Remember my “I hope I don’t have to spend more than”s?  Total success.

Singing Rock Retikon harness: $29.95, on closeout from $90.

Mammut Blast shoes on consignment: $39.99 instead of $119.

Total (with tax): $74.84.

That and the $60 membership mean if I go eight times this month, it will be a whopping $16.85 per time–and since I intend to use the gear extensively at school, because climbing is AWESOME, it’s really less than that.

A+.

I have to write this all down, and what better way than by blogging!

Okay.  I went climbing with my friends today.  I’ve been before at FitRec and I liked it a lot–mostly because it is an exercise that uses the whole body, instead of being weird and concentrating on a few cubic inches of muscle.  I really like the idea of a fun activity, partially mental as well, that works all of me at once.  A lot.

So I’m considering getting a membership.  However, if I were to take that step, I might as well buy my own harness and shoes, because if I have to rent them every time, that’s another eight bucks a pop on top of the $60/month.  Here’s the breakdown:

I’ll be home for another month almost exactly before I leave for England.  I generally work five days a week, two of which are night shifts; thus I have four days each week in which to disport myself.  If I go at least twice a week for the next month, that’s eight times.  I’ve been finding really good deals on possible gear.

$60/8 times = $7.50 per time

Harness: hopefully no more than $50

Shoes: hopefully no more than $60

Gear total: $110, which goes down the more I go (and I keep the things forever!)

Total for this month = $170/8 times = $21.25, which is still less than I paid for my day pass, shoes, and harness rental when I went today.  Therefore I just have to go eight times and it’s paid for itself.  This, plus kayaking for free whenever I want?  Could get really sexy really fast.  Considering I’m getting paid on Friday, I think I’ll do it.  Now, to deal with the parental ire at spending money…

Obama is creating a “cyber tsar“…but Randall Monroe already foresaw the post of Secretary of the Internet!

If we are supposed to have infinite compassion for all beings, making no exceptions and setting no one above another, how to be in love?

I ask because I am in turmoil right now and have been (half-heartedly, I’ll admit) attempting to fix it through meditation and looking for answers in various Buddhist and Hindu philosophies.  If I could give up all desires, I would; but I don’t find it fair.  Even to give up my desire for one person means the death of my brash, romantic heart, and I think it would do the object of my love a grave disservice.

The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that this is the point of it all: to give up all wishes, including the need to have wishes.  The problem is, I don’t think I can give this up.  She’s commented numerous times on my immense ability to love.  She deserves, and has always deserved, much more than the compassion I feel for most people–even if that compassion were to be infinite.

Sorry. One day.

I’m putting together my registration plan for next semester.  Aka, my seventh and thus second-to-last semester of college.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to graduate on time.  It’s interesting–now that I’ve caught up with my musicology requirements, I have free time in my schedule.  I’m going to have Thursdays completely open except for windbag.  Whoa.  Which means I’ll work in the Dean’s Office (or somewhere else?), but the fact that I won’t be stressing about worksheets or papers or whatever is going to be niiiice.

I’m eating raisins right now.  Mmm.

I’m also planning to take a German conversation and composition course instead of regular German.  Since I don’t need to take German III for musicology since I got my Spanish AP credits approved for the modern language requirement, I think this will be a much better use of my time (and helps keep Thursdays open).  My problem with foreign languages is that I can write and understand them just fine; it’s speaking them that’s the problem.  Being in a class like this, with people who want to speak it with me instead of staring vacantly at the board, will surely improve my skills.

It’s weird that I have to be a real person in 14 months.  Eeek.  Oh well, I’ll probably be okay.

I kept a detailed diary every day I was in England.  Admittedly, most of the details involved how much I had had to drink that evening, but at least it was a daily thing.  Not so much with this guy.  I’ll try.  We’ll see what happens.  Also I’m going to choose a new theme.

I’ve been rereading my old posts.  Some are wrong.  Uh oh.

There is rarely a day in one’s life without speech. Yet, look what we’ve done to our language. “The Queen’s English” has become like OMGZ um ya you’re new fone is like sooooooo kewl!!!!1!!!1!!!11!!! its awsum kk lol byez MAKES ME WANT TO DIE. Just write well. Speak correctly. I have less money, but fewer dollars. I effect change; this music affects me.

Say please and thank you to people who hold doors for you (for that matter, hold doors for others). Be aware of how the words you say influence those around you. This is why I love German; if you use the wrong form of “you,” you can get fined,apparently up to $1200. Good for them.

I figured out how to be still.

My problems were coming not from being denied what I want now; they were coming from the fallout from the specific ways in which I was most recently hurt by someone else.  After working through those emotional issues (and listening to three hours of Verdi opera), I have realized many things about my heart and my mind that I hadn’t known before.

Now I’m good.  It’s nice.  I am no longer chasing what I can’t have.  I am no longer feeling entitled to things out of my control.  I am happy.  Hooray!

I don’t know what it is about me that the universe hates.  Maybe it is that I want so much.  But really I only want two things: the obvious (to be loved) and the other obvious (a piccolo trumpet).

I thought I had the picc today.  I saw the perfect one at Dillon’s and I talked to my parents and we ordered it.  I thought I’d check to make sure I’d ordered it in time, before someone else, not thinking that that phone call would turn out with an “Oh sorry, a freelancer from New York already bought it.  We just haven’t update the website yet.”  Oh really?  Well fuck you.

I was so happy.  Finally I was getting something I’d waited a long time for, and it was going to be amazing.  This trumpet is fantastic, and the price was too.  And yet, someone who probably already has two or three piccs is getting another and I have to keep waiting for a moment that is so missable it’s not even funny.

Then there’s the love thing.  I spend a large amount of my time making sure that the people who matter most to me know that.   Clearly there’s a specific person I have in mind (hi if you’re reading this) but can someone please do the same for me?  I know you all think I’m funny and sweet and whatever but tell me that I mean more to you than that and that you’ll miss me so much this summer or SOMETHING.  Just give me some kind of sign that you still feel a little bit the way you felt that once, or smack me in the face and try to give me amnesia.  I can’t stop how I feel, but I’m tired of being the lovesick puppy without anything in return.  Just fucking get coffee with me sometime.

Prior to this summer everything was fine.  It’s been kind of a downhill (with various brief upswings, I’ll admit) from there.  I need to get this out of my system.  I need to forget about love and play the goddamn trumpet.  Not a picc though.  Can’t have one of those.