June 28, 2001

To visit a nudie bar or to not visit a nudie bar...this is the question posed to me around 1am this morning by three of my guy friends who offered to take me the Beansnappers with them this Sat. Luckily, I already had plans. After that I went to sleep and woke up later for work.

My fascination with shiny things has carried over into my job. I wash lenses for eight hours a day....not a glorious job, but the hours and wages are good, so it makes for a decent summer job. Anyway, I was admiring some of the lenses and a brilliant new art project idea occurred to me. I decided to take home the "oops lenses" and place them over pictures/quotes/words in plaster to make nifty little sign things. I have yet to start....but the night is young and I have no plans to leave my house. Soon bright shiny baubles will be adorning my walls.Yea!

Yikes, this has been a bad week for the Cyborganic servers. Monday night they crashed and I had to go over there yesterday morning and see what was up. Xanadu, the mail server and web staging server, had hung on some scsi disk errors. yuck.

At first it wouldn't reboot, but after letting it sit for 10 minutes or so it came back up. Maybe it's a heat thing? Maybe. It does get pretty stuffy in that little room. There are 6 servers in that rack, and not very good ventilation. It's supposed to be a damn laundry room, dammit.

Erehwon, the live web server, had crashed too, but I think this was only because it has an NFS mount of a directory on Xanadu. It came back up with no problem, other than the usual annoying long fsck.

(Right about while this was happening, I later found out today, the guys from Slashdot were dealing with a strange outage of their servers. There's an excellent blow-by-blow account of their trials and tribulations on their site now.)

Anyway, so the machines came back up, but then later, last night, they crashed again. Repeat process this morning. Luckily I only live about a block away from jonathan's, where the servers are. Also swapped out a flakey hub while i was at it, which has been causing annoying outages for months.

Sure enough, this afternoon they go down again. I just want someone else to deal with this. People are calling me, emailing me, but there are like 8 other admins. Why can't it be someone else's turn? I admit that in a bout of selfish escapism I went and got a latte and read a book for a half an hour before finally giving in and dealing with the servers again. I'm not being paid for this crap. Let them all wait. Anyway, this time I figured out which SCSI disk was the problem (the one that has /home on it, unfortunately),and I rebooted without mounting that one. Which means users don't have their home directories, or their staging servers, but at least they can get email, and named is running. And the live web server is running fine, except for some CGI scripts which use the NFS mount. guh. so complicated. But things are limping along at least. people have their email at least. that's the important thing. uh, except they have to use POP to get their email, no shell readers like pine. grrr.

now Mitra has the nerve to complain. his CGIs aren't working. he's another cybo admin. he's in australia, though, so he has an excuse, i guess. no recent word from any more local admins. dammit.

stefan, in new york, just reported that he was the one who bought the aforementioned dying disk, and he thinks it was less than a year ago! So maybe it's still under warranty! They should pay me for my time too....

ah, Unix... as my friend Mykle once said, "Unix is like a rubic's cube, you feel so smart for figuring it out, but you still aren't getting any work done." Actually, to be fair, disks fail no matter what the OS. But I just had to use that quote. :-)

So the weirdest thing happened......I finally watched the movie Magnolia. E2, please watch this if you haven't. The whirlwind of emotions that have plagued me from P. T. Anderson's vision spun my perspective on life into a beautiful rest stop. Mixed with my current job situation of none, there is a calmness my nerves and mind have never felt. This placid mentality never found me, in 25 years of a life on this planet.

So I found a job today. Starting next week, I am an organic farmer. That's right; squash, zuchini, and melons will be my co-workers....for some reason, it's perfect. I didn't grow up to find myself in a cube or lab for my life. The way things work, I'm sure I'll find myself there again. But I need this, more than anything I've come upon in a while. I've lived, I shit you not, I've partied like a baffoon. My blood could intoxicate all of E2, these aren't lies. They are tales of dark corners people don't get to see. They exist in movies as glamorous highlights on society, but the pretentious truth stares morality and decent living down and frightens the reason into a state of disarray. But the fake side, as shitty as it may be, has driven me...there has to be something better, a situation is always worse than mine. Looking back to the last five years, I'm suprised I can still think, type, or say that. But it's true.....

My roomate just got back from Ireland, and he brought a great bottle of Jameson, not normal.....aged 12 years. I've been drinking, and I'm sure it shows in my writing. Regardless, I'm going to roll a square and reflect. Good night everything, where ever you are...

It wasn't until after I had submitted and integrated ASCII Art: Cats that I was informed of an

* E2 Policy Change! *

dannye says I'm sorry, but we had a meeting and decided that ASCII art, just for the sake of itself, is not a good idea for E2. Hope you understand.

I take this to mean "If ASCII art dominates a writeup instead of illustrating what is already explained in the text, it does not belong on E2." Call it pulling an Asamoth if you will, but I have removed the ASCII art from arm and hammer and whistler's mother at dannye's request and had several of my old ascii writeups nuked and moved their former contents to http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~yerricde/e2/ascii.html

Update 03:11:32 Fri Jun 29, 2001

dannye referred me to further discussion of this topic at Editor Log: June 28, 2001

---

Do NOT put more than a couple kilobytes of text in your E2 scratch pad!

There is a limited size available for each user's data (user settings plus homenode contents plus scratch pad contents), and if you exceed that, a buffer overflow in the Everything engine will wipe out your user settings and your cached number of writeups, sending you back to level 1.

UPDATE: nate has set an 8 KB limit on the scratch pad; it shouldn't fsck you up as bad now.

forgive me, my readers, i have sinned. i have not written in ten days, but oh, what a ten days it has been. i'll try to just hit the high points, more in order of importance than in chronological order. due to a vicious intestinal virus, i have no sense of chronology and i am coldsweating.

Rhapsody in Screwed :: Part XIII
06.27.01 :: 23:56

Kissing the Arse of St. John the Divine: a weekend in new york. christ. where to begin...begin at the beginning i s'pose. at 05:30 last saturday morning, i left niall zonked out in my tiny bed, and went to the airport to set out on what was to be a hellicious adventure. i got out of albuquerque without a hitch, but the trouble came when, after sprinting half the length of the dallas airport, i learned that my flight to new york had been cancelled. ok, i could get on standby for one that left in 20 minutes, and i got confirmed for the one that left two hours later. i proceeded to sprint the length of two terminals once again after calling my mother and explaining the problem. i did not wind up on the early flight. i called my mother again, and ate a few granola bars from my supply. i was only about two gates down from where my flight was to leave from. i was unconcerned, until fifteen minutes before the flight, when i looked at the time lisitngs, and realised that the flight had been moved to the other end of the airport. you guessed it: more running like a fool. during this sprint, i thought i saw a dear friend of mine and when i whirled around to find what turned out not to be him, my momentum carried me into the book rack of a nearby newsstand. tripping, i fell into a clumsy leap, and hit the ground running. as i skidded into the gate, i noticed the board behind the counter declared my flight to have been moved again, this time halfway across the airport. again. i turned and ran, glad it had also been delayed 10minutes. six minutes later i slid into the gate, and boarded the flight to new york. mid flight, i found out that in the shuffle my request for a vegetarian meal had been lost. more granola bars for me. finally arriving at la guardia, i bounced, ok more like trudged, off the plane into the waiting arms of my...oh shit! no one was there to pick me up! some forty five minutes later, my cousin-in-law found me sulking by the information desk, and we were off. she was the only sane face i saw for 24hours. i'll spare you the family crap, but let it be said, it was only 17:00 (my time, not ny time) and i'd been up for 12 hours already on two hours of sleep. i was confused, tired, and astoundingly hungry. i didn't get to bed for another five hours because my aunt decided that it was the perfect opportunity to show me off to her inlaws, and quiz me about my life and religious beliefs. finally, i just crashed. the next morning was wild, but after 10 hours of sleep i was a bit better prepared. i was still confused, though, and my stomach felt funny. i attributed it to eating nothing but granola bars and szechuan eggplant the preceding day. finally, after much ado, we all packed off to the city, to the cathedral of st. john the divine for my aunt's ordination ceremony. two hours of wanting to shoot myself while listening to people mumble, sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair, and getting high off the incense. this did nothing for my confusion. upon the conclusion of th ceremony, we drove back to long island for the reception, complete with afghani food. this did nothing for the virus i had brewing in my intestines. i bullshitted with my uncle paul for a while about our pending trip to rome, and then went to bed. not to sleep, tho, just to get away from the insanity. i read a john grisham novel. the next morning, my aunt took me out to a fantastic jewish deli, where i got enough knishes and pierogies to take some home with me. that afternoon, i got on the plane to come home, and again got delayed in dallas. not too bad that time, only half an hour. i walked up to some blue-haired kid who was flying to albuquerque, but was, surprisingly, not someone i knew, and said "excuse me, but why the fuck are you flying to albuquerque?" i've always wanted to say that to someone. to make a long story short, he was visiting. the rest of the trip home was uneventful, except that when i got off the plane, once again, no-one was there. my mother showed up a few minutes later and took me home. by 06:30, niall was in bed with me, and all was right with the world, except, ov course, that i still have this fucking intestinal virus...

in other news, niall's mom does not want to be seen in public with me, and does not want me at her daughter's wedding this weekend. she is outvoted. the rest of the family likes me fine. her issue? i have too many piercings in all the wrong places. (i have four in one ear, one in the other, one eyebrow, and my nose)

duct tape night! i have shaved almost my entire body to accomodate tomorrow's duct tape extravaganza. i'll be dressed (or undressed, as the case may be) as circuit breaker, the robot killer from the old transformers comics. i'll be wearing a duct tape bikini and circuit patterns.

and that's all for now, because i have to write my final paper for class tomorrow....

I always love it when a piece goes neg on rep, lets me know that I'm doing a great job (grin) What, nobody likes my whining?
Cruised the Long Island boards..there isn't much going on out here. I seriously doubt there are many fellow bohemians kicking around this area..not with rent at $1600 a month..sigh, aren't there any rich freaks?
Life as a loner would be so much easier if I didn't need people as much as I dislike reaching out. Seems once they get close, they dissapear. Makes you wonder why you should keep trying. I have an easier time talking to strangers than people I know.
I hate sleeping on the floor, even a carpeted on. The aches in my back come a close second to my right hand, which is still swollen. I think I broke my pinky knuckle.
Note to self. Punching slate is dumb. Anger only reflects back on the angry.

I went out to a bbq last night and didn't get home until 4:30am. Somehow I managed to oversleep and not turn up for work this morning. It got to about 11:30 before anyone decided to see if I was ok and then it was a friend who lives in another continent.

I am increasingly feeling it is time to take a long, hard look at my life.

...10 hours pass...

No, that's all I had to say about today.

I figure I'll get this out of the way now, rather than coming back and saying, "Oh shit, I forgot about this place!"

I'm going to be away for a while, just wanted to notify everyone of that. To those who've sent me books, via the Book Lotto: I will receive them, though I am moving at present. And I thank you in advance. They will appear back in the Book Lotto writeup of mine.

T. and I broke up; where or not it's permanent is beyond me. I believe it is, though. But I can't really hazard a guess as to why I feel that way, or why it should be that way. Such is the nature of love, I guess. As of today's date, she and I were officially "together" for three years, two months, and eighteen days. We have a beautiful, 28 month old daughter together. Maybe it's just a little harder to leave the mother of your child. Maybe it's just a little harder to leave the only person who's ever genuinely loved you (so far). Maybe it's just a little harder to be the one who's actually constructively doing the breaking up part.

After I'm done this Day Log, I'm going to pack my clothes away. I'm moving in with my mother until I get a decent job, etc etc. Alia will be coming with me, because I'm the better choice, as far as Alia is concerned. It's going to be fine, isn't it? I mean, my life? It's easy to ask such questions in text, because I'm not saying them to anyone.

So, I will be away from E2, for an indeterminate/indefinite length of time; I just don't know. Could be two days, could be two years. No Asamothing going on here, though. And if any god or anybody else decides to delete my name, or my homenode, or anything fucked up like that, allow me to convey my malice and distaste right here: 5cr3w j00! I should probably thank the denizens here for helping me through this time in my life, too. So, thanks.

It's so hard to believe, right now, that everything's going to be okay. It's so hard for me to believe that I'm going to be all right. But I will: I know it.

So, thanks for reading this Day Log. Thanks for being around. Thanks for kicking me in the ass when my nodes were shitty. Fuck all the assholes who put disparaging softlinks, however. I don't like that. :)

Everyone, take care. Have fun. I'll see y'all on the flipside.

Go here. It's worth it.

I went out last night. For some reason my systers always call me at the last minute, as if I were an afterthought. Which really messes with my mind considering I like to have some vague idea of what lies before me in the near future. I didn't even know they were back from their vacation. Then another surprise when they showed up at my house with way more people than I was expecting.

We picked up another of our friends who lives in College Station, and then ate Chinese food and went... bowling. I definitely don't see the amusement in bowling. I don't bowl. I watch. This usually draws arguments and complaints. Mostly it's just that I hate spending money, most of all on things that are definitely not worth the cost. They had a blast. I laughed. And stared off into the distance a lot. I think I have the inability to be spontaneous. I think I'm missing some vital part of the human psyche.

Jessie asked me to spend the night. But she had to get up at five in the morning, and she needed to get sleep. She wondered why I declined. Seriously, I want to be with her, but it isn't worth the inconvenience of temporarily relocating just to be under the same roof. I want to talk to her, to share experiences with her. Sure, I could amuse myself. But I want attention! I need to be comforted! I'm tired of being told how much I matter, and treated like I don't.

Maybe I should stop listening to country music.

There's a peculiar pleasant calmness after a long ugly headache. I woke up with it this morning, and tried to just roll over and sleep with it for a while, hoping the stillness and warmth and quiet would stop the shrieking knife in my head. Stuffed nose, so I could not use the last little blue doctor's handout plunger of Imitrex. Fitful sleep. Not sleep, really; closing eyes and hoping and occasionally looking at the clock and feeling bad about being in bed at 1:30 on a weekday when I should be looking for a job doing my current job reading listening to music making something riding my bike making food cleaning the apartment anything other than tossing and turning in a sweaty overhot bed trying not to breathe wrong and be calm and not increase the blood pressure in my head. The knife seemed to want to punish me: thoughts of last week were greeted by more shrieking from my temples. Finally attacked with three advil and a coke, disgusting first thing in the day but I didn't want to make tea. My head responded by making me nauseous.

I kept it down. And now I sit here reading bones' poetry and stories, searching for the scorched scroll that I found once and have not been able to find since. The brain is very difficult to describe, like everything's been oiled and works better now. I attributed this feeling to the chemical weirdness of Imitrex and Maxalt before; I've never survived a migraine without the drugs before without doing the throw up pass out sleep for hours perhaps wake and do it again, lather rinse repeat, until the headache is gone when I wake. The doctor told me in his folksy way that the current theory of migraine has something to do with neurotransmitters all releasing at once, like a flock of birds taking off from a telephone wire leaving it shaking up and down. My head feels like that, a gently swaying wire after the violence of the flock is gone.

So I'm reading Letters from a Savior, Offer for a Few and want to do a road trip, take all the money out of my rainy day account and spend it pedal to the floor in the golf. Spend it going. Going to the badlands. Going to Chicago. Going to New York. Going through Texas. But this won't solve anything. A month and a half later I'd get back and still be without a job, nearly alone in this city, nine months away from her. It's still tempting. Shed everything. Sell the electronics. Give back the borrowed stuff. Give my computers and books and cds to a friend. Sell everything but a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, some underwear and a few tshirts. And just go go go.

Today's original agenda was to take my Composition class in Brooklyn College, go to the PCExpo, and then get back home. However, this wasn't the case.

I woke up extremely early (6:00 AM Eastern), trying to think up an idea for a proposal for a research paper. Since the class has to do something on Gender Relations, all I can think of is "Women in the military." I haven't thought up a way to write the proposal yet, so I put it off for tomorrow.

I went to class, and took part in a discussion regarding issues raised by the Allan G. Johnson book The Gender Knot. My favorite issue was the idea that women are always submissive. All I can do is feign coughing and mutter a reference or two of some of the dominant women from TES would do wonders to drive the men to beg. Trust me, nobody in that classroom would understand.

I went to the Library Café in Brooklyn College, and read my e-mail as always. This time, I've taken a minute to say hello to a cute Israeli girl... what's her name again? "Maytal?" I didn't know how to spell it, but she was wearing a bright yellow baby-t with a reflective Playboy logo. She told me she's waiting in the café before aerobics class. She looks cool.

I ran off, to the subway station to take the train to Manhattan for the PCExpo. Took me a while, but I killed time by taking a few pictures of people and their reflections in the train car.

The PCExpo was big, but not as big as I liked - only the single big floor was taken. I didn't get to do so much, but at least the emphasis of the show is not "portable devices" - more like networking. I was followed by a troll who kept asking me why do I have to pay attention to tech issues like free software when I'm just a TV & Radio student... It's not about what I'm studying - it's how I link my work to the tech world.

I left the show, with barely a grab bag (MacWorld is probably better for that kind of thing), and I went to the Café Edison for lunch. I ordered a bowl of matzoh ball soup and some pickled herring. I also took a few pictures of the restaurant itself for my memories...

When I was done with lunch, I went to the bank to check how much money I have - $540! I went out to buy the third volume of the Neon Genesis Evangelion DVD series (that's $27), and I've bumped into Maryann Lopinto from the Cabaret scene... And she invited me to go see Seth Rudetsky's Broadway Chatterbox - the guests for the show were Mary Testa and Jonathan Freeman (from the Broadway production of 42nd Street). Okay... Now taking $20, I have $480 -_-.

After the show, I went and talked a bit with Maryann about the cabaret scene... Mostly, we were talking a lot more computer stuff than the cabarets.

I paid back Maryann for the Chatterbox show (because she gave me $10 first - hence the $20 being taken from the bank).

Off I go, back to Kit Lo's Home Office....

There's this sadness I think everyone has -- its lack is just as distracting and disturbing as the lack of an ear, or milky-eyed blindness. How does the world seem without it? Does the sky look the same?

When the child was a child, there was no tyranny in its love.

No one home.

Ok. here's the story for today. I haven't gotten mail in days and my plans have all gone haywire -- crossed and prickly. I've lost the addresses of everyone I know and used to know and I'm walking around the house with an unaddressable postcard to my him dangling from my hand when I realize I just want to be stimulated far past the point of speech. The more I try to banish it, the less it will leave. But there's no one to speak to, even. I clamp my knees together, and my teeth.

Too much or too little.

It looked up, smiling, for encouragement, and squinted in the sun.

I got back from work, 14 hours after I'd begun the day. I had walked in the heat and ridden the crowded subways and found myself standing at the door of my apartment, no keys and no roommates to let me in.

There was nothing I could do. It was getting late, and I had to pack. In two days I would leave this place for three months, for school. I have been wrapped up in work and in going back home, stress gripped me for 18 hours a day.

I got a water from the corner store, where I always go for drinks. Needing something to do, I decided to walk along the beach. The stone bench that runs along the beach had recently been repainted by the locals, a proud display of community. I sat on the section painted by the Subgenii, my back to Bob. A rhythmic sound floated to me, calming me and calling to me. I found myself listening to a group of young men playing bongos, and a guitar player who had wandered by. After I had sat down to listen, a nei player happened by and added to the mix.

And the older woman sitting next to me started talking to the girl my age who had just walked up, about the beauty of the night and the mysterious force that had drawn our growing group together. The woman's voice blended with the beats as she talked about the different walks of life represented, the races and backgrounds. I heard a few other languages and many different accents. I found myself writing this node, trying to remember this forever. I should leave, go back to the bustle of moving; I should go back to the magic box and worship information, contemplating the mysteries of Minsky; I should call my girlfriend, she must wonder where the heck I am.

Instead, I found myself listening to the woman, the music, the night.

Instead, I found myself.