I finally went to sleep at 5 in the morning, after almost reaching level three. The day is near, friends, but I needed sleep. At ten A.M. I woke again and did the seventh installment of Faust, taking the oppertunity to talk some on #e. Took a shower at one and met up with John (client) at carpe at two-thrity. We agreed on a design and price - $225 flat rate for the site's layout, estimating the labour at five hours.
Thad had /msg me earlier telling me of his sickness and asked me to pick him up a pack of Newports, so I did that. When I got to his house and got past the dogs, he was feeling considerably better. He offered a joint, but I declined, having quit that nasty habit the day before for good. I then drove home, ate and got on e2 to add some posts - Here I am now, about to start on the layout job when learning about Kat's limp arm. Appearently she had gotten a TB booster shot in her shoulder muscle, limping it for the time being. Luckily enough Factgirl came through and helped kat like only she can.

Y/T

Perfect Image

My words do not articulate my world in the way that I feel it. I can feel that power, it crackles on my tongue when I try to speak. My eyes are coloured by the shadows of images that remain beyond. This is where I am running to, howling like a castrated lion, to throw myself into the void of art. I believe in the shadows, that line where giddy fear grips me, I grin maniaclly and devour the darkness, to become it, to become the soul of the universe. In my life art is a quest to illuminate the darkest crying corners of myself, to drag out everthing I would hide and put it on display for the audience inside. To be the diva of everything, to become god-like. And I do, I am the king of my world. I load up with the wonders and frights I have known and journey back to you, to share, but the sunlight stiffens my tongue and the perfect image of my mind washes out in the light of the world.

today was a very odd day

yesterday/tomorrow

Twenty-one years ago I was born to the daughter of a coal miner and the son of a poet. The oldest of seventeen children, I was given responsibilities concerning maintenance of the household.

My mother had lost her mind years before my birth, something about asbestos in the water she was drinking down in Oklahoma. My father had taken off wandering the country in pursuit of himself, and honestly I'd be curious to know when he finds him. Sure could use the help back around here.

My youth was a huge brawl of boys batting their eyes and dancing on tables way past my curfew, drunken, a virgin whore. I loved myself and hated everyone else for wanting to be around me.

I believed I was too good to be true.

I awoke from an entirely too-restful slumber at approximately 12:30 this afternoon. Mere seconds after my awakening, I had already begun to wallow in the sheer unadulterated bliss that is unemployment.

I pulled myself out of bed, threw some clothes on. I took special delight in being able to open my bottom drawer (which is, in itself, quite odd because I keep most of my clothes on the floor) and put on my favorite sweater. Today was the first day that it's been cold enough to justify wearing my favorite sweater. Already, my day was looking up. I draw some kind of inexplicable happiness from wearing this particular sweater. I could generally care less about what clothes I'm wearing at any given moment, and if you stop me, cover my eyes, and ask me, at some random point during the day, what clothes I'm wearing, chances are I'd have no idea. But wearing this sweater makes happy for some reason that I can't explain logically.

After taking great pride in making an actual conscious decision regarding the clothes I was going to wear today (this happens very rarely, as you may have gathered), I went out and bought myself some saltine crackers, several bottles of Easy Cheese, and a few pounds of yummy yogurt-covered almonds in anticipation of a day full of couch-sitting and movie-watching.

I arrived back at my apartment and suddenly, as if my eyes had been opened for the first time, realized that the place was a pigsty. So, in an unprecedented display of non-bachelorness, I set about cleaning the place up. After several hours of this, my apartment, while still messy by most standards, was a shining pearl of beauty by my own standards. I plopped down on the couch with my crackers and Easy Cheese and yogurt covered almonds and proceeded to watch Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. This made me quite happy, because I love Tim Burton movies.

I then spent an hour or so listening to my collection of haunting Danny Elfman themes and writing email to friends. Then I decided I felt like seeing another movie, so I went out and saw Almost Famous. I love seeing movies by myself, because then I can go and watch them later with other people and they seem like entirely different movies. After seeing that movie, I for some reason felt extremely happy and joyous and alive, so I drove home with the windows down, my new God Lives Underwater CD blaring loudly and satisfyingly from my new stereo, letting the frigid night air play with my hair.

What a beautiful night. What a wonderful day. I am reveling in my laziness. It makes me sad to think that on Monday I'll have to get up early and start my new job.

Sigh.

11:17

There couldn't be a better way to start your day than two large mugs of green tea. Gunpowder, of course. Oolong works fine for me too, but there's just something about that green stuff. (Yes, also that other green stuff. And the third one is nice as well but doesn't make you happy. :)
The sustained energy lift is very pleasant, unlike the jittery jolt I get from coffee. Not to mention the tea's taste is approximately dozen times more appealing. And once I started using real tea, I never went back to the Lipton crap.

Yesterday, when I was having lunch with a bunch of coworkers, I mentioned expecting Boxman going bankrupt right after christmas. Today the news about them going down are all over. My prediction was off by 2.5 months, so I guess I won't be the next Nostradamus after all.

At least this firm must be doing well, since we just got those old back-wreckers replaced with real office chairs. This is pure heaven. Another month with those old pieces of junk and I'd be seeing a chiropractor regularily for the rest of my life. And not only new chairs, but they've been buying new kitchen equipment as well. If this keeps up, I soon don't want to go home after the workday is over..

11:43

Okay, I admit it: I woke up late, once again. Reason today? Well, I got a great idea last night when I couldn't sleep.

The idea involved XEmacs and MULE (ie, "How To Input Russian Without Blowing Your Fuses"). Regrettably, XEmacs seems to demand ISO 8859-5 fonts, and I only have KOI-8R fonts. Damn to the sixth power.

Well, I hope things will start running today... =)

Time to drink some Serious Coffee ("What are the foxes doing in the den? Drinking coffee, of course!"), then shower and to the university.

15:55

Hooooooboy. Stuff Has Happened, Now.

Just a note: alt.fan.dragons has turned completely unreadable by now, at least for me. They used to get (back when I was active in the group) get around 120 articles per day. Guess what? Recently, they have got up to 570 articles a day! Sorry, that's something I can't keep up with... the article flood has forced me to lurk.

16:54

Mozilla-bin: gopher is not a registered protocol

::sigh::

O tempora, o mores. Well, the original Gopher client is now under GPL, I use it instead to get to Wiretap...

21:47

Browsed through a huge heap of newspapers (yes, I haven't read those newspapers for over a month). Watched Lexx.

23:17

Why I feel that I'm... inadequeately informed? I'm information hungry. I need to tell about it later. Now.... I need to go...

01:16

Updated my bio, so it's a bit shorter. A bit. Also learned the true editor's version control stuff a bit... C-u C-x v v lets me to select the version number, cool! Just what I needed...

Speaking of home nodes, have I told you how much I like Bones' home node picture? =)

Well, soon time to go to bed... dammit, I have been overproductive recently.


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: coffeefox alt.fan.dragons The Internet Wiretap Ten Commandments of C Programming gets()
Updated: xgrmpflmprxyzzz Vulpix Ninetales

back | days | forth

Bad Dreams, even worse waking

It must have rained all night but the overcast sky this morning doesn't seem spent at all. The grey tone to everything suits my drenched garden; the shrubs are loving every minute of this, but the smaller herbs are looking sorry for themselves. I'm sitting here trying not to think too hard about things and wondering if the rain has found a way into my house somewhere.

Drinking Dr. Pepper first thing after you wake up can't be good for you, even if you combine it with vitamin pills. Somehow I don't want to eat, I am still feeling sick both in my stomach and my head, which of course puts taking loads of painkillers out of the question as well :-(

Maybe more later...

Isn't daylogging a bitch when the only things happening are private?

Last night I spent half an hour washing some old skanky Lego I had purchased from a guy at work. It was covered in bluetac and plasticine. Disgusting. Afterwards, the bath was so grim I had to clean it, regretting how much I'd handed over for this old dirty Lego. Now it's drip-drying on a towel in the bathroom. Much cleaner.

Woke up late, not wanting to get up. It is getting darker and colder in the mornings, and waking up is not a lot of fun. Ever heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder? I think I have a mild dose.

However

When I stepped outside I felt good. The air was cold, but not uncomfortably so. As I opened the door, a flock of white birds (doves? seagulls? I don't know) flew over me. I just stood still and watched them for a minute. Then I got in the car, and turned on the radio just as a Radiohead song from their new album started. I felt good.

Finally got around to writing a letter to Off Campus, the magazine for extramural Massey University students in response to a column in their latest issue.

In their June issue they reprinted a letter that I wrote to the first issue of Chaff (the internal students newspaper) for the year, in a column showing as an example of a typical(?) internal students state of mind. The letter to Chaff was simply as followed:

Dear Chaff,
   Firetrucks are cool!

alvin

In the September issue of Off Campus a column appeared with a reader offering an explanation as to the meaning of the letter:

"Your happy letter writer alvin was not referring to the big red firetrucks one sees driving around town." 'Firetrucking', male student style, is the practice (not uncommon) of getting so hideously mullocked that the control of the bladder is lost. A wet patch on the front and legs of the trousers ensues. This is the signal that a firetruck has occurred."

My reply to Off Campus:

Dear Off Campus,
   I am rather bemused at the explanation offered by one of your readers with respect to my "firetrucks are cool' letter that was reprinted from Chaff in your June issue. The letter was simply intended to be taken at face value and had nothing to do with the inability of drunken rugbyheads to relieve themselves in the proper manner.
   I would be interested in at this readers interpretation of one of my other letters to Chaff, "Where have all the invisible smurfs gone?"

alvin

I can't see why anyone (male of female) would think that 'firetrucks are cool' in the sense explained by the Off Campus reader!

i have yet to write a piece about the death of my dog. a constant meditation of death, that’s what it’s all about for me these days. once like two fish swimming in a fish bowl, now one fish trapped in its little pond. everything i do is defined entirely by me. it starts and ends with me. her death brings home the loneliness i’ve felt since my mom left. usually takes several months for it to hit me bad but my severe self-enforced seclusion prior to the test and now her death ... the rituals we had together, almost everything was tied to her: my excursions to the outside world (how long i could stay), my eating (to share), my sleeping (to make sure she was ok), my walking (a heightened awareness of the position of my feet so i wouldn’t step on her), my affections. yes that. and now she’s gone. i was alone before but now the selfishness of it weighs me down. the utter selfishness of it perplexes me: when i prepare food, when i shop, when i am happy ... no-one, nothing to share my labour. an island. i understand how years ago an older friend told me i would not tolerate the selfish existence that i advocated. now i truly understand the need (not want) people feel for partners or children. we move on from adolescence – a period of consciousness expansion and shameless self-propagation. we reach the boundaries of normal human existence in a sense and realize our isolation. mostly this is experienced as boredom or a feeling of futility, a horrifying superfluousness. the unbearable lightness of being. we attain king solomon’s frame of mind:

vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
what advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? ...
all the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full ...
that which has been is that which will be done. there is nothing new under the sun ...
there is no remembrance of earlier things ...

from ecclesiastes or the book of solomon.

this coming from a man who “set (his) mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven”, this is a frightening prospect. but that is not the end of it. there is a way out. to keep on growing we must move on to a different level. another dimension of existence. i am not amused by my multifariousness any more. the self which once absorbed constantly now yields to the natural instinct of sharing. a sign of maturity, of manhood. most sick people, physically or mentally, regress towards that phase of selfishness. they feel their self contracting again, a volatile space. never fixed. so to take is a symptom of dis-ease with ourselves. to give is the fruit of my soul-labour. the gratitude and love towards our benefactors, material or spiritual, breeds this selflessness. if we hamper it, immediately the cancerous guilt and shame mar our selfhood. we injure ourselves. hence the deep sickness of those who suffered at the hands of their parents. an arabic proverb: the one who lacks a thing cannot impart it. as of affection and selfless love. if we were to apply this self-violence in a different way we would heal ourselves instead. this way is selflessness, humility. i can see now how this is tied with love, life, death, existence and god. i see how it all comes together. this is passion.

This morning I woke up over an hour before my alarm clock was set to go off, and coudln't fall asleep again. This Does Not Bode Well.

Work has really been scaring me lately. There have been 3 firings in the past week. IT's unpleasant watching the transition from small, friendly workplace to Dilbert-esque, corporate hell.

I really don't want to go there today. I don't want to do much of anything but crawl back into my bed and cry for a while. Then sleep.

i tried to count the number of girls i saw and thought beautiful on the way to work.
after thirty-something, i gave up.

i love tokyo.
Just an E2 Public Service Announcement to say that today is NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY in the States (I think it is in other countries as well).

If you don't know what this is, read Infinite Burn's excellent writeup -----> National Coming Out Day.

I'm breaking out the Pink Triangle button and the one that says "I Like Men"


Yay! I've already been downvoted!

Woke up for no discernable reason sometime before 6:30am. It was, of course, pitch black. My first emotion of the day was of utter confusion. My room seemed to be way too quiet. This despite the fact that my air filter was buzzing away at the foot of my bed as it always is (I'm a white noise addict). Eventually my cerebrum caught up with my cerebellum and I realized everything was normal. I think I might have been confused because my alarm clock wasn't going off or else it had something to do with a dream I was having. Unfortunately whatever I might have been dreaming about was lost to my memory upon awakening.

I'm not sure what time it was. 6:30am is as dark as 2:30am these days so it could have been anytime. I woke lying on my right side and I didn't flop over to my left to take a look at my clock. The realization that you don't have to wake up and can go back to sleep is one of life's great feelings, but waking up when the alarm finally does go off is usually twice as hard as normal. It certainly was the case this morning.

I need to relight my wall heater one of these days. It was too damn cold in my apartment this morning.

Everything tells me I have 42 writeups until the fabled Level 3. So close...so far.

A quiet day all up. Gave up on work at around 1530 and went out to the cafe to see what was up. They were pretty busy which was great after yesterday's pathetic turn-out. Helped them catch up with dishes then went home and played.

The weather is starting to pick up around this side of the world. Spring is in the air, and the flowers are all starting to come back out and see what is going on. The plants in the garden have taken over the place, and without time to spend in there keeping them in line they are starting to engulf the entire house and path. Must get in there with a machette before they take over the world

It's raining today, and I am reminded of a time a few weeks back when we had a heavy thunder storm. I was driving out to the cafe and there was lightning all around. The rain was so heavy the traffic, light as it was, was travelling at around 30kph. I cranked some thumping music up on the stereo and made the windows flex. I had a huge grin on my face and just marvelled at the force of nature all around me. At one stage I counted up to 6 rainbows at various locations in the sky, including a triple one over the blackened ocean. Mother Nature has such an eye for beauty, and never fails to stun me. I drove at a speed to keep me under the storm as long as possible, which was moving North fairly rapidly. I managed to stay under it for about 3/4 of the half hour trip. I love the extremes! The jagged lightning against the black clouds, the bright rainbows, the torrential rain, the loud music, the ear-splitting thunder (mostly drowned out by the sound of rain and the music), and the feeling of safety and comfort whilst surrounded by this raw power.

Well, after a long break from writing daylogs, here we go again!

Long, stressing day at UAB, Computer Security in the morning, pizza and Artificial Intelligence, Computer Networks and Image Processing in one long afternoon.

At least, we are having one big weekend around here; tomorrow is a holiday and well, friday too.

Well, this year is shaping up well; real toughie is Image Processing, pretty exciting subject, but we will have a big hard time with it. Today, the teacher taught us how to get 3d information from moire interference patterns; real cool stuff, but tough maths (trig, fourier, you name it). Networks is nice, also; real good teacher, easy subject and good practice work.

Mireia gave me a lift back home. Nice chat; poor lady, she's got a mean cold; I hope she recovers this long weekend.

The First Minister's Official Spokesman said this afternoon.

"It is with deep sadness I have to report that Scotland's First Minister, Donald Dewar, has died. He was visited by his daughter Marion and son Ian earlier today and after discussion with the consultant treating him, the decision was taken to take him off the life support system. The cause of the First Minister's death was a brain haemorrhage. Marion and Ian have asked me to express their thanks to all those who assisted their father over the last two days. In particular they would like to thank the medical staff at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Accident and Emergency Unit and the staff in the intensive care unit here at the Western General Hospital. News of the First Minister's death has been passed to his Cabinet colleagues and to Prime Minister, Tony Blair and his colleagues in London. I am sure everyone will agree that this is a sad day for Scotland.

"Scotland has lost a great man."

11 October 2000

It seems to me that the world has not noticed. CBC Newsworld's site had nothing on the issue. CNN's European home had a small link under "Other News". It took several clicks to find a wire news story on ABC News, apparently No Garlic Please, I’m the Queen is more important. MSNBC have nothing.

Is Scotland not big enough to be noticed?

work, I finally could pick up my car from the garage. It's been there for two weeks, because it needed a new set of wheels, a check-up, and they had to repair something on the engine (I don't know what. I'm not very technical) was broken, and they had to get the parts from Japan.
I've been driving for the last two weeks in a car from the garage, and when I returned it, they had the nerve to complain about how many kilometers I drove with it, so I got a bit angry at the guy and told him: If you would have fixed my car sooner, I wouldn't have to use yours this long! Fortunately (for him, I guess), he agreed with me and apologized for it.

At least my car is fixed, I've got some new tires, and they even washed my car. And what did it cost me? Nothing, since my boss pays for it.

 
After midnight, I got a call from my girlfriend... damn, I missed her... Can't wait to see her again.

The events of yesterday, this being my first shot at a computer in a bit.


It was a half day at school. Wake up at 6:00, go in, learn nothing, leave, go find something to do. The rest of my former clique having graduated in past years, I wasn't entirely sure about the last part.

I ended up finding a few kids I knew to go and get lunch with. After a quick split on the chinese/pizza issue, a few of us found ourselves searching for a parking space outside Cheng du while the others finished their meal inside. Pulling into the Resident Parking Only lot behind the building we saw a huge, old TV (the kind with wooden paneling) next to a dumpster. Yoink.

After this we tried to get it into Jeff's van. He refused, forcing us to find a way to tie it down to the other Jeff's old Chevy. So, after pushing the lopsided, three wheeled monstrosity across the street, we had what we wanted: a TV into a car.

Now we needed somewhere to take it. After a quick run around the town, we ended up at another kid's house, where a lazy afternoon party was going on. Beer, catch with lacross sticks, and mournful talk of the guy who was caught with two baggies and a scale. So we walked up and asked permission (of course) ans were quickly breaking the TV into small chunks of glass and wood across the lawn with any availible gardening implements (although I did more damage to my shovel than the set).

Next step: hiding the evidence. The house was on a backwoods cul de sac, so we were able to load the remains into a wheelbarrow with plenty of certainty that we would find somewhere to hide it. The five of us all loaded it up and, out of a seeming obligation to do something, took turns guarding sides of the wheelbarrow. Halfway there, we saw a car driving down the street, and froze (Not a good idea, but we weren't thinking about that at the time.) They pulled into a driveway a good 60 feet away. Carrying on, we heard barking, and saw the biggest great dane we'd ever seen! Moving faster, as it didn't seem to have a leash or fence, we got to the woods, and went, spilling bits of television, to a clearing, occupied by a rusting dryer, plywood, and a tire. Perfect.

Last night i lay in a fold-out bed in someone else's house, his alone, his happy to be alone house. My own alone stretched through my legs' reach, my arms lying alongside my body, across my scalp to the back of my head. I wondered what his sleeping form the floor above felt like just as i wondered how the cats felt in their bodies, how the spring would feel here. I felt as if i could let some restriction go and i would wash my insides with sadness, maybe even cry. Perhaps that would do good. But i searched and nowhere found the tension that could be holding such emotion in ... everywhere in the landscape seemed calm, relaxed, smooth, like the ocean fading into they grey sky, incapable of hiding such pressure as i imagined. Eventually i fell asleep, not knowing where i would sleep tonight.

On the bus, i think idly of Ryan whom i've left and my wandering mind maps his face on Alex's. Both have a gorgeous benign arrogance and no need of me but offered me all kinds of shelter. I was in love with Alex at the time (though not with Ryan) and he accepted it gracefully but did not encourage or reciprocate. Instead he (they) drew me on to thoughts that others do not. They are separate from, rarer than, the men who are attracted to me, or those friends i can casually speak to, or call on the phone, now and then or everyday. Perhaps (with Willa) i can imagine that they are a lineage of strength and grace who have given me courage in consecutive phases of this life. Maybe this is all too grand. We're only people. I'm like them in some ways. Maybe i have been that figure for others.

I feel on my way. I feel like a snake, having just stripped a skin, glossy and tender - a bit timid, a bit proud, a bit exposed.

Today I received an unusually long message from a friend via voicemail. Messages get deleted after 24 hours, but for some reason I really wished I could keep this one; which is why I decided to store it on Everything.

Jason, this is Shaun, ahh how's it going, ummm, ah, not really sure why I'm ringing you up, I guess coz it's Wednesday and, umm, I dunno. Be it known, I am gonna start living a healthier lifestyle. I don't remember the last time I ate a piece of fruit or a vegetable and I think my body is now telling me that I really should start doing that sort of thing; ummm, I haven't been at a hundred percent capacity in the last couple of days, ummm, but that's all gonna change. Umm, anyway, umm just give us a ring later on or (indecipherable half-word) I'm at my parents' place right now but i'll be go, but this is, this is two, quarter past two, umm, and but I'm going home, umm about 5. My parents' number is (deleted) and, so if you want to give me a ring before 5, and ummm, (indecipherable excited sounding words) I, I, I just have not asked be-, before whether you have or not but, like, if you don't have My Iron Lung or have never heard it--you probably have, you probably have it--but ummm, but I'll, I'll have to lend it to you because I've owned it for years--I actually got it for free when I bought OK Computer but I stopped listening to it about a year ago and I just ah (a click, now speaks very fast) Apparently I've only got ten seconds' recording time remaining, umm anyway so to sum up, I'll speak to you later. Bye.

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