today was one of those days with immense highs and drastic lows..

i found out a few friends are going through some horrid times..
my heart goes out to them..

some words were exchanged with someone very dear to my heart..
they were like daggers.. but they had to be said

some words were exchanged with someone that has had me awestruck all day..
im so glad they were said


as i sit here.. i think about what needs to happen soon..
with my life.. it scares me.. but i have to take care of it..
i need to get things in order.. and kick and claw my way towards the goals i have set..
god it scares me to death.. but i need to do it not only for myself..
but so i can take better care of those i care about..

i thought about my goals and my future a lot today as i walked around..
it is the first day of "cool" weather down here in the tropics.. we reached a brisk 65 degrees..
tonite it will dip down into the 50's.. I really do love this type of weather..
its record-breaking for this time of year which is neet..
but will prolly only last a few days..

i found out who the flowers were from..
let me just say.. i was speechless..
well for me at least


there are a lot of people i need to get in touch with..
and explain things too.. i hope they understand.. its the least i can do..
explain that is.. i fear i may have burnt some bridges.. that makes me sad..
but hopefully they will at least understand why i did the things i did..

i dunno if i can do that this second though..
maybe i will wait a few days to collect myself more..

right now im in a daze..
a balmy, almost ambrosial scent from the orchids
mixes with the crisp, cool air.. that smell that comes in autumn ..
when you can almost taste the sharpness in the breeze..
my emotions are up, down and all around..
right now i don't want to take any action..
i just want to sit and take it all in..
the happy and the sad.. i want to remember this day for a long, long time..

While driving through town today after class, I passed by the ancient candy shop which my friends and I had stood outside of, in the freezing sleet/rain/snow, eating ice cream and watching cars run the numerous stop signs. When was this, you ask? We were out there dressed in our finest, on the way to the homecoming dance, only last Saturday. Seems like a lot longer ago though. Downtown looks completely different when you're a pedestrian as opposed to driving a car - you tend to notice more of the tiny shops and various random artifacts littering the sidewalk. I prefer being in a car during this weather though. Sorry.

I went to do my French homework last night, which involved listening to a CD. I got the CD out of its little case and put it in my portable player around 4am this morning. It didn't work. I removed the CD and examined it, and realized the damn thing was almost completely cracked in half. A frickin $52 language CD, cracked in half. I felt pretty stupid. So I borrowed my partners and made a copy instead of buying a new one. I'm cheap. Or maybe just sensible.

Yesterday we had to bring a bone to anatomy class for dissection. I don't eat meat with bones in it (buckis), so I had difficulty finding one to bring along. Thankfully, one girl had brought six huge cow femurs to share with us less fortunate children. I was a bit hesitant to touch the bloody chunks of white stuff, but after a while I learned to deal with it. There was a circle of squishy marrow in the center, which I had to scrape out with a pair of tweezers and a lot of hot water. I even managed to gross out the teacher, who is an avid fan of dissection and a frequent deer hunter used to the blood and gore of dead things. Sometimes I surprise myself.

Today was our last marching band practice before festival tomorrow. We have improved so much in the last month (thankfully), so I don't think we'll be too embarrassed. Three members of the band were in a major car accident this past Friday and are unable to march for festival, even after all the long hours of practice they put in. Two of them have concussions, the other is in a neck brace and unable to move. Not cool.

I lost my expensive pair of sunglasses during the before mentioned rehearsal, only to go around berating all the other band people for stealing them. Turns out one of them had found the glasses on the ground, picked them up without saying anything, and put them in the bell of his saxophone. He had not intended to give them back until I nagged him into admitting he had them. But I still felt bad for getting on his case. Confrontations scare me.

So that was my day.

Work. Sux.

I found out that I can't register for next semester until I pay the school the remaining approx. $450 I owe them for tuition. If I am unable to get that money, that means I will be unable to get the classes I need for my major (1) and minors (1 and 2, respectively, for my writing and ACS minors). Sux. I am, once again, giving out my address in the hope that someone will send their extra pennies for my tuition. Dan/405 Normal/Normal, IL 61761. No, I really don't expect anything, though it would be nice.

Still kind of reeling from last nights epiphany and revelation to the other woman in my life. I love her. This scares me. Not that I love her, but that I told her. This shouldn't affect/effect me, but it does. She knows. I don't have a finite amount of love to give. I know.

Another friend of mine moved away. I miss her.

I ate Raisin Bran for breakfast and chicken and white bean chili for dinner.

I've began both reading another essay in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, the essay I'm looking at is about the film Lost Highway. I don't recall if I started to read that yesterday or not.

Woohoo!!! I got to Level 6 today! No, my pic isn't on my homenode. I like the one displayed better. Give it a moment to load... Enjoy!

Pregnancy Update: Today makes week 31 of the anticipated 40. Place your bets... Healthwise, baby and I are both doing good, but the little guy is wearing me out! Sometimes it feels like a mosh pit in my belly. Already the jabbing of tiny feet, knees and elbows is difficult to gracefully ignore. This becomes awkward when out in public or while driving. It won't be too much longer before this gets very uncomfortable. For now, though, it's cheap entertainment.

Whoa... he's doing a slow somersault now... smile and node, Chris... Smile and node...
After rolling out of bed around 2:30 P.M., I realized I was supposed to meet Matt (the guitar guy) at two. Not having his phone number, I washed up, got dressed and raced to his house, only to be informed that he was out to lunch.

Oh well. Thad lives closeby, so I drove over to his place where his sister was loading a tent into her car. She was on her way back to New Orleans, having used Mobile as a base for her camping trip. We chatted about camping and Jazz for a bit and I went up to Thad's room to find him passed out. Try as I might, he was out for good, not even his sister sitting on him could get him to move. She muttered: "Only drugs can do this to a kid," and was right. Good ole Thad had dropped two hits of acid after the show and went to school after staying awake until five a.m.. I played solitare and talked to his sister some more before deciding to leave.
At this time Matt was back at his house and we listened to my demo CD. He liked it and we decided to meet up Sunday for a session.

At this point it was five, and I spent a few hours writing and talking on #e... called Andreea around 10, not much is up with her. Jon, a client, called around 11 and said that he is interested in some layouts in exchange for a few hundred dollars, talking to him tomorrow at 3. Hell yeah. =)

prev daylog next daylog

How easily the shift turns from oneself to one's country. All it takes is a crisis and a lot of hate.

Woke up to an all-too well known reality today. How we tried to forget, and pretend everything is going to be okay. We just lived our lives daily, not fearing to walk the streets anymore. And now it's all changed, so quickly.

You can always hear a television on, somewhere near, with the news on. No one seems to be watching anything else. I went to the gym this morning. No MTV, no sports channel. Just news. No arabs at the gym, I noticed. Maybe it was just a coincidence. I left the gym, to see a security guard from the university run after a person who looked like an arab, and gave him a bit of a hard time. I didn't see what transpired from that encounter.

I told my girlfriend this morning that we are part of only about 10% of the population in Israel who still sees people as people. I think maybe that's a high estimate. Jews and Arabs. That's all there is. I'm jewish, you're arabic. Therfore I hate you. And vice versa. People are all the same. Arabs, Jews, whatever, I guess everyone's looking for someone to hate and someone to blame. And the thing is: all this time many of us were leading a life of belief that things are better, and COULD be better. And now even Shimon Peres, noble prize winner, and left-wing extraordinaire, says there's no one to talk to. Imagine waking up and seeing everything you believed in is a lie.

Religion is one of the major reasons for war in the history of mankind. And it's really coming to life in Israel. It started with the destroying of Joseph's tomb, and has moved on to acts of violence against mosques and synagogues. So who's side is God really on? Who does He want dead?

I think Terry Pratchett sums that up pretty well:

'So, Constable Visit, there's a god on our side, is there?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'But probably also a god on their side as well?'
'Very likely, sir. There's a god on every side.'
'Let's hope they balance out, then.'

from Jingo.

Maybe I'll keep on updating this node during the day.

And to quote Shel Silverstein: "I think I'll wear my bright blue pants and my grey sports jacket and stay home with the girls."


Footprints lives in Tel Aviv and is a student at TAU.

11:10

Morning...

Wasn't fun to log on this morning and notice that with gnome-session package removed, I also lacked gnome-wm program. Okay, small editing of .xsession helped... and GNOME proggies still seem to work.

But now it's guaranteed that GNOME "Logout" thing won't work (need to do it The WindowMaker Way™ (WindowManagers->Exit Session), or by walking the Way of the Ancients (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace).

Just installed gdm from Helix. I'll see if it doesn't work...

Another wasted morning, BTW, I have a lot to catch up with the lectures - good that I have the lecture material in printed form. =)

11:31

Oh Horrrrrr-rors! I just saw my .xsession writeup, and although it was at rep +1, it was horribly written. I just had to write a lot more stuff. =)

Oh yeah, for sake of historical interest:

nighthowl:~$ dpkg --print-avail evolution
Package: evolution
Priority: optional
Section: x11
Installed-Size: 8017
Maintainer: Helix Code, Inc. <debian@helixcode.com>
Architecture: i386
Version: 0.5.1-helix1
Depends: (bunch of packages, snipped)
Size: 3179874
Description: This is Evolution!
 Evolution is this!

Ooooh My Gooood. This sounds like some "user-contributed" RPM. =) If Helix wants to make Debian packages, they bloody well oughta at least describe them someway. Even the "preview" packages.

18:12

Spent some considerable time on a few things:

  • I should find some Better Linux Support for my Nokia Comminicator. Either a working cable transfer software (that can dump Nokia files into a single file, preferrably easy-to-parse XML), or same for IrDA (and I'd need a IR port for that stuff, then).
  • The WAP upgrade for the said phone needs a memory card. Yes, it's only 200 kb + some, but a card it shall eat... Well, they sell those in shops. Perharps Expensive.
  • I thought of a better ssh file synchronization program, for GNOME. Does OpenSSH have any Cool Perl Modules?

20:26

Okay.

I'm starting to get officially pissed off™ at GNOME. I mean, really, really, really badly.

I upgraded GLADE.

Made the synchronization program GUI with it.

Wrote to file.

With "use GNOME..." turned off, it created EMPTY files (well, it had POD stuff but nothing else), and with the same option on, it couldn't find glade2perl (which, by the way, is installed and is the most recent version).

This is getting slightly depressing...

23:57

Reading stuff like "Why noding about your personal life can be a bad idea"... and I'm thinking of these day logs of mine.

Well, as you may have seen, I've mostly told of Random Cool Ideas and noding stuff; Sometimes, I've dared to tell about my feelings. Like now. Been depressed lately. Have had better days. Met friends, shared stuff.

I don't regret noding any of this. I haven't criticized people by name; I have praised people by name (maybe someone else will get annoyed thanks to that =); I have told about my feelings, all I have wished to tell and had had no one to share it with at that moment.

If someone even bothers to read these, good. Personally, I don't think these are so damn shiny, but if these are worth anything, good.

01:53

Strange.

Ran out of votes. This doesn't happen too often.

Ran out of cools. This really doesn't happen too often.

Well, I'm going to bed... It's another day tomorrow, and I actually made some factual writeups today... =)


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: kuusi my favorite math joke Moredhel
Updated: .xsession Commodore 64 Nodes about Finnish Language

15:20

I am not a coder.
If somebody would've told me 6 months ago I would be working on a big PHP/SQL project, with a partner who possesses even less PHP skills than me, I would've laughed until my buttocks would've detatched. But here I am. Surprisingly, the worst part is the scale of it. The language itself is dead simple and I'm learning more of it every minute, but the size and complexity of the system is simply dazzling.
It's nothing we can't handle, though. I'm sure of it. But in any case, this will be a hectic 2.5 months.
At least I am making three times the money I made 12 months ago.


22:59

Just as I finished writing that last chapter, my boss showed up with some extra work for me. Nice. I know I had something deep and meaningful to type, but now it's all gone. Oh well. :)

I'm really sad about the whole deal in Israel. It's funny how all the wars and conflicts seem so distant when you don't know anybody from the countries they're taking back in. This one is different.
Best wishes to Footprints, Wildfyre and all other noders from Israel. Seeing stuff like that happen makes me want to request all my day logs filled with stupid whining to be nuked.


Today's Writeups
Ortofon | Yamaha DX21

Yesterday, the wind blew like there should have been a tropical storm, the sky was hidden by low-lying gray blankets of clouds and it looked as if it were going to snow. But, of course, it did not. I live in South Florida. I still shivered all day yesterday. The university refuses to control the air conditioning.

So today I came to school prepared. Long pants. A sweater. I'm prepared for a cold spell but there is none. The sun in shining down today. The pavement could probably cook an egg. It's warm outside. But inside the university, it's a nippy 60 degrees.

Somewhere between the inside and outside, it should be raining.
Well.

I have been trying to buy copious quantites of Lego for the past couple of days. I have found 2 blokes so far willing to sell their kids lego to me, and 2 "young adults", i.e. ~22 year olds, who think they will no longer play with their boxes of lego. One has offered to give me his Lego. I'll have to buy him a few drinks to say thanks.

I feel a bit funny about all this though. Much as I like Lego, and relish the thought of owning loads of it cheaply, I honsetly think people shouldn't sell it. If it were up to me, they'd keep it for their kids. Or cousins. Or whatever. However, this feeling is not strong enough to stop me offering cash, and so the deals are done.

Oh, without wishing to cause bad karma, erm, XP, I'd like to declare my homepage at http://my.genie.co.uk/andrew.reynolds officaially open. Not very intreresting, but I've mentioned the content behind the Java link here before. Also the picture of me is, erm, funny (?). In my defense I was drunk. Actually, it was my stag night (i.e. the night before my wedding.

Life in England grows increasingly cold and autumnal. The heating in my flat is now well and truly on.

lately, when i write it is as if i'm playing music, piano, to be more specific. not as though i did when i took lessons or, didn't really know or think i could play anything beautiful.. it's as if i could take on most any piece of music and to perfection. there is no sound but for clicking keys, but it means everything.

plants are surprising me with growth, so much growth.. they all seem to be thriving. i only wish that i had more sun to give to them. there are so many baby spider plants awaiting transplanting, but i've not the soil to do such stuff, nor am i sure where to put all of them afterwards.. will think of something soon, hopefully. the tender green stem of my cuban tree is looking more and more like wood grain every day, it's a tree, after all. but still, it looks so odd to see my leafy green plants against white when it snows, which it has been off and on. the woody stem makes me wonder if the cuban tree shouldn't be dropping its leaves along with the outsiders. today the sun is out and i am quite sure we won't be seeing any white stuff.

listening to the new radiohead.. it's drawing, almost, have to listen to.. i don't know, aside from it, and 'strange days' (matthew good band), nothing seems to create a decent backdrop to my thoughts. frustrating..

i miss him so much, but am almost too tired to put much energy into the missing today. heh i was up relatively early due to a ringing phone, and went to bed fairly late, so it's catching up to me. i guess he will be home today.. but gone again, on friday. oh woe.

my wrist is feeling better, today..

Today is the big day. Marty's been gone exactly two years.

I was on the porch last night, freezing my butt off, talking to him. I'm still angry with him. But it's not the same anger that I have always felt. It's different. It's an anger that doesn't really exist. At least it doesn't feel like it exists anymore. Maybe I am holding on to the anger because it's the only thing I have left. It's so easy to be angry with him for leaving me. It's so easy to remember the hurtful things that he said the last time I talked to him. It's so easy to remember him purposely not looking at me the last time I saw him. It hurt so much to see him look the other way, purposely avoiding me. I try to hold on to the thought that maybe he didn't look at me because he knew that he hurt me, maybe he was hurting too. Maybe he still loved me and that's why he couldn't bear to look at me. Maybe he still loved me and maybe he couldn't look at me because he missed me so much. Maybe he knew he made a mistake.

But that's all that I am left with. Maybes. And memories of hurtful things that never should have been said, especially not as his last words to me. I always liked to think of myself as the strong one. He used to tell me that if it wasn't for me he'd be dead. As much as it hurt me to say that I still took some weird sense of pride in knowing that he spoke the truth when he said that. Everyone who knew about his depression knew that was the truth and he didn't waste much time in proving it's certainty. He died three weeks after he broke up with me.

Everyone tries to tell me that he ended our relationship because he was preparing for his death. Breaking off relationships and giving stuff away are the planning mechanisms for death. But why couldn't he tell me that he loved me and that he was sorry for hurting me before he left? Some people think that if he had I wouldn't be able to continue with my own life, always pining away for him. That might be true, I might still be thinking about how much I love him and how much I miss him but wouldn't that be better than sitting here angry, thinking awful things about myself? Since he died I have tried with all my might not to think about those awful things he said to me and about me. They weren't things that can be easily dismissed. They were inadequacies that hold a quantity of truth, a quantity that I can't define. I don't consciously repeat his words to myself but I do find myself thinking of them when I do something that might give quality to them.

It was his choice to leave me. And that's exactly how I think of his death. I always thought that things would work out between us. I never thought that our break up was forever, I thought that we were forever. We still are forever because there is no way that I will ever be able to forget him. But at the same time, it just might be that I won't ever be able to forgive him.

When I talk to Marty I feel like I am arguing with him. I feel like I am defending myself for being angry with him and the idea that I need to forgive him so that he can move on with his life, wherever he is, always appears in my head. But I don't want to forgive him. Maybe because if I do I will lose the last connection I have to him. It really does feel like that is all I have left of him, anger.

I hate the fact that the only time I think about him is when I am angry with him. I hate that all memories of him surround those mean things he said. I hate that all I have left is anger. I don't want to let go of him. When he was in the hospital I held his hand every day. I promised him that I would always be there for him, always to hold his hand when he needed it. I can't remember him promising the same to me. But what I hate the most is this overwhelming urge to cry - but never having the tears to shed.

To forgive and forget. Can one exist without the other?

A response to myself

Dear Debbie,

Before you read this please know that I have done my usual advice routine. It's long winded and it takes me forever to get to the point, but read it all. You need to. And when you find yourself doubting Marty, yourself, and/or life, read it again. And always remember, I love you no matter what!

I have read your articles and I am sorry to hear that you feel as you do. But you need to remember the golden rule of life: Everything Happens For A Reason.

Marty was your best friend in the world. He loved you more than anything and as you have said, he knew that if it weren't for you he would have died much sooner. Those are very powerful words, "If it weren't for you I wouldn't be alive right now." What an enormous responsibility someone else's life is.

You need to remember that you did the best you could for him. You also need to remember that as you have already said, it was his choice to leave you. Surely if he had left the choice of his life to you he would be alive right now. But he isn't and you need to deal with the fact that you are.

I know that one of your biggest fears is that maybe Marty didn't love you as much as you thought he did. Questions such as 'How could he do this if he loved me so much?" and "Why wasn't I enough?" you ask yourself every day. These questions are painful and can't be answered. When Marty died he took the answers with him. But instead of focusing on these unanswerable questions and those hurtful words he left you with you need to search out your own answers. You need to live in the here and now. Just as Pavlov trained his dog to drool when the dinner bell rings you have trained yourself to fall back on those words whenever something goes wrong. You gave Marty the best four years of his life. Everyone who ever saw you two together knows how much he loved you. You know it, it was written all over his face. He never hesitated to tell you how wonderful you were. And for the first time in your life you let yourself believe that you could be that great. So take a look at your life. Examine it and find those wondeful gifts that Marty gave you. That sense of confidence in yourself. That love of life that he couldn't find for himself. And remember that you wouldn't be the wonderful person you are without him. He taught you so much about life, he taught you things that he couldn't hold on to himself. If you do nothing else, remember the lessons he taught you and live them as he couldn't.

Marty was a great man, but you are a great woman. Marty seemed like he was the one for you but he wasn't. A friend of mine once gave me a book about something called 'the meantime'. The meantime is a time of learning. A time for finding yourself and discovering what you want in a relationship. Marty was your meantime. Marty helped you find yourself. I watched you while you were with Marty. You two loved each other so much but you spent so much of your time on him that you lost yourself. But you can't blame him for that because that was your choice.

Choices play an extremely large role in our lives. Marty chose death over you, but you chose Marty over life. Those painful things that he said to you are only painful because they do hold a certain amount of truth. You spent so much time looking for Marty that you forgot yourself and now it's time for you to live.

The golden rule of life says that Everything Happens For A Reason. Sometimes it's difficult to find that reason and sometimes it takes someone else to point it out to you. And for that reason I will show you why it had to be this way.

Marty first thought about suicide when he was very young, years and years before he ever met you. He tried it years before he met you. His fate was decided way before he ever met you. You wonder to yourself, "What purpose did Marty have if he was just going to die anyway?" Well his purpose was you. He lived as long as he did so that he could teach you. Whether you believe in God, or fate, or whavever your belief, you must know this: Marty was a gift. His purpose was for you, and you alone. Take those lessons and live your life to the best you can. He taught you to love. He made you question life and it's purpose and through those questions you found the answers you thought he didn't have. You don't want to believe that you are a special person but you are. And he showed you that. Now get off your butt and do something with the life you have. Don't waste his gift. Give it to others. Show the world what love is and live love to its fullest. He showed you the meaning of life, he showed you that there is no time to waste. So don't waste it.

You ask if forgive can exist without forget. Well I think by now you must konw the answer. There isn't much to forgive. Just as you did the best you could, he did the best he could. You don't need to forgive him, and you won't ever be able to forget him, even if you wanted to. Everything that you are today is a result of knowing him. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day but teach him how to fish and he will eat forever (or something like that). Marty was the best teacher you have ever had. Pass his wisdom on to family, friends, and students. And know that you are strong.

And always remember, you gave him the best four years of his life but he gave you more than that, he gave you life itself.

back | days | forth

44 staples later...

Each time a staple came out, I would tense up. The nurse, a nice woman and very gentle, would push the special staple removal tool just under the staple, digging into the scar and making me wince. The lovely trainee philipino nurse would wince in sympathy as the tool clicked shut, bending the staple in the middle and pulling the tiny pins from my skin. Each pinprick would well up with dark red blood that formed a small sphere before the nurse wiped it off with a cylindrical block of tissue. Although it has been two weeks since I was sliced open, the nurse (and I) was worried that perhaps the wounds would split open as she removed the stitches. I could just imagine it: a quiet plink as she drops the staple on the pile of others, then a tearing as my leg splits wide open.

But I was OK. Of course, the tramadol kicks in after I have sat back down the in the reception with my coffee.


Maybe more later...

Today at work, I was concentrating furiously on reading a particularly absorbing node, exhibiting my I’m-working-really-hard-here-me trademark frown, when suddenly I noticed that two photographers were standing, in my office, and they were, well, taking photos of me.

It transpired that rather than documenting my wanton lack of regard for a mysterious thing called a “work ethic” which I believe I mislaid, somewhere around the same time as I lost “job satisfaction” – (though they may just be lurking down the back of the sofa, or in the drum of the washing machine where all the odd socks live); they were in fact there to take pictures for an annual company magazine.

Having taken photos of no-one other than myself, they left, explaining that

“You were the only one who looked like you were working.”

N.B.This proves my theory that the important thing in a job is not to work, but merely to give the impression that you are working. Ask Bill Hicks.

P.S. Yes, I admit that if I wasn’t on the cusp of achieving the next level, I would quite possibly have not have chosen to node the Bill Hicks quote in a seperate node! :-)

I had no dream last night. I always have dreams. There is always one particular dream that I could wake up and recite scene by scene as if it was an on-stage performance. All of my dreams have had a certain theme to them for as long as I can remember. Chaos. Reality is torn, logic is destroyed. It takes a while to make sense out of them, but when I do, it almost directly relates to something in my life I'm dealing with. But there was no dream last night. Real scary stuff.

Today was an emotional high for me. No reason, it just was. I took a long walk today around the neighborhood. I stopped at the lake where I had spent so many summer days playing near. I looked up at the sky, took in a breath of fresh air, and for the first time in my entire life, everything made perfect sense. I was instantly hit by a feeling I've never experienced before. It wasn't love, but my heart was fluttering. It wasn't sorrow, but I could feel my eyes welling up. It wasn't rapture, but I couldn't keep that smile off my face. I've never felt like that before, and probably never will again, but for one moment in my tiny, insignificant existence on this planet, my life made sense. The chaos was gone, the lies were gone, the apathy was gone, the loneliness was gone, the anxiety was gone. I was whole.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like to meet the people I have befriended online. They all seem so perfect. The perfect man or perfect woman with the perfect figure and perfect skin. They have the perfect life in a perfect world. But then I realize, the world is imperfect. Sure, he may seem like a cool guy, but what if he's a satanic ritual murderer in the Cult of the Dead Cow? Yeah, she seems nice, but what if she's really a psycho bitch who wants to kill the world? Bad stuff. What would they think of me? What if they're disappointed by some preconceived image in their head they have of me that is totally false? What if they find out about all my imperfections and shortcomings? What if they don't like me? What if... Maybe that's a stupid idea, but will I ever know otherwise? I know what they'd say. "You worry too much."

Way too much...

AARGH! DAMN YOU HYPOTHALAMUS!

It is 12:10 PM, I am sitting in the library's computer lab. Diagonally from me sits a very very good looking Asian Goth girl who is in my English class. Our English class got cancelled (it was supposed to be at 12) and here I am, not knowing what to node as many thoughts race through my head...uh mind...whatever.

I realize that I should be completing my Biology lab which I've almost finished, but..and...miss this opportunity (?) ...to *cough* node? Laziness triumphs...or should I say something else. No, I'm not thinking about filthy things, just...my loneliness I guess.

*melodrame shrugs.

I suspect she's half-Chinese or something as she seems to posess features which are uncommon to most Asians. I could be wrong as her last name is Lam. She has the fairest skin! ...and she's so smart and her voice...her voice, it's gentle and soft! ARGH!

CURSE THINE EYES!

I'm kind of glad that I don't have to go to English class. My teacher is a lazy college professor, he just goes to class and basically socializes or babbles during it. It's boring and he gets annoyed when we speak. I have a theory that as professors ascend in their hierarchy, they get lazier as they get more authority. It's very annoying. I guess that's college huh?

At 2:00, I'll be going to my French class which is a conversation class. It's a nice class, very relaxing, but unfortunately, the teacher seems to be forgetting her French as well. It's understandable seeing as she (we) are surrounded by Anglophones. She has a wonderful accent. Not as sharp as common French(France) accents, but precise and proper nonetheless. We're reviewing the subjonctive and reading some articles from our textbook. Nothing challenging, I'm getting a fairly good mark in that class. And there I go bragging...

My dad's gonna pick me up at Five-ish, not sure what to do after 4 (which is when my French class ends). Maybe I should do my Biology lab... It's so boring though, all I do is listen to a bloody tape and take notes! ARGH!

ah...she types so fast and loudly, as if she were trying to impress the whole computer lab! I don't want to look, but from the corner of my eye, she seems to be typing something from a book. How very disturbing and interesting at the same time...

Well it looks like I won't have time to go do my Biology lab, so I'll go node The Drizzt Metanode instead. It might end up as a nodeshell (today) as I do not know what to expect or how long I shall node it. I will complete it however.

May the 4th be with you!


P.S. I realized I left out a rather emotionally attaching important detail about today. This morning when I woke up, for some very odd reason, "My Girl" had invaded my mind. The last time I heard that song (from what I remember) was when I was...10 I think. It was when me and Dominique were really good friends and I hadn't acquired a taste for music yet, but he had influenced me with music like Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, The Simpsons sing the Blues and The California Raisins (at the time, there was also the cartoon). Anyhow, the California Raisins tape had My Girl on it and also I heard it to the Grape vine (which I will, if nobody else, node when I get home).

And this morning, nostalgia took over me. An echo in childhood had reached my soul.

Today I received interesting new components of my life in mundane brown cardboard boxes.

The delivery driver called me on my cell phone to get directions to my house. They hadn't told me that the delivery was coming today, so I had to leave work and go home after a half-day in order to meet the truck and accept the shipment.

joy!

I like my job. I'm just deathly tired today. I couldn't get to sleep last night and ended up waking early when the telephone called. So the chance to nap at home was priceless. The ferrets and I curled up under the comforter (it just got cold here in New England) and achieved some high quality snooz. They only come sleep with me when it's cold and they're not used to it. They're so damn funny - waking up because Jerry (next to my ear) has yawned and stretched, brushing me with his claws, and then absent-mindedly nibbled on my earlobe a few times before curling back up into a tight ball and commencing to broadcast little, tiny ferret snores.

My life that arrived is my new office furniture from Herman Miller.

My problem is that I want to redo the carpets and paint in the room that is to be the office before setting up the gear; but the gear is taking up most of the hallway in its mundane brown cardboard box. I shall have to decide whether to try and get a painter and carpet contractor quickly, or just accept that I will have to move it again later, much as I don't want to. Still, it's wonderful to know that I'll have a room dedicated to work that is separate from the one dedicated to sleep. Both should become much more satisfying.

O Fortuna! My other great expectation arrived today as well via my friendly (yes, she is, actually) neighborhood UPS driver. My Venetian glassware, purchased on holiday weeks ago, has made the long cold trip across the Atlantic packed in an enormous quantity of styrofoam and straw. Unwrapping it takes twenty minutes, but at the end of it, I can place the two pieces lovingly on the table in the kitchen and just...stare at them. I will need to buy two small halogen fixtures to place above wherever I decide these preciousnesses are to live. Cranberry layered glass, vase and decanter...

Now I have more time in the day to fill, and nowt to do unless I go back to work - but it's already 4:00pm, and I was actually there by 8:30 this morning, and need more sleep.

Ben and Jerry just lifted noses above the covers and asked where the hell their bedwarming human is. It's always nice to be wanted, especially when single, fairly lonely and having a low self-image. Pets are great for that. As long as you have kibbles.

Decided to sleep-in (sleep-in = 5½ hours sleep). Things at work are particularly slow, and I'm sure I won't be missed. Simply switched off the mobile so nobody from work could track me down and force me into making up a lame excuse for not being there.

Have just opened a cafe/restaurant so spent the day down there - just getting under people's feet and making a general nuisance of myself. It was the quietest day ever in the 3-week history of being open. We'll barely cover staff costs, let alone supplies. Bugger!

Managed to get to bed at 11pm which is extremely early for us lately. After work (or usually at around lunchtime when I am bored with my proper job) I have been heading down to the cafe and "helping out" until close. We then clean up and get home around 11pm-12am. We then "cook the books" and get to bed around 1:30-2. Mornings start at 6am - so we're getting about 4-4½ hours sleep a night. This has gone on for 3 weeks - 7 days a week and I'm shagged!

All up - cafe business is picking up (ignoring yesterday's slack day), personal life is lacking massively - but you get that starting a small business, work is tedious but is about to pick up with 2 new projects handed to me - high profile ones too so should get quite full-on.

Roll on Sunday when I get my first sleep-in for 4 weeks (sleep-in = any amount of sleep greater than 6 hours).

  1. Yesterday: rain, thunder, lightning. In the space-station-like building where I work, the heavy weather sounded like nothing so much as meteorites crashing and disintegrating against our energized hull. The drive home, on the other hand, was among the five most dramatic drives of my life. What with the far-off mountains, the nearby hills, and the low-angled and constantly changing light, I was fortunate enough to have a good soundtrack in some very eastern-sounding song by Sting.

  2. Don't know what made me so melancholy and meditative, but found myself wondering if it would be possible to somehow, at least at times, to view my life with the same dispassionate interest with which I see the lives of others and make such observations as, "Why doesn't she just do such-and-such? Can't she see what she's doing? She ought to just realize thus-and-so."

my sister gave me this, photocopied. it has no author name or reference of any sort. here it is:


When I come to the end of the road And the sun has set for me, I want no rites in a gloom filled room, Why cry for a soul set free? Miss me a little, but not too long And not with your head bowed low. Remember the love we once shared -- Miss me, but let me go. For this is a journey we all must take And each must go alone. It's all a part of the Master's plan, A step on the road to home. When you are lonely and sick of heart Go to the friend we know And bury your sorrows in His grace Miss me, but let me go.

the date and time are set. thursday at 6:30. the veterinarian helped me to feel more comfortable. she says that his heart is failing and he only has two or three weeks left, and they will only get more painful as his lungs fill up with fluid. i am doing the right thing. it still hurts though.

He said: Not now.
She said: maybe later.
They said: Jesus Christ, can't you see we're busy?

and on and on.
All I want to know then is, if not now, when? My only request is that it be soon, because I can't do this much longer. The world has fallen. The scales have tipped. The sky is turning black.

Well, after a 3.5 hour busride i'm finally back to my home. I'm one of the few people that call my dorm room "home" and where my family lives "away." Of course, i'm also the only one who thinks that the food here is better than at home.

Well, i got back to my room, unpacked and set up my new printer. Its one of those "plug 'n pray" deals, but i actually got it working in about thirty seconds. Of course, the ink cartridge needs to be changed, but i doubt i can blame that one on windows.

I bought some headphones for my computer so i don't have to bother my roommate with my music and other sounds (like those quake and Unreal tournament ones...). They were on sale at radio shack for half price. I think they are made of titanium or something. Thats what it says on the box. Of course, that could just be a brand name or something. I'd be lying if i said i cared...

I have some work to do for tomorrow but i really don't feel like doing it. Oh well. Its nothing too important.
It was the start of my second day without alcohol in my system.

I have managed to screw up several relationships in the past few months, all the girls said that i drank too much. I work part time in a bar and this is not good.

Around 5pm the shakes were to much to handle, especially with the stress of all business, I had two beers to settle down and concentrate better on my work. So far, so good.

At Midnight I arrive home and watch a movie and settle into bed. Time passes. Darkness. I am still awake. Everything seems like a blur. I fear bedtime because of the nightmares and the recurring dreams. I fear conscienceness because of the stress and pressure of daily life. A couple drinks makes me feel fine but only temporarily, I know later on it'll do more harm than good. The girls I meet and hangout with encourage it but the ones I want to be with discourage it and have since left.

As I laid down about ready to drift off into unconscienceness, I felt good knowing that even though i failed today, at least I didn't get hammered and that the next morning would be one where I remembered most of what happened the night before.
Greater Columbus Habitat for Humanities: Day 2

Things went much better on Tuesday, October 10. We (the Tuesday crew) met at the office to see what was needed of us, picked up some lumber and went to the site. The house is being built near the office north of Columbus in a really poor area of town. Most of the houses are barely standing with one bedroom, a kitchen a bathroom and a basement...the neighbors have a beet up old Dodge in their front lawn that had been stripped to almost nothing. Just one of those places that makes me feel sorry for doing well.

It was just my father and I for a while because one of the other workers was having back troubles and another guy was having a mild hernia surgery... one of the funny things about working with mostly retirees. Today was mostly fixing what others had messed up. Our first chore was to nail up some OSB, or Oriented Strand Board, along the side of the house. The OSB had to go down to a certain point on the house and had to hang out a half inch for the siding to go on properly. The Saturday crew had put up a vinyl moisture barrier so we had to remove it, put up the OSB, and reattach the vinyl. The OSB thing is kind of strange... it has to be put up so the writing is on the outside and right side up just so when the inspector stops by he can read that it is OSB. It seams to be one of those things that someone threw some politics into just so they can have a job. The first thing I noticed while we were doing this is despite my father wears eighth of an inch thick bifocals, I will never be able to out hammer him... and my father still loves to make fun of my deficiencies. It is still hoped this house-building thing will return my hangy downies. After we put up the OSB we had to put up some dead wood for kitchen cabinets, toilet paper holders, and rails near the toilet for handicap access. Around noon another crewmember showed up and helped us out. It was pretty funny to watch my father and Ken practically fighting to see who got to pound the next nail in… both of them, hammers drawn, waiting for me to get the next 2x4 cut. I left around 3 to get some sleep. This Tuesday we may start panelizing.

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