So, today, I was sitting out in front of my apartment with Noteponymous, our friend M, and the caretakers. We saw two small children going down the middle of the road. The youngest was maybe two, pushing a plastic shopping cart, and the older was five. Now, the road in front of my apartment is a culdesac.

But the youngest child left the culdesac and pushed his cart into the busy street that crosses out front.

We all watched, dumbfounded. I ran over, grabbed the kid, and carried him back to the building he lives in. Halfway across the lawn, his mother comes out.

  • "Do you know where your kid was?"
  • "Um."
  • "Out on the main street! You know how dangereous that is? You know how the dipshits drive around here!"
  • Now she's getting pissed off. "His brother was there watching him, wasn't he?"
At this point, I realized what I was dealing with. I told her "I got your kid out of the street, lady." Then walked home and had a hard lemonade.

I'm still rattled. One of these days a child is going to get hurt badly on this street, and the parents are going to blame the driver, even though they let their kids play on the street all the time.

</rant>

What a day. What a long day. I went into work for a crisis at 4pm yesterday and just now got home, a total of 32 hours. I'm waiting for that tired feeling to kick in so I can head off to sleep.

My boss is still giving me the silent treatment. I am divided inside as to whether I really care or not. He doesn't have the respect of anyone else in the company, he isn't in a position to fire me, he doesn't know his job, not to mention mine....so I am in a position of strength. However, I just want to get my work done....not play politics.

Time to get some shut eye.

Dee's at work right now.
That seems to be the way of things lately, always somewhere. A couple weeks ago I was really hurting when I thought of her. Last week, I was just calm. Now I just feel a little sad at the loss, at the separation. She has a whole 'nother world and life separate from me an mine. And, sometimes loving her is like watching a drama on tv. It is well written and the characters are all interesting and well acted. You cry at the sad parts, and laugh at the funny, but no matter what, you won't be seeing any of them any time soon.

I am somehow viewer and participant in this life of hers, thankful for the part I play, but wishing the writers would put me in more scenes.

Three little words from her can bring me smiles for the rest of the day. A chat with her makes work pass so much faster. But words on a screen, voices over wires, these things can only go so far. Why is it that a physical distance can make such a difference? Is it the looks she gives me? Is it my hunger for physical contact? Maybe hearing her ramble on about her life...Why, when I can feel her thoughts and emotions from here, why does being close to her mean so much?

What magic lies in the closeness of a lover? What inherent need is filled by their presence? And how long can a person survive its offering along with its absence? One year, two? Only time will tell.

my grandfather just died.

i got the call a little before midnight, new york time. he had just suffered a heart attack, his second.

we were loading up the car when the real call came.

by the time we got to the house, the ambulances were already there, and the cops were trying to perform CPR.

i went into the livingroom. he was lying on the floor there. all ther furniture had been moved.

all the family that could be assembled made their way to the hospital, where he was officially pronounced dead.


i'm still kind of in shock. some people just aren't supposed to die.

i can barely believe i'm noding right now. but i need something to do, some way to get this off my chest.

he taught me so much.

he took me on my first subway ride when i was 5.

oh my god, i'm pipe linking.

he gave me money to repair my uncle's old drum set. he set up an amp in the basement so i could learn to play bass. he taught me how to rewire my guitars and my house. we made drumsticks out of old dowels on his belt sander.

when my parents divorced, he let his son-in-law stay in the house until i went to college. when i came back for the summers, he let me stay for free and even lent me his car.

he was a stubborn old sicilian bastard, and that's what killed him, at least in part.

he was diabetic but didn't care.

sunday night, he was eating clams and candy and chocolate pudding.

and now he's gone.

and the fucking pudding is still in the fucking refrigerator.

and it's 4:00 in the fucking morning and everyone i know is asleep and with their parents right now so i can't even call them.

my mom is staying at my grandmother's, my love is down on the farm this week.

and he never even met his great-grandson.. he asked about him all the time, but never got to meet him.

my grandparents celebrated 50 years of marriage in January. we made a collage of pictures from their life.

i stared at it for a while when i was at the house.

i have a picture here that i took back. he's holding me in his chair; i must have been two or three.

i can still smell the old, cracked leather of that chair.

he lived a full life, at least.

he was a printer most of his life. i found a letter from his union promoting him to supervisor in 1959.

i remember sitting on huge stacks of paper in the printing room of the school of visual arts, where he was the head printer until the diabetes affected his legs.

his brother Angelo died when he was a kid; he was hit by a car.

his brother Joe died recently, of cancer.

and now he's gone.

at least he knows i love him; that we all love him. he was never shy about telling us that.

i think that's the last thing i ever said to him...

My day inadvertantly started at 4am today.

Wow. It's 4 in the morning, and I just woke up. What the -- Holy Crap, I'm really thirsty!

I woke up at 4:02am this morning, and was extremely thirsty. I had nothing in the house as I am keeping supplies to a minimum in preparation for my move at the end of the month. So not having anything handy to drink, and being thirsty, I did what anyone in my position would do.

I went to the store.

What the hell? It's 4 in the morning, and you're cruising to the fucking grocery store? What are you, sick? Go back to bed!

I bought two gallons of water, a gallon of apple juice, milk, and a box of cereal. Went home, opened the water jug and poured myself a glass of warm water. Drank the water, put everything in the refrigerator, took a quick trip to the bathroom, and started to go back to bed.

Okay. You got your drink. You had a bad weekend, a long day yesterday, and you can use the sleep. Go to bed.

Then I decided I needed to hit the internet.

Wait a minute. What the fuck is wrong with you? First you go to the store to get something to drink, and now you're getting on the internet? HEY. IDIOT. STOP THAT.

I went to MSN and read an interview with 'The Rock'. Then I head over to E2 and check out the cool picks, and new nodes. Then I decide I need to write about my early-morning experience in the daylog.

Oh, wonderful. Not only did you do all of this crazy shit, now you're writing about it. You know, you really should be sleeping by now.

As a side note, I never really got back to sleep. I just kind of rolled around for a few hours.

Filling in for GangstaFeelsGood again... here is the news as of high noon Central European Time.

____________________________________________________________
The International Hearld Tribune (www.iht.com)

Berlusconi Will Command Healthy Majority in Italy

Silvio Berlusconi, the conservative media magnate, won a strong victory in Italy's national elections and was poised to become the nation's next prime minister backed by a solid center-right majority in Parliament, according to official results released Monday.

Europeans Grab a Piece of the (American) Action
For American investment banks in China, politics has often been a handmaiden to business, enabling the more savvy firms to elbow aside their rivals with comparable credentials for deals.

Israeli Army Raids Become Routine
Mostly unnoticed and largely unremarked by the rest of the world, the Israeli Army has begun a campaign of quick, destructive and sometimes lethal raids inside territory held by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

U.S. Student Suffers 'Winds of Cold War'
Rousted by police officers, who claimed they found a matchbox containing marijuana on him - drugs they planted, he would later say - John Tobin suddenly was ensnared in the spy craze that has seized this country under President Vladimir Putin, becoming the latest pawn in a geopolitical game of tit for tat.

A Question of Church and State
Within the massive Justice Department, some who do not share Attorney General John Ashcroft's Pentecostal Christian beliefs are discomfited by his daily prayer sessions, particularly because they are conducted by the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, who is entrusted with enforcing a constitution that calls for the separation of church and state.
________________________________________________________________________________
The BBC Online (www.bbc.com)

Israel tense for 'Day of Catastrophe'
After nearly eight months of deadly clashes, Israeli troops go on high alert as Palestinians prepare to mark Israel's birthday with protests.

Lib Dems' £10bn tax gambit
The Liberal Democrats unveil their manifesto promising massive extra investment in public services with the health service first in line.

Japan crown princess pregnant
An announcement is expected shortly that Crown Princess Masako is pregnant, possibly raising thorny succession issues.

Wife supports mercy killing
A woman whose husband killed their manic depressive daughter to end her suffering speaks of the anguish of looking after her.

Trapped man's 'remarkable survival'
A man is rescued from a disused mineshaft in Britain after surviving up to 11 days trapped underground.
________________________________________________________________________________
The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)

Justices Bar Medical Defense For Distribution of Marijuana
The Supreme Court ruled, 8 to 0, that federal law does not allow a "medical necessity" exception to the ban on marijuana distribution.

Man in the News: Berlusconi's Second Act in Italy
Promising that only he can truly change Italy, the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi led the right wing to victory in Sunday's elections.

Even for Wealthy, Tax Plan's Benefits Could Vary Widely
An analysis of plans to cut income taxes shows that the biggest cuts would go more to the extraordinarily wealthy than to the merely wealthy.

Killings of Palestinian Officers Push Tension to Boiling Point
Israeli troops shot and killed five Palestinian officers early Monday morning, igniting Palestinian demonstrations in the streets.

Signs in China and Taiwan of Making Money, Not War
Despite the visions of war conjured by President Bush's suggestion that the United States could help defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, the social and economic integration between the mainland and the island is stronger than ever, and growing.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Panapress {African news} (www.panapress.com)

Historic coelacanth fish filmed in South Africa

Cape Town, South Africa- South African divers made history on Monday when they filmed a prehistoric coelacanth fish and beamed their images around the world on the Internet.

Ethiopia calls for creation of IGAD parliamentary union
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Ethiopian federal parliament's speaker Dawit Yohannes has proposed the establishment of the parliamentary union of member states of the Inter-governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in the horn of Africa, the government press reported Tuesday.

Hard currency still abundant as Metical depreciates
Maputo, Mozambique- The Bank of Mozambique has insisted that the country faces no foreign currency shortage despite the continuing sharp depreciation of the Mozambican currency, the metical, against the US dollar.

Senegal's new National Assembly to convene soon
Dakar, Senegal - The new Senegalese National Assembly from the 29 April elections would be convened ""in the coming days,"" President Abdoulaye Wade announced Monday evening in Dakar.

Armed Forces call for restraint in stadium tragedy
Accra, Ghana - The Ghana Armed Forces High Command Monday appealed to the public to exercise maximum restraint and to control its emotions in the face of the Accra sports stadium tragedy that left 126 fans dead.

________________________________________________________________________________
China Daily (www.chinadaily.com.cn)

US: Chen Shui-bian's transit `private and unofficial'

The United States will let Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian stop on his way to and from Latin America, and the transit will be ``private and unofficial'', the US State Department said Monday.

WTO entry to promote free agriculture market
No matter when China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO), the trend to form a freer farm produce market is irreversible in China, which will have to adapt its agricultural polices, a senior agriculture official said Monday.

Powell: Spy plane row will be resolved in a few days
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday he expected the row over China's refusal to hand over a downed US spy plane would be defused within a few days.

China delays purchase of Boeing jets
China has delayed a billion dollar deal to purchase 30 Boeing passenger jets in the wake of a collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter, a report said Tuesday.

US, China to start tough missile shield talks
A US envoy said on Tuesday he would appeal to Chinese pragmatism in trying to convince the opponent of President George W. Bush's missile defence system that the plan is good for world peace.



It's great that humans can only use 10% of their brains. If I could use 100% of mine, I would have 10 times the migraine. Like 99.9999% of the labor force which deals with the rat races every single day, I'm starting to detest my current occupation. The levels of self-pity and self-degradation is reaching new levels of annoyance and like a runaway freight train, its momentum is impossible to stop by a bullet going the other way.

It has been a long day, starting at 8, and even now, at 2:30 am, still it continues, and threatens to do so until the wee hours of the morning. My eyes feel like they've been stuffed with cotton balls, dry and inflated. I placed some drops of eye lubricant on them but even that did not provide relief. I close my eyes for 15 minutes to get them to come back to some sort of normality but to no avail. I run to the bathroom and get my wet facecloth and wet my eyelids, hoping to moisturize them, along with my eyes.

I didn't have a particularly fun Mother's Day since I missed dinner. I wasn't particularly ready to inform my family regarding my future plans for school. I disappointed my mother, and disappointed myself. I wanted to go, but only if it was simply immediate family. I don't particularly like my maternal cousins. They're not my type of people, and since I didn't grow up with them, it's hard to find something to talk about. I'm not in the mood for small talk or any sort of pleasantries so they can place their kind words elsewhere.

It was an early morning, with myself having to go to work by 9 am. Since my sister has to be there half an hour early, I do as well. Not that much of a drag since I listened to my Panasonic discman instead. It's the best investment I've ever made and I smile sometimes when I think about it. Work itself was dreary, and that's putting it lightly. My boss was sick and since I was the only one willing to figure out what was supposed to be done, I had to finish all the paperwork and the physical labor that my job description entails. I saw a potentially beautiful asian woman at work, but her bleached blonde hair turned me off quickly. I like asian women with dyed hair, but to me, it has to suit the features of the person, which in this case, didn't seem so to me. More and more people are talking to me during my break. While I do like the human aspect of it, I prefer to be alone, to think, to recover from the influx of people that I have to deal with in the form of customers. I head home quickly right after work.

Even with my mother angry at me, she left me the car, because without it, combined with The Translink Strike, I wouldn't be able to get to school otherwise. I came home, thinking that I would nap for about a half hour, to get my bearings straight, and get going to school. I diligently set my alarm and left it by my head as I slept. I finally woke up at 9 PM, and realized that the battery on the bloody thing either died or got dislodged, so I would up missing my class. It just felt like my good luck was just getting better and better.

I missed dinner, I missed school, and work blew chunks. Someone was playing a joke on me and it wasn't funny in any way what-so-ever. Frustrated, and terribly fatigued even after my nap, I went out for a walk. Discman in hand and ear, I walked around, trying to calm myself. I'm a night person, definitely more alive during the night. Something about the crisper air, maybe the darkness of the sky that invigorates my veins. The soothing voices of Baby VOX, Fin.K.L, S.E.S and As One helped me cope with the trials of today. For a moment, I recalled the five words on the cover of the Baby V.O.X cd. Passion. Recollection. Consent. Purity. Betrayal. I realized that I know them too well, like old friends. The night seemed darker to me at that moment, as it caused me to stand in the middle of the crosswalk as I walked, and not realize that there was an incoming car. I came back to Earth after the Acura Integra used his horn to wake me up. While a variation of a near death experience, I wasn't afraid of death. I was afraid of the pain of dying.

I come home to play some Tetrinet with MrFurious and friends. I watched my VCD again, only to almost drool at the sight of Kan Mi-Yuon of Baby V.O.X. Such innocence. Such cuteness. Such sex appeal. Such unfairness to know that I can never meet or be with anyone such as her. Missing You is on my Winamp now and I hope to sleep soon. Tomorrow will be another long day with work and all. I realized something while I was walking. Maybe it's just me but I can't really do two things at once competently together. Like if I was to hum to myself a song, I wouldn't be thinking about anything but if I was thinking, I wouldn't be able to carry a conversation. I found a good solution to overcoming my bout of self-depression while alone: Sing to myself. But since I can't sing well at all, I don't know what would be worse, me thinking about problems with no solutions or listening to myself sing...

Missing you makes my day complete, until the day you are with me. When the day you are with me, I will no longer miss you and it no longer matters that you aren't there. I'll start neglecting you and again you'll run away from me. I'll miss you again, and beg you to return and forever will we be in this loop. Now you're not in the loop as I'm always just missing you and not having you in my arms. Now I'm in a different loop, missing you, missing you, missing you, missing you...
Ah, May 15th.
Had an interesting cell phone conversation whilst sitting in the local coffee bar last night with a friend. She was intent on telling me that my on going opiate addiction is driving people away, and wanted to make sure I knew that was why she kept breaking plans.

I tried explaining that I was very aware of what I was doing, and had specific reasons for doing so. I'm leaving this place soon, in three weeks, leaving a good job, a decent circle of friends, and a great house. For what? To be true to my dreams, and this sunny hell I've been roasting in is not my dream...only a peaceful interlude. SvaHa

A quote (of myself, how vain) "There can be no light w/o shadow" She responded that living in the light is better. I agree, but sometimes it hurts my eyes so damn much.

How does one that has tread the darker paths in life relate to a ray of sunshine without smothering brillance? I don't have that answer. I'm not sure if I want it.

I've been sick with a rotten head cold, sinus infection, whatever. Feeling no energy, no life in me. All of my projects, fun and boring, have been pushed back, postponed, what a fscking drag. My art car only exists in my mind right now. I'm really angry about being sick for so long.

And M. and I made a final break up kind of thing. We have been dancing around this relationship for so long, it never feels right to me, I just feel guilty all the time! So he suggested that we take a month off, I (and he of course, though he won't) can see whomever I want, male or female, dog or cat, do whatever I want.

When he first suggested it, by e-mail (told him not to discuss important things over e-mail but he can't help himself, so impatient) the first thing I felt was instant relief. We talked about it a few days later, and it feels so good, I have called him more just to say hi than I have in a month! I have a feeling it's over for good, though. Everything is so intertwined, my concerns for his problems, my traumatic transference, I just don't think we'll ever be more than friends again.

I don't really know of course.

My "raison d'etre ici" is relaxation. I need to relax. I just finished working on my contribution to the final group project for cognitive neuroscience and I am about to start working on my German portfolio, but I need a few minutes to breathe. I can't allow myself to leave my computer, though, so I end up browsing the internet.

It's been a long day. I stayed up till 6 AM to work on this project, but I only managed to write a few lines. My drowsy thoughts kept drifting away to things that do matter to me. As I was trying to make sense of everything, a writeup was created and I tried to follow how it got evaluated. I'm a newbie here and not sure about what is good and what is not. So I was quite disappointed when it received 3 downvotes immediately, but luckily someone cooled it later. All in all I think about 20 people cast a vote on it, but it still has 0 Rep because they can't seem to agree on whether it's cool or not. Later I met my new mentor, he's a Scot, I think, and he seems nice.

Then I got up at ten, after 4 hours of restless sleep. Daniel presented our paper in class, with his funny Hungarian accent. Our research proposal was so complicated that even the professor didn't get it. I tried to sneak out during the break, but ended up talking to Max, a read-haired Canadian with dreadlocks and sandals. He was working for ICT on a programme that could calculate the chance of getting a cold for males and females and the effect this had on the probablity of their respective sneezing. When I went back to get my stuff, my professor was already in the classroom, so I had to stay.

It's been a couple of busy days, the last couple of days. I'm counting them. I'm even counting hours. About 4 more hours and it's Wednesday (here in Holland, that is). Friday is the last day, the amount of work that is to be finished before then seems an almost impossible lot, but after that I can leave this place behind and move on. I know how much this College with its campus mean to me and how much I will miss it. Still, right now all I want to do is get it over with.

I woke up this morning still snickering over a comment from one of my housemates over dinner last night.
What she said was, "I think you’d make a great parking analyst."
It makes no sense to me either. Maybe it was a dream.


(another edition of Irregular Zymurgy)

This is my week off from brewing beer. My wheat ale with cloves and cinnamon is sitting in bottles as we wait for it to carbonate and settle. One more week before it will be ready to taste.

One of my housemates brewed a porter with coffee and chocolate. During its first few days of fermentation, the surface of the wort, as the carbon dioxide percolated through the cocoa butter, looked like Solaris. Last night he transferred the young beer to a clean carbouy, leaving the precipitated grain bits and the oily residues in the former. Another four days until it goes into bottles.

We found a recipe for an herbal root beer in the back of a brewing book. Next week, this will become the basis for a real beer with root beer flavors, something I tried with only moderate success last summer.

Beer, beer, beer. I had not taken such an interest in it until I moved back to California. It must be a sort of last hurrah, since any year now I expect my metabolism to come to a full stop, at which time I’ll have to stop drinking beer and start exercising.

It's time once again for the infamous home from college summer job hunt game. The object of the game is to find a corporation who is willing to pay you the maximum amount of money for a minimum of labor, and at times of the day that will not interfere with your social life. (ok, that's more than a little cynical, but there is a nugget of truth in there). I'm hoping to find an internship in GIS-related field, but there's not much chance of that, I don't have the necessary education yet. Oh well. Loading packages for UPS on the 3-9 am shift woudn't be so bad either, I could just invert my normal sleep schedule and still have nights (until 2ish) free. We shall see...

On this fine morning I woke up at about 8:30 and decided to skip the day's classes and go to Austin with my best friend so she could finish up her business at UT.

We drove up there (from San Antonio) and got through downtown traffic to go to lunch at a place called Kirbey Lane. It was your stereotypical vegan-friendly Austin restaraunt. She had Migas with tofu as a substitute for egg. The variety of foods that you can substitute with soy or tofu never ceases to amaze me.

We then proceeded to go to her new apartment complex to sign her lease for the summer. When I went back to the car afterwards, there was a shifty looking man who looked at me suspiciously, then jumped in to one of the dumpsters nearby. This puzzled me a bit. Was he looking for something or just trying to get away from the impending company of a stranger? I shall never know. He jumped back out as we were driving off. Makes you wonder...

She went to the student co-op place that buys back books. She got her money, then we proceeded to drive back to San Antonio.

On the way, a good song came on the radio and we started grooving out in her car. This means waving our hands and bobbing our heads in strange manners which make passing cars speed up to get away from us. There was only one guy who had the good sense to appreciate the comic relief we offered on the long drive.

Today me and my friend skipped first period to go swimming in icy cold water and also to purchase the new Toolcd Lateralus great cd by the way. We got to the mall at about 9:20 and waited for a another 20 minutes for Sam Goody to open. We went in, purchased it first ones to buy that particular cd in the RGV and walked out. All day I listened to that cd.

I got home that night at about 10:20 and started burning some cds. I burned about 21 cds last night on 2 4x burners. It felt like forver. I couldn't stand waiting so I got online while I was burning the cds. I talked to a buddy of mine online and continued burning the cds. At about 1 A.M. a friend of mine starts banging on my window. I let him inside and he started telling me about the pot he gave me. It is the equivalent to what was referred to as Sister G-14 in American Beauty. Strong shit. He started showing me scars he had from the hallucinations. Awed me.

I then fell asleep at my comp after he left and woke up an hour later to see that the lights were off. Turns out my father had entered and churned them off.

What a day wouldn't you say?

He is the best, I wish I could have him forever, I have been doing well at uni this year and I think it is his influence, I’m more happy with myself, my life, I love him, I just can’t say it, I don’t know why.

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