What's coming is a million new reasons to go ahead.

At work today I finished Chuck Palahniuk's Stranger Than Fiction. Pretty good time, considering I work full-time and keep busy a lot. In all it was a fast read particularly because it was just a series of articles and essays he had written between novels, none more than 30 pages long, so you had variety and you could bang 'em out really quickly and enjoyably. It was separated into three sections, People Together, Portraits, and Personal. I definitely think that the personal section of essays were the most interesting, funny, and pleasurable to read. It's also the shortest section, but the stories were quality.

I had actually read the short story Almost California for my Written Expressions class my first year at UVM. I think that may have been the reason why I bought the book in the first place. For being a required course, I used to be a Computer Science Information Systems major, I really enjoyed it. It was basic, we read essays, then wrote our own self-reflection pieces. I liked it because it was an English course anyways. I'm not longer CSIS. I've secretly been a humanities guy anyways. Went from that to Philosophy with a minor in Pure Mathematics and Sociology to a Sociology major with a minor in German. I wrote one of my favourite essays in that course, too. It was about faith, my introduction to it, and fall from it. I've been thinking about going back to it, editing it, and expanding it, since there were originally constraints on it. I think it'd be fun to get back into that.

But I digress. I believe I'll read Catch 22 next. That or The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Tough decisions to make here. I'm writing this whilst at work, so once I'm home I'll make the executive decision. The latter is an investment, the former I had read a VERY long time ago for school, but I didn't get much out of itat the time. Perhaps a rehash is needed. It's also my friend Matt's favourite book. Harumph. At the SAME time, I should read Millhauser. I'm way overdue for that. And also The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I got that as a gift, so I should get to that, too. God. This is tough. Deep breath. Pace. I'll figure out out one way or another.

Wednesday evening around here it rained. It rained hard, too. I was invited to go see Inception at the Roxy with some friends for 6:30. I opened my front door and saw the rain go from moderate to downpour. There was no way I could pass that up. I sent two text messages to my friend about 1 minute apart:

"Hey so like, it's pouring right now."
Followed by:
"I REALLY WANT TO RUN IN THIS SORRY MAYBE I'LL SEE YOU LATER ON!"

So I ended up running. It was so refreshing, totally worth it. I may have missed a great movie, but hell, it's not everyday you get to run in a complete downpour.

That evening to celebrate I went to City Market and bought 15 jalapenos and some other materials and made jalapeno poppers from scratch. There came out SO well. Rants and raves all over the place. Here's the recipe. Pictures for you!

15 of these bad boys halved and seeded

Stuff 'em, bread 'em, bake 'em

Holy final product.

Tonight I may go to a show at the Monkey House in Winooski, maybe get together with some friends, enjoy the start of the weekend. Who knows? The weekend is life's variable these days. 'Til whenever. Cheers.