March 9, 2000

I'm in the middle of early spring cleaning, not because I had some great urge to do it, but because so many items have gone missing of late. I've reached the point in the cleaning, I think, where the scavenger hunt of lost items, including...

1. a Cheap*Bytes Red Hat 6.1 CD-ROM
2. an old set of drive rails, necessary for installing a CD-ROM drive, to enable me to upgrade to RH 6.1
3. a Tom Waits compilation cassette
4. an old, tiny, tiny wrench, used for fastening the strings of an old Schecter guitar
5. some old magazine articles, including one on the life and death of Chano Pozo

...and much, much, more (though nothing comes to mind as I write this) seems to be over, with at least the first four items (the important ones) found.

Having found, just now, the Tiny Tiny Wrench, I no longer have to move gingerly around the (synthesizer) keyboard, for fear of knocking the wrench into to-be-vacuumed oblivion, or of throwing it out by mistake, had it been oddly stuck to some piece of scrap paper or a paper towel.

I've found various long-forgotten items during the cleanup, like The Moosewood Cookbook and various odds and ends formerly used for soundmaking, like hubcaps and just-so pieces of cardboard and plastic. And now I'm past the midway point of cleaning up, meaning there's no more piles of books and magazines to step over, and there's a place to put the guitars, so I don't have to fear walking into them as I wander in the dark at 3 AM.

There's nothing like the joy of vacuuming without the fear of sucking up your one-and-only Tiny Tiny Wrench. Of course, it would be nice if I were far enough along in the process to actually vacuum - that comes next week.

Did you know? Sir Boones is the grandson of William "Count" Basie.

11:00 P.M. - Start to worry. Cat was supposed to be here a little after 10:30. She gets off from the photo lab right around that time every day. Where could she be? I mention to datagirl on IRC (#everything) that my girlfriend's still not home. I explain why I even mentioned it. datagirl asks why she wouldn't call. I don't know...

12:00 A.M. - Go to her room to ask her roommates. Where's Cat? They didn't know. She didn't call. Sue is getting mad because she didn't call, but she laughs at herself and says she's being too much of a mother instead of a roommate. datagirl recommends I go take a quick run to the photo lab building two blocks away. I run back and ask Sue what she thinks again. We decided a trip to the building would be futile because it's now been closed for over an hour. I relay the decision to datagirl, and she confers. A trip to the building would not really do anything...

1:00 A.M. - Why would she be out this late on a Thursday night/Friday morning? I make a quick trip to the building, just to see. I had to make sure there were no corpses between here and there. The city's not always safe at night. The cold was back. It was so warm for a week, and the horrid blow of frozen air had come back. My clothing choice was wise, however. She was not between here and the building. I was somewhat comforted, however, to not see a corpse. I always imagine worst case scenarios while worrying...

2:00 A.M. - datagirl has to get up early, so she leaves IRC. I really know no one else in the channel, so I leave. Everything can't ease me by itself. I try to node, but weird things come out of me (No, this is not an evil scheme). After a while, I attempt to continue reading I, Robot in the other room. It helps a bit, but I grow weary and tired...

3:00 A.M. - I can no longer stay up. The darkness, the Mozart, the reading. All separate elements designed to kill my usual insomnia, now backfire to sedate my waiting up. I make one last trip to her room, to see, and her other roommates still have not seen her. I cannot hold out any longer. I forfeit. I go to bed, hoping she will wake me with a kiss and an explanation soon thereafter...

11:00 A.M. - I wake. I jump out of bed, throw the clothes I had worn the day before back on from the floor to me, and make a quick run down the hall. She is in her bed, awakening. Her face is a complete overhaul and rewrite of all the sad and lost feelings of the night before. I am relieved. I knew nothing was wrong, but my worry gland has no mercy. She explains how she went to the bar across the way from the building where the lab is after work with some co-workers. There was no phone and she didn't know she was going until she was there. She is fine, and had a nice night. I am once again complete. - March 9, 2000

What are you giving up for Lent?

Many of my housemates are of the very Christian, but not irritating variety; if not for seeing a couple of them spotted with soot this evening, I would not have remembered that today is Ash Wednesday, i.e., the beginning of Lent.
They're all making sacrifices.
Cursing,
chocolate, music that's not Christian rock (!), and Barenaked Ladies.
I'm not particularly Christian (and probably wouldn't advertise my faith if I were).
But suffering is fun.
So I'm going to go 40 days without whining about my boy troubles.

Ready, set...

P.S. Ash Wednesday always follows Fat Tuesday. The whole point of Fat Tuesday is to precede Ash Wednesday.