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

3/31/02

I was originally planning to have a grand bunch of babble here tonight, ranging from stuff of interest to stuff of complete randomness... but then I got tired. So I'm going to bed instead. Suck it.

3/29/02

Saw Death To Smoochy, approved. Played foosball in a Winlock bar, had fun. Hung out with Dougie and Jim, always good. Played some Civ, eyes hurt. Played some more pinochle, lost and won evenly. Vacation rating as of Friday : 8 out of a possible 10.

3/27/02

Ah, vacation... where you can get up at 1 pm, play some video games, play some pinochle, play some Settlers, and go to the hardware store... and feel like that was Something.

3/26/02

I didn't write anything yesterday because Emma was too busy killing armored spiders with Caleb, Argento, and Windrunner.

Driving down to Jim's parents' this evening with misty rain cut through by the sunset was beautiful—best time of the day to drive.

3/24/02

I would write something, but I just developed such bastardly hiccups for no reason at all that I'm just gonna go to bed and hiccup miserably.

3/23/02

I decided to walk home from campus tonight. I was in one of those sour moods where plodding along in my own miasma seems eminently preferable (from a masochistic point of view) to getting whisked to my destination by public transit. Peter Gabriel, bless his heart, was not helping in the least. Red Rain, Mercy Street, In Your Eyes... songs that pull me down farther than Don't Give Up could retrieve even were I in the mood to let it do so. Down the hill towards University Village I walked, alternating glum steps with angry ones. Diseased desire curling in as I approached the passage by the liquor store—I thought about how nice it'd be to get really drunk and see if I could depress myself low enough so that I'd just have to go up by default. I wouldn't do it, I scoffed to myself. Fucking pussy. But for some reason, halfway through the driveway to QFC, I stopped, said FUCK IT to myself, walked straight to the liquor store and loaded myself up. The amusing thing, and somewhat gratifying, is that apparently the buying of the alcohol was enough to break my mood. I even caught a bus back from that point... and I'm notoriously stubborn about walking when I make up my mind to do so. Silly emotional wobbling.

I find it very disappointing that even when I'm freaked out and ranting like I was last night, I can never quite subsume myself in what I feel. I always have to soften things, apologize, admit in what I write that I'm probably not in the right. I really shouldn't—a steam valve does little good if not set to flow properly. I suppose I should be grateful that I created the valve at all, threeish years ago. Given my complete inability, when I'm upset, to let others know how I feel, the Jen pre-ramble was the Jen who used to play with knives when she got upset because there wasn't really anywhere else for the upsetness to go. I just consider it a great failing that even in the place I have set aside for what I really feel, I never fully let go of that god-damned empathy shit.

3/22/02

I am feeling very, very sorry for myself tonight.

This really has quite been the shitty day.

I hate having problems. I shut down, hide away, and yet expect everyone around me to notice and care. My question is, why the fuck won't they notice? Why don't they care? I'm not expecting someone I didn't see/talk to tonight to suddenly call me or anything... but would it kill for some fucking follow-up? Not that I have a right to any, seeing as until I got really upset and started wailing in bed about 15 minutes ago, I was pulling the I'm fine, no issue, well, yes I'm upset, but there's not really much I can do about it, so let's just not talk about it small-voice thing which you'd think I'd learn that none of my friends respond to. So whichever one of you reads this in the morning and takes it personal, don't. Not your faults that I'm the biggest passive-aggressive martyr you've ever not realized a friend was. Of course, I'll still be fine, I'll find some other way to pay for grad school, blah-de-fucking-blah. Why don't my issues ever matter? Why are they always so goddamn trite and fixable to everyone but me? Why can't I have the grand fucking insight into how completely insignificant my problems are that everyone around me seems to have? I'd pay. I hate having people tell me that it'll be alright. I hate the fact that Jim sounded like Brian on the phone today, bored and surprised that I could be upset at something like this. I don't think he actually was bored, but being depressed isn't really helping my perceptions at the moment. I hate crying at night and knowing that nothing is going to make it stop until I cry myself out to sleep, because no one's going to fucking materialize out of the woodwork to give me a hug.

Really, I hate very much at this moment everything in the world that remotely concerns my life.

3/21/02

Why must movies like Bichunmoo (or Crouching Tiger, or others of its ilk) be so god damn sad at the ending? And why must I bawl like a baby every time I watch one?

I'm having one of those I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep nights. Not in the insomnia sense, seeing as that's been getting better as finals and grad school worries flushed out of my system, but in the "Oh fuck it, I'm exhausted, but I'm not going to puss out and go to sleep" way. I get like this often when Jim's out of town—I'm not really sure why. I spend many nights away from him when he's in town—it's quite irrational to behave any differently when he's 2 hours away as opposed to 20 minutes. I suspect it's just that my brain uses him as an excuse to inflict damage upon itself.

3/20/02

Huh. I went to bed last night at about 9 pm with the full intention of getting up at around 7 to study for my 2:30 final today. Given that I know my alarm did go off at 7, and that I was relatively awake at that point, but that I didn't actually get out of bed until 10 am, I'm not quite sure what broke down in the system. I didn't just sleep—I remember distinctly some staring at the ceiling and some listening to birdsong... ah well. At this point, as long as I pass my classes, it's all good.

3/19/02

(happy dance) I got into grad school!

3/18/02

More snow in March than I like—not that a lot of it is sticking, but I'd still be happier if "spring" would hurry its ass up, if for no more reason than it's depressing to wake up freezing, with snow flurrying outside, when one has to go to school for studying and a final. Of course, if I could stay in and drink tea and curl on the couch, I wouldn't care.

I really wonder, every month or so, where the me of a month before dissapated away to.

3/17/02

After two days of practically hibernating (two nights in a row of 11+ hours sleep, plus a several hour long nap on Friday evening), it felt incredibly good to take an hour's leisure around the U-Dis in the sun. Even if I got drawn irresistibly into Gargoyles to buy candles that I don't really need. Excessive sleep, the hour in the sun and a double grande mocha seem to have pushed me into a manic state, however—I'm even to the point of opening the blinds and windows in my apartment, turning up my radio, and skipping around; you'd almost think I thought it was summer... except there's still some snow in the firelane.

3/16/02

"I want my two dollars!!!"

We watched Better Off Dead tonight—Jim had never seen it before, the sacriliege. It was a few years before our time (as in we were just barely in grade school when it came out), but still... he calls himself a Cusack fan.

3/15/02

Well, at least the classes are done. The two homeworks and the three finals will not be happy, but they're just through Wednesday... Sigh.

3/14/02

I don't think I will be up all night tonight. I don't think I will be particularly useful tomorrow, regardless.

3/13/02

Damn you, Junkyard Wars. How the fuck am I supposed to get stuff done, or sleep, when you're on TLC right after dinner... for multiple episodes? You're like goddamned crack.

3/12/02

I had the most bizarre dream this morning. Jim and I were enjoying a romp over a strangely laundry-covered floor, when he suddenly stopped, pullled away, and listened. "I think there's something in the laundry room," he said, at which point I noticed the manic laughter coming from that direction, as well. Getting ourselves decent, we poked our heads into the laundry room... to find, I swear to god, the fucking NOID from those stupid '80s/early '90s pizza commercials. I hadn't thought about that awful marketing creation in years, but here I was in my dream, chasing after it, trying to snap at it with an elastic strap. The more I snapped the little bastard, the smaller he got, but he still kept running around, laughing like a maniacal idiot and saying high-pitched, incomprehensible things, and all I could think was DAMN YOU, DOMINOS! DAMN YOU!

In a completely different vein, I am renaming my linux box. She's currently called Laeren, a holdover from when she had laeren.sidereus.net held, in itself a holdover from when she, in her Windows incarnation, had two harddrives, one called "Nikki" and the other called "Laeren." Nikki got sold to Kurt Batson, and another harddrive was obtained... the name Laeren just hung around. I've never really thought of the box as "Laeren;" "Laeren" is my webpage, or my email address (or something that people occasionally call me because they're conditioned to email addresses reflecting people's names). I'd never really thought about having a name for my machine before the last few years, but it's gotten in my head to finally truly choose her a name now that I have another machine under my desk to differentiate her from. I'm thinking of going Hindi, seeing as I've already named the Windows box in Japanese. I'm leaning towards Jaya or Chandi, but I'd take suggestions. Mebee Chiyo, to go back to the Japanese thing...

3/11/02

Blah.

3/10/02

I got my five-page paper written... before midnight on the night before it's due. I don't think I've done that in years. I am rewarding myself with an hour break of cleaning my room before I guilt myself into at least reading it over and checking for places where additional bullshit is warranted. Five pages written in three and a half hours is guaranteed to not be my most prime shit.

Have I mentioned that I should be able to graduate next quarter, as in spring, as opposed to summer?

S W E E T.

Oh my fucking god, have 3D visualizers for Winamp come a long way since the last time I had a Windows box to appreciate them on.

3/09/02

Down at Jim's parents place... done very little today except chill with Dougie (who I adore) and eat good food. All in all, a good Saturday it would be, if I didn't have the next week hanging over my head.

3/08/02

As we left the ADP showing tonight, having watched the new Kenshin OAV, I told Zach "You know, watching good Kenshin anime is like watching porn for me. It's that good." I'm sure he thought I was joking; on some level I am, perhaps. On the other hand, there's just something about watching well-done violent anime, particularly of the samurai variety, that undeniably quickens my breathing. Call me sick, call me a product of a generation desensitized in an unnatural way to stylized violence, call me anything you want; it won't stop my mouth becoming dry and my heartrate speeding, and it won't stop me from entertaining the naughtiest thoughts while animated men spill animated blood in a graceful, deadly dance for my voyueristic amusement.

More than anyone wanted to know.

3/07/02

Today, like so many other days, I had something that I dearly wanted to say here, but have since forgotten it. A shitty day at work will do that to you, even when you spent a nice afternoon with your mother showing her around campus. Parents paying for lunch, apparently, doesn't make up for everything in life... more's the pity.

3/06/02

My god, I'm so tired. Several days of getting < 5 hours of sleep a night has started to catch up, and I'm not in a happy place. Two more weeks after this one...

3/05/02

What a pathetic waste of a day in the grand scheme of things. BAH. Although I did, at 4 am last night, figure out what it may be that's been keeping me awake nights. It is not, after all, my computer—that's the same noise (pretty much) that it's always been. However, power has started flowing through my heater, causing it to hum and click. It's not loud enough to hear normally, but at night, it melds with the computer's fan and becomes truely obnoxious. And I think they can't fix it (sob). So that's not particularly comforting... I take back my previous "although" that somehow implied that the heater discovery made my day worthwhile.

3/04/02

I was going to write something about dinner (yummy white cheddar mac 'n cheese with green chilies). But then I got distracted by funniness on Spin City. Stupid boob tube saps my brain away...

3/03/02

It's 1:30 am and I just finished writing one 5 page paper and one 2 pager. I have to get up at 7:00 am tomorrow. Sob.

3/02/02

I did not write last night because after watching much TV, I fell asleep in a stupor akin to drunkeness. Except I wasn't. I felt about as bad in the morning, though, and my day's been right-up bleh. Went to see We Were Soldiers with Jim, which I generally enjoyed, had fun at Max's party talking to Wes and seeing Jim warm up to him (as he should! Wes is not, as we have verifed and approved, a waste of skin!), and ate some good cookies and hummus. But I've meddled where perhaps I should not have meddled, and I upset Jim by being a dumbass and bringing up issues akin to the whole Chris incident in casual conversation. Sigh. I hate it when "perceptive" me is replaced by "dumbfuck" me. Grr.