Well, last night my wife and I got started in the baby-making business. For the first time in my life I've made a serious attempt to make another human being.

It's a pretty weird feeling, knowing that my wife could be pregnant right now. Of course, it's more likely that she's not pregnant. We haven't even started thinking about what parts of the month are best for baby-making, and I'd rather not have to worry about that. I'm keen to just take it as it comes, and see what happens.

I can remember when I was a kid, thinking about what the world would be like when I had kids of my own. Being something of a science fiction fan, I assumed there'd by flying cars and stuff, and I'd be able to get bionic arms if I wanted to. There have been a lot of little changes since then, but things still look a lot like they did back then.

I'm thinking of starting some sort of journal I can start writing to my future child. Baby photos are good, but wouldn't it be cool to be able to find out exactly what your parents were thinking when you were born?

I just wanted to take a minute of your time to note the passing of a man who might not otherwise get attention on e2. Massachusetts Democratic Representative John Joseph Moakley, in his sixteenth term, died today of leukemia at age 74. Nowadays, it’s popular to lambaste politicians on both sides of the aisle, but we forget that some of them are actually there to serve the public, a concept so alien to people that it illicits laughter when I try to talk to them about it because they can’t imagine anyone being sincere about such a thing.

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about Moakley, but what I’ve read makes me thing he’s a decent guy. One thing that impresses me is that he headed up the investigation into the deaths of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador in 1989. While the White House sent our money there and apologized for raping and murdering thugs, Moakley’s commission was responsible for cutting US aid to that country, which may have ended the civil war there.

Not everybody’s in it for the money.
Hooray! I have had yet another car stereo stolen! I thought that stopped happening once you got into your mid-twenties?

This is a story that I am sure many of you are familiar with. I am up in my room writing nodes and playing Robotron 2084 as usual. When my stepfather yells up to ask me why the lights are on inside my car. I go outside and see my driver's side door is slightly ajar, and my dashboard is completely ripped up and my car stereo is stolen This isn't the first time that this has happened, but it has been such a long time that the thought of vanishing car stereos had completely slipped my mind.

My stepfather calls the police even though that never really seems to help much in the case of car break ins. They didn't even attempt to take any fingerprints. My mother proceeded to get angry at me because the car was unlocked, she didn't understand that the car is a convertible and if it had been locked, then they just would have cut through the roof. I proceed to briefly log onto E2, where Eco was kind enough to offer me a mix tape, and then I head to work.

About halfway down my street there is a guy fucking installing a car stereo at 10:45 at night. I recognized both the guy and the car, he either lives in that house or is a frequent visitor there. He looked pretty scared when I slowed down and looked into his car as I drove by. I wasn't able to actually spot my stereo from my car, but he had his dash apart. I called home from the gas station and asked my stepfather to check it out. The guy was gone by the time he got there, but I plan on investigating the matter myself tommorrow.

And Now for Something Completely Different!

I went to work and had another one of my two minute encounters with Cindy. The ones that aren't quite long enough to ask her out. I told her about the stereo deal, and she reacted as anyone else would. But when she left she put both her hand on my shoulders and kind of gave a little squeeze. That is a good sign in my book. I always notice physical contact because I am one of those people who never touches anybody, and so is Cindy (we can spot our own kind). So that did alleviate a lot of the suck factor of losing my car MP3 player.

I will update this after I investigate the car down the street.
Update

I couldn't really see anything in the car when I looked in it this morning. The windows are tinted so dark that I can't even see if it has a stereo, much less my stereo. I am really not sure where to go with this now.

Update 2019

I literally have no memory of who Cindy even is.

So today I turn 28. May 29, 1973 I was brought into this world under less than ideal circumstances. It's a long story and I'm not going to go into it- suffice it to say that my parentage is not something that always sits well with me.

I've decided to quit smoking. Not because of some sort of health kick or fear of dying or anything like that. It's really quite simple. Cigarettes don't have a any positive effect on me. Some people contend that it makes them feel calmer when faced with stress. I, too, thought like that... until yesterday, that is. I started thinking about it, though. When I was younger and didn't smoke, what did I do to relieve stress? Too young to drink at the time and drugs were barely an idea in my head. I simply dealt with it and moved on. Back then I didn't need a crutch to think straight; I just got my shit together on my own. Cigarettes won't make me smarter, wiser, stronger, faster, kinder, more charismatic, more responsible, richer, healthier... point in fact, they take up a lot of my time, they make my clothes and breath stink, damage my lungs, make me irritable, cost a lot, detract from my attractibility and leave a smoggy film on the inside of my car windshield or my monitor screen. Since I don't need them, why have I been bothering to hold so tightly on to them? No real good reason comes to mind. So I'm quitting. Enough is enough.

I don't know what I'm going to do for my 28th birthday. I know I'll be going to work, but beyond that the day is unwritten and unplanned. I don't have a girlfriend to go out with, so there's no one to really share it with. Perhaps I'll go see a movie- but it seems kinda pathetic to go to a movie alone on your birthday, doesn't it? Yeah, sure, I'll probably end up at Cafe Coco just like I do every other night.

I'm getting into a rut. My new job is all well and good, but... well... I'm getting kinda bored with doing the same things day in and day out. I need something new and a little more interesting in my life right now than this job. Who am I kidding? I need a real life, not this fabricated fascimile of a life people think I lead. My real name isn't even Jay, for crying out loud. Jay is little more than a childhood/teenage character I created when I moved to Dallas while in the throes of a teen-angst identity crisis. I need to get back to being me, the real me.

Jeremy.

Hmmm... it's not really that bad a name, is it? Jeremy. Jeremias. Jeremiah. Jerome. Many wonderful variants of my name exist. I need to be me again. The child is gone and I'm finally coming into my own as a man, it's time to be me for a change.

Hi. Nice to meet you, World. I'm Jeremy Seals. Wanna hear a story or two? I've got a lot of 'em, just waiting to come out.

I never even look at my journal anymore. I’ve almost forgotten what restraint.org looks like.

I tell myself that the purpose of a journal is to accurately reflect and convey the events and happenings of a day, a week, a month, a year. That is what it is for, that is the purpose of keeping a log. Whenever I tell myself that, I find it impossible to write, however.

It is not enough to record. A deeper reason has to be found.

...

Whenever I look for the ideal of a ‘perfect journal’, I always find myself returning to Brandon, and gaijin.com. Not due to a stellar layout, or any design ability on his part, but because of the way he puts his words down into sentences, one after the other. I suppose that I trap myself at times, by reading his words, because I want to make my own seem equally soulful, profound, or ‘real’, whatever that means.

I want to be a star going nova, I want what it is I feel to be understood by those few who read my words, regardless of if they’re strangers, friends, family, or uninterested parties that stumbled here via a misdirected search engine. I want to be universal, I want to be passionate.

The longer I take between entries, the more I stay away from restraint, from the web in general, I find the colour draining out of my skin. I am unhappy with the quality of my writing and my inability to design, because it seems that I am unable to create, in any sense of the word. Nothing new is coming from me. Everything is rhetoric and ‘relevant social commentary’ I’ve picked up from oversized artsy novels. Pulp trash for the enlightened.

...

I’m twenty-two now. I’ve made it further than I thought I ever would, at least as far as time is concerned. When you’re sixteen, twenty-two is a world away.

I am only starting to learn what that means. I am only starting to understand that I am not still sixteen. I still accidentally answer ‘sixteen’ sometimes when asked my age. A slip, but not an overly embarrassing one.

...

Perhaps it’s not that things are falling apart, as it appears and has appeared for quite some time. Perhaps things simply decay, and atrophy, and are constantly in a state where they appear to be rusting, if care is not taken to preserve them.

I expect every morning to be better than the night previous, because that’s the way things were when I was sixteen. It was the summer of plenty, and there were always more of whatever I needed. Friends, money, laughs, cigarettes, run-ins with authority that only served to further my awareness of my own immortality.

Things will not be better in the morning anymore. The world no longer prepares itself for me while I sleep. I am no longer nearly as important; the universe has learned to get along without my constant help.

...

It’s never in the mornings that the dread sets in. It’s only in the early afternoon, when the limitations of my own abilities set in, and the competition and challenges of finding full-time work present themselves. (I cannot rely on contract work any further. I do not have the dedication.)

I am not where I want to be.

And the world will not carry me there.
It's been a big day for me. My girlfriend visited me for the weekend, which was great, of course. See, we've managed to keep a long-distance relationship going for three years now. We see each other whenever possible, which isn't too often, since we're both in college. This summer, she has an internship at John Deere, at a plant merely an hour away from me. I'll be able to see her just about every weekend; I'm taking classes this summer, so projects bar me from seeing her every chance I get.

Last night, I watched her as she slept next to me, her back rising and falling with her breaths, her soft skin in the moonlight, and I realized what love really is. It's not the special occasions, or great orgasms, or dinner at your favorite place. It's the normal, every day moments, the day-to-day humdrum, monotony that is made so much better just because she's there.

I made a decision. I'm taking out a loan. Buying a ring.

I'm going to ask her to marry me.

Here's the News for the day as of 9:59am Central European Time:
________________________________________________________________________________

International Herald Tribune (www.iht.com)

Jospin Envisions an Alternative EU
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin of France proposed a wide arc of left-wing social ambitions for Europe's future on Monday, with perspectives that swept from harmonized working conditions to a so-called economic government that would serve as a political watchman over the independent European Central Bank.

Moscow Unswayed by a U.S. Deal on Missile Pact
The Kremlin said Monday that its opposition to scrapping the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty would not be changed by a reported proposal by the Bush administration to incorporate Russian missiles and radars into a new anti-missile defense system.

After Riots, Politicians Point Fingers
the rioting last weekend between whites and Asians in Oldham, in the English Midlands, and finger-pointing in its aftermath by politicians campaigning for the election on June 7 have exposed volatile tensions in what is outwardly one of Europe's most stable multiethnic cultures.

Alcatel's Big Challenge: Making Lucent Work
For the company's board and its chairman and chief, Henry Schacht, it may make more sense to sell the limping Lucent now than to suffer years of restructuring, missed earnings estimates and Wall Street scrutiny. And someone happens to be willing to take on such a rehabilitation.

Sexy New Golf Magazines Aim at Swingers
The magazines that have long been the standard bearers for the golfing community have changed radically in the last year, shifting ownership, recruiting editors from different fields, radically redesigning and expanding with new titles.
________________________________________________________________________________

BBC (www.news.bbc.co.uk)

Blair woos business vote
Labour promotes its business manifesto as the UK general election agenda returns to tax and the economy.

Spy plane to return home
The US and China strike a deal to have the US spy plane stranded on Hainan island dismantled and transported home by cargo plane.

Vodafone posts £4bn profit
Mobile phone giant Vodafone unveils full year pre-tax profits of £4bn following a period of rapid expansion worldwide.

Sporadic violence in Oldham
Twenty-one youths are held after sporadic violence in Oldham overnight, but a huge police presence prevents a third night of race riots.

Nazi suspect faces extradition
An Australian court rules that Konrad Kalejs - who fled Britain last year - can be extradited to Latvia to face Nazi war crimes charges.
________________________________________________________________________________

The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)

H.M.O.'s and Hospitals Lag In Reporting Medical Errors
A federal program to protect patients from inept doctors is failing because H.M.O.'s and hospitals rarely report those doctors to the government as they are required to do.

Comair Strike May Change Industry
A walkout by pilots at a regional carrier based in Cincinnati that is now entering its 10th week could have a lasting impact on the airline industry.

A Perilous 4,000-Mile Passage to Work
From Mexico to Farmingville, N.Y., an illegal immigrant's journey to escape the poverty of his homeland is fraught with danger and sometimes death.

Russia Continues to Oppose Scrapping ABM Treaty
The Kremlin said that its opposition to scrapping the Antiballistic Missile Treaty would not be changed by a United States proposal that included military aid.

For Crucial California Trip, Bush Considers State's Energy Crisis
President Bush is set to meet with Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, to discuss California's energy problems during Mr. Bush's first visit to the state as president.
________________________________________________________________________________

Panapress (www.panapress.com/english)

Confusion after reported coup attempt in CAR
Dakar, Senegal - The situation remained unclear for much of Monday in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), after an overnight reported coup attempt against the government of President Ange-Felix Patasse.

Low school enrolment of African children worries UNESCO
Banjul, Gambia - UNESCO has underlined ""low enrolment of children into schools"" as one of the big challenges facing the organisation and the African education sector, according to Armoogum Parsuramen, the Director of UNESCO's Regional office in Dakar.

Senegal envisages party pre-conditions for elections
Dakar, Senegal - Political parties would henceforth have to meet purtain pre-condition to field candidates in elections in Senegal, President Abdoulaye Wade hinted Monday evening in Dakar.

Belgian PM to visit DR Congo June ending
Brussels, Belgium - Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt is expected to attend the 30 June festivities marking the 41st independence anniversary of DR Congo.

Church closed after drug find
Freetown, Sierra Leone - Leaders of the Celestial Church of Christ in the western Sierra Leonean capital Freetown, say they have ordered the Church closed following the discovery of a large quantity of cocaine and the subsequent arrest of some pastors.
________________________________________________________________________________

China Daily (http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/news/index.html

China, US agree to ship EP-3 spy plane back on a cargo jumbo
The United States and China have agreed to a deal "in principle" that would ship the damaged US Navy spy plane EP-3 home aboard a commercial cargo aircraft, officials from both sides said on May 28.

Ties with Russia witness sound new development
The two initiators of the strategic co-operative partnership between China and Russia met Monday in Beijing, and admired the sound development bilateral ties are currently enjoying.

New rules to strike gold
Gold market deregulation in China is expected to boost demand for the metal once it resumes its functions as a common commodity and investment tool.

US warship barred from visiting Hong Kong
China has refused a port call by a US warship to Hong Kong, the first denial since a mid-air collision between an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet off the south China coast on April 1.

Harry Potter sales break 1.3 million in China
The Harry Potter books have sold more than 1.3 million copies in China, prompting the launch of the fourth book in the series in the world's most populous country, publishers said Monday.
________________________________________________________________________________

Moscow Times (www.themoscowtimes.com)

Moscow: We Won't Scrap ABM
Moscow seems as determined as ever to actively oppose U.S. plans for a missile defense shield.

Yeltsin Drops In on Jiang in Beijing
Looking fitter than he has in years, former President Boris Yeltsin touched down in Beijing on Monday.

Putin Dresses Down Kasyanov on Budget
The President told Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Monday "not to repeat mistakes of the past."

Maskhadov: Peace Talks 'Inevitable' for Chechnya
Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov said in an interview that peace talks with Russia were "inevitable."

Shevardnadze Quells Mutiny Attempt
Nationalist protesters clashed with police in Georgia only hours after President Eduard Shevardnadze defused an army mutiny, as the country marked a decade of independence. ________________________________________________________________________________


A Very Merry UnBirthday to
everyone
____________________________________________________________

Oh and I just found out that Prince is now a Jehovah's Witness. WOW!

(sigh) The bathroom remodeling project first mentioned here drags into it's third wearying day...

Major time / planning killers to date:

  • The *IDIOT* who installed the original tub set it on a blob of concrete, effectively gluing it to the floor. This meant it had to be pried out, and the concrete slab beneath leveled. (I didn't mention this in Saturday's log because I was at work during this phase and didn't find out about it until today.)
  • Sunday was plumbing day, which would have gone much faster if the nearby mega chain hardware store had kept a simple bloody common part in stock! I'd not normally have gone to the mega chain but the local friendly neighborhood hardware store was closed it being the Sunday of a holiday weekend. This meant we had to drive 12 miles to the next nearest *other* mega chain store to buy the parts. (24 miles of driving, a gallon of gas, all for $1.20 worth of parts.)
  • Today everything went not too bad until it came time to put the liner on the walls around the tub... And discovered we had put the blasted *window* six inches off. We spent the last half of the day ripping it out and putting it where it should have been in the first place.
It's *Monday night* and we are barely where we should have been *Sunday noon*.

Even more annoying.... We taped plastic sheeting around the walls so My Lady and I could take a shower in order to not overmuch shock anyone at work tommorow, only to discover the tub drain does not work properly. We both had to take a shower in water up over our ankles, then finish by washing our feet in a basin in the kitchen.

We kept repeating to ourselves, it will be worth it when it's done... it will be worth it when it's done...

The past month or so has been spent inside a wonderful world of php, mysql, win2k, interoffice politics, maintaining some sort of arms length distance from my fellow co-workers so I don't slug them, slowly suffocating from the anticipation of a summer in my home town out from under familial branches, and the vague disquiet at having what was a "likely" entrance into a class turn into an essay and code sample justification of my existence.

I look forward to the (snicker) more uncomplicated days of summer, when I can once again add to ye olde database at a rate more pleasing to my brain-lobes.

I wonder if I should write this daylog on this date, or on yesterday's, because I have not yet been to sleep. I got online at 11 pm last night, and now it is 5:41 am, and I am nowhere near sleep. And I have an appointment at 10 this morning to fix the computer of a woman at my church.

I have had a faith in God for as long as I can remember. It started before I knew it ever existed, blossomed in my pre-teen years, and became more mature and serious when I was in college. And I don't know what to make of it all right now.

Spiritual rapist, I call people like this. Like the Calvinist I talked to for hours, attempting to decimate my faith in a loving God who loved us enough to give us free will yet redemption, and replace Him with one who would eternally damn the innocent to set an example, and replace us with puppets who are here -- in the words of this guy -- for God's entertainment. And we're not supposed to question this, either.

What the fuck would Jesus do?

During our conversation and afterwards, I found myself getting very angry with this God I thought I knew. Calling him a sadist. Accusing him of breaking what I thought were unbreakable promises. Who wants to be the adopted child of an abusive father who hated us even though he made us? Is God's love really conditional, upon a condition that we cannot even choose?

But then it would surge back: No. This CANNOT be the way it is. We love because He first loved us.

I am angry. At God, if that's the cold, harsh reality of things. But moreso, at myself, because I'm so easily swayed, too open-minded; why can I not stand my ground? I do have my own thoughts and opinions. Why can I not articulate them in the face of someone like this?

I remember four years ago, another conversation I had about religion that changed my life. It was with a classmate who was Sikh; I had never heard of a worldview such as his before. I felt like the universe was opening up... that I saw so much more, and I was smaller in the whole Scheme of Things, and was scared. This time I feel it closing, being suffocated with the beliefs I thought I had left behind long ago.

Some will say, That is what religion does to you! Come out of it and free your mind. But I cannot. My faith is at the core of my being, but how is it being shaken so?

The only prayer I have left is, "God, please don't let me lose you."

Nose Blocked. Mind unclear. The sun is out and I'm in Here. Studying, or not as the case maybe, I am now officially lazy. I wish, oh how I wish that I could think straight, and avoid my most inevitable fate. Little do they know how I fear, in three days to be sitting there, alone and a bit afraid, not ready to be made...

Yeck! Such cowardice, when I can rhyme, surely then there is time, for me to pull myself in, and save my scaredy cat skin. Alas and alack I wish I were brave, but my big exam looms and I crave, the simple delight of a degree ill got, without my stomach tied into a knot.

Wow... I feel so good right now, I can't believe that all of this is happening to me right now.

First of all, this is the first day of the rest of my life. Well, not counting graduation, but it's offically the summer for me now. I never thought I'd see this day, but here I am, out of school and graduation on Saturday, and so close to getting out of public school forever. I have so many mixed emotions right now. Part of me wants to go into the commons, flip everyone off and say "Fuck Ya'll", and the other part never wants to leave high school.

Another thing is, me and my boss (I think) have made up our differences. At least I hope so. He came in on Friday and sat down and talked about what I am to do with my current project and actually gave me free reign over it. I think he's testing me to make sure I can actually do it, which I'll suprise him, because he never really paid attention to what I've done in years past.

And the biggie, me and my love decided to become offical bf/gf. It happened last night in a most unlikely spot, CiCi's resturant. We were sitting in the store and we looked deeply into each others eyes, and she said, "I love you, you wanna make this offical?" It was like lifting the world off of me. I said yes and kissed her. Well we finished our supper and went to the car to talk (hour long conversation deleted). I don't think I have ever smiled so much in my life, even before the middle school depression set in, I even woke up this morning with a smile on my face.

Quick and Dirty Daylog

I'm experiencing a new kind of relationship with this woman I've begun dating. New because all of my feelings and thoughts and bodily sensations are available to me in a way they have never been before.

I can feel respect growing for her as I learn more about her life, pure friendship growing, pure lust(!), and a genuine affection is developing. She is kind, and warm and gentle. She feels older than me, she's two years younger but feels more mature. She's prissy, but that's okay, it really is.

I also feel the fear of being intimate with some one and allowing them to be close to me. I am afraid of other, more innocuous things such as not performing adequately in bed, not liking parts of making love to a woman, fear of her not liking my body, things like that.

Last night I saw her - it was our fifth date - and we got chinese take out and did a lot of cuddling and some making out and a lot of talking. Her voice is warm and sexy. I'm detached and intellectual about it, no, I don't know how to explain it. I am afraid that I really am falling in love with her. I already love her in some wierd program sort of way.

Ok, now it's official. The worst day since.. let's say since January. Funny though, my worst days seem to coincide with the examination periods.

They really are to blame. Because there were exams earlier today, university bureaucrats decided to close almost whole PEC and therefore I wasn't able to play basketball. I've been looking forward to it since Thursday. I'm thinking about the comeback. Basketball is great fun. But I think I had an occultic feeling there's nothing there; in the PEC. Still, disappointing.

Before that I thought I want to eat some English liquorice and I went to Tesco to buy them. Here's what I bought:
- Tesco value tomato & cheese pizza, 49p.
- Lucozade original drink, 55p.
- Tesco English liquorice, 59p.
- The Independent, newspaper, 45p.
- Cadbury chocolate 100g, 69p.

When I managed to limp myself back to Halls I ate the whole son of b.. chocolate. And then half of the liquorice. Then I felt sick. To be more precise, I felt sick even before that. It was really horrible to have a headache without hangover. I mean, when you have a hangover you're expecting that. You know it's about to hit. I wasn't drinking last night. I rarely do.
My floormate was puking in the toilet, though. Listening to him throwing up didn't cheer me up, as one might think.

I tried to sleep a bit, had a siesta. I know it was the poor quality of sleeping that made me feel bad. I laid down for about 45 minutes, semiconscious. It helped a wee bit.

I saved rest of the liquorice for the evening, to eat them after the basketball or just to donate to my floormates. I felt bad about them, liquorice I mean. The advertisers got me again. I'm really screwed.

In the morning I got something to done, at least. I scanned three pictures and edited them slightly. Two of them I published in the Geocities.

I thought I saw Gaelle in the library but I'm not sure. I didn't have a power to hollo after her. She went past me unnoticed; if she really was her. Loss of will to do anything at all.

Now I come to the point where I decided to have liquorice. (Sorry about non-chronical order.) On my way to Tesco I met a cute Chinese girl who was coming from the System Software examination. Describingly, the best time of my day was casual chat for two minutes with her. (I don't expect anything better to happen today anymore. I'm too fucked up to do anything interesting and too bad influence for any of my hard-working friends.)

I think I should go for a wee run now but dunno.. My body has prepared itself to have a physical effort. I sweat like a pig.
Maybe I complete my idea of The Ballot Advisor -- an expert system for elections. I doubt I'll do it but the idea ain't too bad: It will ask questions and based on answers it eventually tells you why not to vote - Either the government will be too leftwing or rightwing for your taste and it will be too liberal or when you believed their promises to legalize cannabis and so forth, they're going to give more power to police instead.

At the moment, I wish I had some ganja. After smoking staring at the ceiling is not too bad thing to do. While not high, it is. But the odds are, that's excactly what I'm going to do. Sad but true. There is free will but it's on a holiday today.

See you tomorrow, I'm a new man by then.

Man, I cut work today & I feel terrible. I was so tired after yesterday, I couldn't go. At least, that's what I tell myself. So I re-wrote some write-ups that had bad rep. I figured I might as well do something productive, you know.

I also read about Everything 2 Civil War today. Man, that's interesting. I mean, individual vs. system... One could write a kick ass psychology report on this stuff! I don't have psych tho, so I'm not up for that. But I bet it'd be interesting =)


The negative rep write-ups I re-wrote:
Also re-wrote some of my computer game write-ups to comply with the Computer And Video Games : Noding convention for entries. standards:

I’m a bit tucked after Memorial Day: precipitous news combined with merry revelry, magnified by a lack of coffee this morning adds up to a bit too much weekend.

It looks more and more like one of my housemates will be moving out in June. I have been looking forward to her departure for quite some time, even though I stand to lose money on a wager position, having bet that she would not actually leave. It was confirmed yesterday that she has purchased her ticket to Singapore, where she will take a teaching position in film history at a university there. This will be her first job since graduating with a master’s degree in video art last April. Anyway, her mother was out to see her this weekend, and thereby relieved the house of her passive-aggressive personality and allowed us all to enjoy the weekend a little bit more.

Are you sitting down?” segues my father after we had discussed seven-gallon carboys, champagne bottles, and the Indy 500. It seems that he has been prone to fainting this past month, and while setting up for an ultrasound the tech could not get a shadow near his pelvis to resolve. Further scanning on other equipment has identified this shadow as a fist-size mass attached to his appendix and the small/large intestinal interface and pelvis. The biopsy of this mass has confirmed that it is cancerous. Last week, in addition to a barium enema and a bone marrow biopsy he had a harrowing MRI experience. He has been advised to go with chemotherapy and this week will have more tests done to ascertain dosages. Treatment may start as early as in two weeks.

My house celebrated the start of summer with a barbecue. Unfortunately, the nearby Grocery Outlet was all but out of beer, so we had to settle for a sweet tasting Danish beer in green cans, “Bear Beer”. The house vegetarians assented to the grilling of sausages and chicken alongside their zucchini and eggplant. The men looked quite suave in their seersucker suits, and the women very pretty indeed in their sundresses.

I am at work now, writing this after having obtained coffee. This is the first time I have repeated to myself the contents of yesterday’s telephone conversation. This is different from the last time. Three years ago it was a heart attack, the emergency room people did a great job, and he was scheduled for bypass surgery the next week. I flew out to meet him coming out of the anesthesia. Action was all I could do. This, this is all schedules, plans calendrical. Everything is laid out like hopscotch. I wonder as to where my place is this time.

I'm sitting here thinking about regrets. Oddly enough, one of my biggest regrets is a small incident, one that probably meant little to the other people involved. But it's mine, and I'm gonna explore it.A few years ago I was waiting in line in a grocery store to buy doughnuts. Ahead of me was a little boy. He was grasping a five dollar bill and he was grinning very big. He was probably about 6 or 7 years old. As I watched him, it became obvious that he had been entrusted with the important task of going to the doughnut counter and buying doughnuts. He was proud. He was excited. He felt so grown up and by god, he was going to do this right. I got a kick out of watching him. Oh, one other thing....the little boy was black.

Behind me, in some booths where old men meet their buddies for coffee, were some old men meeting their buddies for coffee. I'm still not sure if these men knew the little boy was there, or if they were just being racist old men, but these guys started making nigger jokes. Loudly. As I stood in line and listened to these men be total idiots, I saw the little boy's face fall. I saw his smile disappear. I saw his pride go away. I saw his excitement in the moment be replaced with confusion and fear. And, to my shame....I said nothing. That is my regret that I'm thinking about today. I let two old men turn that bright smile to a grim fear, and I said nothing. I went home and cried. And I vowed that if something like that ever happened again, I wouldnt remain silent. I hope I get another chance.

Reading through today's daylogs I hardly feel worthy. So many people finding or losing love or creating or setting course on their lives. It doesn't matter, I'm writing for myself. The critical, impatient eye of Everything serves only to remind me to cut the crap.

My girlfriend has continued to propose to me, proclaiming an inconceivable love, and I.. I can't imagine it. As if she's suggesting setting up in llama farming. It's not that I don't love her. The connection she has in my heart is deep and tender. Yet, I have doubts about how she fits into my life at the moment -- and I fit into hers. Circumstances are hard. She is being pressured into working long hours for qualification she craves. I am sitting idly by, thinking too much, before I start work in a week's time, working for the money.

I sometimes feel the urge to just do something; to take my life in my own hands and shape it into something worthwhile. I fear falling into a groove and forgetting myself. I'm too young to be bitter and twisted yet I think that is how I'm going to turn out unless I check out of the no surprises motel soon.

Taking a few weeks out between jobs has been a shock to the system. The removal of structure has, at times, left me feeling confused and directionless. Like a caged animal with it's door left open. It requires an increase in confidence that comes from taking risks and surviving. I need to take considered risks to remind me what it feels to be alive. The easy road leads to hell.

So this is the purpose of this write-up, to remind myself to avoid the slow death.

I didn't mean to write this much.

I braved the long weekend in the same way that a doughty steed would negotiate the Aintree Grand National. There were periods of boredom,excitement,love and a great deal of stamina was called for.

It all began last Saturday when my gf and I went to see "a one and a two", which is a charming Taiwanese epic. It focuses on how a family can fall apart imperceptibily. A divorce by stealth. There is redemption at the end, but from the moment the the grand-dame of the family goes into a coma, things start to go wrong. I'm still trying to work out to what the title refers.

We ate Vietnamese cuisine. This expands the list of international foods we have consumed. Other foods we ate this weekend include Turkish (stuffed vine leaves, aubergine and calamary), Greek salad, whelks and cockles.

On Sunday, we visited Spitalfields market, something I would urge everyone to do before it turns into an ugly corporate office block. Spitalfields is a beautiful old market where you find all manner of goods including fashion, organic foods, retro household goods (they don't make lamps like they used to), exotic soaps and Hello Kitty merchandise. I signed a petition urging the that the demolition be halted.

That evening, at Wetherspoons pub in Wood Green, we grew bored. What would be do with Bank Holiday Monday? All 24 hours of Monday threatened to mug us and force us to hand over our happiness. So we thought of a plan. We would visit Brighton, the gayest, hippest resort in England.

We rose at the crack of dawn and left at 6:30, thinking a long line of traffic awaited us. However, the motorways welcomed us with open lanes and we sped along, over the toll bridge, around and under the belly of London until we happened on the M23 which carried us all the way to that fabled coastal redoubt. We arrived, feeling sheepish and tired, at 8.

Mist imprisoned the whole of Brighton that morning. With bloodhounds it mercilessly hunted down and laughed at all fugitive sun rays. We tried to make the best of the day but the beach was combed by forbidding chill winds. We visited all the trendy shops and a I bought a cool T-shirt. We walked the promenade by the seafront. We sipped coffee and read the paper. However, nothing could allay the disappointed we felt due to the absence of sun.

Thus, at five that same evening, we endured a snail of traffic that clamoured its way out of Brighton. As soon as we left, the prison gates opened and the sun lit up the sky like a forgetful generous uncle who rarely visits, but whose visits are always very, very welcome.

On my walk to the subway last Wednesday, it looked like there'd been a pretty nasty accident just minutes before I'd arrived. All the vehicles involved had been moved to the side of the road, but it was fairly clear that someone on a motorbike had been sent flying by an impact with a car. He was lying in the middle of the road, and an ambulance was pulling up as I walked by.

Yesterday, I saw several bunches of flowers placed at the side of the road, next to where he'd been lying.

I can't quite work out why including it here, but it's something that's been at the back of my mind for the past couple of days.


It's exam time again. One down, five to go. I'd hardly done any work over the year, so needed to teach myself quite a bit of stuff, and I've been spending a lot of time in the library at uni. I just don't get anything done at home - Big Brother is live on e4 during the day, and it's just too tempting to watch.

The security guards in the library really annoy me. Food and drink in the library is against regulations, but I think it's a bit over the top to not allow students to have a bottle of water sitting on the desk they're working at, especially since it's so warm in there.

I did manage to get lunch with Lisa, though - been a while since I'd seen her, and it sure beat eating a sandwich on my own on the library steps.

By the way, would the noder who sent me a text message last night please own up... :)

updated: e4

Both girls are in bed and the house is clean. The wife content on the couch with Frasier babbling away in the background. Outside in Tampa it's still like 90 degrees, or something. Uncorking the wine from last night.

My oldest daughter insists on listening to the Bambi soundtrack on her pink Hello Kitty cd player at bedtime - this is the soundtrack, mind you, complete with scary thunderstorm and audible gunshot. The stuff of nightmares.

One day back at work and already my weekend is ruined - three Java upgrades (one Friday, another Sunday morning at some ungodly hour), plus the threat of a scheduled Enterprise 10000 SSP upgrade. Will try to weasel out of the SSP thing, as these are panic-filled overnight ordeals.

My sister-in-law's boyfriend is a painter (interiors, not the artistic sort), and I'm starting to consider what a nice, soothing job that must be. He smokes a lot of weed, and I'm hoping he can hook me up.

Wine. '98 William Hill Cabernet Sauvignon. This bottle will soon be empty.

Today I spent most of it in bed. I decided I would get out of my bed today and give my dog a bath, after Days of Our Lives though, couldn't do it before because all the other Soaps were on! Well my friend calls me and informs me of the Quotes from sleeping people node and begins reading them to me while my dog runs around the house soaking wet because apparently 3 towels weren't enough to dry her.

I run upstairs to get the hair dryer and chase my dog around who actually really loves it but she's also rubbing herself all over the couch all rolling around trying to dry herself. She's shedding horribly! She disappears for a while and I'm like where did she go? I find her running around our giant round table with a bag in her mouth. Which the day before I put these cactus plants in that she tore out of the pot. Now there was dirt everywhere, all over the carpet everything so I get the vacuum and my dog has an obsession with that too! She has this obsession with trying to get her tongue stuck in it, she keeps sticking her mouth on it. Of course this is when the vacuum doesn't have the huge rolling head, it's when it's still a pipe. With the huge rolling head she dodges back and forth and won't stop barking at it.

Well that's all the exciting stuff that happened today now I'm back in my bed writing this thing. Something else happened but I'm not allowed to say, but it involves my sister's friend's brother. Sigh. Drugs, I think that's hint enough and I may sound mean, but I don't really mean to. But anything is preventable if you try hard enough, that's my theory.

Oh yes, must remember to order take out too!

"But that's not the most disturbing part...ANTS!"

After a hard day of doing astrophysics I return home to find a small invasion in progress in my house. Every summer there is an ant problem in this house. Usually this consists of a small trail of ants being found in some sweet food that has been left open or in a dirty dish. This year, however, the ants seem to have decided it's time to stop fooling around. A few days ago we found ants crawling all over a set of shelves where we keep some of our food. So, we tried to remove anything that would especially attract ants, put don some ant "bait stations" (sometimes referred to as "ant traps"), and I went outside the house to spray what appeared to be the point of entry on the exterior wall. Well, by yesterday this was clearly not enough. The ants were back and in greater numbers. This time we moved all the food from that area permanently, I sprayed the areas there where there seemed to be the most ants, set up more "bait stations", and again I went to spray outside. This time I found that not only was there a trail of ants leading to the offending side of the house, but there was one leading all the way along the back of the house, in-front of the two back doors, and then up to the top of the one main back door, where the ants seemed to disappear beneath the insulation around the door and not emerge in any obvious place. In addition, there was another trail of ants leading straight up the back wall of the house and into a small hole in the masonry on the second level. This was when I first noticed that some of the ants had wings. "Curiouser and curiouser..." I don't know a whole lot about ants, but I believe that large numbers of ants with wings are normally only found during seasonal periods of reproduction. "That can't be good for business. That can't be good for anybody."

Having done all that, I was surprised to return home today to find their forces redoubled. I found even more trails of ants leading into various openings, cracks, and fissures in the exterior of the house. I found ants crawling in long lines along the baseboards of the laundry room and out of a small crack in the wall next to the cabinetry in the kitchen onto the counter. I found them forming long supply lines along the cable strung along the outside of the house. Far more disturbing was the fact that under the window sills on the outside of the house were large clumps of ants, still alive but just sitting there, with others bustling all around. There were winged ones peppered throughout the whole force, but by far the most were found in these clumps. I can't discern their purpose, but I don't have a good feeling. I did basically the same think as before. I sprayed all the lines of ants I could find on and leading up to the house outside, paying special attention to the entry points. I sprayed and sprayed until I ran out of poison. I set up more "bait stations" all around the kitchen and the laundry room, and I spread cinnamon on the counter around the spots where they seemed to be getting in, as this is harmless to us but seems to cause them great distress, and I've been told that it covers up their chemical trails so that they can't follow them. I don't know if it's true or a myth. I don't really know what else to do. I don't really want to call an exterminator, because I don't like the idea of them spreading incredibly potent poisons around my house (much, much worse than anything I'm using), and besides, I don't really want to kill the ant colonies, I just want them to stay the hell out of my house.

So, wish me luck, and if you think you have any good suggestions, /msg me.

Today I woke up very early, and started packing and organizing things much like a hamster on acid would organize the seeds in his little bowl and the lettuce in his cage.
All this in the mistaken assumption that Miss Nice would be swinging by at 0800 to pick up some of her stuff. You see, I live in Miss Nice's former apartment, that she has been kind enough to lend to me. Now that I am leaving, the lease terminates and she is getting back her furniture.
Anyway, I called her at 0830, and it turned out that she would indeed swing by but at at 8 PM, not 8 AM. Good thing I did not wake her up.

This sort of things happen when you try to leave a job on Thursday and then make an intercontinental move on Saturday. Maybe it was not a very clever idea. We will see.
Today at work, slackery. I am rapidly transferring all my duties and hated responsabilities to the capable mibarra. I hope being a boss does not grind him down. I was ground down, quite a bit.

I am looking forward to being back in Italy and reorganizing my life and environment. Right now, I can't even make myself a cup of coffee.

... I am so confused these days that I originally posted this under April 29! Silly baffo!


<---oOo--->

All my nukes and edits and things for this month are in Editor Log: May 2001

The summer begins...
The documentation of the first day of my last high school summer vacation.

I woke up at an early hour and sat around doing nothing for a little while. Eventually Bob Barker appeared and motivated me to get out and about with daily whatnot.

I went over to Aaron’s house, and we went to Shoe Carnival to pick up my purse, which had been carelessly left behind in a previous shopping escapade. I then took my horribly neglected car to its home, the Saturn dealership, to get a much deserved, three week and nine-hundred-forty-eight mile overdue oil change. After handing my Hello Kitty bedecked keys over to the maintenance man, Aaron and I went inside the showroom and proceeded to finish crossword puzzles in old People magazines.

After about twenty minutes, the same service guy comes in with a stack of papers. He says my exhaust pipe is leaking (the second occurrence in the two years I’ve owned this car), and that is needs to be replaced again. It was covered under the warranty since the thing had some weird manufacturer’s defect in the first place, so I was not too concerned. However, this forced Aaron and I to spend another 45 minutes together trying to think of a name for fish eggs that started with an R. We were showered with gifts, including Diet Coke and cookies. Unfortunately I was doubled over due to cramps, so I was unable to appreciate the kindness at the time.

I dropped Aaron off at home and went back to my place to recuperate from the pain in my uterus. Ended up falling asleep for an hour an a half – a very short nap by kaytay’s standards – and called Aaron back as he had asked me to do.

The one and only Jonathan was over at Aaron’s house, along with the Schmoo. We went to pick up Seth from his house, and ended up staying there for a half hour or so talking with his dad and watching the Simpsons. Seth’s dad is really cool. He looks just like Santa Clause, beard and all, and is full of vulgar words and hilarious stories about his childhood. He even offered to cook us oatmeal bars from scratch.

Upon arriving back at Aaron’s, we played Three Bucks Up for about an hour and a half. At first I did not want to join in, but when Jon offered to give me double the money I caught due to my broken and mangled right foot in a walking cast, I could not resist. I ended up winning three times out of about a million, which was much better than I expected to do. Jon is 6’4”, Aaron is 6’5”, and Schmoo is 6’6”. Seth doesn’t count due to his Polish ancestry and the fact that he beat everyone to the age of 21. I was lucky not to get hurt by the huge stampede of 820 pounds of competitive, grunting, whining madmen.

Nick showed up just as the game was coming to an end. He was wearing his usual sandals with work socks, the butt of all jokes as always. We were trying to decide on a place to eat after working up such an appetite, but Nick claimed to be full and went home to play Ultima. Everyone was really disappointed. He never seems to come with us anymore.

Jon suggested we go to The Stable, a restaurant he and his parents found a couple years ago off the highway. Jon swore it had awesome chicken wings and good soup, and despite his methadone-induced haze he was willing to drive if need be. We gave in to his pleas, but ended up taking the big purple van instead. Schmoo, the biggest of us all, was stuffed into the trunk and then we were off.

The food was okay, but the one empty chair sitting across from me at our table was a saddening sight. If only Nick had come with, we would have had a full table and another guy to split the bill with. Aaron and Schmoo were busy playing arcade games conveniently located next to our table, and winning bouncy balls for a quarter. Alas, they were unable to win the bonus something-or-other despite spending a fortune in quarters.

That was the highlight of my evening. A few of the boys went on a little drive afterwards, but I chose to stay home and be the responsible female that I always tend to be. No matter the ages of those involved, the girl of the group always seems to be the party pooper and bearer of common sense. I know someone needs to do it, but why me?

We miss you, Nickathan.

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