A darkness has decended

Well two weeks in to a cold like this I'm entitled to be a bit down.

Especially when you add to it a missing wallet, a bungled bank account fix up after suspected snooping by a heroine addict looking to get money for his habit, a nearly unresponsive group of people asking for renters but not really trying to make it happen. And a few other annoyances.

So I'm in a sort of depressed mood. If something doesn't get worked out soon I may be stuck at the place I currently live, and fail to get the artist alley gig in conneticut for the summer convention (due to poor communication) and rsik loosing something like sixty dollars to banking errors.

The fact that my bones feel like they have been hammered on, and my head occassionally feels ready to burst into flames, I'm not getting restive sleep, ...

well lets just say that people like myself react badly to such things.

I do so hope this cold fades during the week. that would go a long way to improving the situation.

Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Tis a silly place

I can't really afford to skip work anymore because I feel yucky but I tell you working under the dusty vents blowing cold air all night has me feeling cruddy all over again. Just when I though I was kicking this thing.

Only now it's mostly this wracking cough that makes my lungs feel like they have sand paper and hair in them.

Why couldn't this have happened in January when I was off from work and could have gone to mums house where there is a warm spare bedroom, and a comfy bed near a bathroom with quiet. I could lay under the covers with a good book and doze for the days that would be needed to recover, sipping hot honey water.

That sort of thing almost makes it worth while being sick, just for the cozy memories.

Well maybe tomorrow will be better... though I doubt it. I have to get up early in order to check another place to live. So I get as much sleep as I get tonight and I'll be up and moving around longer before work. I guessing I'm going to be less then chipper tomorrow in my post. I may try to do my blog stuff early before work and then just leave here for the apartment after work. I'm determined to get at least three days this week if not all four days of work.

truely tis a silly place to be when you are sick but that is where the money comes from.

takes care of yourselves,
Rovingjack

Not dead... yet

I still wake up feeling cruddy in the morning but I get a wee bit better as the days wear on.

I just hope it's enough to not come roaring back when I go into work tomorrow.

Too much to do and stuff is just not going the way I want it too. I might be missing something so I'm going to reexamine some things.

I'll write again tomorrow

Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Plauge

death is upon me, or at least it certainly feels that way. I'm going to have to take my temperature tonight to see if the fever which I'm sure I have is really bad or just not so good.

I'm also going to likely call out sick tomorrow. I'm not going to stand under the cold air blowers all night again. I came in feeling rough today and now find myself barely functional.

What is worse is that it's already messed up my digestion, so I'm not feeling all that great there either.

I can't bloody take anything for it though unless I want to set myself back with my digestive ailment and make myself feel worse for a bit in hope it shortens the length of the sickness.

I've got some things to do and I just dozed off at the keyboard, so I gotta go.

Take care of yourselves
Roving Jack

Woe

I think this bug I've got has a component to make one think sorrowful thoughts.

Or maybe I'm just going through another one of those moments.

I feel like I'm doing a bang up job of pretending to be normal. And the idea stings.

I mean I've had those reading Philosophy while listening to classical moments, that reaffir my oddness, or my reading things that other wouldn't get and I get excited about the topic; those are more lonely times. The sudden awareness that these are not your people.

I'm not saying I'm the last son of an alien planet, though that might explain a few things (particularly the difficulty eating earth foods :) ) but I'm more aware then ever right now that I'm painting with a palette outside the visible spectrum of those around me.

I love it when Julz laughs and tells me she thinks it's fun to hear me talk sometimes because the things I say and think about are so unusual, though sometimes the word useless is used and that can sting a little.

I know that some people have no use for the things I pick up and play with, but useless.

I dream sometimes that there is a place where I can play with runcible foods and paint in invisible palettes, where wearing adult sized camoflaged pink footie bunny PJs as your outfit to run errands in would make the day of everybody who saw you.

Where I could paint and draw and sing and sculpt and sew and write write write in a way to manifest my inner realms as a place to share in this world. The darkest of sorrow and silliest of giggles. To have others want those things that I have locked away because there is no place for them.

....

take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

I gots me a smackerel

I sorta ran out of honey the other day and it was intresting. See I use a fair amount of honey in my diet, as it is very nearly my only source of carbohydrates aside what can be found in the few veggies I can eat.

So I'd say that honey is one of the major causes of the stop of my rapid weight loss. But sometimes I wonder if I'd be able to eat food without it anymore. Well I know now.

I can. It would get boring and unpleasant after a while seeing as I can only eat about twelve ingrediants total. It's almost always the same meal over and over again. Honey makes it enjoyable and give me the calories I need to keep a stable weight.

So while I can't really drop it for good or anything I can go on a fast for a few days. Not that I'm looking to get away from it.

I still think it's funny that someone tagged me with the nick name Pooh bear because of the amount of honey I consume and how I often times snack on it.

I know it's not much of a post but it will do for the next few days while I run errands and get some things taken care of.

Take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Runcible foods

Well I think I got the cake idea worked out. I'm thinking a cranberry mustard cake with ranch iceing. Admit it you'd try a slice just to find out what it taste like and to be able to say you did..

I'm now very seriously thinking that I'm going to make this into a game. And I'm almost posative I've got a good stumper of a food item that will be a hard one. Asperagus.

I kid you not it took me three hours of playing with the idea while I worked to come up with penut mint asperagus, and fifty percent of those I asked said that did sound all that bad.

It took several more hours to come out with banana, mint, asperagus as either a soup or a cookie. I still have one or two people who arn't convinced that would be terrible, but one of them liked the idea of coffee mashed potato.

It's fun to just brain storm some of these foods up but with a bit of rules structure this could be a fun party game. If I can get my stuff together I can take a prototype down to the next Members appreciation day for Connecticon that I can make it to for some play testing. If it's good enough I might be able to get a limited run of it in final form to sell at the actual convention. That would not only be fun but meet one of my goals for the year.

Runcible foods, Goober web comic, word puzzles, and more. Tis fun and silly to be me sometimes.

Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack

Right, well...

I figure I've procrastinated enough on this.

I was gonna be all artsy and poetic about it, as all the sorrows of the world lend themselves to that readily, But Due to the time and my energy level I'm just gonna type it.

I'd made plans on the weekend to get together with my freind... um lets call him Steve. But on calling the man before heading over he seemed stressed, depressed and reluctant.

Half the time it feels like I'm there in official capacity as clergy for the man who needs it. So after some talking I got him to admit he'd like to sit and talk it out. So over I head.

When I get there, there is a man I don't know running around frantically and filling a laundry basket with food stuff.

It seems that an old freind was staying with him. The man was frantic to get stuff in order and get going to some place else for the night. It turns out the man is only a few months out of prison and looking to get back with his wife. It also turns out that he is a drug addict and part of his frantic behaviour had to do with having gotten himself and Steves son into a tight spot by stealing appliances from an old girlfreinds house, which he had pretended he was moving some of his old belongings out of.

So we dropped of the fellow and returned to Steves place where we had a good time having spiritual discussions and drawing on a giant easel tablet that I brought him for planning and creative projects. We talked about how Steve is doing with is illness and several other health problems he is struggling to understand and that I help him with.

He tells me often that he really feels that god has put me in his life. It's a bit uncomfortable but that's just something about me.

At any rate Steves son comes in and is relatively social for about a half hour. Steve says he needs to go lye down and I prepare myself to leave.

Once steve goes to his bedroom his sone gets up and does something in the kitchen, from which he emerges with a lit candle and crosses the apartment as I'm finishing cleaning up I hear the sound of a large elastic snapping and it suddenly occurs to me what the lit candle was for.

I'm saddened by it and not much more can be said about that. I see him on my way out and watch as his expression glazes over as he nurses at a cigarette in the cold.

I get to my car and find the door is unlocked, which is not how I left it, and on the front seat is my open mail which is how I left it, but I worry because amongst it is my open bank statment.

Well I did not hesitate to call my bank and secure my account and prepare them for changing.

But I still can't seem to be mad about the whole thing. Just sort of sad.

So please do me a favor and when I say Take care of yourselves, realise that I mean it.
Take care of yourselves.
Rovingjack

More food for thought

I was going to shared a sad and depressing bit of something with you all, but instead I think I'll bottle it up and let it fester a bit.

Anyway, there was a bit more strange food thinking that happened through my head today and I thought I'd share that with you all.

I was working with the saladdressings and watching Larry frost some cakes when it dawned on me that I hadn't come up with any runcible desserts.

Oh by the way I've taken to calling this the runcible food game as it was inspired by the superhero character I call Runcible. But also because the word runcible is a nonsense word. So naturally a nonsense recipe is well suited to the term runcible food.

So Runcible desserts, came as an idea and naturally the two things before me served as inspireation. I started to wonder what exactly a ranch icing might be like. The students here certainly eat enough of the ranch that they might actually like it. Part of me actually wants to make something odd like a ranch frosted cake that just looks like a cake but is actually an edible dinner. Which is complete blasphemy in the world of runcible foods.

No I must create something strange and confusing onto which to slather my ranch frosting. Though I'm a bit stumped on what kind of Cake to put ranch icing on... I'm thinking cranberry jalapeno.

Yes runcible foods, and runcible dreams are fun and cheery things. They help soften the sorrows that wander into our lives sometimes. So have a little runcible fun and play some runcible games, for on the morrow we shall face my sorrow.

Uggh, I'd really rather be pissed off.

Anyway talk to you tomorrow, take care of your runcible selves,
Roving Jack (Runcible Jack?)

Food that isn't food.

I got a little sloppy in my timing last night as I was looking up some things and got to the blog a bit late.

But to continue where I left off the game is both fun and has a side benefit of letting me come up with a few things to add to my story of runcible, the super hero who eats these types of things. Oh and it helps make the work in the kitchen go faster and much more fun.

I challenged Julz to give me a food that couldn't be ruined using only real edible foods you could find in the stores. She had me stumped for some mins. I think I beat it but she seemed unsure. Her choice was the potato. It took me a bit but I'm of the opinion that adding coffee to a potato would make it less appealing.

Green olives was a tricky one too, because quite frankly adding the kings of food spoilage (feta, and or tunafish didn't really take this out of the realm of edible by most standards) but when I discovered the idea of mixing it with oranges it fell. I was unsure if you'd serve that as a soup or something but julz made a good point that blending it smooth and using it as a dip would be most effective.

I'm even entertaining the idea of making a list of grocery store food items and giving them each a point value based on the ease with which they can be spoiled, and making some kind of game out of it.

Of course I've also been entertaining the idea of compling a book of dirty puzzles, because it seems to me that here are jokes for kids and dirty jokes, then there are puzzles and games for all ages but no dirty puzzles. Considreing humanities facination with the dirty stuff I'm surprised.

any way that's my mind goofing off.

Don't know when I'll Next post but expect at least on monday. I'll have plenty to talk about, as I look for a new place to live and already had some adventures in that search.

But not enough time or space in this time space continuum of ours for now.
Take care of yourselves,
Roving Jack.

Entirely too much fun

I was in the kitchen today and talking with Julz as I worked and at one point one of our fellow workers changed the pan for some cubed chicken.

I made a joke about Cube Chikens and their square heads and square wings... and how they are evolved from the square fish used in square fish patties.

They laughed and asked if this is what happens when you can't eat most foods.

I had to share that no what really happens is that I invent characters for my short stories and novels that have strange eating habits. Like the superherione Runcible who was eating a breakfast of ostrich meat tacos with raisins and chocolate sauce and a side of pimento loaf and marshmellow fluff pinwheels.

Half the fun of that is coming up with truely bizarre food choices. Then the game ensued. Basically it's taking any food you can find in your pantry or grocery store food isles and finding truely mind boggling or stomache churning coices. I had some duzzies come to me, and we even had a bit of a challenge to see if we could find and unspoilable food.

I'll have to let you know more about that next time.
Take care of yourselves.
Rovingjack.

Oh man is it cold

It's negative eight degrees here with windchill. I just seriously don't have the personal insulation for these kinds of nights. Having to trek from one building to another leaves noses numb and running, and I am not looking forward to a cold car ride back to a cold apartment tonight.

Fool that I am I didn't stop on my way in to get gas, so I'm a little to low to do much in the way of warming the car up before I drive to the nearest gas station.

Such is the way of winter though. I'm glad that I topped of my engine coolant at the start of last month though. otherwise I might find myself in a rough spot right now.

I've got an appointment to check out another place to live this weekend, though I have to admit to feeling it's a bit less promising then I first thought. It's home to six other people in their mid twenties and it has shared kitchen and two bathrooms.

Sounds cozy. But I can't imagine the room I'd get would be smaller then what I currently have, and considering that the house I'm in had at one time four other people in it and two bathrooms also it seems like not that big a differance.

Now it's just seeing wether the living situation is sufficiantly improved to justify the move. I am still hoping to hear back from another potential place, that is one other person in a two bed two bath house for onehundred fifty dollars less then I pay now. That would be most wonderful.

That's a good enough price that I could pay rent at the place I have now and the new place for a month easy. Then I'd just make afternoon trips to move my stuff each day. Rather then some rushed multi trip day or two.

Hmm, anyway. It's going to be cold again tomorrow and I'm thinking I may just bundle up like crazy despite the inconveniance of having to find a place to keep the extra clothes when I change into work clothes at the kitchen.

I'm guessing the groundhog saw his shadow, he must have the thing would have been frozen to the ground.

Back on the morrow, take care of yourselves.
Roving Jack

Sorry

I know, and the thing is I could of posted in here last night but I was tired, lazy and not in the mood. Now I feel guilty I have to run, I have things to share and all just not enough time to post much.

I'll be back tomorrow and try to do my best to make it up to you all.

Until then take care of yourselves,
Rovingjack.