07-03

My laptop battery actually ran out last night in the car - but then i'd planned/expected it, knowing full well that i'd get a chance to recharge fully while tutoring at huntington from 10-12, then surf the web afterwards, which i did.

i washed up at fedex,  stopped for $5 friday sushi at vons and treated myself to a couple of spicy tuna rolls. but now i can see that the amount of actual fish is minimal compared to the sushi at ranch 99.  i scarfed it down before my tutoring, which was a mistake because it prompted a food coma i had to fight through to keep tutoring. i felt like splurging today, so i also got a couple of famous stars with cheese from carl's on a buy one get the second for $1 deal for lunch  & ate and slept over at eaton blanche until about 5:30  or so - at which point the sun was out in full force and everyone had abandoned the park and the parking lot. i probably caught the attenion of everyone by sleeping in the car, but i don't care. probably should not go there every day though.

back to last night - i got there and with some people at that end of the lot doing various things, i decided to make myself more 'legit' by smoking a cigar while working on my laptop for an hour, explaining that i couldn't smoke at home, and then i'd nap until my shift started. the weird thing was that right when my battery died, the extra glycogen in my blood from the cigar kicked in and i had a serious case of the sweats, enough so that i opened the windows even though it was a bit on the nippy side. i eventually fell asleep and woke up with no ill effects. it was probably a combo of the cigar and my first polar pop in almost a month.

went down to ranch 99 hoping to score a buy one get one free on a cold chicken noodle (also to wash up in their restroom as it got hot in the car in 90+ degree weather, but there weren't any available and settled for more discounted sushi, and then picked up another polar pop before i headed to arcadia park to eat, then headed across the street to denny's to tap their wifi. checked, email, facebook, and googled pain, hoping to find consensus on the idea that pain is not quantifable - and discovered the opposite can be true in terms of emotional pain. factors include emotional stress, emotional awareness, empathy, attachment and rejection. this is going to prompt me to rewrite a blog post i was in the act of completing. i hope to finish that tonight at fedex.

i'm getting time and a half for working on the 4th. and fedex is CLOSED sunday the 5th. and i'm up to 7.5 hours at huntington next week. if i break 10 hours consistently, i think l'll go back to a 5 day week at fedex - especially if i find a place.  with today's paycheck, i now have about 4 month's rent saved - but i still have credit card bills, gas and food to consider. call it 3 month's expenses. i haven't had that kind of cushion since early 2016. knowing that prompted the eating splurge today - i spent over $20 on food today.

i've been carefully budgeting looking to build up the savings a bit. that's not a bad thing, but splurging once in a while feels like a healthy thing, especially since i also got my state tax refund, and another residual check totalling over another $200 in the past week. it's 8pm now, maybe another 15 minutes until i'm fully recharged. "splurged" again by solving problems on chess.com and got a new high score rating before making a couple of mistakes but still remaining above 2000. the scoring is arbitrary - some problems ding you big points for not finding the optimal approach while others still give positives as long as you found a good move.

rereading an ian rankin novel just to refresh my memory. for some reason i started keeping running bibliographies on detective characters whose authors have been writing for these characters for at least 10 years. connelly's harry bosch, rankin's john rebus, hillerman's jim chee. i guess it's another way of self examination - watching someone' growth - even if they're imaginary and seeing where it resonates for me.

i used to reread jack higgin's novels featuring sean dillon - a gifted individual scarred by trauma early as a child, has a moral center, yet considers himself irredeemable - which i could relate to with my own sense of shame. asides from higgins not having written a novel in four years, and his work being fairly predictable, i haven't reread higgins since i moved out of the south pas. apt. in 2016 - when i also got rid of most of my paperbacks. i guess i was ahead of the curve - i've got all his books as ebooks now. almost all my favorite authors are now stored an external hard drive. i'll eventually get rid of all my CD's - the common ones that I can download anytime i want, but probably still keep my albums and vinyl. go figure.

a few folks choose to park at this end of the lot. i'm tired of worrying about being seen - i'm outside with the laptop on the roof and standing - this way i don't have to waste battery because i can't see the keyboard inside the car. the last two i'm used to seeing have just gone by.  that means i'll have privacy until people off the street come in and park. if worst comes to worst, i'll just use the bathroom in the guard/orientation building.