Ye gods, forgive me for not doing all the tasks required of an editor.

My real day job has suddenly become much more demanding. I cannot slack as much as I had been used to. I have so much to accomplish that I really don't even use a browser except to do google searches when I have programming issues.

When I come home, I really try to avoid computers. With them now being a well-resented career they aren't as fun as a hobby anymore. And I really try to keep my time in the real world, doing activities with tangible results like painting and making pretty baubles.

I miss having the time to do writeups on topics I'd never even looked into, just for the sake of knowing the information contained within them. I wish I had the time to do that still. Unfortunately I am at a very important time in my career. I have dreams of retiring early, building the perfect house and making the perfect garden. I am a "Early to bed, early rise..." kind of person, and I truly believe that hard work will help me accomplish my goals. If my hard work pays off, I could further my progress faster than I had anticipated. And I am learning a lot.

I will do what I can, when I can. I still check in at least once per day though my activities are limited. Please feel free to /msg me with any questions or requests.

Humbly your ever-loyal servant,

Peg McMahan

Work last night was busy in the Emergency Department. Busy busy busy. Not only was there at no time an empty "to-be-seen" box, but, at one point, the people to be seen were literally filling up all the chairs in the acute area. And they were still pouring in. My shift started at 1600 and I did not have time for my dinner until my shift ended at 0045 (45 minutes of overtime).

I saw a few interesting patients too. There was one anxious lady in her 20s who had had a spiderbite. She had managed to catch the spider and brought it (the dead spider) along in a film container. It had the body shape of a small redback spider but did not have the classical red streak running up its back. On examination, there was some local erythema (redness) and warmth at the spiderbite site, some local piloerection (hair standing on end) and some local sweating too. Her pain was only slight to moderate but it was advancing up her arm.

It was decided, after consultation with some senior staff members, that she did not qualify for redback spider antivenom as her pain was not severe enough (she fell asleep at one point) even though she did display some signs of envenomation.

Then there was a Lebanese woman in her 20s who came in with headache of 3 days duration, some neck stiffness, photophobia +++, fever, vomiting and looking somewhat unwell. She had been on paracetamol (acetaminophen) but that had brought little relief previously and no relief at all that day. Her father accompanied her and seemed to be of the opinion that she was going to get better by herself and that it all started after she used a new hair dye 3 days ago. She had no past medical history of note, was not on any medications, had no recent infections and had a family history of von Willebrand's disease.

On physical examination, she had limitation of neck movement (though not as much as the guy from the day prior to this) but her photophobia was, if anything, much worse. Her neurological system seemed fine - her upper and lower limbs were fine and her cranial nerves were mostly fine (I could not test her eyes because they were so painful she couldn't open them). Her chest was clear, her heart sounds were dual and her abdomen was soft.

We were going to do a lumbar puncture on her when we found that, on her full blood count, she had a platelet count of 41 (x1000/microliter), way below the accepted normal for her age range of 150. With that score, she was at risk of prolonged bleeding and we were reluctant to continue with the LP. Eventually, she had a head CT scan, which showed nothing (well, it showed a normal head CT). Her blood picture indicated it might be a bacterial infection but the clinical picture suggested a viral meningitis. To be on the safe side, she was started on IV (intravenous) antibiotics, being given a stat dose of 1g penicillin and 2g of ceftriaxone.

By this time, a couple other members of her family had arrived and I explained to them that we were unsure whether it was a bacterial or viral meningitis that she had. I told them that we could not tell for certain because we did not do an LP but that we were covering our bases by given IV antibiotics. The family was dumbfounded as to how a seemingly healthy young woman fell so sick within a few days. They were a little distraught when I told them that if it was a bacterial meningitis and we did not treat it, there was a significant chance of her dying from it.

You live and learn, I guess...


In other news, the Dow and NASDAQ managed to rally overnight. It smells a lot like a bear market rally (or bear trap, as some like to call it) so I think you would be well advised not to participate in this one unless it gained more legs -- a LOT more legs. The current conditions are a speculators heaven. Lots of money to be made on the short side.

The Japanese central bank has finally done it. ZERO percent interest rates. The move was largely symbolic as the interest rates were already at 0.15% but that kind of news just sticks out like a sore thumb. They're trying to push liquidity onto the Japanese people, but I don't think that they're biting. We'll see. April 1st remains an important day for Japan as financial institutions must change their accounting policies by then to include mark-to-market prices, instead of their antiquated methods of carrying stock on whatever they think is book value. Some major banks in Japan could be in big trouble as they have to revalue stock holdings they might well be carrying since the stock bubble in Japan in 1989/90.

The price of gold perked up today, alongside another rise in the gold lease rates. This is the third time in a month that the lease rates are perking up, having fallen back a little recently. Maybe it will be third time lucky.

Today it was intense dedicated slacking. Discussions with my henchmen, both of them. The new site is coming along nicely, recently the problem of installing the 1000 pound UPS was solved by the simple method of taking it apart and carrying each piece separately. Divide et Impera.
Major editorial activity, reported in my Editor Log: March 2001 ever-growing writeup. Moderate noding.
I got myself a bizarre piece of hardware: a Discman that also plays MP3s (it understands ISO9660) and VCDs (I have never seen one) - it is purely a geek toy, but it seems to work.

Bookwise, I am stuck in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus, which is slow reading and not as amusing as the theme might lead one to believe.
Today I visited an old page of mine about LambdaMOO: I tried about 10 links, and they were all broken. Servers disappeared, people graduated, pages were deleted ... this is disturbing. This stuff was there four years ago. It is now clear that four years is a whole lot of time on the Internet.

Tonight is cat day: I will now piffle off to feed Miss Nice's cat. My duty awaits.

Today I'm studying - rather, was studying until I logged on here. Sheesh. Tonight is the The Great Sydney Fraptabulous Everythingian Get Together at the alleged Bar Beyond. I wish I had one of those Richard Nixon masks to wear.

La Vida Loca?
Yesterday we had lunch at Cafe Nine, somewhere in Chinatown. The service is excellent there, which really stands out in Sydney, where you get one drink at the beginning, eventually, and are expected by the restaurant to ration it out over the course of your meal and god help you if you run out and want another. Want water? Priority 0. And don't bother waiting for the check - it won't come. Pay at the counter. We did have to listen to an entire Ricky Martin CD at Cafe Nine, but that's all right. The scotch fillet was unbelievable.

In other news.....

The Sydney Suburban Train Network is Pure Evil

Last Saturday my better half and I bravely attempted to go to the Featherdale Wildlife Park, about 40 minutes from Sydney towards the Blue Mountains. Such fools we were! So innocent. Such naifs.

We left from central station, in Chinatown. The train was supposed to go directly to Blacktown, with stops in between. That's what we were told by station employees, as well. Got that? Central to Blacktown, with stops in between. What happened was this: Central to Parramatta (almost to Blacktown). Train stopped, we stayed, and the train went in the direction from whence it came. We hadn't really been paying attention until this happened. Parramatta to Granville. Granville to Fairfield. Fairfield to Granville, and then! and then we discovered that the western line wasn't running to Blacktown, that we would, at least on that day, have to take the bus. To Blacktown.

Well, piss on that. No way were we taking a bus from Granville. We just wanted get the hell off the train. So we took it back to Central and had lunch at Mae Thai again, on Pitt Street. Later that day we passed out and slept for three hours.

I have been awake for no more than 4 hours, and I already know that my day cannot go anywhere.

A very brief, 6 to 8 line email greeted me when I finally logged on today, a short, brutally honest notification that I would not be required for the second level of interviews for the job I was going for because people with more skills and experience had applied.

Things are not looking good on the Job front.

Despite this so called IT skills shortage that we're meant to be experiencing, a position advertised for people with no experience, is swamped with people with experience, so the newcomers don’t even stand a chance. I'm bitter, I'm hurt.. and I'm damn well scared!

I will readily admit that my thoroughness in searching for a job is questionable, I will admit that I took a long break between graduating and starting to search, but I cant help but feel that I should've been given a break by now, that the TAFE should have assisted in placing its students in positions, that the Job search organisations that I signed up with should have at least contacted me once.

As I said... I'm Bitter.

Have you even gone to sleep with a CD on repeat, listening to one track on the cd and woken up to the same track, 40 minutes later?
This happened to me last night with a track on the Offspring's new album 'Conspiracy of One'.. and seeing as I had no recollection of falling asleep, it was most disconcerting.

In postive news... The plans for Trina and myself to go up to the The Great Sydney Fraptabulous Everythingian Get Together have been finalised. We just need to work out how we are going to get back home on the Sunday night when all the trains will have stopped. Oh well, we'll think of something!

I am in love.
I cannot have.
In the end, that is all.

I wish that were not all. I wish homework and writing and social interaction were in there too.

He never gave me any memories before he walked away. And I can’t live on one kiss forever, so I’m withering.

I am in love.
I cannot have.
And he is beautiful. (I keep trying to forget that last one, dammitall...)

I saw him today for the first time in weeks. He gave me a postcard for his gallery opening, with my favorite painting in the world on the front. A painting of his, of course.

I am in love.
I cannot have.
That is all.

CNN knew before the Wing did.

Trevor and I are driving around North Island looking for something called 'Skyflex,' which is one of those things that is very expensive, used only for a few jobs and hoarded in specific places by certain individuals. This is carried on with a maximum of bitching, pissing, moaning, complaining and griping with a minimum of efficiency. Most of the conversation in the truck consists of such seriously intellectual discourse as:
"Man I told you that fuckin' place was over by the Mod Hanger." I spit in sarcasm.
"Shadthefuckup. You did not." Replying, Trevor climbs from the duty truck as I follow. The truck is almost completely out of gas and we have no intention of changing that anytime soon. If we were to actually run out of gas I am sure this would amount to nothing more than another excuse to waste a large amount of time.
"This ain't the right fucking building." Observing this comes from the sight of an F/A-18 engine sitting on a large cart inside a large opening.
"Well, we're goona go in anyway." Trevor seems dead set on going in this building. We have been about five others already looking for various people that have no idea where it is the person we need is, or they have seen him ten minutes ago. Typical.
"What are we looking for anyway?" I ask as we wander past the garage door and engine toward a large number of doors on the side of another building.
"Whad that guy say? A stairwell. What the fourth door?" Trevor has no idea where we're going.
"Some shit like that." I have no idea what we're doing. I've lost track of the original point other than we went to look for some Skyflex. This is a rubber tape with some mysterious sealing and corrosion preventative qualities to which I am apparently not privy. Every time I use the substance the panel leaks like a sieve and commences to corrode instantly. I do not use Skyflex. I think it sucks. I have said as much here and on other occasions many times. Fortunately, people never listen to almost anything that I say so I now have an excuse as to why I am not at the squadron at the moment and have not been there for nearly two hours.
On the other hand, someone else thinks Skyflex works pretty well because they spent an amount of money greater than I would know what to do with in a lifetime to corner the market. The substance comes in flat cans that strongly resemble the old magnetic tape spools; these of course were promptly hidden to prevent it from being misused following purchase. This means that when it is deemed necessary to use this crap we have to tear all over hell and high creation looking for 'A New Can of Skyflex,' which is apparently the only way it can be used. The disposition of old cans of Skyflex is a topic about which I would not hazard a guess. We more than likely give it to the Army.
"You know we oughta use goddamn tar tape for the floorboards in one." I mention as we walk into a large room filled with steam piping and various pumps that seem to be rattling off of their mounts. Pipes come in from the ceiling, enter any number of random gray pumps that appear to be older radial engines and then exit again in the same manner. This is another of those random things that one sees and believes to be somewhat odd, then is promptly forgotten. "Uhh, Trev, this doesn't look like any fuckin' stairwell I've ever seen."
"I fuckin' know that." We wander some more, wasting time. The day is beautiful, somewhat strange given the weather we have had over the last few weeks.

CNN knew before the CO and XO did.

Back at the squadron I am wrestling with an ELT antenna jutting from the turtleback just over the number two driveshaft. My junior tech elected to reinstall a badly corroded antenna (the plan went to replace this right here and now,) with corroded hardware (the plan went to reuse this,) about a week ago without alerting me to as much. This should go without saying, but the plan is now find the screwball diameter and length screws used to fasten the ELT to the top of the airplane and go about our business. Next on today's playbill for the det four maintenance circus: WITNESS as the YUREI magically REPLACES, that's right boys and girls he's going to replace something, A LARGE NUMBER OF LIGHT BULBS ON THE ARMAMENT CONTROL INDICATOR PANEL! Mad cheering, many one hands clapping, trees fall with no one around to see them. Yeah, my job is pretty goddamn exciting sometimes. This is why I am repeatedly cursing my junior and the most profanely espoused person on the flightline- Igor Sikorsky. In my mind's eye I am setting the combination oven/blender/heavy paving machine to Atomic Death by Asphalt Puree and cackling as Igor beats on the glass ineffectively. This causes me (almost,) to miss the announcement over the loudspeaker hanging on the hanger eve. Great, quarters in fifteen minutes. I didn't shave this morning and have already been bitched at by the Maintenance Master Chief for as much, more expletives follow and a new face joins Igor's in the oven.

CNN knew before Maintenance Control did.

Chief will not be returning from the cruise. We are told as much by the CO in an informal quarters with most everyone gathered around in a wide circle, my neck is bleeding profusely from the abuse it was subjected to a few moments ago. Things did not look good when I looked the outside stairs at the squadron and saw a member of the Chaplain's corps standing at the top in his dress blues. Chaplains do not show up at squadrons with the exception of two events: Christmas and the far less amusing Someone Isn't Coming Home Anymore. This of course is the latter of the two cases. Apparently something happened with some system or something like that and a rotor blade dipped sharply. It is to be accepted as a matter of fact that Things moving this quickly are capable of inflicting great traumas to the human body.

CNN knew before we did.

Another memorial service is scheduled for Monday at 1000. Another round of taps. Another time I will run through the guilt belonging to the survivor. Another? Oh, you don't know about that little secret do you?
You see, when I was in school I managed to grab a glimpse of where the orders my class was going to be offered would wind up. I knew what specific squadron one set of orders was going to wind up at versus another set and I knew a week in advance. I kept my mouth shut. Normally they tell you a type unit (i.e. VFA, VF, VAQ, HSL, etc.) versus a specific squadron (i.e. VFA-22, VF-11, VAQ-115, HSL-51, etc.) This determines whether your first tour out of AVA(A1) avionics 'A' school will be shore duty or sea duty and I kept my mouth shut. Rick wanted to go to shore duty because he had recently married, had a kid on the way, and wanted something on the west coast near his hometown of Phoenix, AZ. Rick chose (much to my carefully sequestered horror,) a sea duty based fixed wing squadron.

CNN had no idea Rick was sucked up an intake his first cruise.

That guilt, of not having said anything and of not having done anything. That survivor's guilt of knowing that I caused the death of another human being through intentional inaction. I carried this with me in silence for nearly three years until after a particularly morose explanation in search of either damnation or absolution I was told that there was nothing I could have done. That who was to say that if I had gone in Rick's stead that I would not have wound up on the wrong end of an engine at the wrong time. That it was just Rick's time to go, and if he had not been there it would have happened somewhere else and torturing myself over the situation accomplished nothing. Bullshit I say to myself even now. I am here and alive because someone else DIED by MY FUCKING HAND and I sat IDLY, NO SMUGLY BY AND DIDN'T SAY A FUCKING THING.
The inexplicable nature of how it is death chooses who and when, this is the hardest thing to deal with. The nature of the beast is we pull out, we roll the dice against house odds and pray that nothing shitty happens. Something did happen. Something shitty indeed.

Chief, Rick, I'm sorry. So very sorry. Hollow words for an empty loss and I know that this is a shallow sort of epitaph. I hope that you find peace, let go of what you have left behind. None of us here will for some time to come.

CNN knew before the family did.

Sorry again, Phase Maintenance

Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.

Act V, Scene 1; Shakespeare's Measure for Measure

So I'm in love with the Duke... Why, oh why, do I always go for these actor types? He even offered me a ride to my car tonight, but did I take it? Ohhh no. Maybe next time I won't miss my cue.

In English... yes, my teacher is still amazing and wonderful. We went over T.S Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" today (a beautiful, dusty, long-afternoon poem); one of his personal favorites, and one of mine, too. As he played a recording of Eliot reading in that high-toned, scratchy St. Louis intonation, his eyes fell dimly shut, a smile played on the corner of his lips... "In the room, the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo..." The sunlight fell casually on his shoulders, one seemingly lost in words and verse, and the curvature of his handsome dark face fairly oozed Eliot's expressions. My head crooked gently in my hand, I dreamed of light and dust and his long eyelashes falling gentle to meet me...

13:44

I overslept today, too. Luckily, there was nothing impotant in my schedule for today... Anyway, the cool thing was that I had a dream!

Reason for sleepiness? Well, take a look at node "Dream Log". I once commented as a feature request that it might be cooler to use something similiar to DayMetaNoder to do that.

Well, I realized I have a clone of E2 running; I might as well make a new nodeball of the new nodetype "calendarmetanode" while I was at it... =)

22:41

Today's stuff: bug-reported about Tomcat 'cuz it just blew up when I tried to start it (Hey, similiar stuff happened when I tried out mod_perl too ages back... coincidence? Perharps not...)

Had fun with the Everything code.

Puzzled about Upgrades and Stuff. (How do I upgrade E2 core, anyway? Just reinstall over old one and nbmasta the new core?)

::sigh::

Life could be simpler sometimes.

I feel... nothing.

I'm... This is sort of hard to explain. I try to come up with an explanation for tomorrow. Now, I need to code, node, and do similiar stuff.


(Still no fancy navigations... =( )

So I'm sitting in the computing block at school at school and this random guy comes up to me and starts snorting randomly, what is it with people and trying to seek attention. He seemed to find it funny that I didn't react in any way.

All these little kids keep asking me for help, but instead, I decide to write this node. So now people are reading this just in case I have written anything about them. Writting down real-time events is fun. Apparently i've suddenly become addicted to e2 only because this person has seen me noding a few times at school.

Another day of fun at the institution.

"sorry mum and dad I wouldn't want to interrupt your Friday night routine to take advantage of a once in a life time opportunity"

Sometimes I find it impossible to reach out for help. This is something I've repeatedly beat myself up for. No more. I understand now why it's so hard for me. My mom and my grandfather, who loved me like a father (I thought) betrayed me in the basest ways, at my most vulnerable. so when I need some one, when I feel extremely vulnerable, no wonder I retreat and hide from everyone. I am trying to be safe.

Therapy last night was dreadful. A terrible, fully alive and breathing memory surfaced from all the sadness and despair I have been feeling. It was like vomiting a heartache. I put the memory in a separate wu today. I remember crying and crying about it when I was a kid. I obviously had suppressed a lot of it - the pain was so concrete and real last night. I hope this pain ends soon.

And I'm so disgusted with M. He is so awkward and literal some times. I can't understand why he is so fucking dense when it comes to figuring things out. I don't want contact with him, yet I do.

He wrote me a note after reading my wu, and could only relate it to his own fucking pain. As he has done over the past week. It's all about him, after all.

Well, I don't fucking care about your fucking pain right now! I'm living in a tunnel of darkness, residing in my own little Hell on Earth. I can barely take care of myself, I sure as fuck don't give a flying fuck about your motherfucking stupid pain that you can't even fucking remember!!! Idiot. I hate him. I hate my therapist for explaining traumatic transference. Like I care why I hate him!

Bejeezus am I tired today... I've just gotten home from work and I ache all over, had to get straight in the shower cos I felt so hot and sticky.

And here was me thinking that working as a Support Analyst would involve being sat in front of a computer in some state of disrepair or other. For the past two days we've been overrun by couriers and other sundry delivery people, all bringing in shed loads of new kit.

And I swear to god that my colleagues must have some sort of sixth sense that warns them when a truck is about to arrive so they all bugger off out ten minutes before it arrives.

So, last Friday, I'm sat at my laptop updating our database when this driver turns up at the door and says "I've got 27 boxes for you". I go look and find that he has 27 Hewlett Packard LaserJets on the van. I start running round like a headless chicken trying to find:

(A) Space to put the damn things and

(B) Someone to help me

Both of which were in short supply. We have a very small office which was already bursting at the seams from previous deliveries. Consequently I end up lugging these damn boxes off the van as the driver hands them to me.

Yesterday I managed to get people to deliver the printers out to schools just in the nick of time as about half an hour after the last one went out another driver turns up and announces that he has 24 new computers and monitors from Dell for me. Note - for me not for the Council! So here I am again, only one colleague in the office. At least this driver was more helpful - he actually carried some of the kit in himself. But we had totally run out of space in the storeroom. Hurriedly one of my other colleagues (who wasn't even in at the time) found himself evicted from his workroom, his benches turfed into storage and the room stacked floor to ceiling with Dell boxes.

Today, I get elected to inventory the kit and prepare it all for delivery to schools. Throughout the course of the day I've unpacked each new item, scanned its barcodes into my laptop, applied those little gold and silver asset stickers to each machine (hmmm, very fetching on nice new 'midnight grey' computers), scan its Windows product key and assign each machine to a school. Then I had to repackage each item and move it into the corridor so people could load them into their cars.

Got rid of about half of them. I'll need to screw up the workplan for tomorrow and get people out running errands for me instead of doing something constructive like repairing cacked machines.

I never want to see another Dell box as long as I live. But I know its not going to happen 'cos the first seven new servers turned up for Primary Schools this afternoon, with another 23 to follow. Gah.

One things for sure, I needn't bother applying for membership of a gym!

Today I went to school again for the first time in 3 weeks (including the one week for Spring Break). I almost fell asleep in my American Heritage class. A friend of mine encouraged me to go and I went. I found out that we hadn't done much the past two weeks but take notes. My next class, U.S. Government was not as boring, in fact it is my favorite class. I found out that we had only met 3 times before the break and I hadn't missed any tests at all, I was relieved. From now on I am going back to class...hopefully.

On my way out I decided to take the "long route" so that my friends would find me and go out to lunch at Peter Piper Pizza like we always do. Then I noticed that he was there. Ever since he pissed me off I have ignored him and when he calls I always say that I was just leaving and hang up. I ended up having to ride in his car, which I did not want to do and all through the ride to lunch I was shaking and wishing to be out of that car and into my own.

At lunch I was extremely quiet and didn't care that I was being asked questions like, "What's wrong?" or "What's the matter?" I don't care to really hang out with these people anymore if he's going to be there. Next time I will take the short route and neither of them will see me. I had to leave and as my friend was going to drive me away from that place...and him, he reached out his hand to say goodbye. I hesitated at first but shook it, and then shook everyone else's hand to make it seem like it was no big deal. Then my friend took me to my car.

Happy Friggin' National Astrology Day! ...no really, I'm not kidding. That's what it says on my Llewellyn calandar. It's also the Spring Equinox, the sun is in Aries and the moon is in Aquarius. Of course it is, that's why I feel the need to run right over people with my goodwill for them.

I'm flipping through some of my....ech!....writing to find a few choice pieces for open mic at Insomnia. I have to go get cleaned up and get cute.....maybe the black dress....or the Eat Bertha's Mussels shirt SatyrBoy lent me. Who knows? I have to go find Griffin in 20 mins, and I have a call into Onya. Cute girl from Jersey. And as usual, 7/8 Italian.....do I find the meditteraneans or do they find me??? Just so I can hook up with ficus and Beef. Need to say goodbye, particuliarily to Beef, as he's one of the few down here who actually has my respect.

I bet Meghan will get a kick out of the shirt. NAh, maybe not. I have to talk to Onya, because she was considering meeting me up there in a few months. Not much more for her here, and I understand that. Besides, she's this cute tiny little dark flashy eyed thing....my only weakness.

Chip handled the moving thing pretty easily...but he wants me to call my mother. And Kash. She doesn't even know I went up there...but I believe she will be forgiving. She got hip-locked with that sweet intelligent virgo from Hong Kong this weekend, as this email tells me here. Besides, she ain't done with the swamp as early as I am. I want free before anymore creepers wrap around my neck.

Gonna take the Dell to the exchange tomorrow. S'all right, I have my eye on one of their laptops. Besides, that's more room in Squirt for moving.

Why am I nervous about talking to Ry? What's he gonna do? "I'm sorry. Even though I'm a cretin and a predator this goes beyond my boundaries."? I went to find him as soon as I got in, but he was snorin' so I left him to his humid, mossy dreams. I was too tired to lie down, much less be intelligible. I'm sure I'll have an update after tonight...wish me luck! I've got a little pocket of stage fright hiding in my gut right now.

Equinox I've been observing my Lenten vows for some time now. This has resulted in a precipitious drop in my noding activity.
I met with an interesting bunch of people the other day. One, celebrating his birthday, claimed a variety of colourful careers. From rent boy to Arab princes to muse to the director of Jubilee.
My own life feels bare by comparison.
Another guy, from Bermuda, dazzled us with virtuoso keyboard playing.
We played a poem game-

  1. Each person writes a random question on top of a blank piece of paper and then folds it over.
  2. Everyone hands the piece of paper to their neighbor
  3. A word is now written under each mystery question and everyone again exchanges scripts.
  4. Every budding poet now opens up their paper, revealing a question and a word (usually unrelated, or related in some bizarre way.
  5. Everyone is required to write a poem that answers the question and includes the word.
Poems fell from our lips as the wine flowed.

Sigh.

I have just gotten through a slog of homework, which includes cutting out little chromosomes and pairing them together in a karyotype and doing a 1 1/2 page character analysis on a guy called Satchel in a book called 'Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf', which is a stupid book.

I have been looking into this weird ass language called EnergyLanguage, which isn't even a language yet.


Will continue log later.

Setting: Midnight, a clearing in the forest:

An old man wearing a garment of furs steps from between the trees into the clearing. His cold blue eyes are barely visible between his full grey beard and his fur cap.
He glances around and then sits himself down on a nearby rock. He rests the gnarly branch he uses for a walking stick on his lap. Ten minutes have passed when a light rain begins to fall. A creaking sound from the undergrowth and another person steps from among the trees. It's a woman and very obviously so. She's wearing nothing but a loincloth and plaited in her long red hair are yellow flowers.

The old man looks up and acknowledges the woman with a grumpy nod. 'So ye've finally come, eh?'
'You knew I would come, old man. I always do.' the woman replies in a melodical voice.
Using his stick to support himself the old man rises from the rock. 'I knew...Yeah, I knew you would come...Sometimes I have even looked forward to it. I'm getting on in days and as I grow older I sometimes think that I deserve some rest for a change.' the old man says in a sombre tone.
The woman looks at the old man with a pityful look in her emerald green eyes. 'Do I gather you want me to end your life in peace?' she asks softly. A small bluetit lands on the woman's shoulder and starts nibbling at one of the flowers in her hair.
'In peace?' the man says with a hint of surprise in his voice. 'Nah...I've been fighting all my life, lady. I'm not gonna stop now. I've prepared for this moment, I have. The old man may yet surprise you.' he grumbles, gripping his stick just a little harder.
'But I can make your death completely painless if you want...' the woman says in a sad tone.
'Painless? To hell with painless, woman! Pain is for the weak! Now do we duel or are you gonna keep cuddling that pathetic excuse for a bird?'
The woman looks at the old man for some time, a sorrowful look in her eyes. 'If that is how you really want it then I guess I have no choice...'
'You're damn right you don't have a choice. We battle missy!' He raises himself and strikes the earth with his gnarled walking stick. With a sound of thousand glaciers grinding their way through age-old stone the cold begins radiating from him. Everything it touches is covered in frost and icicles. The wind is suddenly a gale bringing sharp drifts of snow and hail.
The woman gives an unheard cry of surprise as she slips on the icy ground, the by now roaring blizzard ripping into her and her surroundings. The small birdy in her hands is almost instantly frozen and a cruel hailstone then shatters it's head. The look of surprise and pain on her face makes place for one of utter horror.
'You total fucking utter bastard!' she yells above the storm. She raises a hand and is now in a zone of complete calm (insert visual special effect here) in the middle of the storm. All around her the ice starts to melt. The calm zone around her starts to expand and at her feet some crucuses (croci?) emerge from the ground. The croci are quickly overwhelmed by the brambles that start popping up from everywhere now.
The old man sees that the battle is lost and turns around trying to flee back to the woods. He has not even set five paces when he is overtaken by the ever expanding circle of calm. Brambles grapple at his frail thin legs and he stumbles to the ground. Coughing and wheezing from the effort, the old man is quickly covered in brambles who rip him apart.

Happy end Epilogue:

The forest is once again teeming with life, rekindled from three months of deep slumber. The woman picks up the bluetit's body, kisses it, and it changes into an egg which she carefully places in a nest in the tree.


Happy spring 2001, Everything2!
Today was a good day.

This was despite the fact that my day started stupidly early when I awoke at 6am - my first lecture of the day was not until 11am! - I lay in bed listening to the radio until 7.15am and I just had to get up as I was bored. This was probably a consequence of not going to the pub last night thus I was fast asleep in bed by 10:30pm.

From my flatmates' computer, I started researching the theory of transmission lines for my lab report at 8.30am. The report is due in two days time so it really was about time I did something towards it.

I think there are two reasons why today has turned out so good.

Not only did I work this morning but during my 2 hour break between lectures this afternoon, I actually managed to get some work done in the library and tear myself away from surfing Everything. I should be getting serious about my work as Finals are (scarily) only 2 months away.
AND
Over lunch, I started planning a house party. It'll probably be themed; I think I'm going to choose a letter of the alphabet, nothing that puts people off. I love planning parties; the anticipation (and worrying) and the shopping. I can't wait.

I actually achieved today. It's a strange feeling.

To celebrate the first day of spring and the second official day of spring break, my roommate and I and a couple of friends walked down to Chinatown and Little Italy. It was beautiful out, sunny and warm, and the weather lulled me into such a state of bliss that I very nearly bought myself a durian. Fortunately, I realized that the entertainment value of having a durian in my possession wasn't worth having to lug around $10 worth of stinky fruit.

Instead, we ended up in a tiny pizza shop. Creatively enough, as far as we could tell, it was called "PIZZA & RESTAURANT." We all ordered cheese calzones and the elderly proprietor with flame-red hair fussed over us as if we were the first young girls she'd ever seen in there. I want her to be my grandma now. It was a comforting lunch - doubly so because my whole tab came to $5.

I need to go down to Chinatown more often. There are all manner of inexpensive goodies, frogs in barrels, and entertaining signage in an incredibly tiny space. Also, there's all the lychee sorbet in the world. Yum.

I feel so incompetent in conversations as of late. Only half involved in thier needs... unable to give myself over to the conversation fully. Frequently because I'm at work, but somehow the problem seems to follow me home... My advice is poor, my participation lacking, my responses short and somehow managing to escape my fingers without really having been considered. I speak too quickly and don't listen nearly enough.

I'm sorry dear, all my dears..... my head is unatached.

Today it snowed, alot. I measured 9 inches of snow off my back porch.

Needless to say, I was stuck in the house, so I whipped out good ole Sim City 3000, and started up a city (Tinsel Town, with Mayor Zappa). After about 6 hours of playing I gave in and started using the cheats, then it got really dull (that's what cheats do to good games folks!).

I started a new book today, "A Place Called Waco: a Survivors Story" by David Thibodeau. It's about all the massacre at Waco over that David Koresh deal, you know, when the FBI torched the building and killed all those men, women, and kids. I really wanted to read this because the other day (while listening to someone talking about what a crazy Koresh was) I realized how little I know about the event. I'd like to be able to either defend or ridicule the guy in a conversation, and this book is written by one of Koresh's "disciples" who was present during the Waco incident, and survived.

I was going to develop all the pictures I took at the DJ Spooky show, but the snow seriously fucked up all the roads around here, so I was stuck.
I can only pray that tomorrow will be warmer, to melt the snow and free me from this house for a few hours.

Today was a very complete day

Go Speed Protist, Go!!

Have you ever woke up to find yourself staring at the clock an hour after you intended to get up? Have you ever found yourself doing that on the day of a mid-term??

Living 30 minutes away from the U of MN and having the mid-term start in 20 minutes means that car goes fast. I made it and I think I did pretty well on the test. I did, however, also get back my math mid-term today and it made part of me just wish I would have stayed in bed.

Go Driver, Go!!

The super-secret simulation architecture I have been working on is --> || close to completion. All I need is to squash a few smallish bugs and to make a pretty little installation wrapper around it and I am ready to move onto the next insurmountable problem.

Go Speed Noder, Go!!

I noded a few more e2 kanji nodes and with that number of node added to this very daylog entry, I should now be a level five. Yay!

All this stuff combined makes today a very complete day.
Ok, I think I'm back in sync with my days here.

Today was a rather uneventful workday. Our group got together today (including TC) and we had some fun. Sara met up with us (and JS) for lunch at Wendys, then she got together with Ann for a while to go play pool. She came back to visit us at around 4pm, planning to just stop by on her way home for the day. Someone talked her into coming with us and hanging out tonight, but she had some Physics lab work to do, so we all went down to her place to pick up her schoolwork. We went by Ann's work and waited for her to close up the store. Then we went back to Ann's apartment for a while so Sara could finish up her schoolwork. By the time we were done there, it was getting late so we just went to Denny's for some food. By the time we were done there, it was past midnight so everyone had to get home for school/work tomorrow. I felt bad because Sara had to drive another hour to get home after all that.

It was a great day. I gave Sara backscratches while she was doing her schoolwork and while she was playing video games. I got the door for her when she was getting into my car from Denny's. When we got to the mall (where Ann's works), she was getting hypoglycemic and this was making her feel upset and sort of short tempered (especially about her schoolwork). We were alone for a while in the food court and she was still a little upset about a few things, and was going on about it all and then she finished it all off looking directly at me "... but it doesn't really matter to you, because you love me anyway". She said it in a way that she had been thinking it, but hadn't meant to say it, and was hiding her face by the time she finished the sentence. It's the first time anything like that has been said between us. I do love her. I'm glad she knows that I love her and I'm glad that that she seems to feel that is a good thing. :)

After we got back to Ann's, I sat there next to her just watching her do her schoolwork. I was watching her intently as she worked, admiring her deep brown eyes, long eyelashes, dark petite eyebrows, her long slender neck, beautiful puffy brown curly hair, soft shoulders, thin arms with a few little freckles here and there (I even remember some of them), beautiful feminine hands, long unpainted fingernails. I don't even know if she knew I was watching her for so long and looking at her so intently; but I was, and I don't care if she knows it becuase I love her :)

It's not all just me though, she returns the gestures. She gave me hugs and rested her head on my shoulder at the restaurant, consoled me when I was the odd person out, and rested her back against me when she was sitting on Ann's bed playing Donkey Kong.

I feel great, but I don't want to feel too great, because I never know if or when we will reach a point where she will put up a stop sign and that will be the depth where our relationship will have to stay until she finishes school.

Weekend...Lackluster...

Recently realize I'm probably never gonna get "my half-hour" or my answers to questions everyone else thinks aren't worth asking.

Life has a tendancy of working out that way...

But silence til today...which will probably persist to future evenings...and perhaps forever.

That's not the way I wish to be treated. I depend as much as I am dependable...why is no one else as concerned with this...I care, I even love...But never shall these idle dreams come my way...

Doomed for midnight depression...silent with the patter-clicking of my laptop keypad as I distract myself from the plethera of today's dreary continuance...

Carry on...I really have some stuff I need to node...but my will becomes sapped...

The debtors have so many restrictions on home loans - my few late payments didn't help there - nor did the need for zero down...perhaps buy later.

Then back to love...

Ugh... The heavy breath induced by simple thoughts...but silence overcomes this too.

This may be the way for weeks... (I'm even paranoid/jealous/not sure) Every time she spends time with me, I blissfully feel no time...but the moment she is out of heart's vision...time trudges my soul. But she's got to work odd hours this week, I've got this camping thing, and without some form of deity intervention, I may have to give up again.

Ugh... I'm not ready to move on, but my heavy heart is dying...Time to go?

But what really can I do but be patient...So that's the path for now...(unless there's an available soccermom with her own perversions left to her imagination...but that's a different fantasy...)

At least the car's not staling...but the muffler's dying soon...and the headlight needs replacing...and and and...

Time indeterminate

Y'know, I should take the opportunity to say how much of a spiffingly spiffy thing Cow of Doom's E2 Node Tracker is (http://cowofdoom.com/e2info.shtml). I'd say THAT, more than sorting my node list backward by rep, is far more useful in determining what writeups of mine need work, such as my Descent series of nodes (Still haven't gotten to the Descent 1 node). It also tells me there's some fucker out there who's STILL downvoting daylogs. Systematically, too. *sigh* I guess some people just need to be shot.

8:00PM EST - Left Turning MADNESS!

I got in a car accident today.

I figured I should cut to the chase first. It might help later when everyone starts wondering why the hell I'm going into so much detail over my drive home from class.

I was driving home down Masonic Blvd. Despite the name, it is not a boulevard; at least not what most Michiganders refer to as a boulevard. What it IS, however, is a 30MPH* road that I have to take to get back to my neighborhood. And I actually drive the speed limit. Yes, I know there's people out there willing to kill me because I actually follow traffic laws, but hear me out on this one.

It was a dark and stormy night. No, wait, just dark. The light at the intersection of Groesbeck (a 50MPH road) and Masonic was red, so I slowed down to come to an eventual stop. But, it turned green before I stopped, so I figured I'd accelerate right back to 30.

Once I was in the intersection, however, I suddenly noticed someone suddenly decided that NOW was the perfect time to fly into the intersection on a left turn onto Groesbeck. I couldn't do anything.

I got into a car accident today.

First thing I did was take general status on myself. I felt something cold running down my legs. As it turned out, it was about 20 ounces of Dr Pepper exploded from my mug, but it took me a few seconds to realize this. I now had a car with a BADLY beaten front end and Dr Pepper all over the insides, plus one destroyed tin of Penguins.

According to the girl I smacked into, she claims I just barreled out of nowhere. While I will admit 'barrelling' is subjective and 25MPH might be considered 'barrelling' to some, I may wish to contest her assertion that I came out of 'nowhere', per se. I had my lights on and I was reacting to the same light she was (There is no delayed light for left turning people on Masonic). Thus, I should have had right-of-way.

We'll see what the police report says on Friday.


*: No, I'm not converting that to kph.

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