(no subject)

Friday night...

My brother convinced me to take he and his girlfriend shopping. No, I shouldn't put it like that. They wanted to go, and, though I had some uncertainty about leaving the house as I wanted to be around in case Andrea wanted to talk, I decided to take them out. I like hanging around with them. My brother and I, though we fought incessently when younger, get along really well. We're both weird, in our own ways, and his girlfriend is certainly not a typical high-schooler either. This is a good thing.

We hung around Woodman's for an hour, browsing the soda and candy aisles, joking, talking, laughing, Lara and Jim holding hands and generally being affectionate. It was the earliest we've gone out there, usually it's closer to midnight and we nearly have free run of the store, and it was fun seeing all the more conventional shoppers trying to figure us out. I love hanging around with Jim and Lara, but at the same time I was feeling a little lonely seeing them together.

When I got home, I found that I had missed Andrea. She went to sleep. Which is where I should be, but somehow I feel like weekends are my days to stay up late, as if I'm trying to take full advantage of every free minute I have away from work. Sometimes I just feel like I have so little time... *sigh* And I just feel a little bad about not being there to talk to my dear one. When I got back from Woodman's I found that my youngest brother was being whisked off to a D&D game (well, Hackmaster: close enough) at a friend's house who I haven't seen in a while. He was in the car, I got to talk to him briefly, and maybe I'll go next week, but I didn't really feel like going out tonight. I just wanted some relax-at-home time.

So I poked at my LJ friends list and found an entry by Saagaadaa that caught my interest, an entry about another person she knows dealing with death. I understand she's had to deal with more than her share of that. It caught my interest because it seems the person in question is okay with the idea of dying. Saagaadaa questioned this, and I, finding myself with too much time on my hands to think in, found myself questioning it too. What can prepare a person for death in such a way that they can just accept it? I don't know, but I thought about it and made my own guess at it. It was actually inspired some interesting thoughts, though those lines of inquiry left me feeling a bit more lonely...

Ahh, listen to me. I'm doing fine, really. There are just times that it would be really, really nice to just have someone, a particular someone comes to mind, to hold and talk to and discuss these things with, and just be with... *shrug* I really ought to get to sleep. I'm staying up too late and my mind is pulling at it's leash and not listening when I say 'heel'.

I may try and find a friend to go with me to my grandparent's house on Sunday. Benjie is busy it seems, but if anyone else wants to come with my brother, his girlfriend, and my parents to meet my extended family, get free food, and play with pinball machines and a pool table, let me know Saturday. I have to find out tomorrow morning whether it's ok with my grandparents to bring someone with, but that should just be a formality. If anyone with nothing else to do on easter sunday is interested, give me a call or e-mail me or something. It would be cool to have you along.

Anyway, good night world. I'll see you tomorrow.

(no subject)

I got up early today and drove out to Beast Buy in Racine with my brother. He picked up Shadowbane, which looks like it could be some fun. Then he didn't install it because the trip to the UP which had been unexpectedly cancelled was unexpectedly reinstated and he left with his girflfriend. Heh. We also, while we were out, stopped at Gurnee Mills to investigate their DDR machine. The stop was well worth it. It's only 50 cents a play there and the crowds (at opening time, while we were there anyway) aren't bad at all.

Then, after chatting online for a while with my dear one (She's putting a bunch of neat stuff like vintage garment patterns and stuff on e-bay. Go check them out once they're up!), I went out to the two Salvation Army stores near here and the local flea market. I'd never been to the flea market before, and it was an experience. I thought Salvation Army had a lot of junk, but this was seriously impressive. Tables and shelves and racks of the most assorted debris and brick-a-brack. From the booth with oriental swords and knives to a table piled with used tools from modern to antiquated to the corner that had stuff like two old IBM PS2's and miscellaneous electronic junk. In short, it's my kind of place. I bought a decent pocketwatch for 10 bucks. I've needed a watch for a while and I've finally realized that a (working) vintage wind up is out of my price range at the moment, so I'll settle. I just hope it wasnt stolen. The place was a little seedy...

So I got home and played DDR until I wore myself out. I'm doing so much better at that than I did yesterday. I guess I just needed a warm up session. I'm passing songs with A's and B's that I couldn't even get through before. I'm pleasently tired. And now I'm going out to get some dinner over at the home of a friend of my dad's. There's a regular Saturday night game over there that includes dinner most of the time. They're playing In Nomine, an RPG in which the players are angels and/or demons. Sounds kind of interesting. But there are really too many people there for me to want to deal with most of the time. So I'll go, eat, rest my legs, and play more DDR when I get back. I can live with that.

Oh, and it seems that Lander and I may be getting together tomorrow to play some DDR (yes, I'm addicted) up here since my trip to my grandparent's house has been postponed. That will be nice. I could use some hang-out-with-friends time.

What to do when someone doesn't stop talking....

As I was coming home from dinner, I bumped into someone I hadn't seen for quite some time.

Long ago, in what seems like another life, I was at my friend Jeff's, or Geoff's as he preferred, (someone I occasionally did stuff like D&D and other games with and who lent me his bass guitar once and whose band I watched practice occasionally, though in hindsight I'm not sure we every really *connected* if you know what I mean, but I'm rambling...) house across the street and his cousin Sara came by. Sara is, and I don't know what the PC term is and don't really care because I mean no offense and I hope everyone reading this realizes that, retarded. I didn't talk to her much, but I've seen her occasionally riding her bike around the neighborhood here.

She was coming by as I got out of my car, so I called to her and said hi. Heh. About half an hour later we were still talking. Or, I should say, she was still telling me all about the pop can tabs she's collecting and the rings she buys from Pizza Hut where the crane game is awful and unwinnable and her 39th birthday coming up next month (June 9th) and the cat her mother is going to buy her when she turns 50 who will have the same birthday as her so they can celebrate together, and I was standing and listening. And it was actually kind of interesting. Admittedly, I wouldn't want to do that all day, but for a while I was actually enjoying hearing her talk about her life. Eventually, I was getting a little bored and my legs began to hurt and it became apparent that she was not going to stop or even pause anytime soon, so I broke in and explained that it was getting cold and I should go inside. Heh, I had been waiting for an appropriate spot to break into the conversation, but finally I realized she probably wouldn't be offended if I interrupted. She didn't seem to mind. She kept pressing on me the importance of collecting all these tabs for her, though I told her I'm not home much when she comes by and I don't drink soda much anyway and I don't know if I'll have anything for her. I hope she won't be dissappointed if I don't have a bag of them for her when she comes by next...

It makes me wonder what people like her do all day. She said she works (though she's taking 4 days off because the weather is so nice), and that on Saturdays she rides her bike around the neighborhood collecting tabs and going to the park, but I wonder what that's like for her. Is she happy? Does she have friends? *shrug* She looked happy enough, anyway. It was just an interesting experience talking to someone like that for a while.

Is there a point to this? I don't know. It seemed like there was before, but maybe I've forgotten. It was just something I wanted to write about. She likes malted milk balls. Maybe I'll try and pick some up for her for her birthday when she comes by on her bike...