August 26, 2000

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Time: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 00:27:56 GMT
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JeffMagnus node of the day: http://slashdot.msn.com/

Heh, just got back from a trip to Ireland. Business of course...

Ireland is, well, great. Very friendly people, really open, nice countryside and we had lots of luck with the weather!

Everybody had told me (warned me rather) that Ireland was a country of gloom and rain. Well, I suppose I was lucky, we had no rain for the entire duration of our stay. To be honest, none of the Irish people I talked to considered the weather we had normal... :)

Our bed and breakfast, Ashbrook House up on River Road in Castle Nock - hope that's the right spelling, was great: luxurious rooms, great service and above all, very quiet. River road is a little road of off the main roads, next to this nice river I forgot the name of, with, as I heard, excellent breakfast. (Of course I always missed breakfast)

I tried to get some really Irish food over there, but with all the Indian and Italian restaurants over there that was quite a challenge. I managed though... :) Pubfood is ok, and steaks are no problem!

Only one thing failed to please me: the pubs all close at around 11 PM. What a pity!

All in all (I won't bore you with the details of my assignment there) Ireland is a pretty nice country (unless you get stuck with bad weather) with nice people.

I think I am going to spend my next holiday there... :)

Blowing ectoplasm bubbles

When I attended the University of Waterloo, I lived with a bunch of geeks and one token arts major. Ross was an English major via Urban Planning and was the perfect yin to our yang, as it were.

One year for Christmas I got him a tub of Ghostbusters ectoplasm ... a container of viscous purple goo. It would spread out to about the size of a garbage can lid on the kitchen table.

Somehow Ross and I discovered that by sliding a straw under the flat disc of goo, we could blow enormous purple bubbles! With care and proper technique, a head-sized bubble could be achieved before the inevitable weak spot gave way.

This activity also caused much laughter of the I'm-still-awake-at-3am kind. Which, over time, caused us to inhale quite a bit of ectoplasm.

When I die, the autopsy will show fluorescent purple lungs.

Follow up to yesterday's daylog. My cow-orker that got into a fight with my team leader yesterday resigned today. I kind of feel bad for the guy in the way I feel bad for any person that has things go bad for them. I don't feel too bad though because he ranked up there for most annoying person I've worked with. I think what bugged me more was my team leader was high strung all day. And kind of put my on edge. See the fight (between my team leader and my cow-orker) erupted because my team leader was supposed to demo our stuff for upper management today. So now I can't tell if my team leader is stressed because of the problems with my cow-orker or because upper management is breathing down our backs. Like most software projects we are behind schedule. The only good thing that has come out of this is I got a little fear put into me and am much more productive at work.

I have had no problems with the job and I like it a lot more than my last. What I fear is if things don't go well with upper management I'll be out of a job that I really like.

Saturday, I woke at 7am to let Molly outside, then crawled back under the doona to snuggle up with Gemma. It was one of those oh man this is so nice and warm feelings that was so delicious and precious and whole that I slept in that position, deeply, until 10am. I am so lucky.

Upon rising, checked my mail, and settled into E2 for a half hour of voting with some strong Illy coffee. I wish that there were a longer ENN, or one that allowed a complete listing of new nodes since my last logout. I dislike the feeling that I may have missed something really interesting or valuable to the nodesoup.

/msgs waiting for me included a couple from two folks who seem to be making an effort to help me over my aversion to mushrooms. This is an odd place, but I do like it...

Bundled Molly into the car and drove to Kingston for a walk around the shops. It was sunny but cold. Then to the supermarket in Manuka and on to the Fyshwick Markets where I had a great gastroporn chat with Russell from the delicatessen. Bought smoked chicken breast, King Island smoked cheese, olives, bread, sugarsnap peas, and tangellos so glossy they could be made of wax.

This pm, helped Gemma with her preparation for her course, starting Monday. Gave her a translucent orange pen to match her iBook, for luck. Tonight we'll go out for pizza. I've got a huge day of paperwork to look forward to tomorrow, so I'm gonna try to not log into E2 until the evening (give me strength!)

Today, my noding has been a continuation of my mission to commit the entire history of Sanrio to the database. Got another dozen or so characters researched and noded. I think I'll take Jinmyos advice and get some gastroporn into the database after I'm done with Sanrio.

27 days to my vacation

back | days | front

---

It would seem that my mental well being is mostly dependent on my external environment:

• It's raining. Not a rare occurence in the UK, but this promises to be one of those days where it rains continuously for maybe 8 hours. Subconsciously, I've already put Beth Orton on the stereo, and Tori Amos and my most low-key trippy ambient electronica is also ready to play.
• I'm poor. I have to pay off a credit card bill, leaving me with precious little money to do anything this month.
• It's my Mother's birthday tomorrow. Her present will consist of my Brother, Stepdad and myself sitting down watching the Belgian Formula One Grand Prix. She deserves better.
• The digital Satellite service seems to be down. That means I can't watch any TV. :-(
• I've installed Windows Millennium Edition (Windows 98 mark 3 :-). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to support my standard (but 3 years old) hardware. This means I can't waste the day playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
• And, yes, I'm lonely. Rainy days were designed specifically for cuddling, mild tickling, mussing and making lazy sweet love. Kind of hard to do by myself :-P
• Even IRC doesn't hold my attention. I need to find some of those infamous, mythical channels filled with lonely women. Hmmm.
• Why am I sad enough to put my woes in an HTML unordered list? ;-P

Stars in my sky, There's a galaxy of emptiness tonight
Won't you please, sweep me off my feet

15:25 BST

I spilt Dr Pepper on my keyboard and mouse. My Brand New keyboard and mouse. Arse. It all seems to be working properly after a good clean (hopefully)

16:55 BST

Bugger

My brand new Microsoft Natural Pro keyboard is broken. The drink I spilt on it seems to have well and truly shafted a select few keys - like the ones in my password for instance. This means I'm on the backup, old and yellowed original natural keyboard - the one that gives me finger strain after 10 minutes of usage.

Arse.

Poo.

This day is suddenly going a lot worse...

---

Prolly more later, bugger all else to do

- "i'm wonderin' if this is some kind of creative drought" -
brian wilson

i think, perhaps, that the barenaked ladies album "gordon" is possibly the best collection of music ever, at least for this morning. so many memories tied up in the chords and vocals and offbeat notes scattered, floating around.

i'm awake early again and.. this is becoming a pattern, i've noticed. i remember waking up and there was.. thunder, briefly but it was intense and loud. i went downstairs to make sure someone had bothered to turn the computers off, and they had, which left me wondering if i'd missed any messages on irc or aim. i don't like people touching my computer, it's one of those things that i'm protective of, i guess.. everything is here where i need it and where i know it is and if someone else disturbs it, i don't know anymore.

i haven't been able to write much lately.. whether this is just a temporary thing or not, i don't know. i have the desire, but not quite enough.. motivation? i think i need something like 'whose node is it anyway?' or a nodeshell challenge, something along those lines. on another note, i think i can write on the spot fairly well now. that's kind of dreamy though i guess i could always do that..

i want more plants. i'll get some today i hope. need to open a bank account. i'll make this daylog worthy of existing later.

It is one o'clock in the afternoon, and I just woke up. This is perhaps the latest I've ever slept this entire summer. But I have good reason. Around midnight, my mother got home from West Viginia. I hadn't seen her in about a week, so we sat around and talked a little. My boyfriend had just informed me that he was going to go on a stoney cruise, which he said would be of no interest to me. I couldn't argue with that, even though he had said we'd spend time together today. So I was in a pretty nasty mood. Then my brother gets home from Hamilton, and he and my dad start yelling about some pornography Adam was looking at. He stole my parents' credit card number to do it. My dad ended up leaving around 1:30am, saying he was going to go stay at a hotel. That has never happened before. My mom was upset, I was upset, and Adam was just glad dad was gone. I told him he was selfish, and then I left.

Drove to Aaron's house to see if he was there, which of course he wasn't. I knew the only other place he would be was Jonathan's house. So I decided to make the fifteen minute drive down Lakeshore almost to Grand Haven to talk to him. I got there, parked behind a red BMW in the driveway, and walked in the front door so as not to wake people up my knocking. I was halfway up the stairs when Jon came rushing down them, and then sighing in relief when he saw me instead of the police. He's one paranoid bastard. With good reason, I must admit.

So I found Aaron, and apologized for being rude when he had called. I really was sorry, too, even if he was being just as rude as I had been. All was good, I felt better for talking to him and could almost forget the trouble at home. Jon asked if I wanted to go to Steak 'n Shake with all of them. I offered to drive, since I was the only one not stumbling around on numerous drugs. I ended up driving myself and Aaron - there was no way I'd get into a car with someone tripping on acid behind the wheel.

Steak 'n Shake was surprisingly crowded for three in the morning, mostly with the sort of people I'd care to avoid anyway. I had a glass of water, the guys all ordered food. Except Seth; he just drank the sludge they called coffee there. I stole his mug and used it to warm up. I hate being cold. Jon got into one of his rants about corporate conspiracy, and there was no stopping him. He said the government took pictures of other restaurants fries and put them on the wrong menu. I just tried to ignore him. If not for Aaron, I would have left. If not for being in love with Aaron, I wouldn't have put up with his behavior that night either.

I got home around four or so, and went straight to bed. And now here I am.

Well, it's official - I now have a stalker. I heard a guy masturbating outside a few nights ago, and when I got up this morning there was a handprint and what looks like a lipprint (a smooch maybe) on my window. This means he was here Thursday night and last night (there was a hard rain Friday morning which would have washed away any prints.)

I could consider this a bad thing. Something scary. But on the other hand I've always wondered what it would feel like to kill someone. I notified the police, and they made a report and said I couldn't kill the guy while he was outside and I am inside. However, if he comes in or I go out and he threatens me (my feelings of being threatened are, of course, subjective), then I can shoot him. I'm not saying that I aggresively want to shoot someone. However, if someone stands outside my apartment giving me a really good reason to shoot them - encouraging me to shoot them - trying to frighten me - then yes, I'm going to shoot. It'll be interesting, anyway, if the conflict does occur.

I realize this isn't a very generous attitude, but I'm figuring this guy is a creep and will probably kill me given a chance.

I made plans to go horseback riding this afternoon, to get my mind off of it. When the lady at the stables asked me how many, and I said one, there was a decent pause. Lately everything feels like salt in the wound of my aloneness. Songs on the radio, stalkers, restaurant hostesses.

Sometimes when you want insomnia, you can't get it. I need it now, I need to be grindly awake, programming, programming programming. But despite moas Patented "stay awake" formula, consisting of the following:

• 1 red bull
• 2 pints of beer
• 1 bong hit
• Sugar (in the form of gummi apple rings)
• Electronica
• massive media overload
• Jammies

... I stilll get sleepy. grr.. I need to get out more. after 4 days of camping/climbing I think I have reverted to some kind of proto-hippy. I need loud music and smoky bars. then the sheer guilt alone will propel me to work.

So my new office is almost done. Complete with Herman Miller Aeron chairs, blood red walls and so forth. Very weird. Out of frustration a couple of months ago, I left all the decisions of the decor of the new office to a unbalanced geek associate, and what do we wind up with? something resembling a artists conception of a futuristic hair salon. Strange orange lighting racks made out of metal. dark weird carpet. Blood Red Walls.

Amusing, yes. All I currently have in there is a chair, and we have to use AirPort for connectivity as we just dropped the T-3 in yesterday. But it is coming along. I can sit in my office and stare across the street at Seatttles busiest Crack Park. I am going to set up Crack cam.

So despite all this happening, I've been sitting around feeling annoyed at myself. I have what I want: Isolation, a project, $, a certain amount of excitment.. But I am slowly hungering for that excitment to have more staying power, less flash and burn. Everything, everything seems to come in these huge chaotic waves, and it's driving me crazy.

it was a weird day today.
last night, i couldn't sleep well. i went to bed around 6 a.m. and i started think about why i'm here.
i mean why i've got birth and end up being here. i was wondering if i'm happy now and why i can't appreciate the fact that i'm living as me and walked thorugh my life like this.
it's weird to feel i love myself more than anything but i don't like myself a lot.

i woke up aroungd 10 and went to the dentist 'cause i've got a mushiba. i really hate to go to the dentist. may be because of the smell of the place. it smells like pain.

went to shibuya to shop. i went the agnis b. store that is one of my favorit brand all time.
i purchased a black tight suites to wear when i ride my vespa, and some shirts and tight black pants. god, i love to be a professional geek. i can purchase really cool clothing without looking at the price tags before i decide to get it.
clothing is one of my few hobby as well.

shima-shisu gave me call on my cell phone when i was browsing cds at the tower records in shibuya.
i've got one of the jams cd before i left the store to meet her and jill who came to visit tokyo from seattle.

went to have gyoza (a.k.a. dumpling) dinner with them and ran into my freind rick and his girl at the gyoza place.

we all had dinner together and went to drink. hmm... maker's mark. i love this shit.
later, seigo, shima, tomoki, nacchan, and bunch of my freinds showed up at the bar. we drunk together. had good time.

seigo showed up with his girl. i thought she was really attractive. wearing cool clothing, confident smile, and great legs. i like a girl who is beautiful and smart.

i'm a smart ass. but i'm not beautiful.

i don't like a beautiful and dumb girl 'cause she has smething which i don't have and she dosen't have a thing i have.
so as the opposit case.

the girl has both beauty and intelligence. so i was knocked down.

i always wondering why the girl i find attractive is already somebody elese's or living somewhere impossible to see.
it sucks.

tomorrow, i'll invite my family for the dim-sum dinner 'cause i've got paied.

traveling, swallowing dramamine..

went out last night with someone i've known for a while - known in a highly constrained context, that is.

we've always had, once we got past our relative border patrols, some sort of attraction. it's always been taboo before.

hardly now, in fact it's expected in such an ugly way that of course it can't happen.

but that's not the point.

the point is this; she's moving. we go out to shop for things for her new place. we're having fun, being goofy in Fred Meyer, racing down the aisles and trying not to grievously injure Senior Citizens As The Bask In Their Golden Years(tm). so she's a soy nut (ha.) and we spend a few minutes looking at various healthy edible crap, she's trying to pick out some juice.

and the strangest thing happens to me. i'm watching her concentrate fiercely on this juice selection thing, and ok, it's sort of endearing. suddenly of it's own volition, my mouth opens, and i tell her. i compliment her. whoa.

so now, i've got this little shoot of hope and anticipation. sure, it's colored by our history, and it'll never meet the with the approval of the other kids in this nursery school. but it's something that i don't have to lie for, don't have to struggle through.

my goodness.

<<   {hojita} Day Log Navigation   >>

Heh, yet another Day Log filled in after the fact. I always feel too busy during the day to take the time to node what I'm doing. If I have something to node, I go do that, and then go back to doing whatever else I was doing. I always feel like something else is going to happen during the day, and I'll just node it all later. My personal journal tends to do this too. I'll not write for a day or two, and then have a deluge of things to write about. I almost wish I could record my thoughts as I went through life, and not try to put them back together piecemeal and overanalyzed into some sort of semicoherent whole.

Today I learned to appreciate randomness. That having unexpected things happen can be wonderful. Having had a long distance relationship before, I can fully say that having friends and people you love being far away can be fulfilling in it's own right. However, there's something to be said for having your friends very close to you.

Today I was hanging out. I wasn't really doing much, other than trying to learn how to install and setup (and later, uninstall *mgrin*) NFS and how to set up my ftp site the way I wanted it to be. Just being geeky, hanging out in my room (still a single. *HAPPY*). But, I was talking with a friend online, and randomly went to go get a smoothie with her, and to go to the comic book store. Later that night, I ended up randomly going to Chili's at midnight for appetizers with her and another friend.

Well, I had planned to go for Indian food instead. (no offense at ALL Duchess). The reason I could go to Chili's was because a trip for Indian food fell through. I wasn't bothered at all, mostly because it was almost expected. Why expected? Maybe I have bad Indian food karma or something, but whenever anybody asks me to go for Indian food, it always ends up falling through. *boggle* If this were but a one or two time thing, I might write it up to coincidence. But, this is going on at least 10 or 11 now. What kenya do, tho?

It wasn't that I did anything special yesterday, but it was just the pure randomness of people going, uh, want to go here randomly? That's why I love living near people who will just randomly do things. It gives me the feeling I used to have in Highschool with a group of friends who had no problem deciding to spontaneously go have a picnic, or do something else fun. *smile* I'm not sure why this makes me so happy, but random things make my life go around.

Ginny forgot to wake me up the first time my sister called, and somehow my sister knew because she called again just before she left to be sure. This meant that i had limited time to get ready and to say goodbye to Ginny.

It's been two and a half summers since i met Ginny, moved in with strangers, that's all. But it seems strange that she won't be coming home. And it seems strange that this won't be home for much longer. Anway, we hug, she sniffs, and i go, saying goodbye to the U-Haul that's been at the base of the stairs since Friday evening.

We have breakfast at the Bluebonnet Diner, one of those diner/family restaurant places that real locals go to. We sit at the counter for lack of booth seating and order, and Francis sits next to me.

Francis is on oxygen. Francis is seventy-eight (he showed us his driver's license). Francis comes to the Bluebonnet every day of the week except Tuesday, sometimes twice. He likes all of the waitresses except one. Francis is twice married. He delivered mail when he was in high school, before school. His son died of a heart attack several years ago (he himself has had 3, and his lungs are hardening). Francis got hit by a car when he was 16 and fractured his skull. He wants to know if i've finished high school. His prescriptions are typed on either side of an index card, a formidable list. He told us a lot of stories. I'll forget most of them, no matter how i want to remember.

The thing i won't forget is just one more thing he said..

Life's too short to be a bastard.

...I get home, and it's empty. No U-Haul. No housemates. No cats. The open can of cat treats sits at the foot of my bed, as she apparently had to coax Fisher out from underneath it. The back door stands open. On the table is a list of things crossed off, last minute things not to forget..

kitchen table
2 stereos
CDs
K's table
bed
bikes
litterbox/food bowls
cactus
L's jade
kitchen sink
cats

The rest of the day is a daze. I realize i have to pack, and tear everything off my walls and out of drawers, off shelves, out of boxes. Letters and photos are sorted halfhearted and lingeringly. Eventually, the house still empty, before the sun has set, my floor still full, the bed cluttered with papers and pens and miscellany, i fall asleep against the wall, and don't wake up until late morning the next day.

am i guilty of what i complained of a few days ago?
i'm sorry, i needed to write it out, and don't know where else to write anything anymore..