June 24, 2003

My boyfriend and I went downtown to get ice cream around 9:30, and found that the place we usually go was closed but there was a guy playing guitar sitting outside. I was really excited that my little nowhere town had gotten a street performer, so we got ice cream from Friendly's and came back. The guy with the guitar (whose name turns out to be Dan Wallace, I think, or something similar) had packed up, but played one last song when I asked him to ("Can't pass up a new fan"), and he's actually quite good. He has a really nice voice, and it was very full-sounding, even with just him and his guitar. And I liked the lyrics--there was a line like "Like the sun, I can escape all lives except my own"--either lives or lies, we couldn't tell. It makes sense either way. And it's pretty. Hopefully he'll come back. After Dan Wallace left, I started talking to this random guy who was sitting on the bench with him. He was middle-aged and enderaingly unattractive: longish kind of poufy dark hair, pale, kinda heavy. His name is Steve. We talked about music for a while. A very long while, actually. This guy is an encyclopedia. He reminded me of Seymor from Ghost World, the guy Enid starts hanging out with who collects jazz records. He listed all these 60s and 70s bands I'd never heard of (the point being that I'd never heard of them, since everything's become all commercialized), and we talked about the way music has become so much drastically less about talent and wanting to be on the stage in order to perform and share music and more about making money and selling records and being on stage in order to be applauded. He asked me if I played anything, and we talked about classical music for a while, and I was suddenly really glad I'd taken Music Listening. In spite of how painfully, excrutiatingly boring that class was, I actually did come out of it with a basic overview of classical music, and I can have a discussion about it without sounding stupid. Good to know it wasn't a complete waste of time. He also recommended this radio show on WNYC at 11 pm called New Sounds, which I'm listening to now--it's excellent. The last piece they played was based on a story about Bach: supposedly, Bach took a nap in the afternoon, and his kids decided to wake him up by playing a series of chords on the harpsichord but not resolving them, so that Bach would hear them in that half-asleep, half-awake state and start trying to sort out the sequence in his head and ultimately have to force himself awake to rush over to the harpsichord and play the resolving chord. It was played with a string quartet (or quintet, couldn't tell) and not a harpsichord, thankfully, but it was really cool.

Then a guy from my school, who was parked in front of us, backed his truck into the car behind it. Incredibly, the car wasn't even scratched. My boyfriend, Steve and I went over to check and make sure the car was okay, and noticed the guy's bumper stickers, which say things like "Nuke the Bastards!" and "Kick Their Ass! Take Their Gas! Proud to Be an American," which sparked a political discussion, covering the usual--the atrocities inherent in war and whether they're ever justifiable, the actual motives behind and outcomes of the war in Iraq, why the hell don't people drive hybrid cars, etc. Apparently there's a couple in my town who own an electric car. It's a little blue two-seater with two wheels in back and one wheel in front and a Back to the Future lift-up door. Sounds pretty cool. I've never seen it, though.

When I came home and told Mom, I was afraid she'd be all worried about me standing around on a street corner at night talking to some random middle-aged guy I'd never met before. All she said, though, was, "You'll really like college."

when i come home, shower, clean up, and my roommate is in Pentiction, and i am left to my own devices, to feed myself, to find a job, to look for a new home, and i am all by myself, all my friends have day jobs...i become a different sort of lonely.

i have nothing to do, and nobody to do it with. at all. soon i will run out of money, and that will be troublesome, but until then, i can just sit here in my basement burning cd's.

p.s. i have fallen in love with Neko Case. I was already enamoured with the New Pornographers, but with the recent death of June Carter Cash, I have become reaquainted with both Johnny Cash and Neko's work... (also kazoo orchestras, but we'll not go into that) I almost went to go see her last spring-ish, but the boyfriend says to me, he says "She's a country singer, you don't want to go see that". such untruth.

I have given up being a lousy writer in favour of being a lousy painter. only trouble is, being a lousy writer required only a typewriter, estimated cost, $5 at salvation army...painting with be pricier, so for now i will stick to brown wrapping paper and tempura paints.

K-bot will get me a job at the Greyhound station, provided I actually go down and apply before it's too late. she's a nice girl, but all her performance art involves drinking whole bottles of blackberry wine.

also, i will have being writing useless garbage here for three years as of tommorrow. i have progressed very little. if you see me, please tell me to go outside. i need fresh air and exercise, not this place.

/me rant and needs advice

I hate Ohio. I hate Kent State University. I hate living on a farm and being away from all my friends. And I hate making decisions.

I'm not sure if it's stress or what, but recently not all has gone well. I need a change.

My major has practically gotten cancelled, or at least I'm told, "it's still there but since we had no money to fund the department and since we fired everyone we can't offer the specific classes, but it's still there." My reaction, a nice howdy doody.

So now I'm stuck, asking myself - what now? I'm done with all my LERs (except for a science class) but otherwise I should be well into and almost done with my major now. /me fustrated.

Oh so not only do I have the stress from picking a new major but I have parent behind me 'no, no, no that's not good' to almost all I pick. And since they are helping fund school it's not wise to pick against them since they'll ax funding.

I'm considering going across seas - I've travelled a lot so I think I could get around in a town that I can't speak the language. I do have the benefit of being bi-literate in Hungarian so I could move to Hungary - and then my SO is from Hungary so it could work except his trade is not doing well hence why he left so I dunno what to do. I've been trying to hunt up what one could study in the states and take across seas as a job, any suggestions?

Ah, well time to go study the book of various majors, again maybe something will hit me. I've been looking at a major in fine arts crafts which has one study an emphasis in either textiles/patterns, glass, ceramics, or jewelry/metals. They all seem neat to me, but finding work is also an objective -and work that pays well I'm tried of living on a students budget.

A long ways back I mentioned the possibility of re-uniting with my older kids. I dunno, as of today, I feel I might be a step closer

Since that date, my oldest child and me have had what can be best described as a sporadic E-mail relationship. For the most part, the conversation was of the safe nature. You know, inquiring about other people’s health, the weather, what have you been up to sorta stuff. A lot of the time, the conversation focused on borgette and what she has been up to and how she was doing. I liked the fact that we were trading e-mails and that we were at least communicating in one form or another. A little later, my oldest daughter began sending snail mail addressed to borgette and me to my house. I dunno, getting a piece of real mail via the post office from a real person is kinda like coming home to a prize. Anyway, yesterday I was the recipient of such a prize and since borgette was off to her mom’s house for the week, I decided to take a look inside.

It was a simple card with some simple handwritten words. Enclosed were some pictures of her recent trip to Sedona, Arizona. She looked so happy and the surroundings seemed to fit her so naturally that I felt my heart tugging at my chest. I hadn’t actually spoken to her in over four years (I’ve been described as a stubborn asshole on more than one occasion!) and the last time we did speak, the conversation, if you can call it that was accusatory and vindictive. Not the things pleasant memories are made of.

I went out to my porch, cracked a beer, and kept turning the photo’s over and over in my hands. Should I pick up the phone and call? Should I just keep things the way they are? What if the conversation turns “nasty”? What if I don’t even recognize her voice? What if, what if, what if….

I guess I was kinda nervous because the first time I tried to dial her number, I got it wrong. After a few deep breaths I tried again and she answered on the second ring.

I don’t want to bore you with too many sappy details but the conversation went better than I could have ever imagined. Sure, we talked about the “safe” stuff for awhile but we also managed to talk about feelings and about the future. The years of distance between us seem to melt away. Our chat lasted close to 45 minutes (which for me is a lifetime on the phone) and closed with a promise to talk more often in the near future. After I hung up I was hit with an overwhelming sense of relief and immediately wished the conversation hadn’t come to an end. I almost picked up the phone again but thought I might be overdoing it.

I guess a wise man once said “All good things take time.” or something like that. I’m hopin’ he was right because too much time has passed between us and too many memories have yet to be forged and I hope our time has come. No plans were made to see each other just yet but if things keep going the way they are, who knows?

You know, come to think of it, I slept better last night than I have in a long, long time..

So I came to work today after being gone yesterday and had a note from my boss asking to meet. (Its never good to hear that first thing in the morning). It appears that while I was sick, everyone in the company decided to voice thier opinion and frustrations they have in regards to me and the jobs I don't get done for them.

Let me explain my job to those out there.... I work for small private bank with just about a hundred employees and two branch offices. I am the sole IT person in the company. (My boss has a background in IT, but is not involved in the day to day process or helpdesk like issues.) I do everything from network administration to helpdesk/tech support. If someone has a problem, I get to deal with it.

To say the least I am swamped and most of the time when I am stopped, I say that I will get to it as soon as possible, please drop me an email so I can remember. Well, it seems the whole company was frustrated with me not getting back to anyone. Which of course I have never heard of until they called my boss.

Now I get to work on making sure I prioritize my requests and meet with my boss each morning to come up with a list of things to do each day. Well, hopefully I can improve to thier satisfaction, I swear they will never be happy with the level of support I give them.

All the days I spend with you are priceless.