Well my new bed worked well, very well. (I slept until 2pm). No loss, since Boston has forgotten that it is summer. Instead, we're faced with bleak, dark, cold weather. I miss Texas weather. The people I know down there are complaining about the heat, but I would love to trade places.

Bills were fun to pay, as usual. Sprint is a pain in the butt, I got a bill for $1.03 this month. I wish they all let you pay on the web. It might help me with my lack of organization.

Speaking of organization, I'm enjoying the new Handspring Visor (a silver Edge) that my company bought me (everyone on my team got one...some people chose the color model, but I went with coworker bingeldac and went for the thin model. I find myself actually being able to keep track of appointments, check lists, etc. I also enjoy the games, it makes for a much more interesting ride on the T. One day, I even did a little work on the train ride. Most days, however, I just play Yatzee or this other cool geography game where you play name-that-city (you get multiple choices). I do okay and get about 80% correct.

Random thoughts? You bet. Work is the only constant right now in my life....everything is scattered.

Well, 4 days into my Independence Day resolution to stop drinking (July 4, 2001) and surprisingly, I am still going strong. I won't say that I don't feel like a drink, but at least I don't have to tie myself to the fridge to stop from running to the liquor store. I'm drinking gallons of water, trying to flush my system clean. All in all, I don't feel too bad.

The weekend has been relaxing, if nothing else. About the most exciting thing was a walk around the neighborhood with my girlfriend and doing some shopping. Apart from that, I finished reading "The Phoenix Guards" by Steven Brust and watched some TV, and played the Discworld MUD for several hours. Escapism rocks.

I bought 5 or 6 kinds of good cheeses and have been nibbling on them continuously. Havarti cheese is delicious.

I am trying to decide whether I should take a mild sleeping aid tonight. I suffer from bouts of insomnia, and for some reason it's always worst on Sunday nights - plus, I am not drinking a nightcap... There's nothing worse than a Monday after a sleepless night, so I may just make it a bit easier on myself and have some NyQuil.

Happy thought of the day: "Evolution isn't over." (from "Naked", directed by the brilliant Mike Leigh)

My God. I've got to get back into this shit.

As I've explained to a few of you in order to explain my lack of message-responding abilities, I've been living in the Canadian woods for the past two months planting trees. I really have. It comes out sounding like a joke when I first say it, but it's probably the truest thing I've ever done.

So now I'm back in the city. Well, two cities, really. To be honest, I can't make up my mind between the two of them. It's like trying to pick a favorite CD. There's so many memories attached to each, so much background waiting for me when I come home, so much to live inside. For now, going back and forth seems to be the dominating theme in my life. Between cities, between jobs, between men. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be mature enough to make up my mind. But that just wouldn't be as much fun, now, would it? :)

Today I got in my first car wreck. I slammed my '95 Dodge Spirit in to the back of a 2001 Mitsubishi SUV. It was my fault, and an accident. I had a bad day, and by the time I was driving home my mind was on anything but driving home. I was lost in my own world when I notice the car in front of me is going to turn. My judgement is apparently off because when I turned my blinker on to go around them, they slow down almost to a stop and 30 seconds of squealing brakes and crushing metal later, the right front end of my car is caved in and the hood is scrunched like an accordian (there goes the radiator). Meanwhile, the Mitsubishi SUV barely has a dented bumper and scratched paint.

Atleast the airbag didn't inflate. That's $1000 right there.

After the initial shock, I got out of the car and walked my shaky legs up to the SUV and asked if they were OK. I was extremely lucky, because they ended up being nice people. They were fine. I have bruises where the seatbelt was, otherwise I'm fine. If there's any advice I can give, it's most definitely to wear your seatbelt. If I hadn't had mine, there's no doubt I would have hit the windshield and gotten much worse injuries. .

The cops were called, information was taken, a tow truck showed up, and I went home to my apt to wait for the tow truck to get there. They charged $46 dollars for what amounted to about a mile drive. Bastards....

When it was all over, I went inside, downed a shot of Southern Comfort to calm down, and called my boyfriend for the sake of support. I have yet to call insurance because I don't want to see my rate go up (Denial strikes again), but everything (except my car) turned out to be alright.

Life is so strange. The more I think about it the stranger it gets. Saturday I had to work from 11 - 7. It wasn't so bad, and not too many people were in the mood for a pretzel. Sometime after 2pm this boy came up to buy a lemonade. He gave my manager an envelope with my name on it. She asked me if I knew who he was, and I had no idea. I opened the envelope. Inside was a note with a hand drawn picture of a rose in a vase. I was stunned, but even more stunned after I finished the letter. The boy said he thought I was super lovely. He's only seen me, in my Pretzel Time shirt at the mall with my hair in pigtails, and he thinks I'm "super lovely." It was so nice; it made me smile like an idiot. At the bottom of the note he had written his phone number and his email address. Not being very big on calling people I dont' know, I sent him an email. He replied with this huge long email, but it was so amazing. He said that he had seen me in the mall, and I had smiled at him. That smile was so warm and magnetic he had come to see who I was, but by the time he left the store he was in I was gone. Then he came to buy pretzels with his friend and there I was. He said he thought about me all week, and even came to the mall almost everyday just to see if I was there. I never thought anyone could just see me, and think I was wonderful. I don't know what to think, but it's nice to know that someone who doesn't even know me is thinking about me.

10:20

The end of the last week: Well, I went to Kuhmo for the weekend, I bought new headphones and a portable CD player...

...and in Kuhmo I noticed the sound output from my new, cool Commodore 64 had not died, but someone (read: my father) had connected the sound plug to wrong connector in the monitor. I played The Train. I'm considering getting Microsoft Train Simulator, though I suspect that one doesn't have machinegunning in the stations, gun boats by the bridges, broken tracks or attack airplanes. C64 games rock... =)

Er... well, more stuff to come. Today, I'm supposed to work, and get some more CDs from post office.

(Oh yeah, my new DVDs, not sure if I mentioned these: Rukajärven Tie, Total Recall, eXistenZ. I got the latter two on the same day. Do I see the genre of "philosophical action movie" emerging? =)

00:14

This is what I would call a randomly boring day.

Went to pick up a package from post office. While I was there, it rained. (The rest of the day's weather was fine.) Net result? One of the CDs I had ordered had come. Tomorrow, I guess I need to go to the post office again to pick up my new Palm cover.

I bashed through the Usenet (everything for 3 days). Posted 13 articles. Remarkable.

A cool episode in ExtremeDuudsonit. People shot each other with fireworks. Looked pretty cool, but it seems there's no bounds for the exxxxxtremity of some people. =)

Two nodes got nuked. One mistaken for website (comp.graphics.apps.gimp - now what the heck do I need to call that, then? "The GIMP Newsgroup"?), another when the whole node, for no apparent reason, vanished (FAS - there goes a small piece of Finnish computer history. Don't blame me if no one ever told me more than what I wrote...)


Stuff To Come...

i'm deathly afraid i'm losing my girlfriend of 2+ years =(

It seems like everything i do, we just go farther apart, or right when seem to be coming back together, we fall further away...
tried to save myself, but myself kept slipping...

we still love being around each other, how we make each other feel, but something is wrong...i can't put my finger on it, but i have an idea...
I was wondering about how to 'advertise' this project, so to speak, considering it was nuked (grrr@Klaproth) and rests now only in my homenode, and then i realised I can put it in a daylog, like all the other poor nuked souls do :) So, read, and learn:

The Most Dazzling e2 Journal Project

Oh ye olde noders. Come hither. Pronto bambino.
I have a proposition for ye all. (alright enough funny talk).
I, dustfromamoth will procure a Notebook, it might be bare, it might be swanky and lavish and adorned with peacocks and paperclips, either way, it will be in existence, and I want you to add to it, all of you.

Every

single

NODER!


I figure once it’s all completed I shall find some way to circulate it so that we may all see the shockspasm results. I’ll upload .jpeg images to a website. I can node all the entries of the Most Dazzling e2 Journal for all to see.

Backers, do I see any backers? Does anybody have a crumb of vision, does anybody see how dreamy this might be?
It makes me swoon to be sure. Ah, the possibilities!! The diaphanous potential, my dears! The humanity!

/msg me, email me, whatever really, I shall create a list of all you funky noders in agreeance, so you may all see in what order ye shall receive:)23 noders are on the list thus far:


Update:
I have been consorting with such individuals as pukesick and s/a/b and it has come to my attention that perhaps submitting individual pages might be better, as i can then make duplicates for every noder involved to keep. If anybody has any ideas about this, /msg me, won't you. I was considering sizes of the paper.. A4 is the most standard but perhaps too cumbersome.. A5? That's an A4 sheet folded in half, dolls.



Things happen when my brother visits. A few years ago his visit was the falling domino that led to a logical sequence of events. Those events have played a major role in shaping the world I live in now.

He arrived on Thursday bearing a hold-all. On Saturday morning we excitedly dashed to South Park to witness the Radiohead extravaganza. The Rock of Travolta played the biggest gig of their career as the first support band. Sigur Ros wailed, Supergrass rocked and Beck warbled.

It was during a long wait for crepes that the space-time continuum threw up an anomaly. There she was, queueing nearby. She was with another guy and her hair was curled like it was when I saw her last. Was it really her? Or a doppelganger? I didn't say hello. I prefer to let that alternate universe play itself out uninterrupted.

Radiohead played a blistering two hour set. Thom cajoled the audience to greater fervour. During the encore, when the heavens opened, they blessed us with a stunning rendition of their hit 'Creep'.

Thousands poured out of the park and a couple of hours later the sodden streets of Oxford sank into quietness once more.

monday

It's back. Yes MONDAY.
You hear it coming from the initial click of the alarm before the abrasive bleating.
You feel it creep up as your lovely and you cuddle for the few minutes of snooze the selfish clock gives you.
You see it in the corner of your eye as you scramble to find your socks/shoes/keys/wallet before you are too late for work.
You taste it in your flat Coke from McDonalds after they get your Number 5 with a medium Coke order wrong again.
You can smell it in the warm asphalt as the day is already HOT before 9AM.
And then...
You misery is completed by your project manager stopping by and saying "Thank god it's a weekday."

I wanna go home.

The weekend was filled with love, joy, sex, music and the random beating or two. Sitting outside till late smoking with friends just talking. Waking up between two beautiful women. Falling asleep in your girls arms only to wake with them wrapped tight around you. Skinny dipping in a COLD pool. Getting to know new friends.

Nothing would seem to take the high of the weekend away but wait.... here's Monday.


No my life isn't bad. I just hate work. Life is just too short to be in work.

Well now today, I'm fully back.

Somehow the Great Satan did not crush me and I know my life will continue and the promise of my existence will reach the greatest fulfillment I can give it.

A new completion is my total and unreserved hatred for Americans and thier disgusting Schlamkultur.

Until now this was blocked by the following:

  1. I am the Ur-Amerikaner, how could I hate myself?
  2. My friends and family members would be affected.
  3. An unjustified prejudice against the use of the dark side.
The first is easy, I've never really fit in the culture of my birth and anyway logically inclusion in a nation state comes fairly far down the list after species, sex, etc. The American state framework is all that was ever really good about the United States, that is to say the very idea of Amerika. With that having recently been subverted nothing is left but a shell of pure evil filling with rot and putrefaction from which it's my duty as a human being to dissociate myself.

The second was always a thin thread, my closest family members died long ago and it's now a full decade since I've seen any of them. The last tenous connections here have recently finally been terminated, like a root canal, but without any pain. And all my friends who aren't idiots feel the same.

Finally, unlike Luke, I do now fully understand the power of the darkside without having to kill the Emperor. The rationality of emotion is ever in it's utility in achieving the life form's purposes. Until now the strongest motivating force I'd experienced was sexual desire. How wan that now seems by comparision. Especially since my last and over-enduring obsession with a single particular individual was extinguished several years ago. Even at it's height though it was sporadic and episodic at best by comparsion with the burning emotion that now fuels my every waking moment.

Only now do I understand Hinayana v. Mahayana and that the next phase of human cultural development will entail a very forceful rejection of the stinking corruption which is the rotting corpse of the raped Goddess of Democracy.

Like Nell (would have) said, Punish the Evildoers!

I just found out that I have enough experience to be level 5 now. Scary. 800+ exp but only 72 writeups. My node-fu is at its peak right now, and hopefully it won't vary too much, because to keep it the same, my next writeup has to reach at least a rep of 11.

Anyways, on to what daylogs are really for.

Me and my girlfriend just broke up, and this one burnt me more than usual. It wasn't over the usual stuff unfortunatly, it was over religion. Or more like her choice of religion and my lack of one. We managed to put it aside for a month or so, but it eventually came up and it really started to bother her until we finally broke up.

All this relationship taught me, now that I look back on it, is that you always should try to find someone of your own religion. Even though it isn't the biggest deal, sometimes its enough to cause a problem, like in my case.

I don't think I did a very good job of taking care of myself last week - working on my car and doing other stuff, I didn't get to yoga class so I feel stiff and not centered today, as I have for the past five days. Going tonite and Wednesday without fail. Feel fairly calm emotionally, but that won't last, cause there's a lot of things percolating inside. Not having a real vacation this year, my mother, my son, telling G. goodbye, missing my sister greatly, worrying about missing my brother's birthday and feeling paralyzed with guilt and now 2 months almost have gone by and I still haven't done anything about it. Every single day I think about it & still don't do anything. Nothing I could buy him could possibly be good enough unless I spent $100 - and I'm not going to do that. I now owe both my mom and my brother an amends, and feel very stuck about both situations.

I'm trying to figure out how I can deal with my relationship with my son J. I feel like I am missing something and that he might be really angry with me and/or his dad and I don't know what to do. I'm tired of feeling guilty and tired of asking him what's going on, is anything wrong, & getting the response "fine" when it doesn't "feel" fine, it feels dissonant. It just feels like sometimes we have nothing to say to each other, and he doesn't like me - then other times, everything feels just fine and we talk easily. I feel confused and I love him very much - and he's leaving! That's part of it, I know, I can feel him going. but besides that - there seems to be a lot of anger there and I want to help him resolve it - on his terms - and don't really know how to reach him.

I feel sad because like so many other things about motherhood, this one is so hard: it feels unfathomable, unknowable, unworkable. So much easier to pretend all is well, and not try to find out the answer.

I just stepped out of the chatterbox for to get a cup of coffee, as I am wont to do around 10aM. I walk up the street a block to a small middle-eastern deli. There are two reasons I like this particular place: the coffee which is strong and the cute red-haired girl who takes my money. She has long reddish hair pulled back in a ponytail, a nice smile, and freckles on her arms, this anti-Scheherezade, caffeinated herald of the sunrise.

She reminds me of someone I knew and someone I never knew.

But she isn’t there today. Last week, I had just crossed that threshold of recognition, she smiled and asked me where I worked. Today I had planned to ask her about fireworks. Now she is gone. Working in her stead is another young woman who is not red-haired, but has a nice smile.

Shall I never again see the cute waitress's cute red tresses?

I was at "The Hole" (I've mentioned it in other write-ups, but I'll give a summary: It's a friend of mine's house - and it literally is a hole) last weekend, after realizing that the pub was too boring. There are some 6 people there.

So we smoke up - no big deal, I've done that before. Now, I'm a poor decision-maker when I'm stoned. Especially when I'm stoned.

Hey, you tried a bomb before?

What does he mean, I wonder. I don't know all the druggie slang. What is a bomb?

Like, a piece of toilet paper with amphetamine in it - an excellent rush

I sit around and think about it for a while. The fumes from the chillum makes rings in front me. Okay, I'll try one - I'm not gonna pay, though. (I guess this is my own feeble argument that it's not really abuse if you don't pay for it).

Okay, lemme fix one for ya

I don't feel a thing. At all.

I arrive back at the pub and then my conscience hits me. Back in the day, I punched him for doing the exact same thing. I feel horrible. Dude, I fucked up, please punch me.

What, what did you do?

You know what I did.

Smack!

That night, I learned that drugs equal feeling guilty.

I can still feel where he hit me. Which is a good thing.

I love my birthday!

Lovelovelovelovelovelovelove!

I am 32.
I am probably older than YOU!
If not you would be a winner to bet that I'm younger.

I am cool.
I have been cheating death for 5 years!
Jim Morrison died at 27.
Jimi Hendrix dead at 27.
Janis Joplin 27.
Brian Jones 27.
Kurt Cobain 27.

but...
it just occured to me...
perhaps I am cooler than I thought...
Frank Sinatra lived until he was 82!
could I be that cool?

we'll just have to wait and see...

My thoughts today, for an unexplained reason are on staying out of the way and letting life happen. Last week I watched a mom who seemed very much to be...ummm..not very smart. I watched her with her two children and judged her for her parenting style, which consisted of yelling, humiliating, and insulting the children. The thoughts going through my mind were along the lines of "stupid people shouldn't breed". Then today I saw a node entitled something similar and I started thinking. (uh oh)

If I was queen..if I ruled the world and could really make and enforce such wide spread rules...what would be the effect? Would I allow that mother to have more children? How would I decide who was "stupid" and who met my breeding standards? I thought back to some of my worst days parenting. I thought back to how I must have looked the day I had a terrible head cold and couldn't think well and my daughter threw a temper tantrum in the grocery store. I lost it that day. I yanked my daughter up off the floor and drug her screaming out the door. I'm sure my face was contorted and I was babbling inane insults at her. If the breeding god had seen me that day, I might have been rendered sterile. I think of all the times that I've yelled at my kids, or at someone else. Does that make me bad, and unfit to reproduce? I don't think so.

I started thinking too about what shapes us as humans, what experiences make us who we are and give us our strengths. Some of my best qualities were forged from dealings with difficult people and unpleasant situations. If I were queen and did my best to eliminate unpleasantness, what qualities would fail to develop in my subjects? I'd make a sucky queen I guess. I think maybe I think too much.

What an interesting day....

For a week now, I've been suffering from a debilitating bout of sinusitis, which has deprived me of sleep, peace of mind, vigour, etc.

You know, all those things that come with the territory of being in excruciating pain all the time.

I have a high pain threshold, so it hasn't caused me to alter my routines that much. A few non-prescription painkillers (paracetamol), some nasal spray and saline irrigation, and I've been pretty much fit to go on as usual. Which means going on with work, taking the kids to day care, study, etc.

However, I finally decided that it wasn't supposed to go on hurting for more than a week, so I went to see a doctor this morning. My usual GP, a singularly stolid and phlegmatic gentleman, is on holiday - so I went to see his alternate, who turned out to be even more even-tempered, to the point of lethargia.

I filled him in on my problem and the good doctor ruminated on it - then decided to take a blood sample and test its bacterial count.

It came as something of a surprise to me when this very imperturbable gentleman looked at the results wide-eyed, then said:

"Whoa! Oh my. That's pretty high. Guess we'd better put you on antibiotics right away."

Needless to say, this left me somewhat concerned - and rightly so, since apparently I'd been in the process of developing blood poisoning. Fortunately, I'd timed my visit to the doctor with exquisite precision. Now, some time after having begun the course of antibiotics, I am feeling far less miserable. My head still hurts abominably, and it still feels like somebody has inserted a six-inch nail in my right cheekbone. But I can tell that I am definitely on the mend...

Timing is everything.

(factgirl) You say it's your birthday (bamamamamamamama) It's my birthday too, yeah.....

I am not yet 30. Today I still have a cold and have taken DayQuil, which makes me feel a bit woozy. My man brought me roses, took me out to lunch, and is taking me out for sushi tonight. Aside from that, I've bought a network card, did laundry, talked to my mom, and got my CCDP certificate in the mail then called Cisco because they had my name slightly incorrect (again). This is the third call, and I've spoken to James each time. He complains that I'm giving him too much work.

The rather misleading DayQuil may bring me down, though, because drinking coffee to try and negate the woozy feeling doesn't seem to help...so the sushi thing may not happen. We had teriyaki and miso at home

Last night I finished American Gods, which I thought was very good. I wouldn't stop reading until I just passed out, a couple nights in a row.

I just brought out my field glasses to spy on a tiny spider making its way across the ceiling, while on my back on the floor. Maybe it's the meds.

I too, am blessed with the July 9th b-day. I got smashed last night and had to go to a goddamn dentist this morning, all beat down and whatnot. Not what i had planned.
Im 20.
One of my friends(?) organized a party for me yesterday, all my good friends, and she was supposed to pick me up at 3, because my car was in the shop. She told me she was on her way.

And the dumb little bitch didn't get me. She just didn't show up. All my friends had barbecue, cake, and whatnot, without the fucking person whose birthday it was.
This girl fucking pissed me off.
Now im the asshole who doesn't show up to his own birthday party.
She told everyone there that i told her i didn't want to come, which is a blatant lie. I don't know what to make of it.

Plans for the day:
- Go out to dinner with the family for the b-day celebration.
- Begin debauchery, mayhem and other wild antics which may ensue on one's B-day.
- I could definetly use some tail....

Happy birthday to all other july 9thers, always remember that Cancers rule the world...


Update: Birthdays are useless. 2 people called me today, thassit, meaning the majority of the people i know basicly said "fuck you", well. thats how i see it anyway...Drink and sleep.

My friends left.

I don't mind being alone....

But I might miss something they say, some story they tell on the way home, some joke I will never hear, some drunken fool they pass along the street....

One day they will bring it up, and remember that moment, nostalgically, maybe in many years....

I will not be able to share that moment with them, I won't know what they are feeling and I might ask, or I might ignore them and try to change the subject.... but I’ll probably know, it's something I will never feel.

My friends have left.... and maybe I should invite them over less, and go to their place more....

We finnaly watched a movie at my place, "Bringing Out The Dead" It freaking sucked, and Nicolas Cage is a monkey with a powerfull uncle. But the movie worked (Maybe cause it was not a DVD this time)

Ving Rhames and John Goodman both rock, and Tom Sizemore scares me...

I like my new home, especially when filled with friends, even if right now it's hot and humid like a South American jungle and there is some kind of emergency warning about not drinking the water here for a couple days (Wow, it does sound like a South American jungle)

Ok, I guess my friends are all home by now, so they are no longer sharing new experiences, I can go to sleep, and we'll be even...

Good night

Another day another daylog.

I did some hardcore Perl hacking today. I'm trying to write an extensible CGI script for writing and handling online survey forms. When it is done it will be very cool, totally OO and all that l33t stuff.

Things are getting weird at work. (Background: I work with other summer students; 20-25 years old.) A kid named J is trying to hit on a girl named M. Man, is he doing it badly. Not like I could do it any better, but... I dunno. Coworkers are often creepy people, and though I manage to keep decent relationships with all of them, I keep them at arms length. Most of them, I don't know what to do with. J is so confrontational and narcissistic and though he's trying to be friendly, I don't want that much to do with him, seeing that I already have a confrontational friend named "Spike" and it took years for me to figure him out. N is nice but also narcissistic. In fact, most of them are; or rather they seem that way to me.

The only ones whom I find remotely good to be around are the girls J2 and M. One day at lunch, M talked about how she felt that most people don't actually listen to you, instead they are only waiting for their turn to speak. I felt exactly the same way; but her comment was lost in the shouting of the others.

My boss has resigned.

Not that this elicits any joy whatsoever in me.

She is the only competent, humorous, professional, and incredibly honest person where I work (our office manager is smart, but she is also quiet, which might explain why she’s the only one who’s been there for silver anniversary|25 years]). The other woman, who was hired on my birthday and is supposed to take over some of my old duties so that I can focus on the warehouse, is so incompetent that she is a waste of time and money. I have taken to doing her job as well as mine, because at almost 2.5 times my age, this woman just can’t cut it. She has mustered no respect in me and I am about to get really honest with her, which would be unfortunate and unprofessional.

Our new president (a member and volunteer) is a manipulative head case. Using the notorious guilt trip, she has procured unwilling souls to come help us (of course, none of them show up, not to my surprise). Her idea of a good program for us is a ritzy celebrity gala that will get us on the front page of the society news, but nowhere in terms of our mission. This woman has yet to volunteer for Bargainata. The closest she comes is waltzing back to the warehouse and bouncing ideas off me that are 95% idiotic and far-fetched (the other 5% are an insult to intelligence and even more manipulative). Now that my boss has announced that she’s leaving, the prez won’t talk to her any more (what’s your age again?).

My boss came to this job mid-February of this year to revitalize and reorganize our local chapter. She came under false pretenses, told that we just needed to get our membership together and refocus. Well, we needed that, but no one mentioned that our budget was so poorly managed and adhered to that we are about to go bankrupt. In fact, no one had really scrutinized our finances in a long time. From what the two of us saw, our situation now is the result of gross negligence, both passive and active, by women who don’t know basic math or how to draw up a business plan. She spent incredible amounts of time trying out over 10 budget models, and none of them would balance in a realistic situation. Very few board members or outside committee members wanted to acknowledge and grasp our desperate situation. Very few of them really want to commit to their duties as active board members.

Combine this with a generally disinterested membership with fear of commitment no matter what we offer and stuck in their old ways, a volunteer non-profit organization that is staff run and board supported instead of vice versa, a lack of staff and the inability to hire more, an expensive lease in which we are stuck for 7 more years unless we managed to pull ourselves out soon, members that call you at home to whine, a board with no ears, a computer system in serious need of upgrade and maintenance, a low quality quarterly, and no centralization of individual committee efforts, and you have my boss’ private hell. It is wrecking her home life, herself, and her life in general. She signed up for this job with the promise that it was part-time (our hours total to 28/wk.) and has found out that she would need to put in 40+ hours a week to make things work out.

As a seasoned professional, she knows that she can do better than this and can prosper only under a healthy office setting. She already has a new job that she starts in 2 weeks. They expect her to work full time and will pay her accordingly.

She actually survived longer than I expected. There will be less fighting in the office between the board and her, but this is sacrificed for incompetence, pettiness, and general lack of ability. I didn’t agree with her on every matter, but I did respect her and her advice and opinions.

Don’t do this to me.

Why do I have to be the adult?

Well, I'm back. I've been taking a long break from E2, in part to refresh myself and in part because I wasn't sure that I had anything more to contribute to the site. It doesn't really provide an outlet for my more creative works; and for a time that bothered me. I've managed to provide my own location for that now, so I'll be noding more often.

I've also just returned from vacation. My wife and I went backpacking in the Mt. Zirkel Wilderness Area. It was a great deal of fun, even though the dominant form of life for the first half of the trail was the mosquito. As soon as the Bug Repellent wore off there were 5 or more of the foul, bloodsucking insects. But it was fun. After we finished the trail we hung out in Denver for a while.

It is interesting how a seemingly mundane sort of day can totally change to flip my pathetic little existence around.

Forgive me Father for I have sinned, it has been four months since my last daylog confession. What sin? Oh, well that is the sin, Father.

A Portrait of a Normal, Mundane Day

Ah now, with padre out of the way...

I woke up around noon after staying up too late again playing video games and suffering from mild insomnia the night before. I rolled around for awhile until my mother came, half-crazed looking for any ear that is in the house to listen to her difficulties with her inconsiderate friends that are in town. Unable to sleep further I sat up, listened to her troubles and then walked across the room to my computer to check my e-mail.

The network connection to the office was flakey again, so I had to get dressed an drive into the office. I was not in any mood to put any effort into my appearance so I put on the same clothes as yesterday and had my mom do my hair. This is pretty pathetic for a twenty-one year old professional, but somehow I could tell the day did not warrant my putting in any extra effort.

A standard work day, as expected, was to follow. I talked with my co-workers about this an that and twiddled bits around in an effort to be useful. Bugs were found, pay was earned: life was good.

Toward the end of the day, I began to make some telephone calls to see what my friends and family were up to. My dad told me that his friend Randy was in town from Paris and that my brother and I would be getting together with the both of them tomorrow. That sounded good to me, I like Randy. I called my girlfriend after that to find out if she was ready to enact the dinner plans we had made from the night before. She sounded a little under the weather, but not bad, and she told me that she was ready to eat. I gathered my things and hit the road to pick her up.

My Silly Little World Changes Around

I picked her up from a little coffee shop she had been hanging around after going swimming with this little druggy friend of her's. I do not approve of her, she may be nice but she has too many bad habits for my tastes; as one my my mantras is, "Whom you hang around with is who you are."

Precious, as I call my girlfriend, was in a bad mood. She was very snappy, in that female sort of way. And nothing could seem to cheer her up. I tried jokes, telling her I missed her, asking about her problems. In the end, I resolved to be quiet as we went to the restaurant.

The restaurant is one of my favorites. It is called Pane Vino Dolce, a sort of little Italian restaurant/hole in the wall. (Although this is a topic for a whole other node,) Their food ranges from knock-me-on-my-ass awesome to really horrible dog food, depending on the mood of the chef and how wisely you order. It is usually a wonderful time.

Naturally, everything I ordered tasted wonderful, while everything she ordered tasted like the Purina Puppy Chow. There was one bright spot, the bruchetta, but the light aromatic oils did nothing to lift her spirits.

My wine was awesome, her water was just water. My beet salade was to die for, her caesar was salty. My peach reduction balsamic pork cutlet was a masterpiece to behold, her chicken was like eating an aborted fetus. This did not set the stage very well for what was to follow.

She needed to go grocerey shopping. The little Korean market she wanted to go to was closed. We went to Rainbow Foods and shopped in nearly complete silence. I remembered she needed cooking oil. She said she did not, but I insisted and added a regular sized one to the cart. She removed it, and replaced it with the small size: barely enough to fry some hash browns. I thought she was just being controlling.

I helped her carry her food stuffs up to her apartment, and began unpacked them. I was not having a good time, and kissed her on the cheek and said goodbye. She asked me if I had to go, and I told her I did not but I wanted to know what she did with my regular girlfriend. We then started to argue about the days events. I said I did not like how depressed she was, and she told me she did not like me to lecture her.

Later on in the argument, she started to choke up and allude to the reason she was so depressed. I asked her directly and she told me it had to do with me, but she could not tell me now. I told her I had to leave, kissed her again and put on my shoes to leave. She stopped me and told me, she is leaving for California in six-weeks. That is why she purchased the small cooking oil, she knew she did not need more than a couple of days worth.

And that is when this pathetic little day changed all around. We no longer yelled at eachother but cried in eachothers arms. The weepsing went on for hours.

She knew I would never engage in a distance relationship, so this is how it would end in T-minus six weeks. Will it be wierd? It might. But I will not know until I get there.

What I am Worried About

What I am worried about is losing the momentum I had going during the school year. Even though she had given me lots and lots of problems and frustrations for the duration of our relationship, I really do love her and love what she does for me. I am afraid that I will not want to go back to that cold, desolate University of Minnesota campus without anybody to walk hand in hand with. It took my three years to find her there, does someone else exist? Do I want anybody else?

And while she is gone, will she hang like a ghost in my life? Not really a girlfriend, but this jealous spector that I share my thoughts and feelings with, never to move on? What shall become of us when I visit my father in California? What shall become of us if she visits me in Minnesota?

These are the things that I am worried about.

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