p r e a m b l e   t o   h e l l

I've just had one of the most love-filled weekends of my life. No, I wasn't transported back to the sixties to participate in an acid-fueled orgy-frenzy of eye-endangering sexjaculations. But that would've been cool too. I've just seen a few people I haven't seen in a year.

  • One's a musical genius that could spend a year alone with me in a studio teaching me everything he knows and I might come out at the end of it with some serious skills. And I already know a lot.
  • Another is an artist that is not an artist. They are really my favorite kind. Anyone who tries to define themselves or their art in an 'artistic' ways tend to hit my gag reflex. That kind of pretension is just too much of an introspective button-hitter.
  • Then there's the sweet little capitulation of softness that draws me in like the world's most powerful electro-magnet; the kind you only hear about in the Marvel universe. It's not that I'm in love with her or even in lust with her. She just happens to fold lust up like it was a piece of paper and turn it into the most beautiful origami swan that you have ever seen. Parting words: A kiss, a smile, and an 'it was fun.' I hope it's fun again someday. And so it goes.

H E L L

Weekend's over, everyone's gone and it's Sunday. What to do. Say, "I wanna get fucked up!"

So you've just spent the day popping about 20 tramadol, nicely frosted with a smattering of 6 Mexican Valium and oh fuck!, if you don't have to make your way home from point A to point B. The coffee-shop flirtation and poetic-rhyming exchange was a nice way to pass the sunbathing in the parking lot of your typical suburban strip-mall, but darkness fell eventually. That's when I started to get the fear. The fear is that undeniable voice that screams at you that you will never understand reality, ego, the difference between black and white - and the psychosis of the casino-clown of capitalism is trying to kill you with his ravings - or the difference between self and other. On top of all this, I'm having trouble seeing. Each eye keeps deciding to have its own idea about what It's seeing with the result being two distinct out-of-focus images. Quite confusing.

Time to drive home.

Man I can't wait until August 26, 2003 is past. That's my court date. For the DUI. Until then I don't have a license to drive. That really means that I shouldn't, cause if I get caught driving, not only am I gonna be royally fuct when my court date comes, but I'll probably spend another night in jail. Once was enough, thank you very much.

But like I said, darkness was falling, and I got into my car to drive home. Maintain, maintain. Shake head to keep image focused, two to become one. I think I did a pretty damn good job until I got last in the backwaters of Petaluma somwhere between Highway 12 and Hicksville. The roads started winding, and yes, I did hit that center divide (the double-yellow-reflector kind, thank-you-very-much, not the wall) about four times. At least, that's what the cop that was trailing me said.

unsui: Evening Officer.

cop: Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?

u: Uh, no, officer, I'm not quite sure.

OK, so I had already resigned myself to the fact that I was sleeping in jail that night, but if you were falling off a cliff and all you could see was a tuft of grass that you could grab onto - you'd grab on too, no?

cop: Can I see you license, registration, and proof of insurance please sir?

Now remember, I have no license. If he were to look it up, he'd see that it was suspended for the DUI. I reach for the tuft of grass.

u: Actually, I don't have my license on me, but the license # is B*******. Here's the registration and insurance.

cop: Well, sir. Do you know you've hit that center-divide about four times in the past couple miles. Have you been drinking anything tonight?

u: Nope. Nothing at all sir.

cop: Have you been smoking anything tonight, sir?

u: Nope, well, unless you count cigarettes.

cop: Can you please step out of the car sir?

u: OK

cop: Just walk over to the front of the car.

/me walks towards the squad car, notices the other officer standing by the driver-side door.

cop: Do you have anything in your pockets sir.

u: Well, yeah

/me reaches into his pockets to show him, which really freaks out the cop and he jumps towards me and grabs my arms to stop me

cop: Please, don't do that sir.

/cop begins to pat me down, finds a tin box

cop: (in a stroke of intuitive genius) Is that a metal box?

u: Yes, would you like to see inside it?

cop: Yes

/cop finds nothing

cop: When's the last time you smoked marijuana?

OK, what kind of loaded question is that? Am I supposed to say, 'Oh, no, sir. I would never touch the evil weed known as marijuana!' Maybe it's a test of my honesty. Maybe he just wants to know if I've smoked recently enough for it to affect my driving. I mean, he is shining that flashlight and waving around a pen in my eyes. Fuck that's annoying.

u: Uhh, Yesterday actually. Also, could you tell me how to get to point B? I think I missed the turn close by here.

/cop looks at me for a second, has his partner give him back the paperwork and proceeds to help me out

cop: yeah, you go back there, take a left there, go down a while, blah blah blah.

u: Why thank you officer. You have a good night. I'm pretty tired, I'll try to be more careful.

Thank-you god/karma/mother earth/shiva/destiny for saving my ass that night

You, dear reader, may want to look here for reference before continuing.

As of joining March 11, 2003 I have been here 5.1 months. I've always been amused by the use of a system of tenths to divide an ever changing length of days in a month. Within this time-frame, I am of course, a newbie. With this writeup and if all goes according to plan, I will obtain level 4 with all the cooling powers that are requisite with that station. Let the nodegel quiver in anticipation.

The Bickering Never Dies

I remember a while back when the topic of the Catbox was a certain speech on the evolution of social software and the implications therein. Though it was quite drawn out and at times dry, I found it fascinating for its dead-eye accuracy of pin-pointing some of the problems that plague E2's community. It was soon added to the FAQ here. It is further titled, A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy. The FAQ says that it is required reading for anyone desiring to be admin/editor, but I feel that all noders would benefit from reading it beginning to end.

Part of the infighting and differences of opinion are a good thing. It proves that people care; the problem only becoming dire when people start to care more about their opinion than they do about E2. In that case, don't let the door hit you in the yadda-yadda. Otherwise, let there be constructive debate, and even let it get a little hairy. Stagnation is going to help no one, and we all know that this thing is an experiment on a number of levels.

Diplomacy Done: Let the Ranting Begin

One of the first writeups I did here was titled I am not a writer. If you can even find a nodeshell for it now I'd be surprised. My cunning wit was cut short before it had passed even a quarter of the New Writeup list. Goddamn. So I nursed my bruised ego and set about to bely the irony that I had been so proud of. I set out to become a writer.

That process involved any number of critiques, editing, deletions, and audits - from myself, editors, noders, and other RL friends. This place has potential to be a repository of knowledge, but it can also be a think tank, a testing ground, and a town meeting. Just as I found personal evolution here, so is the world I found it in evolving all the time. If that involves raising the bar, than I hope that I can rise up to meet the challenge. If it involves solely original work... well, I don't really want to get into that one. Go to a file-sharing community if you want to steal. This place is not about making things easy, or the LCD

/me steps off of the soapbox

A photograph left by my feet
  reminds me of times once left behind.
    A distance, a well worn fact, things left to pass...

      - "Lately" by Lost Prophets

It's been a good two months since I last did any serious photography with my digital camera, and just when I thought I was really getting into this whole hobby. I'd been doing photography just since Christmas, but there were a number of people who seemed to think I was abnormally good considering the little amount of time I actually put into it as of then. My plan was, also, that during this summer break I would be taking pictures everywhere I went -- ya know, some real award winning ones.

However, my anticipation is growing this last week, as three of my best friends and I are going up to one of their grandparent's cottages for the weekend. That's right, four no-good punk teenagers, at a cottage that's a two hour drive away, with no parents. You do the math. But as fun as it will be, no doubt, I'm really hoping to take some serious pictures. From what I hear, the cottage is on it's own island and the sunsets on the little Northern Ontario lake are just spectacular.

Looking at my watch now it's about exactly sixty more hours until we leave. Until then, I've got a lot of preparation to do: recharge my batteries, dig up my video camera, go shopping for food, pick up various refreshments and pack whatever clothes I probably will most likely never end up wearing. As well until then, it's just a good sit in front of the computer watching E2 slowly grow.

The title company called today, to cancel Wednesday's 1:00pm appointment for the closing on our house. They cancelled because they didn't think the paperwork would be there in time for the appointment.

I'm getting fucking sick of delays like this. They have had my application and all the paperwork they've ever asked me for since July 2, 2003. What is taking so long? Now, our house will be ready before the closing, or at least before funding has occured and the title transfer is done.

We get to call Sprint and undo the service order moving our DSL and phone service, or at least reschedule it. Oddly enough I still get to pay for the rest of the utilities, since if they get turned off (the builder turns it off Monday) I get to pay reconnection fees even though I've lived exactly zero seconds living in the fucking thing.


Also thought I'd comment on the copyright stuff here since everyone else is. I haven't posted anything protected by copyright, to my knowledge; I'm full of shit enough as it is that I can spew endlessly on my own and still come up with unique crap that doesn't get downvoted too much. Still, it seems to me that things like lyrics, when properly attributed (and when a copyright notice tags along), don't hurt anything.

Then again, I didn't think the big lyrics database that got killed a couple years ago was hurting anything either. Copyright holders these days seem to have forgotten that getting (and keeping) people interested in their stuff, and, hence, more likely to buy other stuff from the same copyright holder, is more important than protecting every last little bit they have. I can't ask the rhetorical question anymore: "who the fuck cares if someone can download the lyrics to a song?" ... obviously, some very silly people with lots of money care.

E2 seems to be sort of bowing to unseen pressure, and, while disappointing, it doesn't affect me too much. Not that my opinion matters to anyone in the slightest, but let it be known that I disagree with the decision.

As far as general attitudes these days though of copyright holders ... my response is pretty simple: fuck 'em. I don't need your music. I don't need your movies. I don't need your television. Keep it all. I won't download any more new music, because the new music sucks. I won't read any more lyrics, because I've already learned the ones I care about. I won't share my music collection anymore, because everybody has already heard Led Zeppelin's good stuff. I think I'll just keep writing my own stuff. At least it keeps me amused.

Today I said goodbye to a friend, named Teddy. I have just finished the two volume work by Edmund Morris, who has slowly moved up my list as one of my favorite biographers. (Yes I know about the whole Reagon book that was a flop becaue he invented things, but this book just was awesome).

I feel like I know Teddy more then ever, that I understand who the man was, and I can call him friend. We laughed together, cried together, and exprienced the joys of the hunt together.

After a month and a half of time spent with one individual and his family, I have learned so much about this one person. Teddy had more energy then two people combined and worked a ton. He read more books in a day then anyone I've ever heard of. Foreign countries would send base thier pick for ambassador to the US on whether or not they could keep up with the president.

I highly recommend both books, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Volume 1, and Theodore Rex, which is Volume 2.

I've seen a lot of passion on here recently and that is good, as it oft leads to good writing, if not more thinking. However, we need to face the fact that, if anything, the deuce is an oligarchy, if not a joint dictatorship. Roll with the policy if you like it or not, there's not much your Joe Blow Noder like myself can get done. But this is not one of THOSE daylogs, forget this paragraph, this is a happy daylog.


About 5 weeks ago, I started working at a UPS hub in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. It's a good job. The work is menial, I build walls of boxes in trucks, but it's fun. They pay me to get in shape. I've already lost weight, about an inch off my tummy, and I have better definition in my arms. For $8.50 an hour, and only part time, it ain't that bad.

Sure, it has its downsides. The Corporation just bullied us, the union, into working Sunday through Thursday with the threat of getting rid of our shift. I still think they're bluffing on that, but I can't be sure. However, the good stuff was just around the corner.

I'm a loader, I load boxes, as I've mentioned before. Loaders are put into groups, called PD's, of which there are 13. I'm in PD-2. Each PD has a set of conveyor belts and a set of trailors, where they go depends on the PD in question. Each PD also has their own part-time supervisor. There's also a full-time supervisor who looks over 6 PDs. The thirteenth PD is a backup, used when there's a lot of flow, or work's being done on another PD and they had to shut it down.

With the background out of the way ... My full-time supervisor calls me over the other day, and takes me outside (we're right next to a Brownie entry point). My heads a flutter, trying to figure out what I did wrong that could get me punished.

Supe: "How long are you planning to work at UPS?"
Me: "Until I get out of college, about two years."
Supe: "You give any thought into becoming a supervisor?"

Now, it's a jump about 2 steps up the ladder, which is good, A fatter paycheck ($16.00/hour though a monthly check), and I'm out of the union, which isn't really the best. However, if it fits in my school schedule, I think I'm gonna go for it. I still have to talk to my Supe and figure out all that being a supervisor entails, but it sounds pretty darn good. My fiance and parents both think it's great.

He said, as I had thought, that it was happening quickly. People don't usually move up this fast. I dunno why he chose me, although my guess is because I was always bugging him about stuff, asking questions and wondering why things never got fixed. Little things mostly, but still, shit that should be taken care of. I guess if you keep your face in front of your boss he takes notice in you.

I'll have to see how this all turns out, but until then...

/me dances and sings "I'm getting promoted, I'm getting promoted :^)

There’s this level of stress and tension that you allot for everyday life. You have this schedule and you accept it. It becomes a part of you like your uniform or, for those who don’t have to wear one, all those office clothes that are your uniform. Uni. Form. One form every day. Like Einstein was supposed to have. And I don’t mean the postal, cross town traffic, manic sort of stress; I’m talking about the subdued stress, the stress you don’t realize you have until you have a basis for comparison. When you get a night off or a random day allows you to sleep in, or you’re lucky enough to get a few in a row, you realize how fast your life moves by you.

I couldn’t find a place to put myself. Jake is trying to finish up the current Harry Potter book before the kids go back to full time with mom, and I have had 3 nights off in a row from my second job. I can’t sit still; there’s always laundry to do or dishes to load or a floor that needs to be stripped of all the little bits of fuzz the kids manage to pick out of the love seat upstairs. The wires to the remote control cars and caulking from who knows where. These kids destroy everything, but it’s a beautiful sort of curious chaos. I will miss them when they go, even though I will be a little relieved. The summer was shot right out of a cannon.

Shortly after I started my second job, the kids were with us and in day care. The days lasted as long as the sun allowed, burning longer and short on fuel and time. I can’t remember where we’ve been or what we’ve done besides sleep and watch movies. Or read.

That normal level of stress, when it is added to by some typical random change, is thrown into upheaval and I long to give up the struggle. I get all whiny and mean, scared and more out of control than usual. My own words wear me out.

I start to worry. I think he’ll leave me one day, for a simpler girl who doesn’t ask so many questions. I think I need therapy, that there’s something wrong with me. And, also.

I don’t know how to talk to girls.

No, really, I don’t. I’m scared and stubborn. I don’t know how to make friends. Every co-worker I ever thought was cool left shortly after being hired. On the one hand, most of these women are bloated, gossipy, bitter, and hypertensive in that inbred poodle kind of way. On the other hand, they’re the only kind of women in my workplace, they’re all I have to work with.

Once every few months, I take a test, each one a step toward teacher certification. All of them reminding me how little I recall about those classes I took 8 or 9 years ago. I am awful at math. Jake thinks it’s funny, and usually it is. But when I miss the passing score by two points and have to pay $75 to take it again (and again and again until I pass), it’s not funny, it’s sad. It’s sad how long I’ve let my life go without a driver.

Like I said, I couldn’t find a place to put myself. When Jake reads to the kids in the living room, I have nowhere to go. Our place seems so small right now. I laid on the floor and listened to a new CD I bought. Without my stress and without company, I felt totally useless.

I wonder if I have a single good thought in me right now, or when I will stop talking after everyone’s been sick of hearing it for years.

I see the rough heels of the feet on the women I work around, the chipped polish and crowded toes crammed in sloping shoes. Asses so big and jiggly that I swear they should be made of taffy or oatmeal. I don’t speak to people when they say excuse me. I don’t look up.

When I was young, I got invited to a birthday party by a girl in my Sunday school class. All her friends went to public school. I did not. I might have been 10, maybe younger, maybe older. I didn’t know what to do, so I hid under my coat in a corner of the rec room. I’m sure at some point I was crying. Some kids kept lifting the coat to look at me.

I remember going out into the kitchen for a drink and chatting up some other kid, who politely ignored the fact that I had been under a coat a minute ago. Through other actions I don’t fully recall, the night ended with me piled on a crowded couch with all the other kids, tapping curse words into a Speak N Spell, being disappointed when it wouldn’t spell the word out loud. I remember laughing with the kids and wondering what I was so afraid of. I couldn’t tell you for sure if both of these memories are correct, since they seem so. Maybe they just felt sorry for me.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m still under that coat.

I'm standing there in a meeting, looking at the variations in nose shape, hair, and neck musculature among my coworkers. I've accepted the theory of evolution as probably true, and this makes me prone to looking at life forms and wondering, "What is that (insert name of body part) for?" "What advantage does this behavior serve?" "What are we going to be like/look like/act like a million years from now?"

The majority of people I've met don't think very far into the future. The majority of people I've met are also much more sensible than I am. They think, "What can I accomplish in MY lifetime?", whereas I think, "What is the ultimate fate of the Universe?" Up until recently, I was fairly certain that death was "it"; that it was total, eternal annihilation of consciousness. Now, I am not so sure. It occurred to me that we really don't know what kind of freaky stuff is going to happen to the Universe in the next several billion years. Is the Universe undergoing vaccuum fluctuations? Are we going to find out that we are simply in one of many Universes? Is the flow of time going to change? Are humans going to achieve immortality? Are we going to be able to upload ourselves into machines? Strange things are happening, and we really have NO clue exactly what we are or what this thing we call the Universe is.

Imagine a Stone Age man. Bear in mind that the Stone Age man did not know that he even lived on a planet, that this planet was surrounded by an atmosphere, and that the atmosphere was encapsulated in a universe. Being was simply being; the ground was there, the sky was there, and Man was in the middle. He had urges: instinctive drives to eat, sleep, have sex. At some point, humans became more self-aware, and began to think about their actions. We have come so far since prehistoric times -- just imagine where we may be as a species when twice as much time has passed since then. We will invent things that, if we saw them today, would only be construed as magic. We will delve deeper and deeper into the structure of matter, and the relationship between matter and energy. It is mind-blowing to think of the far-off future in this manner; I feel that it is important to realize that someday all that we are will be considered primitive. All our silicon chips and skyscrapers and economic systems will be replaced with wonders and philosophies that we can't even imagine.

It seems that I can't do ANYTHING without analyzing it: when I eat, I think about the mechanisms of chewing and digestion. When I read, I think about the manner in which visual symbols are interpreted by the brain. It still totally trips me out that I can look at an arrangement of curves and lines, and have it transmit a thought to my head! When I am lying in bed, I wonder about the sensation of tiredness, and how it is that our bodies run on such predictable clocks. I feel like humans have this massive layer of abstraction between their everyday consciousness and the way things really work. This is in a sense necessary; sometimes, we just need to get things done. I feel like I am in a sense flawed in this respect; it is hard for me to do things without stepping outside myself and noticing that what I am doing, objectively, is rather absurd and mechanical. Sometimes this makes me hesitate, makes me less efficient at tasks, and frightens me a bit (because I am reminded of the sheer magnitude of the machine called Reality).

I know that certain things feel good, but I have difficulty seeing anything I do as part of some higher purpose. What I've realized, though, is that there does not need to be a higher purpose in order for something to be beautiful. If love is a chemical reaction, that is no less beautiful than love being a "spiritual connection". The way in which our brains try to ensure our survival is fucking amazing, and spectacular to experience and analyze.

And yes, I'm a bit of a nut.

I was listening to my music the other day when my thirteen year-old cousin entered the room. Counting Crows, Jane's Addiction, Talking Heads, Soul Asylum, and The Gin Blossoms were on my play list. She admitted to me that she was strangely drawn to my choices while appearing baffled by her own awe. I attempted to explain to this Britney Spears look-alike that this was the music everyone listened to, "back in the day." She quickly retorted, "I didn't take you for someone who listened to 'classic rock'."

I, a nineteen year-old, use the term "classic rock" to refer to Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, and such; music that my parents raised me on, I claimed to hate, but sang along to under my breath. I recall being obsessed with the Steve Winwood song, "Back in the High Life" at the tender age of 8 or 9. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever refer to early-nineties music as "classic rock."

As I began to think about it, Led Zeppelin and fellow rockers paved the way for The Counting Crows, and other "complaint rock" of the nineties. It all began to make sense, I now feel like the oldest young adult ever.

I just punched myself. It hurt, a lot-especially for a newcomer to e2. they warned me it would hurt, but I didn't listen. Damn me for being so self-righteous.

I think I trapped a cricket in a candle holder at some point last night, just so that I wouldn't have to risk it attacking me in my sleep. I woke up this morning, half not knowing why there was a candle holder in the middle of my bathroom floor, and picked it up. The cricket, which appeared dead, was in fact faking it and sought revenge. I swear I thought it was dead, so I poked it and it jumped. I don't remember who proposed this idea, but I would like to credit someone (I think it was a comedian I saw on Comedy Central around 4 a.m. awhile back-probably Denis Leary or Chris Rock); as saying, I will never understand how women will pour boiling hot wax all over their body and then have their hair

ripped

out from the root, but are still afraid of a spider...

Yes, it's damn daylog. Sue me (at least until I get a LiveJournal account.

So. Once again I miscalculate the damage my words and actions can cause. It also hasn´t been the first time I´m stuck between honesty, truth, selfishness, hypocrisy, conflicting emotions, the absence of emotions, introvertism the wish for extrovertism and sexual hunger. Whoever thinks these things cannot exist at the same time in some form or another has not experienced it and is probably luckier for it.

The idea is to do the "right thing". But if you have sworn off any moral code (to try to escape any of religion's manifestations) there can't be any "right" thing. Or can there? What defines "right"?

I just wanna be happy.

fuck.

This may sound weird, but I feel at some point in my personal past I lost my contact with reality. I can't quite explain what I mean by that. There is my mind, and then there is the world. Distinctly different things with a clear connection.

I've a theory this may have something to do with my smoking pot quite often for a few weeks in my young teenage years (I still do it occasionally, but I don't notice any other effects these days). Maybe it created a chemical imbalance, some sort of psychological breach or something else. I'm not a doctor (or a psychiatrist). In any case I have this fear that since then I've been less aware of my surroundings and of life in general.

Then there is theory number two. I'm nearsighted, meaning I either wear glasses and my field of vision is cut down to a fraction, or I wear contacts (which I do more often) and have a constant slight blurring of my vision whenever I blink. It might be possible that this things lead to me feeling that things are less "real". Would laser surgery help? Would perfect eyesight solve this dilemma?

We trust our eyes to tell us what Reality is...if I don't trust my eyes, how can I trust what I see is Reality?

These things must sound insane to anyone who hasn't experienced what I have or doesn't understand what I mean. Still, maybe somebody will by chance know where the problem lies and tell me how to fix it.

Or of course I might be just spending too much time thinking. *shrug*.

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