My cousin Joe got married this previous saturday. Although I am happy for him, I was sad all throughout the ceremony and the party afterwards.

I got to thinking, maybe I missed my chance, maybe I was too busy being my reclusive, shy self and lost the one person with whom I could spend my life with, perhaps if I had been the drunk guy staring at her legs she would be going out with me and not her boyfriend. Instead she and I are merely the best of friends, to the point where all of my other friendships suffer.

Why do i think that she the person I could spend my life with? Every second I spend in her company brings me to new heights of happiness, and not just during the sleepovers we have occasionally, but rather every time I see her face I get this supreme feeling of joy. We spend hours at a time talking, not just in words but in another deeper tongue. As if we no longer need words, but speak directly through our minds.

It doesn't help that she tells me that she wishes we could live together, but she fears her boyfriend wouldnt understand. It doesn't help that she gets really sad when I can't spend my free time with her. It doesnt help that she likes to strut around in bike shorts and sports bras.

anyway, im in the process of finding a job, I'll probably end up working at either Borders or Circuit City, so if anyone in the Germantown area wants cheap cds, books, or electronics, I'm your man.

Sick, sick, and more damnable sick. I have got one of the worst colds of my entire life. Although I can appreciate some of the more entertaining aspects of these horrific fever driven visions of apocalyptic evil I do look forward to actually functioning again. I keep catching glimpses of things that do not exist out of the corner of my eyes. This is not good.

I'm housesitting for a friend so at least I get to suffer brain damage in an environment more comfortable than usual. This includes a DSL connection so at very least I can share the horror and paranoia with everyone.

Yoon and I had planned to truck on down to Mesa Verde for the weekend but this has been postponed due to illness and my pending eviction from my apartment in just a handful of days. It sucks because she teaches high school and I go to college so our breaks are always a week or so off from each other. It sounds minor, I realize, but both of us are so busy that we hardly see each other on weekends.

Confession I now am part of the evil empire. Seduced by the allure of flexible hours, health insurance availability for part time employees, and the amount of shit that I can steal and scam I now work at Starbucks. The ironic part about all this (other than the fact that I am fully aware of all the sketchy business practices my employer uses to unfairly eliminate competition) is that I kinda like the job. Obviously the free coffee would almost justify any employment just in terms of how much money I save by not having to buy a couple of pounds of coffee a week but there are other upsides as well. Insurance is pretty important since I am diabetic (with organs that occasionally decide to conk out and spur me to do things like get on waiting lists for donated organs) and can barely afford insulin. I guess I'm not really apologizing or anything but I still feel weird about it. It's similar to the feeling that I had after my first cheeseburger after fourteen years of being a strict vegetarian. It's stupid realizations like these that make me aware of the fact that my thinking actually evolves over time. Yes, this is arguable given that my evolution leads to things like working for multi-national corporations. At times like this I feel like I'm missing some vital brain function. Maybe it's just the fever?

Part of my housesitting responsibility is taking care of a dog. I live with four cats so it's odd having to take an animal outside just so it can crap. I should probably just go to sleep.

Today woke up at about 12 noon to my dad pulling in to drive us both out to my sister's place to get the rest of my stuff. We successfully did the trip in about 9 hours round trip. Spent the rest of the night at Denny's drinking coffee, eating a piece of cake, and drawing with my art student friends. The difference being, they could draw, I could only scribble.

All of this boredom. Also went to test out the lines to see if Alltel had done anything to get the dsl ready. They hadn't, so my dad and I looked over the house for how we will rewire it for ethernet, etc.

My days are so unromantic since I left the city, didn't even touch my guitar today. Too wired on coffee to quite go to bed right now. Plus I want to give my girlfriend one more chance at a phone call, just in case she's in.

Another day done, another school day skipped. UBC didn't miss me, and I sure missed UBC as must as it missed me. Just woke up this morning and didn't feel like going to school. My friend's brother called me and wanted to play some DDR. I wouldn't have gone but I thought that at least I could get some brownie points for being a nice guy with his sister.

We spent the afternoon together, feeling like I'm his bigger brother. Sorta even more depressing, simply because I see so much of myself in him. We like the exact same things, even the exact same definition of pretty. Sorta gross, yet sorta expected. I even feel old, remembering when he was like 4'11" and now he's like a giant. He was a nice guy and I enjoyed his company, making me feel like a wise old man, so I bought him a slurpee. Then his sister picked him up, and she gave me a hug, and again, everything was good. Oh the humanity. Simple things like that. Simple minds simple pleasures I assume.

Night falls, and I stay home for a while. I go around, trying to learn some html, but to no avail. Check around the internet for some sort of intellectual companion in which I can converse with the greatest of ease, but no one.

Dinner with family. White spot. How boring. How so typical. How so unimaginative. I didn't want to go but then its the guilt factor. Sorta worthless to me. I say nothing the whole time except maybe pass the ketchup. Home we go.

Then, out with a friend. It was sorta nice. Nice walk in the nighttime, good air. Fresh air is good for you once in a while. Then back to the arcade, where I have spent many of my boring nights. It was nice, at least the female company. Then again, home I go.

Yet, all I could think about at the time was how I saw my friend earlier. He dresses like me, talks like me and even similar personalities. He had a separated shoulder. Maybe a broken wrist. He tried to commit suicide. Sorta disturbing at the least. We're too similar. My other friend did that as well. They failed. Part of me says "Go". The other says "Wait". I guess its just a matter of time. Then I realized today, that I was always smarter than them. Maybe I can achieve what they failed in. But then, if I was smarter, I wouldn't think about it anyways. Maybe. Only time will tell.

I have nothing else to lose, except to say, my mind.
Valium! I guess it's not the shock of knowing that Valium (an anxiolytic, muscle relaxant - diazepam) is what I need for the pain I am in, but the fact that it had been recommended to me by my doctor. Or Ducene, the other Valium that isn't called Valium. Yes, same stuff: diazepam.

The thought had crossed my mind that I could take valium, as I have prescribed it for patients of mine with TMJ (temporomandibular joint)/muscle problems... but to be told that it I might need it is different.

Unfortunately my chronic back ache & neck ache is in its acute phase. I did the most painful filling for a patient today. I was in pain, I couldn't not move my neck or my arm suddenly. It seemed to take forever to complete. A dentist in pain - an oxymoron??

I'm even limiting my time on E2 because I can't take it anymore. BOO HOO HOOOOOOO.

BTW, I declined the offer of valium - I'm just on anti-inflammatories for the time being. The aim of therapy is to break the cycle of muscle spasms. Pain --> muscle spasm --> more pain --> more muscle spasm. Apparently I can't just the anti-inflammatories PRN (as needed), but I have to be on a regime for at least a week to break the cycle. So much for a quick fix!

If I acted on my chronic pain earlier, it would take a shorter time to fix - now I've left it for many many mooooons, I'll have to take at least 2 weeks off work. Oh boy oh boy.

YES!  We are *definitely* going to the fencing competition at Purdue on Saturday.

Time to get PUMPED UP.

This is usually a pretty laid back competition, so I'm hoping as a newcomer to Midwest competitions I can stroll in there and mop the floor with everyone.

It's also the same day as the NCAA fencing championships, so that should weaken the field a bit as well.

So today, the only thing on my mind is going to fencing practice and warming up for tomorrow.

No drinking.  No soda.  No fun, just a night of fixing foils.  Fun Fun Fun!

Last night I went to a friend's birthday party. It was pretty small, probably 15 people were there total. About halfway into the party, a great bluegrass trio showed up and started playing. We were all just in the living room dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller, and these three guys, a bassist, a guitarist, and a fiddler, just walk into the middle of the room and start jamming. The cool thing about living in a place with such a high density of musicians, is that shit like that just happens.

There were so many cute people at this party on whom I had a crush. I spent more time with a recently made friend, and we had a great conversation about music, communication, and the "universal consciousness". It was hard for me to keep looking into his eyes, though... I'm kinda embarrassed about my crush on him. Later in the night, I met someone new who shares my love of Michael Jackson, is really cute, and seems quite smart and witty. I thought that she may have been attracted to me too, but it was getting late, and I had work early in the morning...

Excuses, excuses...

I always seem to node on a Friday. Why's that? Always daylogs too, for that matter!
Today was a bit of an execption because I wrote 3 nodes with a total of 1 rep between them! This is the point where I try to figure out what went wrong then consider having them nuked. (Feel free to check them out - hint hint.)

Nothing much has happened since my last daylog so I'll just have to give you a brief on what happened to me today!
Got up, got to work, skived off doing "stuff" for 45 minutes.
Sorted out some of my code and checked it all in to Source Safe for the weekend. This was only 11:30.
Planned some code in rough. Aside: I happen to be one of those rare programmers that writes it all down on paper before putting it onto the screen. Works well but looks like I don't do anything for a good few hours (sometimes days).
Pub lunch in Didsbury.
Came back, more planning with some interspersed reading of nodes in the past hour.

I was actually doing something constructive to my previous nodes, reading some at random and making corrections and updates as I saw fit.

GOD, when did I become so boring? I guess I'll just have to (re)tell the story of last Fridays little adventure.
In a nutshell, leave work early, got to the pub, drinks, curry with drinks, meet more people, more drinks, projectile vomiting! Needless to say, Saturday didn't happen and I probably shouldn't have been driving at 7pm either. Just a word of advise to everyone, Flaming Lambourginis are not funny, not clever and definately not a good idea! Enough killing time, I'm leaving now to go and see my beautiful girlfriend.

Noded today:
Fallowfield
borrow
Fallowfield Music Festival

PS. I really like the format of Slides w/u at the top, not every day you see that!

Why is it that music by dead composers just sounds better?

Maybe it's just my enlightened side talking but, although most of my musical tastes fall towards works composed in the last 30 year, I find that nothing moves me quite same same as Pachelbel's Canon in D Major.

A simple flow, like a stream. Gaining momentum, becomming greater. More Epic. Creating a life of it's own for a few brief, glimmering moments. And then, softly, if billows away back into the recesses of echos, leaving things undisturbed and yet better than they were before.

Perhaps it's compund of age. Maybe, though the rivulets and ravages of time, the bad as been disolved and only the best parts remains. A pure essence of a poets soul. A purity that can only be expressed though music. I can imagine Johann, living his life, softly humming a tune that came to him as he was walking in the market that morning, considering what to do with it. If he had only known the legacy he would inspire.

We all need more of that in out lives.

It figures. It fucking figures that the one day of the week when I'm able to just stay in bed all day, it's lovely and sunny out. The two days previous, when I had to go out despite my Martian death cold (goneaway, I feel your pain), it was pouring freezing rain. Categorically Not Fair.

On Wednesday, I trekked up to Times Square to see The Full Monty on Broadway with my roommate, which was fabulous, and which I would have enjoyed even more had I been able to cheer without icepicks slamming into my vocal cords. And last night, I was supposed to meet up with Phyllis Stein while he was in the city, but I apparently sounded like death warmed over on the phone, so I begged off. Ah, well. Sometime soon, I hope.

Later that night, my roommate filled me with soup and we stumbled the few blocks to Tonic to see Brian Dewan play. He was also sick. He still managed to rock, while I merely managed not to fall asleep.

It sounds like my roommate is being inconsiderate of the fact that I am sick unto death!...but that's not the case. She's talking excellent care of me, due to the fact that I've a rather weak immune system and tend to look pathetically like a Precious Moments figurine when feeling under the weather. She's kept me fed, hydrated and entertained - she even surprised me with stickers, a Time Out New York and a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion CD yesterday. Bless her shiny metal heart.




My first love was a drug dealer.

Actually, he still is. But two summers ago, when I first started hanging out with the drama fags, orchestra kids, and assorted other fringe scenesters, he sold pot to all his friends. Not to me, of course, which should have tipped me off. To me, he would sit and preach the gospel of responsible drug use. I watched Permanent Midnight with his arm around me. He went on long rants about William S. Burroughs, on whom he'd once written a term paper.

I never saw him use any drugs, but they were all he thought about.

I was madly in love with him. I don't know why.

Then he went off to college in Boston, making sure to stomp on my heart a few times before he went. The first time I was able, after that, to look at him without turning into stone was the day before I left for college this summer.

It was at a mutual friend's party. We talked about his sudden interest in the Boston rave scene. I noticed that he was wearing very expensive clothing. I talked about some of my recent troubles. He offered to buy some of my Dexedrine.

I'm sick of him.

Remind me never to read other people's day logs before writing my own.

NEVER HIT CHILDREN. NEVER NEVER NEVER

I really didn't want to node on this but I can't not.

There are so many ways to discipline a small child, hitting is ineffective but more importantly is just plain wrong.

Plus, I can still discipline my 17 year old 6 foot 2 inch son, and on occasions I need to. I could not do that if I hadn't developed a life history of respect AND effective methods. He has been bigger than me for almost half his life. Do you think he would listen to me if physical force was my main tool?

But, sadly, I've found that this is a very divisive issue and I have never convinced a confirmed spanker.

What I really wanted to talk about is SPRING. I love Spring. I just spoke to my mom in Florida and I realized that as much as I hate Winter I wouldn't want to miss Spring. I had the best time today tearing down the old dead stalks and clearing the debris from the new green stuff. Plus flowers are blooming again. Did you ever notice that Spring flowers are the prettiest of the whole year? I don't think it is just the long Winter deprivation that does that either. Daffodils, crocuses, snow drops ... what could be better?

I wish I was a better landscaper. I love to garden but it really is a mess. I plant things over top of other things and then forget what was where. My weed gardens are legendary. I have tons of flowers but the over all effect is not pleasing.

evening

So, the MIR is history. So is my old Pentium 200. Stopped working today. First, it started freezing on xscreensaver, then it started rebooting on xscreensaver. I experienced first freezes couple of days ago - i thought it was just that kernel 2.4.2, but it was more. I haven't solved the reason why the computer crashes - maybe it's the motherboard, maybe it's the CPU. I'm sure the problem wasn't caused by bad memory, as I changed the RAM chip and it still didn't work properly. Finally, the computer just stopped booting. Maybe MIR and my computer had some weird relation?

It looks like I need to visit computer store next week, to get replacement. For the record, that computer was my internal webserver, database server, samba server and firewall. Luckily, the hard disk that was on the computer is still ok, so i didn't lose any data. Rest in Peace, you served me well. Adios for the MIR too. I wish I had seen the "landing", but being here in Finland, it was impossible - of course, it was all over tv, but it isn't the same.

I am so fscking tired today. In bed at midnight, up at 5:30 to slam the snooze button ten times. Four days in a row. I can't take it! I am slowly weaning myself from caffiene and it sucks. I really feel the tiredness, with no hyper-buzz on top, and I don't like it.

And work is just insane. I have been interrupted so many times, afraid to start a big project that needs doing as I'm supposed to learn Citrix client and program installs from the engineer, except the hardware failed and he's reinstalling from the ground up.

I'm supposed to meet some friends for happy hour in B'more, at my fave happy hour bar Max's. T. is depressed, L. is bummed out, I'm a fucking basket case, and M. is probably just fine as usual. So maybe with any luck, I'll be able to have more than one beer, and my stomach won't whine, and I'll be JUST FINE!!!!

Then I'll come home and study for that stupid test. Maybe.

I hate M. I hate him so much I could just scream. This traumatic transference thing has got to go. I try to ignore my hate for him, because I know it's not "real", I'm just projecting my hate for my grandfather and mother onto him. And maybe more people, who knows? But when I hear from him physically, and sometimes e-mail, I often become filled with rage. Which is frustrating when I can't control it, or it isn't attached to something real. It changes very quickly into guilt filled hate, so hard to deal with.

Once upon a time there was a nodeshell called "Node your poetry". It just sat there, embodying a certain attitude: that E2 is a good place to "publish" your own poetry.

I disagree with this. Writing good fiction is difficult. This is why you're not a best-selling author. Writing decent poetry is probably even harder, because the meaning has to be condensed into a much smaller space, and has to follow a stricter set of rules. This is why you're not a published poet.

Writing a piece of factual prose, or even a chunk of opinion (like these paragraphs you're reading) is much easier. Pretty much anyone can do it, and given the idea(l)s behind E2, I think everyone should be encouraged to do so!

But: the vast majority of user-written poetry I've come across on E2 is self-indulgent drivel. (A lot of the professional poetry on E2 is still under copyright, and shouldn't be here either, but that's a different matter.)

So, I made a little writeup to go with the nodeshell. Under the title "node your poetry" it simply read:

Actually, no. Please don't.
This is a freelance nodeshell rescue with a subliminal message buried deep inside. Can you find it?

After about ten minutes, it had risen to a reputation of three (so some folks must have felt in tune with it), but three hours later, the whole node was gone. Poof!

I messaged a friendly Editor, asking what had happened to it, and the Editor told me that it was because the content was too short, and sub-par. Also, merely sticking nodeshell rescue at the bottom of a writeup is not enough to justify its existence. Fair enough. On reflection, I see that it was too short. It may have been pithy, but it didn't adequately explain anything. It was a single, unexplained exclamation mark in the nodegel. Low quality stuff. I agree that the node, as it stood, should have been deleted. Thank you to the Editor that did it.

So this writeup is now here in an attempt to explain my opinion in more depth:

  • Please think twice before noding a poem of your own
  • Please don't be offended when I downvote it. I'm willing to read lots of facts, opinions, and even dreams (when they're in the dream log), but I apply much higher standards to fiction and poetry.

I'm writing this as part of the day log, because even though this is a longer (and slightly more reasoned) opinion, it would pollute the nodegel just as much as the original one, if I were to create it as a "Please don't node your poetry" node. It's a thought for the day, so treat it as such, and dispose of it appropriately when you're done with it.

(At least here in the day log, no-one will look at it after tomorrow :-)

Next week is the 15th annual Allies pride week.

Today at school, there was a small gathering of LBGT...or LGBT (one of those orders) peoples on old main, they gave some speaches and stuff, and handed out some free pizza to celebrate this. I showed up, mostly for the pizza, but also because I consider myself a supporter of gay rights. It was interesting to say the least, except these two women had these tiny dogs that kept fighting and barking and interrupting the speakers.

Visited PSU's Frost Museum of Entymology, saw lots of live and dead insects/arthropods/shellfish. They had an interesting terrarium display full of live Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, which look alot like a cross between a trilobyte and you standard everyday disgusting roach.

Started back working out at the gym. Consequently, I still reffer to working out as "lifting weights" as apposed to just (a variation of) the word "lift". Usually, when I hear someone use the word 'lift' when expressing the desire to workout, it is often followed by a series of enthusiastic simian grunting. I'm a little old fashioned I guess

Started the day off....kind of late. Not to worry. Ran back to my house and grabbed ficus' painting, the one of the compass, and fought the traffic down to Largo. I pulled up in the familiar drive that I haven't set foot on since before the turn of the year. Stepped around the strange lattice work and knocked on the carriage house door.

"Hey! Hold on a sec."
Door swings open, and there he is, in all his big Greekness.
"I knew you were coming. Elvis was on the TV."
"Are you trying to tell me Elvis makes you think of me?"
"Yeah, I guess I am. Just when we all think you're dead, you pop up again."

I take ficus to lunch, where I sip on Bacardi lemonades and feed him. I've been doing that alot lately....my chill-ren don't eat well enough.
And we talk, and we talk, and we talk. He, like Onya, might come to visit and see if the city's the place for him. My dreams of my own mafia really are becoming a reality. We have such a connection, we should have never tried to fuck that up by becoming involved. Some friends you should just NOT sleep with. I guess I gotta get better filters.

I'm getting flamboyant anf giggly by the end of lunch and I know I have to let him go so he can get to work and I can go ghost around my house for a bit.

I don't want to let go, as I'm on my tip-toes trying to get my arm around his freckled neck. I don't want to exchange emails, though he knows mine by heart. I don't want to admit that this is goodbye.....for now. He hops in the Mazda saying, "I love ya, ya goddamn gypsy." I hop in Squirt and head for Dunedin. I see Griffin driving in Lilith passing me on Alt-19 waving and honking. There'll be time enough for him later.

In the house, I'm drunk on booze and thought, with my cat in my lap as I call the East Coast, Maryland, and Arizona. I call everyone and both of the mothers. Only two people are unreachable. Okay, three, Kash and I are still playing tag. Satyr misses his roommate, Cammie's doing her taxes, Mom's freakin' that it's been at least two weeks since we've talked. Okay, four, Bear's out on the town already. Eric wants his meds altered, Deb's freakin' about the job, Onya's outta commision 'til tomorrow, Thor offers his scarab design for tomorrow. Griffin calls over and over in between my calls. Like I said, he'll get his time later.

I spin around and around in the living room, it's my own private studio. Put on some Perfect Circle, dig out my old Stabbing Westward, throw some PJ Harvey into the mix. Smoke, smoke, smoke, think.

Show up at Griffin's about an hour and a half later than I'd said. Oh well. The pizza's cold, the beer is warm. Stretch out to cuddle, one green eye opens to fix on me over a beaked nose and under round glasses. "Where ya been?"

Hang out for a while. I know he's tired. We've been up and running since I got back. It's Friday night and he's got money and he doesn't want to go out. He must really be tired and it's not just a put on. I creep out as Jen crawls in, with a kiss on his forehead and a whisper about tomorrow.

Pop the gears back into third as I jet by the waterway. Goddess, it's fuckin' beautiful. But I think it's beautiful wherever I am. I'm sickly optimistic like that. Mountains, concrete, ocean, desert.... So I settle back to secure a few more memories and dreams into boxes, and tell my cat he'd better go catch himself another squirrel. For both of us, because we don't have much time left.

Today was my 18th birthday. This is the one day of the year that I don't mind if I am very selfish. My party consisted of the following things.

  • Spending 110 pounds sterling of my friends money on alcohol in Tesco and getting to use a real ID for the first time ever.
  • Setting up 800 watts of musical power (of which 500 watts was sub) in a very small room and listening to my friend Simon dj some IDM and other insane electronic music. He was very good considering he only had the decks for 2.5 weeks.
  • I think a hotbox process occured in a mini somewhere.
  • This was a geek-party with less computers but we still had big projector screen pornography for pure entertainment value and to allow asqui to mix in the word "penetration" into the music.
  • Some drinking games were incorporated into the fun.
  • Puking up, I believe, while sleeping and continued to sleep in my puke. The physics of puking into your own hair is simply breath-taking. Luckily my friends were sober enough to look after me.
  • Writing a very abusive email to someone I know, the consequences of which should be very interesting.
  • Recieved one phone call telling us to turn the music down.
  • Ate some pizza.

I also noted that everyone was extra-nice to me, which was nice.

This node is the memory of what is quite possibly, the best time I have ever had. If only I could remember the rest of it.

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