January 18, 2002

This node has no entry of naked women or perky bosoms. It's boring, simple, and straight to the point. If you are looking for a good time, try the Independent Love Recreation Center down the street.

I haven't been noding long (or well for that matter) on e2. Personally I've found that within the last week or so, I've started to eat, drink and speak in terms of how long I've been away, and how soon I'll be able to get back to e2.

Addiction to anything is bad: drugs, alcohol, the internet, religion.

I wake up every weekday morning at the screaming of a $5 alarm clock letting me know it's 6.10am. I roll out of bed (literally) and haul my ass down stairs to log into my e2 account to see how much XP I've lost since going to bed ~5 hours earlier. It's usually around then I smile at my blessed nodes, and curse the damned.

It's become so horrible that even my current significant other has started to get sucked into the spinning whirlwind of 0's and 1's that is everything2. She doesn't just skim it, she misses sleeping all together to read nodes, and she still hasn't created an account...

My studies have already started to suffer, I'm pretty sure I failed that recursion test because I was too busy writing cout statements exclaiming why we should have an English class on the proper form of Node Notching. I also find the reading of MacBeth boring, because I can't softlink to other Shakespeare writings.

I guess the point of the node is, don't get sucked into e2. It's wonderful, it's great, but don't be like me. Don't lose your life savings betting on the outcome of a node's vote level.

...I had dreams once, but I lost them when my Dream Log didn't save right...

I stand on the verge, and hesitate.

Today I was quite suprised to see cool man eddie in my chatterbox /MSGs. It seems that people liked my daylog yesterday. But it puts me in a strange situation.

I am level one. I have 24 WUs as of this one. I felt that the node that would (hopefully) bring me up from the bottom would be remarkable, but here I am writing another daylog. *sigh* oh well.

I look back upon when I first started noding; I had no clue what I was getting myself into, almost nine months ago. I suppose I am a slow learner of some things, and I definitely took my time in catching on to the ins and outs of this rather unique place.

It was at first an annoyance, then a hobby, then a hobby and annoyance, an obsession, and finally has become what I think it is meant to be; a learning experience. I have taught myself how to adapt much of my knowledge for public consumption. I have learned many things; useful and useless, obvious and obscure. But most importantly of all, I have learned that I know very little, just like everyone else.

I suppose that, in the end, lack of knowledge is what it's all about.

Who am I?
I can ask myself that millions of times, looking at what I think other people might think of me... but the answers allways have nothing to do with me.

I listen to punk rock, but I'm not a punk... I skate, but not enough to be good at it, I'm a geek, but I'm not trendy enough to keep up on news... I don't really care what you want to call me, or say about me... there's only one person who it matters to me what they think, but how do I know if they care?

Am I just being used? I have no way of telling... I love her so much, but this sucks. I'm sick of having to go searching for her and follow her around because she'd never do either for me.

I'm sick of her being so damned beautiful.

I want to know everything about her, I'm so interested in whatever she says, but does she care about me? I look around, see other couples cuddling, so happy to be together... are we that way? or am I giving her my atention, just to be ignored?

I know I look whipped.. I guess I am, but it doesn't matter cause I'd gladly do anything for her, I don't care what I look like to others... she's still the one that matters.

But I don't know if she knows that.

What are these sticks, squares and packets? Are Americans not familiar with the simple idea of objective measurements? I can convert ounces to grammes, but how the hell am I going to find out how much is in a stick of commercial American butter? Oh and by the way, do they not know that it's a solid and therefore shouldn't be measured in cups, either?

They say that recipes are the most searched on item on the web after porn. Well I don't know how anybody can cook anything from the quantities and instructions provided above. Never before has chocolate cake afforded me so much aggro!

Outside it is, indeed, America.

What kind of life do I lead when the reason I can't sleep at night is because I'm not that good at math?

I'm trying to decide if I should drop a math class. It's an elective that I don't need to graduate. Doing the work for the class takes more time than I think it is worth, and I'm not doing that well. Though the class is interesting, learning the material (if I can) will not change my life in any major way. The most I can get out of the course is a slightly more analytical mind, and a few tricks for solving physics problems.

Almost every time I doubt my ability or desire to follow my dream of being a physicist it is because I am having trouble with math. At first I thought it was because I had not learned enough math to be able to do my physics homework. I am starting to realize, however, that the problem is more fundamental than that. I know a lot of math. It is the purely analytical nature of the subject that I have trouble with. I usually do not care about proofs or derivations of theorems or formulae. This is a problem.

If I do not care about how the very basis of physics works, then I do not care enough about physics. Not enough to go to graduate school. Not enough to spend my life thinking about it.

Thoughts like these used to make me physically ill. Now they only keep me up at night.

I'm dropping the class.

(Sorry if this was boring, but I really need to get to sleep.)

Well, I'm teaching again today.... The class I teach is called Computer Applications, but instead it should be called Keyboarding or Learn to Type because that's what the students are doing. It's wierd, computer applications on an Apple.... isn't that an oxymoron? I just don't get it. These computers are slow, they crash all the time or sometimes just randomly freeze. And don't get me started on this school's network. Nothing like run Novell on a bunch of Mac's. Oh well, it just makes the students frustrated because nothing works right. what a way to teach Technology to the students. In fact, the Technology teachers do not know much besides Apple, the technology they use is mostly PowerPoint or editing a video or producing the schools News program.

Its interesting, another school that I sub for, really gets technology. They have several levels of classes that a student can take. Everything from Desktop Publishing to Cisco Network Academy classes that teach the material for the CCNA exam. Now thats how it should be done.

Today was bad….

I cut myself, worse than ever before. I didn’t mean to do it I just did it. Okay I realize this needs some explanation so with the worst part of my day out there let me tell you how today went.

I slept about 2 hours. Then I had to get up and go to the psychiatrist. She gave me Paxil and an anti-psychotic that I’ve never heard of before. I start taking them tomorrow.

A friend I thought I’d lost forever talked to me. I IM’d her cause I was desperate and scared cause of the cut. My mother and step-dad weren’t home and it was just me and the kids. I thought for sure I was gonna pass out. It was good to talk to her. I know she is ok.

I picked my sister up from school and took her to grandma’s house. My brother had a minimum day so my grandma already had him there because she picked him up while my mom went to the stupid appoinment with me. Once I got rid of the kid I went to Target to buy the kids their birthday presents. Their party is tonight. I bought them each a CD. I got my sister What’s going On and my brother a Radio Disney cd. Then I went to the 99 cent store and bought them some candy. While I was there I bought myself razor blades. This is bad.

I had the blade in my pocket this evening. The kids were playing and getting ready for bed. (The kids are my now 11 year old brother and my almost 13 year old sister). Well anyway, I went to the bathroom and I didn’t mean to do it. Didn’t know I was going to do it. Suddenly I saw a blade go on my skin and the skin just kind of split and spread apart and blood. It’s worse than anything I’ve done before. It probably should have stitches. The problem is if my family finds out I cut again I end up in a mental hospital. I can’t right now. I have the online class to pass. It just wouldn’t help me to go there yet again. I cleaned it. I put hydrogen peroxide on it. And I took a paper towel and mailing tape and tried to tape it tight so it wasn’t like spread as far. It hurts a lot. It’s hard to walk.

Here’s the scary part though. I don’t know why I did it. Usually I cut for a reason, though that reason is not always the same reason. I am scared. I don’t know exactly what I am scared of but I am scared.

This week has been hell. Its just one of those weeks I should have spent in bed. Monday was bill day, and that's never a good way to start a week. Tuesday I was accused of lying over something absolutly stupid. Wednesday was ruined no thanks to my mood over the 2 previous days. Thursday it all blew up.

I went to my boyfriends work to pick him up, since his car is being fixed. No big deal, just normal everyday stuff. I logged onto my AOL instant messanger from his desk. Ok, yes I do have a lot of people on my list, and yes, most of them are male. But most of them I just talk to maybe once a week, and some even not that often. This upset my boyfriend, and in a way, I do understand why. He made a comment to the affect of "Wouldn't it be funny if I logged on and people started 'sex talking' me?" Ouch. This one hurt. I lashed back with "Well is that what you plan on doing?!?" Silence. Silence untill we left his work and got into the car.

I asked him why he didn't trust me. I didn't understand, I was confused, hurt, and I knew he was hurt as well. I wanted to understand what he was thinking and why he felt as he did. I know he has been shit on in the past, and I sort of understand his trust issues. Sort of. He admited he was controling, and I told him I wanted to help, and work through whatever it was. After some more talking, we both started to feel better.

This is going in a good direction I think. I feel we communicated well, and that things are looking up. Also, it helps that tomorrow its Saturday. Next week should be better, and our relationship already is better. Sure, we have a few kinks to work out, but who doesn't? I know he loves me, and I love him, and we are willing to work together. Plus, we make a great team.

In loving memory of
Paul Vernon Stuart
who died aged 45 years on
4th January, 2002

The closing prayer will be read by Thomas Stuart (nephew).

With confidence that you are at Peace, and

He led an amazing life, and his cultural and spiritual awareness far surpassed my own. He was a student, as in every other circle, of religion, and far more likely to have the answers. All the same, I can't help feeling that he had something fundamentally wrong in his beliefs that I can't quite hold down.

I believe that he sought God; whether or not he found whom he sought is beyond my faith.

In honour of your life amongst us

I'm talking to a man I barely knew, with whom I was often angry, or bitter for his long absences and distant manner when I was with him. Perhaps he was afraid of my potential homophobia, perhaps he just didn't want to talk. All the same, I can't help thinking back to the one time I ever saw him angry - with me as a child because I wanted to play Monopoly.

We give you thanks Paul (Ananda) for:

Bliss, your Indian name. Bliss, but I can't feel bliss as I read this. I know that afterwards, everyone will congratulate me on my reading, but I'm not doing this for plaudits. I'm doing this to show myself that I can feel. I'm not convinced.

Your love as a son, brother, companion and uncle

I can just see my grandmother gently weeping down there. Another uncle who couldn't come to terms with your condition is staring at your coffin, full of regret for missed oppurtunities. On the right, the one who wrote this is clutching his handkerchief like a lifeline. I am not moved.

Your faithful friendship

Another friend stands up to play a wooden flute for you. You never told me about this life of yours, but I must now celebrate it in your death rites.

Your caring heart

I look up again. Many identify with this. I have vague memories of your concern for me and my family, and am comfortable saying this.

Your generous face

As a child, I always looked upon your gifts of classic books as rather cheap, thoughtless even. Only now do I realise that they were the most valuable I ever received. I only wish you could see my appreciation for them now.

Your integrity of person

You never gave up, you always stood up for what you thought was right. Even to the end you stood up for yourself. You are the bravest of us all, and I thank you for that.

Your creative talent

On the wall hangs a mysterious picture of a fantastic castle, with a sentient ram creature looking down on it as an army pours into it. It holds the attention like a great orator, and I find it hard to look away.

Your adventurous spirit

You once took me to a Hindu temple and showed me a banquet. The flavours were so intense that I remember them still, like the musty smell in a grandparent's house or a first kiss. If it weren't for you, I would never have used a bidet.

Your healing hands

Fortunately, I never needed treatment from you, but your work in your ashram has left me fascinated and convinced by the concept that massaging one part of the body might help another.

Your warm embrace

How could I forget it? I only wish I could have felt it more often. Instead I will do the next best thing and try to pass on my own imitation, however inadequate.

In joy, may those who precede you in death greet you in new life

I remember reading correspondance between you and my late grandfather in Denmark. I only stole a few glances, but I grasped immediately that you were kindred spirits. May you meet in the next life and be my guardians in this dark world.

In celebration, may the angels of the dance accompany you along happy paths

You always did love music on this earth. May you discover a perfect kind of music, untainted by the air of this world, and may it fill your ears as you look back at us, making our ways toward you.

In Peace, may the great spirit of Divine Love

Our time together is drawing to a close. The music has begun, everyone is standing.

Embrace you

A man in black walks solemnly up the aisle. My legs are shaking - I never knew it would be this hard.

Hold you

The curtain begins to close. I feel my eye prick with a tear.

and Keep you as His own forever

Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Amen

So you can feel, after all.

Well, THis is the second day log of today, only because the first one I didn't post correctly and was eaten up by the god of Everything2. *sigh*, well, most of them are garbage anyways. And eventually this node will too. It will dwindle into chatters of nothingless and how my life is just as pathetic as the one next to me. Sure, I have a car, but I don't own a house. I have a girlfriend, but I'm not married. I have a college degree, but I didn't even have a Master of Anything-crap or a Doctorate of Everything-Technical. After thinking a bit more, what's the point?

Event as I contemplate the pathetic tendancy of life, as everyone else on Earth does. I stumbled on something pretty miraclous. You know when people say when you die, you'll go to heaven or hell? And then there are people who said that when you die, you just....die. Like pieces of paper ready to be recycled again. Altough I myself know nothing about the afterlife, by the fact that I've never been there. I have read about literatures of dead people. Yes, well, not the ones that people wrote before they die, rather, they are literatures that people wrote after they die. In fact, they wrote thousands of pages in the hopes that people on earth will listen to their wisdom. They only yearn for the hope that we, as living beings, would one day realize our faults and frailties and eventually turn to living, meaningul spirits filled with God's Divine Love. I said to myself, that could be just it! The Eureka of life. The Treasure that everyone has been hoping for in spite of the monotony of everyday events and the pathetic life that all of us has been living. This, in a sense, the second coming of Jesus Christ. Well, what took *him* so long?

Becoming one of the divine is no easy feat. In fact, one would say that, if you really did got the divine love, everything on earth would be plan pathetic. You will see everyone is as pathetic as a slug. You see people craze over football, drugs, sex, music, even going to church. You almost want to ask them why would they cheer over a guy who can grab a football all the way to the finish line? Or why would you squander all your life savings for a sniff of crack? Why would you sit in front of TV jacking off to people having sex?

But the worst of it all, is to see people forcing themselves to church because they are convinced that they will have a place in Heaven just because they go to church, observe the communion, or pay their tithes on a regular basis. What was also worse, was that speakers' sermon is no longer what they want to write, but what people want to hear in their congregation. For a long time no preacher have said, "you all lazy Christians! Go pray and serve the lord your God!" Instead, most of them used materials spread over the internet, and use stories in the News, trying to form a moral value on things no longer have any meaning. And then what if the preacher has something good to say? well, listeners would fall asleep and doze off. It's as if churches around the world are becoming gossip centers and rumor headquarters. Such is the woe of this world.

I've read that to become divine you would need to pray to God for his Divine Love. Depending on how sincere your prayers are, you might, just one day, receive the infinite, powerful Divine Love in abundance. And then you will be one of the most content people in the world. You would then see the world again, with light in your heart, wisdom from above, and feel sad for those around you that have refused your heed.

a friendly note to bluebird_is_sad:
when i was younger and less well-tempered, sometimes i would watch myself do things i never would have done. it's really bizarre to watch my own hands with wary anticipation...i hurt a few other people fairly severely. i don't know if it will be at all useful to you, but here's what finally made it stop...as weird as it sounds, i trained myself into a sort of self-induced nullstate from which i could do nothing but stare until the urges passed. it's largely a matter of convincing your muscles to stop paying attention to your brain for a few minutes. ...like i said, it's weird, and i don't know if it will work for anyone else, but if you're that close to being institutionalised, it might be worth a try.

scene: a narrow half-cubicle. lush :: ladykillers plays in the background. printouts of html and perl litter the desk. a short girl in purple bdu's and a leather cowboy hat types frantically with one hand, while her other hand dials and redials the phone. in every call she asks the same question and marks another name off a list in one of the many printouts.

so, i'm sitting at werk, listening to lush and jesus & mary chain, with one ear to the phone, and both hands on the keyboard. i'm making adjustments to two forms that the university uses to track information about the graduation ceremonies. we recently changed our strategy for data acquisition, storage, and manipulation, so of course, it falls to me to make all the adjustments. i was never very good at writing procedural revisions, but my <self-taunt> mad html skillz</self-taunt> have yet to fail me.

last night i lost my shit. i was dancing to some generic club track, ignoring the swelling in my still-broken foot, when suddenly i was totally alone. not in any physical sense, mind you, but there was a crushing feeling of loss, and i staggered. my head felt muffled, but everything had nice sharp edges. crash found me staring blankly and i followed him back to the bar, where i ran into the princess. princess bought me a drink, and comiserated. i made a decision, then. i needed to not be alone, but i needed to be with someone i would never wind up in bed with, under any circumstances. princess and i would go back to my place and drink ourselves stupid. so, i went back out to apologise to salem, who i would not be leaving with, but as i walked up, i got distracted...the oupyr was dancing shirtless. i couldn't think anymore. it was a waste of my time and effort to try. it was one of those songs during which people dance like they're trying to kill something, and i could envision him centuries ago, fighting turks in romania. hopeless romantic? yes. the music stopped after one more song, which i couldn't resist dancing to, and i grabbed my coat and fled. but not before i found salem, and properly apologised. we were nose to nose, which took considerable leaning over on his part, and i discovered one of the noble truths of the universe, which i'd been hoping wasn't true. "three more words, and then i have to go," i said. "sure thing," he said. i leaned forward and whispered in his ear. "i love you." i said, and i turned on my heel, and calmly walked out into the cold.

tonight, i have to be ok. i have to go forth and be storyteller, and make my players either happy or afraid, and hopefully both. tonight, i may have to watch niall get his face bashed in by a very angry goth girl, whose husband has been slandered. but, you know, it's not my problem, and it's not my fault. i just have to go forth and play well. you're thinking i should warn him in some way. she thought so, too. no, not this time. this time, i'm upset, and i think he should find his own way ot of this one.

goodnight, goodnight! parting is such sweet sorrow, that i should say goodnight 'til it be 'morrow...

I am sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office, about 30 seconds away from diving through that plate-glass window for fear of the dreaded penis exam. Oh this visit started out innocent enough... just a simple medical clearance to go to the gym. But in the meantime, I developed a rather unmentionable problem. Being the naive subject i am, i look up the treatment on the Internet.

And that's where I find the Penis Exam.

Basically what it consists of is shoving a Q-tip up your urethra 3/4 of an inch and rotating the blasted thing. As if this were somehow not enough they yank the damned thing back out.

Common side effects include minor discomfort (not unlike having a minor portion of your eyeball removed) and passing out. It seems there is a nerve in your wang that, when hit, makes you pass out. Now one can obviously see the benefits of having such a device, but I, for one plan on passing out long before the nerve is hit. "You may experience some minor discomfort," the doctor will note. "Thud," my now quite lifeless body will interject as I fall face first into the nearest sharps container.

Of course let it be known that nobody has -actually- said that this test will be performed. But that's certainly not consoling the "time to freak the hell out" portion of my brain. A portion, it seems, that appears to be doubling in size every second. It will soon escape the confines of my skull and run off to terrorize the city. Of course it will be my responsibility to chase after and subdue it, which may cause me to miss this doctor's appointment.