(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense

8/31/99

Lah dee dah dee doo, oh, Star Wars makes me happy-o, fah lah dee lah doo, oh, I'm so losing it-o, mah boop diddle doo! Anyway. I realized today how defensive I am about my laptop. I feel bad that not a year after my father gave it to me, I bought my desktop. I didn't tell Mom and Dad for almost a month that I'd bought a new computer... I felt guilty for feeling that the laptop wasn't enough. It wasn't Dad's fault that a P120 wasn't "fast enough" for me, and I know he's felt slighted ever since, feeling as if I caused a waste of money on his part. I realized how hard I try to use my laptop as much as possible w/out it being my primary computer, and I try to prove over and over that it wasn't a wasted gift, and that yes, I do appreciate it... unlike the expensive telescope that they bought for Bryce a few years ago, which he's used perhaps twice. I do like this computer (though I'm itching to reformat it), and I make it useful to myself in all sorts of little ways; while dad refuses to notice, and resents.

Sigh.

8/30/99

Okay, I don't usually mind being on my computer allllllll day. I think that's because at home or at the dorms, I know that I have the option at any minute of doing anything else that I want, including leaving. I about had a nervous breakdown over a couple lousy noisemakers today, and I know for a fact that isn't normal. and I'm stuck here for three more tedious lengthy days.

Someone's going to need to scrape me off the walls.

8/29/99

I've discovered it's very easy to miss days when I can't have a constant internet connection. It's very frustrating. I've had to come to terms with the fact that if I thought I was spoiled last summer when I was on a modem, I was fooling myself. At that time, I'd only experienced ethernet for 6 months. now, I'm riding on the the withdrawal from those 6 months plus the later 11 consecutive months. God, the agony is nearly unbearable.

8/27/99

I watched Return to Paradise tonight. It was a hard movie to watch, and I cried when Lewis hung. I've been thinking on if I would go to prison in a third-world country to keep a friend from dying. I say yes, and I believe it now. I hope to god that if I was actually faced with the choice, I wouldn't change my mind (as the character who originally agrees does). I like to think that I hold other people's welfare over my own, and though many would disagree, at least I can tell it to myself and believe it. Even at my most selfish moments, I think I've still acted in such a way as I hoped was best for the other person. Even if no one else thinks so.

8/26/99

My eyes hurt after a re-foray into frames. I'm trying a redesign of my character reference, using frames. at this point, I'm kind of wanting to do it just because I've spent so much time tonight working on it. Frames still annoy me, though. Oh, and mothers are Macgyver in disguise... my mom rigged up a double boiler from two random pots to heat up our dinner (rental house has no microwave, ooooh we're roughing it). Oh, and the most amusing thing happened:

Mom asked me if I had my keys when we were walking back to the car after lunch. I said no, my keys and other things were in my jeans; I only had my "lucky rock" in the back pocket of my shorts. Mom, with a completely straight face, asked me if it was to keep me from tipping forwards.

At least I thought it was funny.

8/25/99

Whoops, missed a day. Staying in Longview a night to see Brian off to Japan early in the morning does that to you. Whidbey Island, where I'm apparently residing for the next week, is really pretty. We have a nice house, with a lovely kitchen and cable. No microwave (boo hoo), and no phone line in the main sitting room, which is kind of a bummer. There's a gorgeous cat who's really friendly (she came inside and visited for a while), but we're not sure if she is supposed to be allowed in here, so we put her back out. Sucky things: I don't know what's up, but for some reason when I dialed into AOL, it wouldn't let me use an external telnet client. WTF??? I'm gonna try again, because I really don't want to have to wait for Dad to get here so I can use his computer to upload things (bleh), but dialing into the UW long distance (again) sucks worse.

8/23/99

On cats: I love cats. I adore my cat. I do not, however, love or adore them deciding to use the corner of my closet as a bathroom. She apparently did it once while I was out of town, because I didn't notice the smell the last couple days. Then I get home today and my room reeks, and look, there's not one, but two piles of cat shit in my closet. So now my window's open, there's a peach candle burning in there on the floor, and my closet doors are going to stay closed from now on.

on another note, I actually kind of looked for a job today. Well, sort of. I stuck my head in about every bookstore on the Ave and asked if they were hiring. Oh, and shiga's imports and gargoyles, too. I did get an application from Half-Priced Books, but no one was jumping for a person. They'd have to be pretty jumping to want me, anyway. And a lot of them said that dreadful word.... "resume". Shudder.

8/22/99

Mom: "Jen, do you realize that our house is... vibrating?"

Me: "Ah. I see you noticed that I hooked up my sub."

Someday, I would like the mystery of why I have four particular little cables in my possession. They're between four and six inches long, and have both ends terminating in a plug like you see on headphones. I know that two of them came with my two tv cards, but I'm at a loss to explain the other two. And I'm not sure why I have four ethernet cables. I think I got one w/ my laptop's network card, one with my hub, and I somehow ended up w/ my roommate's. I don't know where the other one came from... I don't think I ever bought one for myself. Not that I mind. Them's useful things.

8/21/99

Okay, okay, I've not mentioned this for long enough, and I feel bad about it. For those who did not know, I'm dating a wonderful guy named Brian, and our four month anniversary (whoo, oso long) is this next Wednesday. Unfortunately that same Wednesday is the day that he's leaving for Japan, to attend Waseda University in Tokyo for a year. He made me this: Jen & Brian. And The Sixth Sense is a pretty kickass movie. HAHAHA no more 12something K d/l just for Thoughts.

8/20/99

I'm tired. Very very tired. I almost did all of these on the way home: hit a cat, ran two stop signs, backed into someone, twice crossed streets in such a fashion so as to hit other cars, and missed my turn to my driveway. I'm not feeling at my best. And I keep typing "know" instead of "now." Oh, and tomorrow's webpage projects include: putting "Thoughts" into different pages based by month, working on adding my new fonts to my gallery, and putting up my music page on www.jinzoo.com (yay Seth and Jason!)

8/19/99

Ahhh thank god I'm back. Even if I am having to be on a modem. Bleh.

8/14/99

ARRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!! Having the only Internet accessible machine around be a MAC sucks ASS. Well, it wouldn't suck quite so much ass if I knew how to use it, but that's besides the point and the end result anyway is that even after this particular rant, I won't be able to (most likely) update again until I get home on the 18th. LAAAAMMMMME. Oh, and I've been thinking that it'd be interesting to do some sort of psychotic act just so that I'd get a chance to know what was written about me in my teacher's notes.

8/5/99

It's really disgusting to think how long I've been awake. It's even more disgusting to think about how much of that time has been spent either in airports or airplanes. And the icing on the cake is that I'm getting right back on a plane tomorrow. But guess what? I don't care! BECAUSE I'M SO FUCKING HYPPPPPPEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! I'LL GET TO BED AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT AND HAVE BEEN AWAKE FOR 25 HOURS STRAIGHT!!!! YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

8/4/99

I found love
when I found you
When I look
in your eyes
I know it's true
My life was lonely
broke and blue
then I found love
when I found you

For some reason that Kenny Wayne Shepard song stuck out to me as I rode the train back to Warsaw from Krakow and Dad and Victor slept and the countryside quietly slid by. I needed the prettiness, too. I saw Auschwitz today. All I have to say about the experience is that I think it's really really sick the way they let tourists in there.

8/3/99

I wrote something for the 1st and then ended up not being able to upload it (argh) so that'll be right below this. One of the strangest things about Poland: Imagine, if you will, a structure approximately the size and shape of a telephone booth (perhaps a little larger), that honestly, really looks like one. But make it out of white plaster and put a little brown wooden cross on top, and scatter similar ones all over the countryside at random points, and you have something looking really really odd. I mean, is it for emergency praying or something? When it truly can't wait?

8/1/99

The best thing about Europe, I've decided on my fourth trip, is that sunsets all look like some glorious scene out of a religious painting. Blue-grey clouds fade into a warm orange, feathering around a gap of blues and yellows; sharp-edged clouds thrown against the open space rimmed in metallic pinks and golds.