alternative, but that still takes forEVER, and if I use a small coal I have to hold the damn thing with tongs. It normally ends with me getting impatient and just waiting for the coal to burn through on its own for a while.

I finally got a new nose stud, which was my primary reason for going into town. I'm tired of using bend-your-own varieties (I always end up bending it too loose or too tight), and my piercing isn't big enough to handle anything besides practically the smallest gauge. Also, my nose in general is just too small for most twist varities (thank god it's catching up with the rest of my face), but I finally found one that worked... I just had to press through a bit of scar tissue to get it in right. That was left over from when I was an idiot and took my original piercing out for the first time over a sink with an open drain, then had to wait a couple of days to get a new stud (at which point the freshish piercing had started healing), and I had to re-pierce the new tissue. That was gross. Messing with piercings is gross. They're fun to have, but not fun to mess with. Remember that.

Anyway, then I washed my hands, cause boogers are gross too.

Bonus: A fair bit of off-brand shisha and two studs came out to just $22! Not having money is an adventure.


Finally, I just found out the new medication I JUST started taking for my insomnia is one of the misbranded drugs Pfizer is getting sued for. Which is fine, because I take atypical antipsychotics purely because of their sedation side effects -- I guess if I had schziophrenia, though, I'd be pissed at Pfizer right now. Benzos and nonbenzos have absolutely no effect on me... which is okay, I guess, since I don't really like getting addicted to pills or hallucinating or sleepwalking. If you can name a drug normally used to treat insomnia, I've taken it, and they were all shit. Lunesta gave me this gross taste in my mouth, too. Basically, I would suck hardcore at being a recreational drug user.

Ooookay, I think this entry is long enough for talking about nothing.

I love this president.

It's like we went from a 14-year-old tercel to a brand new benz.

In other news, my mind has apparently shut off. I raised my hand in my 2:00 class about half a dozen times today, with a distinct thought, and I forgot it immediately. And when I do manage to get some idea out of my head, I can't grasp the words in order to express myself the way I have in the past. It's like my vocabulary was cut in half, and I sound like a retarded kid, but with relevant questions to ask a professor -- just not very eloquently.

It makes me feel like a stroke patient. I've watched my grandfather deteriorate over the years due to small strokes, and seeing this once really regal, vivacious, eloquent man fight to get out a sentence kills me. He knows exactly what he wants to express, but there's a disconnect, and he just can't put it together.

It's getting worse, particularly over the last few months. I get confused and distracted, and I'm still procrastinating and avoiding shit and have zero motivation for most things.

It's been especially odd since school started. I pick up the DTH every day I get on campus, four days a week, and the simplest Sudoku or crossword just kills me. I had to write the numbers in for a level 1 Sudoku the other day, and I just know something's not right. I'm a Sudoku master, I can pop those things out like Pringles. I finish them probably 95% of the time, and I still haven't finished a single one. The crosswords are worse. I know that I know the answer to a clue, or I might have a really strong "sense" of what it is (in that I know it, but I can't find the word), but nothing comes. They end up mostly blank, which is irritating. The Sudoku was always this little challenge I had every day that I'd easily be able to finish, and the crossword gave me the opportunity to flex my vocab and relax a little... and now everything's different.

On top of all this, I'm having problems even typing now. I hit the wrong keys all the time, which is totally out of character for me. I've been typing very quickly and very accurately since I was like, 10.

Overall, I am confused and concerned.

To end on a positive, Mark and I are going to look at a house tomorrow. Which we may *buy*. It feels so empowering, and I'm really, really, way too excited about it. And in that, I got Mark all excited... so hopefully we can keep ourselves in check when we're with the realtor.

i have walking pneumonia, again, as if this is news. my doctor told me i have to go to the hospital in a week if i don't get better by then.

i normally wait too long to take care of this anyway, but there's too much fluid building up in my lungs or something like that and she thinks i'm going to get real pneumonia if i don't react to the z-pack immediately.

oh yeah and classes start on monday.


ehhhhhh.

alex bought me gatorade on his way home this morning and has been checking in on me. we watched the first 48 and now i'm ready to go back to sleep again. besides that i've been basically playing tetris on my ds.

i am so lame.

so i studied last night. a lot. so much that i turned off my alarm this morning and managed to miss two classes. but i felt really good about this test. really good.

it was horrible. it raped, pillaged, burned, and then kicked you in the balls. it was horriffic. i wanted to cry.

and now i have to post for my online class and then i take a shower and go **out** with mark.

for the first time in my life, my compy's got a virus. and a shitty one. and i am going to have to backup and reinstall SUPER FRESH because it's fucked with my drivers and got access to my passwords, which is excellent and super stupid.
i don't even know what the thing is, but i have a suspicion it's probably from that 3rd party application i downloaded to sync up an app for my iPhone with Microsoft Outlook. I SHOULD KNOW BETTER. WHO AM I??

i should also not be so brazen as to assume that my antivirus program is something that's simply taking up memory (and thus ending its process or just abandoning it altogether).

so i'm in safe mode.
i suck.

goddammit.

(also plz let me know if "i" sent you a message or did something funny on facebook, which is where i've gotten my security alert)