Today I shit myself for the first time ever. I was scared. It was bliss.

I took my son to traffic court today (100 MPH in a 55 zone).

The first 15 defendants got off “not guilty” for lack of the police officer's presence in the courtroom.

The next 3 got probation before verdict.
Mine got his ticket reduced to 65 MPH, 2 points, and a big fine.

according to the judge ...

According to Mom; he won’t be driving for a while.

Morning meeting at work today. I took the minutes.

I keep thinking it is Friday. I know it is Thursday, I really do, but I spoke on the phone today saying I was staying late at work because the theatre space is being used to show our favourite kidnap target, Russell Crowe's film Gladiator. But that is tomorrow. *sigh*

One of my workmates is sick as a dog. He had asthma, a common thing in Australia. He took a day off work, after being hospitalised, and then came back the next day. Half way through the day, he is coughing like the world is about to end, and goes home after lunch. Then back in to hospital. Then to the critical care unit. With pneumonia. WHAT? Pneumonia? Didn't they pick that up when he came in two days previously?????

Richard Davies, get better soon - your work is of such value we cannot express it in normal terms

I am being re-visited by the spectre of my previous employer (see here) - no matter how well exorcised I think I am, life is conspiring to bring it back up. This time, the lawyers of the company I work for now are asking how to fix the problems with my former employer, because the paperwork hasn't been done. It is well and truly finished, but I really don't want to have to talk to them again. It's bad enough seeing them in the cafe every day - I find it amusing they still can't look me in the eye.

Other than that, I still haven't heard from simonc about The Great Sydney Fraptabulous Everythingian Get Together - and for those inquisitive types, it is a piss take of the absurdly long titles for other local area meetings of Everythingians. Get hold of me soon, simonc!


I played around with the theme of E2 today - currently it is the water theme now, quite nice - with rearranged nodelets.

I read about the shit fight with DMan - I am definitely NOT hard linking to his home node - he doesn't deserve any more of our precious time - Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I spoke to one of my high school friends - Barry - and found out he got his CCNA - WELL DONE BAZ! - I personally am studying for it now (I have been using Cisco equipment for over 3 years constantly now, I can do it with my eyes shut, but I still need to solidify all my knowledge) and hope to get it by July. Uni holidays for sure.


Oh and by the way, all of my daylog writeups have been voted to above 20 reputation. And I have a high C! ratio with them as well. All of my other nodes are in the range -1 to 10 rep. Go figure

Long, tiresome day...

Found out I'll never have money again...

Perhaps I should whore my self out and become a stripper or a Hooter's girl. But I think Jason values me too much to ever let me do that. Knowing him, he'd pay off my bills to stop me...And I can't let him do that...

Not that there is anything wrong with being in the sex industry... But it's not me... I value my brains too much, I don't spend hours in the lab pondering over Hexane and Benzo-18-6 molecules, to take of my dress and give drunk, old men cheap treats at the end of the day.

But I digress...

So... I am broke... Car - less.... And due to lack of money -- in severe nicotine withdrawal...

Oh, and my roommate is a nut-case bitch... But that's a whole different node...

But non of my problems matter this morning, because my Jason is not happy... He is strong, he is optimistic, he is the one that holds my head down when I am coughing up my lungs, he is the one that holds me when I wake up crying... He is the one that hides the razor when he knows I am just upset enough to cut myself to make the pain in my mind go away.

Seeing him sad crushes me...

He is so wonderful, kind, funny...

Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve him...

I never loved anyone like I love him... I cheated on every single guy I've dated... I know I said before I didn't about a few cause it's not a proud thing to admit... But I did... But with Jason... I could never want anyone as long as he loves me... He is like an angel. When we make love, we make love.... And only in his embrace to I truly understand the meaning of the word. He is the best lover I ever had, and probably ever will, everyone else... They seem like a bad dream... He is my hero, my sanity, my knight in shiny armor and a black Accura...

And he is sad... I know I am borderline of committing a mortal sin -- I am aware I idolize our love. But he is worthy of it, even when I think I am not...

To me, seeing him sad is up there, almost like seeing my mother cry...

I don't know what to do, he is sad because other when me and him, his life is not being very nice to him, I am not going to get into details, they are not mine to share, but I just always thought great people like that should get better... And tonight he was sadder than I ever seen him... And even depressed, he is still kind, he doesn't do what I do, he doesn't fight, yell, cry, cut, throw things, he is still my noble Jason...

He is calm...

He worries more that I will get sleep, than that he will be OK. I don't know what to do... I don't know what to offer someone who has done so much for me... I don't know how to make him happy, I want to take all his pain away, and I want those beautiful eyes to loose their dark shadow . I want him to smile...

But I can't fix the world, all I can do is offer him myself, all of me, my heart, my soul, my unconditional love, knowing that I will be there no matter what.

But a part of me always fears that it’s not enough...

I had this WU, and I realized that is was somewhat in the wrong place; too specific. So I moved it to this other node and submitted an E2 Nuke Request for the existing one.

Only the new node home has been far kinder to it. ...and the Nuke Request is gone, the node and writeup still standing.

Are the editors trying to tell me that this old node is destined to stay , taunting me?
Oh, screw it, I have better things to do with life.

...and yet I am not prepared to shoot my mindfuck through the head, to end it's miniscule tirade through my psyche. So life goes on, things get voted up and down. Suddenly, I visualize all those little XP and vote rep and C! values on all nodes to be like rod controls on a nuclear reactor. If a node becomes too popular or sad then E2 gets blown to kingdom come, a vertiable Chernobyl, if you will.

...and then I strap a few extra clothes to my naked psyche and vow never to be an exhibitionist of the soul in front of myself for another year.

May this node blow along with all the rest of beautiful shiny garbage on the heavanly brothel of E2


Update: The last line on this WU looks like the only redeemable bit. Such a short climax, sigh...

[ Dream Log ]

12:17

Good afternoon...

The Morning After The Release Of Vocodotor, the quick and dirty Ogg Vorbis comment editor. (Yeah, it was released. Yes, it probably kills a lot of people.) My mailbox isn't full of comments from people asking how to turn that thing on. It's a good sign. Some people didn't like the UI too much. =(

Stuff that has happened over time... Well, not much. Apart of the release.

Time to face the challenges of the day.

19:51

You know... ISP's DNS servers seemed to be down. My whole day rhythm went strange. You Know You're An Net Addict When...

Well, acutally, it wasn't that bad... I spent time today trying to write my Programming Environment stuff. It wasn't that easy to explain all that stuff about make and like.

02:53

<RANT>

Praise Bill, his leadership unquestioned!

Story so far:

  • I recorded a way cool TV commercial. Nothing odd about that. It's on tape now.
  • I loaded up my video editing software (Pinnacle Studio PCTV) to Windows.
  • I tried to capture. It crashed.
  • (After each crash, it refused to believe the card is not in use, which means I had to restart Windows. And on this machine, it takes a long time. Don't ask me why.)
  • I tried to see what would make it a bit less crashy. It didn't crash, but refused to capture. Okay, let's try that in Linux...
  • I opened up the machine, cleaned some dust, installed Aureal Vortex2 card (the driver I have for this on-board sound chipset won't record sound in Linux). Downloaded drivers, compiled, installed. Werks.
  • Broadcast 2000: Captures video, drops hell of a lot of frames for reasons unknown. Sound always recorded at maximum volume (who the hell would know why... it's a semi-binary driver and Aureal is dead. I hope Creative Labs will open up the driver someday...)
  • 2 hours, 30 minutes after the start of capture attempt: Hard Reboot. Something that the bttv driver did decided that it'd be Cool to crash the machine. Fsck! (literally.) Maybe I should finally get that ReiserFS stuff I've always dreamed of. =(

Oh, and you're not gonna believe this error message:

nighthowl:~$ man display

gzip: stdout: No space left on device

At first glance, this looks awful lot like "/dev/null full", but this was caused by full root partition... =) Nuked some stuff from /tmp and it worked again.

</RANT>


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded recently by y.t.: quotation marks Cyber Patrol PORNsweeper Useless Use of Cat

Today's new nodifications: Empire Dream Log: March 8, 2001 SANE Tk

Updated: Aureal

Solo

So there was I. Sitting, half-lying.
The weather was great. The sun was about to set. The wind had died down. Turbulence was nearly non-existent. Still enough light.

butterflies
you know where
not the kind to get a rise
there, this... it's just a kind of dare

The previous evening had laid the groundwork. The insects had been romping around in my guts then, too. But I hadn't had much warning. She had just plunged me into it. Silly me. Should have seen it coming.
I'd had my fair share already, so I thought... Well, I didn't think actually. So it was unexpected when it did happen. Luckily I satisfied her. Which gave me a great feeling. Strange... or maybe not.

Now I was alone. Loving and dreading it simultaneously. In fact, I was scared shitless, but anticipating every moment of solitude I was going to get. Which, knowing the tamed down weather, was not going to last long.

Last long... Last long... The previous one had lasted long. A bit too long for inexperienced me. But I'd had support that time. Managed not to completely fuck up, either. Otherwise I wouldn't be facing the prospect of roughly seven minutes of solitude now.

I have a tendency to shiver uncontrollably in some situations. One of those is when my brother has a gig with his band, for some strange reason. The other I know about is when I'm about to kiss the girl I love for the first time. But that's a different first time, and a different node. Or non-node. That's none of your business...

Well, I found another instance of uncontrolled shivering while half-reclining there in northern France. And this was just not the time to start shivering...

I got hooked up
by my friend
not long before thumbs-up
roughly eight minutes till the end


And then, everything blurred with the concentration I forced upon myself. Not the time to fuck up. Not the time to think ahead to rough landing. Not the time, but for the checklist.

Yes, the checklist.

Sigh. Look outside to see the instructor kneeling next to the cockpit. Questioning look on the face.

"Small blue." I say. Single-seater is small blue. God, I'm going to go small blue for the first time! Suddenly I'm back at shivering again.

"OPEN!" I hear. Automatically I reach for the yellow knob and pull it all the way out.
Some noise, then, "CLOSE!". I release the knob and it springs back. Click... Hooked up.

I look around. Left, right, in front, up, and all around. All clear, I guess.
I look left to where the instructor is waiting.
    Bring my left hand up...

    left hand breaks the gesture as the tip of the left wing of the glider is picked up...
and grabs the yellow knob...

tunnel vision
focus on the coil, the slack of rope
that is my mission
soft landing, I hope


After a short moment I shift my attention to the beast parked about a mile away, straight ahead. Then, when I discern a flashing yellow light, back to the coil of rope lying in front.

Nothing...

Then, a jerk. And again nothing... Until, suddenly, with a second jerk, the coil of rope begins to shrink into the distance ahead. Shivering is impossible with white knuckles. But a heart that jumps into your throat is not so easily pushed back in place again. Especially if both your hands are otherwise occupied.

The coil is gone. The rope is taut. The glider nudges a bit forwards. "TAUT!", I hear the instructor yell.

The scene on the truck a mile away is familiar and I can see it in my minds eye. Someone at the controls, notices a shift from flashing headlights to continuous light. Slowly presses down the accelerator until the full power of the big V-8 engine is brought down on the spool wrapped with steel cabling. Steel cabling with a glider attached to the end of it...

Ok, so here goes... The glider starts to roll and when the instructor can't keep up, the wings are free. I'm free. But not quite. The glider rolls a bit farther on the ground, until speed has built up.

Then, I'm free. Pull, you have to pull! That's what my friends told me. Different glider, different behaviour. This one wants you to pull. So after I'm airborne I slowly and steadily bring back the stick. And feel the power of the V-8 hauling this glider up into the air.

Not much to see at this stage... The glider is pointing up at an angle of about 45 degrees, so the view ahead is of the heavens. Left and right I see the ground steadily dropping away. When I sense the altitude to be about 100 metres, I say "hundred metres" out loud. Nobody there to hear me, but protocol is protocol. And it is reassuring to do this like all the previous times I've done it.

Only, this is not like any of the previous times I've done it. This time, I'm alone! Solo! I'm solo...

Not much time yet to enjoy. Still have to finish the take-off.
The glider is at an altitude of about 300 meters, now. Not very satisfying, but that's what you get with tame weather.
I feel the decrease in pull from the V-8 and initiate the disengaging-procedure.


Now I'm free. Adjust the airspeed to about 90 kilometres an hour. Slow left turn, stick left and the tiniest bit back, left foot down, wait for the glider to roll to the left, then, stick back to left of neutral, left foot a bit up.

Satisfied with the new heading, so level out by pressing the stick right and pulling a bit back, right foot down, wait for the roll, then, just before the glider is level again, stick neutral, feet neutral.
Quick check of height. Damn. 250 metres. Time to go on circuit for landing...

That's another story.


North of France, spring 2000

Looks like I just made promotional video 2 of 2 for my company. I think they chose to film me because I have 2 machines at my desk... It was a lot less painful than the last one, I just had to sit here and pretend I was working on one machine and have the company website on the other machine.
Anyway, I was sitting around doing that for a lil while (5 or 10 minutes), then I noticed that they were all packing up and leaving (I was listening to the Beastie Boys on my headphones at the time)... Hrm, I didn't even know they'd been filming at the time...

Got to work a bit early this morning. Brought a can of pre-made food to eat for lunch, made myself some hot cocoa, and prepare to settle in for another wonderful day of work.

People have been noticing lately that I'm not myself. Everyone is like "Are you okay?" and "You seem down. You're not as chipper as usual." I'm not telling them what's wrong, because I don't really want to talk about it. What's to talk about? I'm lonely. I've lived in this city for a year, and I know nobody outside of work. Telling people this would clue them in that I'm pathetic. I don't need that.

I'm going to ask the girl from Blockbuster if she wants to go out for coffee. I was going nuts trying to figure out a nice place to take someone just to get to know them, without putting any pressure on them. Going to a movie is definitely out of the question. Too intimate. Dinner is out, because I don't know her at all, and dinner is something you do when you are familiar with someone.

So it just popped into my head. Coffee at Barnes and Noble. Sounds good.

Lunch Log: Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli w/Meatballs.

My spirituality is changing again - although into what form now I don't know - and I'm going to continue with the yoga and pilates cause they are very calming and soothing. I want to get some books out and practice a little, at least the yoga, on my own, it is very interesting to me. I love the feeling of enjoying my body, for the first time in my life. I have never really lived in my body like this before. Integration rules!

I am always there, in it. And I am feeling so many new nuances of things, all the time. It's a little less intense this month (thank God) and more bearable. But that's probably because all my human interactions have been less intense. No big fights or confrontations or deep intimacy with anyone tends to make things easy, you know? But I can use the practice, practice of just experiencing life as one whole person. It's hard! How do you normals do it? I'm so used to being a mutant I can't believe people grow up and live like this every single day.

What a great week. I'm going to try and do this every week - my whole outlook on life is so good. Yoga on Monday, Spinning on Tuesday, Belly Dancing on Wednesday. Today I will just walk the dog a bit (please don't be so cold today!)

Here I am, sitting at my computer, half naked, chain smoking and playing freecell like a madman, when I should be out looking for a job. But I've got too much on my mind to do anything worthwhile today.

Earlier this week, I got an email from a female who I was infatuated with, which said she couldn't call me by my name because she fell in love with someone whose name is also Kevin. Which made me feel bad because I was hoping that maybe she would come back to the states and realize that I was this great guy and maybe love me like I loved her.

In addition, the two people I care about most in this world are in financial trouble. And I want to help them in whatever way I can, but I owe over $4000 in student loan payments. Which is why i should be looking for a job.

Although, there is one good thing to look forward to, my cousin's bachelor party this weekend.

Plans for tomorrow: buy more cigarettes, withdraw money from bank, find a job, any job, because I need money for my nicotine.
I sit at work watching the clock tick by.

12:23 PM

My stomach isn't so much rumbling as feeling like a rather large gaping hole, begging to be filled by sugary snacks and other junk food. It almost makes me feel ill, in a general malaise kind of way.

My thoughts go out to those who genuinely don't have enough to eat. Why do I feel so bad? It's not as if I skipped breakfast, or haven't eaten a meal in the last twenty four hours? It's not even as if I'm some skinny heroin chic waif with no fat on my body to convert into energy. I've put on quite a bit of weight recently, and really haven't done anything about trying to get rid of it other than being unable to buy snacks at work and cycling due to our recent move to new premises.

I find it harder to concentrate, the clock slowly ticking past.

12:28 PM

I get to go home at 1, for an hour. I'll cycle back and bung something in the microwave. But that's half an hour away. The wind blows about outside, trying desperately to find something to howl from. I get this feeling occasionally... usually quickly solved by diving into the cupboards in the kitchen to grab some chocolate, making the emptyness fill and the annoyance go away. I'm no newcomer to this sensation... one memory of it is lying back in bed at Menai, with the rest of my classmates doing various fun activities, feeling incredibly low and tired. I was woken from my passive staring by the headmaster, asking whether I wanted to go down to lunch. I agreed, feeling much better once my aching stomach had been sated.

12:38 PM

I become fidgetty, trying to find ways of passing the time.. then the boss returns, meaning I have to try to concentrate hard on work... I can't.

Well, isn't this cute.

My day, begining yesterday at about 3 PM became much, much more interesting, and it's continuing today. My Day Job appears to now be the victim of some attacking script-kiddies from Indonesia. So, consequentially, I didn't get to sleep much last night. The funny thing is that, that since they are extra-territorial, we ain't got a legal recourse. It's like they're saying 'shove it up your rich American Asses'. That hurts, considering that I'm Canadian.

I've been listening to 'Don't Fear the Reaper' on perpetual loop -- 3 versions of it: the Blue Oyster Cult original, the 'live' version and the stellar Apollo 440 cover. A point of order here is, never listen to that song for more then 4 hours at a time. I will, infact, warp you. In a good way, but still...

<Location '/'>
    Order Allow,Deny
    Allow from All
    Deny from *.id
</Location>

Woke up ill. Again.
Called into work, to let them know that I won't be comming in today either.

Took the puppy to the vet today to get her "fixed." That go me to thing, how do dogs know when they are going to the vet? We take her every where, and she allways rides in the car fine. Sits on the wifes lap and looks out the window. But today, she would not come out from under the couch, and once I moved the couch three times, shook all the way to the vet. Strange.

Any way, I am supposed to be putting togther a paper on Quadruple Flats for the theater I work at. They wanted it for their class today, but the illness got me. I suppose I will have to write that up tonight and take it in 'morrow even if I am drowsy and feel like curling up into a little ball on the couch.

Well, I suppose I have my daily fix of E2 (better than coffee), so off to bed with me.
When you are asleep more than you are awake during a particular day you begin to question reality.

This is how it was for me yesterday...I came home after school and slept for hours because I had nothing better to do. I had wonderful, exciting, and scary dreams. It disturbed me when I was interrupted, various times because of the phone and then for dinner. I did not want to wake up, because reality is so much more mundane and boring than surreality. In reality I had nothing to do, I was grounded, alone and bored. In my dreams, I was running, evading murderers, kicking my ex's ex's ass, and eating pineapples. This is why I never sleep, it sucks to get up.

It also sucks not having a car. I feel so dependent on others, which I hate. I was going to go over to my ex's house, but since I couldn't drive over there, and he didn't want to pick me up, it didn't happen. Maybe it's for the best, although we are actually becoming genuine friends again, which is nice. He talks to me about his problems instead of hiding them from me. And I tell him about mine now, mostly because he is no longer my biggest problem. He told me about how his ex is sending him mixed messages and he doesn't know if he wants to get back together with her because he might need to be alone for once and he might be able to do better. I don't care if he does get back together with her, but I hate how she is so jealous of me that she won't allow him to have any kind of relationship with me and/or gets mad whenever she hears that he has talked to me. So I guess me and him will have to have a secret relationship, again.

I got an e-mail last night from someone that I dated a while ago but kind of ended with on bad terms. He asked me how I was doing and said he really missed me, which was nice. I don't know what he wants, I don't see us dating again, but it's nice when people from my past take the time to miss and think about me. I do it all the time, but I usually never tell anyone.

      First day withoug Wisdom teeth. I wake up, my mouth sore and dry, the overpowering flavor of morning breath and congealed blood throughout.

Two pills against infections, one against swelling, no painkillers this morning. Oddly enough, it's exactly twenty-four hours since we went to the doctor's.

::wacky tv-show timewarp thing::

Surgery is scheduled for eleven. Mom is worried about being there late / not getting to fill out the forms in time (she's my ride back) so we get there at 10:30. People come and pass before us, more people... the room empties. At 1:30 it is finally our time. I lie down in what appears to be a pimped-out dentists' chair and get my IV fixed. One shot to widen the artery and numb the area, then the needle is inserted and taped down. I don't know if it's the cold or nervousness, but I'm shaking. "No I haven't eaten anything since last midnight" - "Yes, I feel fine" - "No I'm not on any drugs."

A mask of pure oxygen (which smells like a cold chemistry laboratory) A distant voice tells me I'd be out in thirty seconds, things look double and fuzzy... I respond, "I'm no lightweight, you havetabringsommm..."


      Waking up from surgery always feels a lot like bungee jumping, where movment is darkness and rest is consciousness. The periods of consciousness grow longer, still I struggle with the darkness as if it were some sort of five-acre leaden blanket. As general consciousness increases, so does that of the two blood-soaked gauze pads in my cheeks. I focus... must ignore them somehow or I will throw up. Looking at the ceiling, I focus my attention away from them. On the way out I snag my teeth from the table (in a zip-loc bag, of course) - might come in handy during a photography project. Guided by a dis-approving nurse, I exit through a side-door to get to the car. Fully putting the seat back, we pick up my four prescriptions at Bruno's before getting home.

Aside from some tired iRCing, things stay boring. I fall asleep on the couch and wake sometime when it's dark. Jumping up, I switch my soaked gauze pads in the kitchen and go to the bathroom. Feeling dizzy... yellow stars, my skin grows colder... more stars, I feel sick, from the blood, from the drugs. I zip up and bounce against the bathroom walls before barging out the door and lying down on the sofa again. Ten minutes later I'm fine. I get some soup and watch Princess Monokoke with Alexander before passing out.

Today is my birthday!

I'm 28 years old today. Yipee. But it feels like any other day. I think the novelty of birthdays have worn off (finally).

I got a brand spanking new squash racquet from my colleague, Evgenia. We played a game (actually, it was just rallying) at midday. A lot of fun indeed! My first time ever that I've played. I sometimes mistaken the squash ball for a tennis ball expecting it to bounce more than it does.

I miss my Love! If any birthday present is adequate, it'd be her coming down to see me just to give me a big hug and kiss.

Car troubles again. The check engine light is on and everyone says it's the fuel cap. Weird.

No, Jake, the authorities did not find the crack rock in my car. That is NOT the reason my lisense was suspended, but thanks for all your confidence in me. Shut up before I make all the teeth in your head look funny, bitch.

On the contrary it was a ticket that I received in October after I was leaving your, beautiful....historic, however fucked up state. Fascists! I paid it late, and one group of commies got together with my state's commies and they decided I couldn't have my wings anymore. Since February...thanks so much for dropping me a note, guys. So my plans have been delayed.

I get that beautiful piece of plastic back tomorrow morning, and then perhaps I'll ask for a coupla days more off. I want Snow, goddamnit.

BUT at least my car will finally say 'JUN' instead of 'FEB', 'cause you see Florida is the only state I know of whose registry decals tell the birthday month of the person who owns the car. It's great, I keep myself awake driving I-4 by going, "Hey. It says 'AUG'. Now is that a leo or a virgo? Navy blue...that's Virgo....but it's a Lexus, that screams LEO..." Fun game. Gets me throught the traffic near Disney. RAT BASTARDS!...literally.

Today I sarted Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. This is the first real Burroughs book I've ever read before. I say "real" because I've read a biography about him, and a book called "The William Burroughs Reader", which was really alot of nonsense ramblings (Good nonsense ramblings, but it wasn't much of a "book"), and "My Education" which was a book of William Burroughs' dreams, that was published sometime in the late 80's or sometime in the 90's. Basically, I've read Burroughs before, but none of the books that got him the reputation of a "great" (Naked Lunch, Junky etc...).
So, I finished The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (by Tom Wolf, which was beautiful and amazing. (I loved it, and Ken Kesey didn't wake up and it wasn't "all a dream".)
I'm still struggling with "The Search for Truth" by Michael A. Singer. It's just tough to read, it's the kind of book that has tons of information in it. So much, that when I finish a paragraph, I have to stop and re-read it to make sure that I understand it.
I'm just not sure how that one is going to go.

I'm listening to alot of Henry Rollins lately... most of his spoken word stuff, which is great. There's a great thing out there on Napster called The Virtues of Black Sabbath which was the first thing I heard of his and turned me onto him. I'd always liked Black Flag, and knew of Rollins Band, but didn't know about Rollins doing spoken word.
Anyhow, it's good stuff.

Went to work today, nearly cut the tip of my finger off with an arbor press. I figure that since the press can come down with a maximum of 3 tons of pressure, and my finger can probably sustain about 100 pounds (or less) without getting very fucked up... so the press must have come down pretty lighty (relatively speaking) because my finger is still in one peice, and that one peice is still attatched to my hand. Other than it still being whole and attatched it hurts like a motherfucker.

Yesterday I realized it's hard to node about my noding, what I'm learning while doing so, etc., without mentioning specific nodes (mine), which might get the nodes in question bashed for nodevertisement. So that's right out. Maybe that's the noding for numbers mentality raising its ugly head, but the fact is Everything is just a great big game to me.

Note: that last isn't meant to be trivializing in any way, though I understand it could be interpreted as such (having had to explain myself once on the subject in the chatterbox). I think there are many very serious and important games, and that E2 is one of these. To me it's a another wonderful habit-forming game, or at least that's how I find myself responding to it: I want to get good, I want to play lots, and every time I start to play I find I can't stop without ending things on a good note, some kind of personal best.

I don't like very many games, because I'm generally not very good at them, especially the competitive sort once I start losing at them and get all psyched out. I love solitaire games, though, and the semi-demi-quasi-pseudo-anonymous nature of E2 is perfect for pretending I'm just talking to myself here, and even as I get to know my fellow noders through their work and /msg's, there's always safety in numbers to convince me no one's paying attention to my mutterings (of course, I defeat this purpose entirely by posting on the daylogs, which are terrifyingly high-traffic judging by the rep I've accrued on my various autobiographical musings, but I never promised not to contradict myself here). But that's all the thoughts I've got on that for the time being.

Side note added March 18, 2001: Just found How To Play E2. Excellent.

The other thought I had was about how nodes spawn other nodes. For example, when I began noding my homework a few days ago, I realized that several of what I consider(ed) my primest node fodder essays probably wouldn't stand on their E2 own very well without quite a bit of infrastructure (extensive footnoting or maybe entire nodes about currently undefined terms, metanode-type definitions and the like). So I've got my work cut out for me. So I find myself hardlinking to nonexistent nodes and creating nodeshells when I realize the writeup I'm working on makes no sense stripped of the context I wrote them in (for class). I'm trying hard not to make too many assumptions about what my audience (real or imagined) knows or doesn't, and it's hard. Which ties this entry back to my complaint about the difficulties of noding about noding, and sort of concludes this in a neat, recurring theme kind of way. I dig it, so I'll be shutting up now.

yesterday I was gifted with a Sony Vaio laptop with 30Gb HD, 126Mb RAM, 700 some odd Mhz... DVD, and a Sony digital video camera...Who-who... it's almost as sexy as Kristi. I got it from work to take to CeBIT in Hanover on the 20th... I have it now in order to practice running a demo for our Internet Easy Video plug in for Adobe Priemeir (It's an MPEG-4 compression tool 40-1 compression). I get to hold on to the maching for the rest of the month it seems... very nice suprize, but it makes my Compaq laptop jealous.

It came with an AVI of Fight Club too, how cool is that? Neat movie... too bad I had to watch it on a computer... couldn't even run it full screen... Still interesting flick. I hadn't seen it before only having read some stuff about it here at Everything2. Well acted and not as violent as I thought it was going to be... Too bad it was dubbed into Italian, I hate dubbed films.

Kristi is still having problems with her iron levels... it's got me really worried. more doctor visits are coming up and there is even the possibility of an opperation. Blech... I hate doctors. She's being strong about it though. I admire her for that.

This weekend I'm postering the town with flyeers for my Umatilla, Oregon photo show. Then I'm droping down to Milan to see Giovanni and watch Bittersweet Motel which he just got on DVD. Need to do some shopping as well, maybe get a new suit for CeBIT. Other than that nothing special...

Yesterday I nodded a whole album for the first time. Fear of Music by the Talking Heads one of my all time faves. Right now I'm memorizing the words to Life During Wartime and Werewolves of London. Maybe I'll put up some notices in local music shops to see if I can find a guitar player to sing with... I see all the time that cover bands play here in Torino, so I figure it might be a road that could bear some fruit for me. Who knows?

I might start noding my PR work that I do for Telecom Italia Lab... I mean if people can node their homework, why not node my work?
i node offline...this had been sitting in notepad unfinished for some time...didn't want to post it today..needed to get it said. Sorry for the discontinuity!


i don't have the balls to be my own person. ironic, considering i'm inclined to be this eclectic strange being (as you've all seen) but i tend to worry too much about what you think, about what he or she thinks, instead of finding and living in my own vibe.

i've been thinking on this for a while, but the realization just hit. i was washing my delicates in the bathroom sink, hating every thing that i'm washing. hating every article of clothing that i have. hating. hating myself because i can't achieve a certain look on a given day. my punk clothes aren't punk enough. my raverish clothes aren't raverish enough. my yuppy clothes aren't yuppy enough. i worry so much about appealing to a genre of people via the dress code, at the very least, since i feel i barely belong anywhere. might as well look like i do. who i am is not enough.

the thing is, I can hide in groups. I can look like I'm part of the picture. the problem is that I'm always a friend of the family.

But I can't even get out of the habit of trying to please other people I know, friends who have already accepted my insides. Conversely, I can't stop critiquing those close to me who don't meet my perfect picture of what I want them to look and feel and act like. Is my trying to change them a direct reflection of my inability to be my own self? Why am I trying to achieve this picture perfect setup?

I know part of it is taught. Part of it is, in fact, all those years of lovers and family members injecting that into my head. An ex-boyfriend accepted me being tomboyish, but I felt he was (not so) secretly wishing I'd get more girly already.

All those years of being told I'll grow out of the tomboy, pervert, witchy, wanderlust-filled, eclectic, strange, passionate being I'm inclined to be. If I now know this is me, why do I still feel the need to ask you for permission to colour my hair? Can I have permission to be comfortable in my own skin, too, please?

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