169 tagged with #daily

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Palate


I brought in five mandarins today and ate three of them in class, peeling them carefully in my lap and trying not to spray citrus juice all over my notes. Nothing can cut through the thick pad of taste on top of my tongue, the taste that lets me know I really have been sick for the past few days.

I can't tell if my throat is raw from the cloud of salt in the air, the paint fumes in my hallway, or the battle my immune system has raged against the infection. I can't stop dancing to Goldfinger in my office when no one is looking. There's a pile of batteries I have yet to sort out, and a growing list of broken equipment piling up on my desk, and piles of dirt scattered throughout my house from when I have swept but not vacuumed, and I couldn't give a damn because the sun is sometimes out and the air is sometimes cold.

I drink hot chocolate whenever I want.

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05 March 2014 20:10


Home Sick


"It's not like it's anyone's fault that you're sick," is what he told me, and in that instant I realized everything about my associations with illness that make me so unwilling to stay in bed all day. I dragged myself through a 10F bike ride to work yesterday, despite my boss's gentle suggestion that perhaps I didn't need to pretend that I wasn't sick.

"You're not having fun now, are you?" my mother used to ask me, when I'd try to burrow into the bean bag in a corner of the kitchen, a mop bucket slowly filling up with my inability to keep down food. "I told you not to get sick."

It's why I'm happy to have the house to myself when I can wallow, when I don't have to either look more pathetic than I feel or sit up straight without sniffling to prove that I am well enough for more soup. The hammock is filled with blankets, a carefully arranged cocooning with interlocking layers that keep the cold air out. The downside is that once I've exited, peeling back the edges so I can ooze out and slowly drop to the ground, I can never return, because it will never be the warm and cozy burrito it was before I disturbed the shell.

I still easily forget that being sick isn't necessarily a poor reflection on one's moral character. I still steadfastly claim that I am not sick through a hoarse throat and a layer of phlegm. My boss still sends me home early.

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04 March 2014 16:05


Electric Sheep


Selecting the first predicted word that comes up on my mobile keyboard, including the first one, until hitting a loop:

I am trying to decide if you are in the semester is going to be a while we've been trying to get my hands on the way out of the house for turning 18 the same time his wheels suddenly became nearly useless front-mounted rudders the same time his wheels suddenly became nearly useless front-mounted rudders the same time his wheels suddenly became nearly useless front-mounted rudders.

Selecting only the right word:

you should be the best thing that is not an option in my mind that I can vaguely I was just thinking that we can do that with you on a daily deal on it for you guys think we can do that with you on a daily deal on it for you guys think we can do that with you on a daily deal on it for you guys.

Selecting only the left word:

the only way I see the world is not the only way I see the world is not the only way I see the world.

I have some strange thoughts regarding explicitly teaching a device to put words together the way I would. It can never generate an idea on its own; it's all pure syntax dumping. The results are not quite legible, yet feel as if it is trying very hard to create something.

That's a silly thought. Machines don't try, they just do. Anything else is projection on my part. If nothing else, this should just fuel my paranoia regarding data collection; this is something more intimate and personal than a list of contacts and passwords.

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03 March 2014 09:42


Every Day a Snow Day


I wish everyone moved as carefully and thoughtfully as they do on the first day of fresh snowfall. I wish every approached intersections with caution and attentiveness, made eye contact with others, negotiated paths of travel in a reasonable manner, understood that the world is dangerous but is navigable with some vigilance.

----

The rope is stiff and dries my hand as it slides over callouses not quite ready; even though I know I'm safe, the sound and tiny jolts that come from the knot settling into itself beat a moment of fear through me. Resting while dangling is not a rest when I can't relax my hands.

"Put your hands in your chalk bag," he orders me from the other end of the rope.

"No, it's terrifying."

"That's why I'm telling you to do it."

My hands reach behind me, almost without my permission, and tentatively search for the fleece pocket dangling from the base of my spine like a broken tail. The movement tips my balance, and I start spinning, gently. I close my eyes, so the slow oscillation as my face passes from light to shadow is my only cue for movement.

"Now get back on the rock."

I get back on the rock.

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02 March 2014 17:29


Kids


I heard the sounds of our neighborhood kids plotting before I left the garage, and when I rolled down the driveway, I realized the sounds were coming from our front yard. Three boys crouched in the grass, armed with Nerf rifles, holding conference. They stopped when my screeching brakes caught their attention, and I locked eyes with the oldest one for a brief moment.

The first thing that popped into my head was, literally, "Hey, you kids, that's my yard!" Thankfully, before I became the stereotypical 'get off my lawn'er, I just laughed and kept biking.

On relating this story to a friend over coffee, we decided it would be perfectly acceptable if I grew up to be the sort of person who sat on my front porch with a cane and a bowl of pistachios, crunching on nuts and yelling at kids for getting off my lawn. Inevitably, I would confiscate a slingshot and use it to ping wandering children with empty shells.

I suppose this means I should start practicing with a slingshot again.

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01 March 2014 19:39


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