Ladies and gentlemen:

Please check your local newspaper and see if the crossword puzzle is called "W" (or if 1-Across is "Unruly brat"). If so, you are looking at the very first crossword I have ever gotten published. If not, try the Miami Herald -- they'll have it online at:

http://www.miami.com/herald/content/comics/

Click "Universal Crossword" on that page. They'll keep my puzzle around for two weeks.

WOO-HOO!


Postscript: I just found out that my second puzzle, "Ill Communication", will appear in all the same places on March 9, 2001. Wicked cool. But not all papers that carry my puzzle online will also print it, so looking online is your best bet.

Where are they?

They're usually online about now... Then we stay up, instant messaging into the night. Its the worst kind of communication, but we don't seem to care. So where have they gone? They haven't been around for a while, actually.

Any human communication would be nice at this point.

But on a deeper level, the oppourtunity for communication is there. I subconsiously choose not to grasp it. And maybe it's better this way. Maybe they aren't the type I want to consort with.

Ah, but how companionship would be so nice right now... I wouldn't have a reason to bitch and moan anymore...

Why aren't they online anymore? What are they doing? Have they found better lives?

And if so, what am I still doing here?
Ugh, nearly 8am... The alarm went at 0630 today. Okay, we went to bed early last night but my body clock still objects.

The gas fitters are coming back shortly. We were quoted two or three days for the installation. We thought it would be three. The fitters think three. Quite why the salesman thought it might be two, we'll never know. This will be Day 2. Hopefully all the main plumbing work will be completed, leaving only commissioning tomorrow.

If you're all really lucky, I'll let you know.

Yawn.


Later (gone 6pm now)... Well, the fitter have left. Today was a bit of a nightmare. The plumber of the two (the other was installing the boiler) really didn't understand where we wanted the pipework run. sigh And it's all taking much longer than we expected, today.

They expect to be with us all day tomorrow (and, given their efforts today, I won't be able to do any teleworking). Ah well.


E2 Project for the week: Node up Cascading Style Sheets in full.

Oh dear, I appear to have meant it. CSS1 is underway...

I’m not proud of myself. I was shooting hoops with my friend and some kids challenged us to a game. While we were shooting my friend said jokingly, “ Hey go ask those guys if they want to play”. but they came up to us first. Being nice we said, “Yes.” they ran us three to zero before I even blinked. They were at most 12. Shame. Humiliation. Masculinity...lost.

The smaller kid, maybe four-eight had a leg brace. Damn. I am a crappy b-baller, no lie. When I went up for shots they yelled “blahhh!” and I missed about 89%. Like I said I’m no good. We came back though, I even had two or three shots that made me look like Jordan. Still I knew I sucked.

The best thing about the game though was that we (two guys much older than 15) connected with these kids (yes...they were both at least ten to twenty pounds over-weight). I didn’t feel "sorry" for them, I felt like I had the chance to build them up, to make them feel like they were someone. I remember what it felt like to be their age. I didn’t go easy on them, I played fair. When they made a good shot I let them know it. We (my friend and I) ended up getting the “points”, but I think that we were both the winners. That was a good feeling.

And so it contiunes.

All day yesterday I sat around thinking about her. Eventually, I made my way into work between compiling another version of ShowEQ on Kasei, my second linux box. :) Now I feel all l33t and stuff.

I've been making attempts at learning Linux and the C programming language since late in my Sophomore year of high school. That's about . . . . 4 years of Linux learning, which ammounts to nothing thanks to my nine year addiction to dos. Now I can compile kernels and some software using the GNU Make system and those cool little config scripts! w00t. Not since I was a Sysop have I felt so incredibly cool and technologically self-assured. BTW, some of those comments in the kernel source should be required reading.. ;p

So... I went to work. Never have I felt so accomplished for showing up for such a short time. fuck, I only made about $15 today. :/ That won't pay rent, and I need ta move out. Hmm... And this month's paycheck would be nice. Hell, it'd be nice to be paid for the time I've worked since 12-31-2k. Oh well, soon come mon.

So, about her. I stopped by their place after spending some time at Mars Music playing with a nice little Yamaha synthesizer. She wasn't there, but her roommate was. I got to talk to her a bit and bounce some things off of her that had been really getting under my skin. She gave me some good advice, and more than a little insight into the mind of her roommate. I decided that I had to talk with her, but that wasn't going to happen soon - she was at work...

So into the 'lude and sped off in search of someplace else. I dunno where, just someplace. 30th street and I-75 seemed like a good place to start, and St Armand's Circle, Sarasota was where I ended up turning around... A nice, relaxing, three hour drive.

So I came back to their apartment, and she was back from work. Problem: I was pretty far from lucid and/or coherent after spending several hours in my little car with a burned out 12-hour-old caffiene rush and very little to eat - a talk with her was kinda out of the question.

So I sat down and watched the movie they had on, "Four Weddings and a Funeral". Well, that was exciting... Kept me from falling asleep. She didn't really communicate with me at all, almost pretended I wasn't there or something. Kinda what I had expected. Oh well. As I left I told her we had to talk... Her roommate was hard at work on some homework due today...

Reznor's music is so thereputic. So's screaming. They go together quite well, if i do say so myself.

And that brings me to now. I just spent 20 minutes typing this up... Why? Bah - ]if I could explain it, I wouldn't be doing it]. I've had 10 < writeups to go to my next level for about 2 months now. ;p Sorry if you find this a waste of nodespace, but you can be assured it's not just for numbers.

The... morning... from... hell...

Or, Officially, "Tiffany's Horrible, Awful, No-Good, Very Bad Morning"--

I was working on a journal for my sociology class last night, that I had put off for entirely too long. I only had two three-page entries left to do, and after staying up until about 4 am, I decided that I could use a decent nap for two hours. My first class, history, was at 9:30, and I knew that if I set my alarm for 6 am, I would be able to get all of my work done, and make it to class in time.

Well.

My alarm went off as planned, and according to my natural sleep schedule, I decided that it would be easier if I slept for another half an hour. After settling comfortably back into bed, I suddenly opened my eyes "minutes" later, and thought to myself, "Gee, it's awfully bright outside for 6:30 in the morning..." After I lay in bed confused, for about 5 minutes or so, I finally got up the courage to look at my bedside clock-- 9:45 am. FUCK. I missed my history class, OOPS.

Frantic, I realize that I only have about 45 good minutes to finish 6 pages of typed information; roll out of bed, over to my computer, and hysterically start typing. At 10:30, I start printing my assignment, and decide that while I'm waiting, I will read over the syllabus for my history class that I missed. "It's okay," I tell myself. "I can easily miss another lecture in... I can miss... my MIDTERM???" Oh dear sweet jesus in heaven.

I haul ass to campus now, scared to death, and sit through my sociology class, wondering what the hell I should do. Don't panic... don't panic... Well, that's like telling the Leaning Tower of Pisa not to tilt in that awful manner... Finally, my class ends, and I walk out of the building.... and... smack into my history teacher. Oh my god.

Bring on the tears... "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, my car didn't start this morning, and I couldn't find anyone to jump start it, and I woke everyone in my building up, and they couldn't help me, and..." He took one look at me, and said "Look, I can give it to you right now if you really want." Thankyou! Thankyou thankyou thankyou!!!

Okay, so maybe the morning had a decent ending... but I tell you, up until I started writing those essay questions, my stomache was the queasiest it has ever been!

13:42

Today I woke up late again. Yesterday's bad thing: Didn't saw X-Files. How am I so stupid? I didn't remember it... Weird.

Today's schedule: Nothing In Particular. Tomorrow... I hope nothing remarkable either.

So let's face the challenges of the day...

13:53

So, um, suddently noding about computer game things isn't Kewl? Times change...

20:45

I wrote something scary in Fortran. Well, a tip could be that it has something to do with inefficient hello world programs...

Okay, more proof that GNOME is invading Microsoft's territory:

nighthowl:~# apt-get install red-carpet
...

...downloads one and half megabyte of stuff, installs to six...

nighthowl:~$ red-carpet         

libredcarpet-ERROR **: I can't figure out what distribution you're on!

aborting...
Aborted

But I just installed it from Debian package, I wonder if that could give some clue???

00:00

Yay! I found the Zany Videogame Quotes site - they have moved to http://zanyvg.overclocked.org/ in case anyone was looking for them in vain...

...Yahoo! attacked Simplenet.com and "all their base are belong to them" now. =)


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: Red Carpet

Brain slurping interrupted our conversation last night. I was watching Starship Troopers with my French flatmate and a guest.

What is it about French aminosity towards the United States of America? They persist in ascribing the worst motive to every American undertaking. This harmless action movie became an allegory about American militarism, a savage critque of a neo-fascist, imperialist culture cloaked by the institutions of democracy. The starship troopers looked suspiciously like Wehrmacht storm troopers but with American accents. There were SS men, eagle insignias and Aryan square jaws. Everywhere my French friend looked, the evidence was there.

This is my French flatmate who wears American jeans, listens to American music and watches 'Friends'. However our guest, also French, was uninterested in such conspiracy theories. His analysis of the bugs in the movie

There are big, but very stupid

Holy Cow!!! Is that what a migraine feels like? Yesterday I had the worst headache that I've ever had. I think it might have to do with the cold I have, but whatever it was, it hurt. My eyes watered, my stomach turned, and I could barely move. For those people that get headaches like that frequently, OMG I am so sorry. How you even function with those is beyond me. It turned me into a whiny little bitch. My only relief was to close my eyes and try to sleep. Four Aleve did not even touch the pain. Today though I will try to treat it like a cold and sinus thing instead and hope that helps.

Another thing I don't want to try is menstruation. If the cramps are as bad as what you women say, keep them. I think I would rather just get kicked in the balls once a month.

i do not know if it is the trace of illness or the anxiety of your kiss which has dismissed any interest i had in food. my bowl of oatmeal – my morning comfort sticks in my throat and won’t go down, while my coffee, rich and bitter slides easily through, melting the build-up of years and worry and sleeplessness.

what do you do when someone you thought was a god tells you he’s been watching you almost as long as you’ve been watching him?

things happen to me in waves. i languished this past month away, throwing it off and burying myself in paint and ink and configurations of matrices. i don’t know how i got the guts to ask you to dinner. i don’t know why you agreed, or why you followed me to 4 different restaurants when place after place was closed on a dismal monday night, or why i can’t remember what your face looked like when you told me you thought i was pretty adorable too. sleep-deprived, congested and hopeful the morning next, we did not speak in class and you did not call me when you said you would. sleep-deprived, congested and unsure, i sat down beside a friend, and she reminded me that my ex-lover was due to arrive in town that night, and that he wanted us all to go to dinner. but what about your phone call? your phone call that never came? my old lover is more affectionate than he’s been in months.

you tell me you are awkward. but are you awkward because you cannot do this to the woman living in brooklyn who’s in love with you, or because you want me too?

i went to dinner with them, but you did not call. i’m supposed to meet them again, but can i see you in class again tomorrow without having found out what’s in your mind for me? that sounds like just the strain to shatter what’s left of my delicate psyche. picking up the pieces, i called my best friend and started to tell him how much i missed him, but almost started crying, and so let him drift the conversation back away to books and lovers.

things happen to me in waves that i am never, ever ready to meet.

swim.

Heheheheheheeeheheheheh! that spells glee!

Yesterday very much spills into today, so I'll start there. I realized something over the last few hours, people view me as Tupperware. Lemme explain.

I decide to stop by Jen and Griffin's on the way home yesterday, mostly because I had this stern phonecall from Griff. I come spinning into the driveway and pop out of the car. I dash towards the house when I hear, "Long time no see". There he is, sitting there calmly in a chair, with his feet propped up on his car, smoking a handrolled Bali Hash. He's eyeing me with those huge green eyes and he lurches up grabbing me in a hug that knocked the wind out of me. I set his new tubes of paint on the car and try to ease back from him.

As usual, we have a bone to pick with each other. He had run into the Rose Lady at The Castle and she had given him a very convoluted story about how it was impossible for me to have gone after Angela in Ft. Lauderdale. She probably told him what he wanted to hear, you don't have to be a dummy to figure out Sam wants him BAD, and I don't have the heart to tell her he's no great shakes.

Jen had told me that he had indeed slept with Nadia, not that it's any of my business, but he had volunteered that he had not. So we both thought the other was lying. He thought I had driven to Baltimore, which the mention of that city drives him to distraction.

Can we say jealous? I was right. He dragged me in the house and pulled me to the back of the house where his room is. He sat me on his bed and told me we had to talk. He squatted down and grabbed my face and proceeded to tell me he could do nothing about all the chains I have wrapped around my neck, but that he had to be honost, he was patiently waiting for me to give up my charade so we could take things to the next level. I couldn't believe it! It had not even occured to me that he wanted something like that from me! He continues rambling on about relationships as I'm getting more and more incredulous. I don't hear half of what he's saying, but I do catch the " I want you to move to Long Island with me. I know we're going to know each other for the rest of our lives, I know we'll be together later, I know it." What?!? Where the hell did this come from? He tells me he loves me, that he doesn't tell hardly anyone that, that Nadia won't touch him with a ten-foot pole because of his and my....our what? Friendship?

You can't have me now, but you want to put me up on a shelf for later use?(You and everyone else) You expect me to feel the same way? I don't even know what your way is. I've been tied up in my own relationship, you've watched me go through all of this, I keep my Placebo tape at your house for a reason, you have a perfectly good 19 year old on stand by. What is your deal?

I leave to make some phonecalls and to pull my head together. He wants me to come play cards with everyone and I bring my brother. Black Jack and I win. Jen's going to Vegas this weekend] so we have to practice. Warning, I've had two damn good teachers. I get dragged back in the room again. He wants me to lie down. I can't. I'm drunk and I can't breathe. He tries to kiss me. I run out of there to rush home.

I have one last phonecall to make....and I have to make it, pride aside. To one more person who actually has put me on the shelf for what, say the next 15 years? Will I be ripe then, is that what it is?

So I get it now. Everyone's afraid of the now with me, but they're looking forward to the future. They want to put some mark or tie on me, keep me near their side, so that when they need me, I'm their's. When they're ready, when they want me.

Nothing lasts forever. Love can, but not being in love. Huge difference.....but I don't know how to get it through their heads that even I don't last forever. You push me down or away enough times, and I do go away. *Sigh*. All these plans, I wish they's let me in on them, because apparently they affect me greatly.

Next level? Please. I don't even know what level or floor this is, much less what the next one is.

do i forget how to speak sometimes, the words slide out upside down or sideways or some way, a way they're not supposed to and other times i forget a word completely. usually, i am most comfortable in text but.. so unsure of myself, what i am about to say, i feel the stumbling, tripping over my own tongue before i even form a sentence. it is unsettling. though, i should mention that this is not always, and is probably due to my recent bout of insanity.

so, to summarize my last five or six days.. i love road trips, despite their tendency to lean towards tedious, at times. niagra falls really is amazingly beautiful, i'll take back what i said about it's lack of presence upon seeing it for the first time. i am quite sure it was simply the angle and location, also that it was the united states side, which i am wont to think is less impressive.

cahla, masukomi, the turkey basting little humans, you two are wonderful. no, REALLY! cahla has cute bed head, and masu, well.. she is more to me then can be spilled in simple words.

so i'm here and it's confusing and i know i'm crazy but i guess you need to be crazy, sometimes (always).

mo. mo.
One of the most shocking experiences of my life...
I walked into the examination room, took a paper, sat down calmly and looked at it.
And I had no idea what to do.
That has never happened to me before. I'm fast approaching the period in my schooling when I will have to work just to pass tests... and this worries me.
When I returned to E2 after the long weekend, I founbd a /msg from a noder telling me my writeup for Satanism made "no sense". Joy. Naturally I fretted about it the rest of the day, because my Christian nodes are the ones that mean the most to me, are the hardest to write, and are the most likely to provoke criticism. If I can do the topic justice then I'm not worried about the criticism, but if they make no sense, then I might as well have stayed home.

So I composed a reply and was about to node it, but then stopped to consider whether I wanted to kick off another Quiz-vs.-MoJoe type debate. Just imagining it made me feel bored and tired, so I got his email address and sent it this morning. Pity, though - I could use the node count.

I've been unaccountably anxious about work ever since I got back. It feels like The Dread is stirring in me again, and I don't know why. I actually resorted to taking St. John's Wort yesterday and today; with my luck it'll have the effect of making me unfocused, unmotivated, and forgetful and then I'll have some real worries. I've also not felt very creative, which bugs me since writing has become fun again and I want to keep it up. I wish I could post a sign in my cubicle reading "DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? THEN WRITE."

When we were in Vegas this weekend (sorry Ed, we really did want to hook up with you and C. but it turned into a whole family thing with much enforced togetherness) we ran into Geoff who asked me "Who are you writing for now?" I loved that he asked me that, and I wish the answer had been someone, anyone.

Blindfolded, alone, my foot steps out and finds no purchase beneath. The hand of my guardian does not contact my shoulder to warn me back, so I swallow my hesitation and fully commit to my choice. Contact. I hit the floor and roll, cold concrete jarring me, and reach to remove the strip of cloth and chastise my guardian for not being there. A voice comes, "Don't even think of taking it off. Go with what you feel. Disoriented, sore, afraid. Now you know it's just you. No one to help you, no one to stop you when you've gone too far. Feel that. Now move."

I reach out, searching, feeling the eyes of my classmates, fearing that they are delighting in the tumble from the stage, feeling what Creon would feel. Paranoia. Trepidation. Uncertainty.

Day two of auditions, and I am working through some experimental character research...I was called back to read for the King of Thebes in Antigone. How intimidating is that? Having read the play a dozen times in the last week, I know what the characters say. Now I begin to explore why they say what they say. I begin to see where each argument is at once right and wrong. It's less a question of who is more correct than who is more passionate.

I like one of my carpool companions, but he irritates me. His latest thing was to spill gasoline in his trunk, and then insist on driving. The first day after the spill I refused. A few days later he wanted to drive, and it didn't seem so bad, but if you sat in the back, whew! I felt both high and sick at the same time.

Then one day we were driving, just the two of us, and it hit me: the reason he bugged me so much is that he is very much like my father. Not in appearance - they don't look anything alike, but in the way he talks, the expressions he uses, the strangely formal and constructed diction he has, the way he repeats himself...

And I should say, my dad died just a few years ago.

So on the way home I just listened to him talk, and half-pretended I was listening to my dad.

"to thine own self be true"

Today, my daughter(H), the vegetarian, told me about a discussion she had with her friend. Friend decided that H was being stupid, idiotic, and just plain wrong. H was an outcast because she chose to be a vegetarian. Everybody ate meat. That is what teeth are for. Everybody thought H was wrong. H would get severely ill and not grow up right. She would be shunned. H should change and do what the rest wanted her to do.

H has been attacked before for her stance. The rest of us in this family eat meat. I don't find it a problem accommodating her values. She became a vegetarian once before when she was 5. It lasted two weeks, that's how long 5 year old convictions last. Now she is 12 and has stood her ground for well over a year. I don't think she is going to change because a friend called her stupid. The thing is, friends have never attacked her before.

When she announced last year that she was giving up meat, her teacher challenged her. He wanted to know why it was so important to her. He gave her all the reasons why a person should eat meat and then sent her to research why a person shouldn't eat meat. She came back to him a week later with all the reasons why she didn't want to eat meat and what she could eat instead. Her class went on a weeklong camping trip shortly after and he tried to tempt her to abandon her ideals. She wouldn't. He was very pleased with her. "Good!", he said, "Now you're ready for whatever anyone has to dish out at you. Stand your ground." (I MISS THAT TEACHER!)

Her friend plummeted her with anti vegetarian rhetoric for a while. H just sat there in the pool (where convo took place) and quietly listened. When her friend was done, she told her she disagreed with her. She wasn't wrong. She wasn't an outcast. Just because she thought different, it didn't mean she was wrong. H told her friend all the reasons why she was vegetarian. She wasn't angry at her friend, just puzzled at the attack now.

Her friend got out of the pool and left her. She said she couldn't be H's friend anymore because H had hurt her feelings by disagreeing and by not giving up her vegetarianism.

I thought for sure that H would be upset about losing a friend over something like this. She wasn't. She wasn't going to apologize to anyone for who she was. "Isn't that what you taught me?" She decided that if her friend couldn't accept her there wasn't much she could do. It wasn't worth changing who she was to suit someone else. She is standing her ground.

One thousand blessings on that teacher for giving her strength of conviction

relief from thoughts of you,
found near a lake
where sometimes centipedes are the only keepers of time.

so many words, written once, & now i am silent amongst the greater wisdom of trees.

is there reason for escaping here, into select atmosphere, that i would fabricate an eulogy equal to your marvelous existence? only 5 lines, and this prologue written in recompense, serve as closing credits to such an extensive drama.

what's required is only a quick death, & this i gladly grant.


someday.. i'll see you. we'll be older, perhaps wiser. these things will be lost in clouded memory. we will see eyes & hands for what they truly are, not what we wished them to be. until then... a final thought:


HERE is found conclusion-
not forgetting,
but accepting those parts of me made present by you
& loving you still,
as though this were never true.


(shouldn't there be more? i was certain there'd be more.. and tears and resistance, raging against the end. somehow, it's troubling that this is so easy, that words are not sharp enough to elicit remorse. but no,, i leave all painful remembrance to fading.)



..thoughts seeming always so much more than reality.

I have become haunted by a realization that I have no friends. That is to say, I am a friend to a lot of people, but I don't think any are a friend to me. I don't feel very well right now...

Do you think about me?

Do you know who I am?

Does my old friend remember me?

I have been consistently avoiding homework for the past several weeks. I have no discipline, I have no incentive, I have no willpower.

But I do have Psalm 102.

Let this be written for a future generation,
that a people not yet created may praise the LORD.

11:03pm

Sara wrote me a short email tonight, it was just to ask where and when we should get together for lunch on friday; but it really feels good to get a spontaneous message from someone I care about without having written her first. I'm happy :)

I paid for my brother to get a membership to the gym tonight. He offered to pay, but I told him that if he just kept his half of the apartment clean that I'd cover the cost for him.

Work was alright today. I got my algorithm tweaked a bit more to get stuff to line up perfectly. Before it was just approximately close. It was close enough before, but I had some free time today since TC wasn't there to give me work to do. I put on my headphones and listened to some hard rock music to keep me going. I always write better code and stay more focused when I'm listening to loud alternative rock style music. Dunno why.

Well, I'm tired but I'm very happy. Gotta get up early tomorrow. I have a dentist appointment at 8. Going to get more cavities filled. This is a good dentist though, the last time I was there (for fillings) it went very well.

It's the day after our Sexual Harassment Training. (I will call it that, dammit.)

Everyone is still jokingly accusing everyone else of harassment. It's lightened up the office, and injected an added dose of humor into our typical lives.

I bet the creators of the program didn't intend that.

Anyway, it was a pretty standard day, and nobody ended up complaining about my Britney Spears stuff I have hanging around my office. I have such good co-workers.

It sure is nice not to have any enemies at work. Well, at least in the city you work. (I have a few choice words for those monkeys in corporate, mind you.)

Speaking of Monkeys, I installed PortaMonkey on my Palm VIIx. He's rockin! I shock him with electricity when he gets busy with his little bunny friend, just for shits and giggles. And speaking of shit, if there's any handy, he'll toss it at my screen if I put him in a dress, shock him, or piss him off in any way. At the moment, he's quite obese. I fed him too many bananas.

He's a good little monkey. I just wish there was a way to spank him...

Lunch Log: Leftover Pizza from Yesterday.

Had a job interview yesterday afternoon. It was at an e-commerce furniture company. I know, I know, internet retail is floundering, and the furniture companies have died. Personally, I would expect that oriental carpets would sell better over the internet than couches and love seats, both models seem to regularly feature going out of business sales as a seasonal promotion. Anyway, I think I deported myself well.

This could be the end of my stint as an unemployed musician, or as I have been describing it, "composer of chamber music". For moral support, I refer myself to the node whoring point.

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