I am new to E2, here all of one week; I am still not completely clear on all its bells and whistles, and I have only started to grasp the concept. Still, I loved beer before I could taste the difference between, say, cascade and fuggles hops--I just knew I loved it. Similarly, I have developed a fondness for this site (community? neural web?) that defies rationality.

I am at an interesting point. Part of me loves the initial confusion found in any reasonably complex task, but sometimes the attraction wears thin as the buzz of novelty wears off. On rare occasions, the love increases as realizing the wonderful complexity of a task supercedes the initial confusion.

My first attempts at stargazing left me completely addled--the sky has few reference points, insists on moving, and changes with the seasons. While a small part of me misses the initial challenge of trying to find objects smaller than the moon, my star-hopping abilities today allow me to appreciate the subtleties of the night sky instead of ending the night frustrated at not finding anything new.

On the other hand, I used to love juggling. I still love to show off, but the actual act has lost its zing. (Perhaps I should struggle with juggling more balls.)

I suspect E2 falls in the stargazing category.

I hope E2 falls into the stargazing category.

What do I have to offer? Same as anyone else here--experience. E2, so far, feels like a database with an all too human touch--brilliance, banality, frailties, and friction.

What does "experience" mean? Any monkey can cut and paste facts on this site (and apparently a few monkeys monopolize some nodes). I can describe M13 (one of my favorite telescopic objects) as the Hercules Cluster, NGC 6205, found in position 16399n3633, and while you might sound smarter reciting that, and maybe learn a little through the nifty hyperlinks, you really know nothing more than you did a few minutes ago. Factoids might increase your salary, maybe even make you a hit at a party, but they will not make you a better human.

If I could give you a taste of the joy I felt as I saw the cluster through my own eyes, the vision blurring as tears welled up on a cold night, alone past midnight, then I have contributed to the E2 pulse, a live neuron feeding a vast neural network.

I cannot do that yet--I have yet to gain the skills and the confidence needed to do that. So allow me to be a good little monkey and quote someone who would have made a gode noder, Mary Proctor (in Evenings With the Stars):

Nowadays, by means of photography, it has been possible to obtain a close-up view, as it were, of what may be termed literally a ball composed of thousands of suns, with outlying streamers curving outward as though wafted by a celestial breeze....the cluster is a mass of glittering starlight....A glance at the magnificent photograph of this cluster...will convey an idea of the wonders of this display far more than any descriptive words. The glamor of the light from these intermingled stars remains for the fortunate observer who has the privilege of actually seeing them through the giant reflector.

I hope to be able to reflect what I saw through tears that night when this teeming ball of stars came to life for me. When I can do that, I will be an E2 noder. In the meantime, I will learn from all of you.

It has been a while..
This semester has shown me that regret is the most horrible thing. In many aspects of my life. I'm so burnt out in school I don't know why I even bother anymore. Physics holds no beauty for me right now. My health is failing because all I do is work 24/7 and I don't really eat. My grades are taking a nice dive, and I just have no more to give.
I just want to cut my hair - get some cute clothes and be a waitress in a diner in France.
With a garden gnome of course.
I need some cheering up from the world, but it seems as though every day everything just gets a little worse.

So, it seems my gallbladder may have gone bad...

While all the bloodwork came back fine on Wednesday, I ended up back in the ER tonight for a couple hours, and have now been scheduled for an ultrasound on Monday morning to see if I have gall stones, etc., and I've been taken off work up through the 12th.

*frustrated growl at her body*

Ya know... I just got this job, and I'd really like to keep it longer than the 3 days I've worked so far...

yes yes

the mumbling sputtering toad that is Jacob, the erector from behind, chest cavity concealing long lungesque pleasure chambers, pump pumping that thai cess, returns to the choker, from two weeks on the Elephant Island, the untannable, sun coward in the shade, the divist reaching 30 meters, dodging manta rays and trigger fish, frees the fish from illegals, breaks the surface to face a blanket of stars, the night diver smoking blunts with his instructors dreams of future phospheresence, returns by slow boat, to slow wooden patios saturated in Pineapple, passion fruit, cocconut, potato curry, green red yellow banana curry, eats some of the fish he swam with, and now, the travilist redissolves among the smog and yammering cars of the Banging Cock, flip flopping around with abandon, this motorcycle precision he writes in, a journal entry from the eastern side, update to the western ones, where he used tubes between his cubes, to say last night was the kings birthday and it was christmas in Canada only with 10 million thais, and 1 billion white christmas lights and more energy and undefineable minced meat dishes, then a downpour, the ever mobile organic t shirt toy cell phone watch markets disbanding and reforming under awnings, through the wet glass of the restaurant the lights sparkled, spread and guided wise me(rchants)n and I expected to see horse drawn carriages and scarves, and these cars might as well be mountains, so we whiz by on bikes, today I extended my visa, again thais shame canada, where are the bus stewardess on my toronto to montreal?, where is the massage function on my chair? or beside my 7-11, I did my laundry and saved 50 cents, and looked towards loa, the north jungle, Mekong river boats, french in the south, sloooow to the south, then hop over to vietnam, the backpacker will then look to China(never, maybe), the nonbackpacker to cambodia, he, i will see, and then back to the Elephant Island (ko chang/ goh shang), this is a good place, but first on the 10th matthew and I go to Tak in the North West for long caves and gy nor mous Thi Lo Su waterfalls, this is all he, I, with holes in my pocket, and skin that looks like a shrimp, says,

swaddi khap you monsters.

yes

the breezy days in April when I saw the sun for the first time in months. We would drive around aimlessly, smoking Marlboro Lights and listening to The Stereophonics or Pink Floyd. White clouds were streaked across the sky and gray clouds of our smoke were carried by the chilly air. Every time I exhaled it felt like I was ridding myself of the stagnant winter. I felt free. Free to relax, to share my thoughts.

"A great day for smoking cigarettes." I say.

I found my old diary the other week. It made me cry. I can't believe some of the things I had put in there.
It was from about a year ago and it was when I'd just started a diet, it was horrid. I'd been picked on and called names, sadness filled the whole diary. I can't believe I let people get to me so much. The thing is people still do, thats what made me cry.
I tell myself it doesn't matter what people think but at the end of the day it does and it hurts.

You may think I named this article wrongly but no, I named it this because of how the story ends.
I suppose all the things that had been said built up and I did infact lose weight. Yes it is true, I lost a stone and five pounds and from that diary I found that out, that also made me cry.

A stone and five pounds? It sounds alot but not really, I still get picked on for my weight and that makes me sad that people judge you for what size you are.

My proudest moments of this year where finding out how much weight I had lost and being able to buy a top from Topshop.
As you read this you might think that buying a top from Topshop is nothing, but to me it was everything. All my friends and everyone around me shopped in Topshop and I couldn't and that was awful.
I look back on that day and trying that top and it fitting and being so happy. Now though, it doesn't matter, a shop shouldn't rule my life and it never will again. I won't let it.

I've decided though I'm going to be myself and forget about everyone, so what I'm over weight, why does that matter to people? At the end of the day to the people who love me it doesn't matter.
I'd like to say thankyou to my family and my friends for sticking up for me and standing by me.

"I love you guys!"

The events of the past week have taken their toll. She became a target of my obsessions, and knowing this, I tried to stop thinking about her so much. I think I still check her AIM profile about fifty times a day, but that's usually as far as I go. Initiating conversation will just cause more awkwardness in my mind and in my heart. But that's all I really want to do: talk with her, hear from her. She makes me feel like a marshmallow floating in a cup of Swiss Miss.

Last night I went out drinking with some friends. I had a nice conversation with one of my friends, sitting at a bar in TGIFriday's. The conversation revolved around her, and how I can't get over her. It felt great to get it out of my system, to tell someone who I knew understanded what I was saying. Plus, drowning your sorrows in a pint of Labatt's Blue isn't too bad, either.

I came home late, around 2:30 AM. All the guys in the hall were drunk, fucked up, high...whatever you want to call it. They are just kids, really. Nineteen-year olds, unsure of themselves and what they are about. They are not sure what the future holds for them, and as such, they proceed to live life in a state of chemically-induced stupor, knowing in the end that they'll come out on top, because they are invincible.

Am I so different? I'm 21, a junior in college, and I have no idea anymore what I want. Invincibility, who was once my friend, is now my nemesis. My life has changed since I've moved here, and according to everyone who knew me before, I have changed as well. Maybe that's what I needed. Maybe a fresh start will help my life. Or maybe it won't. We spend so much time looking at such small facets of our lives that, all of the sudden, you change. Your actions, your whims, your thoughts and relationships concerning other human beings. I've lost a few people while being born again, and as the old me, it would have hurt much more losing these people. But the new me realizes one thing: I want to be happy.

Stepping on other people to become happy? Sounds horrible, doesn't it? Not anymore. It seems like I'm going to be doing that often, and not by choice, but by circumstances and situations. In the end, when all is said and done and I lay on my deathbed, looking for the last step in life, I will die happy.

My greatest fear was once to die alone. Now it is to die without regret, sadness, and pain. Here's to good times, and making sure that somber death never comes.

James is leaving in 10 days. December 17, 2002, he will be gone. Off to Ireland, it would appear.

Tonight we decided to have a bit of a farewell dinner for him. The ol' gang got together, and we went to the Keg Steakhouse - not the good one, mind you, the ghetto one by Sheppard Station - and had a grand ol' time.

We finished up, and got a ride from Roula, Steve's mom. Erin and I went to our respective abodes, Steve, Alex, and Nat went to Yonge & Eglinton to see if a movie was playing. I believe James and Morgan were going to meet up with them there, they were taking the TTC.

Now I'm home. My parents are having a work party downstairs, I'm up here on the computer.

I suppose I could sort out the records James' dad gave me. But I don't think I will.

Before you downvote this, understand that I am only writing this up because I am angry at some friends, and that this is my only way that I can get this out of me in a non-violent way.
Well, my girlfriend broke up with me tonight. Obviously, I don't like it, though we were only "together" for a few weeks. Supposedly, there were two reasons: first, that she is pretty angry at what I did to another person (see November 13, 2002), and second, that she likes me much more as a good friend than as a boyfriend (see Nice guys finish last).
We had been out on two (possibly three) dates, one to the school play, and one to a movie, the possible one being a walk in the park. Granted, there was not much communication on these, except for the one at the park, but we saw each other most of the day in school, and it was a nice thing to do. On the second one, I put my arm around her shoulder, and she responded by placing her hand on mine. No problem here, I thought.
Then, just today, I learned from a different person that she broke up with me. Not knowing what they were talking about, I played along, figuring that I would learn everything later. She tells me, but at the same time that the friend from November 13, 2002 tells me. See, he wanted to get revenge on me for that whole thing, and this was going to be it. But, now he knows that this is for real, and that means that he may have to form another way of getting revenge on me. That's what really scares me.
According to her, and, mind you, she was a good friend before we got together, and she still is, as was evidenced by how much I was able to talk to her after she broke up with me, this was all set off by another friend, who misinterpreted something she said as her breaking up with me. Though, if the other friend hadn't told me this, then she would have ended up breaking up with me tomorrow, and it would not have really mattered, except that I would have been upset in school the first day.
Granted, I did not love her, and I knew that. However, I also knew that I would really like to be her boyfriend, and her my girlfriend. I knew that we would have a good time, and we would probably enjoy it too. Even though it did not last long, this short relationship was very rewarding, in its own ways. I had only been with two other girls before (one at camp), and, although I did not get anywhere in my most recent relationship, I learned many valuable lessons that I will undoubtably need in any future endevours.
Thank you for listening to my story, however bad it may have been. It was meant only as a way to get my feelings and emotions out, and for nothing more. I would have simply written it and never created it for Everything2 users to read, unless for the fact that I would forever be angry at myself for knowing that (in my own mind), writing something and doing nothing with it is useless. (I suppose this is why I write so little, and that this is only my fourth writeup). I'd think about the fact that, by the time I submit this, the day will already have been over, and no one will ever read it again, but then, I'd feel bad about myself, now wouldn't I?

Antarctic Diary: December 7, 2002

Welcome to my blistering Antarctic hangover

I deserve it. That's all I have to say.

Maybe something else: is there ever a good excuse to drink a bottle and a half of shiraz and a six pack of Speight's Old Dark? I mean--really. We're talking consumption.

It wasn't even like it was fun or anything. It was just something to do.

Get this straight: I got hammered because there were drinks in my hand. Not because I was having a particularly good time or even on a dare. Booze was there. I was there. I put it in me. I passed out. Woke up in my bunk, in my clothes, a railroad spike through my skull.

I accept the mantle of the heritage of Antarctica. Brain boils. Cerebral edema. Puking.

It started when the NY ANG (New York Air National Guard) bought our table a bottle of wine because the lone woman with us had been with them in Greenland years earlier. We reciprocated by buying them three bottles. Not to be undone, they bought us four. Etc.

We spent the evening toasting the guard, America, New Zealand, Antarctica, and everything about men and women together, holy and unholy.

And THEN I went to the helo hanger for the party there.

They had a band called "Safety Second" (get it?) who played "Rage Against The Machine" covers. The beers were "free", meaning they were provided gratis by the USAP, meaning the American Taxpayer.

Meaning most of us reading this.

I don't know how to dance. But I did anyway.

This is what doesn't make sense about Antarctica. I suspect that in a benign way it's the same thing that doesn't make sense about places the military goes to do its job.

Here we are in this place that for all intent and purpose is deadly. Take a long walk with the wrong clothes, you're dead. This ain't no joke. Every year some bozo does it. We've been through this. And the helos can crash. Or a box of nails can fall on you. Or they drop you at a high altitude camp where it's -50F and you get a pulmonary edema.

Goddamn. We're burning 5000 calories a day just staying alive. You can eat like a pig and lose weight. God's own fat farm.

And so you're in this bizzare place and some guy is pounding out his version of "Meatplow" by "Stone Temple Pilots", and there are green lasers blasting over your head, and the women are dancing in black velvet evening dresses.

And then what. What. What what what the fuck.

Here in one hand you have the field manual that tells you how to keep someone alive long enough for the medevac. In the other you have a beer. Someone kisses you on the cheek. At midnight the sun pours through the hangar skylights. They have black out curtains to cover them. Velcro them up. Velcro darkness.

I woke up in my clothes, in my bed. My roommate got up at 6:30AM. I'd only had about three hours sleep. I downed some vitamin B12. Some NAC. And when I couldn't take it anymore, tylenol washed down with a nalgene bottle of McMurdo water.

When it got to be three o' clock I went over to Scott's Hut. I was signed up for a tour, and so I got to go inside. By then there were only traces of my hangover sticking to me like grape juice stains.

Inside smells musty and animal. It's the soot from the blubber stoves. It's still there, 100 years later. On the walls and floor. Touch it, it gets on your fingers. Smells like old blankets and rotting fishy steak.

There are artifacts in the hut. Tools. Dishes. Pots and pans. Hammers. Axes. Stoves.

These were used by Scott and his men. Shackelton on his voyage later. Scott and Shackelton's men on later voyages. Artifacts.

Maybe that's what we should aspire to as people--to have our possessions called artifacts by scientists 100 years from now.

(My palm pilot is already an artifact.)

It's good to stand in that place. They've cleaned it out. On several occasions it was completely buried and filled with snow. Now they keep it opened up.

And it's true, as all the diaries and books have said, it's colder inside than out. It's a hut designed to shed heat. It was made for the Australian outback. There is nothing about the design appropriate for a cold place.

Our "tour guide" called Scott's judgement into question at every turn.

"Look at this--" he says, and points out the sun porches. The lack of insulation. The gaps in the walls where the tongue-and-groove don't meet correctly.

On the walls is the soot from their blubber lamps. On the walls are their signatures. Pencil. Wild. Shackelton. Early 20th century grafitti.

Their leaky fuel canisters. Crates of dog biscuits.

Everything they brought was ill suited to Antarctica and grossly inferior to the gear the Norwegians brought down when Amundsen made it to the pole.

Right there, stacked in the corner, are the fuel cans that leaked so badly they doomed Scott.

When the rescue party located Scott, Bowers, and Wilson on the ice shelf, they bolted back here. Then they sealed it up and got out.

It feels like pain in that place. Dessicated mutton still hangs in the anteroom. Hay for their ponies is piled in the corner.

I've wrapped my fist around the handle of one of their rusted hammers. I've touched the stalks of hay falling from a bale wrapped over a hundred years ago.

What the hell were they thinking?

We're dancing to an Antarctic cover band playing Jimmy Eat World. They're dressing in drag and dancing to music on the wind-up victrola. Ten thousand watts of music make my ears ring. I'm hot in my down ECWs. They're burning seal blubber and the only thing getting warm is the tin can they cut to make the lamp.

We're drinking beer. The helo hanger smells like AvGas.

In the hut, it smells like death.

You can almost see their tracks in the snow when they fled, their foreheads aching from dehydration and last night's rum ration, their stomachs twisted around fibres of undigestable pemmican.

My head is killing me. My stomach in knots around last night's dinner of moroccan chick peas and filet of sole.

What the hell were they thinking?

It makes me want to run. Load up the banana sledge and head toward the planes--toward the ships anchored at the ice edge.

Get everyone out. Tell the world what we've seen.

Commander Scott is dead. Wilson is dead. Bowers. Evans.

Macintosh took one look out the window of the hut and tried to walk across the sound toward the ships. They found his footprints in the snow--and then they didn't. Somewhere between WinterQuarters bay and Cape Armitage the tracks stopped as if he was lifted from the earth in mid-stride.

That's the way Antarctica kills you. You don't have time or the luxury to be afraid.

They were thinking what I'm thinking. Exactly what I'm thinking. What we're all thinking down here.

Live until it stops you. Run until it kills you.

We're all gonna die. Someday. Some minute.

Gimme a beer.

Now
run

We're all in San Francisco and I'm not at work, so it must be time for visiting.

Upon awakening, we find that there's yet another visitor staying at Brewster's. Peter is in town for a miniature book convention, and I find out that Cincinnati is the headquarters of the Miniature Book Society.

First stop, Stanford to visit Joan. For lunch, we walked down to a pizza parlor which was rather large and yet almost empty. Amelia had great time with all the space to run around in. Next door we ran into Jaquie of Jaquie's Sew and Sew where there was much discussion of vintage costuming. Tragically, there was no coffee to be found in that particular strip mall, so after we got back to Joan's, I was sent off in the other direction to fetch one Cafe Latte and one Chai Tea. Not much else to relate, other than much comfortable conversation. Around 4:00 we went our separate ways, as Joan had a P10 party to attend.

Next stop, SFO to see Lindy. Well, not actually AT the airport, but she lives very close. Once we got there we realized that, had we been smart, we would have brought all of our stuff, spent the night, and taken the short drive to the airport. After some discussion, I left Ruth Anne and Lindy and went back to the Presidio to pack up our stuff and bring it back north. Dinner was a wonderful spread put together by Lindy, who says she never cooks. Sushi, cold salmon, hot carrots, fruit salad and ice cream. I inquired about ice cream topping, and she produces what I at first think is wine. As it turns out, at Trader Joe's they sell Grade B Maple Syrup in tall thin bottles like wine. Delicious doesn't even begin to describe it.

Amelia was at maximum cuteness at Lindy's place. As usual, she also made an utter shambles of the place. We didn't get her down till about 10:15, and we spent the rest of the evening putting things away.