Before I Discovered Motion and Limbs, I was a Mannequin

There are some basic goals I would like to keep in mind around my daily schedule, whatever that may end up being from day to day.

By the end of the week I want to have a bike, as I plan to being a bit of distance training this weekend. The greater Eugene area riders map their rides, so I figured I could start off with a couple 20 to 30 mile rides to see how I weathered. Depending how I preform, I would love to start riding with GEARs members on their longer rides which range anywhere from 30 to 100 miles. So in short, this is a hobby I would really like to get off the ground, metaphorically of course. My only experience in long distance, if we can even call it that, comes from a 30 mile round trip to Homer lake and back when I lived in central Illinois, which was last summer, although with an undesirable bike that applied the brake constantly on a contorted back rim. So my navigation and endurance are large question makes in the list of my capabilities. 

I need to start working out a bit too. When I live on my own apparently, I mostly consume fruits like bananas, apples, and oranges coupled with copious amounts of Bread or Matzos and peanut butter, chips and salsa, with raisins and cottage cheese on the side with seasonal organic strawberries. Although I can't fail to neglect the Spinach and cheese turnover or the wild berry bunch I had at the Oregon Country Fair and the occasional outing. So far I've only had Pegasus Pizza, where we ate during the grad school visit in April. I actually posted an ad on Craigslist to see if anyone wants to explore downtown Eugene with me, but I am as of yet, comically afraid to answer replies. I should probably make an effort to make friends. I have come across to many opportunities, but I need to shed my proposed guilt. 

For example, the first weekend I was in Eugene I went to the David Minor Theater. Aside from this theater being awesome and offering a service where you can text for food and drink (including beer mind you) while in a screening room. Of course as you may have guessed this place is small, with 2 screening rooms sitting about 50 and 15 people and they show recent movies that pretty much just stopped playing at theaters within the last few months or so with the occasional flashback or classic like Back to the Future, etc. Anyway, they have couches in front of the larger theater (I think in the small theater they have nothing but couches, love seats, and reclining chairs, they call it the 'living room') and I figured I would take a seat on the couch. Well, I showed up about 10 min before the movie started and ended up watching the DVD menu from True Grit (remake with Jeff Bridges from the Coen Brothers) about 23 times, but this girl sat down on the couch adjacent to mine and even commented on how to get the couches, you had to show up early. I could have easily segued this into the casual conversation of who we were, why we were there and if the conversation failed to arouse our intellectual curiosity we could have stopped talking. I think that is how everybody else ends a fruitless conversation. 

Of course this is not to mention the OCF (fair I mentioned earlier) where I could have walked around in my underwear high as a hippy at 4:20 or danced like maniac flailing my painted limbs, face and torso with a crazy hat that said 'Viva la Pasta.' I will definitely have to become more involved with the people that put together the fair at the events they put together during the rest of the year. 

The next thing on my mind is housing. I am so anxious to find housing. My dream single I can really begin to explore who I am. I can start with silverware, posters, a turntable, set up an area where I paint, an area where I read or whatever and no one can see what I have done to judge me. I can let people in selectively as I wish.  

I also saw how much I owe in student loans, and these are just the loans I took out, not including the loans my Dad took out, which actually are probably a little more than the sum total I owe, which is 24,000 fucking dollars. And I only make regular dollars. I know I am probably lucky to only owe that much, which coming from the University of Illinois (started in 2007 and had a fixed tuition) amounts to roughly the total cost of a year of classes and housing. I started to daydream about paying off these loans and the thought of completing payment on this debt almost sexually excited me, because that is something I am not ready to admit to.