1. I live down the street from an Indian supermarket.
  2. And a kung fu school!
  3. And a 24/7 Harris Teeter (supermarket) with a good selection of stuff!
  4. People in Raleigh are very friendly! While eating BBQ at Ole Time, I'm not into sports so much, so half the recommendations aren't that interesting to me, but... still!) I should explore this area more.

On that latter note, I'm going to see if I can make it to the Durham farmers' market tomorrow morning. If I wake up in time, that is. I'm still slowly unpacking my things into my apartment and trying to get rest and pace myself through work, because I'm still wiped out from August and this summer in general, and October's travel is going to be brutal (yet awesome!) so... taking a breather is... a good idea, possibly, right now.

Feeling good. Today I got a bunch of work done, a bunch of not-work done, and whipped the apartment into far better shape. I hate cleaning, so I bribed myself - one of my high school teachers, Doc Nok (Dr. Nokkentved), gave our class his sage parting advice of "make sure you have one nice dinner per week, at minimum." So I decided, all right, I will make that dinner day be the same as cleaning day, so I have something to look forward to. And that's why I went to Ole Time tonight. Raleigh BBQ is... mmm.

I also looked at the contents of my fridge and decided that (1) the hardneck garlic was more perishable than I would like, (2) peeling and chopping garlic every time I cooked was a messy pain, and (3) batch-processing was awesome. I spent much of the evening peeling every single head of garlic I had purchased and placing them in a olive-oil filled container. I originally had started chopping then, but realized I could do that while cooking because I'd probably be chopping other things too (and besides, sometimes I might want larger pieces of garlic, etc). So now I have a container absolutely stuffed with peeled garlic, some of which is chopped, and olive oil that's going to taste magnificently of garlic when I use it. Life has gotten more convenient. WIN!

This plus the cleaning made me feel incredibly domesticated, so I continued plugging through Project: Make My Car Suck Less by researching how to fix my side mirror. Looks like fun - need to unpack my tools first, though, and order the mirror. My current fix is very much a kludge.

But hey. It cost $6 (for the mirror - I already had the duct tape). It's just... yeah. Car needs fixin'. Also needs new wiper blades. The battery already gave out in Boston - got a new one - and then both brake lines started leaking, also in Boston... got new ones, and... I'm just going to start paying much closer attention to this car now. It's 17 and I'm not sure how much longer it will last. Ah well. I should learn things by fixing it, and when I take it to the shop I'll ask if I can watch and learn from what they're doing, and... it'll be all right.

Life's good and I'm having fun and am considerably more relaxed than usual, given the circumstances. Getting rest. In fact, getting rest now. I am sleepy and it's bedtime.

*thud*