Monday's going to be total hell. I'm still somewhat sick with what may or may not be Strep throat. I feel awful. I want to sleep. I have three back to back classes on different campuses: I never go to Social. It's a joke of a class: 300 people, open-book, open-notes multiple choice exams. I have to go this time, though, to find out what my grade was on the first test. If it's not 100, I'm going to go on a rampage.

I hope kanon42 doesn't get sick.

back | days | forth

00:50 BST

Pining until it physically hurts

I have been up for way too long, my rational side tells me. Well, my rational side can go take a jump off a cliff. I try to distract myself from thoughts of her by reading boring American politics articles in Salon. Why am I trying to think of other things? Maybe this is my "rational" (i.e. scared) side telling me to go to sleep, leave things alone? No, these feelings are too intense, too real and tangible to ignore or set aside. Each time someone joins #everything, my heart leaps, then shatters again as I realise it isn't her.

Funny that I am viewing this as some kind of battle between rationality and emotion; am I that afraid of my deeply buried emotions? Yes, dizzy robotic unit #493394, these are emotions: look at the stuffed tux and feel happiness because Mark bought it for your birthday. Look at the letter from her, read it and smell it - feel the love, trust and confidence it inspires in you.

Those are emotions, they are real and I am real. There's no swelling music or innovative direction; this is real life.

16:40 BST

She got back. We talked. I love her. :-) The rest? More detail? Mind your own business! :-)

More food packages from my Mother, and she is cooking dinner for me yet again. I am going to sorely miss all this help and attention when I go back to work next week :-(

After another sleepless night full of blissful noding, I was awakened at 2pm today by the sound of someone dribbling a basketball on my front door.

As I regained consciousness, it occurred to me that, since my front door is a vertical plane, it would be very difficult to unintentionally dribble a basketball on it. I got up to investigate.

Peering through the peephole and squinting in the bright light, I saw the little girl from the apartment above mine. My apartment is on the bottom level and you actually have to walk down some steps to reach my door. She was rolling a ball down the steps, bouncing it off my door in such a way that it then flew back over the steps and into her arms.

I wasn't really sure what to do. She's a nice little kid, and I like kids, so I didn't want to go out and tell her to stop at the risk of making her think of me as the bad man in the downstairs apartment. On the other hand, the racket was tremendous and it was driving me nuts.

I tried to ignore it. Over the course of an hour or so, she eventually stopped. Then, fifteen minutes later, she started again, did it for another hour, and stopped. This cycle repeated itself several times. I was beginning to get a headache, so I finally decided I had to do something.

I waited by the door, watching through the peephole. Eventually, she bounced the ball with too little force, and it didn't make it all the way up the stairs. The ball rolled down and came to rest against my door. She jumped happily down the stairs to retrieve it. I readied myself. Just as she picked up the ball from in front of my door, I punched the door as hard as I could, making a tremendous noise.

The poor little girl must've jumped five feet straight up. She grabbed her ball and ran to the top of the stairs, turned, and stared at my door for a minute. Then she ran up the next flight of stairs and into her parents' apartment. It's been blissfully quiet ever since.

Ahhhhhh....

My grandma is visiting from Vermont. I haven't seen her since my grandfather's funeral, which was almost two years ago. She misses him endlessly - they were married for almost sixty years before he died. Lung cancer. Grandma talks about him constantly, and she gets teary eyed just as often. She's moving out of the house they shared, where the kids were raised and countless memories reside. She says she wants to get an apartment somewhere, that everything is so confusing, that she is so completely lost in life without her husband. I told her she could live in my room. She hugged me and cried.

We went shopping at Pfaltgraff in the midafternoon. Mom found a new pattern of dishes she wants, although the dishes we are currently eating off of were brand new as of last Christmas. Grandma decided on Naturewood, the most popular and the most expensive of all Pfaltzgraff patterns. I hung out with the other employees when my knowledge wasn't needed, or else ran across the store waving my arms over my head while wearing mismatched oven mits that reached almost to my elbows. While attending your place of employment when you're not actually working, one must take advantage and be silly without punishment. Kelly and Jenn nearly died laughing, but eventually I got sick of embarassing myself.

Had a long, tedious conversation with Nick via instant messanger. Most of our internet talks go something like this:

N: What's up, Gaytay.
K: Leave me alone, Gayathan.
N: At least I'm not gay.
K: You're just jealous that I'm boofing your girlfriend
N: You're kidding, right? Right?

This went on for over an hour. I don't know why I put up with him. Then he told me he had sent the script to Pam (the girlfriend). So now she thinks that I'm gay and want to have sex with her. I did have a dream about it once... but that doesn't count. Sigh.

2:26

it's raining again. perhaps you've read enough of my daylogs to know what i do when it rains. am i really that predictable? yes.

2:26

no lights are on inside, doors and windows open, sitting under the floodlights that illuminate the stairs outside my apartment. i don't want to be distracted by having to flip over an LP so i load up my five disc changer, Selected Ambient Works II, Bombscare EP, Young Team, and because we were talking about it in the Chatterbox earlier, ISDN. i sit outside, sipping my hot tea, munching on my dry toast, reading A Clockwork Orange.

2
:
2
6

Synergy.

Oh, it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum. When it came to the Scherzo I could viddy myself very clear running and running on like very light and mysterious nogas, carving the whole litso of the creeching world with my cut-throat britva. And there was the slow movement and the lovely last singing movement still to come. I was cured all right.

2:26

i read this right as the counter hits 2:26. two minutes and twenty-six seconds into Bombscare, one of the most beautiful things i've ever heard.

i'm stopped dead in my tracks. unable to speak, to move, was i even breathing? unable to do anything but listen, experience and stare up into the night sky, full of wonder and amazement.

raindrops commit suicide on the pavement.

i wish i had someone to share these nights with, but would they be so poignant were i not alone?

there's a node about that somewhere...

i finish up clockwork orange and move on to Moby Dick but my heart just isn't in it. i decide to treat myself. i break out that $50 bottle of Chianti, light up that $15 cigar, unscrew the floodlights and sit outside in the dark.

by now the music becomes a little like a perpetual diary

i watch the world wobble though the heat coming off the tip of the cigar. the longing for someone is as present as ever. i tell myself i'm happy alone, as i so often do, but for the first time cody, you just might be telling the truth.

i've never had words for anyone else, never as i do now, somehow the feelings almost spill properly from time to time and i think it is almost possible you might know just how lost i am for you. i blink, and i hold my eyelids closed, float in thoughts of everything that you are..

i am somewhat completely exhausted tonight, but not in the conventional manner, i am sleepy somehow, and will rest, some time.

i think that perhaps today is going to be not nearly as beautiful as yesterday, but i've also the feeling that i will smile muchly, despite the aching in my heart as i do miss him greatly.

these things all end.. who asked you, anyway?

i know i should have at least slightly more motivation than i do at present as i have almost none, but still, i mind not the leetle things scattered about the floor waiting for me to return them to their proper place. as many of them have no place at all, they'll just be pushsed aside temporarily, gather dust, keep me company those times when i can't seem to find solace without slipping deep into my own head.

sometimes, i need this. this alone time when i accomplish more or phenomenally less than i should, both mentally and in terms of material matter organized and circle, silver cleanliness taunts me.

i found them, through missing tears, without you, i found them. thank you.
Weekend log, actually.

Friday was good, I went home after work when my girlfriend came to pick me up. It was Fall Break, which means that we got a Friday off from class, but I still had to work. Sux. I did fall in love with my girlfriend again Friday. That happens a lot when I see her after a long time of not seeing her. She fell asleep about 9 pm, and I stayed up and wrote a bit. I had, sometime, gotten a postcard from Segnbora-t of Weeki Wachee Mermaids in Florida. I have actually been there. Pretty cool, to bad someone deleted the Everything Mailing Address Registry.

Saturday was nice. We went to a park and took a walk down the Rock River. We were going to go and see a movie, I think it was Meet The Parents. We didn't. Actually, we were let in on some knowledge of a stand-up comic was going to be performing, but they canceled because of low ticket sales. My girlfriend fell asleep about 10 pm. Me and another friend went out and talked. We discussed ideas for an Internet Start-up, and I realized that what I wanted to do was like Everything2, except multi-media and moderated for increased accuracy. Then we talked about my situation with Two Women. I love them both, but I think one is holding me back.

Sunday, I break up with my girlfriend for about an hour, then we get back together and I realize I love her too much than is probably healthy. So, now, we are back together and we made-up and stuff and now I'm back where I was Friday, except now I'm sure I cannot leave my girlfriend. I think polyamory will not be looked upon like a valid alternative by the women.

I started to write something, and I think I'm kind of stuck. "I hate my omni-benevolence." Yeah. Why must I be so nice? The world would be an easier place if I were just an asshole.

Mmmm, nothing like leftover Chinese food for a midnight snack. It's been over a week since my last node. That's only because I got tired of doing short, inane little writeups, because I don't have time to do anything which requires a lot of thought, and nothing eventful has happened, and hence, no day logs. Plus, no urge to write.

Lot's of midterms, assignments, and labs last week. More next week. Was down at my parents place, and my niece was there, busy being cute. She's got this coughing thing going, but it's not a real cough, it's as if she imitating someone, probably my Dad. But it's really cute. Her Mom was feeding her cereal, and at one point she grabbed the spoon, and slashed the cereal all over her Mom. I have pictures of that one.

Recent events have me thinking about the nature of Love again. This is a bad thing. I can't really come to any definite conclusions about what this phenomenon is, but it seems to be different for everybody, and you just know when it is, according to popular culture. Thinking about this stuff makes me really sad for no good reason, it just ends up that way. I was doing pretty good there for awhile, reasonably happy with my relationship and life in general, but ask to many questions, and watch out...

I finally got around to installing Slackware 7.1 on my laptop. Ah, so much nicer than Windows. I also installed a fresh copy of NT4 in a smaller partition at the same time, and it's a total dog. I just increased the usefulness of my laptop by approximatly 300%.

Ah, endless ramblings. Does it get any better? I've been up for the past 3 hours studying for a geology exam that I'm going to fail anyway. I can't help but feel that it was a moot effort. I did, however, finish my Russian homework, except for a dialog that will take me 5 minutes to write.

I'm contemplating sleep right now. I'm not quite sure if it's a good idea or not.
Ah fun. Did some nodekeeping on my Dave Matthews Band writeup (They're going on tour again already! Woohoo!). I also updated my homenode with the most current and mind-blowing info about me.

I went shopping yesterday with a friend. We should not be allowed to shop together, ever. We both went home with black leather jackets from Wilsons. I was going to pass, but one caught my eye on the way out of the store, and it was 20% off (50 bucks isn't too bad, IMO). So, that was that.

If I can finish my Csci lab by tomorrow afternoon, I'm driving up to Duluth to visit my friend Ali and go see Weird Al with her, since she has no one to go with. Very doubtful that I'll finish though...I'll post here if I do though :)

Right now I am floored.. floored with the fact someone has gotten past this wall I have built around myself. I do have to admit now.. that maybe my wall isn't as thick as I perceive it.. which scares me.. but I feel safe,, which kind of scares me.. not the fact that someone got through.. but the fact that they did and I feel safe.. that probably doesn't make much sense, will making total sense at the same time.

I am really happy right now.. but all my insecurities and fears are starting to surface.. what if I am not what I am perceived to be.. I do as much as I can to show all my cards.. but to quote, "We are do not see things as they are.. we see them as we are."

I guess this is natural though.. I respect those with high standards.. I hold myself to high standards.. and unfortunately I don't measure up to my own standards as much as I would like to.. I always fear falling short in the eyes of others.. the eyes of those I respect and hold dear to me. Partially out of my own vanity and egotism.. partly out of not wanting to disappoint them.. and partly out of wanting to be fair to them and giving them what they deserve. As I go on about myself right now.. I am watching my own egocentrism which I try to keep a leash on surface.

As egocentric as I am, I try to use it to gain a better grasp on understanding the perception of others. I guess this is useful, especially when I try to surround myself with people that value system, morals, and ethics.

Right now, he makes me so happy.. and he says I do the same for him.. so win or loose.. we have both already won. I know this trepidation is normal at the beginning of anything new that matters.. and risk is always a factor..

I have been lazy lately with my reading and writing.. I need to work on that. I wrote a project schedule for myself, for this week. I am hoping to stick to it.

Childhood

I kiss god
Where did the gathering go?
Jeremy Amber Nick and Jennifer
Hold my hand Brush my hair Taste my ears Push me belly Lie to my ego
Memories chilly like the wind.
Tap water usher tides of regrets
A bite into mud
I am but tropical flowers

-- li

Town power severed. Gave flashlight a walk. People do not drive--they zombie drive. Million minds millions of miles away. I am alone here, just like them. I wonder if a bowl of dirt taste better in the dark.

In Canada, today is the 30th anniversary of The FLQ October Crisis, 30 years after Pierre Elliott Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act. Invoking this act permitted suspension of basic civil liberties. Many subversives were rounded up. This act would prove to be deeply controversial, and still divides english and french Canadians.

Trudeau's reasons for invoking the War Measures Act may be found here:
Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Speech of October 16, 1970

thursday

woke up, walked the dog. went to work. went home at around 1pm. cleaned the house. hung with the dog. got pretty upset when i found a half-full bag of dog food which wouldn't have any purpose. cried a lot. went to my sister's house. at 6:30 we went to the vet. they were waiting for us and took us into a room immediately. there was a blanket on the table. the vet came in shortly and explained that once they injected him it would take up to two minutes for him to "fall asleep". when they finally got him all prepared and did the injection, it was less than ten seconds before he went limp and let out his last breath. 10 seconds. more evidence attesting to the weakness of his heart. the vet checked his heartbeat (there was none) and left us with him. his tail wagged, but it was just post-mortem twitching (optimist-peg thinks that was danny's way of saying "hey this new place is pretty cool, thanks!").

walking away and leaving him there was hard. thinking of his empty body at the vet while my life just went on didn't seem right or fair. despite being upset, i had made a card for the veterinarian... they've been wonderful to him even when cancer made him an ugly little mutt that most people wouldn't want to touch. i'm willing to bet euthanasia is harder for a vet than it ever could be for me. they went to school to make sick animals better.

since thursday

despite knowing i did the right thing, i still feel like i killed my dog.

i wake up thinking i need to get dressed and walk the dog. i come home and open the door slowly because he would wait for me just inside the front door and sometimes i'd accidentally hit him. i come home expecting to find a little mess from the old incontinent pooper. i come home expecting to shush him as he barks excitedly, waiting for me to take him out.

i am angry at my cat because she doesn't seem to care (or even notice) that there isn't a dog around the house anymore.

i know that my neighbour will ask about the danny eventually, and i've thought about my reply. "Danny's heart failed and he passed peacefully in my arms". it's kinda true. i feel bad -- i had wanted to stop by beforehand so that his dog, Lefty, could get in a final buttsniff.

today will be the first time since thursday that i will go home alone. my boyfriend and my family have been with me constantly. i can't cry around them. well, i do cry, but those are the tears that slip out accidentally. i don't want to cry in front of them. today, when i go home from work, i will go home to a house emptier than i have had in 18 years. today i am really going to cry. i already am. sitting in my office with my door locked. people don't expect me to be here anyway. i am supposed to be working from home, but i don't have much of a desire to do that right now. i don't want to go home today at all.

i just feel like i gave up on the dog. the hardest part of this whole thing was deciding to have him put down before he was in serious pain -- it's so hard because i will always have suspicions that given another few days he might have gotten better. even just a little better for a little while longer.

but i think i did my very best to give him everything i could.

A Dog's Prayer


monday night

came home. didn't want to. walked in and the air conditioning kicked on. the squeak of it sounded like danny's i-want-to-go-out whining.

i sorted my snail mail and found a card from the veterinarian. she included the following:

The Rainbow Bridge
A Prayer
Showed up 15 minutes late to a computer art class, yay, it's cool tho, I think. In a class of about 20 people there's um... 3 of us here now.... lame huh? I wouldnt have shown up except I felt obligated to, I mean, I cant miss EVERY class, right? Anyways so I am supposed to be thinking of a project to do, the assignment is basiclly this:
make an image that is photorealistic, print it, and turn it in. This sounds easy but getting a collage of images to look like they were arranged together on film is much harder thanit sounds. I have to consider lighting, scale, and subject.... oh well, I have a couple weeks. oh, what else?

I have a few nodes I wrote in the last couple days, I'm kinda bummed because they didnt get the attention I felt they needed.... these would be:

  • FUJI A break down of all I know about Fuji film and stuff.
  • The Key On My Desk Just because, I did this kinda late and not many people were around...
  • The Everything Webcam Registry This is self explainatory, I want attention so that people will add their info. ;)

Besides that, I guess I had a good weekend, but it's over now. I did a lot, but nothing of any value. I installed Win98 on my main system, this is because Win2000 sucks ass for video and games.

Now some random thoughts:
Cheese
The inverse of the sum of the squares of 7 numbers between 9 and 74
My fortune cookie died.
I have toes!
YEET!
-doug


OH yes, there's more now...

ideas for my art studio 389: topics: Digital Photography class:

  1. A small lake with a pathway leading across it's surface. Trees all around the lake, and a fountain in the middle of said pond.
         How/what I need:
    • lake (check)
    • pathway .. I'll have to find the right one, this might not be so easy.
    • trees: I have lots of trees to take pictures of, I might use some plants a friend of mine has also... *wink*
    • Fountain.. eh..... if I find a good one, I might use it..
    • A dramatic Sky: I have some film I can use for this...yeah!

  2. A Light bulb with something inside, maybe a kewpie doll! The only problem I see here is I would need _GOOD_ lighting, nothing natural... it would have to be very staged... I'll go check on that. I'd also need room to work in, the studio the school provides would be great, if I can get a time slot that works for me.

  3. This one might be VERY hard to do, but: Put an entire city inside a jar, and have the jar floating on a layer of mercury...neat huh? I'm not even gonna worry about the logistics yet... I'll do the first 2 for now.
Anyways, thats all I got now.. might even add more later
-doug

Ah, October 16, 2000, the blissful day of the remembrance of my birth of 17 years ago. It's just been one hell of a day.

Notable Notables

  • My girlfriend had me on hold last night with this guy I hate and he's trying to take her from me. (Ohhhh, fun stuff there.)
  • She lied about it and said that her mom got a call to, but I, on the other line, had no disconnections, or bleeps, or anything, so that told me it was one call the entire time.
  • I caught her in the lie.
  • She acted really apologetic and guilty afterwards.
  • She claims to have no feelings for him, so I told her to stop talking to him ASAP, but she's not that way, so she'll do it 'nicely'.
  • And now I'm depressed.
  • None of the people in anyone of my classes knows it's my birthday so that's depressing to.

    One hell of a day.

    I hope things get better today.

    5 hrs. Later:

  • My girlfriend broke all ties with the guy I hate.
  • I'm going to go to Gameworks tonight.
  • I got a birthday cake at school.

    One hell of a day, indeed.

  • 6am starts aren't nice. I'd heard stories of people having queued from 11pm the night before in order to get tickets for the Daft Friday Ball, and I was chancing things by planning to turn up shortly after tickets went on sale at 7.

    But somewhat bizarrely, there was very little of a queue. I'm not sure where everyone was, but I only had to wait a wee bit over an hour to get served. And few people arrived behind me, too. The people who had been there since 3am were really really kicking themselves. Although they were fairly merry due to a constant stream of alcohol, and I had an interesting conversation with one chap who was trying to teach me how to tell him to piss off and get to the end of the line. (He already had his ticket, though).

    and |'m still loaded with the cold, I think I'll be going to bed at 10 again tonight..

    I set my alarm to wake me up at 6:15. I woke up shortly after 11. Missed all my classes, again. Also missed a meeting that I was going to surprise my advisor with. Well, there's always tomorrow for such things...

    Cleaned the house full of messes that I did not make. Not fun, I don't like being other people's maids. Especially people who don't even live with me.In the midst of cleaning, I got into a pseudo-fight with my roommate.

    Made lunch, fancy Betty Crocker brand of mac and cheese. Not bad, very heavy though. I want to take a nap, but I still have to clean the loft and then go to work.

    Fun.

    I had a horrible bout with the evil sleep demons last night, as a few of you may be able to attest to. Upon going to bed around 230am, I broke into a coughing fit which kept me up until 345am, after which I finally went back to bed. Only to be woken up about an hour later, having another coughing fit.

    I saw the sun rise on a monday morning.

    Adding to my insomnia were thoughts of data structures running through my head. Code or think about coding for > 6 hours in one day and that's what will happen.

    Consequently, I missed class at 10am and have been kind of stumbling around in a daze for most of the day since I finally arose from bed at 11:45am.

    Woke up at the normal 6:15 time period. Strangely, I don't remember my mom waking me up (she usually does). I moved. My stomach hurt. I moved some more. The pain increased exponentially. Bah, hopped in the shower, came back and layed in my room pondering what the hell is up with my tummy. I popped a few Maalox and went back to bed.

    Woke up at 11:30. The hurt was less, but it was still discomforting. Layed around for a bit. Talked to a friend who also happened to stay home for the day. Talked to another friend who also happened to stay home for the day. Wierd. Worked on this ambient tune that I spent all yesterday working on. Decided I'm not gonna get much better, and went to work.

    Got to work and I got assigned to fix someone else's horrid ASP code. That's fine, whatever, it's something to do. Then on top of that, (in which I have to take the time to sift through the horrible code) I get assigned to do 3 other things. Bah. I'm still sick. My boss left so I read some 4-year-old IRC logs for nostalgia. I had to deal with the dumb secretary more times that I would've liked to. I finished what I was working on (theoretically it works, just not exactly how they want) and got the hell out of there.

    The drive home was relaxing...kinda. I was blaring some nice Kruder and Dorfmeister. It was all good, until people started driving like assholes. Now, I've only had my driver's license for a little over a month, but I can tell what consists of a good driver and what consists of a bad driver. I was going the speed limit, so sue me. I'm feeling sick, and my stomach is trying to turn itself inside out. You had no excuse to tailgate me for 20 minutes. Way to ruin my mood, asshole. I hope you die.

    I'm sitting at home, waiting for my dinner of dry toast to be done. Yay for dry toast. I hope I get to sleep soon.

    Disclaimer: This is not going to be eloquent whatsoever. I just need the therapeutic feeling of writing right now...

    What a messed up day. I haven't had one like this in a long time- so long that I had forgotten what it feels like to cry. That is not something that I have missed.

    It seemed like a promising day- suffering through work and school to finally see the girl I am currently interested in at night. She, my best friend/ex girlfriend, and I went to see a small show at Joe's Pub on Lafayette Street. Once we arrived the night immediately began its downward slide. Anyone here who has met me can attest to the fact that I am a quiet person who has some difficulty interjecting himself into conversations. It just doesn't come easily for me, and I don't know why. This is not helpful when the two people you are with are both equally outgoing and you are not. Thus, I was rendered mute for much of the night as I tried ineptly to join in the conversation. In and of itself, this didn't bother me TOO much. Of course, I missed being involved, but I was more or less content to just sit back and observe. It feels good to see someone enjoy themselves- especially when said enjoyment yields such beautiful, staggering smiles. Anyway, after the show it was time to leave. The three of us stood outside chatting briefly in the pleasantly cold air. As we hugged goodbye I didn't want to let go. I have no idea when I might see her again and I didn't get to say half of what I had originally wanted to say. Never enough time for such things.

    After these goodbyes, my friend and I walked a few blocks to a little deli. This is where the real misery began. I confided my interest in the other girl to her and immediately the whole mood shifted. I'll spare you all the details of the long conversation we had last night, but it is enough for me to say that, by the end of the night, we had both shed our share of tears. It was painful, but necessary. No conclusions were drawn, but the bottom line is this: our lives are so deeply intertwined that I don't know if it is possible for me to move forward anymore. I want to grow, and I want to have a deep, fulfilling relationship again, but I just don't know if I can. There will be details in future nodes. This is all I have strength for right now.

    Today nate created Node Heaven and I missed it. It's what I've been looking for. I always wondered which of my wonderful writeup have passed away, unnoticed by me ...

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