Yesterday, June 2, 2001, I graduated.

Of course, yesterday is relative, considering it is still June 2, 2001 for me, since I live in Jacksonville, Arkansas.

Graduation. Yay. I'm done. Now, when does it get interesting?

My aunts and uncles are here. First time to visit Arkansas, for many of them. At least 4 aunts are from Buffalo, New York, 3 on my Dad's side, one from my Mom's, my aunt (mom) from florida with her husband and daughter, my other aunts (two from my dad's side) from florida, along with one of their husbands. And my Grandmother.

All in all, about 18 people. That's not including friends who live in the area. I'm not used to this, but at least I can hide in my room.

So this summer I'll be noding (or should that be working?) at the Little Rock Wastewater Utility, then this fall attend Arkansas Tech University, which I will node about when I get a feel for the place.
my friend is having a heart attack;
right now.
and i'm stuck in this dump without any way to get to the hospital... short of calling an ambulance myself and faking a heart attack!

...HE'S ONLY 27!

he called me before taking off
told me good-bye
very final-sounding
crying
pained

didn't say why...
Sounded to me like he was running from the fucking mafia!

i call back,
"heart attack monday...(fucker hid it from me) another today... it's not going away... bye"

he's only 3 monthes older than me!
...plus a few "Ultimate Cheeseburgers"...

HE'S ONLY 27!

We met in junior high.
He is the only friend from my school years i've kept.
He is my constant.
He is having a heart attack...

I spent the day playing Dungeons & Dragons. I only get to play about once a month, but I definately look forward to it. It's too bad out Dungeon Master is moving in July, because this campaign is one of the best I've ever been in. In college, I had a great DM, but until now I've been at a loss for a good one... and I hate DMing.

When 3rd Edition came out, I was skeptical about it. Even after playing with Jonathan Tweet, the lead designer, I was still less than thrilled. I'm a true believer now, though. The current incarnation is definately the most streamlined D&D has ever been. At the risk of sounding stupid, I'd say I don't think it can be improved on much - if at all.

Another day, another disappointment.

We saw an ad for a rag doll kitten in yesterday's Herald and rang about it today. Yes, they're expensive little purebreds, but they're so cute, fluffy, have huge blue eyes and gorgeous dispositions... and have already been sold. Dammit. And it's not really kitten season, so I have to wait until November now, apparently. Damn. I know it wasn't that long ago that I had my heart set on a Dachsund puppy, but I'm really a cat person anyway. Sigh. Next time.

I have to go and apply for a job. Also in yesterday's paper (what an excellent buy it turned out to be!) was a vacant position for a report writer for a private investigation company. They need someone who's done a journalism/ communication degree ( that's me! I can write reports! Real good reports, I swear!), so fingers crossed. I'm waiting to hear about the library job, but I'm not holding my breath.

Tonight there's another eviction on Big Brother. Yay! Will it be Christina, Lisa, Sara-Marie or Blair? Not Blair. Probably Sara-Marie. Maybe Lisa. That's my prediction.

Hungover, tired, bored. A perfect Sunday.

I saw Startup.com tonight with a coworker and his girlfriend. It was an interesting movie, and I liked it. I am not sure it would be as interesting to those who are not part of a startup. I can't believe how this camera followed the two founders around. That part was amazing to me.

Speaking of startups, my company is having their normal growing pains. We had to fire the first person. It was kinda shocking. We had a company meeting, and then a lot of us went out for a beer.

Life goes on. The pager keeps going off. One of today's new twists was a (seemingly) random switch hiccup. This caused two of our NICs to hang on us. What a pain.

People often ask in the chatterbox what the purpose of daylogs are. The answer's simple - it gives people like me a chance to whine without creating a real node.

And yes, this is a whine.

Yesterday/today has been quite mad, and still is. I'm writing this from a cybercafe, and not the comfort of my own home. Why? It's a long story...

I blame it all on football. Colin and I woke up at 2.30, ran straight out to the pub, got some beer and breakfast and watched Ireland V Portugal. It was a nail-biting game, and a large amount of alcohol was required to soothe our nerves. Large amounts. When Ireland scored, it went absolutely nuts. It was all weird and homoerotic - grown men hugging complete strangers and crying. And there wasn't even any dance music playing. When the match ended (a 1-1 draw) I was well on my way. The bad mix of beer and adrenelin had my head reeling - all I wanted to do was drink more, dance and have sex with impressionable women.

The guys I met up with afterwards weren't quite up for it. Various excuses about being tired, or broke, or tired and broke were bandied about. Nightclubs didn't look likely to figure in our future.

But my philosophy has always been - when the going gets tough, the tough get weird. So I did something uncharacteristic of me - I dropped a pill in the pub. Unusual for me cause I don't usually engage in such things. But I had one on me, and I felt it was the only way to talk them into it.

I sat there very quietly, while they talked about wrestling. After about 10 minutes I looked up, pupils spinning outwards into infinity. "Guys," I said, "let's go to a goddamn nightclub." When they stopped being stunned, and then stopped laughing, they agreed.

By the time I got there, I was already liquid. The music was great. Actually no, it wasn't, it was shit, but it had a beat, which was enough. I gave my jacket to a friend to throw in the cloakroom and I went headlong into the dancefloor. The night went great. It went even better when this cute black girl started dancing with me. She seemed kind of innocent and naive, and didn't realise that I was out of my mind. But she gave good hugs, and I was all tingly for ages.

She was really sweet. She started talking about how she was worried about being different in Ireland - that Irish guys just wanted to try it with a black girl for novelty. I grabbed her by the face and spent about ten minutes telling her how amazingly beautiful and incredibly special she was.

Of course, I really feel bad about that now, cause I think she thought that I had fallen in love with her. In actual fact, about ten minutes later I was telling Darragh, this big tub of lard, that he was a babe. She was cute, but I think I really overdid it.

We exchanged phone numbers - because that seemed like a REALLY good idea at the time. Then I went back to Morgan's place and smoked lots to come back down. Second bad idea of the night happened there. Morgan offered to shave my head. I replied by saying, "why Morgan, that's a great idea". Which means that in the space of about two years, I've gone from a two-foot pony tail to a Number 2. My head is really cold.

As we were smoking and playing Playstation, I started thinking about the girl in slightly less chemical-tinged ways. I realised that she had given me her phone number after about 30 seconds of conversation. She'd also been in Ireland for a week. She seemed really needy. Having put up with that shit so much, that scares the crap out of me. So I crossed my fingers, thinking "please, please, please, don't let her phone."

Which led to the question - "Dude, where is my phone?"

There was no sign of it anywhere. I, still being quite mellow, said fuck it and left without it, confident that it would turn up eventually. I decided that I could walk from Morgan's place back to mine with no problems. I still had lots of energy left. I probably would have made it too, if I had walked even vaugely in the right direction. Here's a hint kids - went you want to walk into the center of a city and you don't know how to get there, DON'T walk towards the mountains and farmlands. It means you're leaving civilisation and entering banjo-twanging, cousin-loving territory. And getting a taxi out of there is a bloody nightmare.

I did eventually flag one down. By the time I got back to my house, it was 6.30 and I was feeling pretty damn tired. I just couldn't wait to get into bed and sleep for three days...

And that's when the big problem hit me. I'd lost my keys as well.

The muppet I had given my coat to had obviously just dropped everything out of the pockets. About the only survivor was - thank christ - my ATM card. I sat outside my building trying to think. I realised the easiest thing to do would be just to ring someone and ask if I could crash in their place.

Grade A plan, but sadly one that demonstrates one of the inherent problems of mobile phones. Because I just store all my phone numbers in there, I have no idea what anyone's number actually is. Seriously. Combine that with the fact that I can never remember anyone's apartment number, and it leaves me pretty screwed.

So I had to form a plan B. Obviously, my only chance of getting somewhere to sleep was to wait for the pub above the nightclub to reopen and try to reclaim my stuff. But that still meant killing the time between 6.30 and 11.30. Five goddamn hours. And I was exhausted.

I seriously considered breaking into my place of work and sleeping under my desk. Nothing was open in the entire city. By 7.30 I had given up trying. I ended up standing outside McDonalds with all the bums and weirdos (not that I stood out from them that much). It's quite unusual - McDonalds first customers are always smelly old men who want to steal paper cups, UHT milk and toilet roll. I have no idea why.

I sat down with a newspaper and a large coffee. It went fine for all of five minutes, but then I started falling asleep. Not just drifting, but like every time I blinked, my eyes would shut and fail to reopen and I'd just be dreaming all of a sudden. After an hour and a half or so, I couldn't take any more. I had to sleep. My brain hurt. I decided to sleep in the park.

Except of course, me being such a classy guy (ahem). I couldn't just go down the park, curl up on a bench and pass out like a bum. No, I had to do it in such a way that said, "hey, I'm a cool, crazy, sophisticated guy. I'm sleeping in a park because I choose to. My apartment is fantastic, y'know". Hey, you never know when your career guidance teacher might pass by.

So, the plan was to wait until it got vaguely sunny, and then make it look like I was sunbathing and fell asleep. Going into the park at 9.30 was quite scary. It was still full of scraggy old men drinking cans of Dutch Gold. Everything smelled like piss.

But the center of the park was okay. Tourists were begining to walk through it. I set myself up on the bench - shades on, paper spread out on the seat next to me. I curled up and fell asleep, looking like I was actually reading intensely. The perfect crime.

For 10 minutes anyway. It so damn difficult to sleep outdoors in public. Every single footstep, every yelling child, every yapping dog was like a sledgehammer to my skull. Eventually I just stopped trying. I was still tired, but the edge had been taken off it a bit. I spent about another hour and a half sitting there, genuinely reading the paper. Eventually, I got up and went looking for my stuff.

The person in the bar listened to what I had lost, and went searching. She came back with my phone but no keys. Which is why now I'm sitting in a cybercafe, with enourmous red eyes, willing to kill and/or maim for somewhere to sleep, and dreading a phone call from a clingy immigrant.

Ye gods, I am a twat.

At least the match was fun though.

I have now woken and returned to sleep several times, before finally giving up and hunting down the damnable shower and wreaking my vengeance upon it.

Why, oh why, do the showers of the people who's houses I stay at always exist in a much better, more forceful, more dependable state than mine? Apparently it's a universal law of sorts...

The cats continue to demand to be petted. The one, Niles, is a long hair, grey cat, very cute, very vocal, very demanding. He currently has some threatening young men in suits holding me down while he plaintively mewls "pet me, damnit, my life is wasting away here". I have no choice but to pet him, yet I must itch...

In the lingering aftermath of last night's fiasco of drunken orgying and wholesale destruction (the wrath of Jurph is fearsome to behold), my only coherent thought before I collapse into an eternal stupor is The Rocky Horror Fans Must Die.

11:15AM

Mild state of depression. I'm sitting here, wondering what the hell is causing it. Maybe it's the Sailor Moon song in Spanish that some guy online sent me around two months ago. I keep on playing it over and over with no reason to. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't talked to my boyfriend since Friday afternoon...

I really don't know. I keep on trying to formulate a coherent thought and nothing will come so I'm sitting here staring at my computer screen wondering about nothing. Yet I'm wondering. How is that possible? I don't know. Maybe I'm wondering about that, too.

It's rather interesting to feel drugged even though I haven't taken anything. We'll see where this goes.

I got home early this morning after spending the entire day at my 10 year college reunion. Which was good. First of all, I work where I went to college, so it's not like I'm back to see how the place has changed, but there were a good number of my classmates who I was interested in seeing (mind you, I hang out with about 10-12 of them regularly, since we all still live in the area, but may are not around as much.) Some of us started up right where we left off, and I caught up with the rest.

So that was fun. A surreal moment was talking to the university president about things and pretending like I hadn't been here the whole time. I also did that with my advisor who's a physics prof and also an alumnus so that was a lot of fun as well. They actually both played along relatively well. Oh, and I found out, that , wait for it, the University wants us to give more money. Shocking.

Rhapsody in Screwed :: Part VII
06.03.01 :: 18:13

holy shit. i just came home. i went to the movies last nite with some friends, and we saw shrek. i haven't laughed that hard in...well, quite some time. then we all went back to twig's for apple brandy and a bad kung-fu film: chinese super ninjas. spent time sitting on niall and getting cuddled, which beat the hell out of the kung-fu flick. i'm a sucker for short guys who like to cuddle. we went back to his place afterward and played with the cats for a while, kicked back on the waterbed, and talked about mutual acquaintances, aquatic life, and the joys of being short. then i slept a whole lot, which was prolly a great idea, being as i haven't done that in a while.

so, after having approximately one meal spread out across three days, i ate real food an hour ago. niall and i went out for an eggplant calzone. admittedly, not exactly a whole meal for me, but better than i've been eating. i had forgotten how cool it is to have friends who talk about things that aren't politics, and somehow, in the course of a week, i find three. well, two. one i just forgot i had. :)

i'm going through some wild life changes right now. things are getting different in a semi-pleasant way. well, at least i think they are. i remember who i am, and what i want to do with my life. i remember where i wanted the future to go, and i realise that i'm a bit behind schedule, but less so than i might have expected. funny things happen when you forget what you want.

speaking of friends and things i want, i'm a little sad that jerrett hasn't called or mailed, but i know he's prolly working himself to death, so i really can't bring myself to mind too much. what can i say? i haven't been eating, i haven't been sleeping, and i've been snarling like a wounded dingo at everything that crosses my path. there's a word that i've learned to associate with that feeling, but i don't want to believe it, so i'm not going to say it. i won't believe it, because that would be completely uncalled for, and totally unfair...and i wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it. as long as i don't admit it, i can keep believing it isn't true. i can stay sane, and deal with reality on nearly human terms...but the facade is slipping badly around the edges, and the battleship-sized hole in my chest just keeps getting bigger...but, oh no, not me...i'll never say that magic word.

My 26th birthday... I just got back from a camping trip which will be the source of much reflection. Those reduced-inhibition games are dangerous! I know I have various facets and motives, some "wholesome" and some not. I replay the drunken truth & question games of last night, and I am very embarrassed. I must have come off sounding like a sarcastic, arrogant, ingenuine frat boy, who keeps a little black book with girls' names and black marks to ennumerate my self-worth. I was drunk and uninhibited, so maybe that is my dominant personality? I try to fight it, but any blows to my masculinity from a prospective alpha will get me going, and it's autopilot most of the way from there. I hate that robot aspect of me, and I figure everyone else does too. One comfort I have for myself is poor foolish Steppenwolf. I tell myself "It's folly to split the self and pick only two opposing aspects above all else. It cheapens and oversimplifies the self. There are a multitude of arbitrary divisions which can be made and presented at will, and there is always some number of correct choices which can be made, and put into play through various facets of the mind." But my morbid nightmares in my tent last night showed me another side. After that, I certainly couldn't sleep. After some pacing, I came back to my tent and opened that "Alphabet versus the Goddess" book arbitrarily, and read all about Dionysis. In the hyperbaric stillness of the tent, that really got me going! So today I was still figuring, and being a bit paranoid about what these intelligent camping folks could think of me as we rafted down seven miles of spring water.
Ohio Day Three

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! This time I got much more sleep. I have no idea how much. I'm still tried all day, but it is 11am and it is time to get going. Much driving to look forward to. sane guy's floor is great and he makes fast coffee (I don't normally drink coffee, but for a hung over noder who slept on a floor and hasn't had much sleep it was great.) Everybody at sane guy's place comes to life and eventually we head to the hotdamn headquarters. Lots of people moving around. Lots of tired bodies. Lots of familiar faces.

I had planned on leaving Ohio as soon as I got up sunday. But the concept of breakfast with these people sound like something worth staying for. Boy was I wrong! Could we get more lost? Just kidding. It was great, even though we did get lost, twice! I had one of my longest conversations of the weekend over breakfast with Chihuahua Grub. The food was good, and it is always amazing seeing umpteens of people enjoying themselves at a meal. It has been too long since I've been involved in something like that. Far from my first, but it has been a few years. The meal broke up, but people were still hanging around. I don't think anybody really wanted to go. I needed to get going, so I started saying my goodbyes. Left with some hugs, handshakes, and pats on the back. I'm keeping them, nobody can have them back. Ha!

What can I say to complete strangers? Stuff I guess. Why did I drive 7 hrs to meet complete strangers? E2 has been good to me, to go on an adventure, to meet new people, to see the world.

This adventure reminded me of college. I was in a fraternity. Most people only see the stupid actions of the frat boy-types, but if you are in a good fraternity (the right one for you, it is an individual choice not all are created equal) it is like this. It is like this every single day. I lived it for five years.

    -- Xamot (I don't want none of that daylog XP, and I don't care if anybody ever reads these, I just needed to dump this information somewhere.)
Ohio Day One | Ohio Day Two | Ohio Day Three

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