Misunderstood internet humor

My work buddy didn't like my silly response to her "serious" post.

12/28 Car Truths: Research

Research!

Nothing could really prepare you for living for an extended period of time out of your vehicle. Depending on how long you're planning on living like this or got forced into the lifestyle, it helps to learn from others' experiences. Originally, I wanted to get a van and ease into this life. Due to my room mate (and boyfriend) problems I kind of got pushed into it.

Basic mistakes will always happen, but seeing variances on the same idea can help you plan how to live.

Ilgunas wrote a book on the experience.

It also makes me feel less alone and crazy. Everyone I have spoken to about the concept gives me a look of just not getting it. I've never met another van dweller or vagabond and sometimes the weight of hiding how I live gets to me. (Which is also why I'm a Car Truth post behind - Sunday I had a sad.)

Here are some helpful blogs to get you started.

Ken Ilgunas
Deciding to live in a van for graduate school, Igunas lived in one of the parking lots of Duke University. Inspired by Thoreau's Walden, he details his experiences on his blog. Honestly, Ilgunas shares similar motivations for my car life: I hated getting a student loan and vowed that I would pay it off as soon as possible.

I worked my ass for years and used my savings to cover school expenses. Transferring to CSU, living where I did, taking months to find a job, and unfortunately getting involved in a money and emotionally draining relationship put in a position where by last December I only had a hundred dollars in the bank.

Ilgunas vowed to go to graduate school and not get anymore loans. I want to finish my undergrad with little to no loans.

Source

Cheap RV Living

Probably most of the recent traffic came from the Cheap RV Living forum. The website has how-tos and set up tutorials. The most beneficial part o
f the site, I have found, is the forum. The individual stories and vans from the followers of the website are inspiring and solve van dwelling problems.

VanDwellers.org
Van Dwellers is also a big resource website. Copyrighted and also updating regularly, Romana keeps a log of useful information for those seeking to live the dream and move into their vehicles. His living in a car section is my experience in one page, as opposed to a whole website, and features good videos on the subject.

11/28 Car Truths: Bugs

Bugs!

Any fresh food should be consumed within a couple of days.

Keep the car clean.

You have a little space, the more disorganized you become the harder it is to find stuff and the easier it is for these little demons to sneak inside.

This is a more complicated subject then just saying clean and organized. Moisture collects in the car while you live in it. To avoid nasty smells and damp sheets, air out the car. If there's food or places to reside, bugs find them.

I generally keep my food in the trunk, in a box. There are some granola bars up front for breakfast. Those Nature Valley bars become crumbs.

Have a plastic bag around for trash.

Preferably don't eat in the car to avoid crumbs.

Fortunately, I live in Colorado and lived in my car mostly through winter. The forecast right now says it's going to snow again on Wednesday. Hah!

Don't let bugs be a problem.

10/28 Car Truths: Nothing new

I have a "Style" folder on my computer,

You don't need anything new!

The few items that I purchased to make living in my car easier are:
Cold weather sleeping bag - $23
Three red containers - $12
Four sun reflecting window covers - $26

Out of those items how many do you think I really needed?

None, honestly.

Where I collect inspiration pieces.

I left the sleeping bag at my mom's house over Spring Break and survived through one blizzard and two snow storms with the blankets I already had. Further, my mom had two sleeping bags in the garage, that I didn't want to use because they were "old."

I'm only using one of the red containers that I bought now. The third one kept getting in the way, so I left it at my ex's and never got it back after we broke up. After rearranging the clothes I actually use versus the clothes I brought, I eliminated the second container. The problem is: I work at a grocery warehouse, I could of just grabbed some cardboard boxes for free.

I used the window covers for my first week in the car and had two problems: I couldn't find a way to hang them up they attracted attention. Sun covers, on all the windows, during winter is an unusual sight. They're bright, shiny and say "The person who owns this car doesn't want you to see something." Most people ignore the blankets I have in my car and if I wasn't lazy in the mornings I could store them in the trunk for further stealth. I even received a ticket, while sleeping in my car, and the person who gave it to me didn't realize someone was in there.

That's sixty-four dollars that could of been mine.

I have a soft spot for "cool" jackets.

There's a lot of cool traveling gear, that I wish I had, but waiting until you have the cool clothes before going an adventure brings you no where.


You lack nothing to live free; the hard part is getting rid of the excess.

The Quarters: Updated

I saw the Quarters post reach one of the top ten posts and decided to update the poorly made graph of how I currently live. There's still an Emergency cat kit, even though it's not featured.

9/28 Car Truths: Uhm.

Let's talk about...

First off, I recently saw Salt-n-Pepa live in concert. They still got it.

Uhm. I debated about writing this post. Depending on the type of person you are and how you live this may or may not effect you, but most people are sexual.

I wouldn't suggest having long-term relationships when living in a car, unless your partner is participating.

Unless you're out in the middle of no where, miles away from any cop, park ranger, or whoever can hear you - don't have sex in your vehicle. Not speaking from personal experience, but bumping uglies causes noise and movement, which in the city is iffy (and illegal).

If you feel like masturbating, be aware of your surroundings.

If you want to have a one-night stand, or a casual relationship, plan to go to their place.

Same rules of safety and consent always apply.

8/28 Car Truths: Water

Water!

You need it! Besides having an army of water bottles that were mainly acquired throughout the campus, I carry a 3 liter jug in the car. I'm living off the campus, so water is easy to come by and is covered by my nonnegotiable student fees.

On the road, I would suggest having multiple, reusable 24 oz bottles to fill up at various locations: parks, stores, gas stations. Afterwards pour the water in the larger container. There's no need to pay for water.

The jug of water is so I never run out, or if I need to wash things. Unlike living in a home with a sink, I have to conscious think about all my utilities and manage my time around that.

7/28 Car Truths: Sleeping

The Morning View

Sleeping!

How do I do it? It's actually much more comfortable sleeping in my car than I previously would of imagined. I've overslept well into the day and not realized.

Are there sometimes when it's loud outside? Sure, but I also hear similar noises to the same effect in buildings too.

The passenger seat of my car is taken out and left back home in my mom's garage. I lied and said my ex took it out to help with the move and I didn't know how to put it back in. (There's four basic bolts and a seat belt sensor, but being able to pretending I'm incapable of technical work without question is one of the benefits to being a girl, I guess.)

In place of the passenger seat is a free ottoman from Craigslist. Online, I've seen people craft their own wood boxes, but I didn't have time for that. Besides the itchy fabric on the ottoman, I get by with two blankets and two pillows. One blanket covers the bed and wraps around me like a burrito and the second goes on top, to block out any light and keep me warm.

During the colder months, I had a cold weather sleeping bag to crawl into underneath the blankets. I started sleeping on top of the sleeping bag and decided it was warm enough to leave it back home over Spring Break.

Parking and sleeping definitely go together. Depending if I'm going to sleep in or wake up early, if it's the weekend or a week day largely dictates where I choose to sleep.

The busier the morning is going to be, the sooner I want to be out of my car. On weekdays or sleep-in days I pick low traffic, side street places.

Like a Swordsman

Can be purchased at Purple Heart Armoury.

Last week we had a huge snow storm, which canceled school and allowed me to sleep in for a couple of days.

I couldn't find my snow scraper in the trunk of my car. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to use it in April.

But I had to work the same day.

I practice Historical European Martial Arts and carry my trainers in my car.

So this happened.

Ever Faster

Now let's see if I can run six miles in 60 minutes.

6/28 Car Truths: Lying

Can be found here.

Lying

There isn't any way around this: when you live in your car, you're going to have to lie. It's a good thing to have these answers preplanned and short.

"Where do you live?"

I've had a mixture of friends, school faculty and cops asked me this questions. For cops, I just say nearby and make a had gesture in a direction. This implies a location, but I don't really want to tell them. My friends think I live in the dorms, if you have a friend that lives on campus as well, I would find a different answer. The one professor who asked where I lived (I asked for an extension after I had had to move with a month's notice during finals), I told him in a house with some people.

Saying I live in the dorms mean I don't have to have a fridge. Since I don't have one in real life, this is useful. I can't store cold food items, my friends know this. Someone offers me food that needs to be refrigerated, I can tell them something.

"Where do I drop you off?"

Meme can be found here.

The one night I needed a ride home from drinking too much, the DD asked me where I lived. I picked the dorms on the far side of campus, that has an entryway slightly obscured from the road. This makes it look like I got safely inside, without them seeing. If you don't live on a campus, I would suggest picking an apartment complex that has a relaxed parking policy. Therefore, if someone does drive you home, you can leave your car in the parking lot and walk to it.

"Do you have room mates?"

No.

I generally avoid talking about my living situations. All of my personal belongings are in my car. I don't want anyone to steal away my life.

Someone has to know the truth of the situation. It can be hard sometimes and I need to have a non-judgemental person to vent too. My best friend and ex were the only two people I told. (And then my ex told his family, because he's inconsiderate.) On nights when I feel a little down, I have my friend to talk to. Even though I chose to do this, I still get sad about my living situation; like I failed somehow.

This rabbit is hilarious.

Source.

5/28 Car Truths: Clothes

My typical laundry bin

Clothes!

Choose every piece of item you keep carefully. I have two jackets, a hoodie, a plastic full of day clothes and a locker of gym clothes. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it can get me through two weeks pretty well.

I have my four skirts, two black jeans, two long johns, two work out pants, a black dress and an assortment of tops. For socks, I have two heavy duty, cold weather ones. There are nights I definitely need them. Two towels and one wash cloth. A beanie to keep my head warm during cold night.

For dressy occasions (I haven't had a need to be fancy) I have two business casual skirts, a black dress and my black boots.

I already mentioned my black boots and brown, which keep my feet cozy. For warmer weather I have a pair of tennis shoes and running work out shoes for the gym.

Really, there is not much one needs. I dressed plainly before, so this isn't a big leap for me. Keep what is necessary, eliminate everything else.

Miss Minimalist has the best travel assortment I have found on the web. She manages to fit all the clothes she needs for travel in a large purse. In comparison, I definitely need to cut down!

For more insights on minimalist living, I would definitely check it out. It doesn't have much of anything to do with van dwelling or car life, but cutting back on the excess is a part of either way of life.

4/28 Car Truths: Food

Banana, Nutella,
peanut butter tortilla, yum!

Food!

Figuring out what food to buy, how much and working that into the whole budget for the month was a completely new experience for me. Originally, I tried giving myself a certain amount I could spend everyday. That didn't work out for two reasons: I would focus on buying little things over cheap larger purchases and I worked better having a set amount of money I could spend over the course of the week, as opposed to three dollars every day.

I have a small lunchbox cooler for small items that need to be stored for a couple of days and when the weather stayed cold enough I purchased different juices and fruits. Now that the weather is warming up (even though it's still snowing) I avoid large purchases that can go bad too quickly and stick to simple items.

For snacks and breakfasts, I mostly have granola bars (33-50 cents each, depending on the brand, Nature Valley honey is the cheapest), various nuts (10 bucks for a canister of cashews, almonds or 14 for pistachios). Peanut butter and tortillas are always a good bet. Carrots, apples and bananas are fruit and a vegetable that last for a couple of days while I munch on them. Those are the healthy food stuffs. I still occasionally have a one dollar burrito or hamburger from a fast food restaurant.

3/28 Car Truths: Parking

Parking!

Most van dwelling and other types of vagabond blogs mention Wal-Mart parking lots as the go to for free parking. Because my car life in Fort Collins is longer than a couple of days, and Wal-Mart is out of my way, I chose to park in various locations around down that I deemed safe.

After finding different places to park, I developed a sense to what locations are better to park than others. In the state of Colorado, it isn't illegal to sleep in a car, which might of helped with this. 

Instead of parking in neighborhoods with plenty of housing, I stayed near apartment complexes. This is a college town and having unfamiliar cars near apartment buildings is not unusual. 

Most of the time I parked on the street, near an apartment complex. Parking is sacred in Fort Collins and many apartment complexes have designed parking spots. Depending on the complex and the time I had to wake up in the morning (early is preferred), I parked in between two parked cars. That way, the people are already inside and no one parks next to you during the night.

I avoided down town and heavy party areas, as many students walk to different parties. I didn't want some dudes looking in the car and seeing me, like before.

I avoided parking near street lamps for two obvious reasons; to make it harder to see in to the car and because its harder to sleep with bright lights shining down on you.

2/28 Car Truths: Drinking

Drinking!

Safely drinking can be an issue even when one does have a home. The several times I have gone out drinking started and ended pretty smoothly: stayed at a friends house till morning and slept down town in my car. Then there's just practicing good old moderation and staying fit to drive (no more than two drinks).

A couple of weeks ago my friends invited me out for a ~girls night~ which included a free lobster dinner. I know, right?! My friend won a Red Lobster gift card and took another friend and myself out for a night on the down. What a pal.

At the restaurant, I had an Irish Coffee and two tequila shots.

At the house party afterwards, I had a shot and two cheerleader beers.

When it got time to leave, our two DDs decided that it would be easier to pick up my car and one of them drive it to the dorms and the second one follow to drive the first DD back home.

I've been telling my mom and friends I live on campus; which is technically true. I do live off the facilities on campus: Rec Center, bathrooms, Study Cube. 

Not exactly knowing how to handle this, a little drunk I played along, rode in my car with my friend to the dorms. The second DD and her waited for me to "go inside" so that I would be safe.

I sneaked around a tight corner and hid until they left. Once the truck drove out of sight, I ran to my parked car.

Always have a plan. Always drink according to that plan. I also would suggest not to have alcohol in your car, to avoid problems if the cops run into you.

1/28 Car Truths: Piddle

To celebrate the final 28 Days Before Graduation, this is a series to highlight some of the features of living in a car. While the past couple of posts have been more about life and personal preferences, this blog is still themed on the essentials of car life.

Piddle!

When I first started this blog, I tried to be as gender neutral as possible. I'm a girl and being homeless is a dangerous situation to put myself in.

As I near the end of my stay in Fort Collins and have the perspective that no one really reads my blog, I'm starting to care less about how I represent myself.

Sometimes, I forget right before bed that I live in my car.

Sometimes, I'm out with friends and feel so normal again.

Sometimes, I forget to use the fucken toilet before I go to bed.

This is important. To better understand my situation, try waking up and not immediately relieving your bladder. Try it. Drink a whole glass of water before you go to bed. Go for a thirty minute walk, stay in bed for a little while.

I've pissed outside four times because I didn't think I could make it to the nearest campus facility with a restroom. Behind my car at four in the morning, behind the dorms around nine, in the corner of fences behind a bush sometime around seven, and behind a brick wall next to a statute.

If I want to do anything, it has to in public facilities and some times I mess up and forget that I rely on such places.

Full-time Online Favs of Mine!

Previously, I posted my aspirations and thoughts over work, creativity and online artists. Over the years, I, like many online folks, follow a mixture of online sources for entertainment. Here are some of the...

Full-time Online Favs of Mine!

Taken from Hodge's Deviant Art pic

Starline Hodge

Most of my submissions will probably be webcomics, as my interests tend to steer toward the comic variety. Since high school, when I first heard of webcomics, I have been following Candi comics, by Starline Hodge. A talented story teller, who consistently posts comics strips on a weekly basis, Starline is also a professional graphic designer and a Sailor Moon fan. (My favor scout is Sailor Saturn.)

Candi is posted at candicomics.com

Starline also has a "tumblog" and shares drawing tutorials and skilled fan art. starline.tumblr.com

Personally, I broke up around the same time Candi and Alex did with my boyfriend of three years, who pretty much left me for a booty call (Linda, in the comics). Before I transferred to CSU, my major was graphic design too. We definitely have a lot in common.

Candi lives in a world of relationship drama, flying ferrets from the science lab and a school funded "sexy police." Starline keeps the comic fresh and empathizes with all the characters in her writing, even when, as a reader, I don't want to. 

Vol. 1 of Ma3 is found here.

Gisele Lagace

A lot of these stories start in high school, huh? Penny and Aggie is a finished webcomic, but I started reading it as a teenager. Starting off a typical popular girl versus rebel grrl, Penny and Aggie developed into a comic addressing multiple teenage issues. Gisele drew the comic and T. Campbell wrote the script. Right before Penny and Aggie ended, Gisele started her own comic (her first online comic to my knowledge is Cool Cat Studio, about a graphic design firm) Menage a 3.

The comic is centered around a struggling, virgin artist Gary and his two new room mates, rocker girl Zii (Suzy) and amazon beauty, Didi (Desiree). Gary is forced to find new room mates after the old ones, Matt and Dillion, hook up and want to move out together.

Featuring a load of sexual jokes and cliches the story is sexy, witty and appeals to a wide variety of internet dwellers. Gisele pioneered a collection of new comics with other artists, now running a network of webcomics. Eerie Cuties, Magick Chicks, Dangerously Chloe, and, just recently, Sticky Dilly Buns all have her stamp on them.

Found at the QC store.

Jeph Jacques

Probably one of the most reliable webcomics out there. Questionable Content is a internet sitcom, featuring music aficionado, Martin Reed, his sarcastic drinking buddy and room mate, Faye and personal computer, if-the-internet-could-speak robot, Pintsize.

Questionable Content posts on a regular Monday thru Friday schedule. It's reliable, funny and has a stash of archives if you ever need to revisit episodes. I stick around for the romance/personal drama.

The Questionable Content store featured at Topatoco.com has a life of its own. The characters in the comic often wear the feature gear in the store, which host a variety of internet memes and inside storyline jokes. That one time in high school, I excelled at math and bought a "Math is Delicious" tote bag to carry my calculous books in.

Unfortunately, the tote is no longer in the store. Although, purchasing items from online retailers makes me feel like I'm a part of a secret society, lurking just below the surface of mall fashion and normalcy. 

I can't say that QC isn't secret; it's one of the most popular webcomics out there. A year of posting three times a week, Jeph quit his day job and began working full time, able to support his wife, adorable pyrenees pup and himself on the comic.

Older picture; more at biorequiem.com

Zoetica Ebb

Tried of me saying, "in high school?" Okay then, in middle school many of girls I knew, mostly online, but one IRL friend, liked Suicide Girls. As I stated previously, I tend to steer in more graphically and instead of adopting a Suicide Girl to like, I favored Zoetica Ebb.

A photographer and fashion connoisseur, "What's Zo Wearing?" was her featured article on the SG's website. Wearing motley clothes and a badass attitude, Zoetica stood out as a model character for some of my middle school art work. The original writer that I am, I created a space rocker named "abbyxia vvebb," who had a flying skateboard and played the drums. Many of the sketches of abbyx, had similar styles that Zo' wore in her articles; although all of them had my hair style and face. (abbyx didn't capitalize her name, a mixture of German grammar and futuristic trend setting.)

Currently, she's an LA artist, using her photographer, artistic, fashionable styles to do whatever the hell she wants: partnering up to create The Secret Guide to Alternative Beijing, her own Alien Botany project, helping to create and then leaving Coilhouse. I occasionally check her tumblr, just to be reminded that you can be weird full-time.

93, 100 Creatives

Danny Brito

Cute creations and hot boys! What more could I ask for? The talented Florida artist, Danny Brito mixes different mediums to create one of a kind illustrations, accessories and pop culture references in his art work. He also owns a pug named Roxy, who is adorbz. He is another full-time artist I follow. Getting past his anxiety to produce self supporting art work is motivating.

Roxy is on the left

I recently found out about Danny Brito through my endless search for pug photos on the internet. He made a custom jeans shirt for his pug, Roxy, and an hour later of looking at his original work, I walked away impressed!

das Ende!

It appears most of my internet inspirations are a mix of morbidly cute personal dramas from sexy extraterrestrial moon, pug fans.

Working

The Abolition of Work by Bob Black

"No one should ever work.

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you’d care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.

That doesn’t mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child’s play, as worthy as that is. 

...

Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. 

Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx’s wayward son-in-law Paul 

Lafargue I support the right to be lazy. 

Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists — except that I’m not kidding — I favor full unemployment. 

Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry. 

But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate work — and not only because they plan to make other people do theirs — they are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They’ll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. 

Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. 

Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. 

Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. 

Feminists don’t care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women. 

Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and all of them want to keep us working.

You may be wondering if I’m joking or serious. I’m joking and serious." - excerpt from Bob Black's "The Abolition of Work," found at the Anarchist Library 

(I separated the paragraphs into individual sentences to emphasize points)

As a frugal filly, who tends to go on and on about savings and money, I like to read ideas of abolishing the very things I fret over. Vandwelling, the Tiny House movement, mmlism and frugality is eliminating parts of society that we don't need in exchange for freedom. Unfortunately freedom usually means the strict control of finances and refusing to accept the consumer sedatives of corporatocracy.

This article reminded me off a speech by John Cleese, on creativity.

Somewhere out there, there is a world that you can make for yourself, with your own rules, limits, hours, in and out put. If you dedicate every moment of your time and money penny you can save to create a work environment that isn't a work environment, but one where you can be ludic in your labors.

 I guess that's what inspires me about the online webcomic, etsy shop owner, full-time blogger, vlogger, internet renaissance folks.

They worked their asses off after years of having normal jobs, lives and what not.

Through a mixture of luck, hard work and consistency they rose from having a hobby to having a career.

What have I been doing? Making ends meet, just to be slightly averagish at college, while maintaining my HEMA fancies and trying to build friendships.

I always feel like I'm not doing enough. Everyone is at college (this is a campus after all). Everyone has a crappy job they hate.

I need to rise above that. Somehow, between work, school and hobbies, I need to produce more, do better.

Snowing in April

"We want state monies, so we're going to keep campus open even though it's dangerous to travel here."

"On second thought, now that thousands of students have risked the blizzard voyage for the sake of their grades, we're going to cancel class because the county offices told us to."


CSU logic.

I left my car where it was Monday night and I'm debating about calling into work tonight just to avoid driving. I need the money, but honestly forty dollars isn't really worth it (yes, it is.).


UGH!

Further, everything on campus is closed. I can't go workout, classes are obviously canceled and internet at the study cube is the only available thing. I feel more confident walking around in the snow than during warmer weather, but I really have no where to go. 

#Firstworldproblems + #Homelessproblems.

Snow Romp

I enjoyed a gay romp in the snow today.
During Xmas, my ex and I both exchanged one hundred dollar gifts to each other. He received a waste of money vaporizer (I could make a whole rant post about potheads and how I spent an awkward Xmas dinner with his family, while he ignored everyone to figure out how get high from his vaporizer.) and I asked for cold weather boots.

Best purchase ever.

I have issues with nonfunctional clothing and shoes. If there's no point in having it on the item of clothing, then it should not be there. All those non-function, Ugg boot knock offs really got on my nerve, finding functional footwear became much harder.

My Keen-brand, cold weather, black knee high boots are essentially what I wear almost everyday. I have an older pair of brown boots, that are also cold weather, but black combat boots please my inner fourteen year old.

http://www.amazon.com/Keen-Womens-Silverton-Waterproof-Winter/dp/B004KNWH9K/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1366157618&sr=8-7&keywords=keen+cold+weather+boots+black+woman

Snowing in April

Woke up to a car covered in snow. I've mentioned previously that I feel safer when it does snow. The car is completely covered and while I generally feel people's apathy for their surroundings protects me most of the time, it is nice to have that extra security.

Although, to be honest, yesterday morning I felt a little defeated. My first draft of my thesis paper is due on Monday and I feel like I only have a small grasp on a much larger subject. Friday, I spoke to the a Eastern European studies professor, more in tune to the early twentieth century and the transitional shifts that brought people from the medieval period, to the Enlightenment to the modern era. Those seem like large gaps in history, but it is all interconnected. Once my paper gets reviewed a couple of times I might post it on here.

Anyways! The sky snowed nonstop. I went to bed pretty late Sunday night/Monday morning, and left the library to a light snow fall. By the time I woke up, the snow blanketed the landscape. I opted out of going to the Plasma center, not wanting to wipe off my car. Slept in, unintentionally and scrambled off to class.

 I stopped by the library before to find this notice. The school offers a 24 hour study location in the library, but the library itself would be closed. I still had to work though.

The warehouse grocery store had little traffic. Normally, it takes the crew an hour or so after closing to clean up everything. We left ten minutes after closing, because no mess had been made.

Here are some pictures of the open area covered with snow. I love walking through there, it's like being in a little forest. Can you believe the school wants to tear this down and build a stupid fucking stadium?

I imagine a small Fern Gully community living in the man made forestry, terrorized by the very threat.

National Poetry Month

To celebrate National Poetry Month, the library has a neat little table filled with book puns. I don't care much for poetry. There are a few great poets, like Poe, who can capture my imagination however, that's not what this post is about.




  I love libraries. I remember going to the Sand Creek Library almost every week and checking out books. Over the summer the library featured programs that rewarded you with a beanie baby knock off if you read so many books. My sister and I would grab stacks of books and spent all week reading just to get a crappy little stuffed animal. She would read out loud to me.

She would summarize books she had read that were a little too much for my age at the time and make up her own stories, relate them to our neighborhood and lives. We would go on walks through the block and she would say things like, this is a zoo now and in each house an animal lives. Underneath that brush there is a leopard! This empty lot is a for a cheetah! Unfortunately, her wild imagination is also spawns from her mental illness, which turned pretty violent around puberty.

Even when she moved out and went to live with my dad, I still went to the library. I walked, rode my bike, checked out books and still find myself in libraries when I need to feel connected to something.

In middle school, you'd find me with my nose in a book, sitting in the corner. In high school, I joined impromptu book clubs, because the Sword of Truth novels captured the imagination of a random collection of students. My love for fantasy novels led me to find a medieval combat group and now I'm a part of a HEMA community. I'm graduating, in thirty-one days, with a history degree due to my love of reading.

My interests, imagination, and motivation sprung forth from the pages of books. Libraries are my havens, walls of books to guard me against the world by introducing me to it. When I feel I don't understand people, my empathy is found within the pages of someone's mind spill. I am never alone when I read, but feel connected to people even more.

Positive Messages, pt. 2

I took these last semester, but it seems to be the theme in CSU.

Love you for you

Live. Laugh. Love.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

You're awesome.

Cute people.