I went swimming today with my sister, in the river again. With her around to drag me out if I hit my head or something, I was brave enough to try the big drop this time around. Our river just had a “restoration” project that added three drops to make the otherwise flat water interesting to kayakers, so we have three chutes of rock with roiling whitewater at the bottom, spaced a hundred or so feet apart, right near the bridge carrying the highway overhead and its accompanying pedestrian bridge.

It’s nearly as good as fluming in Ouray, minus the public spectacle part. The big drop is about eight feet long, four high. The water at the bottom is easily seven feet deep, enough that I couldn’t touch the bottom before the current pushed me half way to the next drop.

I’m bruised, sore, cut on my toe, and happy.

I’ve been thinking about future plans agan. My goal is, one year from now, to be able to live on the left coast and here, flitting back and forth as I please.

It might mean downsizing here, since my place is not the cheapest one I could get here, if I was willing to reconfigure my cooking a bit. I don’t know how I feel about that. I probably won’t, though, if I can get sporadic roommates to drop by here and there, on a short-term basis. That’s definitely possible here in the summer and sometimes in winter. I wish I owned my place, because then there could be all kinds of fun arrangements to make with it.

I need to grow my business just a bit, so I can afford an employee more like full time. I’m close. Just not there yet. Being able to let go of some tech support would be excellent, and I should really get around to automating a lot of the account maintenance tedium I do right now by hand thanks to my control-freak sysadmin tendencies.

I’d love to just have a room on the west coast, in a house with a decent kitchen. I realize now how much I want to have a place where I can live without most of my stuff, and I’m ready to live in a situation where sharing really makes sense, and actually works thanks to having enough space for everyone. That’s not really happened to me before, but I think I’ve finally grown the needed skills to make it work.

Before I do this, I suppose I’ve got to get a lot of little things worked out: Get on a schedule and actually stick with it for payroll taxes, instead of waiting until the last minute and panicking a bit; legally changing my name. Perhaps coming out (again!) here in town. It’s funny how those layers keep on coming. Maybe get a car or motorcycle. The hardest part of getting from here to the west coast is the 25 miles between my home and the bus station.

Unrelatedly, LJ finally let me nuke the silly subtitle on my journal. About time. Thanks, 6Apart! That only took months!

Aria: You get done with stuff just as I need to start.

Caleb: lol

Caleb: I live in the future!

Because wolftracks gave me such goodness, I must now do the same. Besides, she’s awesome.

1. I’ll respond with something random about you.
2. I’ll challenge you to try something.
3. I’ll pick a color that I associate with you.
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you.
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on yours.

Drawn! Blog told me that some of my favorite animations by the Canadian National Film Board, like The Sweater, Mindscape and The Sand Castle are all available for free online viewing.

Yes, I really did wear a skirt to the bar last night. Yes, it really was okay. No, I didn’t get hassled. At all, really. Which was odd, considering Richie was there. Huh.

I am spending today quietly grieving while I work.

Goodbye, Julieclipse.

Random dumps can be fun.

[17:26:18] mike says “it’s always morning in arialand!”

[17:26:41] mike says “kinda like it’s always happy hour somewhere, but more orange juice and less alcohol”

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Bryan: I do have trouble comprehending how people might get put to sleep by ode to joy :-)

Aria smirks.

Aria: I do, by a bad rendition.

Aria: But the full thing? no way.

Bryan: it is relaxing to hear I suppose in some ways but also fairly invigorating.

Aria: Beethoven at top volume is a lot like an orange juice and coffee enema first thing in the morning.

Bryan: heheh

Bryan: :-)

Bryan: and there aren’t a lot of artists of any era that you can say that about

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

— Bertrand Russell

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International standard date and time notation

Transgender professor defends female scientists

Animating Fearsome Robots for everlasting splendor and prominence

I slept poorly to say the least. The light made it hard to get to sleep, then the cat woke me up to be fed, not by a miao near the food, but miaoing and curling up on me, then restlessly getting up a moment later, and repeating this a hundred times until I figured it out in my sleep-deprived state.

Then a fly landed on my face. Again and again and again.

Something about the full moon makes everything crazy.

I was forced to realize today that a saw and a theremin sound distinctly similar.

The ability to post via LJ-Talk is pretty damn sweet.

Hikeage with pseudomammal and julieclipse was amazingly good. It rained most of the time. I have never liked the sun so much. I wish I had brought my camera. I would have treated it right despite the rain.

Clouds hung low. We climbed high. We walked among them in groves of aspen.

We got lost two miles above sea level. But pseudomammal really did well leading the charge back to the trail. I drank from the creek. We all drank from a spring. I sucked water off of passing leaves. The undergrowth was heavy with rain, and splattered our pants and legs with wet,

The rain broke for a moment around 1700. The sun has never felt more glorious.

I wore a skirt. It makes me so comfortable. We went to eat in Ouray afterward, and I didn’t care who saw. People smile at me more when I’m wearing a skirt, I notice.

Ooops. I think I burned the candle at both ends.

Fun coincidence: I just got a check made out to the old company (Independence), numbered 1776.

Hanging out with ladyjausserande and wolftracks this evening was fantastic. And contained no Gatsby nor semen.