August 5, 2000

Today is:

New style (Gregorian): 5 August 2000
Old style (Julian): 23 July 2000 C.E.
Fixed: 730337 R.D.
Astronomical (at noon): 2451762  j.d.
ISO: Saturday, Week 31, Year 2000
Coptic: 29 Abib 1716 A.M.
Ethiopic: 29 Hamle 1992 E.E.
Islamic (until sunset): 4 Jumada I 1421 A.H.
Persian:15 Mordad 1379 A.P.
Baha'i (until sunset): N'ur Kam'al, B'ab of V'ahib 9, Kull-i-Shay 1 B.E.
Hebrew (until sunset): 4 Av 5760 A.M.
Chinese: cycle 78, year Geng-chen, month 7, day 6
Hindu Lunar (from sunrise): 6 Sravana 2057 V.E.
Hindu Solar (from sunrise): 20 Karka 1922 S.E.
French: Decade II, Octidi de Thermidor de l'Annee 208 de la Revolution
Mayan (long count): 12.19.7.7.19

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 00:03:06 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 639801 (3502 new since August 4, 2000)
Number of users: 17530 (50 new since August 4, 2000)
Number of links: 2777937 (21301 new since August 4, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.497 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.342 links per node
Link to user ratio: 158.468 links per user

New Nodes: [EINSTEIN U.S.A.] [Dunadan] [node0] [up conversion] [God does not play dice with the universe] [living forever] [How did you choose your nickname?] [today's best music] [How did you choose your nickname?] [You know you're a child of the 80's if...] [The Photoflex School of Photography] [piccolo] [belief] [E2 Copyright Violations] [E2 nuke request]

Users Online (41): [Deborah909] [jessicapierce] [General Wesc] [hamster bong] [Uberfetus] [Lord Brawl] [CaptainSpam] [kessenich] [kenata] [Xamot] [tftv256] [ShadowNode] [Jinmyo] [whizkid] [Halcyon&on] [hamstergirl] [loothi] [Fruan] [pealco] [mcc] [Citizen Aim] [Gorgonzola] [urbanmisfit] [siren] [Michalak] [ithron] [spacklequeen] [Infinity] [izubachi] [WickerNipple] [dead] [Andromache01] [sydnius] [jm229] [stitchley] [Johnny5D] [Shijef] [PinkPenguin] [KetsuYa] [Ancient] [Scotter]

JeffMagnus node count: 4016 (1 new since August 4, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9252 (11 more since August 4, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.304 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.628%
JeffMagnus node of the day: what will occur the day after Windows NT becomes open source

You know those times when you meet someone truly dynamic or spend some time with someone special or simply hear a friendly voice on the phone, and it leaves you totally charged and full of positive energy for the rest of the day? That's what happened to me today. A guy I'd met quite a while ago gave me a call for the first time and we had a conversation I'll never forget even though it was simple and not particularly unusual. He is truly one of those people who leave a positive mark on others just by being full of energy and kindness.

What else happened today? Ah yes, my parents went out to dinner and brought me back some food and a paper umbrella.

This morning I said hello to my mother for the first time since Sunday. It was the first time I had seen her since then. I had no idea how good it would feel to not see my mom for almost an entire week. That sounds so mean but I am so tired of her worrying and stressing over my life that it makes life in general so much more peaceful when I don't see her. Doesn't that sound awful? Sorry mom.

Anyone who has ever read more than one node of mine is aware that my fiance (ex-fiance, I suppose) died. And most of you probably know that he took his own life. But something that I don't talk about too often is how stressful my life was while he was alive, especially towards the end and that I had a mini breakdown of sorts and ended up in the hospital myself. Ever since I had that brief lapse of mental with-it-ness my mother has been a nervous wreck. She is constantly thinking that I am going to flip out again. The thing is her constant worry is probably the only thing that will drive me over the edge. I think it has actually turned into a convenience for her. Everytime some new and exciting opportunity appears in my life that she doesn't want me to do she tells me that she is worried that it will be too much for me, that I will fall to pieces and end up in the hospital again. I hate being sold short. I hate the way that her worry makes me feel guilty. I hate that passive aggressive crap she puts me through. Sometimes I wonder how I will keep sane when the odds are so strongly stacked against me. Just think, if every day of your life someone hovered around you worrying that you were going to go insane wouldn't you start to question your own strength? Well, that's bullshit. There's nothing wrong with me. There never really was, I just had too much to handle and this would have happened to anyone, so

BITE ME MOM!

Get off my fucking back. I've had it.

Her newest worry is that I spend too much time on the computer. I hate to admit it but since I have moved back home the only person that I talk to in person on a regular basis is MarilynM. It's not that I am ashamed to say that she is my friend, its the fact that she's my only friend. I use the computer as on outlet for frustration and to talk to my friends who live in Rochester, four hours away. It's free and harmless. But she doesn't like it. She thinks I should work more, and she's right about that, but I hate my job and so I won't work more. Well I went away for the weekend to NYC. My friend had scored free hotel rooms for Thursday, Friday and Saturday and all I had to pay for was food. I don't have a lot of money but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am glad that I went cos I got to shake hands with some pretty cool famous people. But anyway, she thought it would be too much for her

delicate, fragile little insane flower of a daughter.

So when I came home I found a surprise waiting for me. She actually put a lock on the fucking door of the computer desk so that I could not turn the tower on! Can you fucking believe this shit? She actually called my counselor and talked to her. I had an appointment with her today and she told me I should move out. Well duh!!

I am not delicate
I am not fragile
I am not little
I am not insane

But I am a flower

Having other peoples perceptions of how you should live your life, and what you should be accomplishing really seems to destroy a lot of peoples lives. Family is supposed to be there for you and be supportive, not smother, control and drive your existance as if by joystick. I went through a relatively similar experience in my youth, labeled by my family as incapable of rational thought (my first discovery of ironic hypocrisy), and air mailed to specialists.

I am the first to admit i don't always play well with others, early this morning i started a debate in the e2 chatterbox about cut & pasting information from various sources into my 'factual' nodes. The thing is, i realise that i am not making friends, at least not in the traditional sense. I don't think anyone is a friend, if you make them a friend. People have to want to be your friend, regardless of whether or not they agree with your opinions. So I am not afraid to have an opinion, and i'm not afraid to be different. It just creates ripples in the illusionary smooth fabric of harmony.

I don't claim to have the edge on intelligence over everyone else, but i do believe that there are more than 1 kind of intelligence, since everyone has their own experience to guide exploration through the universe. I do not want to 'steal' other peoples 'intellectual property' but i also feel that property is a selfish motivation, particularly when this societys' haves decide to horde information for their own desires. I have no shame in using cut and paste methods to disseminate information from the internet into e2 for other people to read. I almost always put reference to sources of direct copy, though sometimes i may neglect to do so. Plausable deniability.

I have been trying, and succeeding at walking away from situations that get my adrenalin pumped. At times, i've discovered through the process of self-examination, I tend to neglect the feelings of a person over the mechanics of an argument. I never do this on purpose, but i suppose i feel threatened and use what tools i have available to deflect intrusion. I desire some kind of calm solution, or mutual compromise, although this is seldom possible.

I wrote my first 1 hour story tonight and noded it online. I think it was a success, though I find the process really scary since i don't know where i'm going with the words. I find it's the same as my pen and ink works, starting with a blank page and a blank mind.. things will build their own references which i can look back to.. but you have to start with an idea.. no matter how ludicrous or irrelevent it seems. Similar to how Gnutella works, you have 1 host (idea), which is linked to another, until the web of hosts grows large enough to find all that you look for.

I am feeling pretty lonely actually, like many other people. I know i'm not the only guy without a gf, but i don't know if I want one. The thought of having someone that close to me is frightening, it is such a large risk. It is easier to let my thoughts out in a semi-anonymous place like a daylog entry, than what seems a lot more revealing as my true feelings embedded within a stream of consciousness short story.

Being alone is rewarding, but neglecting courage to do new things and experience life to the full extent possible is a crime to your mind. Experience of all things will lead you towards the path of wisdom, i just some days feel like i chose to walk on the path dedicated to concorde jets. Facing that which you are afraid of will open doors you cannot imagine exist, since they are obscured by the human instinctual fear powered by primal chemical reactions. You can do anything you put your mind to, change whatever part of yourself you want to. All you have to do is decide to do it, and proceed without a look back. Repercussions themselves are part of the learning process. If you don't make mistakes, then your not living life properly. The key is to forgive others, forgive yourself and let yourself be forgiven. Give others the opportunity to grow, spite and hatred have no place in friendship. I know, i've felt it.. and i know its not right.

Sounds like some kind of lecture, but it is how i feel. Change has to come from inside you first, before it can manifest outward to others. Patience is a beautiful word, though it is also one of the most difficult.

I had a long talk with my friend Michelle, ex-study partner from British Columbia tonight. We both studied and passed the MCSE course last year, and worked on the same 1st contract together. We talked about not quite being independant, since she is still living at home at 28, and i am 29 living with a friend and his family at the moment. It's so important to have a place of your own that you can make your own. Decorate to suit your personality, and to have privacy within your own womb. I don't know how many other people out there are having a hard time getting personal space, but i hope those that do appreciate it fully.

I tried calling my bio-chemist friend Cindy in California, I used to visit her and her bf in Seattle. I remember sitting in a Starbucks watching snow drift by after watching them spin tracks at www.groovetech.com Saturday morning. There is a special feeling with Seattle, i can't quite place it, but the West Coast of Vancouver, and Seattle have knitted some kind of magical fabric in the air, it could just be all the wildlife and temperate rainforest intoxication. In California the telco charges by the minute for use of phones (at least in San Mateo). I find that concept criminal, but not unlike England.

I should have known caffeine was a bad idea, i had a large Tim Hortons coffee and a creuller. Caffeine really pumps my system, and is a dangerous drug. of course i will relive my teenage years and sleep til 4 or 5pm.

There are times when both the beauty of the world and the pain of it touch me at the exact same moment. These are times like when I'm listening to Mozart and I see a horrific car crash (which I've actually had happen) or when I'm playing with a happy little kid and see people treat a man holding a Please help. Hungry. sign with contempt.

I think that not just the existance of these experiences, but the fact that I notice these moments has significantly affected my life. I can no longer see a world in black and white, but in highly blurred, unclear shades of gray.

I had another moment like that today. I was listening to Portishead on my Walkman while I went running this evening and, as I was walking for a little while, I saw an abandoned old house with, among other things, a decrepid old highchair with food still on it on the lawn.

And I wonder how, at the same moment, I can find both hope and dispair.

I just finished listening to a song I've heard literally a thousand times and know every word to yet for the first time it made me sobb. I don't cry easily and yet the tears just came and wouldn't stop. This makes me wonder if it's built up emotions, or mis-placed emotions. Maybe it's the fact that today I was forced to realize that the one man I have ever let myself fall in love with cares about me but wants other women. When a good looking girl walks in the room he doesn't look at me and kiss my cheek anymore, he turns and watches them. I just wish I weren't so afraid of giving up his unborn child. Maybe I could let my love go if there wasn't so many factors invovled.

Yesterday | Dizzy->Day_Logs() | Tomorrow

---

10:15 BST

My house is a mess. Letters on the floor, beer cans everywhere, books scattered anywhere but the bookcase, clothes forming fractal patterns on my bedroom floor and plastic bags with chocolate bars inside them.

The less said about my Kitchen, the better.

I know I need to tidy up. I know I need to collate my CDs and put them together. I know I need to start my weekend laundry. I know I need to at least make an attempt on my hell hole of a kitchen.

But I don't want to.

Mental Note: Instant gratification is not a right.

13:40 BST

Nyaah! Nyaaaah! I have a tidy kitchen now! I feel so happy with the accomplishment that I decided to node Tips for overcoming Procrastination as a reward.

Ugh, I read "Bruckheimer is convinced that Perabo, who resembles an amalgam of Julia Roberts, Liv Tyler and Angelina Jolie, will be Hollywood's next best thing." from http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsid_865000/865916.stm . I'm convinced that Hollywood will be genetically engineering it's stars within a decade. It reminds me of that university research into the most popular female face - they averaged the results and made a vampish monstrousity, proclaiming it to be the perfect female.

Ah well, at least nefarious uses for a beard trimmer cheered me up.

20:10 BST

Finally got the email address of the girl who's been trying to contact me via the internet dating site - Now I'm in a silly panic about what to write in my reply. The site in question is mentioned in dating through a score out of 9 - which iirc was my first cooled node. If you want a laugh, my homenode has the address of my page on that site :)

Hmm, http://www.shorewalker.com/design/design28.html says that the optimum width of a text line is between 6 and 12 words... (sorry for that random thought) Oddly enough, my font size gives me about 14 words per line in a node...

After the trials and tribulations - which, unfortunately for you all, were too exhausting to node - we had our original gym machinery collected on Thursday. On Monday, we'd ordered a Total Gym 1100. It arrived today.

It's the first piece of gym equipment that we've been able to assemble, let alone use, without cursing. It's very well made. It's also very enjoyable to use - you can feel the appropriate muscle groups doing their thing. (If you really want more details, look at their website (www.totalgym.com in the US, I forget the UK site we ordered through - it might be www.pilates.co.uk).)

I'm incredibly relieved - I was starting to think mail order gym equipment was all going to be disappointing. Even the quality of this kit is motivating! Now to get an exercise program sorted out for my wife and me and we'll be away!

Downsides? It's big (but it does fold up). The video accompanying it isn't up to date (two of the attachments have become one and doesn't work quite the same). Other than that, it's better than we expected.

Late update - the video would have had to be re-done very recently, it appears, not to have been out of date. They've just revamped the machine. No, I'm not really any less irritated by it, just slightly more forgiving.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

A curious day, leaving me wondering what's going on in my life. I've been away for a few days, chilling out in Newquay (surfing town in Cornwall, SW England) trying not to think about work and attempting to get a bit of a sun-tan to offset the pale/gray skin colour that endless months in an overly airconditioned office has bestowed on me.

Unfortunately the British summertime is grounded for bad behaviour and as a result I am probably looking worse than ever, having lived on a diet of beer, take-away food and more beer and take-away food for the last week coupled with the inadequate toilet facilities in my hotel leading to me going for a McShit once too often.

What's more and to pour salt into the wound I find myself an internet cafe to get a hit of e2 and notice that the good friend with whom I began my noding career has noded so heavily over the past week that I fear the friendly (yet with serious undertones) nature of our noding competition is all but lost as she races away with ching! after ching!

This morning is all a bit surreal, I have had various dreams of the most bizzare nature, woken up sweating and nervous and have acquired a strange tick in my left eye. I fear the consequences of 4 nights of 10 pint beer abuse have caught up with me.

I am also finding the fact that a best friend and former long term SO of mine is leaving the country for a year on Tuesday a little weird and keep wondering would my life have turned out better if we'd got married and had kids like she wanted. I know i'll miss her and don't really want her to go but that's another story.

Perhaps the most odd thing is that today is actually really sunny and the town is full of life and I'm choosing to spend my time shacked up in this little room telling you guys why I'm not enjoying myself when the world and his wife are having it large not 50 yards away.

My head is spinning, my brain is twitching like a man on too much coke and I feel like i'm dreaming. See ya when I wake up!

Factgirl's fact of the day:

In Jonathan Swift's 1726 classic, Gulliver's Travels, there is a statement that Mars had two moons, at a distance of three and a half diameters from Mars respectively, the nearest one revolving in ten hours and the outermost in twenty-one and a half hours.

This statement is a remarkable one, because the existence of those moons was not established until August 1877 by Asaph Hall. Their distance from Mars, and the length of their orbits also corresponded to Swift's suggestion. The inner moon is the only known body in the universe that revolves around a central body faster than the central body rotates - this fact is also included in Swift's writing.

A few crackpots over the years have attributed this phenomena to Jonathan Swift being from Mars; More likely he read Galileo's discovery of the four moons of Jupiter and (wrongly) assumed that each planet had moons in geometric progression: no moons for Venus, one for Earth, two for Mars, and Jupiter four.

-it's a fact!

I went to the doctor this morning because I've had a sore throat since Wednesday. She tested for strep (blecch, swab down your throat) and said I look a little pale, maybe I'm anemic. I got a blood test, blood taken out of the crook of my right arm. Then I could go home. Not too hungry, but I wanted something to eat. I got strawberry cottage cheese out of the fridge - never tried it before. Blecch again. Nothing to do this lovely Saturday, first sunny day in a week, because I'm sick. Fun, huh?

Today I need more than a day log. I need a mind dump. I need to suspend making sense. It scares me when my world makes too much sense. Scary scary scary. Scary like pop music that has no imperfections imbedded in the fabric of the song because they have all been air-brushed and ironed and scrubbed behind the ears and this is not beautiful. Scary. Scary like spinning rooms and ringing phones and too much potential all pushed into one tiny moment and all you can do is watch and breathe and listen. Scary inside, not out in the air like it normally is, where you can reach out and grab it like a butterfly or leave it if you like. Scary like choices. Scary like no tears.
My life has entered a watery period, I'm not sure why, but I don't question these things anymore, just shrug and exhale because I can't force a reason behind something as big as this (can't stop what's coming can't stop what is on its way). That would make too much sense.Scary. If I read back through my summer nodes they are all water. Rain and tears and floating and a general all-round thirst. My spring nodes are fire, and burning, and urgency and hunger. I am starting to see a pattern. Scary. Again, the sense creeping back into my life. Perhaps air will be next, the suit of swords, the harsh double-edged slicing of reality into black and white. But now my life is fluid and flows into bigger things, at least from where I'm standing right now, from what I can see with my head bobbing above water. I like waves. Waves are fun.

The day is young, and I sit here this morning writing my thoughts. Here goes nothin:

Wednesday, I went in to work to find a message on Groupwise from the girl I am supposed to have a first date with that evening. Not good. Apparently, she decided she was going to go meet her sister up at the airport, so she canceled the date we made Monday. This confused me a lot. She was interested, but this is just rude. But I guess i'll give her one more chance. Regardless, asking her out was a big step for me in the first place. Oh well, I guess.

Thursday was boring, nothing special. I spent five hours at a coffee shop studying. ick.(the studying, not the coffee)

Friday I woke up at 7, drank a pot of coffee and studied some more. I left at 930 for Calculus to take my final. That went fairly well, i thought. But that either means I did great or I had no clue what the fuck I was doing. I passed though, I'm confident of that. After the final, I went to work for four hours, and I haven't had a friday afternoon drag on like that in a long time. So then i was sittin around at my computer, reading some nodes and trying to get ahold of a friend that was gonna come over, but she had to cancel. And then my friend Angie walked in the door. This was completely unexpected since she sorta lives 6 hours away. I was happy. Angie makes me happy. I am happy. She's tubing down the Apple River in Wisconsin right now with some other friends from down here. (She goes to college here.) We went to the store this morning and got eggs and milk. Then we made breakfast. It was good. I'll update later, but I think we're going out to dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory tonight :) yummmm!

---

Well, my little lady-friends are now absent from my presence, but wow, it's hard to believe how refreshing three pretty ladies stayin at your house outta nowhere can be! And on top of that, I got to sleep with Angie ;) (not that way, silly) Ah well, tomorrow's another day, and hopefully Christina will agree to hook up with me then.

I came upon the simple realization today that I'm profoundly unhappy with my life.

I'm not sure this is something I want to delve into - but it's relatively simple: I don't have a lot of joy these days. I'm working towards nothing that I believe in... I have dreams that I can find no desire to work towards... Everything I do seems to be the same as the things I did before... And the people that I love seem to be slowly driving me insane.

I feel completely and totally disassociated today - I was walking by the Empire State Building with one of my closest friends and his lover when he began to exclaim loudly how stupid going up in the building was... you know: to the tip top - to the tourist locale.

All I could think of was the faces of people around us - it's Saturday in lower Midtown, and we're wedged between the Empire State Building and the Manhattan Mall... who else is going to be there but tourists...? People who came to my new home purely for the purpose of enjoying themselves - a home that I truly love and find immense beauty in... probably the only part of my life that I'm actually happy with now... And fuck it - if their presence in Midtown on a Saturday riding an elevator to the top of a building that was once the tallest in the world gives them joy, who the fuck are we to take that away from them? Actual - honest - pure joy seems like such a rare commodity these days... I haven't seen it lying around for the taking lately, and I wouldn't mind having a small pocket of it tucked away - and it used to be so easy for me to acquire, from hand to mouth even...

It seems like this last year following graduation I've been waiting for something to believe in... I've lost most of my faith in interpersonal relationships - I've given up the idea of love, or on sexuality being remotely satisfying outside some skincrawling ephemeral context. I've grown more attached to humanity as a whole - more interested in the intentionality of action, but can't abide the personal connection that would be required to experience that first hand... I've become someone who watches everyone around them and wants to be so completely annonymous that no one would ever bat an eye my way...

i was looking for a room whole day today, but no luck.
it's fucking expensive here in tokyo. every decent room i went to take a look at costs $1000 or more. shit. i don't wanna live in shitty place like lacy.
went home and took a nap. then kenta gave me call to convince me to come down to milk in ebisu 'cause tonight, he will have his first show.
so, i drove there and met him and bunch of cool people.
junior-kun. he is one of the best CG guy here in tokyo. we talked about a future project we gonna do together.
ani + rimon = smogus. they plays kind of beasty boys like music. but they are more punk oriented. they played tonight as well and i had great time.
run into kiro again. he is everywhere. i run into him on friday at a shitty club in roppongi.
talking about roppongi, there were too many U.S. Army/Navy guys from yokosuka base. they threw really nasty words to my girls, friends, and me assuming we don't understand english. so rude. we pretended as if we didn't understand what they said to us. they make roppongi, where was one of the best place to have fun three years ago, nasty district. fuck off. baka wo aite ni shiteru hima wa nei n dayo, inakamon. i'm not going there any more.

at any rate, kenta played great tonight. his base was smooth tonight. we celebrated his great show with five shots of tequila. that's why i'm so trashed now. hehehe:P
gave kiro drive to his place. he kept talking about how cool nyc is and i should move to there.
really unrealistic but really attractive.
i think i'll do that within a year or two. hopefully...
came home and wrote this. i should go to sleep soon 'cause i've been up for forty-five hours so far.
this s thing will kick my butt someday. but i really like keep myself really hectic. i cannot stop rely on this. damn...
sweet dream.

obligatory morning redux

Woke around one again. My middle bro was back from Florida and wanting to Playstation - fine, except both the power and TV adapter cord are missing. Oh well, I needed to wake up anyways. Everything is so unreal for the first few minutes after I wake up. Tunnel vision, blurred sight, lack of balance or attention. I stagger. It feels like a heavy wet blanket placed under my skin, or perhaps my personal gravity has been turned up a notch. Eating seems like an impossibility, but the hunger is still there. Quick and vicious exercise makes it go away, but often makes me feel bad in other ways. Once at college, I fell out of my bed, a neat trick considering it was a mattress on a five foot-high shelf. Luckily, I hit the desk on the way down. (That can't be a common phrase) The adrenalin woke me up with crystal clarity that morning - maybe I should throw myself off high places more often.

sibling psychosis

My youngest brother is grinning like a moron and making stupid noises. My middle brother is quietly surly, though I can't tell if it's due to losing baseball games or his inability to find the Playstation cables. He also bought a remote-controlled fart machine, and I know this is just going to end poorly. I think I'm going to smack him if he doesn't stop his passive-aggressive shit.

self-mutilation whimperings

I really really miss my tongue piercing, but I do appreciate not having one in so far front. Found out that I can pull my 6 gauge earlet out despite the flare, which means that hole's getting larger or more pliable. I might want to shrink it a bit. I feel an itch to get more earrings as well as the long-planned nipple piercings. For my left ear, I'd match the two in my earlobe and then have a cart piecing around the middle of the ear. The bead of the captive bead ring would fit right in the crevice between the outer fold.

everyone talks about it but little is done

It's hot today - when I walked out of my apartment the heat covered me. Surprisingly enough for LA, it's somewhat humid as well. I know if I lay back on anything the sweat will muster and roll down the small of my back, but it's too hot for a T-shirt. Looking at my bare chest in the mirror reminds me of my need to exercise. I don't understand how I can have fat in some areas of my body when you can see my ribs when I breath in and stretch. I still haven't found where my near-empty bottle of vodka went. Could she have just taken it?

kits for beats

I read Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums today with Bob lying on the bed purring. The cat's been around for almost 16 years or so, and he finally looks and feels old. This might be his final summer, and I'm trying to fix him in my mind so I'll never forget him. I hate having forgotten Muffin, and Arthur, and Cleo, and Smoky. I think I'm leaving one cat out here - I hate it like nothing else. Tarkitty was his name, and I forgot him because we gave him away. And there was Socks for about a week. She hurt.

I can't accept much of the Buddhist theology in the Dharma Bums. Even if objectively there is nothing and all is non-existent we give the universe meaning. But the joy in life in the story warms me. What a different era when one could hitchhike from one coast to another. And the little insights along the road are nice too. But I think the most precious thing from the Dharma Bums is the description of his mountain travels. It's been way too long since I've gone out of cities and roads and cars. One friend asked me to go hiking with her near the end of school - I'm regretting circumstances interfered. Keeping this in my thoughts will be another story. All the human relationships but a few in the book somehow felt subtly wrong, I don't know why.

purpose oblimates

What I write, here on E2 and elsewhere, is not what I experience. Even the best words can't give a full sense of what I'm thinking. It is a darkling reflection of my true existence. Yet years from now when I reread the past it will become a major portion of the truth as I know it. I only hope it improves in its temporal evolution.

I don't know why I am always fighting myself. There's forever conflict in my mind and it gets so tiresome. This way, that way, all of which way. I used to feel like I was being pulled in every direction and the way I've handled it is by staying in the middle. But that just doesn't work at times.

I'm lonely. Just like everybody else, I'm terribly lonely. I realize that this is probably a feeling that will occupy (and has occupied) much of my life and it often makes me wonder why it is we're always in need of finding somebody to be close to. But it doesn't help. I fight myself and proclaim that I enjoy being alone, which I do, but that doesn't make the desire any less. People suck and I cannot stand them, but I still reach out trying to grasp their hands. Sure, I may walk alone, but I still search the faces I pass for an expression that may resemble mine. It's exasperating that I should feel lonely. And it's not just having a boyfriend. I could get a boyfriend without much of a problem. But hey, quality over quantity. I just can't stand most people for long periods of time.

I'm really glad it's the weekend. I didn't plan anything other than the necessary things to do because I've been wanting to veg out for a while now. I did have a test this morning but I got more sleep last night than I have all week and I felt much better about that, although I can feel the heaviness behind my eyes already. I shouldn't be so tired all the time, lots of people survive with less sleep than I. Ah well. I haven't added any good write ups lately and I feel a bit bad about that, but I've simply been way too busy or tired. Someone has perpetually been downvoting me which I normally wouldn't take much notice to anymore, but I got my daylog downvoted and a factual node about a constellation. That boggles me. I don't know if somebody hates me or if it's just total randomness. Pfft.

Mmm. Dinner time.

I look around. The room is empty. Where is everyone? No furniture, no rug, nothing! Did they all leave me? What did I do? It is dark and cold inside, and horribly, horribly empty. I crouch down in the corner, bury my head in my hands and...

Oh... Not that dream again. I rub my eyes, sit up, and stretch. Ah, another glorious weekend is upon us. For the first time this week, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the lawnmowers are roaring. And I'm inside, all by my lonesome. Not that I mind that at all, quite the contrary. I've always been quite a loner by nature, but sometimes you just wonder what life would be like if you were around other people more. More complaining, more conflict, more hassles...

It's 9 o'clock. I should probably go running, it's been a few days and I'm not going to be ready for cross country. Yeah, I'll go running. Later. If there's one character flaw about me I can't stand, it's my procrastination. I wish there were some kind of job where that was in the job description. Yeah, it's called a bureaucrat. I went to a pig roast held by the landscaping company my brother works for. Poor Piggy. How would you like to have a big stick shoved up your ass, come out through your mouth, and be rotated over a spit? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I come back home and the boredom sets in. Boredom and loneliness are not ideal combinations in a healthy life, mind you. But I've lived with it for so long it's become second nature. I was so bored that I decided I would be banned from Duris, the MUD (and it's ancestors) I've played for the past 6 years or so. Oh well, life goes on. I think I'll go running..

Tonight’s musical selections were from William Orbit’s Pieces in a Modern Style, specifically the Ferry Corsten and ATB remixes of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. My Woodstock Nation dogtags were hanging from the rearview mirror, appropriate since I was as nervous as a grunt on his first patrol in the jungle. I played both pieces all the way through twice on the 20-25 minute drive to the coffee house, and in a way the music only made me more nervous, since the Adagio was featured prominently in Platoon. Sigh. Why can’t tonight’s theme movie be about a war which we didn’t get our ass kicked in. How about The Guns Of Navarone? Yeah!

I was on my way to see the coffee house girl. See, folks, this stuff doesn’t get any easier when you get older. And yes, I am aware that the cute waitresses are not flirting with me, but I know this woman from outside of the coffee house. Our convoluted history is too complicated to get into right now, but this is the first time I have stopped by with completely non-Platonic intentions. Hence the butterflies.

When I arrived, I brought in a copy of Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I am actually reading this book, so it was not an effort to be blatantly hip. Besides, she might not even recognize the book and mistake the inherent hipness and postmodern irony for hyperbolic seriousness. "What a stupid title!" she might remark. In any case, I did leave the copy of the new Harry Potter book I borrowed from Sylvar at home. Besides, he’d kill me if I spilled coffee on it, though I did manage to negotiate the evening with the Eggers book intact.

Before I become completely absorbed in Eggers tangental and rambling writing style, let me continue with the anticlimax: she wasn’t there. It has been a long time, too long, since I stopped by. She could have quit, or gotten married, or be dead. I don’t keep track of my friends well, as they often complain. I was at once relieved and disappointed.

I stayed anyway, and lost track of time reading. Not that I’m complaining, it was great: the first long uninterrupted stretch of reading I’ve done in a while. About halfway through my stay, the band showed up, the one that makes me think of the Partridge Family. They played classic rock, great old songs that I know all the words too. I’m a sucker for this stuff, all the stuff I used to listen to on local radio before all the stations changed to 80s hair rock.

So now I’m home, writing this sucky node which is a pale imitation of Eggers. Sigh, why can’t I be a slacker novelist too?

An exciting day in the city; we went to the aquarium, saw the dolphins, the new Amazon exhibit, and the usual assortment of wild big fish.

After that, came back to town for dinner; we had to stop at the apartment to get some Excedrin to kill the inevitable headache that accompanies a city visit for me. A delightful meal at Gino's East, then came back, hung out, played Bushido Blade, and smoked cigars.

Tried to go back to the city to see the venerable neofuturists perform Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, but unfortunatley got there too late and the show was sold out. So came back to the apartment, drank, chilled.

She was there the whole time; it's the first entire day that I've spent with her since our discussion on Wednesday.

God, what am I doing wrong here? I am making the decision to stop this potentially painful life experience, but my heart is protesting. It just feels wrong to willfully end something that is good.

But I am going to anyways. How's the fucking cheesy old saying go? If you love someone, let them go.

I don't think that I'm in love, but it feels good, which is all that really matters. But still, we are both choosing to let go. And that is the adult, mature, rational decision, and we are going to stand by it.

But, to quote another cliche, old Willy has got things right when he says it...

'tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all

sigh...