March 17, 2001

Hello! Regarding March 4, 2001, I've done something very silly and actually created a poll so that you noders can share your collective wisdom with me. There's even a message board so you can expound further. Whee! So play along and check it out at:

http://www.misterpoll.com/2931152670.html
and
http://www.misterpoll.com/4109046936.html since y'all think I should sell art (help me figure out what kind)!

And happy St. Patrick's Day. My Irish officemate (who will cheerfully smack anyone who calls her a colleen), is in Chicago for a museum internship interview. I hope it goes well for her, and I'm sure she'll get a kick out of the American version of the holiday.

Thank you for answering the polls! Purr!

Should be a decent day.

Am waking up at the ungodly hour of 10 AM to go into NYC and see a play called Judgement at Nurenberg with my parents.  An account of the war crimes trial that took place in Nurenberg after World War II, apparently.  I hated Schindler's List, so I'm going into this one hesitantly.  I do not go to the cinema or the theater to be depressed.

It's also St. Patrick's Day, so we're probably taking the train in to avoid massive gridlock everywhere.

After that...donno.  Prolly a nice dinner paid for by the parental units, then time to pack my luggage for the flight back to college tomorrow.

Today was the best day of my life so far. I spent nearly the whole day with Sara. From lunch onward we were together for almost all of the time. We had lunch for about 2 hours, then she spent some time at the office helping us fold up newsletters. Afterwards we spent about four hours at Ann's apartment just hanging around. We had food at a decent restaurant, and then we went to a laser show down in Miami at midnight. It's the most time I've ever spent with her in a day (over 12 hours). I feel so much more comfortable with her now than ever before. I crossed new boundaries with her today that I've always been afraid to before.

I don't even know where to begin on what I learned about her today (or this week for that matter). Everything about her is perfect and couldn't be improved one bit. She loves nature and science. She has the most beautiful brown eyes. She looks good in any clothes. Her voice is soothing and feminine. She is patient and attentive, apologetic even when giving, and caring even while needing.

I wish I could take a snapshot of this day and replay it over and over again.

today was one of those days

i read night by elie wiesel and got super mega depressed and disenchanted with the world.
i ran into a girl i was best friends with over 6 years ago and hadn't talked to since. what exactly are you supposed to say to people like that?
i smoked pot for the first time in a long time
immediately after, i craved a cigarette, but i was good.
then, oh boy, then, i went to class where we watched a freaky super graphic documentary on auschwitz. i'm talking footage of bulldozers pushing bodies and enormous roomfuls of hair.
my prof cried. we left.
i went for food in a very seinfeldian restaurant on graville. i think i got food poisoning.
i came home. i went to work for the first time since november. my suspisions of food poisoning were confirmed.
i also burnt myself
a flock of cute boys came into the drive-in. they flirted with me, trying to get a discount. it didn't work, but i had fun.
i came home. i'm going to bed.
i had hoped to have heard from someone today, but i haven't, so i can only assume that i have no plans for tommorrow anymore. ick.

Hi, just wanted to say Hi and stuff. hope you get home to talk on the phone. I got a new calling card with some fresh minutes waiting to be had...you should check it out. I working next monday, tuesday and wednesday, so that's the deal for next week. Devon and Dara are coming in tomorrow night, and will be here for a week. You should meet Devon because he's real cool. He's very desperate to go snowboarding in Tahoe, and Kevin isn't so sure, but hey, it might happen next weekend.
Kevin cleaned the entire house, I came home today and was just flabbergasted. So I cleaned up my room, sort of, just because the cleaning bug was contagious. Or maybe the sexually frustrated bug as Shasta calls it. She says hi, by the by. Not much going on around here on a friday night. Nope, nuthing. Everyone went skateboarding and I'm taking care of some things in-house. Hope your new job is going well. I was thinking about how tactless your new boss is and how that was really fucked up, and I'm surprised you didn't tell him off. maybe you did.

...

It was also tactless of me to use the word ridiculous to describe your love of work. I was in a bad mood for other reasons at work, and came off as a jerk. You've been one of the hardest working people I know since we met, so I understand your reasons, but I've seen you readily accept more and more responsibilities since then. I wish I could grasp how you have time to accomplish all that you do. Perhaps this is my onwn sense of insecurity showing through. I am a college graduate with as much direction and momentum as a paper airplane and you seem to be this supersonic rocket locked onto this otherworldly mission. Not a great analogy. Maybe a barreling locomotive. What's my point. My point is I'm jealous and selfish and want you to be here all of the time, and I'm wishing you didn't feel the need to pay off college in real-time (geek term). I'm sorry if you find this insulting, and you should. I can't tell you how to do things, and money is money and everything, I guess. So, ignore me if you want to, but this is coming from someone who really needs you right now and can't have that.
And I can't necessarily just say, hmm that sucks. I need you to understand that not being with you hurts. It hurts every time I walk into safeway, or blockbuster, and see couples joking and teasing each other. And that's not just isolated to big chain stores either. It hurts more than being alone, because when you're single you've partially forgotten what it's like to have someone. Having all of Kevin's minions as drinking buddies isn't changing that, either. And no, the bitching isn't going to stop here...oh fuck it I'm done. This gives you a free bitch-to-mike pass now.
love, mike

For the past few weeks I lost all interest in E2. Where once I was rabidly checking and rechecking new nodes, creating new nodes and chatting in the Chatterbox ... I simply didn't care.

Oh, I still checked in every couple of days to have a cursory read of one or two nodes ... but everything seemed bland, nothing was exciting. And more importantly to me, I had lost my interest in noding.

Try as I might I simply could find nothing to node about - well that's not quite true - there were many ideas that floated across my mind, but when I thought about the effort of sitting down and actually writing it, I lost all desire to do so.

So I stopped trying. I went off and pursued other things for a while. I kept checking up on the writeups of two of my favourite noders, simonc and trina (both Australian - can't beat the Aussies :), but for all intents and purposes, I no longer participated in E2.

Until on week ago.

That's when I participated in a particularly bad conference call at work. The idiots on this call had no idea about conference call etiquette and where bugging the crap out of me. All of sudden I had this deep down unstoppable urge to write a node about the idiots on conference calls. I opened my web browser and poured out pages of vitriolic criticism. Then I deleted the two pages of text and wrote it again in a calmer frame of mind :) There. I felt better.

And mysteriously, like opening the flood gates, the ideas and motivation to node came flooding back. So in the last week, I have noded everything from conference call etiquette to How to save Quicktime movies from a web page and most importantly, I am loving it once again.

The problem is I'm now back to rabidly checking E2 every spare minute I have!

What if God is just a loyal end-user to the WhizBang!© Universe Company, Inc. Perhaps He bought the thing empty; he never claimed to have created it, after all; just a lot of light and space and terraforming, really. He commanded Moses to love no other god before him, which I suppose makes sense since he created the place. But what if the beings in the house down the street, the universe next door, have a better god? Maybe he's real nice and very straightforward, walks among his creations with a good word and a smile for everyone, unlike this unapproachable type-A we've got for a boss?
Maybe our universe came that close to getting picked! But at the last minute the Nice God picked the universe on the shelf next to us, and Our God came along and picked us.
I wish gods wouldn't take universe-owning so lightly. They think they really want you, and at first they are present every day, playing with you and manifesting burning bushes for you and walking among you and treating you right; then after a while, they lose interest and they're busy, and the universe is going to seed and people get all depressed and go crazy and the voting gets very sad.

--Song of the Abandoned Sim

Someone tried to break into my parent's car last night, we just discovered the broken sun-roof this morning. Of course, there's always the possibility that the wind blew something onto it, but, well... it seems unlikely. I guess this is just another reminder of what sort of a place Hessle really is. I can only wonder why the offender didn't continue in his or her attempts to get into the car; perhaps it was just the malicious attack of a drunkard.

Anyway, the rest of the day looks fairly promising. I'm going to sit around coding for thre afternoon, then I'm going to a party at 8 o'clock tonight. I was invited into town this morning, but as I have no money or the inclination to go, I declined. I always like a few hours to myself every weekend, or every day of the weekend if I can get it. I enjoy the social stimulation of my friends as well as the mental stimulation of programming, and like to fit both in.

As for the party tonight, I intend to get drunk and be merry. I've only started drinking quite a lot recently, and I find it to be an enjoyable way to let go a bit and enjoy yourself for an evening. I've never really had a hangover yet either, so I don't feel the negative effects of it afterwards. Lucky me.

Think of this as an inpromptu E2 gathering.
Rave Tonight

I put this in a daylog because i thought that thoes that would benefit from it would be most likely to see it here, and i didnt think this would deserve its own node. So here it is. This mostly concerns thoes of you that live in the Baltimore Maryland area.

St. Patrick's Day get thee to Studio 600 and get your party on with the Boogiemen and some of Baltimore's finest on the decks....
Hidden Productions presents.......
THE SECRET GARDEN @ STUDIO 600
March 17th 10pm - 6am
All Ages
10 green ones at the door
No Alcohol, No Drugs, No Weapons, No Bad Vibes!
Featuring the talents of:
VA's House Heros
EAST COAST BOOGIEMEN
along with some of Charm City's Finest:
TERRY KILBY
DJ SUN
DEVIATE
CHRIS BROOKS
FIGMENT
ADAM WHITE

Directions to Studio 600 -
Take 95 to 395 towards the Inner Harbor. At the 3rd light make a right onto Pratt St. Make a left onto Calvert St. Continue on Calvert St. until you go over a bridge and then make the immediate right after the bridge onto Federal St. Drive up one block to the intersection of Federal and Guilford. The warehouse is on the far right. Enter on the Latrobe Alley side. Studio 600 is on the 6th floor.
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!! I will be there. If you show up, Ill be the guy with the Blue hair,(Props to patty on that one) raving with the 10inch stix. See you there! Pass this to everyone. if you really eed a place to stay, i can probebly hook you up.

DJ Spooky plays Asheville tomorrow night!

Oh, yes, it will be a joyous and eventful night tomorrow night.

That covers the future, now let's hit the past.
Last night I went to a keg party high upon Town Mountain.
Apparently, alot of people knew about this party, and the host didn't know that the turn out would be as big as it was, so by and by, the keg runs dry by about 12:30 (not by any fault of mine, I was restricted to one Guinness|beer] since I was driving).
Now, when you get a keg, you put down a deposit that you will get back upon returning the keg. Apparently the rather unhappy drinkers didn't know this as they tossed the keg down a hill that turned out to Town Mountain. We all watched as the grey cylinder disappeared into the night, down, down, down the mountain.

What everyone didn't know either was that the keg could be refilled at any time during the night, if a collection was held.
Everyone felt pretty stupid when they found that out.

I had myself a nice little chuckle over that incident.

That covers the future and the past, how about the present?

Nothing is going on today, there may be a show in town or something, a few friends of mine are going to a rave but it is a couple of hours drive from here, so I've decided to stick around.

Other than that, it's sunny, breezy, clear, warm, and just too cool to go swimming.

Danger
Due To
"Construction"

I saw this sign on a door at Sheppard subway station where the new line is being built. It's the quotation marks that get me. I wonder what's really going on in there.
Manufacturing narcotics? Digging a tunnel to Australia? Breeding gerbils? Diamond mining?

---

Other stuff: I'm supposed to be starting math tutuoring next week. /me likes math
I found a set of devil sticks in a closet a while ago and have been playing around with those. Spins are fun.
I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask for the second time. I like it even better the second time through. There's so much in games like this that is easy to take for granted. It's fun to do nothing. I spend tons of time just riding a horse around the landscape. The game doesn't try to impress you. It just is.

Top of the evenin' to you guys.

So I understand I have some explaining to do. I don't have enough time to tell you the whole story...so I guess I will simply say that everyone's alive and...well?

The key word for the week is compromise, people, and I can't stress that enough. Otherwise the stress would have killed me by now.

I have a few announcements to make, though as a lovely young lady told me yesterday, "This is a cheap form of communication.", but I figure this will work for now.I am moving BACK to Baltimore.....why? because this is home.

I am not seeking to murder anyone and I feel lighter than I have in, what is it now...almost 2 and a half years?...

I am FREE!...but I can't imagine how I am supposed to explain how I am.

There are no rumors to be had...I know exactly what's going on, so please don't feel like you need to avoid me because you 'know too much'.

I am in love with this feeling of being free, and all the things that I have not had the chance TO DO....I am suddenly putting into motion.....I think this is a case of having your cake and eating it too.

I am leaving tomorrow in order to get the majority of my belongings and move temporarily into my friend Kevin's. (InfiniteBurn, you and I need to have a talk). I will be looking for a framing job...or maybe I will type up that resume for Jon...who knows. Does it matter?

knarph okayed my writing up 'the story', so I'll probably do that in between packing all my shit and my cat. So there will be no more loose ends....I don't want there to be any loose ends and this is the beginning of that.

I am excited about moving Griffin up to Long Island, even though he doesn't quite know what to do with me, especially now. "Honey, if you don't want to take a trip, get the fuck off the train." But that won't be happening until June. There will be a VERY big birthday party on June 26. I have a lot of talking to do with him...and a going away party to attend...yah! I'm hoping ficus will play for me at open mic in three days. It'll be my goodbye.

I am released, and the King of Cups has finally stopped crossing me. I just hope he doesn't regret this....I certainly won't.

To the New York crowd, I can't wait to meet you. Hey, if you can't beat 'em......

And I am the Nine of Wands. No, I'm really not scared of anything anymore. Want some balls? I got a whole burlap sack of 'em.

I love everyone rightnow...does that sound sappy? I don't care! Happy St. Pat's...all my luscious little noders. Slainte! I will explain everything later...

Wow, it's always a day of adventure over at the the dairy

First of all, one of my coworkers was nearly crushed to death by an over anxious cow. Due to our protocol for handling sick cows (healthies get milked first, sick last), some how a sick cow tried to sneak into the giant milking aparatus by running really fast. He ended up pinned between some ridgid metal bars and a half ton pregnant lactating bovine mommy for about a minute. Luckily he wasn't seriously injured, but he kept passing out several times in a row for about a half hour afterwards. I would too after being constricted by one of those things.

Secondly, March and February seems to be a good time for all the heifers to decide to drop their calves. For us this means performing chain-assisted child birth. In most cases, heifers have difficulty becoming cows, that is delivering their young and becoming mothers for the first time. Usually the best way to assist them in this process is through the use of chains, and a pair of good hands. To make a long story short, they make the calf's pelvis line up as good as possible with the mother's then attach chains to the calve's legs and pull while the mother pushes. Not a pretty picture at all

#176 gave birth to a 92lb bull calf, which I had the pleasure of separting from her 8 hours after its birth. The mother, who I had seen earlier in the milking parlor was covered totally in afterbirth, her jowels pink colored from the umbilicus she just snacked on. I grabbed the little quivering thing and tossed it onto the back of one of the farm pickups, for drop off at the calf barn. Freshly born calves, or after birth, or what ever the mother and the calf were covered in, smell like a combination of a gust of salty New Jersey sea air and slight hint of CK One, very slight. I wouldn't be surpised if that is the secret ingredient in CK One, considering that stuff like ambergris is used in that kind of stuff all the time

Happy St. Paddy's Day! =)

So it's been a day of cycles... five years ago, today, I lost my virginity; one year ago, today, I took someone else's virginity... no virginity-stealing this time, but nonetheless, a day of rememberence. Can I help it if I get horny when I drink?

Other than that, Measure for Measure has taken over my life. I had rehearsal from 10 am till 5 pm today, and I swear to god, all I can hear in the back of my head is a voice rhythmically reciting Shakespeare... " 'Escalus?' 'My lord...' 'Of government and properties to unfold, would seem in me to affect speech and discourse...' " As this is the first play I have ever been in, it is rather exciting, and yes, I will be upset when it ends... this is my only link to friendship at school, and once it's over, no more hanging out with these people on a regular basis. "Oh sure," you say, "Can't you just call them, or something?" No; I'm the world's most shy girl... I don't call people just for the sake of calling people. I can't. Maybe if between then and now, friendships are better established, this won't be a problem.

So Tim is in Boston. That's okay, I'll be fine... but I don't have anyone to complain to in the meantime! And I have crushes... safe, harmless crushes, maybe they will or won't amount to anything, but right now, it doesn't really matter. I'm content, for once, in my tiny little world here in Baltimore. Content, and possibly even... safe?

Sucked. Period.

First thing - take car in...shouldn't have to do this anyway.

(problem: one 10mm bolt on an EGR Valve? WTFTI.

Next...Go figure out what to do since all the people I thought I could be doing things with are suddenly too busy to do anything with me...

Decide on coffee...No not Irish Coffee...(I don't drink anymore - It makes me depressed - well more depressed) (But yes I do want a drink by now...)

Trying to figure out if it's worth confronting friends with their lies...Usually one just let's them go and live their own life without the dependable friend (me) to be there...especially when too many people aren't being dependable or fun of late...Not sure about this situation...Probably gonna have to do the same...

Once again - no good deed goes unpunished...I have got to be less dependable...less of a floor mat...I'm sick of the lies, the lack of real commitment from supposed friends, and the general malaise I feel when I attempt to include them in my adventures...

Finally found someone not too busy to answer their phone...they have a guest...whom I remember as having moved to Georgia...He's a pretty cool guy...

They all go back to sleep (as he drove straight to Baltimore from Atlanta...and woke up my friends)...

Marvel at yesterday's purchases! (heh heh heh - they will be nodes soon! (when I get to typing more!))

Go find dinner...again no one is around...hmmmmmm...

Dinner - A diner's takeout version of Corned Beef...passable - maybe...

More coffee...

Node

Yea

Today was a good day.

What a Good Day Means to Me

I got to sleep in, ah yes, almost an essential for me to have a truely good day. Next to this, of course, I would take waking up naturally early, but this hardly ever happens anymore. I guess I will have to wait to become middle-aged like my parents before I have a hard time staying asleep for more than six hours in a shot. Am I strange because I require ten hours of sleep to feel well-rested?

Who knows, it might be mono.

I followed up the heavy sleeping session with reading more of Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. At some point, I got sort of sick of laying around in the same spot and drew a hot bath. Then I finished about three-quarters of the book in there. I really never expected these books to be quite so entertaining.

Brighter Spirits

My girlfriend called late in the afternoon and said she wanted to take me shopping for some new jeans. The ones I have from the GAP are starting to look a little too 90s grunge, I guess. Time to prep up.

We went to Rosedale Mall and headed straight into Dayton's (on an aside: I hate the fact they are changing their name to Marshall Field's). She picked out some cute Guess Jeans and a shirt. One-hundred twenty dollars later we were on our way. Ended up swinging by structure to round it out to an even two-hundred. Damn it is expensive to look good.

Steve No More!

Called Yumi's Sushi Bar to see if Steve might be "filling in," so we could get some awesome sushi. The lady on the phone told me he wasn't even going to be doing that any longer. What a shame!

We ended up going to Tanpopo, a Japanese noodle shop, and ate very well.

Out 'till 2:00am

After we will well fed and in high spirits we went back to her apartment, fooled around, joked, and talked. It was a fabulously good time. I left her place at about 2:00am, ad did not get hit on the way home from a St. Patrick's Day drunk. All this combined makes today a good day.

I'm so pissed off!!!Went to get some special shoes at a special store today. Ended up with some ordered and one pair - that fucking killed my fucking feet when I stood on concrete for a few hours at a concert tonite. I'm still angry about it. Now I will have to go back and get measured again. I'm actually very pissed. The woman had degrees and shit all over her wall, was very sweet, blah blah blah - but the shoes are too fucking small! Then she took the time and trouble to go with me to another store and helped me pick out some running shoes that would work. I think these are wrong now too.

I tried wearing them again the next morning, with stockings. They will do I guess - but they aren't really quite right. I know she did the best she could, and it's up to me cause she's not wearing them. But I felt pressured to be a good girl and make her happy. How fucking moronic can I get? What's up with that? I guess I felt guilty for making her work on a Saturday. Stupid, I know.

Went to a concert tonight - it was good. TMBG. Got in free. Drove for my drunk friends celebrating an anniversary. I felt as lonely as I ever have. Despair and sorrow welled up during the show. It wasn't anybody's fault. I missed M. and was glad he wasn't there at the same time I wished he was there. I also wished he was younger and thinner too. I wish that a lot.

I've been feeling very alone since Thursday.