the former harley hotel

i signed a new lease last week and vana and i are moving to downtown orlando in two weeks. it's gonna wreak havoc on my commute but it's going to be almost like living in a city again. and i'm going to be living in the former harley hotel, an infamous party hub from the 60s, now a run-down converted apartment complex that smells weird. mostly i'm excited that the building probably has ghosts and that i'm going to have my own bathroom.

then:

"I just loved the whole vibe; it was so old and so creaky and so weird."

"I think I had one of my best dates ever on one of the balconies of one of the rooms."

"But what I always wanted to say about the Harley was that the Harley was the Orlando rock hotel. L.A. has the Hyatt Regency, Atlanta has the Highland Inn, and Orlando had the Harley. I don't know where we're gonna go."

"I was in the pool at 5 in the morning one time, but I don't remember much about that. I was clothed, and I think that's the point."

"We played music really loud and drank beer and nobody said anything to us. We smoked pot, and, um, I think the place is haunted. Crazy noises were coming out of every wall! Every orifice! When I left there, I felt like I had been touched by spirits."

"I was like, "You're staying at the Harley?" And they were like, "Yeah!" Just their reaction was like, "Of course! Where else would we stay in Orlando?""

" We did our band photos in the elevator at the Harley. Five guys in the elevator, wearing polyester, as was in fashion at the time, sweating through make-up, which is not something I'm used to or comfortable with."

"I just remember having great times, with parties and with people. It was a great common ground for downtown. People who didn't want to drive and drink could just get a room there at a fair price, and you never knew who you were gonna see there."

now: 

hmmph.

this will be my eleventh move in recent herstory.
revised list:
08/2010 Pudong / Shanghai
11/2010 Normandie Ave / Los Angeles
09/2011 Bach Way / Cerritos
02/2012 South Point View / Los Angeles
04/2012 West View Street / Los Angeles
09/2012 Butler Street / Brooklyn
10/2012 Thames Street / Brooklyn
09/2013 Willoughby Avenue / Brooklyn
08/2014 Cropping Street / Winter Garden
12/2014 Overstreet Road / Windermere
10/2015 East Washington St / Orlando

thoughts on tomorrow

i appreciate each coming day as another opportunity for something interesting to happen

i've been up and making content since 8am this morning

starbucks history

yesterday i randomly pulled over to pop into a starbucks i'd never been in before and ended up spending two hours talking to two men there. one had been an officer in the US Army, stationed in korea right after the korean war, and the other was a man from ethiopia who had just moved to LA from africa during the rodney king riots. the latter lived in koreatown on ardmore, just one street over from where i used to live. 

betta believe

my new boss says i can keep a fish in my cube. i'm excited. i have so much love to give.

manic zone

i don't sleep i just act like a psycho all night

Silver airways

I'm on a horrifyingly small plane about to head to Charleston for Cathy's bachelorette party. They are literally moving people around the plane for "weight balance issues."

iz

today i spent 3 hours trying to install the correct driver for a printer and another 2 hours looking for a fake candle in a mountain of equipment boxes. first effort was eventually successful but the second was not.

there's this man at work who always insists on listening to hawaiian music in the shop, especially when he's wound up. today we listened to the pixar "Lava" song 3 times in a row.

Rainy Sunday chores with gentlemen

Another southern moment: I'm sitting in an auto repair in Ocoee waiting for my tires to be changed and an older man in a veteran cap comes over and apologizes for the language he just used - he had cursed and not noticed that I was sitting here. Naturally I had been too preoccupied on Tinder to even notice.

wdi

any job where i can wear my beyonce shirt to work is a good job

the theory of everything

Sunday night kev and i watched the theory of everything, the stephen hawking biopic, and it made me feel like this is a sick sad world, which i don't think was supposed to be the intent of the movie.

at a count of three, this has been a record-breaking movie-watching week for me, which means i must need a lot of escape these days.

talking flower

saturday night i went to universal studios by myself and drank 40 oz of beer in harry potter world and then talked to a girl on stilts dressed as a flower in the dora the explorer parade for a long time. she's from virginia. 

back to grown-up

hopelessly shuffling through a pile of papers, some upside down, others backwards or just plain out of order, i think i just had the revelation that i think i need a 3-ring binder

with visor

how long do i have to live in florida before i start wearing full-body camo?

shh

I've decided once and for all to not watch movies with people anymore outside of the theater, because they're always talking through it, particularly the emotional parts, or opening things or crackling things or checking their phones and I'm a huge hardass who needs to be alone all the time.
But hey at the age of 27 I just finished Star Wars IV-VI (non-consecutively).