September 6, 2000

This morning was hectic; I actually had to be out of the house by 6:00 am. All because of a stupid court date I couldn't risk avoiding. I knew that bitch who had me arrested wouldn't show up to the damn thing so my case would be thrown out. (phew!) But if I had blown it off, there would be a warrant out for my arrest, something I can't have in my own city. Warrants for outstanding speeding tickets in distant states are one thing but how long could I expect to avoid the fuzz right here in my own backyard? Right.

So I was at the Cook County building at 7:00am sharp, having waited for the California bus for only a short 5 minutes. I lulled around, stood in monotonous lines, filled out lengthy, redundant forms and sat for hours until my case was finally called. Of course that bitch wasn't there, why should she wake up at the crack of dawn to deal with such things? I suppose she slept easily, knowing that the hell she had already put through over this was enough to satisfy her sadistic twinge. She had probably forgotten all about me by now, it had been months since that fateful night I spent in a freezing cold cell doing jumping jacks in a rayon skirt while she slept soundly under a down comforter, devilishly smiling.

I made it to work by 9:30, only a half hour late. I had told my boss the court dispute had to do with a traffic ticket, not suspecting him to grill me for details when I got in, half triumphant and half asleep.
"The light was yellow", I said and shrugged.
He seemed satisfied.

There are some things that I don't think I will ever understand, no matter how many times someone tries to explain them to me. One such thing is what it means to be bipolar. I have asked so many times and every time I ask I listen to the explanation, trying to understand what it really is. I listen intently to each word and each word by itself sounds important but when you put them all together they don't have any meaning at all. It's as if bipolar is a term that someone made up just to scare me into thinking that normal people are crazy.

So far I have been told that bipolar people have mood swings. They swing between highs and lows. The highs being full of energy and the lows being depleted of energy. Well duh, doesn't everyone do that? I know that if I had a burst of energy and I used it I would be really tired afterwards. Do you think Greg LeMond was rejuvenated by the Tour De France? I don't know but I am willing to bet a huge amount of money on him being really tired and wanting to get some rest afterwards. Yeah, I know that's not the normal average day for him but still, so I get a little excited about life and I wanna do stuff and I spend a whole day awake. And then I sleep for 10 hours. What's wrong with that? People in the military are actually trained to survive on three hours of sleep a night. So what if I have become accustomed to staying up for an entire day and then sleeping for half a day? Why is this such a big deal?

I am not a very creative person. My only slightly creative outlet is this, bitching about my life. So why do you have to take away the littlest bit of creativity I have and label me crazy? I don't think so honey! And what is so wrong with enjoying life, being excited about life? What's wrong with having an inspirational moment and running with it, only to rest later? What's wrong with pushing yourself? What if Greg LeMond had stopped after the fourth stage and said, you know what, I'm tired and I'm just gonna stop and take a rest.

I don't think most people do have a problem with any of this, it's the fact that I don't appear to have any ambitions in my life. Well you know what they say, you can't judge a book by its cover. I do have ambitions, I have a lot of them. But somehow I am not on the right track. I keep waiting to find out what the right track is, where it is and how to follow it. But the answers haven't come yet. I have been trying things and expirementing, but I always seem to come to the same conclusion: this is not the right track!

Almost all of the candidates that I voted for yesterday and researched the day before have lost.

But I don't want to see progressive Democrats lose heart and give the party away to centrists, so I mailed off a brief note to each of the candidates who got my vote but lost anyway.

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Dear Mr./Ms. (Candidate):

I just wanted to thank you for running for (Position). Please don't be discouraged -- it means a lot to me that you stood up to be counted and offered to serve your community. I'm proud to have voted for you.

Sincerely yours,
(signed) Ben Ostrowsky

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I wish I'd supported these candidates BEFORE the first primary election, but at least I can express my gratitude to the progressives who ran. Perhaps next time I can help them soon enough to turn the tide.

 

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Nodetending for today: I've gone back to the NEJM editorial "Losing Weight -- An Ill-Fated New Year's Resolution" and added lots of hyperlinks that should have been there in the first place. I hope you'll read it, because it shatters a lot of myths about fat people and health.

An interesting thing happened at work today. One of my minions, a young man named Marcelo, was struggling with the fact that the things he wanted in life and in a relationship were changing. We talked about a date he had gone out on the night before, and how it had bothered him that the guy he went out with was a bit on the eager side to hop in the sack. I was no stranger to his tales of going on dates and doing just that, so it surprised me a bit when he expressed his angst. He proceded to explain that sometimes he wished he could date someone more than twice before having sex with them because he invaribaly lost his respect for the person if they did it too soon. He also complained that he wanted someone who would put up with his little idiosyncraises, but would not be afraid to put him in his place when the time was appropriate.

I told him I could relate.

It's not that I've spent time turning tricks or anything, because I haven't (although many of my friends tell me that I just haven't gotten in touch with my inner slut yet). I just realized early on that I wanted more than a roll in the hay, and decided to take the high road when it came to looking for someone special. I looked at Marcelo, and I said without a trace of irony in my voice, that he was simply growing up inside.

Perhaps I'm frustrated because many people our age (we're both 23) haven't really figured out what they want yet. I'm not blaming them for this. We're young, we're not supposed to know everything. But it does leave an empty carvern in the hearts of the few who dream.

I did something I don't usually do today. I went to Target with the purpose of buying a new DVD--no, that's a lie. I went to Target to see if a certain boy was working today. The DVD was just a mental excuse to justify to myself why I was going there. So there I was, walking down the aisle, and wouldn't you know it, I almost knocked him over. I said hello. He recognized me, and instantly I turned into a giggling catholic schoolgirl and had to excuse myself before I got too silly. I made it over to the DVD section and picked out a copy of The matrix because I just know this is one of those movies I could watch over and over. Right Brain kicked in as I was walking away, and reminded me that I had a pen and paper in my backpack. Before I realized what I had done, I had walked back over to him and given him my number.

He said he would give me a call.

What's really silly is that I got lightheaded and fuzzy after I stepped outside with my purchase. Now, the only thing running through my head is that stupid 80's movie in which this guy who works at Target sneaks a girl in after hours and they cause a ruckus all night long. For some childish reason, I really want to do this with him.

God help me, I'm regressing into the state of a teenage girl.

(Yesterday I did nothing much worth mentioning. Busy day... I fixed some old Java code of mine to work better, tried out the OO-Browser - and the Code Pet now has a heartBeat(), and it growls less!)

15:15

The censored cellphone needs an ek$pen$ive repair. Grrr...

I'm in BatMUD at the moment.

Wwwwolf is a level 9 mortal of the Wolfman race.
He was created Thu Oct 14 12:01:14 1999 and he is 6h, 3min and 17s old.
He has been on for 18min and 2s, not idle.
He has killed: a young goat is fearful, 655 exp
Plan:
>Fight. Have adventures. Yiff. See places. Talk to people. Pray to the Moon.
>That's my plan, like it or not. =)

The fights are still as outré as they used to be. Some samples:

You butt Nasty rat inducing a minor electrocution.
Huge worm tries to bash you, but promptly falls flat on its face.

...not to even mention that I made "feather leggings" out of chipmunk corpse. Hmmmmmm...

15:55

Got to level 11 there... and the invading orcs killed me. First death with this character... =)

Session summary:
Time: 54 minutes 52 seconds
Experience gained: 2422
Experience lost: 297
Experience spent: 1933
Gold difference: +563
New areas explored: 0
Battle skill summary:
 Hits: 147 Misses: 135 Parries: 0 Ripostes: 0 Stuns: 0
 Criticals: 7 Dodges: 0 Tumbles: 0 Stunned Maneuvers: 0
Saving Wwwwolf.
You remove an iron large shield.
You remove an iron club from your right paw.
You remove feathers leggings.
% Connection to BatMUD closed by foreign host.

Bah, E2 is for wussies - as you can see, in BatMUD, I collected 2422 XP in one hour! Beat that! =)

19:50

Well, hmm, I spent good hour making Timber Wolf as a vehicle in FurryMUCK. And I'm almost finished - it works, I just drive around with it, and ground shakes. =)

I just have a few MUF/MPI problems with it - mainly that I can drive it around, but I see nothing from the cockpit. I can see (via a MPI hack) the rooms I own, but get permission errors when I go out of my room... and @succ or drive_change isn't the way, because it shows the room I left, not the room I arrived to. The @14118 program to show available exits doesn't work unless called from room...

I wonder if there are cooler programs for drivin' around in the MUCK than Driveto.muf? I hope...

20:14

I read from Slashdot that RSA patent went public domain.

Excuse me while I collect my jaw from the floor...

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Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today and yesterday by y.t.: The Movie oo-browser

Time was I could pop 3-4 ecstasy pills in a night, snort some speed, do some coke and end up with a spliff to make me sleepy. It wasn't that long ago. I could club all night, sleep all day.

But last week, at the Notting Hill carnival, I had the worst experience. I wasn't sick, I didn't have a bad trip, no, I lost 8 hours. I don't know what I did, where I was, how I got home or how I got into bed. I don't remember phoning people, I don't remember drinking, I don't remember spending the 20 pounds missing from my wallet. I don't remember smoking 60 Marlboro lights.

I do remember the next day. I don't remember the world being too bright and movement being an effort. I do remember having very weird legs.

I'm 30. Now I can admit it to myself.

I'm off to put my slippers on, and watch documentaries.

WIMPS! So, we finally outbid the last sucker. We are going to buy that apartment. Winner's curse - are we paying too much for too little? Hmm...

SUNRISE 'TIL SUNSET: Three-day marathon meeting with our new business alliance members. Interesting, but oh so tiring. Mmmm...sleep. And no light at the end of the tunnel, either. More meetings on the horizon, and I haven't finished half of my obligations.

TODAY'S SOUNDTRACK:Depeche Mode - Ultra.

Whenever you are on campus and see a group of people fighting each other with foam swords and maces, do not attempt to join them. In my own experience with such people, they seem to be quite exclusive in their 'club' and dislike newcomers.

In other news, I've completely returned all the equipment from the 'restoration of the french monarchy' 40 party I had this weekend. The toughest part was parting with the costumes. It made me feel so antiquated.

Holy buttsex, Batman!, you crashed a linux box!! I logged on this afternoon, and started writing up my daylog, opened up XMMS (the greatest media player ever), and my system locked up. Hard. No mouse movement, no input, nada. 120 reset, everything in /tmp is fux0red (which is OK), but the rest of the drive seems to be clean.

I finally got my password for the history department's web courseware system, so I can post snippy Anonymous Coward remarks about my history prof. (Just kidding, professor, now stop noding and get back to your research). I will spare you all the details of my attemts at divining the whim of my cute lab partner, lest I sound like Kit_Lo on a bad day. (Oh woe is me, for I know not if she thinks I'm a hottie)

I found out this morning that the Run to the Chicken 5k is after my birthday, so I'll be 21 by then. Yay for beer at 8:00 am!

22:48 EET

I've become quite addicted to walking.
When I got the idea to walk home from work last june, I had no idea it would become this kind of regular habit. This miniscule excersise has also upgraded my level of fitness from unbelieveably god-awful to quite damn awful. I used to feel totally exhausted after some 5km of legwork, but now I feel hard to stop upon reaching my destination. So, this means I should probably take a longer route from now on. Who knows, maybe some day I can qualify as healthy and fit. Some day..

I actually enjoyed work today. Quite easy assignments which even required creativity instead of the mindless drone stuff I sometimes get. The boss even wasn't getting on my nerves, and the general atmosphere was nicely relaxed. Makes me happy to get up early tomorrow for an another workday.

Blah, no buds to be found anywhere at the moment. Hash and good quality blotter are floating in every direction, but those don't really interest me at the moment. Oh well, I only venture into the world of herbal remedies a few times a month anyway.
But still.. I wish I had a roomy apartment.
Of course, Finland getting rid of certain senseless laws couldn't hurt either.

Today's Writeups
Roland MT-32 | Roland SH-2000 | Roland TR-626

Not a damn thing to really report other than it seems like everyone at 'home' is having a good time. I came home last night to hear about first jobs, weddings, gigs out of state for new bands, new boyfriends. Yeck! Yes, I'm happy, I'm sickeningly happy for all these lucky bastards that I consider to be part of my extended family. One girl is about to take her test to be a cop, her girlfriend is going to get full management of a store, two of my best friends have just simultaneously landed some very intelligent and needless to say hot guys. It is hard to be optimistic in my head, as I only got a 'hey' from a tree-hugger in history class. I am not BITTER! I hate that word, bitter. It's been an over played term in the B horror flick that has been the last two years. That and 'werd'. But I digress. I hope to be going 'home' in October for a few days to see what all has changed in the whole two months I will be gone. It's amazing how much can change in such a small amount of time.

One really good thing. One of the guys who has hustled one of my girlfriends, is very sweet and very respectable. He is also an incredible artist, far beyond my cpabilities, I can easily say. He and I are going to collaborate on shirt designs, and he wants me to help get his site up....maybe I'll host it. That'll show I'm a good sport. No really, he's a good guy.

Going to be seeing Ani DiFranco soon, that's something to celebrate. Oh, by the way, keep your eyes peeled for a little band called Inspected by 3, particuliarily if you have ever had an interest in punk. Not so much myself, but I will give props where they are deserved. Hmmm...my favorite? How Does It Feel to Want?. I'll get the lyrics some other time, and not bore you to tears.

One last thing. I ran into an old friend that I've known for maybe three years. Classical guitar player. I was amazed to look up at the familiar voice calling my name and see what could be a man, but certainly was not a boy. We're going to hang out when I see my parents. I'm not holding my breath. I know I'm still tainted, and besides, I really need to give myself a break.

Ugh. I'm done now. Back to being Anonymous on Campus!

Not much has happened in the past couple of days, but that's okay, because I danced.

Sunday night watched Erin Brockovitch a tv movie with Hollywood bucks and that toothy mongoose beeyotch Julia Roberts. Here is a plot summary. White trash lady is beautiful, kind, loving, bitchy only when it suits the story and she has a great line, and is basically all things to all people. She teaches her (almost 100% female) audience how to stands up for themselves and their hick towns and that they really are just as good as wasps, if not better, and even if they don't get treated as nicely at least they wear more colourful clothes. Her good acts including winning millions of dollars in a sort-of lawsuit for a buncha other white trash cancer people who had been fooled into thinking their white trash town was safe from evil Chromium dumping by a malevolently corporate heavy industry, and of course at the very end white trash lady gets her payoff too, which is why the movie is so happy and empowering. Kind of a female Forrest Gump. A brain-leak flick.

Worked today and yesterday. After work yesterday wandered all over downtown t.o looking for (a) my friend Troy; (b) pot. Found neither and went to yoga which substituted nicely. After yoga found (a) and (b) in the same room, rather unsurprisingly.

Had a charming taxi driver on the way home who I lied to. I said I was (a) betrothed to be married someday, but only when my parents thought it was proper, and (b) babysitting for my aunt's family (instead of sitting around Troy's friend's apt. smoking up). Sometimes, you just have to lie for no reason. He provided the reason - he adored me so much that he told me he didn't want a tip.

An old friend called yesterday and told me in so many words that she having anxiety attacks trying to disregard the blatant fact that she is being cheated on by my ex boyfriend, that she was reading my nodes, even though they suck and she could do much better ones, but that Everything is a waste of time and that if she wants to write something that goes in the public domain she'll only do it if she gets paid for it (which she does). What a sensitive, caring person, reading my nodes and then telling me why I shouldn't be writing. Really I know why. It's because even though I never do, if I were to write as much as she did, I would wind up writing circles around her...I know her evil plan is to take over the world and have me as her lackey, but seeing I don't feel obligated to work for (never mind stay friends with) people who make me feel stupid and crummy, she should just watch what she says.

Finally wrote back to my landlord today, the shortest business letter I ever wrote, so we'll see how much that hurts.

Other ideas for nodes, but with my modem at home Everything takes forever in the evenings.

I woke up again this morning. Always a good sign I say. I didn’t have class today until noon so I was upset that I was seeing the sun at 8:00am. But I was good and got out of bed. I did a little bit of Noding on everything, a dream log. Then I went in search of some good nodes. After that I got to work on my homework that I have put off until today. I did my analysis of algorithm's homework and made it look all nice and pretty for them. I even went back through and commented a program that was part of the assignment. After working on that for a good while I headed off to my one class for the day.

My only class with a 40 to 5 ratio of girls to guys. My roommate likes to brag that he has a class that is 24 to 4 in one of his labs, we should all be so lucky. I was dead after that class. I couldn’t believe just how tired I was. And I generally try to work out when I get the chance. But this 2 hours of volleyball just killed me. I spent the rest of the day finishing up the homework and reading everything.

today was busy, but goals were accomplished. i feel useful. i love it. woke up. took a shower. rode to work. work, work, work. rode home. late. 8ish. vacuumed. steam cleaned. cleaned the litter box. gathered the trash. cleared off the balcony (it's to be pressure washed tomorrow). sat down. (ahhhhhhhh). smoked a bowl and a cigarette. now i node. well, i daylog.

as much stress as i feel at work, i really don't enjoy my job without it. without a feeling of urgency of some sort i tend to lose motivation and get a bit sluggish.

i wish i had gone to the store tonight instead of putting it off until tomorrow, but it was such a long constant day today. i just wanted to kick back. i am a bit hungry, but i got peaches yesterday. they are no comparison to the hand picked peaches we picked last weekend. they are pulpy and bland. but for store-bought peaches, they're not too bad.

i also wish i had taken an half hour out of my day to get a manicure. tomorrow. yes. tomorrow. and speaking of...

tomorrow i must accomplish:

• fed-ex the package
• call a tax guy
• buy:
  • kitty litter
  • air conditioner filter
• pick up juliet at the airport (wooo!#@)
• figure out some way to get friday off

previous | next

I'm noding with the lights off again. I'm getting more and more used to the eery glow of the monitor being my only light. So soothing. I look outside my window to see the moon peeking out from behind a tree. The halo is huge and misty.

I'm in a much better place after yesterday. I walked with a long list of my friends behind me, and I felt good to be with them, but good also just to be walking. Several other things happened that night that made me feel good as well . . . you don't get to read about those.

It was the first day of school. I spent 700$ on books. 700$ on books. 700$. That's a lot of money. The best part was that I did it without blinking an eye. Of course, I wasn't the only one spending obscene amounts on books, everyone in my class was expected to. Still, I own significantly more of a redwood than I used to.

Other than that, my day was empty. All they expected us to do that day was register, which I had previously accomplished, and buy books. Tomorrow I'm expected to attend an "Orientation and Fun Day!". Pffft.. Right. Even the alliteration of syrupy sweet school spirit makes me want to damage things.

Because of my newly reacquired goodly feelings, I lent myself the money to purchase two CDs. Amon Tobin's Bricolage and the Human Traffic soundtrack. About neither had I heard anything previously, but both are fantastic. I should lend myself money more often.