October 3, 2001

Hooray! The E2 node tracker is cool. I had recently found this via wertperch, but have now installed it at home on my win98 box.

On the home machine it still gives all the really interesting stats, but without the pretty graphics, that are on the website. I will work on that.

Having followed dotc's instructions there are a few things to do a little different (yes I've emailed dotc about them). I am willing to help anyone who wants win9x tracker info. /msg me with an email address, and I'll shoot you an email with instructions, and files, for the win9x setup.

GACK! how did I get to be first in the daylog?!

Wow... Taking a breather to node a node. Been in crunch mode working on a game for the past 6 weeks... Actually, it's been longer, but there was a time when crunch only meant 6 days a week, ten hours a day. Now, it means 6 days a week, from 10:00 in the morning, to 12:00 at night at earliest. And a few hours on Sunday, too. Things will probably get worse in the next two weeks. Insane... Bad timing too. My Son (born last November) hasn't been sleeping well, and my wife can't cope with the lack of sleep dealing with his one hour asleep, two hours awake schedule. I can't help her much, either, since I'm collapsing at the end of the day. So about six weeks ago, when we saw things were only going to get worse, she went off to go stay with our extended families. Was this a good idea? I don't know. She was falling apart from lack of sleep. I couldn't help her. We were on the fast track to being separated anyway. Things will be back to normal (knock on wood) in two-four weeks, and she'll fly back. I miss her terribly, but I'm afraid of whether or not our relationship has been somewhat damaged.

On the bright side, the game is awesome. I'm doing what I always wanted to do. My wife is very understanding, but having an incredibly rough time of her own, as well as suffering from a moderately bad depression. Somebody slow down this rollercoaster. It's going way too fast. So many lows and so many highs... I remember when my life was pretty evenly paced. It kills me that I can't support her more right now... But I know if I gave this up right now. I mean, this has always been my dream. I'd never get over it. It's been really hard. But we're almost there now...

Wish I was going home to my wife tonight.

Well life sucks. (Sorta) Got a speeding ticket a few weeks ago now, and now have been canned from my job at Subway. Nothing personal, just not enough revenue stream to keep me with enough hours to justify the paperwork. I got 3 hours last week.

19th birthday came and went, uneventful, girlfriend and i went on a date, dinner sucked but the movie/after was nice. Next night my mom decided to be a bitch while dishing up cake at official family celebration w/ cousin who just turned 21. "You're going to have fun right now god damnit" Oh well. Got some much needed cash. Got a very cool/nice looking flower thingy from girlfriend. It's a vase she filled with blue glass rocks, and then tookk these paper flowers and put them together in the top. Looks purty =)

But then we are both under a _lot_ of stress right now. I'm massivly in debt to her (money wise), and now w/o a job, and a speeding ticket looming, it's hard to get her any money, and she needs to cut back on her hours to keep up with her heavy high school load (like 4 AP classes and the like) so she needs the money i owe her. It's creating tension. I need to get away. I never went on vacation this summer. I want to take her with me on vacation for a weekend. Oh for her to be 9months older.

I love her. V, if you're reading this, I love you. Shoulder rub voucher, claim anytime.

It's very strange, but today I feel even more relief and calm than I did yesterday. I'm really sad, but I'm not devastated. (Is that spelled right?) I didn't talk to her yesterday. Ten minutes ago I told her I didn't want to see her any more. She didn't understand. She was very upset and kind of surprised. And said she didn't understand it at all.

And before today she told me she would totally understand, and expected me to leave. I'm going to update this wu later on today.

...later....

She and I are going to meet tonight to talk. I fully plan to say goodbye.

I ran into the puzzle today when noding about feelings. Not the "Here's how I feel right now" type thing, as that's obvious daylog material. I mean the long-term things, the things you find yourself thinking and feeling over time. You can't pin it down to a day, and attempting to describe it in one day only gets such a little portion of it. One of those things that takes time to develop a full understanding of.

What's the puzzle? Where to put it! How do you assign such a thing, something that is a constant in your mind, to a specific day? To me, it's like trying to say the Renaissance happened on a specific day.

But I do not complain. This is not a complaint. I accept that this is how it is done - eight months since the last time I noded leaves a lot of time for things to change, a lot for me to relearn.

Hmm... maybe I should write poetry instead of prose and go with that...

I do, however, save the writeup here...

It's not the worry that I once experienced, the horrible paranoia, the feeling that everyone was staring at my insides as I walked by, that the whole world was out to find reasons why I was a freak. That was all from low self-esteem, which I have since conquered.

It's more a sense of curiousity, that slight wondering in the back of my mind as to what people are thinking when they look at me, when they talk to me. Not the everyday stranger, the one who gets a glance, maybe even a couple words. No, not them. The people who know more about me, the ones who know more of me. The ones who know I am TG.

"Why?" you may ask. I am not quite sure why, I just know it is there. Do they simply see me as I am, is that all they think? Or does their mind occasionally wander and contemplate what I might have looked like before. Do they still see me as a woman, or does that past history infect their image of who I am? Do they ever ponder what my body might look like underneath the clothing?

I wonder this because I cannot know what the other side might think, what they might see. I am permanently of a different perspective, and unusual perspective, and will never be able to look at myself, or people like me, the way that others do. I do not mourn that difference, but it nags at my eternal curiousity about all things as one thing I will never really be able to understand.

And I wish my damn cold would go away.

---

I feel that I've been told that I have absolutely nothing interesting to say.

Today, for the first time in many many months, I did everything that I had on my to-do list.
I phoned the people I had to phone and talked to the people I needed to talk to.

I completed it all.

Of course, at times, I was a bit clumsy on the phone or while talking to my tutor at University but all ended up well. I didn't postpone anything and that was good. I took control of my life.
On the way, I sort of begun a reconciliation with a dear female friend of mine and that warmed up my heart a bit, after two month of quarrels and cries.
On my way home, I met two guys who were drunk but not violent and that was a little wonder in itself. They were nice and joyous and left me smiling in the cold night.

That was a nice day.

saw an old highschool friend yesterday night. he has a huge beard which is dyed in red and black stripes, but other than that he's the same as ever. like, the SAME. still living at home, still has a harsh "school sucks" attitude. christ. the boy's a genius or at least a smart cookie, I met him in the "do highschool in 1 year" class I was in, but oy, what a waste. if school sucks to you, it is doing you no good. go do something you believe in fer chrissake, don't just sit around feeling superior because you surround yourself with "idiots".

sigh. I think it seems extra pathetic because that's the headspace I was in too, five years ago when I knew him.

I get the impression he was ringing me up to see if I was still cute or single or whatever. He seemed disappointed to hear about my boyfriend of 3 years, anyhow. Later on in the evening he made vague comments about all the women of the world conspiring against him. sigh. yeah, we've banded together to restrain ourselves from dating you, even though normally we think guys who still live with their mom and play 40 hours of video games a week are total SEX MAGNETS...

---

Speaking of my wonderful boyfriend of 3 years, he lived here for two weeks and now he's moved back home to tie up loose ends for a while (and avoid my 5:30 am alarm clock..), but he was happy enough about the experience to commit to moving out with me to a two bedroom place in january when my lease is up. Yay! I also have a new quasi-part time job (oh, how many kinds of stupid am I? "No free time? I'll.. work more!") which will pay me exactly the amount that he would have paid in rent, so finances are also in pretty happy order. Wheeee.

My school schedule is starting to wear on me. Today's my first midterm, which is kind of relieving. I'm a third of the way through, it says. Next semester will be during RRSP season (aka, really busy-ass at work for me, for you laymen&laywomen out there). Hopefully I can take biology as an online course. I think I'll go accost a UBC advisor too, and see if I really REALLY have to take two physics courses. I don't wanna. Just wanna take one. The physics department doesn't seem to understand the concept of "night class" at all, so god knows how I'll even take the one. Maybe I can talk them in to offering one. Ha, ha, ha. Well, I'll work it out when the time comes.

---

I hate hives.

It's now 2:28PM. A few minutes ago I crossed the Friendship Bridge, re-entering Thailand after having spent a couple of weeks poking about southern Lao. The bridge shuttle bus (they don't let you just walk across the Friendship Bridge; trust me, I asked last time) dropped me off at the bus depot. I hopped into the back of a songthaew [which, in Thai, literally means "two benches" — it's a truck with two (or sometimes three) benches in the back for passengers] and we headed to the Nong Khai train station.

I purchase my train ticket for Bangkok from a man behind the window. The window has two holes; the counter-level bread-loaf shaped hole for passing the money and ticket through, the grapefruit hole for speaking through. It's like using a prototype telephone — speak through the hole, turn your head and put your ear to the hole to listen.

My train departs at 7:15PM [19:15] according to my ticket. I have almost five hours to kill.

"So, should I be here at around six-thirty?" I ask, really more just making conversation than needing to know.

He points to the departure time printed on the ticket and says

"Before." [this time that my finger is pointing at]

I laugh.