August already, how the months fly by. This will be my sixth month participating in 100 Words. It's hard to believe. Approximately 15,300 words already. I never thought I'd have that much to say about anything, but the constrained writing style demanded by this project makes it easy to say something about everything, to relate the small, intimate details of a day that normally get passed over when telling a longer story because we think they're too miniscule for us to build something longer around. Some people have a gift at making mountains out of pebbles. I've found I'm content with pebbles.

Shocking as it may seem, I think I'm actually getting to enjoy drinking water. I never thought it'd happen. Yesterday I purchased a one litre bottle of Evian, and sucked the bugger back like nobody's business, and then found I was sorry it was all gone. I wanted more. I've got another one in hand right now, that I'm having instead of that passion fruit drink I bought which turned out to be far too sweet for my tastebuds today. I like my sugar and sweets, but I don't like things that are sickly so. They are not very satisfying.

I've been going through the question archives at ifproject.com, and posting my various answers to my journal. They're too long to post here. There's some very interesting questions (that cover a very wide range of subjects, though all are personal) at that place, some that require a lot of careful thought - though the one I just did led to some very silly answers. The question is:

If you had all the money you would ever need...and more, what would you do with your life? What would be your motivation to get out of bed everyday?

What would you do?

pol.co.uk, an ISP in England, has some very interesting machine names for their service boxen. They, like most, go through naming schemes where each new group of machines will be named something from a particular theme (animals, cartoon characters, minerals, etc.) I have this habit, now, of looking up all the chemical names that show up in the hostmasks of anyone using that ISP. Today's was indium, which is a rare soft silvery metallic element; occurs in small quantities in sphalerite. Sphalerite is: an ore that is the chief source of zinc; consists largely of zinc sulfide in crystalline form.

The three B's: Blue Man Group, Bowie, and the bald guy (Moby). What a day! Went to the Area 2 festival (Toronto portion) and it was absolutely amazing. I only wish I could have been closer for the Blue Man Group set especially, since so much of what they do is visual, and I'm not exactly well-endowed that way. Also, the wind prevented the tinsel from their tinsel cannons from getting to me, so I left tinselless. I am disappointed. I now have a nice, crispy sunburn, and I'm sure I strained something whilst dancing to Moby. A Very Good Day.

The other effect from yesterday: sunstroke. That's always fun. Not. See, I didn't figure I'd need much, if any, protection since (though it's an open-air theatre) I knew we'd be in the section of seats that is actually roofed. What I didn't know, was that when the sun sets it's hitting you directly in the back of the head. Bowie actually had to borrow sunglasses from someone in the audience because he couldn't see. So, pasty doughgirl me is now a lovely shade of puce. I'll be a riot when this starts peeling, until it gets to the flakey stage.

Every time I hear or use the expression "nudist colony" I keep thinking of things like ant farms, or those seahorses you can grow yourself - like a chia nudist - you just pour out the seeds, add water, and presto! Instant naked people!

This idea has appealed greatly to some of my friends (I can't imagine why), who now want to know where they may purchase some sort of starter kit. Either this is a product whose time has come, or it indicates that I have a lot of sexually starved (or perverted) friends. I'm putting bets on the perversion factor.

Horoscopes are a fun way to pass the time sometimes, and just today I read one for Virgo that raised a few eyebrows. In so small a space as this I can't explain to you why they snapped me to and made me utter a mighty surprised 'holy fuck', but if you know me you'll understnad why they caught my eye. This is from the Free Will astrology Virgo horoscope:

you've escaped a trap you've always been a sucker for in the past

and

you'll finally graduate from the University of Senseless Pain, where you've been matriculating for way too long.

It's time to play 'what did Lonita put in her cd player weeks ago, and forget was there'? And the winner is: T-Rex's 'Electric Warriot' cd. I was almost expecting it to be the Edith Piaf cd my mother sent me a while ago, something I love dearly despite the fact I can barely make out bu maybe twenty words of it. One of these days I sorely need to brush up on my French. Oh to be a universal translator, and have instant understanding and comprehension of any language you come in contact with. A girl can dream, right?

One aspect of learning to critically analyse any given piece of text, is discovering whatever fallacies may exist in it. Have you got any idea how many different types of fallacies there are? We've covered at least twenty so far, and I know there's more. I'm starting to think that almost everything is a fallacy, and what type it gets called all depends on how you word what you write. I'm starting to wonder if there's any truth to anything at all, or if it's all just a Jenga-pile of fallacies, a house of fallacious cards. It's all lies, vicar!

Sometimes I think people take things a tad too personally and seriously, even though I can understand why in this case. Seems Led Zeppelin was almost refused ability to play in Copenhagen one year, because Eva von Zeppelin saw their first album's cover, and saw it all as an insult to her heritage (and right this minute I can't recall what's on that album cover). They finally did get to play there though, under the name The Knobs. Apparently they were also refused entrance to Singapore one time, simply because they had long hair. Oh dear, long haired freaky people.

I've been trying to recall how and when I first learned about sex, and I can't. I remember the cartoon 'My Mom's Having A Baby', and some booklet about the menstrual cycle, but I really can't figure out how and when I learned the naming and useage and connection of parts. I know I wasn't 'sat down and had a talk with', that's something my grandparents would never have done, and gawd am I ever thankful for that. My grandmother still thinks virgins shouldn't use tampons (no, I am not a virgin), and my grandfather was a perverted old prick.

I love navel oranges. Let me rephrase that in more easily understood and precise terms: I LOVE NAVEL ORANGES. There is no better or tastier fruit on earth, though seedless green grapes could give the navel orange a run for its fruity money. I could eat the damned things by the pound, and have (not like the time when I was young and unconsiously ate two litres of lime sherbert whilst watching Dr. Who). Yes, I fail to understand the concept of enough-is-enough, the concept of 'when', when it comes to fruit eating. Sometimes over-indulgence is good for the soul.

My gawd, the Space Channel is 'still' showing First Wave re-runs. For the love of all that's sainted and unholy people, can't you air something ELSE? Or at least put the series aside for a year or two before doing another run-through? They've gone through it at least four or five times in the past couple of years, which wouldn't be so terrible if I actually liked it all that much. I'm bucking for the return of Babylon 5, which isn't too damned likely. I wish they'd stop showing shit like The Immortal and Beastmaster too. Those shows are absolute garbage.

It's strange to have constant access to television again, something I haven't had since my own tv up and offed itself back in January. It's okay, though, I'm a great lover of radio and music, so that's been my company. Still, it's nice to be able to turn on the boob tube and watch films and tv shows I haven't seen in yonks. I've also been watching the History Channel a lot, which has a metric fucktonne of interesting stuff going on this month, like that nifty thing they did on crop circles, which I find very intoxicating and beautiful.

This critical thinking course I'm doing is very bloody interesting and useful. It teaches one how to actively and consciously read, understand, evaluate, and analyse any given piece of written material (though I'm guessing it's adaptable to anything). It teaches you how not to read passively, how to look for context clues, fallacies, rhetorical modes, and a whole host of stuff too numerous for me to stuff in here. I'm of the opinion that it should be a required course for everyone entering university or college, particularly those in the humanities where reading is the mainstay of one's existence. http://www.athabascau.ca/html/syllabi/phil/phil152.htm

That infernal, damned racket is going to drive me 'round the twist! They're doing some repair work and sandblasting to the outside of my grandmother's building, and the noise of it (despite how many storeys of the building it's away from me in actuality) feels and sounds like someone's going through the back of my skull with a needle-nosed drill press. It rattles through otherwise near-soundproof walls, and is so overpowering it prevents you from being able to do anything, neither sleep, nor study, nor watch tv (since you can't hear a damned thing over the noise of their machinery).

I wonder how many of my grandmother's plants I'm going to kill this time? She's gone off to Winterpig to visit her brother, and every time she goes away and leaves me in care of her flora, something dies. Normally this is because I forget to water them. I have a feeling I'm going to kill the damned things by drowning them. I've been over-watering them methinks, tossing in the aqua every time I remember to, but I'm of the opinion that too much is better than forgetting. At least she won't be able to say I forgot about them.

I think I owe money to everyone in existance, some of whom are hounding me like jackals from the seventh layer of debtor's hell. Speaking of, I wonder where Milton would've put the debtors? In what layer of hell do they belong? The same one the money-lenders go to? I wonder if it's any better than a Dickensian debtor's prison, all bleak and black, damp and depressing. Is it even possible anymore, to live without owing 'someone' money? All I know is that I need to shut some of these people up, because threats of legal action fail to amuse.

What's the most precious thing you have? Time, right? So why is it we will gladly give up hours and hours of time, of our lives, of our selves, but we all turn a bit funny in the gills when it comes to borrowing money, or lending it? Is it because we see money as a symbol of time, more precious than the time itself? Is it true, as Trent Reznor says, that money is the new God? Emotions and problems surrounding money, are certainly sometimes no more forgiving and gentle than how some people view God. We spend time.

All I've been doing the last several days, and will be doing for several days more, is studying. More precisely, I have been doing all the assignments for my critical thinking course that I've let go to the last minute. That's one nasty habit I need to rid myself of, or my unversity career (this time around as it was first time around), is going to go down the crapper with bells on. I'm also realising that leaving to the last minute means I miss some wonderful things, things I now have to rush through rather than absorbing and enjoying.

I was watching Neil Simon's 'Brighton Beach Memoirs' recently, and once again marvelling at the talent some people have for taking the seemingly ordinary (that which we sometimes fail to notice because it's so commonplace) and turning it into something extraordinary, turning something into a story with which almost anyone could relate. Once in a rare while I find I can do this, but some people seem to walk, talk, and breathe it, wake, eat, and sleep it. It's an ability I envy. Then I remember that good writing is a craft, and therefore is work. Work I can do.

From my reading for my critical thinking course, I've learned an interesting fact: the word 'idiot' is a Greek term used to denote someone who is unacquainted with ethics. Interesting how useage of that word has mutated over the centuries, to us now using it to denote someone we find stupid, moronic. And perhaps that is the point: at one point in time a person 'was' stupid if they were incapable of, or unwilling to, learn and make use of the tools of reason, that which would allow one to answer the Socratic question: what is the life worth living?

We have popular ways of looking at things that sometimes obscure the facts, the 'accepted' facts, of a situation. I learned something of which I was not aware, when I was watching The Birdman of Alcatraz the other night: Robert Stroud (the birdman) never had any birds when he was at Alcatraz. All of that took place when he was at the prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. All his years of painstaking study, of turning an uneducated mind into one familiar with many sciences, bought him the title of world authority on the illnesses of birds. Truly a mark of genius.

I've this assignment to do for my critical thinking course, that involves critical analysation of an essay whose topic is the conditions inside the Kingston Women's Prison in Kingston, Ontario. Much text couched in a tone meant to, seemingly, romanticise the criminals inside that prison, to get a desired emotional response from the reader. What is it about our love affair with romanticising the same societal elements we would, on any other day, grind into the dust with our vicious and unforgiving bootheels? Are we trying to comprehend them, seeing ourselves in them, in love with that which horrifies us?

The "tabloidisation" of news, despite the value some see in it, still bothers me. It might still provide us with tools to discover our own morality and ethics, but it's still a lot of stories with loose facts, like a fairytale with its grain of truth. Some point to the 'bozo' factor of humanity, thinking that's all we're capable of, but I think that if you talk to someone as if they're stupid, they will be stupid. Why not give people more credit? Perhaps if you taught them better, they'd be capable of more. Rather than thinking down, think up.

I'm no cook. This fails to be news to anyone who knows me. But today I was starving, wanted pancakes, and seeing that pancake fixings were all the food I had anyhow, I set to. I managed two yummy, albeit slightly burnt, pancakes, before the smoke alarm went off. I turned off the burner, removed the frying pan, and opened the apartment door to get rid of the smoke. But I ended up doing was setting off all the fire alarms in the whole building. The firemen told me to order Chinese food next time I got hungry. Good advice.

Not having a useable teapot means that I make a lot of tea 'by the cup', one at a time, as prescribed by Dr. Me. I'm having one right now, and was wondering why the hell it was so damned bitter. Sip, sip, slurp, slurp, and the cup is now devoid of tea. It has also revealed the answer to the great bitterness mystery to me: I forgot to take the frigging teabag out of the cup before I put the milk in. I like my tea strong, so strong it could practically walk by itself, but this was ridiculous.

I am annoyed, but not in the terribly serious sense. See, I'm very fussy about the sorts of pens I use. I'm big on the rollerball pens, though lately I've been hooked on the Uni-ball ONYX type, and they *must* have black ink. I hate blue ink. Trouble is, I'm fresh out. This had to happen during my 'poor week' when I have absolutely no money whatever to spare for anything non-essential. We all have our little idiosyncrasies, and the black ink rollerball pen is just one of mine. It's possibly the only think I truly, and disproportinately, obssess about.

Dreams are funny things. Here's this entire experiential reality other than the one we *know*, though sometimes we know that too. I just woke from somewhat of a recurring dream, one wherein I not only realised I was dreaming (common enough for me to be slightly lucid), but I also realised differences in the dream. That's never happened before. I remember thinking quite clearly that there was a character missing, a dark-haired companion to the male lead. I have no desire to gain control of my dreamstate. I want to know what my subconscious has to say without my interference.

Almost every morning for the past week I've taken a very late-night-early-morning walk to the 24-hour grocery store to get whatever I was in dire desire of, and almost every one of those mornings, in almost exactly the same place between me and the store, something has been incongruously sat. The other day it was a shopping bag, just this morning it was a pair of shoes. They hadn't been dropped, or fallen out of a bag, they were placed, neatly, right in the middle of the walk, with the heels towards the road and the toes pointing towards the buildings.