Month: March 1999

fsck

I swear, trying to get this updated and ready to go is killin’ me. 😉 No, in all seriousness, a few things that need to be noted:

  • I’ve been a fan of the popular comic User Friendly for a long time now. Last week, I started hanging out on the #UserFriendly on Undernet. These guys are great! I’ve been on IRC for nearly five years and never have I ever felt more welcome. But there are problems afoot in UFie-land. Please click on the banner on the bottom (the one with the cute little DustPuppy) and read more.
  • I was voted “Geek of the Week: For 3.21.99”. I was so stoked when I got the email. You see, I NEVER WIN ANYTHING! 🙂 Okay, okay, it took me a week (and then some!) to mention this. 🙂 However, since they linked my page, I’m linking theirs. But it just mad my day 🙂

New pictures:

*much* shorter hair. (It’s now orange 😉 new glasses (which I love) and I still need a damn nose and cheek job.
AND IF YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH PINCHING MY CHEEKS! You are sooo wrong.
and in other news
Monday (3.29.99) has got to be the worse day of my life. It started out with me first getting to work and finding out my machine had been rebooted during the weekend (a big no no) and not fully powered up. See, I run server connectivity software called WhatsUpGold that checks the servers to verify they are functioning properly. When one server is not responding, an alpha numeric page is sent over a modem to the attending sysadmin. I sent an email out to the sysadmin mailing list and told them my machine was down and I was planning on fixing it. A few hours later, one of the sysadmins comes running down stairs yelling and screamin at me about why isn’t my machine up. I patiently explained that I had emailed (as I should) and he kinda went “Oh.” and left. Turns out the st00pid mail server didn’t take it cos the address I emailed from wasn’t on the dist list.
Later on, i find out that my motherboard is fried. The only other matching motherboards are also fried (didn’t know this till I had rebuilt the machine). So I stole a machine from someone who had left the company. I swapped harddrives and everything worked out ok.for a moment.Other things happened in the day. One of the NT sysadmins didn’t like my “attitude” and threatened to tell my boss (whose used to hearing this by now) however, my saving grace is that I’ve been sweet as pie since my last talk with my boss (heh) so he (the NT sysadmin) couldn’t really fault me. One of the other sysadmins tried to get me to apologize. I was like “Funk that!” I’m not apologizing for some moron’s ego. I can barely apologize for my own!
To top that off, I got two parking tickets. And when I came home after work (after contemplating about buying beer *gasp*), I was making pasta when I had realized we had NO SAUCE! argh! And to make it even worse, none of my slobby roommates took the garbage out. *pout*
braggarts
and today on #UF a certain nick (who won’t be named) came in claiming that they had hand ENTERED the h_key reg items in the registry on winders98, while drunk, at a party. To boot this person claimed that they had done this on an old Toshiba lap top with a 200MB drive, which had winders3.x->95->98 all installed on top of each other. This person just ticked me off so bad. A lot of people disagreed with this story. Supposedly, this person also claims a lot of stuff — and supposedly walks the walk, but they are a braggart. Someone in the channel would request something (hardware) and this person would “brag” they had the latest and greatest, would be willing to give it to ’em, but gee! it was broken/out of the shop/they live too far away for mail. I mean, c’mon here. 
life
I had gotten an email, from my friend Skott the other day asking me something like: “Why is someone with such a natural talent for words and communication interested in installing computer networks with myself in the middle of nowhere?”
As many of my faithful readers know, this is the one quandary I’ve been having for awhile. I still haven’t made any concrete decisions about my life. I keep finding myself pulled in a thousand different places. I need to be making decisions, and I have been doing nothing but IRC’ing and playing spades my life away.
I miss everyone. 🙁
Come find me on IRC when you get the chance.
and more life
I completely realize that this issue isn’t personal or maybe not even that exciting. However, the masses are calling for it and whom am I to complain? It’s all part of the “LISA-PLAN-TO-TAKE-OVER-THE-WORLD!”
night 🙂
x0x0x0x0

new style

today i was sitting on BART, scribbling in my diary when i had noticed that someone has sat kitty-corner from me. i just glanced at him from the side, and didn’t pay much attention to him till i noticed the book he was reading. i squinted and peered closer — was it? could it be?
bukowski.
from my journal:
“and i want to say to him “hey! think ham on rye is great? read love is a dog from hell or the most beautiful woman in town and i sit here, grinning like an idiot, and i find i can’t say something or anything to him. that my mouther is watering from wanting to say something -anything- and i can’t. i sit here rigid and i find i now can’t even look at him!! shit. i lick my lips because they’ve suddenly gone dry. and i realize that i don’t give two figs about something – i can be as brave as a warrior. but when i do care about something — i ultimately become shy and meek.
“i sat there, heart pounding and feeling like an idiot savant because i couldn’t get the nerve to speak to him. i heard “Montgomery St.” called off and knew this was my stop. i packed my bags and got up — and noticed he got up to. THIS WOULD BE THE TIME TO SAY SOMETHING!
“But i didn’t. I stood behind him and cocked my hips a bit and concentrated on the back of his neck. on the way out of the train, i accidentally stepped on the back of his foot as he turned left and i turned right. once i got above ground, i started scanning the crowds to see if i could see him.
“On the way back to work, i started noticing people left and right. i kept my head straight, my stomach tucked in and my boobs thrust forward. i demanded that everyone look at me and see me for myself. right there. right then.
“I didn’t light a cigarette until I was at the corner of 2nd and Folsom and almost at work. i kept thinking of the poetry in motion of me moving along him — and knowing of course that the whole walk up 2nd street i had completely dissected this relationship with this stranger. i saw every movement between us — every shrill screeching moment from ecstasy to agony. within that 10 minute range from BART station to 2nd/Folsom, i had already put myself through an intense relationship, that lasted 2 years and ended up in tragedy.”
i love days like these.

save me the waltz

I had just finished, not more than moments ago, Zelda: The Biography and am happy for doing so. Finally, after starting it all those months ago when Justin came into town, I had finally gotten to the bibliography page. I was both disappointed and exalted at the end of the book.
I was disappointed due to the fact that the author would do pages and pages of literary criticism on Zelda’s work, which if I wanted to read, I would have bought such. But no — pages and pages of worthless crap attempting to intone how Zelda’s work mimics her own life. Well duh. A writer who writes about what he doesn’t know is a fool.
So many things in my mind tonight. Freaking figures. An hour ago I was lying in bed, could not sleep for the life of me, and now I am tired and yawning. I must sleep soon for else my next few days are going to be fucked up like a bitch. Thursday is the day from hell with midterms and I teach Interweb 101 that night. I need my beauty sleep. But I keep working strange hours and thus don’t get the sleep. Working is the schtick. I keep playing freaking spades with Shelly and Dave all the damn time. 🙂 Not this is necessarily a bad thing — gives me more time to flirt with Dave. *suggestive*
However, the rant this evening isn’t about spades, my new PHAT pipe to the Interweb (i just got 56k — woo!) or the fact that I’m really obsessing about Henry Rollins right now. Nope, not even about the fact I’m going to bare his love child. Uh nope.
In all honesty, tonights rant is about high school. For many of you (us/them), either you’re in it or just gotten out of it. My little foray into high school ended nearly nine years ago (yes — I’m old. Shoot me.) Now that it seems so far distant — my question is this: WHY AM I STILL LETTING THE STUPID POPULAR PEOPLE IN HIGH SCHOOL RUN MY FREAKING LIFE?
There. Now i feel better.
Let me begin by explaining:
Earlier today, a fine lass named Jessica from a mailing list I’m on, had emailed in about the old saying “high school is the best time of your life” and proceeded to prove to us, in her opinion why it was not. I had followed up with this tasty bite:

My freshman year of high school, I got tested for an IQ test because my MEAP test was really high.  They wanted to put me in an high school that _geared_ for placing students into college. They taught Latin, Greek, were socially conscious -- not these see jack run public school classes. I was accepted and refused to go. I wanted to stay with my "friends". Big mistake.
Later on that year, our AP Biology class went to Kentucky to go see Mammoth Caves. One night, I got pulled into a room with the jr varsity swim team. I knew most of these guys -- I was friends with most of them from classes and socially. One of them pushed me down onto the floor and attempted to fuck me in front of his team mates.  I pushed him off of me, went screaming into the bathroom, locked myself into the bathroom and started yelling out of the window (the window was only about 1 foot high and 18 inches wide). My cabin mates came and forced the "boys" to open the door and let me out.  Not one adult was told.
That Monday, rumours spread around the school (1500+ students) that not only did i fuck him! i gave head to every guy (about nine) in that room. No one said a thing, my parents were never told and I soon forgot about it. However, the impact of that was amazing.  I went from being 5'10 and 140lbs to 5'10 and 200+ lbs. During my sophomore year -- most of the time when i did get asked out, it was because of those rumors.  Funny that, the most I had ever done until that time was kiss one boy.  never even felt a penis until much later on. In my jr year, it was under the advice that I drop out.  Actually, I instigated it.  I was clinically depressed, had already attempted suicide (and that rumor was spread like crazy).  I had gained a lot of weight, was smoking, and had also was on my way of becoming an alcoholic.
When I went back that fall to re-do my jr year, I got taunted and teased by my classmates (and upperclassman, whom would have been my class).  I got mocked by people in the middle of the mall (an open area that adjoined the two buildings).  Teachers had very little apathy or hell, even empathy for me.  By the end of THAT jr year, I had made the decision to go live with my dad in Toronto. When I came back a year later, I got notified that I was short ONE credit from YMI  system to graduate.  I took my GEDs in November of 1991 and scored in the top 3%.  The instructor looked at me incredulously, because:
a. i completed them in 1/3 the time
b. i completed the whole series of tests within 1/2 the time
c. i had scored the highest that he had ever seen.
However, the stigma and shame I still feel 8 years later from having a HUGELY crappy high school experience (include psychopathic mother and her
string of BFs), I won't claim a GED -- but that I graduated from York Memorial Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario.
And ya know what?
Not one person had ever caught me professionally for "lying".
High school sucked the big one.

I had been thinking about this recently and Jessica’s query and a nice little piece in the SF Chronicle about people bitching about TOO MUCH homework got me depressed. and angry. and furious.
Several weeks ago, since I’m still under the impression that these nitwits DO run my life and I am nothing more than a puppet on strings, I got on altavista the other day and searched for the people i went to school with. And you know what? I couldn’t remember /but/ three names! and of those names — I couldn’t find /anything/ about them on the internet. Strange. The internet has been my whole world for the last four years — and by now, if i can’t find something about someone — they must not exist.
strange to think that i had let this whole group, nee’ this fantasy, foible of sorts and nothing.
one day, I’ll write more and rid myself free of these demons.
x0x0x0x0x

voices trapped in yearning

after i had gotten home last night (exulted in the few hours of freedom of being both cathleen and justin-less), i had started reading old email while waiting for shelly to come on-line so that she and I could play backgammon.
i found an email sent to me from an “admirer” of sorts who was responding to both my page and the wired article that had appeared back in early February. and for some reason, that email tugged a cord at my heart. the person basically had said: make a concrete decision: either leave justin or accept the situation.
for the last three months, congruently, I’ve been struggling with the idea of what is right and what i want. for many people, as i have learned, their life is fairly mapped out for them and they have a basic sense of what they want and need. for instance, i had met a few girls from my political theory class. both girls are 20 and 21 respectively and are dating men who are older than me (27). both girls are ambitious enough to finish college within a short time period and get on with their life, however, they had both told their BFs that “they are done being children”. while i had admired their perseverance and energy, it bothered me that they were in such a hurry to grow up. at 26, i still find myself floundering in what course i want to take. Some days I want to be this organized and methodical person who desires a truly academic life. On the other hand, I want to be completely wild and crazy like Zelda Fitzgerald and live for the moment. both sides are true and both sides are untrue.
i was beginning (natch — being solitary) to wonder if i was the only one — but part of felt drawn to these girls because many of their fears and desires corresponded to my wants and desires. i could empathize and sympathize with getting ahead and doing something “more” with their life — but on the flip side, i had felt (and always felt) that there had to be time enough for love and life. so many opportunities i have let by — on the context (and pretext) that similar ones would come again. for the better part of my adult life — this has been true.
does this make me lucky or unlucky?
some would say, that in my aspects, i live a charmed life. i live in a great area (by someone’s standards), i have a decent job. i have a lot of friends who do care about me (michael 🙂 and i have many outside interests that help define me much more than me is being defined now (new obsessions: sarah again, henry rollins, zelda fitzgerald, unconventional philosophy, pentel r.s.v.p. pens in blue fine point). i still feel like I’m always this undercurrent of emotion. that my desires keep changing — thus while it makes ‘me’ me, but it also destroys any thing that could lead some sort of happiness for a brief time.
last week justin and i had another long talk (in fact several within the last few weeks). i finally told him point blank that i wasn’t in love with him. he knew! don’t get me wrong — for months I’ve been saying that he knew — and he did know. maybe he thought he could push it under the rug and it would go away. But as many of you who have been reading know I harp and harp on many of the same subjects for hours 🙂 hehe (literally — days worth of entries).
It was painful — but it still didn’t make my convictions “clear”. I still feel this overwhelming need to STAY with him. I don’t know what for — financially? emotionally? maybe I’m giving up?

balls

A recent entry from my guestbook:

Name: Tim (Homepage)
Country: Baltimore, USA
Date: Tue Mar 9 19:25:15 1999
Comment: You are obviously mis-guided, hostile towards life in general, and sound very unhappy. Seek some counseling.

I don’t mind if people email me and give me advice. However, I cannot take you seriously if you comment on me/this webpage/my life in general if you don’t have the fucking balls to leave an email address or something in terms of contact. This coward had no issues leaving some lame ass post on my guestbook about me and yet doesn’t have the courage to leave some form of contact. What the fuck ever.
Therefore, if you wish to contact me in any matter — so be it. However, do not let me mock you if you cannot have the balls to leave an email address.
feisty
The weather is has been absolutely wonderful these last few weeks. I have had no motivation to do anything other than attempt to sun myself and find some solace in the world outside. Recently, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time writing in a written journal and not updating TLC as much as I should. I’ve been completely in-love with the new pens I’ve bought and to celebrate, I purchased a brand new journal. I’m taking the existing one to be turned into a book journal.
I’ve been reading Zelda: A Biography these last few weeks. I had attempted to read it many moons ago when I was on my Fitzgerald kick. However, after reading Tender is the Night, I found the comparison between the two books (one fiction, the other not) to be too overwhelming. I started getting mad at F. Scott for taking his wife’s life and turning it into best sellers.
A few weeks ago I was bored and needed something to read. Several of F. Scott’s short stories were sitting on the floor by my bed when I had made the conscious decision to read them. I was so enthralled with Flappers and Philosophers, that I decided to start reading Zelda again.
This time, it has been going much better however the book is (in some places) dry and it seems that the author (Nancy Milford) bases too much emphasis on the letters Zelda wrote and taking all of Save me the Waltz and turning it into a literary criticism. What you get with the book (which is now out of print) is combination of hero worship, criticism, and rambling on.
For instance, Zelda’s birth through 18 years of age (when she met F. Scott) took up about 50 pages. However, it’s taking 3x that length to go through her few weeks in mental institution and a brief periods (less than five years) in an almost daily blow by blow account of her life. It’s a bit stuffy to read — however, after doing some major searching on the Interweb (and major booksellers) I found that Zelda: A Biography was the closest (if not the only) thing I had available to me to give me insight into Zelda’s life. Every other book (about five in total from what I had found) have long been out of print along with any book chronicling her life with F. Scott is also out of print.
While there is a lot of material about F. Scott and his work (including different editions of the same book, criticisms, and other fun stuff) anything having to do with Zelda alone or combining Zelda and F. Scott no longer exists.
This makes me sad, as I love Zelda.

tainted love

the love we shared
seems to go nowhere
—
once i ran to you.
now i run from you.
several weeks ago I was reading an issue of Time while I was at the grocery store. I thought that particular issue seemed interesting and purchased it.
The reason that I found it to be amusing was simply (or complexly) based on the fact that there was a side bar about Monica Lewinsky and they (the reporter) had tied in the words to the song “Tainted Love” in with the article.
While Monica is only a year younger than I (she is 25), I found myself appalled that the writer (who is most likely around our age as well) used that song to describe how Monica is getting on with her life. While the song is very poignant to her situation (relations), to me it symbolized my life as a kid growing up in the 80s. I danced to that song at various clubs, sang it out loud with my friends, crooned to BFs, and every single time I hear that song no matter where I am at, I always start dancing.
Now, that image of using it symbolically for Monica’s life has taken that away.
I can’t be angry — I’m sure. Many songs I’ve grown up with have now become the fodder for the “take back the 80’s” clubs. Servers make a living off of popularizing my childhood. It’s sickening, but we all know that the popularizing of the 60’s and the 70’s, the 80’s weren’t to far behind. It is going to be interesting how they will approach the 90s.
I’m guessing the symbolically (I’ll be down on my knees, screaming take me! take me! I’m yours. I’ve never felt so out of control) they will have games and like with popularizing the generated angst of the early 90’s, piercing stations and places to order tattoo’s by mail. songs that i grew up with end of high school/early college will become commercials and I’ll start fainting at the thought of being 30.
but back to the Monica deal.
On Wednesday, I sat there watching the interview with Barbra Walters, and thought about the drinking game someone had sent me via email that day. For once I wish I would have saved that particular forward. (I love the fact that you can order Chinese to have delivered to your house and whip out your check debit card to pay for it. ain’t life grand?)
I was amused at Monica, but it seemed so obvious to me that she was still protecting “Handsome”. I couldn’t understand, or even begin to understand WHY people find themselves attracted in May-December relationships. I’m not saying that they don’t work, however, I am saying that they tend to be more complications than they are worth. ‘Scuse me for being confused about love, but I’ve always thought that it was _more_ than just feeling. But I’m not Monica, and obviously her wants and needs aren’t my own.
While I was at Mr.Showbiz, they had a poll on what was going to happen to Monica in the future. The most popular option was “Spokesperson for Weight Watchers”. I started laughing at how ironic that is! See, to me, a lot of people seem to me to be so damn politically correct and yet at the FIRST opportunity to slam someone without feelings of guilt or retribution, they will. People make me so sick sometimes.
I bought Monica’s Story. Paul says it’s against the FFFF charter. Every time I take a look at his picture, I want to slap some ChapStick on his lips.
 

happiness

You’re such an ass Lisa. If you were
here right now, I’d just lean over and kiss ya.
Jonathan

Friday night, Justin and I had decided not to do anything more strenuous than watch TV. I however had been sucking down coffee all day and ended up staying till 3am on-line. I was bored. I couldn’t find anything (or anyone) worth talking to or doing. So I played around with my QuickCam for a bit and took some shots. I realized that many of my on-line buddies hadn’t seen me since I chopped my hair off and started sending them out.
“Lisa, are you mad?”
“What?”
“Are you mad or irritated about something.”
“Nope. I’ve been in a really good mood all day. Why do you ask?”
“I dunno — you just look really pissed off in those pictures.”
“Oh. Well I wasn’t.”
This is what it was like all weekend. I’d send pics to those who wanted them, only to be told I look like a pissed of bitch. And I wasn’t. I was positively goofy all Friday. Justin thought I had sniffed something because I seemed so out of “character” to him.
Ya know, I’m a petite little flower damnit. And I’m in a good mood for the most part all the time. So it bothers the hell out of me when I hear from friends that I always look pissed off.
Jonathan has made me promise to send him a picture of me smiling. I tried that. I took quite a few shots of myself with a cheesy grin — and it looked fake. not out of character — just fake. So last night, on ICQ jonathan started acting weirder than normal. i suddenly got really concerned and called him. he was laughing and we started sparing off one another.
I kept going “You’re such an ass Jonathan.” and he would laugh and say “Yeah, but you love it baby!” And I would sit there and giggle about something stupid.
It bothers me, really, that what people’s first perception of me. It’s confusing to me that quite a number of people talk about how great I am as a friend to them, and yet they turn around and talk to me about how pissed off or defensive I get.
hrm.
beats the fuck out of me.
sometimes I try, really hard, to be a good person. smile more. laugh more. and it still seems to me that you can’t win them all. if i try and be cheerful, people get all uptight about how “out of character” it is of me to be such a thing. and it doesn’t make damn sense to me.
maybe I’ve become too cynical and bitter in my old age.
From Danny:
“at the risk of getting bitchslapped by you (which may be a good thing) I’m gonna give you more than $.02 worth of my mind 🙂 (inflation adjusted)

“lisa, do you know when you’re the most attractive? when you’re gentle and quiet and relaxed and in a good mood. when you’re in a good mood, this little girl comes out that is so much a part of your unique personality. its the little girl that sleeps with a teddy bear, that talks about being truly and honestly in love, that stops and thinks long and hard about your future intellectually and emotionally.
“to be honest, i hate your rough/tough exterior. you’re not a bitchhoe, but when you are….i try to steer clear (not that we talk a lot anyhow) but when i do talk to you, i try to catch the happy gentle seductive lisa. i think its that line of age that everyone gets to where our lifeline stops being so jaggedly and starts to smooth out our personalities. it happens. i like the lisa that isn’t getting “fucked” either physically or emotionally because that makes you tough and hard. i don’t like the controlling lisa that can be so dominating at times. i believe that those are only phases. i believe that the rough/tough/bitchhoe exterior is all just a phase because the more i talk to you and hear from you, i see more of your lifeline smoothing out and hearing the gentle, calm, beautiful lisa coming out.
“i think this is what happened with Chad who is now honestly and truly in love. i think his lifeline is smoothing out, he sees things more clearly allowing him to be honestly in love. of course i don’t know Chad from Adam, but i think this is a part of everyone. Lord knows its a part of me as my life line is definitely smoothing out.
“this is the type of girl that will fall in love with someone and stay there because they will find that person who is also in the same stage in life. opposites only attract when they’re really young simply because they are ignorant to that other side of the world that the other person possesses. once they become educated and gain more wisdom about that other opposite life, it just becomes part of their knowledge bank and TRUE attraction comes from meeting someone more like them. at our stage in life, late 20s early 30s, opposites no longer attract. like attracts like. and you’ll be less likely to get your heart broken.”