Some old friends from high school came for a visit the other day. I haven’t seen them in about 6 years, so it was kind of weird. I don’t think I have too much in common with them anymore, but we were able to have a good time. I have trouble being talkative in social situations, and this was definitely a social situation. They all live in Iowa now, so I’ll be seeing more of them soon.

Wow, I’ve been back in Iowa for almost 5 months now. The New York life is becoming fuzzy in my memory, but I still miss it terribly at times. I’ll always miss the loud-ass Manhattan streets full of taxis/buses/people, the big parks (Central and Prospect), the millions of interesting areas and people, and the pizza. I will not miss the hassle of trying to keep up with rent, commuting, and working in New York. I will not miss the “20 Dollar Out the Door Tax” and the fact I never felt I had time to do anything fun there. Ahh well. To (mis)quote a friend of mine: “Iowa, you are a fine woman.”

Also, I recently saw the movie Slap Shot for the first time. I tell you it was humorous.

Since I recently made this blog public, I think I will begin writing as if one hundred people are reading. That should improve things around here.

Today I went for a good October walk through the Sunday streets of Iowa City. It was quite nice and Octobery. Or autumnal, if you will.

I went for the walk to warm up in the sun after freezing my hands and feet off in my apartment. I won’t turn the heat on yet. I’ve been trying to use a big three-wick pillar candle for heat/light in order to cut down electricity bills, and it’s been working alright. Like a bonfire. But I had to go outside to warm up.

As I walked around, many sparrows were flying in front of me and toward my face and eyeballs. This reminded me of an interesting sparrow experience I once had in Brooklyn:

Whereas—

You know how sometimes when you’re driving along the interstate on a windy day there is some bird directly above the road flying against the wind and getting nowhere?

Whereas—

And it’s just floating there forever?

Whereas—

Well, one day I was walking on a windy Brooklyn sidewalk, and this sparrow was flying against the wind in a similar fashion.

Whereas—

Just floating in front of my foot!

Therefore, let it be known—

I could have kicked it back into the sky. I did not, however; as I am an environmentalist.

So I haven’t been looking for work much lately. I think I’m getting scarily comfortable with my current night stock job at the Hy-Vee. As I stay on longer, they give me more new things to do.

Yesterday I was actually bossing a coworker around, which is hard for me in the first place, and this guy is in his forties, much older than I. Then he asked me if it was okay to do something. I was like sure, dude—shit!

How is some 40 year old guy getting permission from me? This was happening at my webmaster position last year, also. I was supposed to tell these web developers with 7 years experience how and when to code. When I had 1 year experience and did not know what the hell I was talking about.

Yesterday I went to the Iowa City Public Library, which is a damn good library. I think it’s even better than the Brooklyn Library I was going to a few months ago. I picked up the following “def” cds:

Souls of Mischief

93 ’til Infinity

The Brand New Heavies

Heavy Rhyme Experience: vol. 1

Ice T

Original Gangster

The Cranberries

No Need to Argue

Some good classics which I haven’t heard enough of lately. I’ve been called gay for liking that Cranberries album, but what can I do? Souls of Mischief, Digable Planets, and A Tribe Called Quest are some of the jazz oriented rap groups I’ve been getting into to counteract all that crazy Brooklyn shoot your ass off rap. DJs can create some LARGE beats from some jazz loops, and I would be listening to those beats going, “Ummmgph.”

I just played some Simpsons Monopoly with my sisters. That game can get a little depressing while you struggle with debt and rent. It hits a little close to home sometimes, or I just take it too seriously. At least I have time to play board games on my days off, instead of working two or three jobs.

I wonder what expenses people have that require them to work so many hours a week? I’m not getting anywhere with 40 hours/week, but it’s keeping me afloat. Maybe because I’ve only got student loans, rent/utilities, and food to pay for. No car or house or family or serious debt. I think I may have answered my own question.

I just remembered that if I put links on here and then click them, there’s the possibility of the webmaster of Hy-Vee, for example, to get at this site through the referer logs. Yeah, right.

I just learned that according to dictionary.com, ‘referer’ is “a misspelling of ‘referrer’ which somehow made it into the HTTP standard.”

Mmm-hmm, I forgot who’s been doing this already, but there are many good domain names that are not yet reserved:

• misterawesome.com
• ultra-awesome.com
• super-mega-ultra.com
• crazyill.com
• and so forth

Maybe because those domain names are so nice people think they’re weak. Or maybe everyone’s sick of domain names by now. At least Stupid Fresh and Crazy Fresh are upon in it.