April 2001
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What is a heptapod?
It's a word that I made up and eventually ascribed to an alien creature of my own creation, made up around May 1998. The only other places where I have come across the term heptapod are on some page that has strange alien whaletalk and there's a tale called The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. I was surprised that someone else used the word but I didn't know about the story when I thought up the word.
Heptapods are carnivorous, endothermic, scaly and have heptalateral symmetry. Three limbs are for primary locomotion and the other four are used for running and climbing mountains which make up their habitat. The other four limbs are used to grasp, manipulate and feeding themselves. Each triple jointed limb ends with seven identical digits. Heptapods lay small leathery eggs which hatch into creatures who are simply tiny adult heptapods. Each egg usually holds three embryos but there are some that have been found that have held seven embryos.
Its distant relative, the viiadon, is a herbivore that is remarkable because of its seven enormous tusks which are used for digging up roots and defense. The viiadon also has seven limbs, heptalateral symmetry like their relative which dwells on the larger, northern desert covered continent. The differences are the fact that this beast is noticibly more intelligent and they only lay one egg which is carried underneath their bodies. The gentle viiadon roams around the eastern, temperate continent and has few predators because of its size. The name is derived from the roman numeral VII and don which refers to its unique dentition.
I walk two point five miles in fifty minutes. That's my little exercise routine. An hour before my father closes up shop, I leave home and walk up there and bum a ride back home. Eventually I'll get enough endurance to walk back home.
Because of circumstances out of my control, it looks like this month will be very fruitful for me and that's certainly a first. Something appeared out of the blue and right now it seems like something which is just too good to be true but I'll know more soon enough. This is has the serious possibility of being a Good Thing tm.Also it seems that I will be meeting Devotchka in person for the first time this month, right now I'm doing some research and budgeting myself so we can do fun stuff which will keep my hands busy and my mind inactive. Only thing that I have planned is a drive down to Raisin Acres so Devotchka can meet Malyss and I can give Malyss her birthday present. Everything else will be up in the air.
Today was a do nothing day, just waiting on things and watching the minutes march past me. I was an ass yesterday and didn't think that someone was busy moving boxes and furniture into their new apartment or waiting for it to be fumigated for insects.
Whatever.
Goodness, it's a lovely feeling not having to fuck around with eccentrix's web ftp interface. Christ, it took me longer to delete the majority of files at eccentrix than it would if I had used an ftp program. Let alone the whole bullshit of updating the site to index it for the atomz search engine. Now I have a lovely robots.txt file but I reckon I'm not going to have the updates happen automagically because I don't want this page indexed since this page is changed every day. I'll just upload a blank version of this page and have the site indexed. So now if you ever come here and the page is blank it'll be either of two things: I died and the page is being prepared or I'm indexing the site. If it's the last day of the month or first day of the month, you can be fairly sure that's because I'm updating the site index.
I did a tarot card reading for Rebeka on Saturday night / Sunday morning whatever the fuck it's called at that strange hour. Her question was fairly straightforward (she told it to me at the end of the reading and i kindasorta guessed it might be like that question). Here's the layout that she got.
2 of cups for the past, the Chariot for the present and the seven of wands for the future.
She asked that I expand upon the future card which represented hesitation. I pulled the Tower, the Star and the two of wands and I interpreted that as meaning something will come up in her life that she will have to face and she will hesitate to take part in it, whether it's an action or event, because she feels disaster will follow close behind. If only she remains brave, then she'll realize that this will end up being a good opportunity rather than a catastrophe.
She asked me to draw one last time on the tower card. I pulled the eight of pentacles, the world and the eight of wands. This represents that she will say something out of the blue with lots of candor and it will make her feel like her entire world will come to an end. There was nothing in the reading that would represent whatever she would say would be a secret.
That's about it. I wonder if she'll growl at me for posting this on my web site.
The card I chose, and Rebeka helped me, was the three of cups which means solace. She helped me because I shuffled, asked her to pick a number between one and seventy eight and then counted out the number and looked at the card. I was happy with the card and it kinda fit.
While I was taking my walk today, the character I made up for the Tuesday vampire game finally gelled in my head and I'm quite happy with it. I wrote a rough draft of the character and emailed it over to Diane. Then I found a few great resources online for character generation and World of Darkness kinda stuff. There's an Onomastikon with a good collection of names to choose which is always helpful when creating a character, this site deals with a lot of information regarding the White Wolf World of Darkness with character sheets in PDF format and White Wolf also has their own character sheets except they lack a caitiff sheet but they do have a ronin sheet for folks who want to play tribeless werewolves. Finally there's an enormous file which has all the information for each discipline in Vampire.
My character, who is nameless at the moment, is a former soldier who fought in the Korean conflict and became a biker once he was out of the service. The assamites were impressed with his martial prowess and his general outlook on life and death so he was made into a vampire. Not long after was the anarch rebellion which formed the anarch free states on the west coast and in the southwest which was where he maintained his haven. He brought across his best friends who were of varying skill but under his tutelage they became a formidable team, his generation went down from the tithes from his childer and from what he collected from doing hits on his own.
One evening they were given a job to hit some vampire and it went really bad, his childer were murdered and he was the only one who made it out alive. Now he's out for revenge against the person who hired him for the hit along with the rest of the vampire's clan since they don't like the fact their favorite elder is marked for death by this assamite.
Not much else is going on, just gotta do laundry tomorrow and walk up to get my car so I can head over to therapy. Right now I'm feeling pessimistic about things in my life. Not money, heck no, just things that affect me and my happiness.
I really hate my toilet.
The original toilet worked wonderfully, I could sit for hours, flushing every time I wiped and it would rarely clog. Christ, I have no idea why the toilets were changed. This fucking low flow thing always clogs and clogs at the worst fucking moments possible. It's not like I'm throwing a fist thick wad of toilet paper in there, on top of what I have already unloaded but the god damned thing continues to clog up. There's absolutely no way I'm going to wipe with a single square of toilet paper using both sides.
There's nothing fouler than plunging a toilet that's half full of mangled paper and poop stew.
Finally got this sad excuse for a toilet unclogged and once I'm done here (I'm on the can as I type) I'm gonna spray it down with this foaming cleaner because it's a fucking horrorshow.
My emotions.
I haven't been that expressive emotionally on here lately because I am self conscious about them. I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot and either I'm not able to convey the point effectively or I'm simply deluded. I exploded in therapy today, punched the wall really hard and hurt my right hand's knuckles, and vomited out stuff that's been stewing inside of me for the past couple of days. Well, not just the past couple of days, more like came to a head because usually it was something calm and controlled deep inside of me. Basically it stems from my own lack of self esteem, anger at myself for not wanting to hear my fucking shit and pretty much thinking that everyone else is sick of hearing my shit and think, "Oh, there goes fucking diary_spivak again."
"He's never fucking happy."
"Always has to make a fucking drama."
Doesn't matter if people like diary_spivak. I don't like diary_spivak. I don't like fucking whining.
Now I'm trying to think of what next to write because my brain is putting me on hold. Lemme see, I'm sitting here in the dark, the big computer's playing Vera Lynn singing "We'll meet again" on repeat, the dogs are sleeping. I was on the telephone with Devotchka telling her my plans and my particular good news but the thing is that I'm not that happy about the good news right now. I'm feeling more neutral because my bad sinking feeling is balancing the good news.
The good news is that I'm financially very close to taking my trip around the USA. With this, I'm looking to do this trip sometime in September and go from there, hopefully avoiding the snow up north and severe heat in the south and southwest. Only things that have to be taken care of are car insurance, getting inspected and actually planning a route. Probably going to stick with the down through Maryland, across the USA, through to Oklaholma, pick up Devotchka if she still wants to take part. The trip plan has different routes. If Devotchka has time, I'll drive through the southwest to California, up the coast, across country to Colorado then South Dakota and Illinois and back down to Oklaholma.
If not, up through Illinois, across to Colorado to California the southwest and back. This possible leg will not have many stops.
If she decides that she doesn't want to, I'll just flip a coin and say fuck it.
Okay, I don't have much else to share with the rest of you so I'll cut this entry short here.
We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
'til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.
So will you please say hello to the folks that I know
Tell them, I won't be long.
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go, I was singing this song.
We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.
Quick update. Tonight would've been a great night to go to a bar and just sit quietly while getting drunk. Bah, fuck me for realizing this so damned late.
More of the same as yesterday except that I went gaming and didn't walk because I bumped my knee and it's bothering me right now. Fuck.
I left the game angry last night because it feels like every time I'm there the only attention I get is getting snapped at or being told to shut up or not being heard since if I raise my voice it's assumed I am raising my voice in anger rather than to be heard and I don't want to make a scene. Sure it'd be nice if the game was an actual gathering of friends and aquaintances.
But it is what it is. Folks will still hang out when there isn't a game and not ask me if I want to come. Just last night with the shit going on in my head on top of what I've been stewing over regarding gaming for the past months I couldn't hold it in anymore.
Other stuff.
During the drive home I kept clenching and unclenching my fist and fought not to punch myself. Yes, I've been punching myself long before I ever knew about Fight Club. I knew that I needed a hand and called to see if Brian was still there and asked him to come over after he left because I didn't want to start hitting myself again.
I beat myself up on the inside a whole lot more than I do on the outside. When it gets to physical stuff, I know things are going worse.
Brian came over and we walked down towards the big field, talking about how I felt about the game and my frustration with it and my fears about Devotchka coming to visit. Did I mention that? She's gonna be coming to visit me on the 20th through the 23rd. I'm trying to think of how I can put this in a nutshell.
It came down to my fears which stem from not really knowing if she was on the same page as me. Feeling the same, wanting the same, stuff like that. Sometimes I feel like I love her more than she loves me and if that were so it would be a Bad Thing tm since I'd feel like a schmuck and like I wasted my time. I told Brian how I felt about the situation like thinking I'm coming between two people and how I play out scenarios expecting the worst because it's my nature when I feel like this.
Pretty much he told me that I should talk with Devotchka about this and see if there really is anything for me to be feeling this pit in my stomach about rather than dealing with insubstantial shit which only exists inside my head. I did talk with her today (surprise, this entry's being written on the day it's dated rather than the night before) and I conveyed what I was feeling, one or two things she said made me feel strange (one was, "it's not like i'm going to move out there" when i didn't say anything about me thinking she was or somehow if she came out here she'd never want to leave. i sorta took that comment as being one of "i'm always going to be in one place and i don't think i would live out there especially with you) but I emailed her about that and I guess went into more depth but not too much considering our conversation before.
I'll hear back from her eventually. I did feel somewhat better afterwards but the feeling now is more of waiting for the other shoe to drop (I feel that way from past experiences where I've been called a sociopath when I've had strong feelings for a woman and always being pushed aside by women).
Last night was lovely though and I was thinking about the diary when standing out in the field talking with Brian. I was looking more at the moon than making eye contact with him because I felt shame that I had been like "Come. Now." and a little bit of thinking he was thinking "Oh boy, here we go again. (roll eyes)" Also I was enraptured by the way the moonlight played on the clouds and I could imagine being high above that field, beyond the thin clouds looking down upon the backs of the clouds and seeing the moonlight falling upon them brightening an insubstantial desert landscape that spanned the very width of the sky. While looking up, I noticed that the clouds were slowly coming to a clear spot and I was hoping it might've been symbolic that my head was slowly growing clear along with an idea of what to say to Devotchka without making an ass of myself or really sabotaging myself and any chance I might have with Devotchka.
By the time Brian and I got back to his car and we were wrapping things up I noticed that things were getting cloudy so I was getting antsy about getting back inside and firing up this infernal machine to at least write down how I felt before anything leaked out of my head never to be seen again.
I stayed up until about fourish because I was still wound up in a really tired way and finally went to sleep. Woke up at eleven on the dot because of my father yelling at someone for getting the wrong number for the third time. I tried to roll over and go back to sleep but anxiety leapt at me like a jungle cat and sank its claws deep into me. I marched upstairs, got the phone and called Devotchka. Bada bing, she was there.
Other than that, I just got a bunch of scans together for bossman for a Project B poster. I think things might be getting hot again with that project, it's been having some trouble because it deals with Cuba and was produced in Cuba.
While walking down to my car this evening, I couldn't help but notice how lovely everything looked. It was warm, unlike the rainy pseudo-winter that's been plaguing this region, and there were kids playing ball in the park and soccer on the school field plus the sun seemed to shine just right over everything that I wanted so much to freeze time and make my way to some west facing vantage point while the light was like this and watch the cover of night creep up behind me and finally tuck in the horizon under a blanket of stars above and below. Maybe the remainder of the year will be a good one, who knows there might be a gentle summer like last year. Christ that was fucking amazing. Sure, I was inside most of the time but when I did go out to walk it was wonderfully warm and rarely peaked above ninety even at night. Plus there were great rain storms with raindrops which went plop plop plop very satisfyingly on the ground and making the trees rustle because the rain was so heavy.
Speaking of heavy, my eyes are heavy instead of me on the inside for once but I still have Mr. Nagging Doubt pestering me over and over and over again but I think maybe I'm past the point of caring or if I am so tired that I can't be bothered to hear what's being whispered.
Finally.
What do I want? I want to feel special to someone and needed. Someone to be in love with me, not just loving me. Someone who does it truly because they want to, not from any feeling of obligation towards my feelings.
The end.
Today I am going to rest. Just after Wednesday I feel tired, it's the same kind of tired I felt after I blew up at therapy on Monday. Christ, that was loud and painful for me. Physically, that is. My knuckles don't hurt as much as they did yesterday or Tuesday. But after those fifteen minutes in therapy I could've just rolled up and slept.
Right now I'd like to sleep. Close my eyes, clutch my pillows and not wake up until sometime Thursday afternoon.
This is more than enough entry to make up for updating so tardily on Wednesday.
Good night.
Sometimes I feel bad for people who make web sites with WYSIWYG editors. I figure the feeling is much like what the cro magnon felt when they first crossed paths with the neanderthals in Europe. Perhaps many years from now archaeologists will be digging up their skulls with telltale heavy brow ridges which aren't from evolution but constant furrowing that comes from asking themselves the question, "How come my page loads in my browser but nobody else can see it?"
Been fucking around on eMode taking tests to occupy my time and it turns out I'm an introverted, optimistic pit bull. My super power is animal communication.
I heard back from Tim after he read my diary entry yesterday. He got something off his chest, how I cursed at him a week ago when plans were made to go see a movie. I cursed at him because the theater was down by Franklin Park. Ugh. He did note that everything for him is an hour away when it comes to doing things with gamers. Point taken. I also told him that I do consider him a friend and I was just writing in that moment rather than condemning everyone at the game and the game itself. My irritation was from the feeling of being left out and that gaming has become more of a get down to business and at the end of the night go home.
I wrote up a check today because I used my father's card to buy something online yesterday. I don't have a credit card and it'll be a bit before I even get one to carry around. Thing is that I only want to deal in cash but since I'm always online and how some stuff is cheaper online or only available online I can only pay with a credit card.
I decided to check out sitecritique where I listed my site and mere seconds later I got critiqued! Just check this out, I found it to be very amusing.
More polls, less diary stuff. People don't like to read on the Web. Especially green ASCII. Nice language. How old are you, anyway?
My site is currently rated at 6.3333 out of 10.
I don't know what's funnier, the "Nice Language." or the "How old are you, anyway?" bit. Look at me! I'm a foul mouthed ten year old or I'm an immature thirty year old who uses "nigger" way too much in casual conversation.
My trip.
I had more good news today and it looks like I will be exceeding the amount that I originally figured I would need for touring the USA. This is a Good Thing tm but it means that I will be waiting for the cash to come into my hot little hands or bank account.
I have written up the first leg of my trip and once I have an idea of what route I'm going to take I'll post it here in its entirety. The one thing that is certain about the start of the trip is Ocean City, Maryland. That's where I'm going to take Route 50 and begin going across this great land. The first time I saw it there was a sign that listed a city in California being 3000+ miles away and I was taken by the fact it was even listed for travellers. This is coupled by the fact when I saw the sign the sun was setting behind it and I remember the land seeming so flat giving me the impression that I was part of something far bigger than I could comprehend. I imagined I could see the very tip of the rockies poking out of the horizon too. After thinking about this trip for more than a year I remembered that place in Ocean City, MD and realized that was definitely going to be my starting point. The whole going into NYC, having a few drinks, taking the train home and starting the long drive kinda doesn't count in my mind. That's just the goodbyes.
Omens.
Today I was reminded that Ruscha is getting married on April 21st while catching up with him on LambdaMOO. Being an irrational person I thought to myself, "Oh, Devotchka's going to be up here around that time." and I informed Ruscha of that too. No, I'm not thinking that Devotchka's going to propose to me when she arrives. I just think that it's a good omen. It's only an omen because I didn't know about it in the first place. I knew that Ruscha was going to get married but not the exact date and it's the whole synchronicity of the situation.
Boy, I'm creepy.
Sleep.
Need sleep.
Last night I took time out to make up the lost mileage that I didn't cover on Tuesday or Wednesday. Boy was I surprised that I walked the way to my father's business and back in what seems to be less than two hours. By the time I got in bed, I fell asleep fairly quickly even though I needed the help of scanning over two issues of Taboo. Taboo's a horror anthology that came out in 1989 through 1992. It's pretty good but I've read them so much, reading the ones which caught my attention first and then scanning over those again until I finally break down and read the stories I intentionally skipped because the art wasn't clear enough or the tale seemed far too dull for my tastes. Usually the stories were just good, nothing spectacular like Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell.
Was awakened by the sound of the maid leaving but I couldn't go back to sleep right away because of this sharp feeling in me, the fact that my left ear went deaf again and the fact someone from PSE&G is came over to take a look at the furnace. The pilot light's been crapping out and leaving the house without heat. That doesn't bother me but apparently my mother's been bitching at my father about how she feels cold. Ends up the thermocouple was shot and it had to be replaced. Eighty five bucks. Yikes.
My ear.
I've had this problem since I was with Malyss. First I thought it was a buildup of earwax or earwax that was getting compacted in the depths of my ear and I would fumble around with hydrogen peroxide to dissolve it and clear up my hearing. It's progressed to the point where I will wake up and find that I can't hear out of my left ear. The longer I'm awake, the more I'm able to hear. Sometimes this is a cool thing because I can roll over on my right side and sleep, blissfully unaware of the rest of the noisy world.
My domain's running wusage 7.0 which is kinda neat because it gives me the information about the folks who come to my site. What makes it suck is the fact that it only seems to remember the top ten visitors or show the top ten visitors. Been all the way through the program's interface and didn't find a control panel to change it so I could see the information of every user who visits here. Foo.
I don't believe in karma. Was talking with Chuck earlier this evening about karma, it came up when we were leaving a good parking space and he made sure that the first person there got it rather than that person having to fight over it with the competing car. He said he did this because he's sure that it would come back around to him someday and how bad things tend to come back to those who do them. I paraphrase for simplicity.
The idea of karma doesn't jibe with me at all. You do something good and something good will happen back to you? Simply because some unperceived force decides to push fate and destiny around to give you something good in return for a good deed? I figure from this it means that every good deed does not come from the fact whomever is committing that act is not doing it from their heart or mind but because they are being manipulated into performing it. On the up side, this means that when bad things happen to someone, it's because it's just coming back at them rather than being something personal between them and whomever is performing a vengeful or evil act.
There's something better about a good deed, an act of love that comes from someone rather than someone thinking "Oh, I had this coming because that's the way the universe / religion works and I'm just a pawn fulfilling the universe's will." As much as I want to believe in being able to choose one's destiny and realize one's destiny, I still have some vestiges of belief inside of me that say I can see what might be through divination (tarot cards) or by manipulating the present for long term goals.
Right now I'm wired like I have been all day, kind of like I'm on amphetamines except this is definitely stemming from anxiety rather than some newfound energy which comes from walking regularly for exercise (last night I made up for not walking on Tuesday and Wednesday by walking from here to Millburn and back at 4 a.m. in the morning). For most of the day I channeled it into doing stuff in Flash. Mostly projects I made up rather than stuff assigned to me at work or things someone asked me to do for them. I will be using this one technique on a site I'm working on which will look good in the context of Project B, check it out.
Finally it looks like I'll have the money for my trip in my hot little hand in a couple of months. It's going to take some patience and determination but I will have a decent nest egg with which to travel around the USA. I've already noted I'm gonna get a gun with ammo for protection, a tent, a sleeping bag and an air mattress. The rest of the stuff I'm going to lug along will be a laptop (maybe this one), my digital camera and regular stuff that gets packed for a long journey. I'm definitely going to need more black shirts, jeans and new shoes / sneakers.
Ah well, it's the weekend. My least favorite part of the week. Good night.
That's the first thing said by the monk who invented champagne. Jaybird shared that with me this evening.
Highlight of today was going food shopping. I made quite a nice haul for under thirty bucks.
- two pkgs hot italian sausage
- long rolls
- two jars of meat sauce
- liverwurst
- rye bread
- dozen bottles of seltzer
- ruby red tangerine juice
- three pkgs macaroni
It's been nine days since I've started my walks and after tomorrow I will have walked twenty five miles. My shins hurt after a while but once I sit down and rest the pain goes away. Just gets weird sometimes and I think my shins will snap in half and make me fall on my face. Back in college I would squeeze through cars and slide over hoods in the parking lot because I was in a hurry or trying to be cool. Sometimes while performing those acts, I'd slip forward and bark my shins against a bumper and for the longest time I thought I was walking around with hairline fractures. I reckon the pain from walking is because I'm hauling around so much mass. Once I have covered a hundred miles, I'm going to start walking up and back from my father's business rather than bumming a ride home.
Rest of my day was spent keeping my hands busy, to sublimate bad energy into creative energy, and keep my brain occupied because I do have lots of spare time. That is how I set up my life and how I live but sometimes it's a real pain in the ass. Oh look, tubby's complaining about too much spare time while I drudge away at my nine to five job that leaves me with ulcers that he deserves. Heh. Aren't I nice when I put comments in your mouth? I thought so. Anyway. The business I've been trying to get caught up in has steadily fallen into something half hearted.
Tonight I learned that I will have the money for my trip in about two months. Just some budgeting concerns along with needing patience with everyone involved. This still doesn't seem real to me but I don't have any anxiety that says I will not have this cash.
Finally here's a spiffy little image that Quinn sent me via email a few days ago.
I found out from my parents that Forno's of Newark is a whole lot more expensive than the last time they were there. Last time I was at that restaurant, I was with Malyss, dinner for both of us cost about eighty eight bucks. Yeesh. Sure, the fucking meal was worth every god damned penny. Still, I do not retract my statement from an earlier entry that if I seriously really like a woman a whole lot I'll take her there for dinner. Just dinner. No heavy shit. It's just an expression of whatsthatcalled my esteem? No, that's not the word. Affection. That's the best word that I can think of and all that kinda stuff.
Plus the only time that I ever asked a big question it was always in an unusual situation where the woman had every chance to run away screaming at the top of her lungs.
Speaking of lungs, breasts are lovely.
Today wasn't that big of a day, I played around some more with flash on that project for Brian, had a sausage sandwich or three and watched some TV. Big whoop.
Here are the final results of my poll with the question: If your beloved was going to the opposite or different afterlife, would you give up your final reward and go with them? Six people voted yes, five people voted no and three people don't believe in an afterlife.
I learned something awful keen today (this part of the entry I'm writing on Monday). Flash will compress mp3s even more than they already are compressed. The bad thing is that the .fla file is enormous but I turned a 4.8 meg mp3 into a 403k .swf file. Since I have a tin ear, I don't know if the quality is on par with an mp3 (which I've been told is passable) or if it degraded during the process. Email me and I'll send the .swf file over so you can listen to it. The mp3 I converted was Space Monkeys by the Dust Brothers from the Fight Club soundtrack.
I babbled a lot in therapy last night. Mostly I talked about how I plan ahead by playing out scenarios and working for what seems to be the best and most realistic scenarios in hopes of having more control in my life along with having something to live for or work for because most times I feel like there's not much going on in my life and it's nice to have something to look forward to in the future.
When I spoke with Brian last week, he told me that this probably comes from the fact we're both creative people (he does this but in a different way) and he said that gaming is also an influence towards this kind of thinking. He makes sense but there's one person I know who doesn't understand this and they are a serious gamer as well. I know that I do this mostly to get a feeling of control in my life.
That's the gist of tonight's therapy other than telling my therapist about the stuff in flash that I have done and that Project B will be shown at Cannes. This should be interesting, especially if it wins one of the golden palms. If they leave in the stuff about Che Guevara, the movie will do well. Not that I would know because I'm not that musically inclined.
I'm thinking about buying a bicycle. While walking up to my father's business for my daily exercise my shins started hurting something fierce and I had to call my sister to pick me up and drag my ass the rest of the way. Sigh. While I was talking with Chuck on Friday, he said that he was thinking about getting a bike to ride to the train station from his new place. Maybe I can sell him my old bike, I only rode it twice, because it doesn't fit my body. When I coast or rest while riding the bike my legs don't completely relax and it's uncomfortable. If he's interested that will certainly take the bite out of buying a new bike. I'm looking to drop about three hundred, just a figure I pulled out of thin air much like the figure of $10,000 to do my trip around the USA. That's about a dollar a mile because thinking about the trip it seems I might be driving about nine or ten thousand miles. Still gotta plan the route out more and take tolls into account so I know how much I'll be hit overall. I estimate that gas will run me about 600 bucks, taking into account that the best mileage I have measured with my current automobile is 330 miles on a full tank (twelve gallons) and figuring twenty bucks should cover a full tank even in California where gas prices are supposedly exorbitant.
Only thing that's upsetting me at the moment is the fact that I can't find my copy of Goodnight Moon and that the modem on my laptop died. Shit. I'll have a new one on Wednesday and I'll be shipping it back to Dell so the transaction's free.
Now be a good reader and take part in my new poll.
This entry's 411 so I am wondering if I should put information in this that I haven't put in my diary before.
I'm feeling neutral. Feel like pulling back once again from online. Online just feels like one huge shitstorm and mostly it's stirred up by me in my personal life. Just do LambdaMOO once a day, even though I am staying connected for hours on end I'm not doing anything in particular. I'm in a mood to not talk with anyone unless they talk with me first because I feel like I've done too much of that in a negative way. How many fucking times can someone put up with hearing my insecurities?
Hrm, I'm not putting much in here but that's because there's not much going through my head to post here.
Honest.
Here's a fun game to play. It tells you how close you are to being a Jew. Get four coins, a quarter, a dime, a nickel and a penny. Either phone someone or blindfold the player and then drop the coins on a hard surface. The player has to guess which coin was dropped within three guesses. If the player doesn't correctly identify the coins then they're close to being a retail paying goyim. I played this with Devotchka on the telephone and we weren't close to being Jewish but she did mention that identifying the coins would probably be easier in person since some nuances are lost over the phone lines.
Good night.
Replacement modem for the laptop arrived today and it's now in my laptop.
Woke up early, spent an hour in bed trying to get more sleep but it just wasn't happening much to my chagrin.
Received news about money and I will know in ten days if this is going to be my money or that it's going to go down the tubes. It can go either way.
If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy.
I woke up early but thankfully succumbed to sleep soon after awakening. It was still dark so I reckon it didn't count.
Ended up waking up at 10:30 but stayed in bed until 11:30 or so.
I'm reading a book about pirates and I'm listening to a few mmp3s over and over again. Today I created my first pre-loader in Flash along with figuring out something particularly easy which had me stumped earlier. It was messing around with fill attributes so they're not always up and down, but horizontal or diagonal. Same goes with moving the center of a radial fill around to make a spherical effect. One thing that's a bit of a bother is finding an appropriate stand or surface I can use to make a panoramic photo with my digital camera. I have one idea which I'm going to try tonight. If I get this done right then I'll post another item on my flash portfolio.
See you.
Well fancy that. I made two entries for the 13th. I'll let it slide this time.
Nothing much going on except I'm playing a bunch of ROMs and it's fun. Check Classic Gaming to learn more about this stuff.
It's tax day and easter.
Quick note for the few readers of this site: My entries have been short because there hasn't been much on my mind lately. In light of the most recent entries I made before I lost my loquaciousness I'm not writing tiny entries because I am ashamed of how I feel or what I posted and I'm still dwelling on that stuff. Has nothing to do with not wanting to repeat myself. In light of the entries I posted back in late 1999 and early 2000, when I was with Kinja where I would post "had a bad day, wish it would all end" or just something brief because I didn't feel like sharing, I feel like I set a pattern of behavior (not behaviour. hi maribou! you know maribou if you were American you would be maribo. i kid because i love.) for my readers to build upon and to draw inferences about my mental well being.
Just feel like my head's empty and things aren't interesting things going on at the moment.
I also put this into my diary for my own future reference because depending on the direction my life takes, I wouldn't want to twist things like this around to be "god i was so depressed" rather than "nope, nothing to say".
I overexplained. Fuck it. Usually the worst thing one can do is re-edit text that came directly from the inside because it's the truest form of expression. I don't express much but when I do usually it's a fucking mess.
Here are the results of my poll: 3 have read all entries, 6 have read most of my entries and 2 have voted no. Yes, it's awkward to put that down here but I figured the no answer would encompass the folks who only read on a sporadic basis or just started reading these daily entries.
I am curious who the 3 people are who said they've read all of the entries. Reveal thyself to me! I don't have many ideas about who might've read every entry but I figure one of them is Malyss. If I do hear from anyone this'll be interesting for me.
Of course I've read every entry but that doesn't mean I go back and read through them all. Most times I just search and read particular entries that catch my eye.
Finally if you want to see Mars, go outside late at night around two in the morning and find the moon. Look up and to the right where you will see a ruddy star shining brightly. That's Mars. Also take a look at a rough 360 panorama shot of my backyard. I also have a bunch of other stuff I made in flash too.
I woke into a dream where it was perpetual night. Being restless I went down to my car and started driving up the turnpike for about two hours. The two hours didn't actually pass in the dream but my inner dream body clock told me that only about two hours had passed and when that time had passed I looked up and saw that there was a sign for Colorado.
I took the first exit and drove through many tight, European style streets thinking that I would stop by their post office because that's where maribou worked in the post office bookstore. She wasn't there. They let her leave an hour and a half early because of a holiday.
I hopped back in the car and drove around until I think I found their apartment which was in a motel but they weren't home. Being tired I decided to start going back home except there was no onramp that would get me on the turnpike going south and back home. Soon enough, I was back where I started and pulling up the driveway of a large hotel.
No, it wasn't the Overlook. It had the properties of being enormous but cozy. Sitting outside in the perpetual twilight were my sister and Rebeka who were waiting for the sunrise. I kissed them both and went around the porch catwalk until I got to the solarium slash restaurant. The hotel manager smiled and waved at me as if he knew me because I had stayed there many times before which confused me but I smiled and felt welcome. Now in a hallway, I went to my room where Jaybird and maribou were waiting for me and they started telling me about their day and how they knew I would be back and asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner.
We went to this mall and I saw there was a kiddie restaurant called hhsbcity that was like a Fuddruckers and it was covered in bright, colorful lights and there was a huge sign that said "GAYNESS" pointing at the floor and I thought, "Cool, I wonder if hhsb named herself after this place." Jaybird was at the counter for a restaurant and was trying to give the host a twenty so we could be seated already. I joined in the bribery when three toughs came up from behind, Jaybird knew them but was walking on eggshells. I said something off color which made the biggest grab me and make like he would slam my body against the counter while maribou said that I was an outsider and didn't know any better which made the thug put me down.
I was alone then. My friends having gone home and I made my way back to the hotel. Rebeka and my sister smiled and waved while I waded through the crowd that gathered on the hotel's large porch to get to my room. The lights didn't work in my room and I sat there for a long while wondering if I should get home. It was very nice there at the hotel and I felt honestly welcome but I still had that draw back home. When it started snowing in the room I saw the outline of my car so I decided to get inside and start leaving this place.
The road stretched out before me with jagged mountains far in the distance and empty plains as far as the eye could see. I was in the land of the dead and if I didn't stop the car I wouldn't be dead like them.
Went out to dinner with the family and it was nice. I heard my sister talk about how she's having a severe allergic reaction on her hands from whatever shit she's exposed to at work and I reminded my father about dinner on Friday and now I'm just milling around wondering what to do during the five minutes until The Sopranos begin. I reckon my sister's hands are so bad because she smokes and people who smoke get nicotine on their hands and nicotine retards healing. I remember reading on the internet about people who worked on tobacco plantations getting cuts on their hands that just don't heal. Her hands aren't yellowed from the tobacco but her breath reeks of cigarettes most times. She got snippy at me for mentioning that fact. I was merely expressing concern and to a lesser extent irritation because she told me to stop dinging my knife against the bottom of my glass. It sounded pretty, big fucking deal.
I don't think I'd have a diary if I thought nobody was reading. Sure, it's keeping a record of my life but there's also the exhibitionist thing here. Ah well, a hundred hits a week isn't bad.
The Velveteen Rabbit is an analogy I quote a lot when I talk with those people dear to me online and how I tell them that they transcend being an aquaintance thousands of miles away from me and become Real to me. It's true that there still is a world of difference between knowing someone who has become Real to you online and finally encountering them in real life. Online, the left out parts are painted in by the brain. Those left out parts being eye contact, body language, cadence and things that can't be expressed through this electronic medium. So much is expressed nonverbally.
Meeting someone in real life isn't like having the rest of the puzzle that is the other person completed, more like having the border put together and the rest is yet to come until one can see the picture being made.
In my life there have only been a handful of people who have become Real to me, regardless (irregardless, hi maribou!) of the fact that I've met them in real life or not. All of these people in this category know it because I've told them. IRL people, like Brian and Tim, are real to me because I'm around them regularly in real life.
There were times where I thought someone was Real but they were no better than the model boat in the end because the feeling was not reciprocal and I was an imbecile putting way too much on them when I really didn't know the person, just what the person wanted to reveal. Kinja's probaby the only person from real life who was like that. Those people have just faded away in my life and when they do talk with me I feel awkward because I don't have anything to say, not out of anger but from not knowing what to share. Usually when I have been contacted on those rare occaisions when someone who I thought was Real contacts me I don't know what to talk about despite the fact that so much time has passed and I'm sure many tales and events have occured which are noteworthy but what is there to talk about? Does one talk about old times and come across as being stuck in the past when one just talks about things from there to get up to speed with events inbetween? Does one talk about things happening now and either make the other person feel bad like they've been shoved aside and shut in a cupboard for years or sigh at having to give a cast of characters and explain every niggling detail to the point that telling the story isn't fun?
Ida know.
One last thing, I started a book of shadows today and I've already transcribed a protection spell, a luck spell, my magickal cipher and my technique for interpreting tarot cards. There'll be more in it soon enough.
There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.
There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit was quite the best of all. For at least two hours the boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling oftissue paper and unwrapping of parcels and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.
For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint caught the tone from them and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Timothy, the jointed wooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with Government. Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignifcant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.
The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead neclaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-b y break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things thatbuzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I subbpose you are Real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it really felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.
There was a person called Nana who ruled the nursery. Sometimes she took no notice of the playthings lying about, and sometimes, for no reason whatever, she went swooping about like a great wind and hustled them away in cupboards. She called this "tidying up," and the playthings all hated, especially the tin ones. The Rabbit didn't mind it so much, for whereever he was thrown he came down soft.
One evening, when the Boy was going to bed, he couldn't find the china dog that always slept with him. Nana was in a hurry, and it was too much trouble to hunt for china dogs at bedtime, so she simply looked about her, and seeing that the toy cupboard door stood open, she made a swoop.
"Here," she said, "take your old Bunny! He'll do to sleep with you!" And she dragged the Rabbit out by one ear, and put him into the Boy's arms.
That night, and for many nights after, the Velveteen Rabbit slept in the Boy's bed. At first he found it rather uncomfortable, for the Boy hugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, and sometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit could scarcely breathe. And he missed, too, those long moonlight hours in the nursery, when all the house was silent, and his talks with the Skin Horse. But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in. And they had splendid games together, in whispers, when Nana had gone away to her supper and left the night-light burning on the mantelpiece. And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long. And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy — so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail coming unsewn, and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the Boy had kissed him.
Spring came, and they had long days in the garden, for wherever the Boy went the Rabbit went too. He had rides in the wheelbarrow, andpicnics on the grass, and lovely fairy huts built for him under the raspberry canes behind the flower border. And once, when the Boy was called away suddenly to go out to tea, the Rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dusk, and Nana had to come and look for him with the candle because the Boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there. He was wet through with the dew and quite earthy from diving into the burrows the Boy had made for him in the flower bed, and Nana grumbled as she rubbed him off with a corner of her apron.
"You must have your old Bunny!" she said. "Fancy all that fuss for a toy!"
The Boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands.
"Give me my Bunny!" he said. "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's REAL!"
When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for heknew that what the Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it.
That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdut heart that it almost burst. And into his boot-button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it next morning when she picked him up, and said, "I declare if that old Bunny hasn't got quite a knowing expression!"
The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams Bianco.
That's a Japanese word Brian taught me tonight. I'm sure the romanji is imperfect but that's the best we could figure was the proper spelling.
First and foremost I'm going to write stuff here so I can remember it here for therapy two weeks from now (my therapist cancelled next week because of a symposium in NYC). I'll need all the memory I have for what's coming up in my life.
I dislike being with myself. For fear of sounding like I'm portraying myself as a martyr or whatever, martyr being the best word I can think of being half here consciously, I've been with myself from the age of ten until about my twenties and over that time I grew to hate being with myself. Not hating myself but being with myself. Being in the company sense not the sexual sense as some women use when they're trying to be coy or romantic about sex. I am bad company to myself and I wholly dislike it.
Thing is when I am with someone else or I have some security that I will not have to rely upon keeping my own company I can bear with being my own company because I will have an out to hang around someone else. To be able to go "Gee, I gotta be somewhere else" to myself and up and leave. Pardon the confusion that comes from talking about the intangible using tangible stuff. I fear I might end up sounding like Mojo Jojo.
So that's pretty much it. I don't like my company. I so don't want to be with myself, i.e. alone, nor do I want to settle for someone that I wouldn't want or who wouldn't hold my interest. Settling is sad. Sure it's the best that some can get but (long pause on my part, not from dramatics but from getting the moxie to write: ) I am better than that. Motherfucker, I will do what I can to make sure that I will get what I want until I get it, grow weary or find something else worthwhile to pursue. This goes for anything lest anyone read into this.
I feel this is a time to be cautious considering what's coming up but the clarification I tagged on the end of the previous paragraph is true and not something to take an edge off whatever I said.
As for tonight, I went to gaming bumming a ride off of Chuck and bummed a ride off Brian on the way back. Brian offered though so there wasn't any bumming on my part.
While we were standing outside Diane's place and talking there was a cop car parked over on the opposite side of the street with the lights out. Earlier this evening Tim and I spied flashing lights and they were from cop cars. Three times they chased down cars and spent quite a while dicking around with them in their special cop way. Eventually we decided to get in our respective cars and head on home lest the police get antsy from fewer traffic stops and decide to screw with people who are just talking.
Talked briefly with Brian during the ride home. He was happy for me and the upcoming visit. I shared two happy things and then he had to go because he has to be up early to pay a late fee and he doesn't have the luxury of a work when you want kind of job anymore. Used to be kinda like that when he wasn't too professional about massage. I'm probably wrong but that's my impression and I'm sticking with it.
Now to write up the stuff for the gaming diary.
My dream was very rich and varied last night but I do not recall at the moment except for this one part of my dream.
I was standing in the municipal parking lot of Millburn across the street on Essex St with a crowd of people who were gathered about. They were kinda like the hooded klansmen from a previous dream and I knew the area which was across the way along Millburn Ave. was where the train station I exited was located but it was now an airport. I felt very tall and was looking back and forth to see through the trees. There was a sunset in the background and a plane flew into view wobbling back and forth on its axis. I shouted for everyone to get down because there was going to be a crash, my stomach sank because I knew everyone on that plane was aware they were going to die. The sunlight filtered from the opposite side of the plane through to the windows which faced me glowing like it was on fire from the inside. I couldn't see any silhouettes of the passengers. It could've been a beautiful spring evening.
There was a huge explosion from the airport across the street when the plane hit, I saw the storefronts explode into fireballs in succession. I ducked down for cover and when I looked up the storefronts were black and empty like a skull's eyesockets and all the fires were extinguished without any aid from firetrucks. I could feel a pall of death in the warm evening air, the sky was a deep purple with no hint of stars coming out.
That's as much as I can remember. Before that part of the dream, I had run out of my house because my father had come into my room after he got out of the shower and he wasn't wearing a towel. Very frightening and disturbing.
So...
Nothing too exciting's going on with me. I'm doing laundry, cleaned out Pinky's tank, got a beard trim (though I'll need it finessed tomorrow by my father since my sister only had scissors) and I'm just doing more of the usual whatever that might be. I was thinking about my idea for a RPG that I've been tooling around with for a while that involves folks playing household pets who are actually reincarnated relatives who are back on earth to protect those families. The primary enemies are elementals who are spirits that were never born or died that can possess animals and they fill the various superstitions folks have about animals like cats sucking the breath out of people killing them. Only way to differentiate an elemental from an animal is the fact their eyes don't shine back at night when a light is in their eyes. They will fit together into a larger story. I'd probably use the Hero System since I wouldn't want to create an entirely new game system. The three kinds of pets that people can play are cats, dogs and ravens. Cats have the ability to teleport when a human isn't looking directly at them and later on have the ability to go under beds and use that to get outside rather than waiting to be let out of the house by a human. Dogs have the ability to see invisble things and later get some combat abilities. Ravens can fly. Maybe I'll think of something else but being able to fly is pretty keen. Their only drawback is they aren't a pet unless someone can think of a good reason so most reincarnated ravens are wild and have to watch their families from afar unlike cats and dogs.
Last night I had a nightmare. I'm sure it'll be viewed as silly but it was bugging me. Something happened to my hair, either I was brushing it out or I had just finished washing it in the shower, and I noticed it when I looked in the mirror in the downstairs foyer. Somehow the hairs on top of my head had become short, as if they were cut that way. I tried to smooth my hair back like I usually wear it but that would only make it worse and I ended up with a worse kind of hairstyle than what I had back in my senior yearbook photo. Mortification ensued. Thankfully the dream was brief.
This is it. I pick up Devotchka today at the airport.
After knowing her for five years online, we meet.
I'm nervous.
I wonder if she is.
Today was a strange little day for me. The day was pretty bland, the usual computering, checking email, reading news and all that kinda stuff but I got really tired because the weekend had caught up with me so I napped. Later on when my sister came home I went upstairs to ask her if she could score me some acid.
Why acid?
I heard a few things that were pretty good about the drug plus the fact that my computering involved searching the web for other information about LSD and its use in psychotherapy and some of it was interesting and jibed with what I have learned recently.
My sister got upset that I asked her, she used to do it all the time along with other things, and went off on what a bad scene there is concerning acid. I told her why I was interested (for those playing along at home, i want to see if it'll help me with my depression because therapy sure as hell isn't working for me lately. therapy seems awful softball and i know this is the second or third time that I've mentioned this here. i am going to give therapy one more month) in taking acid.
She started telling me how I should take care of myself, open myself up to other people and stop directing my hatred in on myself because it's patently obvious to everyone else and that just keeps them away from getting to know me.
About a half hour later we heard that there was a rainbow outside and we went to go see it. I took pictures!
Finally, one of the silliest things that I read recently was a bumper sticker, "If we're not supposed to eat animals why are they made out of meat?" Also I spoke to one of the most important people in my life about my weekend tonight after the game. Brian's happy that the weekend went well and he wants Good Things (tm) for me.
I miss Devo's company.
Whee, it looks like Project B will be going live soon except for the fact that I don't have a store set up yet. I do have PHPshop and MySQL downloaded but I haven't taken any time to get to learn the programs and make them work.
Forgot to mention yesterday that when I told Brian that Devo and I were down at Sunset Beach in Cape May he was surprised because he was down there earlier that morning with his girlfriend. He said that going early when the tide is going out is the best time to find the best stones. Too bad he wasn't there later in the evening because I was thinking it would've been better just to have driven across to Delaware, say hello to Brian and then go over to Cape May after visiting with Malyss since it was uncomfortable.
He wants to meet Devo too.
Today I polished off what I have done with Project B, set up the background image, made little flash logos (check here to see an example) and put up the last of the pictures for the site. The only thing I have left to complete is making a shopping area. Thing is that my father got me Web Shop Designer 2000 a month or so ago except it's ASP and meant to work with an NT host and the provider for the domain name said they don't do any Microsoft stuff. No ASP, no MSIE extentions, nuttin'. Thankfully I was able to find PHPshop and get MySQL. As far as I know I have to rip some sample MP3s for the site along with getting these samples converted to the Real Media format so they could be streamed if someone's so inclined. I might end up just making these into .swf files which are renamed to .mp3 to compress the files even more and forego doing these files in Real Media format. Gotta upload a quicktime file and a real media file, no space saving shortcut for that, to the site, submit the site to search engines to get it promoted online and finally set up a small secure area on the site which will have some big file the boss has a hardon for including in the site. He told me it's a flyer and I'm baffled why he would want it password protected.
I gotta bug his wife about getting the check because things are getting tight here (Not that I really care since money is just money. It was my choice to take Devo out to dinner and really keep her from spending her own money except when she would be stubborn and I'd concede).
Gonna be in NYC to meet with the boss and get more information regarding Project B then I'm going to walk around and see about socializing and things. Last night after I spoke with my sister she suggested that I make up a list of all my fears and to see about facing them sometime in the near future. Right now I only have three, there's a fourth but that's more like a day's outing for me than conquering a fear, and they'll be revealed once I conquer them. Maybe I'll do one tomorrow but I'll be definitely doing one by Saturday. The fear for this week is revealing who I am to someone who I am friends with except they don't know that I am spivak. They've asked me before if I am spivak but I would change the subject or "go to the bathroom". Why the ruse? Because I want to get away from being spivak and I don't feel that I'm really myself when I log in as spivak except around Devo, Jaybird, maribou and Malyss. Why now? Because it's something that I stress over a wee bit and I've come to realize that it's pretty goofy. I know this woman from one of the smaller MOOs where we play scrabble and yahtzee.
My trip.
Just working and saving, it's gonna take time and lots of effort but I'll definitely get to do my trip soon.
This is the itinerary for now. It'll be tricky to make a route that does very little backtracking. Devo asked a while ago if she could come along on my journey and she's welcome. Just need to keep her getting her life back in order in consideration.
- NYC to NJ via train
- My house to Tim's place (GSP)
- Tim's place to Raisin Acres (TPK)
- Raisin Acres to Delaware for a few days
- Delaware to Ocean City, MD (13S to 113S)
- Ocean City to DC (Rt. 50W)
- DC to Kentucky (Rt. 50W to Rt. 71S)
- Kentucky to Missouri (Rt. 64W)
- Missouri to Oklaholma (Rt. 44S)
- Oklaholma to Colorado (412W to 287 to 50 to 25)
- Colorado to Four Corners
- Four Corners to Grand Canyon
- Grand Canyon to Las Vegas
- Las Vegas to Los Angeles
- Los Angeles along the Pacific coast
- Pacific Coast to Yellowstone
- Yellowstone to Devil's Tower
- Devil's Tower to Mt. Rushmore
- Mt. Rushmore to Center of the USA
- Center of the USA to Chicago
- Chicago to Oklahoma
- Oklaholma to home
I might change this around so it's going north towards Chicago after Oklaholma, over to the west and down into Colorado and from there going back into Oklaholma and dropping her off and continuing alone to the rest of the west along the Pacific and driving straight back to New Jersey.
Still haven't heard the status of the money but I'm hoping that this will come through. Right now the money could not happen because of misinterpreted forms. I can't say more about this because it'll either depress me since it might not happen and it's private.
I did ask my father what he would think if I did move out of state because I respect him and wouldn't want him to feel like I was trying to get away from his influence. Part of me does want to get away from him and his shadow. He is a good man but just sometimes it bugs the hell out of me when people think of me as Bjorn's son rather than simply being Haakon. He just told me that he loves me a lot and just hopes that I'd still be in contact with him, available for phone calls and all that kinda stuff. Of course. I'm just thinking because I was going over the USA trip in my head and in the road atlas. Time will tell.
Blech, I have a cold or an allergy thing in my throat.
Okay, today I went into NYC and went into the office for three hours to upload a file and to figure out what changes have to be made with the website. Right now I'm sooo sleepy I don't want to do anything dealing with Project B but it's fairly simple and I'm sure I can put off ripping the sample MP3's for the weekend when I have time. Just don't know how to rip MP3's.
Today was such a fucking gorgeous day, bright and sunny without being oppressively hot. In fact there was a nip in the air but it was all hidden under the shadows and sunshine and I could smell all the flowers while going to get my car and the scent of freshly cut grass and the birds were especially loud singing up in the trees. Once I got into NYC I was raring to get my stuff and head on back home but the boss wanted this seventy meg file uploaded to Project B's server so folks in Rome could look at it and download it themselves. Fuck, I still have to send an email to the boss so he knows and the Romans know where to get the file. He thinks it should be password protected and I'm just going to tell them the direct URL to get it since it's not linked to anything else.
I hope that Friday is just as beautiful and I can lay out in the backyard feeling the sun caress me and the wind in the trees with the pretty birdies songs dancing like jewels through the sunlight.
Christ, I can't think of anything more except the fact that the boss hates the background image for Project B since it's not animated. MUST EVERYTHING BE ANIMATED AND SHINY AND NOISY WITH DINGING BELLS AND GIFS OF GUYS PEEING ON "NETSCAPE NOW" 88 x 31 BUTTONS?
So I'm ditching it and I'm going to compose a flash animation which cycles through four images four times and that should be good enough. Or, I'll just make a php script that calls a different picture each time. They do have php and that's why I'm going to be able to make this shopping area easily. http://www.phpshop.org is what I'm using, too bad the article about it on DevShed wasn't archived since the last time I ran across the package and phpshop has little or no documentation.
Sweet dreams!
I slept more than I have in a while last night. The dreams were very fragmented, some were about seeing Jaybird in the deep south where he's known as "Perfessa" and how he was surrounded by dozens of little black kids. Some dreams were about the web pages I'm working on elsewhere and inbetween I was waking up to cough and take ibuprofin to make my headache go away.
I'm tired, gonna be busy this weekend and I want to take a break from journalling. I'll start posting new entries on Tuesday (really late Monday night) unless something spectacular happens that I have to post about it here.
Don't worry, all is well.
What I'm probably going to do is look around for apartments and start planning on moving away. Where? Colorado or California. Definitely not Delaware because I'm still in spitting distance of NJ.
It's like this: I hate being around my parents. It's simple as that and I want to get away from it all. I don't want to have to owe anyone (Hi, Mom!) nor do I want to feel obligated because of someone's martyrous ways (Hi, Dad!) or bear the ire of my sister (no matter how much she loves me) for still being here.
Personally I think moving out will be like this book I read a LONG time ago for her. She hasn't moved out and she had a lucrative with my father making money hand over fist then she switched to a job in NYC that's got her hands infected and sensitive that might pan out to be just as if not more lucrative than working for my father. She could've moved out, even if she roomed with her friend, and that would be that but she hasn't moved out yet.
Back to that book and I may not even be remembering it right. The protagonist can't get laid until his mother dies because of some mental block. I think because my sister hasn't moved out is that she's waiting for me to show the way and then she can follow knowing big brother did it and so can she.
What pushed me over the edge was Liz. Liz is one of my father's underlings who takes care of everything for him because they owe him because he's a generous George Bailey kinda figure and people will walk through fire for him. Sometimes it's a bit spooky.
Anyway.
Liz always comes over to drop stuff off for my father and when she comes over she just barges right in like she owns the place without saying hello or knocking or ringing the doorbell. I knew she was going to stop by so I locked the doors (thank god she doesn't have keys) and figured she would get a clue and leave shit in the mailbox.
She didn't knock. She didn't ring the doorbell. She phoned the house twice and my father's cellie once. Then she called back about fifteen minutes later and that just told me she didn't have enough sense to put it in the mailbox.
She came around the back and up the porch and I just sat by the sink and minutes later I got up, devil may care, but she was gone.
I couldn't stand that.
The end of my rope.
So, enough is enough.
Anywhere but here.
