I never have understood the suburban housewive's need to buy everything in bulk, and to be honest, I hope I never have to. I mean really, I don't care how many kids you feed sandwiches to everyday, how can you possibly use up a gallon jar of Miracle Whip before it expires? Let alone TWO of them!

Some of the stuff these people will buy...it's just flat out ridiculous. What amazes me even more is that people MANUFACTURE such obscene proportions in the first place. Half the food that makes it to the checkout isn't even stuff that would be bought at a normal grocery store, because no one actually wants it. But they see it in bulk and well, who cares if we'll never eat it, it's a good deal!

What's really funny though are the people who are shopping for milk and eggs. Ever see that movie, 'Clerks'? Remember the part with the old lady who pulls out every jug of milk, looking for the magic one that'll never expire? And the crazy guy who goes through all the egg cartons looking for perfect eggs? Those are real people. And they also shop at Costco. I was restocking the fridge the other day and this old lady had crawled into the fridge from the outside and was going through all the backstock milk jugs. And then when I told her that the area was employees only, she jumped down my throat and started raving about how I was trying to scam her by only stocking old milk in the cooler displays and that she knew I had more back there, and she was going to find the fresh stuff whether I liked it or not. She was on to me!

It was actually kind of awesome. It still cracks me up.

I caved and bought this bulk premade curry stuff that's actually really good. I've been eating it for lunch at work for weeks now.

Orihime!

Get yourself dolled up honeybabe, we're goin' out. Yes, it is a surprise, and yes, that dress you were talkin' about could be appropriate.

I know most people think of Valentine's day as the biggest hassle and a total demoralizing trip when you're single, but I kinda like it. It's dumb and commercial, but I like the idea of celebratin' the fact that you love someone regardless of whether or not it's in a romantic way.

Man, am I glad that’s over. Christmas that is. Well, the whole holiday season, New Years included. My mom just gets way too into the whole mess. It was nice spending some time with my dad though; he’s usually away on business (probably partly the reason behind my mom being so damn clingy).

Anyways, spent a lot of it working, which gave me some damn convenient excuses regarding all the parties that my mom tried dragging me to. Why does she always insist on me wearing a dress anyway? I guess she thinks making me extremely self-conscious and uncomfortable is a good way to attract a husband away from the skirts of her bosom buddies.

Eh well. Family, eh?

Christmas day was nice and quiet, made breakfast for Orihime. Well, brunch I guess considering she didn’t roll out of bed until early afternoon. Later we went over to the parents’ for dinner, which was nice.

New Year’s was pretty quiet, I was working so I welcomed it in an emergency waiting room with this underage kid who had drunk himself to just this side of alcohol poisoning. He spat out some pretty wild one liners. I told him he should drink more often and go into standup. He laughed. It was nice.

I still haven’t managed to see everyone yet. We all need to get together for like…I dunno, a Ninja Turtles marathon or something. Hahaha, a Ninja Turtles drinking game marathon. That would rock.

( ”Private” )

Only he wasn't fighting giants, he was fighting a dragon.

Seriously.

There was this guy on Hastings street in this space where there's a chainlink fence lining the sidewalk. Mounted on the fence was this piece of driftwood that actually really did look like the neck and head of a dragon and there was kinda this weird shrine built around it. And there was this guy. He was looking pretty sketchy and had a sort of crazed look about him and he was whiping the piece of wood with a rope.

He was fighting a dragon.

Anyways. So, I need a new frame and a new front wheel for my bike. I should be able to salvage the rest, I'll just need to make sure I get a frame and meets the same specifications as my old one. Guess I'll be spending my weekend reconstructing my bike, which is a damn fine way to spend a weekend in my opinion.

The pouring rain is no place for a bicycle ride. You'd think I'd have learnt this by now, after years of attempts.

This one time, I was on an expedition out in the Rockies when it poured rain for three days straight. I have never seen so much mud in my life. It took me ages to just clean out my chain, let alone my gears.

In the city, the cleanup's not so hard. It's the slickness of the pavement that you need to worry about. And not just from your own perspective.

I've gotten good at judging how my brakes react in this kind of weather, I can usually guesstimate how long it'll take me to actually stop. But other people don't seem to pay as much attention to these things as I do.

I was almost hit by three different cars on my way to work this morning. I actually got clipped by one on the way home. The motherfucker scrapped up my leg and bullied me right off the road and into the pedestrians.

Through a minor miracle (and the fact that few people brave the sidewalks in storms like these), I managed to avoid hitting anyone. The mailbox wasn't so lucky though.

As if the scrape on my leg wasn't enough, I had to carry a trashed bike all the way back on a bruised shoulder in the pouring rain.

Now that I'm dried off a bit and am not trying to see through sheets of water, it looks like my bike isn't as salvageable as I'd hoped it was.

LAME.

Well, life has been pretty routine for me lately. It feels weird calling my job ‘routine’, I mean, its still wicked high stress, and high energy, and every day is different, and yet it still falls into a pattern of normalcy and I’ve gotten used to the demands. The human ability to adapt I guess.

It’s left me really high strung though on days off, I’m just wired and have no way to exercise it. I’ve been putting in extra hours at the dojo and have been rowing as an extra on those days, on top of my usual ‘morning’ run and ‘evening’ bike ride. Morning and evening now meaning before and after work to me.

Anyways, the ‘incident’ I guess has blown over, and Moron #1 seems to have finally gotten the hint which is nice. One of my other coworkers made a weird comment though. She said that he never would have started to make those assumptions on me if I weren’t with him all the time. I pointed out that I was only with him all the time because we worked the same shifts all the time. Then she said I wouldn’t have been had I not picked up those extra shifts and traded with others so they could get their evenings off.

Her point? Apparently I’m a workaholic. I suppose she’s right on some level, but that’s just always been who I am. I work my ass off and throw my all into everything I do. I can’t not be that involved. I’m incapable of doing things half-assed. Oh well.

Stopped by the library on my way home today, they have this huge book sale going on right now. I picked up ‘Getting Even’ by Woody Allen for $1.50. I also got Orihime a copy of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, as her other copy doesn’t have the pictures in it.

Also, Ichigo. Check this out. You game?

And finally, Modern Times by Bob Dylan = AMAZING.

Alright 311, riddle me this. How, exactly, does one accidentally receive or give a blow job? I mean…seriously. Hypothetically I guess, some guy is in the middle of jacking off and gets walked in on. That person trips, mouth opens in surprise and shock and conveniently lands on the guy’s dick. Then, the person who fell starts sucking away, why? Because they’re hyperventilating and can’t manage to pull their head up?

Fucking ridiculous.

I walked in on my coworker and the new dispatch chick in the back of one of the ambulances in maintenance. So this guy, who’s actually been partnered with me on a lot of runs, looks me right in the eye (while this girl's red lipstick is still smeared all over him and is frozen mid-suction) and states: IT WAS AN ACCIDENT.

For some reason, he seemed to think I gave a damn about who he was getting blowjobs from. Turns out, those cheeseburger dinners at 24hr fast food joints and late night coffee runs to stay alert equated to dates in his mind. Completely unknown to me, I’ve been dating this guy for two and a half months. Oops? (how’s that for accidental?)

I honestly couldn’t care less about the bj shit. I was pretty pissed about the location though. I, and many others work in that space. People die in that space. It deserves a hell of a lot more respect. They treated it like some pay-by-the-hour motel room.

I reported them, the idiot’s been going around telling people that I’m getting back at him for cheating on me or some shit. Some people are just fucking stupid.

I’ve been on night shifts lately and its really starting to fuck with my perception of time. I’m kinda starting to feel like a vampire but its kinda cool to see both sunset and sunrise every day.

I suppose what weighs on me the most about it though is that we’re usually dealing with really serious problems during the night, like alcohol poisoning and drug overdoses and some real vicious car wrecks. I never realized how many people really do fall asleep at the wheel or are stupid enough to drive when they’re trashed.

The Advance Care Paramedics are pretty wicked to see in action though, and I think being teamed up with them when I’m still a brand spankin’ new primary care means I’m doing good so far. Which is nice. There’s not a lot of time to stop and say ‘Hey man, you’re doing a really awesome job,’ in our field so it’s hard to tell sometimes if you’re getting the hang of it. All I usually have to go on is my gut, and for some people, that can be way off. But I’ve always had pretty good instincts, so I guess its working out for me so far.

I really feel like I’m learning a lot and have already decided that I’m going to level up to AC when I’m eligible, and probably to Intensive Care eventually.

I’ve also become a pretty avid coffee drinker thanks to night shifts. Straight black coffee. Most places give it to us free too when we come in uniform, which is nice. There are a few shops in the immediate vicinity that have gotten to know me well enough to pour me a cup on the house out of uniform too. My coffee money goes into the tip jar now, which probably helps the kids at the counter out more anyway.

Another car wreck today. I think those are some of the worst calls we get. This time it was a kid who hit a pedestrian. He smashed through the windshield. Seems his seatbelt hadn’t buckled properly so the lock released on impact. His shoulder was pretty mangled from the strap and his face was just covered with lacerations. It was really hard to assess the full damage through the surface wounds. The cuts just kept bleeding, it was all we could do to get the blood to clot. The chick, the pedestrian the kid hit, looked like ground meat from the road rash. That stuff is a bitch to heal up because it all scabs. The skin won’t stretch while youre all scabbed up so it's a lot harder and more painful to move. And then you tear the scabs by accident so you grow new scabs and yeah...brutal.

Can't say I envy them, but hey, they're alive so I suppose they can't really complain.

Alright, so, looks like Orihime and I will be moving to apartment twenty-one. I've got Saturday off so I guess that's when its happening. There's beer and pizza in it for anyone who wants to help me lug boxes up a few flights of stairs.

I hate the newspaper. 'THUNDERBIRD ROCK - Scenes from the Punk Circus Known as the Vans Warped Tour - B2-B3' Fucking fantastic headline. Images of bands exploding on stage and highlights of a killer festival spilling the energy of the show all over the page in cheap ink burst in my head at that headline. So I bought it, the paper that is. Full of anticipation, I discard section A entirely and flip the front page of section B.

The artists beside the headline on the front page aren't even mentionned in the THREE PATHETIC PARAGRAPHS masquerading as an article. And three out of the five pictures accompanying it are of the crowd, the other two of bands THAT WEREN'T EVEN HEADLINING.

I'm kinda livid, not gonna lie.

I missed the show. I was called in to work when a bus crashed into the passenger side of an SUV. It was a fucking mess. The injuries were all pretty minor though, which was damn lucky.

( Work )

Alright, moving on now.

( Home )

Came back to apartment today to find it empty though. Orihime, you forgot to mention that you moved. Had I known, it would have saved me a very unwelcome panic attack in the front hall.

I really don't want this whole space to myself, so does anyone happen to have a spare room? I warn you, I do keep strange hours (on account of being a full-time, plus on call paramedic (so yeah, totally graduated with flying colors guys)) but other than that, I think I'm a pretty agreeable housemate. You'll barely even notice I'm there...probably because I barely will be.

Also, Ichigo! Sorry I missed your birthday man. Pitcher, on me, down at the pub around the corner?