December 28, 1999

what struck me most yesterday and today was the bit about the hyjacking in the air betweeen katmandu and new dehli: there is apparently a woman on the plane whose newly-wed husband has been killed by the hyjackers. the un asked that this woman be released, the hyjackers refused, citing the many suffering women in kashmir. the political becomes intimately personal.

i am the only one at work today, perhaps because it is snowing something fierce. maybe it will stop by tomorrow. or tomorrow.

Today I found out that a friend killed themself on Christmas Eve. I found that out, while I read my email. Also was a letter, asking me if I want to invest in my future, and the stockmarket.

I am in Chicago right now. Staying with the charming, yet quirky NeXT.boy.. we are so cute together.. he is the friend I can talk to at night.. while laying in the dark.. about to go to sleep.. actually we did that last night.. get your mind out of the gutter.. no smooching going on

it was cold as fuck the last few nights.. that kinda sucks.. no.. that really sucks..

I got hit on last night by this cute guy.. but then I felt lame, because I was happy I got hit on.. Oh and it was right after I had yummy pancakes at Walker Brothers

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< beck | ford >

A rare good night's sleep, but, oddly, that became disorienting, and a good part of the day became Space Day.

I received an update on a cousin's condition - not good. He's having a "make a wish" sort of Christmas in New York right now. I think I have a funeral in my near future, but I no longer own a suit for such things. He's only a year older than me, and that spooks me a bit; we're supposed to be living longer with each generation, aren't we? Even the hardest-living of the family - both sides - lived to senior citizen status before dying, except for one twentysomething drug overdose. Now I'm afraid to see the doctor. No news is...

As It Happens had a short Curtis Mayfield obit as I started this writeup - a bio, and "People Get Ready" overcoming the only-optimal-for-voices RealAudio stream. A little late, but so was I. But then again, I'm not a newsgathering organization.

Death death death. Brood brood brood. Wake me when it's springtime.

But I was wonderfully cheered by lucentshoe's NPR writeup, with Linda Wertheimer and Daniel Schorr, et al, on his/her list of "bodacious radio babes". I was expecting a paean to Deborah Wang or something, but lucentshoe got it right :)

I'm twenty years old now.

I worked today for a few hours (I volunteered from 0900 to 1200) in my workplace.

Afterwards, I went to Manhattan to daily mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and I actually shed a tear when the sermon about being narrow-mindedness came up. I should pray more often. How could I, in my whole life, be so much of an SOB? How could I have to be so mean to others, so obsessed with my life, that I have to drive out everybody who wants to be friends? Well, it was done in the name of security but Microsoft had cornered the closed-source market with this same BS.

I saw "Putting it Together" today, but I didn't get an autograph from La Ruthie.

I upgraded my computer's RAM to 128MB.

Began reading Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad", his history of the battle of Stalingrad during World War II. The book starts with the invasion of the USSR by Germany on June 22, 1941. It was the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, and not Stalin (who was apparently petrified with disbelief like a rabbit facing a snake), who made the radio announcement to the Soviet people of war with Germany. "Today at four o'clock in the morning, German troops attacked our country without making any claims on the Soviet Union and without any declaration of war...Our cause is just. The enemy will be beaten. We will be victorious."

Tonight on the BBC World Service was a short discussion in connection with some American historians or whoever having decided what are the 20th century's 100 greatest speeches. The BBC played bits of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" and JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you" speeches. Also a short extract from Churchill's May 1940 "This was their finest hour" speech. Afterwards I realized that the commentators hadn't mentioned whether any of Hitler's, Goebbels', or Stalin's harangues were amongst the 100 greatest.

The post-Christmas sales have started: bought luggage. Think that at last I'm in departure mode. If I don't lapse back into my usual slothlike state, may even get outta here by the end of January.