I haven't noded in a while, so if you think this doesn't read very well, please forgive me.
I started out at my girlfriend's, stayed in bed for ages snuggling up. We got up just before midday, (I love the fact that I no longer work and I have 2 weeks before the start of the next year at uni) an we watched a bit of friends and some general TV. She made me a milo (ask someone australian) which is just the same and just as nice as Tonimalt (ask someone french). I watched a bit of Diagnoses Murder which had a guest appearance with Quincy or whoever that actor is.
I cycled home and no more than 300metre from my front door and I met Gemma, who I used to work with at Victoria Wine. We decided we'd have to for a drink with some of my other ex-collegues and I did. It was nice. I met some people by chance that I hadn't seen since college another guy I hadn't seen for months and got a phone call (on my mobile) from my best mate who's just got back from Ireland. Back to the action, we were drinking and an ex-ex-colleague joined us, Gemma's sister. I hadn't seen her for at least a year and we chatted and talked and we all had a good time. We went for a curry which was very nice. We went back to Gemma's for a coffee atfer.
I don't know what it was but just feel mellow and sensitve just now and wanted to share it with everyone before I go to bed. It might not make much sense compared to actually felt to me but it was nice. I just can't get the words to go write to let you all know.
I just discovered about Everything2 as a 300 pound kitten. And it's right. And I'm scared. But I will survive. And I will move on.
I've discovered that long wups are good. Short stories are good. And I'm pretty sure that historical essays will be good (note future tense). Exams are bad. Guys are confusing. You can get bras that do everything. You sleep better after some hard noding. Expectation is a Bad Thing. I will aim to go up a level by the end of this month. I'm good at guessing ages. Rachmaninov can be sightread. Pooh Bear bookmarks are good. 24 Hour Maths Study Guides are good. Let me explain...
Long wups are good: Not only do people often upvote simply for length, but you're chance of scoring highly on TheBooBooKitty Rating System is much improved.
Short Stories are good: At least I think they are. I've been experimenting with short story nodes, and the response hasn't been -78, so that's ok.
Historical essays will be good: But you already know that.
Exams are bad: Especially when you have maths, economics, english and french within two days.
Guys are confusing: As per my other daylogs, but not today, thank goodness. That's one thing I don't need!
You can get bras that do everything: Halter neck, two straps, no straps, whatever. And cheap too. Bonus!
You sleep better after hard noding: I'm serious. I've been really stressed about the exams, and usually only get about 3 hours sleep per night anyway (I'm a bit of an insomniac), but after some heavy duty noding, I've been getting almost 6.
Expectation is a Bad Thing: Especially when it applies to academic acheivement in subject that this time round, you haven't studied. Argh!
I will aim to go up a level by the end of this month: If not before. 17 to go (if Klaproth doesn't need a midnight snack).
I'm good at guessing ages: I got TBBK to within a year.
Rachmaninov can be sightread: Interesting exercise tried by me today... but I didn't say well!
Pooh Bear bookmarks are good: Not only are they NZ$2.95, they're very cute!
24 Hour Maths Study Guides are good: They teach and almost make studying easy and fun... I wish!
And the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us!
Catch ya later, E2, coz I'm going to go and try to get my 6 hours of sleep cycle!
Yesterday | Tomorrow Everything is a Community
I Love You
I Love You I Love You
I hate you
Today:
I have a shotgun. A 12 gauge, semi-automatic shotgun. I also have a box of heavy dove shot. I went to my basement, loaded a shell, sat down and put the barrel in my mouth.
I pulled the trigger.
Being the type of guy I am, I then released the safety.
And I began to think of a woman that cared about me, crying, far, far away.
I thought of all of you that make me smile, and laugh. Some of you make me want to cry, because your words are so beautiful, and I love you for it. I thought of the people that wouldn't understand. I thought of the people that would blame themselves.
I put the gun back in my mouth, and put my finger on the trigger. I sat there, crying, for five minutes.
Waiting. Waiting for a reason, any reason, to do anything at all.
Nothing happened.
I put the gun down. Maybe I should have thumbed the saftey and removed the shell, but I'll do that later.
Please don't treat me differently, if you see me in the street. Or whatever. Please don't try to help me. I know what is wrong with me, and you can't help. Thanks, though. It really means a lot that you care. Please don't tell me not to do it. I know it is wrong, immoral, and all that stuff.
Thank you all so much for caring about me. I am sorry that my pain mattered more to me than your feelings.
Adam.
I don't want to be an obnoxious freak doing calorie counting for my diet while I'm visiting my family, so I've decided not to keep track of my calories and whatnot while I'm with them. I'll just use my best judgment and see if I can try to stay under 1,000 calories without calculating everything I eat like I'm insane. I bought a new scale (well, yes it's new, but I didn't have one before) for six bucks at Wal-Mart, and I don't know if it's accurate because it's saying I'm much lighter than I thought I was. (It's reading at 106 pounds.) I tried weighing a five-pound bag of unbleached flour on it, but it read five pounds, so then I thought maybe it just goes off when you put a lot of weight on it, so I tried weighing myself while holding the flour, and it said 111. I guess it must be at least close. In any case if it's off I hope it's consistently off, because I want to use it to gauge how I'm losing and gaining weight (though hopefully the latter will not be a case that occurs).
Yesterday I went out to eat, so I ate a small breakfast and small lunch so I could eat whatever I wanted at dinner. I ended up having potato skins. They were pretty good. And then later mushrooms and tater chips with ranch dip. Ohhhh. This morning I ate some egg substitute and some Wheat Thins. My dad's coming to pick me up and he will probably take me out to food. Which means I get to choose overpriced high-calorie food fried in grease. Yum.
I spent all morning today looking for this story some guy gave me. He gave me a copy, then his computer hard drive got wiped and he lost all his writing (ahhh!) and he's trying to salvage what he can, so he asked me to type up the story he gave me. And it was lost somewhere in the recesses of my house. I looked for it for two hours. Then I found it while looking for a large envelope to suit my mother's birthday card. Of course. Funny thing is, it was so close to a place I'd looked right before. Ugh. At least I got to clean out under my bed in my harried searching; I found old versions of sucky stories I wrote that remind me how much progress I've made as a writer. :)
That is all. Carry on.
I think it's time to leave.
That sort of gut-feeling where you wander around what was your home and feel like a thin specter, without purpose, without place, memories moth-balled, covered in cardboard...the realization that however much bourbon still doesn't make the feeling go away.
And you know it's time to leave.
So here it goes, my dear people...Bagginses and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks... I'll keep it short.
The official story is that I'm fleeing the country until somebody overthrows the Cheney regime and his puppet Bush; blood in the streets of Chicago and all that. Unofficially? What do you do when everything around you starts feeling strange, home isn't home, you're in your favourite haunts and you can't help but wonder if there's something more...my solution is to pack up and leave America behind.
My god, I've been in this city for over 21 years now, know every bar and street corner, the best bowling alleys and breweries, how to score the best weed here and what houses are selling perfumed oregano. When your bartender and the cigarette-counter clerk know you by name, it's time to leave.
I suppose I should log my day, but there isn't really much. Said my goodbyes at The University yesterday, micturated on the business school one more time for good measure, and that was that for the social checklist. Hardest part was deciding what books to leave here and which to take, which to send. I feel naked without them....my Goethe has seen a dozen countries with me, it's the first thing I packed.
But enough rambling. Don't right know when or if I'll see Chicago again. Don't right know when I'll have internet access again. But until then, thanks folks.
It's been a blast.
Cheers.
Gone Jackal | Jaubertmoniker | Hermetic | | I can't believe you're |Congratulations on |Please--get help. leaving! Damn it, you |becoming an editor! |You don't have mailed me my copy of |Now I must live in |to go through this The Mabinogion in Welsh! |fear of you! |alone. There are You made wonderful |Alright, boyo--off |people out there who political arguments! |to work you go. |care for you--in You sang Dead Kennedys |(and don't forget |your real life, with me! How can you |those sexual bribes |and your online one. leave? I will miss you |I promised!) |I don't know if more than Dorothy missed | |any of this helps, the Scarecrow. You will | |(and I don't pretend not be forgotten. (and | |that it does, send me a goddamn post- | |but I can only hope card!) | |that it doesn't hurt. |We do love you.
You have been awarded the Immortal Gag for 15 days.
You've been borged!
"Stop talking, you're vexing me, and I bet you don't like me." "I can tell because you're looking at me!"
<Seath> Shanoyu is whining about something again, just ignore him.
"We'll just all wait for you to quit explaining to her (insert super complex concept such as alt+0183 in windows)", followed by a typical school threat.
"I'm going to put (someone) on my kill list because they asked a question about why I troll the fuck out of a mud they play and I think we should all have a 50 message thread talking about why this little asshole who asked a ridiculiously simple question offended us so for a reason that is so inane and silly that it is depressing this newsgroup even exists." -To rudely paraphrase KaVir on r.g.m.d
While flipping to the editorial pages in our local paper I noticed that the topmost obituary notice was for an elderly lady whose nickname was "Goon". She sounds like she would have been a good person to know.
On my way out to work I saw a yellowjacket (or some other flying stinging creature - I'm no entomologist) struggling in a spider's web. I stood fascinated, watching it fight for freedom and wondering if I should help it. One of course hates seeing anything struggling in a spider's web*, but then again what makes the spider deserving of starvation? But then the yellowjacket tore itself free with a mighty effort and flew away triumphantly.
As I rode my bike home from work at day's end I noticed for the first time a whirligig that some family had set up over their back fence. The breeze that blows up Mira Mesa Boulevard most times had it spinning.
That night I baked sugar cookies and we ate them together on the couch with milk while we watched Gilmore Girls.
*Except Hitler.
My apartment complex has been pretty slow about installing my washer and dryer. Three times they gave me dates by which it would be done, and all three times the dates came and went with no washer and dryer having been installed. I first told them I wanted them installed on the day I moved in, Saturday, August 27th. The final date they gave me was Wednesday, September 5th (ie yesterday). I got home from work at about 6pm, checked the washer/dryer room, and it was empty. I cursed the name of the apartment complex, and decided to go see them in the morning and see what was up. Then I had to run out to play ultimate frisbee, so I left my apartment around 6:20pm. I got back at 9pm, showered, ate dinner, and went to sleep.
Here's the strange thing. Like I said, I recently woke up. I fell asleep quickly, but then I started having trouble sleeping. I kept tossing and turning, half awake. Then, finally, something outright woke me up. It sounded like a solid, metallic thunk from my right. I was lying face-down on my bed, so the outside wall of my apartment was to my right. I don't want to go into the layout of my apartment, but suffice it to say that this same area is right next to my patio, and the laundry room is off of my patio. My first thought -- someone is screwing with my bike, which is chained up out there. My second thought -- who the fuck would want to steal my bicycle, which is an old, dirty, mountain bike? My third thought -- I remember that when we were shown this complex, my brother Matt asked what stopped people from using your washer and dryer, since they were right off your patio, and he was told that each person was given a padlock for the door to their laundry room. Anyway, my third thought was that maybe someone was trying to screw with my washer and dryer, not realizing that I didn't have any.
I peered out my bedroom window, and saw nothing going on. I got out of bed and surreptitiously observed the patio area. No motion, laundry room doors closed (as I left them), bicycle intact....but wait! The bicycle was NOT as I left it. On one of the handlebars was something that looked like an extra-long Slinky. Weird. I watched for a while longer, and still nothing happened. Then it struck me -- the slinky could also be one of those fat, grey tube-things that plugs into the back of a dryer. It had the right appearance, as far as I could tell in the dim light.
I had to know. I pulled back the blinds, unlocked the door, opened it, and stepped tentatively out into the night. No noises out of the ordinary, no assassin stepped forward to dispatch me. I approached the bike and examined the Slinky. Sure enough, it was that weird dryer tube. This is weird, I thought...vandals, in the middle of the night, who simply put a dryer-tube on my bike....to what? to mock my lack of success at getting my washer and dryer?
I glanced over at the door to the laundry room (I call it a room, but it's really just an alcove, big enough to fit both machines and my hot water heater and lord knows how many insects). It looked exactly like I left it. Still, this new addition to my patio was clearly related to washers and dryers, so I had to make sure. I opened the door and, lo and behold, a nice new washer and dryer.
Needless to say I was (and still am) surprised. Many thoughts ran through my head, but I just closed the door, went back in the house, closed that door, locked it, and put the blinds back in place. I considered going back out and using one of my bike locks (I have 2) to secure the laundry room against attack. Maybe I'll go do that after I write the entry.
So now here I am, thinking about what must have happened. The logical answer is that they delivered it while I was at ultimate frisbee, even though that meant it was done between 6:30pm and 9pm. Of course, logical answers never are as appealing at 3am. The other explanation is that some benevolent genie magically gave me these devices in the middle of the night. Maybe it was Santa Claus, and the noise that woke me up was him and his reindeer pushing off. Does the Tooth Fairy moonlight as a delivery person? I mean, I know I heard a noise, the doors looked like they hadn't been moved, and well, yeah.
Who knows? All I know is that I have a ton of laundry, and I'm glad to be able to wash it. Now if only the complex would fix my dishwasher (the part where you put the soap won't stay closed), and program my phone number into the gate, so guests (ha, like I have guests) could call me from the gate to get let in.
I'm gonna go lock up the laundry room and go back to sleep...but I know I'm gonna check again, to make sure I didn't dream the washer and dryer.
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