i do feel very withdrawn.. i am not sure if i am ready for the way the universe is reeling anymore. there is no time, and far too much time. you are not there, or here, i have crawled inside myself so many times this week only to emerge feeling so strong and crash crash crash crashing asleep dizzy drunk do i even remember how to appreciate my breath anymore?

i know there are some people that do not care how i write or what i write and i know there are some that would criticize me.. well, who knows as to how many saw the daylog that was written calling me a stupid girl, saying that most everything i have scrawled here is crap. the way i like to write about the way i saw pieces of my world unfold at any given point.. the fact that i do not just concentrate on the end or half ways, beginnings, i try to bring it altogether. i have always been like that. i am not sorry that anyone doesn't like what i write, i am only sorry that you wasted the time it took you to insult me, when your brain could have been feeding on sun or clouds or dark or, life. i am only sorry that you can not see through my eyes..

dad is in the hospital, still. i walked and cried more than once this week, for him and for the times that i don't think will ever be again. vacations, smiles. of course there will be things for us all again.. it is not the end, it never is.. sometimes it is hard not to sink.

i miss you.. i haven't hurt so bad, ever, as i have more than once this past week. ripped and torn and kicked and bleeding and.. he was nothing, that, was nothing. i know now. i have wanted your arms more than i can tell you.. i want your voice and your eyes.. i need you.

i felt like i would never write again. it did not last so long, it felt like forever.

Everything Day Logs
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Everything Snapshot

Time: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 00:21:06 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_ssl/2.4.10 OpenSSL/0.9.4 mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 747195 (907 new since November 9, 2000)
Number of users: 20434 (36 new since November 9, 2000)
Number of links: 2551634 (13752 new since November 9, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.566 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 3.415 links per node
Link to user ratio: 124.872 links per user

New Nodes: [E2 nuke request] [Thomas Jefferson] [madmen have a world all their own] [November 9, 2000] [HOW-TO rebuild a lot of Windows boxes] [Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets] [The Tell-Tale Heart] [Microsoft Systems Management Server] [November 10, 2000] [like a diamond etches glass] [Barbara Walker] [Taleban] [General Gun Safety] [human growth hormone] [Mount Erebus]

Users Online (44): [hamster bong] [mat catastrophe] [yam] [dragoon] [Magenta] [bob the cow] [blaaf] [m1a9366b] [ToasterLeavings] [kamamer] [girlotron] [dr] [siren] [junkpile] [hodgepodge] [Cow Of Doom] [Mojo Jojo] [Katyana] [Byzantine] [briiiiian] [sockpuppet] [narzos] [piq] [Senso] [Phyllis Stein] [cody] [0137] [Gone Jackal] [yerricde] [tobtoh] [weStLY] [Blue_Bellied_Lizard] [Malebranche] [Ryouga] [madvid] [fozzy] [BAR] [Weramona] [dihydrogen monoxide] [grizzly] [ContraB] [HairBear] [archimedes_plutonium] [CraigHubley]

JeffMagnus node count: 4039 (1 new since November 9, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9678 (11 more since November 9, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.396 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.541%
JeffMagnus node of the day: God

This is probably the most boring day I’ve had in quite some time. It’s not very often when I can sit in one spot for hours at a time and just feel useless.

Woke up at 6:30 to go to school, as always. We had our Veteran’s Day assembly – it lasted almost two hours. Two hours, most of which consisted of long speeches given by students and faculty about the history of war. I’m surprised West Ottawa can expect its students to sit through this every year without growing restless. I stared at the clock the entire time, counting the seconds as they went by. Then something Jenn Starry said caught my attention. She was talking about her grandpa serving in WWII. Suddenly, I could se my grandfather on the stage, smiling towards me. His big belly and large hands as I had always remembered them. He was wearing his uniform, with all the medals pinned to the front. A tear formed in my left eye, and I quickly stopped listening to the words that caused my memory.

I looked at my knees, at the flute laying across my lap. I could hear my grandpa telling one of his stories about Italy and the battles he fought while there. I could picture him sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, wearing his ever-present suspenders and the glasses that slid down his nose, dealing our four decks of cards to teach my brother and I how to play Hand and Foot. I see him napping in his chair, a towel placed behind his head. He was so strong, so capable. I wonder if he can hear my thoughts, and if he misses me as much as I miss him.

I went home after the assembly and went back to bed. Slept until 3:30 in the afternoon, and finally woke up to change out of my skirt. I put on a pair of light blue hospital pants stolen from Iowa. And continued reading A Rose in Winter.

Made pancakes for dinner since my parents did not seem to be coming home. Made a list of everything I had eaten during the day, and then tore it up in frustration and disgust. I fed the last pancake to my dog, and went back to bed.

I woke up to the sound of my brother’s girlfriend laughing. My parents had finally gotten home, and there was a package waiting for me on the kitchen counter. It contained a copy of Winter’s Heart, the ninth book of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I smiled briefly, read the first page of the prelude, carefully placed the book on a chair, and went back to sleep.

Overall, not a very pleasant day. Even the arrival of my long-awaited book did not have the power top lift my spirits. Boredom seems to have that effect.

I have just had a vaguely surreal E2-related experience.

On a music mailing list I subscribe to for some reason or another (since I have more of a fascination with the group rather than a liking for their work), someone had posted a link to my writeup on E2 about the group in question, with the caption "You've got to laugh, eh.". A subsequent post to the same list then quotes another writeup of mine (which was linked to the original writeup), which the poster appeared to find quite funny.

I think this is one to chalk up to general freakiness. The world sometimes seems too darn small for me.

Well, the x-rays didn’t show that I have the cervical ribs, which is a good thing. Now I don’t have to have surgery, at least for the removal of the ribs anyway. They still don’t know what’s causing the loss of circulation in my arms though. It’s not a big deal, but it is a scary thought that when I raise my arms above my head that the blood stops flowing to my hands. The blood tests came back ok though, there’s no sign of anything wrong which could cause the tingling in my arms. I guess that it’s both good and bad, I know what’s NOT the cause, but that still doesn’t tell me any more than I’ve known before. The doctor wants me to see this other doctor, a vascular surgeon, who supposedly is pretty good. The bad part about this is that first I don’t know if this guy is covered by my insurance, and my appointment is not till November 29th. So basically I have to wait and not try and think about it too much in the meantime.

I also tried calling my primary doctor, but since I’ve come up here to school, at CSU, he’s gone out of business. FUCK!!! I mean what do I do now. I know I can get a new one, but I don’t want to really. I like the guy I’ve been seeing in the past. I don’t know. I mean I guess that it’s not a huge deal, I’ve dealt with my arms being like this for a little while now, and I can deal with it for a little longer. But it still upsets me you know? I don’t like knowing that something that’s wrong has the potential to be hazardous to my health. Oh well I guess there’s not much I can really do in the meantime except to wait and hope for the best.

I am looking at buying a new car here in a bit: a 1988 4Runner. My girlfriend has one too actually, an NO I didn’t decide to get one because she had one, i’ve wanted to get one since I was 15 or so. They’re sweet!! Anyways I’m most likely going home this weekend to go take a look at it. I hope it all works out with the car and the arm stuff. We’ll find out soon. I’m going to talk to Becky tonight, and I’m going to let her know about what’s happened. I figure that since the possibilities that I’ll have to have surgery are pretty slim now, it’ll be ok to tell her.

Had a viva in Surgery today at Royal North Shore Hospital today. It lasted all of 20 minutes.

There were a total of three examiners, in two ten minute sessions. The cases discussed were: i) a man with a swollen, red, painful leg, ii) a post-thyroidectomy woman with shortness of breath, iii) a man brought in to the emergency department after a motor vehicle accident and iv) acute cholecystitis vs. biliary colic

I think I did reasonably well, except for fumbling with the last one. I wasn't too comfortable with biliary colic and that sort of threw me off a little -- I do know enough about cholecystitis, darnit.


ohwell. Will know if I've passed after the board of examiners' meeting at the end of this month.

Another day, standard issue save for a few incongruencies.
I'm late for work - again. Luckily, so is my boss. My recent lack of sleep has left me irritable and utterly sarcastic at my coworkers attempts at humor and 'deep' discussions. Who are they anyway, this is a temp job, not a career.
A nap awaits at home, I awake with heartburn from the snacks I ate before passing out. I fix myself more food and node a bit, reading a lot of writeups along the way. Claire emails me asking me when I'll get to Auburn (I'm going again this weekend) and Carrie informs me that she is in town. We agree to meet, and around 11:30 PM I arrive at Carrie's house. She had been having some problems with her long time boyfriend, for a while they were broken up, but now they're back together and she feels bad. ::sigh:: We talked about our lives and memories under the stars and drew some common themes. It was enjoyable I say now, before having to get up for another eight hour shift in five hours. God bless America.

I could not possibly be happier with the way this election is turning out. Both George "love me, I'm an everyday guy" Bush and Al "bow to my intellect" Gore are being humbled beyond belief, highlighting the fact that not too many people really like either one of them. To think that the winner will have been chosen by a margin of a few thousand votes, not to mention that congress is split almost exactly down the middle sets up the scene perfectly for a Federal government that can get absolutely nothing done.

Furthermore, if Bush wins the presidency, but loses the popular vote, like it seems will happen, it will hopefully be enough to make John Doe indignant that the electoral college is still in existence. It's amazing how interested America becomes when the election resembles a horse race.

It occured to me that E2 has eliminated my need to create a personal web page. All the outlet I sought in creating a home page I find here instead: knowledge I want to share, opinions I want to express--hell, I could put all my personal info and contact information and my PGP public key on my homenode, and I wouldn't need a home page at all!

Wow, that's a really interesting idea. Home nodes, as they stand right now, aren't terribly well suited to be someone's home page--too much of the information there wouldn't make sense to people not familiar with E2 (Level, number of writeups, the epicenter, etc). But what if you could somehow customize your home node, or have a second home node that would be designed for dispensing as your personal home page? I'll have to think some more about this, and maybe write the idea up in it's own node later on...

15:33

Well folks, this is your lucky day! This day log entry is offered with a 100% Non-political writeup guarantee. One mention of you-know-what and you get twice your XP back!

Ahem.

Sorry, I was lost in the friday euphoria. In 10 minutes I'll be on my way towards the good old HQ, not having to worry about the crap I encounter at work for the next 2.5 days.
The plan is to just sit back, relax and node for the weekend. I really don't get people who have trouble figuring out things to submit - I can't figure out where to get time to node all the things I've got in mind. Especially since I always try to maintain some degree of quality in my writeups, which means research, research and research.

Speaking of which... While scouting out some info on catechin, I realized that green tea is one of the very few eatable/drinkable items I've encountered which taste great and are very good for your health.
Think about it. A majority of things considered to be tasty by most people in the western countries are unhealthy in some way. Hence all sorts of general health issues (such as myself being overweight). This is one of the reasons I've started to get to know Asian cuisine better.

Ok, I think I've stayed here long enough doing nothing for the day. More musings when I get home.


To be continued.

wake up at 6:30. wonder why the alarm is set early. oh yeah. they're re-roofing and i have to move my car before 7:00 or it'll be towed. have a quick smoke, jump in the shower, head to work. early. it's so early i can barely see my monitor -- i'm not usually here when the sun comes in the window at this low angle. using this as an excuse, instead of working i sat down and repotted my jade plant.

all of my plants are doing very well. although they do get bright light, it is still getting on winter and the total amount of daylight is short -- and they should know that and be a bit more dormant right now. but they're all growing well. the jade plant should be in a smaller pot (they like being cramped) but to remedy that, i'll propagate leaf or stem cuttings to add plants to the pot. i recently cut back my miniature roses pretty severely so that they wouldn't be so spindly. the branches are sprouting new buds and leaves left and right. and the kalanchoe is just crazy. it got cut back a lot too, but you wouldn't know it. this plant loves to reproduce! any leaves it drops turns into another plant, i've got a bunch of leeeeetle plants poking their heads up. all of the hens and chicks are established in their pots and most are showing new growth. unfortunately i did lose one philodendron cutting -- it's stem rotted before it could establish roots. so i added a few pieces of charcoal to the remaining cutting's water to help prevent that in the future.

speaking of my plants, i finally found out what the hell one of my houseplants is. i have now succesfully identified them all. the plant in question i had thought was some type of palm, due to it's large leaves on long stems from a woody palm-like trunk. turns out it is a Phlodendrum Selloum. who would have guessed it was from the same family as the little creeper philodendrons i've kept all my life. this plant is big. and i learned a bit about how to repot, remove it's offshoots (i've had the plant for well over ten years and only now has it developed a pup), and propagate by stem cuttings. it's woody trunk is about 1 1/2' tall, and from what i have read, i can just grab a saw, chop off the top 6", put it in some rich peaty soil, and it'll grow roots. what's left of the original stem will grow new leaves. sounds like a plant.

I made my first attempt at air layering last night so that i can reduce the height of my dracaena. it's leggy something fierce. i will node air layering specifically soon, but here's a quick rundown:
air layering is the process of propagating a plant by forcing roots to grow on existing branches before cutting and repotting those branches. where the branch is cut, it will usually grow two new branches. how it is done is as follows; make a slit in a healthy branch, slanting upwards, about 1/4" deep and 1" long. use a toothpick to prop open the little flap you've made. put rooting hormone on the cut and wrap it in moist spagnum moss. surround the moss with plastic (i cut up ziplock baggies) to form a little compact ball on the branch that keeps in the moisture (if you don't see condensation on the inside of the bag, open it and mist the moss). soon you will see roots growing through the moss. then you can cut the branch just below the roots and pot it in a soil mixture appropriate to the plant.
we should see in a few weeks whether or not it worked. i want to layer two of the longest branches, but i don't want to destroy the plant so i only did one until i see whether or not it works. the dracaena plant can be propagated with just small (3" or so) pieces of branch placed in warm wet sand -- one end will form roots, the other will form a new shoot -- but that's basically starting from scratch and i want to preserve the length of the branches.
more later...
Well, i noded a fair amount today -- and was rewarded for it. i feel good. other then that i really only accomplished fucking up my Windows 2000 install. badly. don't mess with sfc.exe. trust me. i mean, unless you know what you're doing (i sure don't, and i'm proud!). oh well, fuck it. the important computer (my development box) is fit as a fiddle.

soon i will head home to frantically clean my house before the man arrives. it's a mess. with my new horticultural hobby i've been spending a lot of time studying succulents and their care and very little time cleaning (although, finding a new and healthy obsession was my reason for taking up a new hobby in the first place). i feel kinda bad about how messy the place is, but not enough to get my panties in a bunch.

back | days | forth

Why must everything be so bloody difficult? Upgrading from mandrake 7.1 to 7.2 should have been easy as pie, instead it wiped my /home, removing months and months of quite precious mail. Small consolation that my manager isn't in today, his presence is floating around my desk like a malaise; asking me whether or not I have started looking at the bug tracking and whether or not the servers are being backed up. Stupid american immigration laws require either legal marriage or a bachelor's degree before I can work in the country. Yet the other way, it seems easy for someone to come work in the UK... But I want to be in the US, dammit! Severe cashflow problems loom on the horizon, I have a source of income available; the equity in my house, but selling up would be such a big step and I can't just up and leave, Can I?? Grand statements of overcoming obstacles seem hollow now I realise just what I need to do; I feel like a small child trying to make his way in a big scary adult world. Why can't I just make my way up to the american embassy in london and explain what I want to do? Why can't I just say "Hey, look dudes, I love her and want to work in the US, I want to spend time with my fiancee. Let us in, would you?" Moby doesn't seem to soothe anymore, he just sounds like so many advertising jingles twisted around each other like dead vines and ivy. Decisions, I need to make decisions, capture the almost aggressive proactivity I feel when I talk to my dearest online or over the phone, I need to take action. The world needs to just back off a little today, just leave me alone and stop giving me problems for a few days, let me deal with all this action I have to take. Be an adult and discuss this, I think; talk about serious things with my Mother like moving to the US (she hates the idea) selling my house (she hates the idea) working abroad (she hates the idea) and many other things. Try changing the channel, try flipping a mental switch to get myself into fantasy mode; elves and castles in treetops, monsters and heroes and faeries. No good, still feeling caught in circumstances and unfeeling laws that seem specifically designed to enhance my paranoia and persecution complexes, to foil my grand romantic plans.

I really, really need to go out tonight, to buy some clothes and chocolate, to have a really good cup of tea. It seems that my nick is very much evident in my persona today. I really do feel quite dizzy.

Later... venus as a boy instils tranquillity into my soul, why didn't I think of that earlier?

Later still... A mini engagement party tonight; some people say I need to get out, to chill. I agree

16:55 GMT

Feeling Better... Going to see Pitch Black tonight, then out on the town in boring Basingstoke (I shall have to convince people to grab a meal rather than try and stand up in the pubs...

Strange... I've realised that I don't view my house as home any more; I appear to have left already, at least in mind if not body...

God bless the makers of Bushmills whiskey, without which I might actually be productive at work.


and God knows we wouldn't want that.
Last night was a revelation for me, I need to get laid. What prompted this surge of promiscuous thought? Not sure exactly, but I know that I am lonely, especially at night. Why bother though when every girl I've ever dated ends up cheating on me, usually with a so called "friend" of mine.

Today is payday, one of the two best days of the month, the other being the second payday of the month.

My god son's 4 birthday was the 6th, and I just remebered today. I feel terrible for this, because I quite literally raised him from infancy. He's my little cowboy and I need to go see him this afternoon.
When his mother and I broke up, she all of a sudden decided I am an evil person, and forbids me to see him, however, her parents adore me, and they keep him in the afternoon, so if I ever want to see him, that's how it has to be done. His grandparents tell me that he is still dressing like me, saying everyday that he wants to be cowboy like Tex. This however is a very emotional subject for me, so I'm dropping it now.

Today has been a good day even if I'm only on something like the fifth hour of it. Only one class on Friday which is already finished. Yoon has another of those sleep over teacher workshop things this weekend so I have what seems like an unlimited amount of time to write a couple of papers and do a quick review of philosophy stuff. After realizing that I'm missing a lot of the content of the philosophers that we're covering in that class I've started reading the primary sources and I am continually amazed at the wit and sarcasm of Socrates. Maybe my categorization of philosophy as fodder for liberal arts feebs was a little hasty. My apologies to the canon.

In my African-American Studies class we spent some time talking about an idea very near and dear to me. The discussion had to do with the value (however relative that may be) of historical fiction for interesting and involving people in the study of history. I've been told several times that I should just teach history because I am so passionate about people seeing connection between the past and present. Anyhow, what disappointed me was the total ignorance of other students about the church bombing in Birmingham. It wasn't the lack of knowledge about that specific event as much as the lack of knowledge that bombings were a common occurrence in the South during the 1960's. This is motivation.

I think there is some reluctance on my part to pursue teaching. Outside of the stigma of following in my girlfriend's footsteps (note to the perpetually angry: former statement is sarcasm) I'm more than a little jaded about the general apathy about history. I fully realize that one of the duties of a good teacher is to overcome those blocks but I wonder if it would not just frustrate and burn me out. I question whether being passionate about something makes you a good candidate for teaching about it. I am a wuss. I am impatient. I might damage your kids more than they have already been damaged.

Ok. It is happy weekend time. I am hell bent on finishing up the book on the history of philosophy I'm reading. This will require concentration and possibly crab cakes.

I'm finally falling. A beautiful weekend left me on a high to start the week, but now my mood has turned positively sour. All the joy that was in my fingers all week long has begun to seep out. While the realization he seems to care for me after all in spite what's-not-meant-to-be was an energizing detail that made me smile and think of pretty things, the eventuality of the reality of it all is dissipating that energy. It's going be a long, slow ride down.

I don't want to post any more mushy nodes right now but they're all I want to write, so this helpdesk shift is passing like my great-uncle's kidney stones. I don't even actually have a great uncle.

Classes are catching up with me, and there's nothing I want to do. I'm an art major now. Quantum mechanics can kiss my ass.

I know this will pass in a day or two and the glowing yumminess of the world will have me dancing again, but for now I feel like I've been suppressing a scream for weeks.

It's everything. It's the art professor who only cares about the three students who knew what they were doing before he started teaching. It's everyone talking about politics. It was my housemate's kids taking a bath and splashing and screaming at 8 o'clock this morning while I was trying to get five more minutes of sleep.

Or maybe it's just the rain.
Flybomber's not the only one getting Xray'd today...I volunteered as a body for an ultrasound clinic, and they thought they saw a pleural effusion (fluid next to the lung). Great. There are about 6000 reasons to have a pleural effusion, and I was not happy with about 5990 of them, so I stared at the ceiling with jelly all over my abdomen and had a reflective moment while my peers tossed one-liners.

I do have a history of lung badness: a pneumothorax and TB exposure, plus the occasional Rothman's when I go clubbing or camping. I have been sucking wind a lot lately, too, a bad sign.

The machine we were using was one that was not used for patients because it was so new and high-tech that noone had been trained on it. A recheck with a neighboring machine looked much more normal, although we are talking ultrasound here: fuzz. Going back to the new machine with a different person yielded a somewhat similar result. The chest films showed nothing; I even ran them anonymously past an attending.

Looking at your own films is scary. I find horrible things in ordinary people every day. As I look at my normalish spine, I can almost see the degeneration and disability that will happen with age; this is a momentous snapshot.

12:24 PST

TGIF! I'm so glad that it is the end of the week. And, its payday! This weekend is shaping up to be a good one.

I have been invited to a LAN party by my co-workers, so I will be playing Unreal Tournament and Starcraft with abandon for most of the day tomorrow. At this point, I will be the only woman there. Hopefully, I can represent my sisters well and not get my ass handed to me in UT. But, since I am a novice at UT and haven't really played an FPS much since Doom and Heretic, I probably will get my ass handed to me.

Oh well, I can always take a break from the mayhem by playing some Roller Coaster Tycoon. :)

House of Teriyaki has come through again with the best lunch ever. I love their chicken yakisoba. Every Friday someone from the team goes out and picks up lunch for everyone else, and today was teriyaki day. Yummmmm... this stuff on my desk is tempting me, but I have to wait another half hour or so until I can log off the phone and scarfit down.

OK, I took a bite. Oh man.. that's good!

Someone decided to downvote a bunch of my write-ups today. Oh well. I can't let myself get upset about systematic downvoting, although I don't know what I did to deserve it. XP isn't a big deal. I have XP to spare.

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar (Aries) - Sing, dance, and make merry as Mars aligns with Neptune. Now that Mercury's picking up the pace, signings get the nod - after you check with the experts. Open a new savings account that will be used for well-deserved vacations.

You have 1 cool left today.
You have 30 votes left today.
You gained experience!
You have 50 writeups left until Level 5
bookmark!

two down, two to go. midterms are starting up again, had two today. yikes. but it was okay.

the astronomy midterm was surreal: a fire alarm went off right as we started, and we took the exam in a lecture hall filled with sirens and strobe lights. after 30 minutes of it, my thoughts of a headache-free day were destroyed by the flashing lights.

BOO NEUROCHEMISTRY!

tonite i'm going to see the varsity hockey team play ferris state. so that should be fun, haven't been in about a year.

spent last night with pod person colleen. shopped at target, had dinner, played some playstation. it was good. we're re-connecting.

and now, it's away, away, away from work to eat at blimpy burger, then off for an exciting evening.

this was my 200th node!
I hate defense mechanisms.

Sleep is a wonderful thing... Her bed's pretty comfortable - well, as comfortable as a futon on a wood frame can be.

I've been staying over there alot lately, they don't mind my presence and I enjoy being around new friends. Dinner was good, but I didn't have to go get the food (and yes, of course that took forever at 12am).

He left to drop her off in Ybor... The two of us were alone, she and I. "Everyone's saying I need to talk to you. That's weird, because they speak so highly of you... Why do I need to talk to you?" she said. I know she had to have guessed by now, but I was nervous, afraid of rejection by someone I had come to care about deeply. "Well, hmm.. That's odd. I dunno why they'd say that." I replied quietly. "Oh... Well, yeah. That is a little weird." I knew I had to talk to her about it, let her know how I feel and get a response. But she wouldn't believe me, she would downright distrust me if I told her that I cared. So we sat in silence for awhlie. I wondered what she was thinking about, or if she even had a clue. Or maybe she was just 'messing with my head' as she liked to do on occasion - maybe she did know but was waiting for me to acknowledge it to her before moving on with things.

"You know, I'm so proud of myself," I blurted out, trying desperately to divert attention away. "Why?" she asked. "Well, I got three cools on Everything yesterday... I think I'm finally learning how to node and can make a decent contribution to the nodegel." "Umm... Okay," she said, "what the fuck is a nodegel?" So I had some explaining to do... We spent the time that they had bought us discussing the finer points of Everything and distributed, moderated writing and RPG stat systems.

w00t. I'm a loser. Maybe she doesn't care, maybe she does. Maybe I'm just reading into her actions too much and she's just neutral towards me... But I'm interested in her, and I have to make a move - any move - to break the status quo. But the status quo is so comfortable, even though it doesn't exist. Fuck it, I analyze too much. I need to play more Quake and less Everquest.

She's beautiful. Her friend's Car accident. First rain. Cold, chilly. She's alright, she's ok. Her face? What? That's all she cares about, I suppose. Vanity truely is a sin... But it's really the least of the evils - at least her friends aren't all bitches. Sleep... It was her and I, then she left - the phone. Sleep. No dreams. Node for the ages they say... So I will.
00:44 GMT

Today seems to so far have been a very unexciting day. For a little while, I had some work to do, which I finished.

I finally got an appointment set up with my Gym to go through orientation. Trish is suggesting that I just go and get on a treadmill. I'm not sure... I don't really want to go and start working out without getting the gist of the situation. If I had been to a Gym before, sure I would probably go ahead and just start working out before the orientation, but since I haven't I don't know if I may break some sort of obvious protocol that would have been mentioned to me in the orientation.

Or maybe I'm just lazy.

We (co-workers and I) ate lunch at the nearby mall today... I had a plain salad, no dressing. I actually don't like salad dressing. I always get suprised reactions when I say I don't want any, and people think I'm just on some sort of hardcore diet, but I really like the taste of salad without the dressing. Is that so bad? Anyway, I saw that they had a chicken salad, so I ordered that, but I came to find out that it was a garden salad with a scoop of deli meat and mayonaisse goop thrown on top. I thought I would get like slices of chicken breast or something, like the salads at Wendys. So I just scooped the crap off and ate the rest.

I was really bored, so I spent about an hour making a writeup showing what the West Palm Beach ballot looked like, in ASCII Art at butterfly ballot.

I feel kind of tired today myself. I got plenty of sleep, but I have no idea what I'm going to do with my free time this weekend, or even tonight. I may go watch Charlie's Angels, but I really don't feel like dealing with the Friday night crowds. I have to work on Sunday, so I feel like I need to maximize my time tonight and Saturday, but I really have nothing to do.

I wish I had more friends, at least I could call them up and ask them what they're doing and maybe tag along. One of my computer geek friends is usually around to talk to, but he tends to always be depressed, and I'm feeling kind of depressed myself right now, so I probably shouldn't call him up, or I'll just feel worse.

I've got to stop messing with my scars. I have an obsessive-compulsive disorder in which I am annoyed by anything on my skin, even including scar tissue. I always seem to want to scratch at it; often I will go at it until I get down to the lower skin layers and it starts to hurt. I've got one scar on my left arm that I started on like 5 years ago, one small scar on the right side of my face, just below my cheek that I always mess with (usually when I have my elbow propped up on a desk or table), and some soft tissue in the middle inside of my upper lip that I tend to sort of bite and pick on when I'm thinking. They aren't really gross-looking or anything, but I can't stop messing with them unconsciously. I've been scratching at them occasionally even while writing this. ARGH! STOP IT!

Maybe I should see someone about this, but who? A dermatologist or a psychologist? Probably both. I really am concerned about knocking off this stupid habit, but I just can't do it on my own. I think the longest I've gone without messing with any of them is almost a week, but then I just started doing it again without even thinking about it. Maybe it's some sort of method of forcing my brain to release endorphines, perhaps because I could be normally lacking enough of the neurotransmitters. This may also explain my occasional lapses of depression. But that may also just be my lousy social life.

The CPU fan on a computer in our computer room has been acting up, so the computer started playing classical music. It seems to be running fine though, and the computer room is usually 68 degrees, so I just left the case open and closed the door. The hardware people were supposed to do something about it, but they seem to have forgotten. I'm just a software developer, so it's not really my problem, but I don't want the machine to be down all weekend, since it's the one that pages us when another machine goes down. Sort of a paradox there. Bah.

Well, I still have half an hour to go at work, but I want to pick up some chinese food before the restaurant closes, so I'm going to go now.


04:34 GMT

So my depressed friend called me anyway. I think I cheered him up a little, and I kind of feel better myself.

I'm still thinking about asking Kawana out for the Christmas party. I was thinking about this while I was headed over to pick up dinner and got off at the wrong exit. I've never been so obsessive about anyone or anything before to make such an absent-minded mistake. It could be dangerous to think about her while I'm driving! :)


08:45 GMT

I really don't know why people downvote daylogs. Please /msg me what I'm doing wrong.

Anyway.. it's late (early).. I've spent enough time browsing pictures of beautiful asian ladies. I'm going to bed.

"We're goin' to the break of dawn"

I had a big fight with my dad last night, my laptop is now broken, but Ramsey's just gonna give me his.

School was the usual, I made an ass of myself in some class I think. My gym team won the football championship, no thanks to be of course. I didn't stay after with the Director of Technology, I felt like dealing with other things.

I get home, my mom is home but she is actually in a good mood. At about 4 Steve IMs me asking if I want to work for his dad, $7/hr under the table, of course I agreed. We were helping Jim do electrostatic painting of bathroom stall partitions. It wasn't much work, just putting up paper to keep the overspray off the walls and floor and then tearing it down. The Jim guy was pretty interesting, he lives in Steve's garage IIRC but he's pretty cool. I'll be happier when I have my money for the hours of breathing paint fumes and running around a center city office building. All in all, today was good fun and nothing bad happened, now I just need the money,power and women.

Nothing much happened today. I went to chemistry lab. Mixed up the chemicals, pretending like I knew what I was doing. I felt like sabotaging other people's experiements, but felt to lazy to actually go on with my thoughts. Afterwards I went to the Academic Services building. Noded a little. Got my first C!.
After that I was feeling pretty good about myself. I overheard a couple of guys discussing the boxing fight tomorrow. I pretended like I knew what they were talking and joined in their conversation so that I can amuse myself.
I then drove half an hour to a "meeting" with a certain Joe. Didn't go so well. He was in my car and just wouldn't get out. He said, "I'm going to kiss you (myname). After I do that I will leave." I said, "NO...Just get out!" and pushed him out. Pretty mean of me? I suppose it was.
I drove home, pumped in 2 bucks of gas right before getting home. It was all I had. I went in my room, looked under my bed for Thomas, figured perhaps my dream was coming true and he was there. He wasn't. I then logged into e2...and here I am.

In the morning I had a Spanish class where I had to get up in front of the whole class and explain my class schedule in well Spanish. I felt so foolish that I did not know that Astronomy was astronomia but I did alright. I never liked people staring at me, it makes me feel as though I have something on me that they are secretly laughing about in their heads. After that I was confronted by a classmate who asked if I knew his roommate Matt and I said, "Yeah, I have him for Astronomy."


Turns out that Matt was telling stories about our happenings and Kareem (the other guys name) figured out it was me and they laughed for a bit more. I went and sat down with my friend Kathy and we talked about ghosts and our experiences. Theen I had a boring class, Music Appreciation, and not classical music but Mexican music!! Ack!! Yuck!! :) I don't mind it too much now, I've learned to appreciate it. Then I had stupid Astronomy where Matt and I talked about this girl in the back that he gave a 9 out of 10 as opposed to my 4. He was shocked and thought I was out of my mind but I showed him the error of his ways. We ended up laughing while the teacher was giving notes and were almost kicked out!! Then I came home and did nothing until...well...now.

Off to Massachusetts!

kanon42 and I are off to see Frater 219 and ansate today... and so, no time for any more.

It was the last work day before most of the people who were off work this last week were to return. It had been a hard week, trying to keep things going in their absence.

Go out for drinks? Sure. That sounds great.

One of the people at the bar is the kind of person who you can really feel comfortable with. The kind of person whom you feel knows what you are thinking and feeling and accepts you anyway. Someone you instinctively trust. We talked. I later realized how cynical and emotionally numb I had become (protective measures). As the discussions continued, these protective attitudes were slowly peeled away, one layer at a time. Call it crap if you wish, but every time I get shoved together in close proximity with this person, I get the feeling the universe arranges things that way so that I can teach them something, or they can teach me something (most often a little of both). I enjoyed the drink, I enjoyed listening to the others. I enjoyed this person's presence.

By the time we all got up to leave, I realized that I was feeling things again, but I didn't realize to what extent. I went to the parking garage and found my car, paid the man in the booth and wished him a good evening. He smiled. The look on his face told me that I had given him a small but welcome gift. I pulled out onto the street and began driving south, towards the waterfront. I stopped at a red light. I felt confused. I felt emotions welling up that I had not felt in a while. Too many, simultaneously. I looked around at the people walking along the right hand sidewalk, passing shops and bars. So much movement, so much life, yet so aloof. I felt that if they just stopped and looked at me, they would see my soul, bared for all to see. At the corner, on the left side of the street where few people were walking, I saw two shoed feet protruding from under a dirty wool blanket. The owner was laying on the sidewalk in a semi-fetal position, with the wind blowing in all around the bottom of the blanket. The north wind blew steady and cold. The people on the other side of the street continued on, oblivious to the sleeping man. They have seen this too often. They have enough experience to be able to disconnect themselves from their surroundings as I always did. I at the moment could not.

I felt outrage bubbling up inside of me. How can my world be so messed up, so wrong? This man doesn't belong here! Why won't these masses of people do anything to help? Why won't I do anything to help? If each of us is not his brother's keeper, who will be? That man could very easily have been someone's father, brother, uncle, or husband. He could just as easily been me... or you. A gentle but pervasive sadness washed over me.

By the time I got home, I was very tired. I should have just gone to bed, but like that graphic rape scene I saw in a movie when I was 13 (the memory of which still makes me want to vomit 24 years later), the image of this sleeping man is etched into my mind, never to be forgotten.

I needed to get some of these emotions out of my head. I had to do something, however small, about this man living on the street.

I have done the only thing that I could at this time of night. I wrote it down. Here. So that while I sleep, you reading this, will be thinking about this man on the street, sleeping in the cold, on the hard cement, alone, without belongings, without hope. And it is my greatest wish that tomorrow, when you and I have a little more strength, together we can begin to make a difference in someone else's life. Even if that difference begins here, with your life and mine.

OK, I'm not much of a daylog-type person -- this is the first one I've written since I got into E2, and it may well be the last. But today was a rather eventful day.

Woke up at 0900, went back to sleep because I don't have Civil War today -- class got cancelled. Woke back up at 1100. Guess I won't make it to Operating Systems at 1115. But even more importantly, guess I won't make it to my professor's office hour at 1000 to beg for an extension on my project due Monday. Oh well. No sleep this weekend.

Needed to write a mini-review for European Civilization at 1220. But, as tends to happen, other things got in the way, things like roommates and food and stuff. So I didn't have time to finish Chapter 3 of the Keegan book on The First World War, therefore I couldn't BS two paragraphs on the readings (since Ch. 1 and 2 were not exactly easy to read and understand), therefore no point in going to class, right? Er, yeah. Or something.

With all that securely out of the way, perhaps I could get in a couple hours of writing code before work at 1545. *laughs* Yeah, right. After more dealing-with-the-roommates, both of whom are leaving town this weekend (woohoo!), I decided to check my bank accounts and make sure checks had cleared, nothing was weird etc. My credit union account appeared all good, so I checked First Union. BIG PROBLEM. Turns out one of my roommates, when he wrote the rent check this month, forgot to transfer the money from savings to checking. So his check bounced. Even worse, I have a $400 check outstanding, and there's $291 in the account. I really hope Virginia Tech hasn't tried to deposit my check for the Europe trip, or I could be in trouble. So, no coding for the weary today -- I had to run down to the bank and deposit some money to cover that check. *grumbles*

By the time that's done, it's about 1430, and I decide to get lunch and head over to Wesley to relax, eat and play some piano before work. I usually park next door at the VT Survey Center -- they have a sign that says they tow cars that aren't theirs, but I've been parking there for three years, and haven't even gotten so much as a nastygram saying they'll tow me if they catch me again. Rumor has it they'll leave you that kind of note before they actually tow you.

At 1520, I started wandering across campus to the shift change location. Stopped by the library to check my e-mail, and got to shift change about 1540. Supervisors look at me funny, and say "You're late. Your bus has already left." WTF? My schedule says "3:45-6:45pm" for the 10D Main Street route, written by the supervisor who scheduled me, but they're saying I had to be there at 1530. Fortunately, I actually had my training schedule sheet to show them, or I'd be screwed. It's not a particularly good idea to ever be late, but especially during training.

Rode one loop on the route once it made it back to campus at 1615, and then I was supposed to start driving. Well, we got back to the post office, 2 minutes from the campus timecheck at Burruss Hall, when I saw two of my friends from Wesley, fellow BT drivers, waiting at the stop. Kurt and Vanessa got on the bus, and Kurt said, "Josh, where are your car keys?" As we ride back around, they explained the situation. It seemed the Survey Center's feeling pissed today. They decided they wanted to tow me, but were at least courteous enough to call over to Wesley before they did it, and check whether it was a Wesleyite's car. Well, Vanessa lives at Wesley, and Kurt was over there. So they called the shop to find out what route I was on, then went up and caught my bus, hoping to get there and back before the tow truck came.

So I drove my lap on the 10D, with about five things on my mind other than driving the bus, and it showed in my evaluation. Oh well. I've still got two more training sessions before I should be driving for-real.

Finished work at 1845, and halfway ran across campus to see if my truck was still in the vicinity of Wesley. Made it there, start looking in legal parking lots, and then down Roanoke Street in parallel parking places, when my eyes catch the reflection of George Allen and Bush-Cheney stickers on a teal green Ford Ranger. */me starts thanking God* I got into the building, and find Vanessa to thank her again. Apparently, I'm even luckier than I thought. The plan had been to get Mike to move my truck, since he can drive stick, while neither Kurt nor Vanessa really can. But Mike had already left for The Home Place when they got back, so Kurt had to try. He's had a grand total of one stick lesson. Fortunately, it was on his roommate Brian's 1994 Ranger, and mine's a '95, so the feeling was essentially the same. Plus, the slot directly in front of the Survey Center lot entrance was open, so he didn't have to parallel-park it, just pulled straight into the slot. I owe him a lot.

The reason I owe him a lot: got food, went home to get ready for a date. In Roanoke, 45 minutes away. With my roommates out of town, so I had precisely zero people from whom I could bum a car to get me there if my truck went AWOL. Got to Roanoke College, picked my date up at 2100, went to Valley View Mall to meet Mike and his g/f (Erin goes to RC, and set us up) at the store there where she works, then headed down the street to the movie theater. Pay It Forward is a good movie.

As for the evening's events... well, some things should remain between friends. :) Left Roanoke College at 0100, got back to Blacksburg about 0215 after a couple of Wal-Mart runs on the way back -- Salem for immediate caffeine and snackage after leaving RC (since Waffle House and Denny's are the only two restaurants in Salem open 24/7, and they're sit-down style), then Christiansburg when I realized driving down Interstate 81 that I wanted a CD (Phil Vassar) and needed Mountain Dew for the weekend's coding marathon.

Post Op review after 24 hours. Mr D. walked in the surgery. He took me hand and shook it hard. Mr D. was very happy. His family teased him on how much better he looks. He should've got it done earlier! Honestly, he looks a good few years younger.

The new dentures look great! All new upper teeth & well-aligned lower teeth. I removed them for the first time since they were placed. It was surprisingly clean. The sockets were healing well. I did not have to adjust the dentures.

Everyone was happy with the result. I am pleased we finally got it done. I double checked that he was taking his analgesics and antibiotics prescribed. Also gave him a mouthwash with 0.2% chlorhexidiene gluconate (Savacol by Colgate)to rinse with for the next 2 weeks.

To be reviewed next week.

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