Hi.

You don’t know me... Well, you might, but not under this moniker. I used to hang out here. I used to hang out here a lot really. When I found Everything, I felt like a kid in a candy store. It was... Everything! But then, like Anakin Skywalker, I was lured to the Dark Side. I feel for the trap, I became hooked on the level system, obsessed with karma.

Everything was just a game.

At first I wanted to move up quickly. I wrote and wrote. I noded short nodes and I noded some long ones. Some were good, some were great; most were mediocre, if factual. I noded a lot, I started moving up in the levels. I wasn’t getting much Karma at first though. Then I started cheating. I created some secondary accounts and leveled them up a bit. The extra votes not only eliminated my negatively reputed nodes, but I got some karma out of it everyday. And I voted, oh how I voted! I burned all my votes on all my accounts everyday. It wasn’t easy as I got higher up; try burning hundreds of votes everyday. In the end, it was hard to find things I hadn’t voted on. But I digress. I kept moving up. One of my second accounts achieved ching!’ing power. I started to C! myself. Not everyday, I couldn’t be that obvious.

I was playing a game, and it was one that required not only effort and perseverance, but also stealth.

So I worked and worked. I toiled away day in and day out. Some of my nodes were really quite good. I wrote terrific day logs. And I made it pretty high. I won’t tell you how high, because I don’t want to give away who I am, though I doubt it would matter anyway. Then I got busted. Someone killed a whole slew of my nodes that were cut&paste. I wasn’t annoyed, I wasn’t mad at the editor. In fact I felt almost relieved. She did me a favor. Sometimes I was annoyed at some of the people whom I received messages from, critiquing my nodes for example. I felt indignant since I’d been there longer than some of the editors. But I realized that it wasn’t about that. I was just playing a role that I’d created for myself. I was an everything gamer; no more or less. I never managed to fit into the community that I visited religiously and I realized that that made me sad. I read nodes all the time when not noding myself. I came to feel as if I knew a lot of you. I read about the gatherings, and how you’d get together and have a lot of fun. I saw friendships build up and followed the growth through homenodes. I’d have given anything to “teach” at Yossarian's School of Badassary.

I was jealous.

I was jealous that no one even knew who I was, that I was never invited to the get-togethers. Sad that no one would be my friend, that no one cared that I wrote a pile of nodes. No one cared that I was working up the level system. That didn’t matter. I wasn’t part of the community; a great community filled with incredible and interesting people, a community I’d watch grow from its beginnings years before. I was just an outsider trying to fit in the only way he could think of and generally doing a bad job of it. Anyway, even though I seem to have rambled on a bit, there’s just one thing I wanted to say to everyone

I’m so sorry.
I miss you all, though I’m sure you don’t miss me.

I'm sure this will get nuked, but I just want to say that I'm a newbie, and I was tempted many times to embark on the road you travelled. E2 can be a daunting challenge to those of us that crave attention and fame (just ask Chiisuta about me!) but at the same time, it offers new challenges of creativity and knowledge.

I just wanted to say that, being a newbie, you probably don't know me... but I relate to you, and hopefully that's enough to make you realize that someone here does, in some way, know you.




That was sappy, so now I'm sorry.

We are having an warm spell in the middle of February when it is supposed to be cold. In any case, I was walking home from work when I saw several people's spring flowers were coming up early, only to be frozen in two days when it goes back down to 15F.

February flowers, in splendid blue and gold,
offering forth beauty to be bitten back by cold.

I've about had it with winter, but we're not through with it yet.

I have speant the past few days cleaning out my computer trying to free up some memory, as my C drive is congested as an old man's lungs. Burried amongst old files and forgotten nothings, I found some journal entries I had thought of noding and never did for some reason. After reading them over, I have decided to add them here, where they ultimately belong.

October 10, 2001

... Each day passes more quickly than the last. What seemed like a week has quickly turned into a blur of almost two months, Mondays hazy and Friday nights completely forgotten. Long naps during the quiet afternoons between classes lead to sleepless nights of compulsive laundry sprees, hours spent alone in the room full of big white machines and the never-fading scent of dryer sheets. Just sit under the table, Indian-style in old hospital pants from far off Iowa, T shirt hanging to the knees, reading endless chapters of Buddhist literature, snug amongst the constant whirring of clothes spinning themselves clean to the beat of some unheard music long forgotten as the mind wanders from academic pursuits in favor of that fly sitting on the wall a few feet away. It speeds away, too quickly to be seen by eyes dulled with boredom and aching from the countless pages of information thrust into eager hands. No more quarters left. Time to go to bed.

Today flew by without much time to think about it. I just finished reviewing the events of Monday, but in the meantime Tuesday seems to have come and gone. I got my French test back. It was as I had expected. I feel bad for the other kids in the class; being graded on a curve doesn’t help much when one student gets an A on everything. However, if I had a choice, I would move up three or four semesters to my rightful place when it comes to learning the French language. The department of Romance Languages does not agree, however. I must successfully earn a B or better in at least one semester of University of Michigan French classes before any credit or higher standing will be granted. I can only hope the other students don’t find out who’s messing up the curve.

Wednesday is gone, Thursday is fading. I got another test back, took a few more. My biological anthropology test came back with a grade stamped on it that I was not too excited about. B+. The first step below success, it may as well say D across the front for all to see. I lost thirteen points out of a hundred from various mistakes, most due to my lack of studying prior to the midterm. This was a choice I made and a habit I avoid, so I shouldn’t be surprised at the result. I’m not used to having to study. But five chapters of bio anthro obviously did not have enough time to sink into my simple brain without some help. The days of BS have passed, but it’s for the better. Now I might actually be forced to learn the old fashioned way and not rely on my sponge-like brain absorbency to get by...

November 12, 2001

... I haven’t noded in ages. Or what seems like ages, anyway. I’ve been in this sort of mood lately, a sort of weird state where everything is so irritating and worthless and at the same time the most valuable, precious, coveted jewel in the universe materializes in front of me as a frozen cappuccino for four bucks in between classes. Sitting across from my boyfriend for an hour, at a tiny table, talking about the same stuff. I am annoyed for no reason.

I want to get all As this semester, pull a 4.0 my first year at the University of Michigan. Along with the pressure I put on myself, the old familiar pressure forgotten these past years after I realized high school was a joke, the pressure that drove me insane… along with that, the other stuff has resurfaced in full force. The thought goes through my head, I want perfect grades, I want perfect grades, I was perfect grades, and when it doesn’t happen – for example, the B+ I got on my last biological anthropology midterm - the reason has nothing to do with my incomprehensible stupidity and inability to succeed, but the grades won’t be there until I am perfect. And we all know what that means.

So I didn’t eat anything yesterday. I didn’t tell anyone. I lied about it. Now I admit it openly. I feel pride. I haven’t gone a day without eating in a while, it makes me feel powerful and beautiful, purified. But the times comes when I take the first bite after a fast, the bite that destroys the building perfection and inhuman capabilities of my body to resist what most people cannot go more than an hour without indulging in. Today it was pancakes, my favorite food. Every food is my favorite when I’m not allowed to eat. I had six pancakes, unusual for me. I can usually eat a dozen, and then be hungry in an hour or two. Guess you could say I’ve conditioned myself over the past few years to contain maximum amounts of food in my stomach at one time. But it seems to be a fickle trait, coming and going without warning or consistency. Some days I can eat like a pig and a half, feel fine, whatever. Then there are days that I have no appetite, food looks repulsive, and I hate myself.

All of this comes from my desire to succeed at basic things in my life. Instead of worrying about something I obviously suck at controlling, such as my grades, I turn to the ridiculous idea that if I can just control how I look, everything else will fall into place. I just need to keep telling myself how stupid that is. How stupid I can be. How stupid I am right now.

I am not fat. I am not unintelligent. But sometimes I act like a moron and think like a child. I’m working on it.

I heard from dustfromamoth last week, I e-mailed her to see where she has been. Her writeups were always like diamonds in the nodegel. A lot of them are gone now, along with the author. I miss them both. Sometimes, even though you don’t always speak with a noder, you feel a connection that goes beyond words, a sort of unspoken camaraderie. You don’t even realize it most of the time until the person with whom you are connected to unfortunately disappears. Sometimes they disappear for good, other times you run into them after a while and catch up on old times. Lost time.

I only want to be free from stress, happy without worries, living in a world without mirrors and devoid of… I don’t even know. I’m not going to node this...

My birthday came and went this year, the twenty third here and gone again. My mom gave me a bag full of the cutest Hello Kitty knick knacks, bought from a Sanrio outlet store in North Carolina while she was at a business meeting about a month ago. I was astonished by the quantity but pleased by the choices she made. She managed to pick just what I imagine I would have chosen, had I been there (and thank god I was not there, or the store would have ran out of merchandise). I am now the owner of

  • Hello Kitty blue angel playing cards
  • Hello Kitty paper
  • a large Hello Kitty doll wearing a flowered dress with an enormous head on her shoulders
  • three snap-together containers featuring Hello Kitty and friends
  • a H.K. lunch box (#4 in my collection)
  • a pair of pink and red socks with "Hello Kitty" written on them in puffy pink letters (somewhat over he top, even in my opinion)
  • H.K. nailclippers
Mom and dad also presented me with a tiny mp3 player, which I have yet to discover the intricate workings of. I've speant the past few days downloading songs like mad in order to use up the memory on the extra disks they gave me. This is also another reason for the cleanup I mentioned earlier, although it appears to be a futile effort. I can always use the extra 5 gigs on my D drive, although I can't seem to make myself pollute its purity.

IndefiniteArticle: don't go. Come back. Start a new account. Write more nodes. We need more noders. Not until all the knowledge under the sun has been noded will we be happy. We don't care that you "cheated". It's not a game; you put in a lot of effort, and you deserve some credit for that. So what if you moved up levels while the rest of us didn't? If we never thought of it as a game ourselves, would we care at all? I don't think so. True, most of us try to see xp and levels as secondary at best, but we're all guilty of that little rush of factual nodes when we're just 5 w/u's away from the next level, aren't we? Not that there's anything wrong with factual nodes, but really, would you have written them if it was 50 nodes to level 4, and not 5? So don't leave. Stay with us, just try to play by the rules this time.

For You Know Who,

I hope you have found what you are looking for.

Once again, I am hung over. That's not to brag or boast like some fratboy...it's not a badge of honour. It's actually really lame.

Why do consequences erase themselves from your memory time after time after time?

The impulse is just too strong. That goes for a lot of things too, not just booze. It's the way I interact with people. It's like a well worn path that's just so comfortable to walk upon that I don't want to think about going about things any differently.

(It's the certainty that attracts us)

Why not be the same for your whole life? It's better than being scared all the time. You have to know who you are, right? As long as you have your own identity's parameters are defined by your activities then you're doing ok.

right?

How smart are we? Very smart.

I remembered this one time, when I had this thought. Before I could comprehend it, it was replaced with my own voice thinking at me "This thought is too big to be contained in this universe." Odd.

"...he cursed the hour that gave birth to him."-Dead Can Dance

A solitary spectator in this life..

Things are approaching clarity..I shall stay here until June, this quiet apartment in the suburbs of NYC. My inherited and transformed computer, my dusty books and unfinished paintings, all of it, lay in waiting.

Plans have been made, changed, and cast aside..all without meaning, powerless in their death as they were in the making-the facts remain.

There is only Me

only me.

What can I say? I got up this morning in a really cheery mood, everything was going great, EVERYTHING! The whole day was being wonderful UNTIL!!!!

I can be quoted as having a bad temper and hold grudges for a long time. And this time it really wasn't the person's fault, but I'm just so bloody pissed off. And when I got home I picked up the phone to call a friend and realized that the buttons are making different sounds. The pitch is different and this had made me even angrier. My roommate has been using my phone, he never uses his own because it doesn't work, it makes a fuzzy noise, he could've brought it back on the first day he got it but he never did so he always takes mine out of my room and never puts it back in. Of course over Reading Break I wasn't home. He never put it back on the recharger as I pick it up to use it, it beeps telling me it's running low on batteries. That has never happened to me before since I use the phone a lot and never put it back it has never beeped on me. But that's not what made me angry. And my phone is getting dirtier and dirtier never cleans it.

I was sooo happy today, I just have a bad temper. I get coffee, the long awaited coffee that I have been craving for since morning. I get a venti iced chai at starbucks at school right after visiting Sofie, it's a long walk I speed walk to meet up with Nici, I get it. speed walk back to the chan center for film class so we won't be late. I have barely drunken anything from it like it's still full. Just a cm drunken from the top. I put it down on one of those tables on those chairs and go to the washroom. My friend comes in when I come out she tells me. "Someone spilled your coffee". Just made me so bloody angry!!!!!!!! God so I was outside of the room jumping up and down in utter frustration, I didn't care that there were still people coming in. You know how expensive they are and I'm broke right? Well I go in and the girl is cleaning it up and my friend comes in cleaning it up. The girl is like I'll buy you another one I feel so bad. And I'm like no it's okay because you know it was an accident her backpack hit it. I just acted really nice and smiled the whole time. Nici who isn't even in the class noticed that I was mad because I don't usually smile at all and she even started cleaning which she really didn't have to do and she ended up going out of the room and throwing out all of the paper towels. I got angry and took one and wiped the floor clean too saying I think it's Clean NOW. I was also mad because it got all over my backpack which I just washed because fucking Gatorade was spilled all over it too!

But OH MY GOD I'm so pissed and now just picking up my phone and hearing the different tone for my phone makes me angry. My roommate should use his own fucking phone even if it doesn't work he bought the fucking thing my phone is like getting dirtier and stuff because he keeps using it, when I was away he just took it out of my room and didn't put it back. I'm so pissed!

Yes this is a rant, I'm sorry. But I have to vent it to get rid of it, since there isn't anything for me to physically destroy at the moment that I won't get into too much trouble over.

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