You think you're in control,
You think life's pretty good:
You have a nice home, a good job,
A pleasant partner, it's cool.

Then some random thing happens,
(In my case someone killed my cat),
And you realise that it's not cool,
You're not in control,
That at any moment your cosy life
Can be fucked up by some psycho.

My cat died yesterday,
She was beautiful,
She loved me.
She's gone -
Somebody killed her.

If I knew who'd done it,
I'd burn their fucking house down.
But I don't know. All I know is,
They're out there, somewhere.

In a life filled with some amazing experiences this weekend was yet another reason why I love this fucking life.

Friday we had a cube crawl after work. A lot of people had recently moved and there were many new hires in the past two months so, as a way to find where people moved to and meet everyone who hadn't been met yet, each section did their area up in a theme. Then, as a group, we went from area to area consuming lots of food and alcohol and having a generally good time. The highlight event was probably the upside down margaritas. I got to meet the 90% of the company I hadn't met yet (there are 96 of us at iPhrase) and realize that this place was even cooler than originally suspected. the people at work rock. I left a little before everything ended because I had used up all my party skills and was starting to feel a little like a third wheel.

Saturday morning I set about bleaching and dying my roots because I had about two inches of brown below my red poof. Along the way I decided to increase the amount of red, and then end result looks good but isn't' what I was going for exactly because the bleach had more trouble than anticipated in overpowering the old black die in some of the hair I wanted red. Thanks for the opinions hamster bong and cow and the attempt at one drunkenmonkey.

Saturday night began with a trip to a Chinese place with tiki cups for neighbor guys bitrhday. This managed to morph into pot luck with vegans who mostly didn't know the birthday boy or that it was his birthday. We made it to the only to encounter one of the coolest groups of people I have ever met. I was in heaven, surrounded by a group of real people, who were obviously close knit, and honestly cared about each other. The conversations were refreshingly interesting and although I never met anyone there before besides the birthday boy and his girlfriend I will absolutely not let this encounter go by with out seeing if I can find a way to hang with them again.

Eventually some people got sleepy, the couch had a tendency to do that to it's occupants, and some wanted to go do other things, so we parted ways (but not after exchanging contact info). We dropped off neighbor guys girlfriend and her sister and I thought, "hmmm we're just down the road from nico." so I asked him to drop me off at her house. I was buzzed in by a very smiley, bleached blond, nico (she was going for white but her bleach wasn't butch enough for the task). We sat and talked, and talked, and talked, and eventually I said "muffins?" and she said "yeah" so we started to make muffins but found we had no milk. So, we bundled up and went out to the Store 24, came back, and made strawberry and lemon muffins from scratch.

Sunday there was a "Fetish Flea Market" which wasn't really a flea market, but more of a group of people who sold sex fetish supplies out in the burbs. Nico and I were going to go together but she overslept and when she woke realized she had to be in to work at 1pm. Eek! So, we didn't go. :(

Wondering what to do on such a wonderful day I decided I might as well meander over to the computer store. Fortunately Jared needed to go to so he came buy and gave me a ride to the cool computer store (microcenter) instead of the CompUSA that I would have gone to because it is the only decent one accessible by T. Afterwards we went to an indian restaurant in Inman Square where we talked and talked and talked and drank mango and pineapple lassis. Then having nearly exhausted the Indian restaurant we drove about and went for coffee, except we both bought tea. Having nowhere to sit there we decided to walk down the road, sipping and talking. Eventually we made it back to the car and drove home discussing code and more general coolness as before.

I like that boy. He's so cool. :)

Mother broke a glass today, thought that all the beautiful crystals had been gathered up, but as always, one remained. inserted itself 15mm into her palm, blood went everywhere

Papa has flu, sis is doing 'important course work' so I had to do all the weekend chores. Never realised just how incompetent I was around the home until I had to take responsibility. All this time with computers, and I can't even grapple with the washing machine. I found peeling potatoes quite fun, even though I felt like a gimp kept under the stairs & fed on fisheads; ended up doing a few times too many.

But the socks, the socks are the worst. They look practically identical, but totally stupid if mismatched & worn. The most boring work that I've ever done; and I thought that school sucked.

Can't imagine what it would be like to work in a sweatshop...

16-24 January: Y and I came back to the U.S. from Sydney, and flew out again on the 25th. We stayed with our respective families for several days, then had one night and one day (almost) to be spastic nervebags about trying to get things done. Tuesday night we went over to a friend's house and I learned children's sign language for "grownup talk" during a discussion of job benefits. Later, our friend started a conversation about sockets, but had to drop it when his wife said that she was changing the subject. Feh. But her blueberry cobbler was good and she made us coffee.

Y was sick, probably with a cold, the morning of our flight back to Sydney, and I felt great - a situation that quickly reversed. By the time we landed at Dallas, I felt wretched, and sat for 40 minutes feeling sorry for myself. When we landed at LAX I was sick to the point where I elbowed my way off the plane to the closest airport bathroom, where I threw up for maybe ten minutes. But I think it was unrelated, and just something I ate. Like airplane food. No, it wasn't fish or anything obviously unwise - just something fairly normal.

Another 20 hours to look forward to.

From L.A. to Sydney I threw up again (in the bathroom - I didn't cause a scene or anything) and felt even more wretched, but we had bought NyQuil gelcaps in Dallas that let me sleep for maybe six hours. My body ached the whole time, regardless of how often I walked and stretched, and I didn't feel like doing anything. I had a book called Recollections of Software Pioneers that I had borrowed from my mom to read on the flight, but didn't touch it. I had planned on doing CCNP studying for several hours, and didn't do that until the last two hours. I had my laptop, but didn't take that out either until the last two hours. Basically I just sat in a stupor when I wasn't sleeping, and I vaguely remember watching Bedazzled because the Brazilian music was soothing. The Rushmore soundtrack made me feel better for a while, twice through most of it.

Our layovers were brief; barring taking a supersonic jet, we couldn't have gotten here faster. But having the flu made it seem like endless purgatory.

We've been in Sydney for almost four days. My body doesn't ache anymore and I haven't been barfing, but feel like mucous is my superpower.

So why is it that appearently meaningless trivia can cause a person who seemed to finally find some aspects of his life happy and worthwhile will cause him to spiral into a fit of depression...

Case in point - me today - moments ago...

The Ravens won the Super Bowl. (I am from Cleveland.) On the cosmic scale of things - next to meaningless. On the what's really important in life scale - next to meaningless.

Meanwhile hours later, I pathetically find myself wishing once again I never existed.

There are many significant events which accumulate to allow me to feel this way - lack of friends who understand, faith issues, people saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, being as alone as I can be for these past weeks wondering anything about all the people I really care about who don't want anything to do with me...

But I just want out. Retroactively...

I realize no one really understands, and it seems to me no one would blink to really miss me...

But I should be happy because I'm a white male, with a good job, and a healthy if overweight body... But I should be happy cause I'm not the kind of guy to cheat on his wife or girlfriend - lot of good that does me... But I should be happy cause I'm not the kind of friend to pick fights with those who really don't understand... But I should be happy because all good deeds don't go unpunished... But I should be happy cause I have a brain smart enough to know right from wrong, but not smart enough to right the wrongs

I'm not happy. I don't think I have ever really understood how to fix this either.

I don't know...

I beleive it has something to do with love. Love: I sometime seem to place too high an ideal about this word... But I really want to find "it" - since I'm not to sure this is what I mean or need I don't know. I do know that for all my caring about anything "once upon a time" I have a lot less than caring back...and right now that pain hurts a lot. (my good deads are punished it seems...)

Anyway without going into too much specifics (another good deed which will punish me later), I trust all my friends too much. I beleived "K" really cared - now nothing but silence and a void - and I was the friend she didn't want to lose. "C" has used and abused my heart beyond repair... "T" should really admit the mistakes she makes to the people that matter - not me, but a promise of silence won't help anyone. "D" and "Y" have not been forthright lately either...

Whatever. I don't know how to fix any of this. Just pile up more pain. I don't really know what to do or say... I know it doesn't help but I need to vent...

Blah...guess I just did.

12:53

I'm baaaaack! I went to Kuhmo in Thursday. Stuff fixed:

  • My mother is, according to her own words, "mouse-scared" - so obviously she didn't know how to change the Netscape path in GNOME panel, and I was too busy last time to check whether or not it actually works. Well, it does now...

Stuff not fixed:

  • Installation of USB ISDN adapter to my father's laptop wasn't quite successful... And I know from experience that ISDN installation isn't a day's job. It can take years and years, it's an evolutionary process, it is the ultimate battle of minds between the man and the machine... (The only ISDN adapter I've actually got to work in matter of hours was an external adapter (the one I have on this machine). I've never had a modem that I wouldn't have made to work on a short notice =)

Stuff not behaving:

  • I get a cryptical (but not incomprehensible) error message when I try to use anything that refers to AvantGo's memory on my Palm.

The actual error message is

    Fatal Alert

    MemoryMgr.c, Line 4359, Free handle

I get that every time I try to use anything that refers to AvantGo's memory, including, of course, the Apps Delete screen.

Apparently AvantGo's memory got messed up when the Pam first ran out of batteries...

What's scary is that when I tried to use malsync, Palm crashed with that message (söprais söprais), and... *gasp* malsync crashed too, and then *gasp* for a split second, I saw a kernel panic message, and the machine powered down! First fatal kernel panic from application stuff I've ever seen, and I have used Linux since 1996!

Man, no wonder they say 2.4.0 is still a bit unstable...

17:01

I'm starting to doubt my sanity.

I needed to watch Matrix from DVD again, and I saw some transparent letters going across the screen... subliminal message, or noise in picture signal? It wasn't there when I rewound it.

And then "pick your own delimiters" in cool list. THEY are whispering to me over the E2, telling me to pick my delimiters! Aaaaaargh!

Am I getting insane, or should I quit watching X-Files for some time?

Aliquando insanire iucundum est.


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today & recently by y.t.: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori malsync Aliquando insanire iucundum est sensationalism

Logged in after the weekend and my "First 50" nodes are all consistently 1 XP down, even the most innocent of factual ones.

Somebody really hates me - I should be flattered, but in fact I'm crushed. What can one possibly do in a text based medium to inspire such vitriol? After all, no one is stupid enough to think they know me through this. Or are they?

And if they are, there remains of course the fact that they really hate me.

the man is gone for another three weeks. california. ugh. i explained to him before he left that i am increasingly unsatisfied with the situation.

mom's in town. friday was dinner at jenn's. saturday was brunch in poolesville then on to a used book store (used book stores rule, by the way). then i parted ways with sister and ma, and picked up jenn's birthday gift (http://www.slack.net/~ophie/art/self-portrait-2.html, nicely matted and framed). we headed out to dinner at the melting pot and then back to jenn's for margaritas. sunday i had to babysit, and the man left for cali.

i actually watched the stupidbowl. what an ass whooping.

so i am home alone for another three weeks. in some ways i like it. i can do whatever the fuck i feel like doing. unfortunately sometimes i'm pretty self-destructive.

the cactus garden the man gave me recently used stuff called rockwool to keep the plants in place, but unfortunately the stuff is really bad for succulents. it doesn't give the roots any room to grow. so i took the cacti out of the dish and have repotted them in lovely succulent soil.

now i should try to force my unmotivated lazy ass to do something. something for work, i mean. breathing is something, but that won't cut it if i want to stay employed.
bah. my stools have turned white again. this is annoying.
16:33 Server Time

Well, it's been a whole week since I broke up with the big man on campus. I miss Michael but I fear that this time it's permanent. We'll always be friends - but who knows what the future will bring. 50% of it is his eating disorder and how he is dealing with it - or not, to be more precise. He e-mailed me and R. today thanking us for 12 stepping him and to me for 'drawing the line in the sand' by breaking up with him (and telling him quite honestly that it was at least 50% of the reason). I'm quite relieved - it's possible he's hit bottom because his tone has completely lost the arrogance of his previous communications with me about it. We'll see!

The other reasons for breaking up are a bit more nebulous - and may be connected. I just know that I had to do it, it didn't feel right any more, and was really bothering me. I don't have that "crazy about you" feeling about him that I used to, when we first started going out. And it's not the infatuation phase I'm talking about - I remember very distinctly feeling that way about my ex-husband and M and J; this feeling definitely lasts and lasts. I also feel that there is a level of connection that we no longer have. I can't explain it except that "he just doesn't get it" sometimes. And it really irritates and grates on my nerves, that I have to explain. And lots of times, are we just missing the mark anyway? Argh. I guess I'll just stop here.

Finally, everyone in my close friends world I know have been gently noodging me for a long time into writing about my feelings, which I do only on occasion. I have been very resistant to this and in an effort to break out of my resistance, I am going to try keeping a daily log for a couple of weeks here. I keep thinking I will do this at home in that pretty notebook, or on the train, or in bed, etc. and it just never happens. Maybe this time - it will.
My roommate never showed up yesterday. He called me from Boston at around 1 AM and said that he would be coming today. He was a little drunk I think, he said he is getting me some '40's. My room is still a mess, because all the stuff that he left in people's rooms was given back to me by people moving in yesterday. Now there is a pile of stuff sitting in the middle of my room waiting for my roommate. Instead of organizing any more, I am listening to Wu Bai at high volume and reading the BBC news on my computer. There are new kids on our hall, including a new kid up from the Japanese floor (I live in the "foreign language" dorm) downstairs (he came up to get a single) and some new kids in my old room (really about the size of a broom closet) at the end of the hall. BBC news sure is great, I like it a lot better than the globe, just because they are not so subjective when it comes to international news and also they have much better coverage overall for world news.

I think I am going to use my new rice cooker to make lunch, but that is still a little ways off. My new plan is to cook rice once per day(maybe early in the morning) and use my microwave to reheat it for two meals hence saving time. Tomorrow I have class at 9:30

well, it's almost 2 in the afternoon. My roommate came back. I have made a chinese music metanode, wrote the names of all the people I could think of and I am going to spend the rest of the day working on it ( I invite anyone who knows about it to help me)

Today was my day to do group facilitation in my body, langauge and spirit class. I think that these facilitations are generally a very useful element, esp. in women's studies, but sometimes they can be so frustrating.

I had to lead a talk on a video we watched on Thursday called Black mothers, Black Daughters. One of the three people in my group hadn't been in class that day, nor had she gotten the video out of the library, so she didn't have much to add, and what's worse, she kept getting off topic, and since she never seems to stop for air while speaking, it was hard to break in and say, "Well, sounds like you had a super weekend, now about this video that we're supposed to talk about..." Arrg!

I have to be more forceful, she wasted so much time. But at least they all gave me good reveiws for the discussion (the professor looks at these when she's marking me on it) and I'll have something to talk about in the 'group dynamics' part of my report.
I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep last night. I was up until about 4:30 or something and then had to wake up at 6:30 to get ready for jury duty.

I hit snooze a few times and finally got up and drove 27 miles to the courthouse. There were about 900 jurors there and I managed to avoid getting called until around 10:30.

I got called into a case involving a personal injury claim by a very attractive young lady. I used that as one of the reasons why I felt I would be biased in the case (along with the fact that the defendent wasn't present), so I didn't remain as a juror. I felt if I had to drag my butt out of bed at 6:30 in the morning, then the defendent should be there too; if he isn't there, then I get the feeling that he doesn't care that much about it.

The courtroom I went to was on the 11th floor. I can tell I'm a real Floridian when that's enough to make my ears pop. There is an awesome view of the ocean from there.

I went back to the jury pool afterwards and waited around until about 3pm when I was excused to go home. I drove home and went to sleep until around 11pm.

It was an interesting experience, although quite boring most of the time. Next time I will bring a a laptop or something to entertain myself. I thought it was interesting how they played white noise in the courtroom when the judge and the laywers would get together to discuss stuff that we weren't supposed to hear.

Well, i'm feeling better. Only kinda though. After a whole bunch (abouthalf a dozen) quasi-hurls, and a few tums, i'm feeling better. My throat now has that burning sensation from the stomach acid tearing at the supple skin in your throat. I'm afraid to burp unless my head is over or near a toilet, because i'm afraid if i do, i'll have projectile vomit like stan from south park. yuck. i was talking to my girlfriend when i first started feeling bad tonight. i had to let her go, because i didnt want her to hear me throwing up.

My stomach has not been feeling the greatest all week actually. I had the cha-chas off and on for a little bit now, and it;s actualy been pissing me off. I either want to get sick, or get over it. none of this dinking around, let's get knocked on my ass and get it over with. I'm tired of feeling like shit and not beng able ot do anything about it. well it's off to chug some NyQuil, see if i can get some sleep tonight. but i'm kinda secretly hoping that i will get sick and i get to make myself not go to class.

one can only hope...

Today I checked my SPO—my student mailbox—following my recent return to school in St. Paul. I got, among other things, a padded envelope with no return address and a cassette tape inside. The tape is of transparent plastic, with any evidence of original labelling scuffed off. Glued on to the tape are small new labels on each side, with the appearance of being created on a typewriter. One reads, LIFE HATE, while the other reads DEATH LOVE. On the tape is a recording off of a Christian radio station. The postmark on the envelope was not stamped properly, so I do not know the origin city of the mysterious item.

Any help in determining the originator of this tape would be greatly appreciated.

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