I walked back down the hill from her house to mine this morning, stepping between the shadows of autumn leaves burnt into the ground. Halfway back, I removed my jacket. This is the warmest November that I can remember. Usually by now, the sky is a constant haze of grey, varying only in intensity to mark each new day as something different. I'm half napping, half writing in the sun right now, with my sleeves rolled up to hopefully catch a tan as I lie down on a rickety old cargo pallet on a broken flight elevator.

There are men in yellow hazmat suits swarming like ants at the next pier, trying to do whatever it is one does to clean up a huge oil spill. I don't really know that it's working though, as i can still see that brilliant rainbow film floating on the surface of the water; it's really a tragedy that it is so toxic, because if it wasn't for the fishes and birds and crustaceans, I'd suggest we go around dumping more oil in the ocean so we could have a bit more color in the world.

I always get scared at this point. Everything is going too well and i have this urge to just tear it all apart, so that I will have something to try to rebuild. I've felt this sense of sadness, or maybe boredom, or maybe like I'm waiting for something and I just don't know what lately. Most of my friends feel the same way though, so it isn't just me. Maybe it's the weather, the unseasonably warm 80 degree weather in November. Maybe we are all sad because this is when we get to dress up in scarves and mittens and jackets, and this year we can't. Regardless, I got scared last night and didn't think I should be alone, so I called her and told her I was coming over. She had a paper to write, but that was okay, I promised to be good and not distract her, I just needed her there. Three days ago, I decided that I needed to call her and tell her that I can’t do this anymore, that I can’t see her anymore because this isn't fair to her, but then I just didn't call, because I realized that I might still need her, and I guess I do. This still isn't fair to her though, as it isn't so much that I need her, just that I need someone.

She opened a little bottle and shook a pill out, I noticed a picture of the moon and stars on it as she placed it back on the shelf above her computer.

"Is that melatonin?" I asked.

"Yeah," she told me, "You want one?"

I nodded.

"You have trouble sleeping too?"

"When I have things on my mind, yeah."

She doesn’t understand why I wake up and listen to sad songs and saturate myself with cheap malt liquor.

I met another girl on Thursday. She called me to ask me out, then asked if I could score any coke. A wave of titillation and disgust went through me. I thought she was better than that, but I’ve been getting so bored with this healthy relationship business. Maybe she would be the next fucked up girl to tear my life apart, things have been too tranquil lately. Some people cut their arms and burn their legs, but I use broken women to hurt myself, because they can stab deeper and won't leave any visible marks.

She came over tonight and sat tracing the scars on my arms; I guess I told her while I was drunk. She wants to drown herself in alcoholism and wants me to show her how. The coke wasn't for her though, no, it was for her brother; he just got out of rehab and only wanted to score a little. I'm not sure which is worse.

Oh, honey, this will not end well for either of us, and I cannot wait to see you again. Maybe you can’t fill my heart, but isn’t my bed the next best thing?

I wish I could do the right thing and just let them all go, but I just need them, I just need someone.

Brief thoughts on the recent events on Everything2:

Okay so there has been some recent screaming at each other discussion lately and me being a ignorant, loudmouthed idiot newbie, I thought I’d chime off a few rants opinions about some of the stuff going on. Take this daylog as a suggestion to shut up cos God help me I’m going to turn this car around contribution.

R.E. Clampe’s Students HOLY MOTHER OF- it took you guys how long to work out that one way of getting more newbies to stay and use E2 was to actually ask them their opinions and test their reactions to the site? You guys are amazing in all but you have no common sense except for Clampe who gets the Common Sense award I was quite surprised this had never been done before (maybe it had and I’m just ignorant). The reactions confirm that some of the problems lie in the god awful sprawling dinosaur mess ponderous FAQ and layout of the site and the we’ve always been at war with Bullshit perceived double standards of the place. I can’t really comment on the second one but the first one seems like something that has improvements already in the works.

Other things to consider were comments on feedback and the XP system. On feedback I myself find that being downvoted for no seemingly obvious reason is irritating. Sometimes it’s obvious because of a piece of writing is controversial in nature, but at other times it isn’t. And this sort of shoots down one of E2’s salient features as being friendly and having an actually personality to its community which is more than god-awful unopinionated drone website wikipedia and other writing sites have going for it.

This is perhaps solvable for new noders by the suggestion (by someone else, I can’t remember who first suggested it) of a noders crèche or perhaps a way of changing the thinking involved in downvoting. Perhaps something equivalent to an L plate by the new noders name would make people reconsider downvoting straight away?

R.E. Two-word poems Every time you write a two-word poem EDB kills a noder. FOR THE LOVE GOD THINK OF THE NODERS! And yes that was incredibly lame, do you see what I have to resort to now? It’s quite amusing to watch what’s happening and some of what has been written has been quite clever. But I get the feeling the jokes are so lame as to make ones eyes pull into ones own sockets have gotten a little old. Then again some of it isn’t really meant to be humorous anyway. And there’s nothing wrong with E2 having a sense of humour. my wandering mind just woke up

Anyway I’m going back to sleep. Call me when you’ve worked something out.

UPDATE- It has come to my attention that some people believe that Everything2 should be obscure, that perhaps having to find things out for oneself and searching through the FAQ and not getting feedback when down voted is all part of the experience.

I can agree with that. But if that's the case, advertise it as such. Make it an important feature of E2, make our indie nature well known.

No newbie is going to argue with a slogan like "E2- you tell us what the hell this place is about and we'll judge you harshly and laugh and you'll take it like a man." It's not like they don't know what they're in for.

Hell maybe the 2nd level requirement should be to find the FAQ...

Yet More Thoughts on Everything's Direction

I'd like the site to succeed. I'd like this place to recapture the fun it used to have. I can see the pros and cons of most every idea that's been presented, whether in public in daylogs or in private on the admin list.

So. Here's another idea.

If we want new people and new content on the site, why not run a "New Blood" quest?

The basic idea is that existing users of a certain level (and they'd get sufficient advance notice so as to be able to level themselves up in time to participate) would get a bodaciously fat XP bonus for every new user who makes it to Level 2 within the quest time period. The quest would run longer than the usual quest -- if Clampe's students were expected to be able to produce three writeups in a week, we'd have to do the math from there.

Quest participants would submit the usernames of new folks who join under their wing, and participants would be expected to mentor the people they bring onboard. That way, every new user would be guaranteed an interested person encouraging them to write and submit (despite inevitable stings from the downvote brigade) and helping them learn how to /msg and use hardlinks and all the other stuff that trips up almost every new user.

What do y'all think? Real way, or malarkey?

 

grundoon says I think there should be some silly rewards, like a tee shirt or something. I'd be a lot more likely to try to recruit newbies if there were some silly reward.

My reply A silly reward is a fine idea! I have a few silly books I could kick in for Quest winners. Anyone else want to contribute?

Well, last night around 6PM CST, we lost a member of our family.

My cat, Cotton, our white, fluffy mostly-Persian kitty died, after an astonishingly short battle with feline leukemia (a month ago she seemed perfectly fine). She was still alive when I got home, lying in her litter box (ew) moaning. I picked her up, brushed her off, and was prepared to take her to the veteranarian when she gasped for breath a few times, stuck out one of her front legs, then went silent. It was one of the most pitiful things I'd ever seen. I think she waited for me to get home before she expired. Maybe she wanted to wait until I was holding her in my arms. She was only ten, which isn't all that old for a cat.

She was the most beautiful cat I'd ever seen: a puffy white furball with one brilliantly blue and one brilliantly green eye. Just like a Persian but didn't have the characteristic flat face. When she was a kitten she had a "smudge" on the top of her head (looked like somebody had wiped some soot on her). She was our first "child," my wife and I, we'd gotten her as a kitten before we were married. In the beginning she was a prissy Miss Touch-Me-Not, but got to be more and more of a sweetheart as she aged. I was closest to her because my wife, being pregnant with twins, didn't want to touch her much, especially at the end. I was her daddy and I guess she loved me, too.

I'm gonna miss that cat. *sniff*

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