So as it turns out, I'm a real fan of gin. It tastes like pine needles which strangely tastes nothing like the flavors of growing up in Canada.

I don't really want to write about things that inspire any more. After all, pine needle flavored beverages inspire me these days. Not even my passion for flying inspires me to write. My mentor calls my life a cautionary tale, and I suppose he's right, but I'll be God damned if I'm going to go down in history as an Icarus.

Tonight I went to the bookstore to find a book on regular expressions; basically geek reading. Probably to my benefit, I did not find a decent book on regular expressions; however, I found a book on algorithms that I also did not buy. Luckily, I had a second objective tonight, that was to find a new day planner. I mean a nice day planner, not like the day planner that keeps my bed level in Phoenix.

Walking into Borders I noticed a old, young woman who was stocking shelves. She had well-kept, straggly, long, brown, greasy hair that wasn't kept at all, and geeky glasses kind of like mine. Her torso too skinny for her butt, and legs too skinny for her torso, she slouched and had bad complexion and a rather beautiful set of teeth. A tattoo of a dragon, butterfly, or other such nonsense peeked out from underneath the sleeve of her "Earth day, 2006" t-shirt. I wondered if she had gotten the tattoo in hopes that it would change her life and maybe make her into someone she certainly isn't now.

"Hi," I said, in the way that I do, "could you point me in the direction of your day planners?" Stunned like a dear in the headlights, and with deafening silence she looked to the floor and pointed to the staircase that climbed up to the store's mezzanine. My head tilted in an attempt to gaining eye contact with the girl. Her head moved farther too her left to avoid my gaze. I said "thank you" with a puzzled look. 'Doesn't she know we have the same dorky glasses?'

Upstairs I found all sorts of cool things. Like books not to be purchased on Kama Sutra and algorithms; both equally interesting to me, although the Kama Sutra book had pictures. I found the day planners and thought of all the cool and neat and exciting things I could write in them like, call Wells Fargo, buy more Tanqueray, run 1,000 miles, beat the piss out of my housemate's cat. And then I reflected. 'what the eff am I going to really use this day planner for?'

The girl's tattoo looked dark and violent, just like she wasn't. Although, I do remember taking a class called Career and Life Management (CALM) in high school that taught me never to stereotype; a lesson I routinely ignore. I suppose there is a chance that this girl-woman, timid and fearful, is actually a cold-blooded killer, but my instincts and keen intuition tell me this is not so. I wonder if she regrets getting the tattoo. Some things just don't suit some people.

I didn't get the day planner either.