1. I have developed this really awful habit of hating to wait idly for things. It's only happened since I started working at this current job, though. If I'm standing there, I'm not doing shit, and in my head I'm thinking about my billing rate and even though I'm not billing anything I'm thinking, "Well, why I am I just waiting? What a freaking waste?" If it's the bus, I feel like I can do something about it by walking to the next stop down (even though I realize that once I get on the bus, I'm going to get to my destination at the exact same time). But today it got stupid. I was in the U-District and started walking. The problem was that I never really stopped to catch a bus. I just kept walking. For like 7 miles. When I got to the top of QA hill - I don't know why I chose that route, by the way, it's a wretched hike - Ennio Morricone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" theme came on which I thought was iPod-serendipitous (iPoditous?), but now that I think about it I'm wondering why I have the operatic theme to a spaghetti western on my iPod to begin with. Good song, though. Also, I didn't think about it at the time, but a while ago I said to myself, "Let's walk 500 miles, like that stupid song." And so there's some headway on that.
2. [sincerity] My parents are honestly the most amazingly generous people on earth - sure they give money, but this was about giving part of your life. I'm not going to say what drew this out of me because it's far too personal and kind of sad, but I'm in awe of how deeply they can put their beliefs into practice and not in a way that smacks of self-martyrdom, but it's out of genuine love and friendship and kindness. They've never been at all preachy to me or my siblings or anyone, but things like this kind of kick your forehead with an example of actually living your values. Anyway, I've never been more proud to be their son. [/sincerity]
3. Baked some Cuban bread. It's quite good. I think it's taking the place of French bread as my favorite. Among bread dorks, I think it's kind of a "lower brow" bread because it 1) uses a small amount of fat and some sugar (and I use cinnamon), instead of taking flavor entirely from the development of flour, yeast and water and 2) is a softer, more creamy/sandwichy bread, not cool/crusty, but I don't really care. The only thing I didn't get quite right was that underestimated the amount of pop I was going to get from the oven - these things nearly exploded. I need to make the loaves longer. For a good sandwich, use some butter, spicy-ish mustard, prosciutto, swiss cheese and apple slices. Grill it with some weight on it to smash it down.
4. Here's a tip: don't ask for money standing right outside a liquor store. Humor people that you're not going to get drunk by asking for it on the other side of the street or something.
5. I think I'm going to be travelling a lot over the next month or so (probably more than I've ever had in the past), which bothers me only because I've been doing such healthy crap over the past few weeks. When you're travelling on business you treat your body like it's a bar rag. Flying 10,000-12,000 miles in a week doesn't leave much room for a lot of expense account experimentation with some light, exotic cuisine - it's a lot of airport food. And give yourself a gold star if you can find a banana or something with vegetables in an airport (don't count the celery sticks that come with wings). There's also the big meeting luncheon cuisine - the last time this was fried chicken, cole slaw, potato salad, donuts, cake and soda. This time I'm going to try to actively seek out better dining options without coming off like a dick.
5.5. Arcade Fire is going to be popular. Kind of like Doves/Interpol-ish. Try it. You'll like it.
6. I'm so tired I could sleep bullets.
