March 3, 2002

The day started out as a random bad day partly because it was midd-term week. i came home with the full intent of studying. My defination of studying being falling asleep on a text book. Luckly i was saved by two dear friends Ashley and James.

They took me to an Islanders vs. Penguins game. A small boy about 10 or 11 years old was screaming "you suck penguins"

I thought that was great. It wasn't "you suck, (comma) pengiuns". It was "you suck penguins" implying that some one indeed is sucking a real live pengiun.Now the real question is: Poor penguin or lucky penguin?

03:11 - shocked alive

...'white as a sheet'...'like he just saw a ghost'...

Spooky.

All this time I've been very alert, hair-trigger set. Maintaining the status quo, however, consumed me. Completely. Months and months I spent immersed in a world where my sins, mistakes, and letdowns simply didn't exist. Reality bled away over time, leaving a shell that I simply existed in.

In real life I've become so paralyzed by my fears of misunderstanding and not being accepted that the cost has far outweiged the benefits of participation. Rationalization helped me exist in an extremely satisfied state whlie life kept moving on around me. Everything's changed.

I found out that someone had become a father, twice. That someone was on their way to becoming a mother. That someone was on their way to marraige. That someone had moved on while I stayed in stasis. Not once did I consider the sheer reality of their situations. I was so immersed in a dream world that I acknowledged, but never considered the implications of what I heard.

So what shocked me this much? Where did it come from, this itch to type something, this incredible surge of being alive for once?

Today...

First, there's someone I haven't seen in a long time. Someone I used to adore, a good friend. Didn't know what to expect, but changes need to be implimented... To say the least. Dropped her smack in the middle of someone else's crsis.

Second, there's a friend's sister. $18 for a test, and an hour later it was positive. I can't believe it. Shock. I don't know what the poor girl can do, and being a male there's not much I can do to help her in the way of advice. I'm so glad there was a helping hand available. It was ineviteble really, but the shock of reality bites hard. She can't afford the costs associated with it, emotionally or fiscally. Maturity comes quick faced with those odds. Her boyfriend was upset at the thought, considering he wasn't involved in the act of the creation.

After all that, the coffeeshop came around. Bumped into someone from the last ice age who oddly enough was instrumental in the corruption two of the strongest friendships I've had in a long time - one of which was with me tonight. Not that it wasn't my fault, but she so relishes twisting the knife. Now she's only one or two degrees seperated from me socially, and it's disturbing to say the least. We actually had a civil conversation though, sat within 3 feet of each other comfortably, and didn't once bring up the past.

I'm shocked at the pace of the changes, I guess. The fact that I'm so out of step with life that I've reduced myself to a passive bystander. Shocked in the extreme by my passive nature that I never acknowledged before - the way it ties into my rationalizations about lacking self respect or confidence.

Now....

Where does it leave me? I'm sitting here, literally teetering between reality and virtuality. A few clicks of a mouse and I'm back in a world where I'm respected, accepted, and able to help so many. At the same time, I'm a few steps away from changing my life for the better and moving on with it.

It's so tough to choose. Do I really want to see how deep the rabbithole goes? Or would I rather just wake up and forget everything I've seen? It's one of those moments when the choice is there, I can work against my will to better myself or remain in a state of stasis for even longer...

Click-click, click.

I'm halfway to level 60 - I can take my break once I'm there. Besides, there's that PoH raid this monday.

---

05:17

It's just a little bit of history repeating. Again.

One year, nearly to the day. The convergence of emotions is pretty interesting. Not really history repeating, but it's one hell of a coincidence. The most painful thing is that I haven't changed. Choices were never made, there was never closure to the relationships in my mind. Disassociation.

I need to stop thinking. I need to sleep, or escape, or otherwise keep myself busy.

This is so close to feeling something that the anxiety is almost too much to bear. As the numbness receeds, the pins and needles are all I can feel as I wait for the oncoming rush of re--
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NO CARRIER
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ATDT8135551212
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Login: kalie
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--ality.

The memories are almost gone. Almost wiped away by complacency. Emotional memories degenerated to a point where I'm not sure what's real, what's fake, and what's really relevant. I haven't felt anything, haven't cared. Now I guess I'm starting to.

---

Good god that was long. For the ages indeed. Maybe it's just been too long...

Uhm, have you smoked any marijuana? UNgngnnng noonhkslgdlkgurlg

So it was around 9 at night when they pulled us over.

They're pulling us over.
What?
We're fucked.

There were five of them.

There's five of them.
Oh shit.

And I'm thinking, who's idea was it to smoke on Palm Beach? And didn't I say I wouldn't do this again? Whatever. My friend opens his window and smoke billows out.

What do you think of the war on drugs?

Well that's a strange question; what's the motive of that? What do they know? What do they NOT know? Boy it's good to be sitting in the back...

The war on drugs? Well, it's cool. Yeah, I mean...

Really, it wasn't until we got out of the car that I passed out. The officer leaned towards the back, shining a flashlight in my face - I stared at him, feeling a little glazed.

YOU LOOK A LITTLE GLAZED.
Yes, sir.
HOW OLD ARE YOU?
Sixteen.
STEP OUT OF THE CAR, PLEASE.

And I could actually stand up for a good 60 seconds. And I convinced the paramedics, when they showed up, that I was fine. And I stared at the ground for what may have been hours; as the lights danced on the road and the hedges, and the aristo-plastic Palm Beachers drove by, slowing down to stare at us with vacant alarm.

Jesus...
I know.

Were we really that entertaining? One of the officers was a nice girl just out of school, and who gave periodic corrections to her commanding sergeant - this gray-haired, bitter-looking man who talked a lot like a boar would if it could, ..she kept giving corrections to protocol and paperwork; tidbits that clearly annoyed him. She seemed assured that we were lucky it wasn't a lot worse.

So you guys just experimenting?
Well...
You're lucky it wasn't a lot worse.
Yeah...

And in any case I didn't even have anything on me. Our driver was 18, so he was given a court date; the other passenger was 17 and got taken to 'juvenile assessment' something or other, and I was let go.

Did you smoke any marijuana?
Uh, no.

Who, me? No way. I'm just lying down in the road in front of a police car because I like to fall down, in the road, in front of police cars. Did you know that I'm a genius? I am not of your element, or of the pearl people of this island; look at them ... that goddamn woman with the diamond ear rings; she stared in my eyes for at least thirty hours and I think she's fucking dirty.

8pm. I am still garrulous and ever so slightly wired. But on the whole I feel good. I am sunburned, on my scalp (through a hat), on my face (lightly, through the factor 30 sun cream) and on my wrists (where I didn’t apply the sun cream evenly). This not something that I will have to worry about again for a long time. Four days to go. Yikes! Four days. So much to do.

Daylogs, IMHO serve, amongst other things, a factual purpose. This is life. I neither ask you to accept or judge. I just say, This is one small part of how it is on planet earth.

I awoke at 5am on Sunday morning, cursing an alarm that hadn’t gone off at 4am. Birds were stirring in the trees outside. I hastily dressed and ate and was on the road, heading out of Cape Town by 5:40, got to the vortex venue, the old familiar apple farm one last time by 6:30, as the sun was about to peep over the horizon. A small outdoor party as vortexs go, and many of my friends not there. I was going anyway – why break a habit now of all times, when the largest habit-break of them all is mere days away. The dancefloor was back at the end of the farm, in the end of a valley sonically isolated from the national road and the neighbouring farms. The apples and pears on the trees were almost ripe, in this late mummer.

And it’s good down to the very last drop.

I took the last of my meth orally as always, washed down with juice. I am pleased that it has run out. It’s a mind game – I won’t throw it away, I like it too much. I won’t get more, I like it too much. When it’s not there I know I won’t care about it. It’s only moreish when you’re on it or it’s fresh in your mind. You may think that I'm struggling with this. Heck no, I'm enjoying it.

The trick is to enjoy it to the fullest and then move on before it turns your will to stone.

The music was. Techno is not easily described in words. Good anyway. “Rave” is one of those words that encompasses opposite meanings – to talk agitatedly at length, making a complex point, and the opposite: to dance for hours to to non-verbal, profoundly non-narrative music.

At times, I was in the trance zone, where my body is on automatic pilot and my mind just floats above it all. Later I felt sore and tired.

When the day heated up, they turned on a sprinkler system which proceed to make a slowly spreading mud pool. By the end of the day, several people had rolled in it, or thrown each other in it. (The catbox crew didn’t believe me that I had met the African mud-people earlier today, so there - it's the literal truth!)

I found a stall making and selling blown glass - some earings, some hash-pipes. The woman running it was from Massachusetts. My first questions were the where were you a few weeks ago, when I needed this and Are you from arrgen, they make badassgglass just like this over there.

I asked if she had something suitable for smoking DMT, and she made a pipe for me over the next half hour, out of plain glass, for only R60. Kewl! Now if only she had been around a few weeks ago, it would have been useful – this is a “just in case” measure, as I really felt the lack of a suitable pipe then. More stuff, another posession. Oh well.

She seemed worried that I might use it as a speed pipe. I didn’t explain to her that smoking speed is a personal line that I hope to never cross – I can fully understand what she said about people who had done it and gone rapidly downhill.

I met T-, who is on holiday from hio job doing web design in London UK, and whom I haven't seen in a couple of years. I got his number to call him when I get there.

This was one of the few times that I have stayed at a vortex until the music was turned off. This happened at about 3:30pm. On the whole great fun, if a rather hot day. The last vortex or otherwise Cape Town outdoor trance party that I'll be at in a long time. I feel I've been there and done that.

Last night we (being Marissa (my girlfriend), qousqous, flamingweasel, unless, and ideath) went out to see a documentry called Okie Noodling about people who fish for catfish with their hands. The music was done by the Flaming Lips. For me, the real treat of the evening was seeing the trailer for Christmas on Mars, a zany b-movie style production that Wayne Coyne of the Lips is writing, co-directing, and starring in. The preview was a mixture of footage from the film-in-progress, and documentry footage of the progress in the film. Wayne tells, in his highly amusing Big Old Bug is the New Baby Now sort of way, about how he used these skin-like round bandaids to ultimatly attach the antennae to his head that make up his Martian costume.

Have you ever seen Santa Claus Saves Mars? It was on Mystery Science Theater 3000 when I kid. It was my favorite. This movie is a lot like that one. I am very excited.

I sit here alternating with disgust and positivity.

Oregon. I saw the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen in my life the other day. I was working a temp job, and as my bus pulls down Barbur Blvd, a street overlooking the Willamette River, off in the distantance--the hugest whitest motherfuckingest mountain, Mt. Hood stood craggily in total dark siloutte, and even better there was a dark cloud right above it, in the shape of a triangle. It's alignment looks somewhat like the Illuminati configuration, but not quite. More, actually inline with my Techran hallucinations (which underly the majority of the "artistic" work I do)Directly to the right ofthis sight, The round orange-red sun burst her glorious fingers all over the place & slightly behind Mt. Hood. The sky being perfectly clear and the primal sunrise moment of my day was in full swing. And of course I was reading Scrodinger's Cat at the time. It looked like this:

       Y
      /_\
            ***
      /\   *****
     /xx\ *******
    /xxxx\ *****
   /xxxxxx\ ***
  /xxxxxxxx\
 /xxxxxxxxxx\
/xxxxxxxxxxxx\

Oregon. Trees everywhere, I touch them smell them, talk to them, fixate and want to eat them. But I do not, cause it wouldn't taste so good. But it's not just the trees... It's the moss. It's everywhere, and fluffy and feels like it's alive, networked throughout the city picking up on all the vibrations (mostly positive) from the city's innards. I often bend down and rub my hand on moss, paying attention to how all the different species vary. The smells are wonderful.

I start school on April 1st. I keep forgetting if we're at the year 2003 yet. We aren't. I don't even know yet if my financial aid is going to transfer ok. It's been nearly impossible to find a job here. I registered for classes this morning, which only will further inhibit my job-finding. Which makes the need for my fin aid to work out even stronger, because I'm not going to be able to work 30+ hrs a week and go to school anymore. I'm trying to do the school thing right for a change, but of course I'm caught in a strange loop, where the chain and links of my money causality spins around, occasionally lopping off one of my fingers with a transparent blade.

I have a lot of free time being unemployed. Free time that should be well used to keep up with writing, doing music, etc. But my output the last few months relative to my free time is appalling. I haven't been doing much of anything. I'm at a kind of crossroads point in my psyche with a very strong desire to partake in a particular REALITY MODIFICATION DEVICE. Near the end of this month Marissa is going to visit her parents in Bakersfield for a week and a half. This'll probably be the longest we've been apart in three years. I'd like to find good things before that time comes. But then, I so easily could also chicken out.

I have a delayed personal mind readjusting, meta-programming appointment, going on 3 years since I last tripped alone. So, I hope Portland will help me out with that. I can feel the connection lines of its existence within these city walls, it's just a matter of meeting the right person I guess. Maybe if I keep talking to the moss.

Updated my home node yesterday. Now includes a picture and I'm only level 2. I'd like to think it was fun being 9. But it wasn't. No matter how bad I feel right now, I know that things were worse in my head at that time.

Driving home from Santa Barbara, eleven o'clock at night. Just saw a show on the Fallout Shelter movement in California in the 1950's and 60's. Just ate dinner with Quizro and his lovely wife at a superlative vegetarian restaurant in downtown SB. Before that, espresso and marzipan torte. Before that, the best burrito in my life in Ojai. A great day.

Driving home on the one aught one, eastbound, coasting down the easy side of the Santa Susana pass at a flat 90, when I see a white E-class Mercedes. The license plate reads: IGLOO CA. Inside, behind the wheel, is a silver haired man, the new man, an older me somehow temporally displaced in this time-bending luxury sedan. This is the older me, with silver hair and silver framed eyeglasses. At 90 mph, he looks left and I look right, and we smile at each other.

Then he hits it, and moves off like I'm sitting still.

Please just leave me to my insanity

I am still unclear on what I was thinking. I know it had something to do with making nursing school a little easier. Moved back in with the folks.

Dear God, I think I'm going to kill her

Every five minutes, at my door again. I have an argument due for English in 12 hours. "Did you wash Morgan's uniforms?"

Of course I washed the uniforms. My daughter must have clean clothes to go to school. I have three kids. After 7 years, I believe I have this parenting thing somewhat figured out.

"What's Max doing in there?"

Yes, I am, I'm going to slip a cog

What my son is doing, while under my supervision, should not be of enough concern for her to interrupt my train of thought.

I'm spoiled. I want my computer. I want my MP3's. I can't just not answer. She'll beat the door down. She'll pick the lock.

I'm trapped

I don't do much for the whole, it's my life. Boring life that I lead. Yay me. Anyway yes I wake up to say goodbye to my dad who's leaving to go back to Taiwan today. Cause he works out of the country. I go back to sleep I feel somewhat bad for not going with him I always use to go but today I was feeling really not into it. I have so much work, so tired. I always go back to t-town on Sat and leave late Sundays. But I went home early today back the apartment because I told my friend that I would go to the Sugar Refinery because her friend was organizing this Speaker, singer thingy.

Well during the day when I actually woke up I hurriedly finished reading the first chapter for my film class whilst chatting away with friends on the net. One confused about what she should write about for a recommendation? for one of our TAs. I didn't know what was going on cause I'm basically a brain dead drone of God. After that I rush around getting ready to go out after my mother leaves with my sister to go to soccer. I get my dog run around then we go for a walk. Thinking I'll visit my friend after visiting my mother and sister at Soccer. I walk to the wrong field. Make a giant detour back then meet with my mother and sister. I'm too tired, Jude (my dog) is too tired to walk to my friend's.

Rest of the day? A trip to richmond after soccer? Fall asleep chatting to my friends? Get back to the apartment at 7pm. The thing at the Refinery started at 7. Don't get there till 8pm as I wait for my roommate to finish eating his dinner. My other roommate decides to come with us after explaining to us that she couldn't watch tv because she had so much work to do. The Refinery was cool, though we missed some speakers, one them our friends.

I didn't catch any of the speakers names or any of the singers which is why I am somewhat frustrated and angry for the time being. One of the speakers is cool, wait I just remembered part of her name. Sherri? I think that's how you spell it. She was very good! Then the singer I really wanted to know was the second one, her music was really good, voice was very clear and good. One lone girl singing and strumming a guitar. Damn didn't get her name or her album name! She was very impressive, I guess half the reason was because I listen to that type of music too. I guess part of the reason why I didn't catch her name or album was because I was ordering my Americano from the waitress who was kind of weird and spacey? I don't know. She was interesting though and somewhat humorous, changed the price of the Americano from $1.50 to $2.00 on me. Oh well. If she wasn't talking so quietly and I wasn't concentrating so hard I would've gotten the singer's name. RAWR!

Yes the highlight of my day was I must say, the singer! She was really good, I'm being completely honest. ARgh! Not to mention the way she was dressed reminded me of a Caucasian version of Lulu from FFX, her hair was the same too. Sigh!

I did something that I haven't done in a long while. I dug up my Super Nintendo, blew the dust that collected on it since I last played it many years ago, and hooked it up to my TV set. I was very surprised that it still works. The reason why I needed to dig it up was because my two nieces spent the weekend at my house and my parents knew I had a game console lying around. Hooking the Super Nintendo up was also a good excuse for me to clean my room. I did find the Dual Turbo controllers, and only one of the standard controllers. My nieces wanted to play Super Mario All-Stars, but I wanted to relive Final Fantasy III. Obviously, my nieces won that argument, so I ended up playing Super Mario.

I did also find a box containing around 800 Magic cards. More than a year ago, I vowed to give up playing Magic to have more time to spend in developing a network marketing business. My decision has paid off, but I feel that once every Magic card is out of my possession, my business will take off. I even told my mom that I am going to be anal about the matter here. Currently, my entire collection of cards, which is around 8000, is in storage. I will not get the cards back until I'm making at least $1000 a month on a consistent basis.

TV was boring so I decided to spend my evening on The Unofficial Squaresoft MUD. Power leveling from level 1 was on the bill of fare for the evening. At the end of the session, I had accumulated over 20,000 experience points. My dad decided that his evening would be better spent watching Return of the Jedi. I agreed with him and decided to quote the script as the movie was playing.

While I was soundly sleeping, the Lake Erie snow machine was turned on by Mother Nature. Waking up this morning, there were four inches of snow in the driveway. I hope that this is the last major snow of this winter season. I really want baseball season to begin.