This new computer is the fanciest this I will ever own, I'm sure of it. I has a pleasing hum to it rather than the gurgle of my old laptop. Poor old laptop. I know that I have a tendency to anthropomorphize everything, but I feel kind of bad for the old fellow. He did bear with me through periods of heavy drink and senior thesis. Without that old laptop I wouldn't have been able to graduate college. Times like these remind me of "The Velveteen Rabbit". Except without the horrible fever and the bunnies. I wish there were bunnies.

I'm not much for astrology. I rarely read my horoscope, however a co-worker sent me to my horoscope for this week. It goes like this:

Taurus

"Dear Love Doctor: Please send a divine slap upside the head to the clueless guy I'm in a half-assed relationship with. He's GOT to wake up to the fact that it's high time to let someone, namely me, shower him with love. I mean, all the magic's in place. With just a flick of his attitude, he could materialize me whipping up gourmet Cajun cuisine in his new kitchen--not to mention spicing up every other room in his house. Love Doctor, please cast a spell to get him in alignment with cosmic necessity. -Overripe Taurus." Dear Overripe: I appreciate the ability you Bulls have right now to envision the best and brightest possibilities for your relationships. However, it's crucial that you give everyone the freedom to bumble along, even if it means that for now they'll be out of sync with the wonders you can imagine.


This seems too close to truth. Am I pushy? Should I give up? Am I so depressed that I am letting a horoscope dictate my disposition? I miss the good times.

Stevie : Failure

A. Peas : Carrots
B. Standarized Tests : Stupid
C. Future : Shitty
D. Crying : Right now

The correct answer is yes, she is a failure.

The GRE is in less than 12 hours and I am terrified.

I hate it here. It's official. I want friends again, not casual work aquaintances or even the heart to heart let's make cocoa kind of friends. I miss school and all of the firework-launching, building-trespassing, pabst blue ribbon on a tuesday night kind of friends. I never thought I would look back fondly on the time my thumb was so infected my hand went numb, but taking a sledgehammer to the walls of the community kitchen sure was fun even if the walls were filled with black mold. It's just so sad out here. No one wants to hang out or we're all too broke to do so. I have to worry about showering regularly and instead of smashing bottles I wind up quietly recycling them...I guess this I'm coming off a a little destructive, but to be honest these incidents were more about community then anything I've experienced out here. Somehow that community failed the day they handed me my diploma. I haven't really talked to anyone, nor do I think it would help. I'm doing well out here...I have even started cooking meals. I want to go back, but I don't have a place there anymore. I don't even speak to my best friend. I feel awkward and small. Fuss.

It a urinal. It's shaped like a flower. Flowers = lady parts. So you pee into them? I dislike this greatly.

I want a bedframe. I want a dresser so I don't have to dig my panties out of a grocery bag every morning. I want antibiotics so this fever will cease. I want to be able to remember to take my medicines daily so I don't get headaches. I want the BART to run every morning so I don't have to take the bus in and then slip in what I am 78% sure is urine on my way out of the TransBay Terminal. I want to stop crying all the time. I want all moms to be healthy. I want to have time to raise a puppy so I can quit this lonliness. I want to feel rested. I want to go home. I want to stay. I want to figure out why it's only my right armpit that smells. I want to have a good day.

Fine, I'm bratty. I agree.

Can I even do this anymore?

When it rains in California, I miss my home. I can feel the leaves turning from over 2,000 miles away but when I look outside to see the change I feel lost. Everything here is brown and concrete. Walking to the man made lake in Oakland I can admire the mollusks for their resillience in the way the can force an entire community onto a cement wall, but I still feel displaced. Maybe I am suffering from season envy. Every season in California is the same to me. I miss the Sugar Maples and I will miss that one week where all of the Gingko Trees shed their leaves in unison.

Going home at the end of the day is more like making a trip to Oakland than going "home". I throw my keys on top of the oven. I walk into my bedroom and sit on the matress on the floor waiting for something to happen. On a good day I look down into the parking lot and watch the commuters pick up their automobiles to carry them back east. Maybe I walk to the lake and watch the joggers trod on the broken mollusk shells before returning to my empty apartment to throw the keys back onto the oven.

...

Well, I felt like writing but I can't really address anything I have been feeling for the past week or so. It's a sort of desperation to hold on to something while simulatneously putting it face down in the river until the struggle stops. My anxieties are increasing and I find myself laughing uncontrollably until I burst into tears.

I'm not depressed. I get up and go to work. I maintain relationships with people but somehow there is something making my guts swell and twitch with discomfort. I don't know what it is but suddenly the way I see a person pass by my doorway sends me into a panic. I can't tell what is behind it all. Maybe it's just indigestion and bad dreams.

Ahh the weekend....

Due to excessive drinking and fighting with loved ones, Saturday became "Stevie take care of yourself day," it was sponsored by Mr Edwin Abrecy (whom I appreciate greatly for holding the hair back as I puked in his recycling bin). Thanks to Trevor Goodchild for sending that check which enabled Ed and myself to eat hamburgers and drink copious amounts of fountain soda. It was really what I needed.

Saturday evening was spent bathing and sleeping with aforementioned loved one. Very relaxing, very pleasing, lots of kissing.

Sunday, I boughgt a sofa and a cupcake. See sofa:



Mine is grey wool, but everything else remains the same. Six to eight weeks from now I will be enjoying the perks couch ownership i.e. napping on the sofa, snacking on the sofa, and reading on the sofa. I might even throw a welcome home party for Sofa.

I built some bookshelves. That makes two bits of furniture: mattress, bookshelves. I spent the evening on the mattress near the bookshelves and watched a documentary about Henry Darger on my laptop on top of a bankers box full of photocopies. So I figure, if I start collecting now, and attend communion twice a day I will be well on my way to dying alone in my Oakland apartment only to be revered after my timely death as an artistic genius after claiming to be raped by a seventeen year old Italian girl.



This is what my novel will look like.




Notice the young girl choking in the top right corner.




It's too bad I have no interest in learning how to paint. "Building manager Zachary" will never discover me rotting in my apartment amongst hundreds of phone books with pictures of little girls pasted into them. My current filing system seems to be more efficient anyway.

I finally have an apartment!

I just walked across the street from work to a bakery called Specialty's and was looking to buuy a scone. I was saddened when I did not see any resting cheerfully upon the baking racks. Then all of a sudden as if they understood my disappointment a full rack of fresh-out-of-the-oven scones were place before me. I love baked goods.

I'm feeling a bit reclusive and no, it's not because I recently embarked on a journey through the World of Warcraft, but I feel forgotten. I know I'm bad at keeping in touch, so when I go out of my way to do so, it hurts to be ignored. I don't think Katie wants to live with me anymore. Perhaps I should give up on her. I was doing the patients sensitive waiting bit, but if I get no feedback like "I'm stressed let's talk later," or "Actually Stevie, I just don't like you," I'm going to get a studio in Oakland. It's nice there, less pretentious, better parking, and you can get a beautiful three bedroom flat for $1500 as opposed to $3500.

Also, I'm homesick. Still. I miss a few people and for some reason I feel like I can't tell them that. I haven't even talked to anyone from home in so long. Too depressed to bring myself out of it. I don't want to go home though. I like being reclusive but I worry about people. I just want a home. My OED hasn't even had a chance to sit on the bookshelf. Half of my panties are packed away so I have to do laundry constantly and my USB camera cord thing is packed away so I can't look at my photos. This is for shit.

Well, the new Frappucino blended juice beverage made its debut today. Stupid. I can't get the coffee stink off of my fingernails. I am considering amputation to solve the problem. I just want a desk job that pays enough for me to go out twice a week and eat healthy foods. The only things I can afford are tacos and gum. I don't even enjoy gum.

The xbox, along with the VCR, blew up during a power surge on Friday. Now I am forced to hold conversations with the cats. During on of these social events, Fanny decided that she had enough and dug a claw into my arm. This resulted in much bleeding and discomfort (as I am allergic to cats). Now there is a funny lump on my arm that won't go away.

Devin is making me crazy right now. I need an apartment. Well, I need money first. Does foot fetish modeling involve just stepping on meat and stuff or is it more...genital oriented? Maybe escorting will do. I am quite charming.

Well, I finally made it here. Standard Leandro as I call it. Searching for apartments is exhausting and expensive. I am constantly reminded of the fact that I just paid over $80,000 for a degree that has enabled me to work at a Starbucks...sigh.

Well, I am leaving tomorrow. Finally. California. If I had not been lifting heavy items all day and running errands involving three different banks I might be excited. However, since my day was filled with all sorts of laborious adventures would be happier if I knew that my headache might dissipate soon. On the bright side I have terry cloth pants and swollen eyelids. This makes me look quite humourous.