so i've been trying out different media players over the years in hopes of getting over itunes as my default player... but no other media player has ever come close to the basic things i want it to do and been able to function on my shitty old mac mini from '06. now that i've got a more up to date machine, i'm remembering that i can actually retry all of the things i previously couldn't because of either lack of sufficient memory or incompatibility. Woot!

so i decided to give songbird another try, and honestly, except for the organization abilities of itunes, it is my new default.

what i like about it:

• offers third-party music purchase options

• has add-on capabilities such as a lyrics display, instant messenger, twitter, LAST.FM for scrobbling (my main concern was whether or not it scrobbled) and you can even browse the internet on it in one tab, while your music library is open in another tab, WHAT.

• rips cd's, imports media without such an extensive analyzation process like itunes has

• can create normal and smart playlists, like itunes

• recognized my android phone and mounted it in the player and let me sync music files on it manually, without me having to navigate around a folder system. it was almost like the way itunes displays an iwhatever. maybe other programs do this, but it was the first time i've ever seen it. the best part was that it even copied over the filing system in place. It was pretty nice.

I guess i must be new to all this newness. I've been so out of touch with new programs and technology because of a lack of access.

Why i still want to use iTunes:

• the way it organizes my music library - maybe i haven't looked hard enough, but i still haven't found a media player that organizes my library for me like itunes does - i don't want to go back to organizing every piece of music i download into it's own folders when i can get a program to do that work for me. I mean, i can't believe anyone still bothers doing that.

As far as i am aware, songbird does not do this on my computer, but i have yet to explore this option. i can't find an options for it in preferences. hmmmm

Spotify:

• also scrobbles

• also plays my own personal library

• lets me play music i don't own

but i will never default to it. I will not pay for it, and honestly, i will probably only every use it to find new stuff t get from elsewhere so that i physically have it. I honestly don't understand the allure.... i guess it's awesome if you pay for it, but i don't want to. maybe one day.

Years ago, when this was songbird's icon (clicky) I found it and found out how cool it was but my feeble machine just could not keep up with it, and i had to give up it's awesomeness.

Now i can do lots of things. :) i'm excited.

so last i ended up cooking a big dinner for friends. Tanya, her boyfriend James Dean, Jens, and Rita all came over. I made a big ol' posta dish with peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and some seasonings in this poblano alfredo. It was so. so. good. i didn't think it would be enough, so i decided to make another dish with TVP, sweet potato, and lentils, which also turned out great. they all brought beer and wine, and Rita brought this awesome feta apple salad. Michael joined us later.

I can't believe i didn't get a single photo of the evening. I had such a great night, and everyone made it a good time.

later, after everyone had left, i cleaned up and went for a really nice wal up and down norwood to either end. then i went down summer for a bit before turning around once it had gotten rainy enough.

the air was the perfect temperature and the right amount of moist and silky. I felt special but without anyone there to make me feel that way and I really liked it. I felt good again. It was one of those moments where you feel like everything is in it's right place and you just don't worry about a thing.

:)

i went to this event with Rita and her friend Lisa from california. it was at singer farm naturals in appleton, ny... saw some people i know, actually :) i made a pinwheel and a wind catcher! i felt 5 years old again - i've always loved a good pinwheel. i also met the sweetest dog. he was my pal, we totally chillaxed and i scratched his ears ^,^! later there were speakers. all threee were very good. the woman with 350.org was from fiji and presented a lot about climate change and the niagara-erie bicounty region (how it will affect) and i was very grabbed by it.

the night before, i came over and we went out on amherst st. it was interesting for sure. we got into this long conversation at an old man... anyone else would have ignored him or asked him to go away, but i deiced to carry on a conversation with him, and it paid off. the amount of entertaining things he had to say was innumerable. his anecdotal stories about te safety of biking vs the dangers of walker were pretty hilarious. i slept at her place after we left rohal's corner (or however you spell it)

after the relay for renewables we ended up hanging out at Olcott Beach, which was more of a town on a beach than it was so much an actual beach. it was really cute. i wanna go back when it's warmer to see the shops and things.

i babysat my nepphew on saturday, i think?

he's such a cute lil' guy. i love seeing him be a tiny human, discovering complex reactions to simple decisions.

he gave me such attitude! he's growing way too fast... i can't wait to meet adult Elliott.

i feel like these last 4 days have been a blur. what even happened?

i worked, and went to school wed - fri... well, except thursday. i have no school.

I've been really making an attempt to get up earlier. I usually wake up around 10 - 12 noon. but i have been setting my alarm for 7... and getting up by 8:30 - 9. it's an improvement, i guess. I decided to make an honest effort when i slept for 15ish hours straight and woke up at 7 something and realized how productive i felt in that early morning sunshine. it really does make a difference, and as much of a morning person that i am not, i felt for the first time in so long that maybe i could turn into one? i mean, i still cannot talk to anyone for the first 30 - 45 minutes, or really function, but it felt good to actually get a series of things done and walk around the city running errands, and then have the rest of my day ahead of me to do yet even more things that i don't even have planned. if i woke up early enough, i could actually have time to do all the things i thought only retired people have time to do. (or people who haven't been sleeping in until 2pm for the majority of their lives)

i know it seems pretty basic, but i have been such a late riser for my entire life, like, sleep until 1 - 3 pm late riser. if you could see the amount of absences and tardies on my high school transcripts i just recently got in the mail, you would most likely judge me. i used to sleep straight through my alarm for hours. I was so unbelievably difficult to wake up my mother literally gave up on me. sometimes i wouldn't even wake up to cold water. i've made significant strides since then. if i set my alarm early enough, then i can get up only sort of late.

at least it's an accomplishment to me... haha!

I finally completed all the steps for applying to UB. the last thing i was putting off was writing them a letter explaining my gap between schooling. I just didn't feel like i could write it until i got this one assigment done, and it just really made no sense at all. i could have done it two weeks ago, really. i'm such a procrastinator. I also finally filled out my application for the UB school of dental medicine (to be a patient) so now all i need is the 50 dollar application fee. can't it be waived??? c'mon.

I helped (e:paul) bust up the bathroom a bit today after stopping over and having some lunchyfood. i'm still getting plaster out of my ears. I'm always amazed at how much stuff (e:terry) and paul get done in a day, especially since they work such long hours. I'm practically spent after a 5 - 6 hour shift. I'm so easy going, but sometimes i think it might be better to have more of a "get it done" attitude about things. I think a tendency towards escapism also does not help. I can find 98734698736 things to do on the internet when an assignment is due.

__

i had been sort of talking to a few different people recently but i'm pretty over it. I was never really invested to begin with, and i just really can't give much of a shit at the moment. I just don't have it in me yet, i guess.

there just seems to be this perpetual pattern of miss-matchedness of wants/needs with myself and other people. they want from me what i don't want from them, or i want from them what they do not want from me, whether it be physical/emotional/mental... it just seems i can never find that meeting point, or if i can, there's some sort of element of impossibility to it. this has been happening, really, since i've been old enough to be with another person physically or romantically. It even happens within my relationships, even though they typically seem to be going perfectly from the outside perspective.

I guess I really can't look at it as a factor of "what's wrong with me?" because that's never really totally it, and self-blame is really only self-destructive. i could chalk it up to "shit happens" but it's difficult to not wonder why this happens.

__

i've been debating about my study abroad. I really want to go to europe but i hate iberian spanish. i really want to go to south america, but it just seems so unstable in a lot of parts. oh, spanish major.

I wanna go somewhere but i'm afraid of student loans. I need to do it for myself. for my own sense of expansion. my own sense of accomplishment.

oh, life. always lifeing.

I'm always fascinated the characters you see on busses.

you can't see it well, but as this woman sat in front of me, she abruptly turned to write GOD 4LYF on the window condensation.

it was just a private moment of quiet amusement.

friday was all kinds of crazy. I met with a friend for a glass of wine and got to see a cute baby, then i went to Stevie's master thesis exhibition and had more to drink, and then with rita, i went to (e:xandra)'s birthday extravaganza. i ended up getting 4.5ish hours of sleep and went to work at 10 am, and felt fine-ish by 12, got out by 3, and slept for 15 hours straight.

and that was how friday bled into sunday. i ended up getting a lot done that day. then we had friends over for dinner :) spaghetti sunday. April works with the hottest ginger man, and he came over for dinner. it was painful to look at him. ugh...

monday, i did a lot... read that poem in between classes, and then i went to a friend's apartment to read a few lines for her play she's written and i got the part. I will play a very flamboyant gay man, and will have to wear drag at some point. i'm incredibly frightened to do it, but i'm gonna just do it.

I was surprisingly comfortable reading for her. I tried for a few characters, but i guess it was an even split with any of them. the guy in the couple i'm playing opposite did not read as well as i did, so i guess she just threw me the part with more lines? idk, i hope i can do it.

I guess it starts in august.

it's glbt themed play mostly about the different flavors of relationships or how they happen the same as hetero but with different nuances etc...

I then had a test to go to for social problems. weirdly enough, i felt like it was the least important thing i had to do all day. I was tested in other important ways that day, and i feel like the personal gratification i derived from them was far more valuable to me than this scan-tron crap test.i mean i still think i did well, but...

immediately after, i went to see part of the movie Bidder 70 it was kinda cool, but i really felt like a lot of it was devoted to performing fellatio on him and how awesome he is for doing what he did. which was awesome, but... idk. it wasn't really about the bigger issues of fracking for gas and oil, mountain top removal... he covered some of the economic impact of it (creating poverty and destroying property values) but a lot of it was about him and his activist organization he's a part of. I wish it was more about the issue at hand than some sort of promotion for him or his group. I'm sure they didn't mean it to be that way, but it's how it seemed. Rita and I didn't finish it. We went to Mezza for dinner with her brother Raad instead. it was so good, but i think i like Rita's better. I got the falafel panini, but the wrap as definitely superior. it was all yummy.

her brother is actually a pretty cool guy, just a bit of a negative nancy.

today is another gorgeous day, and hopefully I get even more done.

I made raw strawberry pie.

i learned it from Jónsi and Alex! It looked just like the fucking picture. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.



Mine


from the cook book (okay so it only kind of looked like the picture, but still...)

i have to read this. there's no mic. I'm gonna die.

i pray that i have the wrong date and that it's really on Wednesday.

so many questions... but mostly just why??