headed in to varsity to satisfy the caffeine deprivation that was making my head pound. had caffeine.

pretended to do some work. had caffeine.

noded a little. had caffeine.

went for lunch. had caffeine.

fixed a bug (any bug, it didn't matter), so i could honestly say i'd done some work. had caffeine.

had caffeine.

noded a little. had caffeine.

went dancing ceroc and then to a bar afterwards; didn't drink, had caffeine.

went to bed.

(this writeup is deceptively like my writeup for the day before. so is my life. at least i wasn't hung over this morning. )

Today is when the girlfriend comes by. I think more and more all the time about precisely what is going to happen today. We have a open relationship, in that we talk to each-other a lot about what's on our minds, but I think that telling her precisely what's going on in my head about my unhappiness may be a bad idea.

I want to go to grad school after I graduate here this year. I can't afford it. I'll go to work, say I'll quit in a year, then I'll end up not quitting and staying at some job I hate or whatever.

Girlfriend will be in my arms in 12-hours. I probably won't node or vote much in the next couple of days.

I have to read The House of The Spirits by Isabel Allende by Sunday. Her prose is dense, and I can't say I really care much at all for it. My personal reading list still includes Infinite Jest, Memoirs of a Beatnik, and now Learning Python. I've determined python would be a good language to learn, because my roommate has a book about it. He says perl is evil.

Dead broke. I can't buy my girlfriend the gifts that she deserves for her birthday yesterday. I can't help but feel really really really bad about that.

RELIEF

My first prelim at Cornell University is over. I was scared of it... I feared it... But i survived it. Now its free sailing, until next week, when i have my next prelim. Oh well.

Lets see, only two classes today. First one is at noon, so i can sleep very late. Late for a weekday that is.

Since its friday, i'm gonna have to find something interesting to do tonight. Maybe a party or a movie or something
The phone woke me up this morning with a ring. "It must be important," I thought, "for no one who truly knows me would ever dare to call me at this time of day if they valued their life." It was too true. Ms. Conroy from the computer science department at school informed me that there was a problem with my graduation application. I was missing a requirement of some sort, and would have to speak to one of the heads of the department. Definitely not a good start to the day, and I decided I was still too tired to deal with this, so I burrowed back under the sheets.

I awoke around my natural waking time and called one of the department heads to set an appointment. I get to see him tomorrow, which is a first. I have always had to book appointments at least two weeks in advance, but I suppose since this is rather urgent, they made an exception. Don't get me wrong, the amount of genuine care is rather nice. It's a lot more I've ever gotten from my former school.

The rest of my day was rather routine. Two three-hour classes in a row. Not fun, but it certainly makes the rest of the week really light. My graduation problem was still at the back of my mind. My undergraduate advisor told me last semester I was good to go. Grr! This advisor had conveniently left the administration over the summer, so I couldn't even bitch him out.

I chauffered my sister with me to school. She had to meet someone in the dorms to teach them how to use Macromedia Flash. She was amazed by the changes to the school. While she had only graduated very recently, there has been an amazing amount of construction since then. A parking lot had been restructured, a parking lot had been removed and replaced with a foundation for a new addition to a dorm, and the parking deck gained two floors.

It's now 2:30 AM and I'm actually studying for a battery of questions tomorrow. Well, studying, as in glance-at-the-notes-and-goof-off-when-my-attention-span-goes. Hey, it could be my last semester, and I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

prev non-boring day next non-boring day

On Wednesday I had a whole day dedicated to buying a new stereo. I went back and forth between two stores on that day, after having seen many others. It's such a pain in the neck. I didn't know that the audio market is so complicated. I had settled on B&W speakers already, and just had to choose a receiver and CD-player. I was actually thinking about Onkyo for my receiver, because it was the best from what I had heard, and I figured that for what I'm going to spend (about $600), that's the best. And then I heard NAD. Now this may seem like an advert for NAD, and I really don't care, because it just blew me away. But, NAD and the store I wanted to buy from seemed to be, let's say, not chummy chummy. The store said that they keep breaking down, and have technical problems, and I also saw a letter, sent from NAD to other stores, that the store I bought from will not be supplied to by NAD anymore. How complicated! But I went back to the store, and asked to compare NAD with Onkyo. They told me they could get me NAD, if I really wanted it, but they don't recommend it, even though, admittedly, it sounds great. So I checked. I even checked "blindfolded", i.e. not knowing which was which before I heard. And NAD won on every type of music, from Jazz to Classical to Depeche Mode to Faith No More. It was unreal. They even wanted to sell me the Onkyo receiver which is supposed to cost double the NAD for half price. It still didn't come close. So they agreed to get me the NAD, but I have to wait until Monday. I will, because they gave me by far the best price. It's funny, I didn't know how competitive the audio market is, until I was in it for a whole day. My tip of the day: always haggle with audio salesmen, even in a store where you think there's no chance of getting a discount. Say you saw it cheaper elsewhere. You'll be surprised.

And my ear grew tired as hell that day. Yesterday I just practiced my bass the whole day.

Today is Rosh Hashana, Jewish New Year. How exciting! (that last remark was cynical). I'm going to my dad today, and to my mum tomorrow. Having divorced parents really sucks during the holidays. I remember that when I was in the army, I always wanted to stay in the holidays (everyone thought I was a sick bastard), so I wouldn't have to choose between them. Oh well...

Finally
It's Friday

I've been looking forward to this day for almost two weeks now. Well, actually I'm more looking forward to tomorrow, since then I'll be seeing the woman I love, but I was looking forward to today because when I go home after work today, I know that I don't have to work tomorrow but instead I'll be with a very special person.

The rest of my day will be spent working, reading stuff on E2, chatting, and during all of that, thinking about tomorrow.

14:12

Well, not a bad day so far. I actually ate something other than pizza. Opened a new category in a bookmark file (for Mecha, of course).

Browsing Usenet. Found Mozilla M11 screenshot (buggy display, of course) that displays E1 front page. Nostalgic. =)

Trying to find a Mechwarrior 3 metal tile background from the main menu, or something equally cool (for gdm background).

Horrible Nethack Spoiler™: "What does an investigator do?" "He investigates." (From r.g.r.n)

16:02

OK, reading e-mail. One new personal mail, others from lists and spammers (carefully LARTed).

I just wonder what this Korean spammer is thinking of? Subject like "Dear a certain good man" (sounds like Engrish), and a HTML attachment that I can't even open. Shame.

Well, I opened the file finally, and it apparently asks for donation with a "sob story" (better English than in the subject line, actually). Boohoo. Annoying netiquette violation, and sorry, no money to donate. And apologies accepted.

17:16

I just got my first geek T-shirt. =)

Black shirt, with text in white, plain, unadorned Courier font:

I explored
the Dungeons of Doom,
but all I got
was this lousy T-shirt.

Kudos to VViitanen who made and sold these for the Finnish readers of r.g.r.n.

Don't get it? Get a recent version of Nethack, start it in Wizard Mode, wish for a T-shirt and read the text. =)


Other day logs o' mine...

Today was the day I quit work. This place sucks in a variety of ways. See September 27, 2000 for some of them. I'm happy. I feel liberated. Resigning from a computer company shouldn't lead to more Internet time, but it will.

Tiefling bounces up and down happily.

No more answering the phone in my lunch hour.

No more spending two and a half hours travelling to and from a job five miles away.

No more sitting in the middle of a post-Cold-War wasteland watching the clouds go by.

No more £200/week.

For now.

Today is also a good day for personal reasons of a sort I don't share with E2.
Why is it that I can build and fix computers all day long at work, but when I go home I encounter problems that I've nver heard of...
The computer in question is Jeeves, my candidate for an Unreal Tournament Server, it is to be a dual Pentium III 667, 133mhz bus and however many hardrives as fast as I can afford. I've tried NT Server, I've tried NT Workstation I've tried Windows 95 through ME, as ofnow I've only gotten Windows NT4 and 2000 to completely install without some odd error occuring, however when they do install they crash on the install of the service packs. Hopefully I will have anm help me this evening in getting this son of a bitch going.

I had to take several breaks from the damn thing yesterday to keep me from destroying the machine.

I have not been this frustrated with a computer in a long time.

funniest piece of dialogue i overheard today (weekend on this side of the earth) was from hurlyburly (1998, sean penn-kevin spacey-meg ryanetc). i can't understand why the reviews weren't favourable. this is a very dialogue-intensive film: very witty, and not pointless as some have suggested. it is an exploration of how eddie tries to make sense of the world and in the meantime we are treated to some delicious character studies.

the scene below follows a situation where mickey, eddie's bestfriend, reunites the lovers after their brief escapade into a "neurotic" love triangle.

20 seconds after orgasm, and still panting:
Darlene: (pant, pant, pant.) i mean ... a year ago ... i was a basket-case. if we had met a year ago i wouldn't have had a prayer.
Eddie: (pant, pant.) me too ... a year ago ... i was a nut. i mean, yknow, i still have ... things to think through (lights cigarette).
D: well, me too. i-i-i feel good ... better ... scared, too but mainly good.
E: mmmmmm ... by sinking (sic), i'll just mean some momental, ethereal thing ... but yknow being with people is part of your ... being with you ... is part of the thinkin ... is how im doing it ... it's just i have to go slow.
D: there's no rush i think ...
E: no. no, i cant rush: if i rush i panic.
D: ... and no guilt, ok? we don't need the guilt. i mean i yknow get outta town a lot, we both have our lives
E: we gotta keep our options open ...
D: and our hearts, ok?
E: ya, i mean the right attitude ...
D: exactly, yknow, if we had the attitude ...
E: ugh-ugh-ugh ... by attitude i don't just mean attitude--i mean real emotional space ...
D: we're also all over the place all the time yknow?
E: ... self absorbed ...
D: ... and distracted ... i am almost always distracted, aren't you?!
E: o, absolutely.
D: i mean everything distracts me from everything else
E: well, everything is very distracting. i mean ... but yknow what i find mostly ... what i, what i ... the biggest distraction?
D: eh-hem?
E: me, myself, i am my own biggest distraction ... yknow, getting it together, my head together, my act together.
D: little lines just bzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzz
E: chuckle
D: what do they think they're doing? (kiss)

I walked into the radio station last night feeling healthy and happy. It was 7:30 and my show began at 8:00. Scott (DJ Toxic) asked me if I wanted to start early. I declined, then asked why. "I feel like shit," he said, "I'm not sick, but my head feels heavy." I suggested his dilemma to be attributed to sinus problems and he agreed.

I went on to spin records not thinking about the germs he left behind on the DJ equipment. Scott's DJ name suited him last night. Now, thirteen hours later, I feel like crap. And my head feels heavy...
Why am I up at 3:20 am? I have a calculus exam in two weeks and I'm not even slightly prepared. Every one of my classes needs work done and I'm not doing any of it. I'm noding. Probably should do it, huh?

Whyam I upat3:20am?I have a calculusexam in twoweeks and I'm notevenslightlyprepared. Everyoneofmyclasses needs workdone and I'mnot doing anyofit. I'mnoding .Probablyshould do it...

huh?

Argh! Netscape had a major hiccup issue when I was halfway through a witty, intelligent daylog, but unfortunately you'll get this.

Pretty boring day, basically thanks to Software Engineering I, which was just as I expected, sadly. Had a ball during that folding and bending paper, not origami -I only know how to make a paper bird, but I guess I'll get much better if I attend all classes. Also discussed sewing in class with my mates... I think it would really be weird. Maybe I'll try it.

On a better subject, I got my train pass for this season, which means I get unlimited travel on a pretty extensive area (for a big lump of money, about 220$ for nine months or so), which means I won't have to worry with tickets for a long time.

A friend of mine called to tell me that tomorrow will be Necrocon time, which is an rpg convention made by a local club, Necronomicon. I use to have a good time there, so if I convince some mates, I'll think I'll be over there this weekend.

Some good movie was showing tonight on TV, oh, yes Stealing Beauty and Forrest Gump... I'll probably watch Liv Tyler...

Good night, kisses, take care and ciao

The end of a lousy week.

I started the day off listening to Bjork, Elvis Costello and Tricky. I was being rocked by emotions that didn't seem to be caused by the music because I wasn't really listening. I mentally grounded myself and decided to just ride it out.

I got /msg 'd by an editor for the second time in a week (second time in my life) regarding relevance of the content of a writeup I just added to a node. Different editor same type of complaint and same threat of nuking. The node was getting voted up and down (at least 5 votes either way in the first 15 minutes) and I'm of the opinion that if it is relevant enough to be voted on that iy is definitely a valid writeup. I wrote what I wrote and I was going to let it stand either way. It just bothered me because it felt like very subjective criteria were being pushed on me. I was going to send a biting /msg back, but again, I decided to keep my mouth shut and ride it out.

I usually stay until 7:30 to 8:00 pm, but I'm leaving at 5:00 today!

Woke up at 4:00pm, my body is sore all over from playing a double-header in softball in another town. The few beers and the xanax i took the night before didn't make me feel much better today.

I should call this girl finally, but I can't find her number. It's only a matter of time before I run into her at the bar I met her at Sunday night and took her home. I know this is going to be bad news. I promised I would call and I intend to, if only I could find her number.

I cleaned up the house quite a bit since I don't have to work today.

It is the end of the month which means I have to collect rent and utilities from my roomates, which is something I despise. When are these bums going to pay me my money on time? Perhaps when they quit buying pot and beer everyday.
Still consulting down in Sacramento. It's hot here. Though I miss Calgary, I can't stop thinking about the fact that if I moved here I could ride my motorbike everyday. Well, almost every day.

Had to learn to use Visio today. What a treat that was considering I've spent the last 2 years running a Linux machine and have barely touched Windows during that time. This was also my first opportunity to use Windows 2000 for the first time. I noticed that Windows 2000 is "built on NT Technology"... doesn't NT stand for New Technology in the first place? So does that mean that Windows 2000 is "built on New Technology Technology?" Jeez. Or does it just mean that my coffee levels are off today? I dunno.

GUTS ! does he really have to tell us about his guts ?

This is clearly a good year for surgery. Today I got a little cyst removed. It was an easy procedure, with local anestethic .. anaest ... anesthe ... Jesus, how does one spell *that* ? OK, with "local painkillers", whew, what a relief.

The only interesting observation I have is that the magic dope that the surgeon squirted into me has a very local effect, which means that I felt all the interesting pulling and pushing as the little disgusting thing was removed from me.
The nearer I can describe it is, imagine someone takes a really long time messing around with some of sort of sticker very thoroughly glued to you. But the sticker does not come off, since you don't feel the pain normally associated with that.

So now my belly, on the left, is decorated by some stitches, carefully hidden under an Iowa-sized gauze pad. The scar will be a nice counterbalance to the gallbladder scars, which are obviously on the right.

... writing as a hog on ice

Obviously, in the last sentence, is not meant as an offence or an insult to people that happen to have their internal organs rightside left and leftside right, that's to say inverted. I have no desire to offend you, even if you are a freak and ought to be in a circus ... I meant, pursuing a respectable career as a mobile, temporary-structure based entertainer.

Speech therapy beckons

Today I had the impression that my normally excellent control of Italian (my mother tongue), is slowly coming back. I have this paralizing fear of losing Italian, since my English is ... well, you can see it, I manage to write more or less, but you should hear my accent ! And my Spanish is OK, but definitely not great. Serviceable, useful, but not pleasant. Not even to me.

Family: the old and the new scars

I had a good chat with my mother, probably the person I miss more in Mexico. My father is probably preparing some big serious father speech, which he will deliver the day before I leave - I am already armoring myself for the impact.
My sister seems happy with her boyfriend, which is good. He is OK, maybe not extremely exciting nor terribly amusing, but he is OK. I guess it is a good thing that we brothers are not really asked for our opinion about possible in-laws.

Italy has not really changed

... which could be good news. Things are more or less as they were two years ago. People still watch really bad TV, and practice even worse politics. The country is obsessed with food, fashion, money, cellular phones, women's butts and art. Nihil novi sub sole, and a pale sun it is.

What do I want to do with my life

Well, dear fellow noders, I still have not solved this one. Circumstances will take me back to Mexico - circumstances under the guise of a job, a girlfriend and even, funny as it may sound, a return ticket.
But do I really want to stay there ? Or is it just good old inertia plus adaptability that keeps me in Mexico City ?
I feel a general disquiet. But I suck at introspection, which means that I cannot find the reasons for it. I try thought experiments, but they do not really work.
Plus,

I don't want to be a bastard, but I feel like acting like one
But I have my own precious little fucking cheap happiness to protect
And I feel like a rat just contemplating hideous possible actions

Ok, I admit to a certain degree of confusion. I can only hope the night brings clarity.

It's still the 29th here, so it's still my birthday. I had no grand expectations, so I shouldn't feel really disappointed... but I do. I'm used to being broke at the end of the month. I'm used to not getting what I want for my birthday. I'm getting used to spending more evenings alone lately while hubster is busy building computers or helping with our local Linux users group. What I'm not used to is being alone on my birthday. It fucking bites. My crew was supposed to have a big dinner at my mom's house tonight, but it was postponed because my stepdad is pretty sick. I'm worried about him, but that doesn't make my hurt any less painful. I know this is just temporary "life 101" bullshit... It will pass. But right now it just plain sucks. /me cries

Sydney. Warm and stuffy--34.5ºC, a record for a spring day here. In the evening went to Circular Quay. On the way saw a bagpiper busking at the Pitt Street Mall. Also there was an Italian TV crew shooting in front of The Olympic Store. They were trying to film their reporter against a background of crowds swarming in and out of the store, but had left it too late in the day--it was 6.45 p.m.--so now most people were elsewhere. Nevertheless a small bunch of people gathered to watch, amusedly rejecting the crew's attempts to recruit them as extras to enter the store. Nearby, people dressed in UPS uniforms distributed free plastic carrier bags for the "official express delivery partner" of the Olympics; a member of the Belarus athletic team swapped a pin with one of them.

The streets were filled with people walking to the Quay. It was 7.15 when I got there. A curious experience to see the place so crowded at night: not with commuters catching trains or ferries, but sightseers strolling around or leaning against the rail, having their picture taken. For it's here, near the southern foot of the Harbor Bridge, that one first sees in their entirety the giant Olympic rings illuminated on the side of the Bridge. In the darkness they're a pale gold. When people see them for the first time they stand staring and silent, then out come the cameras. Circular Quay has always been a natural focus point: it's on the Harbor and flanked by the Museum of Contemporary Art on its western side and the Opera House on its east, ferries and train station in its mouth--but this area has been transformed at night by the proximity of the interlocked rings on the Bridge. Now spectators, tourists, families stream there and linger in their glow as if warmed by it. Near the northern foot of the Bridge is Luna Park, brilliantly lit up; it's not possible to take too many photographs of this whole scene.

In front of the Museum of Contemporary Art were performers doing a fire act. It was too crowded to see anything. I walked eastwards along the water to the Opera House, past newly-built buildings housing cafés and restaurants with their filled tables out in the open air. Above, from the balcony of the soon-to-be Swiss restaurant, drinkers looked down at us and across at the Bridge. The skyscrapers at the Quay and in the city center became an impressive sight--some say the best harbor spectacle in the world. Not being a stranger to it I tried to remember seeing it for the first time, thinking how like a movie set it was--the way Batman's cityscape should really have looked.

Here in the approach to the Opera House the assembled masses were larger. Must've a been a few thousand altogether. There was a rumor that there'd be a laser show from the Bridge at 8.30., and people leaned or sat on the railings, gazing west across the water at the Bridge. Somebody remarked that it was like New Year's Eve, but less frantic. There are fireworks here at New Year's, and it's notorious as a meeting-place for drunken louts, and for beer cans and bottles carpeting the ground; but tonight the atmosphere was of people fortunate to be in Sydney during the Olympics and wanting to savor every sight, every moment. Many families with small children.

I sat on the railing and waited for the rumored lasers. Below was a concourse (corresponding to the lower level of the Opera House), with an open-air restaurant near the waterfront. A family of 7--five children under 10 years--were on my left. The youngest child was very fond of the Australian cry "Aussie Aussie Aussie!" (which should be answered with the obligatory deafening "Oi! Oi! Oi!" by all within range), but this was received in silence or by half-hearted responses by her siblings (or "Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!" by an embarrassed older brother). Then she called it out once more, and this time total strangers dining in the restaurant replied enthusiastically. Funny to hear this child's shrill yells above answered by bellowed grown-up voices on the concourse below, joined by more voices all round as they finished with the call-and-reply "Aussie!" "Oy!" "Aussie!" "Oy!" "Aussie Aussie Aussie!" "Oy! Oy! Oy!!". Of course, something like that doesn't happen twice.

8.30 came and went without lasers. But there was what has been happening every night for the last few weeks (but will finish on Sunday): the Opera House sails are bathed in "a moving wash of colors". Swathes of multicolored illumination move across the sails, apparently representing fire, water, earth and air. Went closer and looked up at the colors changing, intensifying and fading. People up on the steps were silhouetted against it. Walked clockwise around the Opera House; the blinking lights of planes going by far overhead, a seagull closer. Ferries and harbor cruise boats traversing the black water. Skyscrapers in the city center with searchlights beaming from their roofs. Looked through the windows of two offices in which TV sets were on and showing the women's hockey final (Australia won).

Then went up to the top of the steps, to what I think is one of the Opera House's main entrances, glass-walled and leading to a large plush lobby; the main restaurant (facing the Harbor Bridge) is here too. In the lobby some staff were standing watching a TV set. But outside the entrance and against the glass were two sloping supporting walls about 10 feet high with a sort of ledge at the top, which were being used as slides by a couple of dozen children. They'd run up the walls to the ledge, perch there, slide down with screams and squeals, run back up again. More and more families ascended the steps to this level and their children would see the "slides" and hesitate, the grown-ups would urge them on, the children would run to the the slides and the grown-ups would follow indulgently with cameras. And all this was happening in a sort of dusky half-light, the changing colors of the Opera House sails above it all.

Stayed and watched for about 20 minutes: in front of me the children yelling without restraint on the "slides"; other children riding around on ubiquitous small silver scooters; to my left and through a gap between sails, the sight beyond of the Olympic rings on the Harbor Bridge. Tried to figure out why I found all this so moving and somehow emblematic of this city during the Olympic Games...something to do with a national icon, an internationally-recognizable landmark, an opera house for god's sake, being used as a kids' playground, and there were no police or security guards to be seen anywhere.

On the way back to the city center, half a block south of the Regent Hotel (IOC headquarters), was a bar and a row of people were sitting in its window facing out and doing the Mexican wave at passersby.

September 9, 2000
September 12, 2000
September 14, 2000
September 15, 2000
September 18, 2000
September 24, 2000
September 30, 2000
October 1, 2000
October 2, 2000

...Then...Also Then...

Morningish EST -- It was too early I don't remember

Went to Burger King for breakfast again. Not due to time restraints (Though it takes LONGER), I was just hungry for Burger King.

2:05 PM EST -- I should do this EVERY month for safety

Decided to backup my Windoze box. Didn't backup the Linux box, since I have no means of doing so yet. I am taking suggestions. Cheap ones, preferably. But, a backup means nuking the old one... reformat 6 CD-RWs and get ready for a manual file-by-file copy, uncompressed. Now THAT'S fun. No, it's not, I just thought I'd say that.

10:04 PM EST -- 5 CD-RWs later...

Hey... now without backing up stuff like UT, SC3K, and Corel Wordperfect (I'll reinstall those if anything happens), it only takes 5 CD-RWs this time around. Huh.

Tomorrow, I head out to cash savings bonds to pay back my parents for them paying for half my car. Fun fun fun.

NEW NODES TODAY: "Shift up now" light

Another scary dream... I am in a big city. People everywhere. I look around at all the people. They talk, they walk, they smile, they laugh. They are alive. I approach one group of people. I gather my wits, get over my shyness, and go to introduce myself. They are gone. Everyone gone. I am left alone. I walk around the city and people stand in their doorways, looking out. I try to approach them. They close their doors. Alone again. There is an open door. It looks so warm, so inviting. I enter the door. A group of people, all about my age. I go up to them and something is wrong. They are all looking down at me. They are huge, but I am tiny. They laugh at me, make fun of me, turn their backs to me. Alone yet again. But what's this? Someone is with me. I turn around to meet her gaze, and....

If anything in my life has ever been certain, it is the fact that I am a natural slacker. If there were some kind of competition of procrastination I would be reigning world champion. There's no particular reason why I do it, I just do it. I am the captain of the school's cross country team, yet I miss half of the practices and half of the meets. Go figure. Maybe it's the people I am exposed to for the majority of the day. Immature, selfish, inconsiderate, unsympathetic, uncaring... Am I the only one who sees this? Maybe there's something wrong with me.

I got the first test I took in my AP Biology class today. 69. That's the worse grade I've ever gotten on any test. But I don't care, it's Friday. Why am I so excited for Fridays? All day long I hear about this person's drinking party, and how these people are going to smoke pot all weekend, but what about me? I have nothing to look forward to. Have I ever? Probably not. But it's Friday. Amazingly, I find myself at practice today. I don't think I've been at practice since last Thursday. I get all the expected "welcome back" greetings from some people, some people probably didn't even notice I hadn't been there.

So here I am.. Friday Night.. What am I doing? Well, I ate dinner if that counts for anything. I sit here listening to my radio and just thinking. I think about a lot of things. I like to think. I hear the sounds of loud music coming from down the street, knowing exactly what's happening at the party. I was there once. Sometimes I wish I were there again. It's not hard to act "cool" and "popular", but that's exactly what it is.. an act.. Do people realize this? But to be accepted again. That's something I've always longed for since I decided to "go against the flow". Nah, I know who I am. I'm not like that anymore. If I want to live, I live for myself. To hell with other people's expectations and reservations. Maybe someday they'll realize that. So another Friday Night party with me and my thoughts. Cheers!

Maybe all we're ever doing, every second of every day, is trying to make ourselves feel better, even just for that temporary moment:

The days are long and the nights are slow. It's one of those nights when the rain thinkens the air and suffocates the skin. It's one of those nights where you'll wake up at 2am and find the world shroaded in rain. You'll sit up in bed close enough to the window so that the rain touches your over-heated early morning flesh in two or three places. Sufficiently cool, you'll crawl back under your sheet - a strange comfort. It's for these strange comforts that I want to never stop living.

I'm listening to 'Xmas Song' by the Dirty Three. That beautiful violin says more than I can possibly recreate in words. It makes me long for something so distant I can't even work out what it is yet.

I think too much of life is waiting. I'm not even patient enough to wait in line at the Post Office, let alone for honesty, love or contentment in any other things. Maybe that's why I try to fool myself into believing that I'm not waiting, and that I've already found exactly what I've always wanted.

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