Almost out of the woods.

Ah, Saturday was a fine day. I got to go to a movie. Our town didn't have The Number 23, the movie we were originally going to go see, so we went to see Ghost Rider instead. That was a totally awesome movie. It had plenty of action, snappy dialogue, tons of explosion, and quite a few chills for a comic-book hero movie. Then again, that's to be expected since the main character sold his soul to the devil to protect his father. The movie was excellent, and I'll recommend it to anyone. I was nervous about Nicholas Cage being in it--I was afraid he wouldn't take the role seriously--but he did. He did a fantastic job, and so did Sam Elliot.
I felt kinda cruddy, but not enough to not go to the movie. Then, Sunday it happened. My head hurt, my body ached, I couldn't breath through my nose, my head was hot, and I was running a fever. I went straight to bed.
Monday, I called in sick from school and called into work. Then we went to the doctor. I was already grumpy, and I felt like crap. I was not ready for this. The doctor's office was all booked up, and I was too sick to wait until another day. My mom was worried, because I have asthma, and colds can be dangerous for me--I can't always cough the junk out of my lungs and I might drown in the stuff. So I had to go to the overflow clinic. Yeah, that worked. We wound up waiting for 3 hours. When I finally got called in, I had made a scene in the middle of the waiting room, and yes, I was acting like a baby, and I looked like a jerk. There were 10 year olds who were as sick as I was that made less noise, but in my defense, they got to leave. They were told that the wait would be at least 2 hours, so they left and came back. They didn't tell me or my mom that, so I had to sit and wait for the full 4 hours with nothing to do, my temperature rising higher and higher. We couldn't leave because, by the time we found out the wait would be at least 2 hours, our two hours was up, and they said they'd skip anybody if they weren't there.
Finally, I get called in. I get weighed and garbage and describe my symptoms. Then, the nurse leaves. We wait for another 40 minutes for him to come back with a Q-tip thing, which he stuck up my nose about an inch, then took it away for tests. Yes, I found out I had the flu. For the first time in my life.
I finally got to go home, then spent all day Monday, Tuesday, and today in bed. I'm finally feeling much better, although I still have the cough, but needless to say I haven't gotten any words at all, and I've missed almost a week of work.
So, my absence from the blog-o-sphere wasn't my bad memory. I was miserable, but now I'm feeling better, and I can finally get back to my regularly scheduled life.
Well, that's all for now,
Jason

Take my job...please.

It started out good. My friends and I are going to see a movie tomorrow, then hang out afterward. Then I went to work. Hell. Pure hell. By the time my shift was over I had a headache so bad the pain could have made the dead moan. And tomorrow I have to work during the busiest part of the day. Yipee me.
The only bright spot in all this is that 1) I get to go to the movies with my friends, and 2) I got 1584 words today. I haven't been writing much, because I've been fighting a cold, but now it's catching up. I'm going to bed, I've got a head ache. Wish me luck for tomorrow.

Happy Love Day

It's Valentine's Day. Have a happy one. If you'll wait just a few seconds, turn on your sound because my blog will be playing a Valentine's Day song by my favorite group--Lemon Demon. It's called "Being Alone on Valentine's Day." It's not profane, it's not bad, but it pokes fun at people who are sad about being alone on Valentine's Day, and people who aren't. Warning though: I'd pause it or turn off your sound after one listening or two, because it repeats the song over and over.

Well another crazy day has come and gone, and I'm exhausted. I"m going to skip on the writing tonight and try to make up for it tomorrow. Last night's writing achievment? 1082 words. That's right, double what my goal is. I was very happy, and I loved what I got. Tomorrow I'll shoot for 1000 again, but tonight, I'll sleep instead of write.
April 17 is going to be a historic month. Nearly one hundred years after J. R. R. Tokien began to pen his notes about Middle Earth, a book is coming out. The Children of Hurin. I haven't been a huge fan of Tolkien, not because of anything in particular, I've just been too busy to read his work. I read The Hobbit three years ago, but I haven't read the LOTR trilogy, nor The Silmarillion, but I've been wanting to read them. Once life lets up and I can catch up on my required reading, I'm going to dive into Tolkien.

And for more fun news, I picked up Weird Al Yankovic's Straight Outta Lynwood. Just as hilarious as I imagined it would be. With the exception of two songs--"Pancreas" and "Weasel Stomping Day"--that don't seem like they fit with the rest of the songs, the cd flows together nicely. With great songs from the rap song "White and Nerdy", an awesome parody of "Ridin'" by Chamillionare, to original rock songs like "I'll Sue Ya," this cd is another great addition. One of my personal favorites, "Polkarama!" is a mash up of some of the more popular songs from last year, including: Modest Mouse's "Float On"; The Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha"; Gorillaz "Feel Good, Inc."; and 50 Cent's "Candy Shop"--all set to polka backgrounds. It's a great cd.
Anyway, just thought I'd share some of the news.

Global Warming? The UK Times says "No."

I'm very relieved to see an article that says we may be wrong about global warming. I have a problem with hearing about news like that. When I learned, when I was in the second grade, about the rain forests being cut down and destroying life as we know it, I couldn't sleep for weeks because I was so worried about it. When I was in the sixth grade I learned about global warming and I worried for a month about the ice caps. When I was in the tenth grade, I learned about all kinds of diseases and the thousands of ways you can get them.
By the end of that particular lesson, I was ready to wear rubber gloves and a space suit and never shake another hand for as long as I lived. My biology teacher didn't help by ending the lesson with, "And remember students, we're all the carrier of some deadly disease. All we have to do is make sure we don't find a mate with the same genes as that so the disease doesn't spread."
Thanks for the comfort, Teach. (And if you think I'm kidding about her saying that, you're so wrong.)
So I've always been a worrier, and I can't help it. When people bring up global warming, I start to go into panic mode: I start looking for ways out of the conversation, my breathing gets shallower, my mind starts darting to random subjects in efforts to get off the topic--In short, I freak. I don't like talking about it, because I can't do anything about it.
But there's good news. According to the TimesOnline (article found on Holly's writing diary--thanks, Mrs. Lisle) our world's rising temperature may not be from man-made green house gasses at all but something entirely different. It also suggests that the planet may not actually have rising temperatures at all. I let out such a sigh of relief--I nearly blew my windows out.
For thinking for so long that I might have to take a canoe to school in the future, I welcome this news. It may be wrong, it may be spot on, but it gives me a little peace of mind.
How about you?

815 Words

Today, I have finally forced myself to write. I have a huge problem with procrastination, and I'm going to have to over come it if I'm going to become a professional writer. Being a writer is a job, just like flipping burgers at the local fast food joint is a job. You have to work at it everyday, and you have to do your best everyday. You have to have commitment to it. You can't sluff off--just because you're working for yourself doesn't mean you can goof around, would you do that on your regular job?
Despite all this, I've found tons of reasons not to write. "I'll write tomorrow, I want to watch this TV show." "I'll write tomorrow, I want to spend time with my family." "I'll write later, I want to take a nap, I'm tired." "I really need to reorganize my sock drawer." "Instead of writing, I should really be looking up conspiracy theories involving Elvis Presley, Judy Garland, and a male street poet named Lucille."....anyway...
The point is, I need to get a handle on this problem. It started with my school work, and it's creeping like the Blob into everything else I do. Writing is just first casualty. Soon I won't want to do anything except sit on the couch and breathe, who knows when that will be infected too?!
But today I forced myself to write. I wrote 815 words. It's not 5,000 words like Holly Lisle, but it's something, it's a start. Now I have to keep it up. My goal is 500 words a day. That's it. I know it's not a lot, but at the moment, I've average 815 words for this week, and 0 for last week.
I'm giving myself a little leeway this week because my great-aunt died Thursday, and I've been trying to help my family keep it together. Today was her funeral. She was a sweet lady and she was always so proud of me. I'm glad she could find out that I got into college with a full ride scholarship before she passed. It made her day.
The fact that I managed words today tells me something. Writing is a kind of therapy for me. I wrote, and as I wrote, I felt better. I lost myself in the story, and I don't know if the words are right, but they felt good. I hope that I'll keep up the words everyday.
Wish me luck.
EDIT: a music video in honor of my great aunt

What Kind of Soda I Am

You Are Dr. Pepper

You're very unique and funky, yet you still have a bit of traditionalism to you. People who like you think they have great taste... and they usually do. Your best soda match: Root Beer Stay away from: 7 Up

What Kind of Soda Are You?

TGIF

I feel like I got to cheat myself out of reality for a while. The past few days have been great!! It snowed on Wednesday, and that was my day off! I spent the day writing and reading and watching TV and just goofing around. Then, I woke up yesterday to an even cooler surprise, school was closed and it had snowed even more. So I wrote more and just goofed around more, and then my work called me and told me they were shutting down early and not to come in. And school's closed today too! It's awesome! The snow has since melted--or is melting--so I'll probably have to go to work, but it's been like a dream for a couple of days. And since today is Friday I won't have to go to school until Tuesday! Monday I get to miss to go tour my college! I've basically gotten a week off of school, ha ha.
In writing news, I've written about four pages to Zhivtor, but I haven't typed it in yet, so no word counts will show up.