Month: July 1998

worth a 1000 words

my friend will sent me this:
will
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And I retaliate with this:

that’s me hanging out in Bruno’s cube

today will invited me to hang out on a dalnet channel, called #concrete, and this whole business of cams came up.
i was lamenting because i never really saw myself as being photogenic, and i think, overall, the idea that someone can sit there watching me eat my cheerios drives me nuts. it’s like, i have a hard time with justin being in the same room when i take a piss, so why would i want to announce it to the world?
it’s becoming a phenomenon though, due to the popularity of cu-see me sites. i don’t know, I’m still ambivalent about it. the idea seem’s cool, but, knowing how quickly i bore of things, i will probably move on to something else. plus i don’t think i would be all that entertaining.

fiction baby

last night, while i was browsing the web, i had remembered reading about a place that specialized in on-line journaling. I feel somewhat compelled to go there, as I have had a voice on the web since 1995. However, my attempt, now three years later to get in the game of on-line journaling, is being overshadowed by slick design and not a lot of content by other competitors.
however, i have realized that there are many people who can write articulately, and have something interesting to say. my friend jane is one such person.
but anyway, i found a another place that specialized in on-line journaling, also allowing people to create on-line journals, with the sake of anonymity, and also not having to worry about design, concept, and other such things. they just write, for the sake of writing.
while browsing around, i found that they held a slam contest, which is now all the rage with the lit world. intrigued, i read more on how to participate, and found it was fairly simple. the creatrix of the website presents a image, and you write based on that image. 1000 words or less please.
compelled, inspired, whatever; i wrote. my story, which i had to chop out 1000 words. I have presented both the abridged and unabridgedversion. Do be warned however, the unabridged story is not complete, nor has it been formatted in html or spell checked. I like the unabridged version better, and I will probably continue writing the story tonight when I get home from work.
my entrance into the art of short story writing prompted me to update Tripping on Stars, my anthology of all the on-line versions of my work. I have created a new category, called appropriately enough, ‘short stories’, which will host all the fiction crap i write.
i haven’t written any short stories in years, mostly dealing with i didn’t have the patience. my big concern (and now, don’t laugh), has always been with names: I could never think of names of my characters. last night it was pretty simple coming up with names, as justin and i have created fictional characters for ourselves. He’s Panama Jack, and I’m Virginia Slim, Ms. Slim to you. Unfortunately, since Virginia Slim happens to also be a trade marked name, our little shticks that Justin and I do have to be done in person or on IRC.
Carrying over our on-line shticks to real life has been really interesting, since we are both lovers of J.D. Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald, we end up doing these shticks based on the characters that those authors have created, namely Franny & Zooey, and Zelda & Scott, respectively.
On IRC, Justin and I would go for long periods of time just making up scenes and characters, to the bewilderment and amusement of those on the channel. This creation of characters included Jackie the Pumpkin (also known as Justin’s first wife), Harold the farm boy (also Justin’s ex-lover) and many others. He and I would sit giggling for hours just playing along, and no one would get what the fuck we were talking about.
That was always okay. We basically didn’t give a shit or not, because we got it and that is all that was important.
Justin is also wonderful because he has a mind like a girl. He’s not effeminate, gay or hell, even bi, but he knows how a girl thinks, and he also has good taste. he’s the best girlfriend a girl could have, and the wonderful thing is, he has a cock. Justin and I have decreed that i finally became a lesbian, since i’m fucking my best girlfriend. how many other men do you know that can sit with a female and talk to her about men, pms, clothes, make-up and is either not gay or afraid?
not many i would assume.
many of my friends have been concerned with the age gap (7 years), and it bothered me as well for awhile. but i realized love really doesn’t know age, race, creed or religion, it just is.
i don’t think about his age anymore, excuse me, i should say obsess with it. i’ve come to terms with the fact i will always be older than him, but since i look so damn young for being 26, and he looks older than 19, it’ll work. Justin’s life, which would make a therapist rich, has wonderfully made him more wise then his years. the big difference, was especially when my brother, who is also 19 was living with me, and seeing my brother act like a boy of 19 and justin acted at least 10 years older was amazing. you can’t always assume because of one’s age that they are mentally that age. watching my brother and justin interact taught me that much.
i love justin, and i love him very much. it’s been especially hard with me because i can’t always accept a person as they are: i have a habit of changing them. but i can’t do that with justin. i don’t know if he’s the one, hell, i’ve thought damn near every boy i’ve dated was the one, and i don’t want to muddy my relationship with justin thinking that. i just want to love him in the here and now, and not worry about the future. it’s really nice, being with someone who knows all your secrets, who accepts you for you and gives you the freedom to do what you want. as stated, since justin is barely legal, and i’m prone to go drinking and dancing, he doesn’t give a rats ass that i do things without him. he’s said, and i quote “as long as you come home to me, i don’t care”. he doesn’t question me, like Danny, if i’m late getting home from work, or if i make other plans without him. he understands that, while living together, i don’t need to spend every waking hour with him. but i do anyway. justin gives the best hugs. being 6’8″ must have a lot to do with that.
as always, i’m looking at the clock and now i’m late for work. a part of me doesn’t care, it just feels good to be writing again, and branching off into other area’s that i haven’t explored before. Jeffwas wrong: love is unconditional.
it feels good in my mind, that i can say these four words and not cringe anymore:
i am a writer.

search me baby

as we speak, i am in the process of adding myself to search engines on the net. on the san francisco webgrrls mailing list, there was a big conversation about how long it takes yahoo! to index their site, including submissions to them. The period that was so bothersome was that it took anywhere from two weeks to six months to get a site listed. I did a search on my name, lisa m. rabey, and i came up as the first hit. i felt oddly pleased about it.
i’m still waiting for spell checker to download to my home machine. there is something delicious about sitting on a t3 at work, but at home i’m waiting for hell to freeze over to before i can download the damn thing at 28.8.
I’ve pulled myself up several search engines, but, it has to do with the archiving of all the damn mailing lists i’ve been on. only yahoo pulled me up as myself in the first 10, others, I had to keep scrolling to the next page to get more info on myself.
since i’ve become addicted to keeping this page updated on a more timely manner (amazingly, I’ve been updating about once every other day), and i think of new and interesting things to say (i’m so witty, oh so witty), that i need to be indexed properly to gain more exposure.
a cool tool i found, was this search engine that keeps track of all the major competitors and what they are doing. going to this site enables me to add myself to their indexing, to let robots crawl all over my site and basically rate me in order of meta tags.
i love meta tags.
i won’t work without them.
thus far, i’ve added myself to the following sites:
HotBot
Lycos
AltaVista
Aol’s NetFind which i just read is now powered by excite! go figure.
Excite!
Infoseek
LookSmart
Web Crawler
Meta Crawler
Register-It!
the cool thing is that register-it! will do a trial version to eight selected sites. The irony is that i’ve already submitted myself to four of those sites today.
i can’t believe how much time it took to do this schiznit. i started over an hour ago, and now i have five minutes left before i have to get to work. the irony of that is that i was having fun, and it’s been ages since i’ve sat down and threw my information into the hopper, sorta speak. i had to get rid of all the bad urls, that just went no where. fortunately for me, my older sites such as the one hosted on grfn.org, I had added refresh materials in the meta tags to take the user to the new site, which is the one you are looking at now. thank goodness, that i also had a .forward file inserted for the email, because i’ve lost my password to that account.
i want to gain fame and fortune and be worshipped the world over.
justin is just damn happy that i’m writing everyday, where as before i wasn’t.
i’m just happy that i don’t feel so intimidated about my life anymore, and i’ve finally figured out how to write and get the content fresh and new to the readers.
my plans include writing short stories, and getting more involved with what i’m doing. you can always spank me if you wish to let me know how you like this site.
while it seems that i provide content for the reader, it is the reader (based on hits i get) that delegates whether or not this site is any good.
so spank me if you dare.
rad! no spelling errors this time. thank you spell checker!. the simple things please me.

animal farm

as previously stated, justin and I had a goal of reading all 100 books on Random House’s list of 100 best novels of the 20th century. My goal was to read all of the books on the editors choice and all the books on the readers choice, while justin was just satisfied on having read all the books on the editors choice.
we went to Barnes & Nobel last night, and scored some delicious savings by picking up several books for a buck. Since we could not find the list i had printed out, we guessed (correctly it seems) on several books, and also picked up Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller and a Grahme Greene book. Tonight when I get home from work, I’m going to re-print out the list, and cross out the duplicates, and highlight what I already owned. I had already told justin that my distaste for Faulkner and Lawrence was was going to prevent me from reading their books. Faulkner is wordy and long winded while Lawrence (save that he influenced Anais Nin and Miller amongst others) just plain sucked. I had finished Animal Farm, which is a novella and not a novel, a few moments ago and was struck again by my political feelings (which while I’m a registered democrat , I tend to sway towards Libertarianism) for the world events, and brought up images of my IRC friends who were socialists.
See, I have always felt that the world is equal. By this I mean that we all have the same ability to live, breathe, eat, fuck, think and die. How we use this is up to our own invention. I have never felt that humans were equal in terms of work or life. You simply cannot take a group of homosapians and expect them to all want the same things: this simply isn’t true. This is why socialism would never work in its full regards. My wants and desires are not going to correspond with Cathleen’s, Justin’s or anyone elses. I am in induhvidual in that aspect, and that is how we are different. H.Sapiens may want the same generalized things: to be loved, to be successful, to eat good things, et al, but the generalizing of things isn’t diverse enough to be socially important. For instance, I may want to be loved (and I am), but how I want to be loved and whom I want to love me is not going to be the same ideal as how Cathleen wants to be loved.
I believe any H.Sapian is accountable for their own lives. The concept of “God” is a man made ideal, if you look back and look at the formation of the Bible, while it tells the story , supposedly from the beginning of the world to Revalations, it misses out some important issues. Namely:

  1. 2000 years of history that was removed from the beginning of time till 0 AD. This period, which covers ancient worlds of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Persia, and all Mediterranean/African/N. European areas in which pharaohs ruled the land, and we get the concept of many gods not just one. Ironically, Cleopatra (who was the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, was part of the Ptomely clan, while her brother Ptomely the 13th died suspiciously) was the last great pharaoh of ancient Egypt. After her death, in 30 B.C., the remaining years of of that world was ruled by other family’s, namely those of Persian and Libyan descent. I just want to note that Ramses the Second, was a redhead. I found that damn cool. But he was a few hundred years before Cleopatra’s time. I find it interesting that this part of human history isn’t mentioned in the Bible at all. It is only through archeological digs that we have been able to reconstruct what happened during those 2000 years. Actually, I can correct myself on part of it. A great pharaoh is mentioned in the Bible, and it is referenced to Ramses II, but, that’s not enough of a source.
  2. It is mentioned, with the creation of Adam and Eve (leaving Lilith out I see), that they were standing upright, and had enough intellect, ability to live. Where are the caveman? Science teaches us that humans (and thanks to Darwin) we evolved from Neanderthals who roamed the earth for hundreds, if not thousands of years in semi-upright position. The things we take for, namely the ability to think and the ability to communicate, were not present. *grunt*
  3. The Bible in and of itself wasn’t actually put together and written till roughly 400 A.D. So my question is, who wrote the books and why? Namely, those books written by the 12 apostles, since they were of Jesus’s time, they were not around when the whole process was actually put together. Ironically, I have never been able to find information out where the original books of the old testament were found and written, since it is improbable that the original authors were not living at the time of publication.
  4. Since the Bible is always a best seller, is it on the fiction or non-fiction list?
  5. Why so many interpretations of the Bible? Mainly why are some issues seemingly resolved in some religious orders, and not in others. Who decrees is what for the best of that order and not for others.
  6. History teaches us, that back in the middle ages, up until fairly recently, that the only ones who were fairly literate were either those of a royal class or the “church” (since the classification of which church is dependant on what area you are actually living in at the time). What is an easier way of controlling a population other than some ‘hell and damnation’ speech, since the population, illiterate and somewhat gullible and stupid, will not know any better?
  7. Why is it that nearly every order I have found of some religious backing always makes it out that you have to have money, wear the best clothes and always be sinking money into some damn project of temples/churches. Whatever happened to “the meek shall inherit the earth”?

I’ve got a 1000 more questions and a 1000 more theories.
But I believe in work, where I should go now.
And people wonder why I’m an agnostic?
it is currently much later, and i am at work. i was reading my mail when on the listserv ChainGang a few ‘friends’ brought up that the link i had to random house was broken, and the spelling was wrong. i automatically fixed the error, and reported that. my friend Will thought it would be ‘cute’ to correct my grammar. i more or less told him what i generally tell everyone: ‘kiss my ass!’.
on the serious side, i was annoyed at how often i do misspell things, and often it is because i type so fast and because i really can’t spell. in the creation of this web site, justin proofed read it before i put it up and noticed that i didn’t spell check and had tons of errors. i jokingly told him that he could be my editor and check everything for me later on.
but it still plagued me about the misspelling issue. to me, when i go to a website, that is to look somewhat professional, and i see spelling mistakes, it irks me. okay, it irks me whenever i go to a site, period, and it’s badly spelled. but my take on this, and i know I’m right, is that i consciously try to spell things properly. but i really didn’t want to deal with the asinine emails from people about such and such being misspelled.
then there was light, and i found spell checker dot com and all was good again.
thanks to the makers of editpad, who linked spell checker dot com off of their web site, i found a place where i can user a cool macro with editpad, and i can write kick ass web pages and do spell check at the same time. rad!
my life is complete.

the maytag repair man

at one point or another, i think we have all seen those television commercials where the maytag repair man is lonely, because maytags products never need repair.
when Cathleen and i moved into our new place on may 15th, her stacked washer/dryer set was left at our friend rob’s until we could get a dolly and cart it on over. at the time, it was too big to fit into the ryder truck along with all of our crap, so for roughly two months we’ve been carting our laundry to the laundry mat. which, in and of itself wasn’t a bad thing; as justin and i would play chess while watching our laundry go from being dingy to making it snuggle fresh.
justin would always kick my ass in chess.
when rob finally brought the machine over, the washer worked but the dryer had a broken belt. Cathleen kept calling circuit city to drag their asses over to fix the damn thing. the repair man finally showed up this morning, and i answered the door in my big blue terrycloth robe, looking like something the cat dragged in. while he was fixing the dryer, i had changed into my sexy sweat pants and a tshirt i had gotten for work advertising the ultimate connection, a bbs that my boss owns for on-line sex. heh.
i bid the repair man farewell and went about cleaning up kitty litter, sweeping the floors and picking up dirty laundry to throw in the washer. i turn the cycle onto permanent press and set it for cold/cold and walk away.
then silence.
i walk back into the laundry room to smell, to me, brunt rubber. the repair man had disconnected the washer when fixing the dryer.
mayhap i am the only one who sees the humor in this, but again, that is all that is important.
I called circuit city and they sent him back. i tested out the washer/dryer before he left and now I’m spinning cycles with the best of them.
tonight we are having another bbq at our place. i had “depromoted” myself at work in order to get weekends off, and thus to celebrate that and just living in general, we invited the crew over for a bbq. i am so damned tired of hot dogs and hamburgers that i decided to wait till people get here to get an idea of what people would want to eat. I’m thinking shish ka-bobs and something else to go with it.
i open my fridge this morning to pour a glass of pineapple juice and basically clean out the damn thing. i see a frozen lump sitting on one of the shelves, and when i flip it over, i see it’s hot dogs.
the buns are sitting right next to it, slowly dethawing.
I have had this infatuation with pineapple juice for the last few months now. i don’t know what it is about it, but it is almost like i am pregnant (fat chance) and i am craving certain items.
every time we go grocery shopping, i always try and get a few cans of frozen pineapple juice so that i can have it willing and ready to go. the amazing thing I’ve found is that it is no problem finding the can juice, but frozen? it seems that in the ghetto area i live in doesn’t carry pineapple juice. to me it’s appalling. you can get a 1000 and one other flavors of juice, but pineapple? one store we went to, which is a large supermarket in the area, had a 100 flavors of juice by big names like minute maid and dole, but no pineapple juice. i found a can of something called ‘pineapple and starfish’ juice, which, when we opened and drank tasted like water. ick.
we are big juice fanatics in our household. justin drinks about a gallon a day to himself, not including his desires for grape slurpees and sprite. Cathleen buys snapple in cases and always has orange juice ready to go. i have my pineapple juice, which I’m thinking will taste might good with vodka.
lately I’ve been lamenting about the fact that i haven’t been to a bar in ages. i miss that. i miss getting all dolled up and going dancing and drinking and basically having a good time. it is hard, to me, to plan activities since justin is not yet 21. i don’t want to leave him out, but, he knows I’m more of a social creature then he is, and he keeps pushing me to just go.
he accepts that fact, but somehow i can’t. he’s happy just sitting and reading or playing basketball or working on something on the computer; whilst i want to go out and about and raise hell. he says he doesn’t mind.
it’s a healthy relationship.
oh, for the days of dysfunction.
justin and i have been close friends for about eight months now, and he’s been living with me for about a month. during that time, we have not once gotten into an argument. not even a disagreement. we agree on everything. okay, once at home depot when i tried explaining what i wanted to do to that damn fig tree in our backyard he pissed me off, but he was more amused then anything at my inability to articulate what i wanted.
I’m obsessing about the fact that i can’t have a dysfunctional relationship.
I’ve also been lamenting about the fact that i want to be a lush. my family has a long history of alcoholism; dad, grandad on both sides, basically relatives up the ass have drinking or drug problems. i feel damn straight because i don’t like having a beer occasionally anymore nor do i like getting high on some artificial stimulant. i have my moments where, like at our housewarming, i will just let go and drink into a stupor, but those times are so infrequent that it positively annoys me.
i want to be a drunk. at least then my problems will be real.
tonight I’m going to get a pint or a fifth of vodka, do a few shots and let go. maybe i should also take a shower. i have to be the perfect hostess in a few hours and i shouldn’t look like a goodwill reject.

everything’s gone green

help me, somebody help me.
i wonder what i am…
it seems like I’ve been here before.
– everything’s gone green by new order

Tonight at work, I was reading an email that Wired sends out with updates of late breaking news stories. I was reading some such article that had caught my eye, when it had links to websites that were eerily like mine in context, but just overall better designed. One of them, the Fray was awarded for it’s excellent design, and from there I ended up at other sites that were more or less like it: ego-taking domains that really hosted nothing but twenty-something angst, in this damn digital age. The only difference between my site(s) (I know own THREE domains, so therefore I am better) and theirs were two things:

  • Better designed and pleasing to the eye.
  •  A more regular update of content.

In a sense, this pissed me off. I had copied my files from home and brought them to work to *actually* work on (which, it seems I never have time to do, so I don’t know why I keep torturing myself). I immediately opened up ye olde EditPad and went to work hacking something together. But the more I worked on my site, the more angrier I got, and so I left it in lieu of deproving domains and fixing machines.
It got me thinking about a lot about my ‘writing’, though this is not necessarily a new thing.
See, I have been told since I was a child what an exceptional talent I had for weaving the written word. In college, one of my English profs went so far as to say that I could actually make a living off of satirical writing. While it pleased me (and ye olde ego) at the same time, I’ve always taken my ability to string sentences together for granted. For instance, when I was in school, and I had an article to write for the paper or a paper to write for a class, I would always wait till the last minute before I would pound out my masterpiece. And I would always get A’s.
A few months back, I was asked to write an article for an on-line magazine, and I actually got paid for it (400 smackers!). Justin says that I am now an “official” writer since I’ve actually been published. Sometimes I think he is more distraught over my lack of actually putting pen to paper than I am, but, I know since I was a wee tot that I’ve always wanted to be a writer. You know, sitting in some dingy bar in Paris with my drink while scribbling out my latest and greatest. Somewhere between that dream and now, reality happened.
I think about that a lot.
When I have time to browse the web, and I find things to read, I immediately chastise myself for not having written it, thought of it, or doing it myself. Justin asks me: “What is stopping you?”, and I say to him (and to console myself) “Nothing.” But in reality, I have always felt inferior to others when it comes to what I have to say, because I get cynical enough to say “Well, there are no original ideas and no original thoughts.” Mayhap, in a sense that is true, but dammit! I have a ‘voice’ and I know how to articulate myself, and I don’t know why I keep feeling like time (like sands in an hour glass, so are the days of our lives) is escaping me. Justin says that is how he feels about our relationship: he has to hurry up and love me, or else I will be gone.
Michael always tells me how silly I’m being when I start beating myself up. Words wound deep. For instance, when Jeff and I first met over a year and a half ago, it was my ‘writings’ that brought us together, and it was my writings he took the liberty to pummel when we broke up. blah.
In the movie Dream for an Insomniac, the lead character, Frankie; says something how boring the ordinary is and we should only reach for and live for the extraordinary. And I felt a kinship with her and her spirit. And that is how people see me: this free spirit who really doesn’t give a rats ass about what people think about her, but is super sensitive to criticism against her.
I’ve always hated the word ‘writer’. I think about some schmuck who is sitting at home with her fuzzy slippers and pounding out love stories for some cheesy romance novel. I think about the very stereotypical beret wearing, coffee drinking, all black absorbing poets who roam the world looking to get published. I think about people who actually are bad writers and just call themselves that because it is ‘cool’ or ‘neat’. I seemingly have issues with this. 😉
A few years ago (maybe less, maybe more), I was part of an email listserv that was dedicated to the Beat Generation. Since, at 23 I was one of the youngest people on the list, I would sit back and listen to those who had been friends, lovers with the likes of Ginsberg, Keuroac, Ferenghetti, and that ilk. One man, Leon Tabory, found my writings off of a link I had set up on my .sig file, and wrote me the best letters digizines ever saw. He said my “gift” was comparable to his buddies Keuroac and Ferenghetti and that this gift shouldn’t be wasted. I felt a sense of honor, and perhaps praise getting that from him. I felt, like I would achieve status at some point, though it has yet to happen.
When I was young, I used to say “Okay, this summer you are going to write (quote)The Great American Novel(unquote)” and it would .. never .. happen. I would think “Okay, you are going to get up at 8am and pound out something, no matter what for an hour” and it would .. never .. happen. I chastise myself for what I should of done, instead of what I could be doing! That perhaps pisses me off, for I have all these wonderful ideas in my head, things I want to discuss, things I want to do, and I just don’t!
My therapist says that my depression (I mean, is THAT not irony? Isn’t everyone depressed or borderline psychotic these days?) is the reason why I keep pulling this stunt: never finishing things I should be doing. Like college. Or falling in love. Or finishing my book(s). Or actually making something of myself. I think about all these things.
I think about them a lot.
Mayhap too much.

champagne wishes and caviar dreams

Something felt amiss today.
I wasn’t sure what it was, and I am pretty sure it wasn’t my new schedule. I checked my credit cards, my keys, my smokes. I felt like something was not necessarily missing, but out of place, but, I wasn’t sure what it was.
I flipped through my day planner (what a joke! I last used it back in June), and took a look at birth dates, and realized that Jeff turned 22 a few days ago.
I remember last year, I became totally egotistical and sent him some cheesy e-card, in which I signed it “To Roark (insert crap here), Love Dominique”.
Not only how fast a year goes by, but how endless it seems to feel.
Next weekend is Def Con, and I am not going. My plans with people (who won’t be named) to take down se7en still has not been put into effect yet. Really though, it won’t be that hard. Nothing more than the over 200 emails I saved from our “courtship” (ha!), that pretty much show that everything he’s told me, the world, dc-stuff, was a lie. Reminds me, I have to call UCLA tomorrow.
Justin has a sprained ankle, the poor baby. I’ve been stuffing him with lime sherbert and pineapple juice whilst I do this page. He keeps attempting to hobble to the kitchen, and I won’t let him. 😉 Isn’t that what gf’s are for? 😉
A couple of days ago, I was actually browsing the web aimlessly (I don’t do that much anymore), when I found this article by C/Net about the review of the four big ISP’s. What a fucking joke, because it lists AOL as #1, when AOL is really an OSP (on-line service provider) not an ISP. Gawd!
You are probably wondering, why does this piss you off? Well, it’s pretty simple actually. I’ve been working in the Internet industry for about 3.5 years now, and no matter where I go, and what I do, it seems that there is nothing but miscommunications about what is ‘correct’ and what is ‘incorrect’. For instance, didja know that the Internet actually consists of more then WWW? Yep! I know it’s hard to believe, but the Internet (which was started as ArpaNet), has been around since the late 60’s, and it is actually comprised of seven protocols: IRC, FTP, News, Email, WWW, Telnet and I think Gopher is the last one. I always forget the last one! Anyway, people always assume that the WWW is the Internet, and that is it! And see, it goes without saying, that this is why I was ticked off about C/Net’s article. AOL provides majority of their services in-house, therefore, they are an On-line service provider. It was not till recently that they actually gave out Internet connectivity, and the amazing thing is that their programs (email and ftp) are so arcane and antiquated, that they are worthless. Might as well teach people command line and get it over with.
Which won’t happen, but a girl can dream can’t she?
A few days ago, a friend of mine on the email list, sf-fumblers, wrote about how Random House has put up the 100 best books of the 20th century, inviting readers to also submit their favorites. While the Readers Best constantly changes, I was amused a few days ago when I Want To Blow Monkeys by Ayn Rand was listed as number 6. heh. I hate Any Rand. Geez. The woman stole the plot line of Gone With The Wind from Mitchell. She was not creative at all. 😉
However, since I have been checking the list a few times a day, I decided that my new project (and Justin agreed) was to read all 100 books on the list, and some of the ones off the Readers Pick. It is easier than it looks, as I have already owned or read about 25% of those authors, so I think that since I’m not in school, I might as well edubacate myself.

swimming

Today when I was driving to work, I was having problems with getting across the Bay Bridge. My eye, though seemingly better, was super sensitive to the light, and I kept wanting to swerve as I drove. The more I drove across the bridge, the worse I began to feel.
Suddenly, I saw myself go over the cement embankment and into the cold bay water. In my minds eye, I saw my car go over the bridge, projecting an almost perfect dive. I saw myself rolling up my windows quickly, as to not be engulfed by the cold water, and once my car had gone beneath the waves, I saw myself roll down the windows and swim out to surface. I was still wearing my glasses, and I was still clutching my butt-ugly green purse.
Sometimes, premonitions scare me. And I always feel like either I am really alive when I’m zooming across the bridge, or else I won’t make it across for some reason.

analog girl living in a digital world

It is officially after midnight, and thus it is officially Friday July 17th. I still haven’t gotten used to the Bay weather as of yet.. the fact that right now it is in the mid 50’s and cool in the middle of summer seems preposterous to me. The other day, I was sitting on TJ’s floor and Dave, Drew, TJ and I were discussing where we came from (geographically) and comparison to the Bay area. The irony is that almost everyone there decided we all missed snow.
My eye is feeling a lot better then it was this morning, but it still is tearing up and is red as hell. I ended up falling asleep whilst I was attempting to read Of Human Bondage. Justin came home from work at about 7pm, bearing wild flowers for me. 🙂
God, I wish my eye felt better. I was so ticked off as Justin and I planned on having an official “date” this evening, going to the Fine Arts Museum, and I end up getting pink eye. blah.
The irony of “dating” whilst living together is numerous, to say the least. Neither one of us expected to have this happen all so quickly, but it did, and here we are.
I swore after the charade with Christian and Danny that I wouldn’t live with another lover for a long time, and then I realized that it had been about a year.
One of my biggest fears is this whole relationship ideal: I don’t have a fricken clue as to what I am doing.
What I had realized is that with my introduction to the ‘Net, in 1994, I had not dated anyone, literally anyone locally since Alan. All of my relationships (save a few quickies) were based off of meeting someone from the Internet. Danny (whom I met and dated in 1996) was a failure, and I knew that wasn’t going to work regardless. Thusly I realized that the reason I was “successful” in on-line/LDR and not “day to day” ones was the easiness of control, ability to remove myself and to present the “best” side of me. I had instilled in my brain that I was going to end up being a crotchety old maid, and I was literally living like one. Having Justin look at me, pink eye and all, and telling me how very beautiful I am is scary.
I’m still grappling with my emotions over all of this, and I have attempted to distance myself away from him, but!, something inside of me is telling me not to.
My friend Jane from work has this rad web page, and I was spending a lot of time reading her stuff the other night. In one of her commentaries, she mentions about how this boy she was in love with, Neil, wanted her (paraphrased) safely locked away in America, and he wasn’t able to deal with the reality of her being there in England with him.
She had hit the proverbial nail on the head with that quote (paraphrased), and I realized that is exactly the same situation I had going with Jeff. It made, in my mind, (finally!) good fucking explanation of why Jeff was such a tart to me. Finally, seven months later, I could make some peace with myself and not feel like so insecure about myself and about my body. I have (yes!!!!!!) finally let him go.
It still doesn’t clear up matters about several different things, and I wonder really how much better I am for it. But Justin would say I was obsessing about things again, and I can’t be doing that.
(If you at this point have taken a look at Jane’s website, and notice similarities, yes, I did “steal” ideas from her. She knows about it, so it’s all good. I just love the design as it is clean and easy to read, and since she and I have similar interests, so :P)

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