this fact is still foreign to me, which is probably why i have no desire to overtly celebrate.

this summer has been a crazy, awesome, scary, exciting, sad, thrilling, adventure from which i've learned a lot about human nature and myself. i couldn't have gotten through this without the help of someone very special and important to me.

it's amazing how much more me i am now. i love it.

there are a lot of sneezes where i work (i think it has to do with the air quality), and when i hear a coworker sneeze...

note: it is impossible to keep ones eyes open during a sneeze.

they get my usual response:

the coworkers expect this kind of behavior from me. sometimes i get a response like, "who run barter town?"

it only gets awkward when i accidentally exclaim this somewhere out in public and the person doesn't know me and my unusual ways.

you get that little "new email notification" while in the middle of something important.

and it's a pdf from the hr department with some reasonably incongruous graphic next to the content (which, for all intents and purposes, should be removed, and the text of the pdf should be simply emailed so i don't have to launch another application just to read the email).

we joke about this as "jeans currency"; what the company thinks happens immediately following the receipt of the email is this:

what actually occurs:

(un)fortunately for me, the garden is producing cukes bigger than a house cat.

there was no way i could finish the whole thing. so, since people are always leaving stuff for free in the breakroom, i thought i'd do the same.

incidentally, no one took it.

i was also quite pleased when i saw that arrested development is available for instant viewing!!1

unfortunately, i work in an cube farm that was converted from a pole barn and i can barely get the edge network inside, let alone 3g.

unless i stand on one leg and balance with my iphone up in the air; then i can listen to ron howard for hours and hours.

when i get home from work, though, she's the happiest dog ever.

she's very needy and a little meek. she's always trying to horn in on any attention being given to jones. so sometimes i'll slowly start to try to hug her and she, subsequently, slowly slinks away from me. we do this often.

so, monday morning when i woke up at 3 in a panic and tried my damndest to go back to sleep and by 7 i was certain i could not come to work, i called in and could finally fall back to sleep.

today's been ok... i've kinda felt like i'm about to freak out, but i haven't. hopefully i can stave off the next one... according to my records, it's been almost 2 years since my last attack. i thought i was done with 'em. oh, well.

first was micah. he's a very nice guy who uses only his bike for transportation. we share a taste in electronic music and he usually passes album titles and artists my way. last night, he had his ipod with him and wanted me to check out some beats.

then, angry tom wanted me to teach him everything i know about iphones, cellular service providers, the internet, craigslist*, and the kansas-nebraska act.

we call him angry tom because he gets quite adamant when in discussions... even if he agrees with you. he also appears to own 10 or more of those shirts.

tom left after i told him i wouldn't read the kansas-nebraska act to him and i also wasn't going to let him hold my phone.

then casey showed up. i've known casey for several years; he used to cut my friend kelli's hair about 10 years ago. he's got what i call a *big* personality which is great in small doses. anyway, he called me sugar, ordered two beers and a shot for myself and him.

more and more people petered in, including a wilson's regular, loud karl! we were happy to see him at our bar and he slid over to chat. he told a story about a girl he had was seeing forever ago who took a crowbar to his nice diesel mercedes...

finally, matt's shift was complete, and there was actually an empty stool next to yours truly.

*one bit of hilarity that i didn't want to ruin the comic with: tom's wife told him that there weren't jobs on craigslist. that people just use it to sell and trade stuff... even sometimes sex!

peppered mackerel fish cakes

when the weather permits, we "take it outside" as an added bonus. on humid occasions, i usually make a comment of how it affects my hair; or i'll point out how my browns don't match.

on the way back to our desks, we stop in the breakroom and joke that we need to see how our day is going by checking the horoscopes. so i find the closest paper which usually has some article about a badger fan and how the terrace is stupid and falling into the lake.

and then page through to the "fun" part of the paper to check out the aries and virgo (and gemini, for other reasons) number predictions; i never read the text... that part is irrelevant:

let me know if you can't guess our signs.

as a result, i have a food schedule during the work day. so as soon as my morning coffee is finished

i eat my 9:30 yogurt with my reusable spoon which allows me to think i'm saving the world by not using a plastic one.

then around 10, i have a banana cuz i've convinced myself that it defends me against mosquitoes (a myth!) and the potassium helps muscle aches.

after that, at about 10:30, i have a bag of baby carrots for improved optical performance (and they're tasty and good for you anyway).

at 11:30, i hop on over to subway where i barely have to say anything about the meal (but i am cordial and ask the workers how they are) and they make my veggie sub on wheat with pepperjack, toasted. everything except green peppers and jalapenos.

then the afternoon serves up a granola bar and an apple.

when all of these things happen at the appropriate times, it results in a pleased bekee.