Synapsis

2004-04-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

www.thoughtbomb.net/guile/

Why am I leaving Synapsis behind? Its been a long time in coming. This me, this me isn't me anymore...and a lot of the parts of the me that you see here irritate me now, and the writing seems trite and out of touch. Much of it, at least. So now, you know where to find the me of the moment.

R.I.P. Synapsis

2004-02-25T03:47:00.000-08:00

I'm in Boston, now, and extremely busy. Life is...uncertain, but potential lies in the predicament of knowing that the vista is, for the most part, open. I have more to post later - a lot more - but will likely be adding them to a different blogger site (guile rather than synapsis) - not that anyone checks anymore, but in the event that you're looking for me, that's where you'll find me.

2004-02-25T03:44:00.000-08:00

It was what she didn't know about him that she thought she could fall in love with. The moments of uncertainty that occurred when she discovered something new, the way one stumbles over a twenty in the pocket of a just-washed pair of jeans. As men go, he was a deep pocket and the bills that kept mysteriously turning up were anything but chump change. Even so, it's hard to wear a garment that's across state lines, and prior experience told her that making the attempt would just find her suddenly realizing down the road that her ass has been all along.
The truth was that she could use a pair of pants like that one. She's gone through all the rest of them, and they just don't fit the way that they used to - she's in better shape now than she used to be, and even the ones that seem to be her size have holes and have come apart at the seams. Funny metaphor, but the truth is a funny thing. The reality of truth is a little bit less humorous. Sometimes he said things that made her wonder how well she really knew him; beautiful things that forced her to stop and be appreciative - a sentiment she had not really realized anyone else could cause without prior consideration on her part, and was uneasy about. Against the backdrop of what she knew, those beautiful things were a mire of either question or injustice: there was a dark night in their past when, humid and quietly breathing close together in a small room after the storm, he told her she would never get to heaven.
It wasn't as though he said it with ill intent or out of cruelty. The tone lacked the arrogance she associated with countless other sermons. The most she could chalk it up to was ignorance, but therein lies the crux of her silent struggle. Understanding remained elusive even so: how could someone capable of creating something so beautiful believe in a creation so ugly? How was she to feel, this condemned girl for whom judgement day came unexpectedly in the arms of that strange, compelling soul?
Questions or injustice and bullshit, she thinks, and she thinks also that she worries that he may be right - but the reasons aren't the same. Not even a little the same

2003-02-16T00:35:00.000-08:00

Have disabled archives for the time being. Am reconsidering what to do with this waste of cyberspace.

2003-01-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

somethingawful: Hentai Game Reviews!

Funny. Click. Enjoy.

2003-01-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

I just spent the last three days, as I said before, at the Bondurant school for High Performance Driving. I don't know how to explain quite how amazing an experience it was; although it was only for the span of those three days, I learned so much and did so much that trying to fit it all in here would be like trying to write a thorough 'What I did this summer' papers your teachers always assigned you on the first day of class in elementary school. At the moment, I'm on a plane flying back to Durango, and already the ground has gone from a parched and warm desert yellow to a faded gray dusting of snow beneath us...back to the frigid cold I go.
The car I was assigned to, which I'm pictured standing next to (and which, with any luck, should be displayed to the left of this entry by the time I make the posting) is a Mustang GT, but hardly any of the parts inside of the thing are stock, though I believe the actual engine block is the same. It's approximately 400 horsepower, with replaced shocks, springs, Baer Claw brakes, Bolsa exhaust, additional swaybars and other similar performance upgrades, lightweight racing alloy wheels, an extremely durable full-interior rollcage, window nets, and racing bucket seats with four-point Simpson harnesses to keep you from eating the steering wheel. And those are just the upgrades I -know- of. It hurts my brain to think how much money the school has spent on vehicles, since I would guess that they own well over a hundred and fifty Mustangs mechanically identical to that one. In addition, they have about fifty Formula 1 Fords, perhaps thirty top-end brand new Corvettes, and I would guess fifty of those new Cadillac sedans with the angular and flattish front and back ends, though I'll be damned if I remember what they're called. On the other side of the school, they have ShifterKarts - which look like extremely fancy go-karts, but are used widely by F1 and Indy car drivers in order to keep in shape during the off season, as they're extremely physically demanding to drive - they can go from zero to a hundred and back down to zero again in less than ten seconds.
The class I was taking was their three day High Performance Driving class, and most of the other people in it were taking the two-day version, which meant that on the third day my brother (who was taking the class along with me) and I had the asphalt entirely to ourselves. The rest of the people attending were in the 4 day Grand Prix class, and were using the track when we used the pad, the pad when we used the track.
We arrived on the first day and signed in. There was some difficulty with Cameron's signing in; because he's under the age of 18, some of his release slips ('I, the undersigned, will not hold Bondurant responsible if I crash into a wall going 100 miles per hour and am squished like an overripe turnip...') had to be notorized, but once it was taken care of, we were shuffled along with the 2 and 4 day students out on a brief tour of the facilities. They have the cleanest shop area I've ever seen in my life, where we met the resident grounds cat, Speedbump, and got to poke around briefly under the hood of a ridiculously upgraded Mustang Cobra. After a brief look at the F1 cars and the 'museum' (a room containing some of Bondurant's personal vehicles, pictures of his racing career, and information on his history in the world of racing), we were nudged back out onto the tarmac and piled into two one-ton white vans of the sort you expect to ride in whenever you take a shuttle from the airport. Thirteen of us to a van - fourteen if you count the front seat - and as we're sitting down, the driver tells us, "Now, everybody make sure they've got a seatbelt, and if you're queasy, you might not wanna stay on for the ride."
He took us out onto the track, and we hauled ass at 65 miles per hour in this van ("Completely stock," the driver tells us afterward) around the turns in what felt like a Disney World ride, save that it was considerably more dangerous. All of the instructors at Bondurant appear to be men in their late twenties and early thirties, and all of them apparently have at least two National championships in a vehicle event under their belts; some of them have World championships to top them off. This isn't a prerequisite, I'm told, but there's no doubt about it...these guys are incredible drivers.
Following the van ride, we head to our instructor's cars - Crown Victorias with the motors ripped out and turbo-charged Cobra motors stuck in instead, with Police Integration systems for that added 'oomph' (they looked like taxis until you turned them on, at which point they looked like taxis and sounded like jet engines) - and head out to the torque circles. Interesting thing, torque circles: you follow the line of a circle with the wheel of the car cocked out to a certain angle at a low speed, say 10 miles per hour, and you don't have to change the angle of the wheel. The instructor then has you step on the gas, and at 40, you're then following the outer line of a larger circle painted around the first one...still without changing the angle of the wheel. It sounds so simple - physics, and nothing more than that - but few people on the road think of things in terms of weight transfer within their vehicle from front to back or one side to the other, and that's all that driving is. It was an excellent introduction into thinking differently about cars, and set the tone of the entire experience - we'll tell you what we're going to do and why, then we'll show you, and then we're going to make you do it on your own.
Once that was finished, we went immediately into accident avoidance training in our own vehicles along with the rest of the class - of course they're not going to turn us loose on a track until we know just what the vehicles are capable of in an emergency situation, and until we know what the proper way of getting out of certain situations is. The deal is this: we're supposed to head down a long and narrow lane on the pad (re: a large, empty area of asphalt with lines painted on it used in various exercises, but nothing to hit in the event you lose control of your car) at a pre-determined speed, marked at certain points with cones. The lane empties out into three lanes, and at the end of the three lanes are three makeshift stoplights with a red and green light each. An instructor has control of the lights off to one side beneath a little roofed area, and he flicks two of them red and leaves one green. You've got to steer your car into the right lane, on the premise that the two red lanes are suddenly occupied with something unyielding (say, by a semi truck). You then turn the car around, drive back to the end of the line of students, and wait for another go. Sounds easy, sure, and it is, when the speed is 35 miles per hour, which is what they start you out on. By the time you hit fifty, however, and realize that you have about 20 feet to turn your 3,400 pound accelerating Mustang GT at a sharp angle into another lane, though, you're concentrating on doing what they've taught you to do: let up on the gas, squeeze the brake gently to put weight to the front, then ease off of the brake as you turn and squeeze into the gas again.
When all of us had completed that particular trial without error, we were feeling pretty confident. Of course, if it were only going to be that difficult and no harder, we wouldn't have been there. Various braking and turning exercises followed, many of them having to do with teaching us about ABS braking systems and how to utilize them properly ("ABS does NOT allow you to stop more quickly," the instructors must've said a thousand times. "A car with ABS brakes stops LESS quickly than a car without them, and instead of calling them Anti-lock Braking Systems, here, we use a differen't meaning for ABS: Ability to Brake and Steer.") When we'd finished this, we switched off with the group in the skid cars, and this was probably the most interesting part of the first day.
Skid cars, for those of you who aren't familiar with them, are basically vehicles with angled runners attached to their undercarriages in the front and rear, in front of the front wheels and behind the rear wheels. The runners come up to about the middle of the car's side panels, where they angle outward and come down in small wheels to the pavement, looking a bit like this: .^------^.
The wheels are connected to hydraulic systems within the legs of the runners, and at the behest of the instructor seated in the passenger seat, the runners lift the front or the rear end of the car while you're busy driving around a handling oval on the pad in order to induce a skid of the desired kind and magnitude - front wheels for an understeer simulation, rear for an oversteer. You're only going about 25 miles per hour, but the skids are pretty vicious looking in any event - enough to whip the car around a 540 degrees, if you're not careful. In these, we learned what it feels like to take a full skid in a vehicle, as well as how to successfully come out of either skid. Oversteer, in case you're curious, is the more difficult of the two to overcome, and the most dramatic in appearance.
The second day, we arrived bright and early and met up with our instructor from the previous day (three of us to our instructor, which is a great way to learn, and you remain with your instructor for the full course) - Craig Meintzer, a driver of no small skill and a great sense of humor. After a brief amount of time spent in the classroom learning about properly judging the apexes of corners (you'd think this would be easy, but a lot of times the apex is nowhere near where it would be in terms of geography, and the fastest line through a corner, I hate to inform everyone, is NOT the shortest one when you're talking about driving), and some time learning the proper steps involved in a heel-toe downshift, we were sent out to the pad. We must've practiced heel-toe downshift for at least half an hour, about six of us running loops in two lanes where the steps of the downshift in approaching the end of the lane were indicated by the placement of cones...one step per cone. Later, we spent time on the handling oval, trying to hit the apexes, which had also been thoughtfully marked out for us with cones - something we thought would be particularly easy right up until we saw someone from the other class spin out and smack into one of the plastic barriers on the side.
After lunch, we came back to find the pad drastically altered from what we expected it to be: there was what appeared to be a sea of cones littered across the asphalt, detailing a pathway we couldn't quite see from the classrooms inside. In that class, we talked about what we'd done earlier in the day, and then discussed the afternoon's events: timed autocross and a jaunt out onto the full-scale racing oval that connects to the larger track.
The autocross was, by far, my favorite event of the day, however. It involved moving as quickly as possible through said sea of cones while hitting the apexes of the corners as accurately as can be managed without knocking over any cones, for which the instructors would add a penalty second to your overall time. The first day, I didn't do too terribly well, though I managed to hit a very decent 1:01 - a minute and a second. The instructors told us that they've seen a few - three, four, or five - students in their time at the school achieve a time of 59 seconds. Later that day, we all went out to the handling oval, and one of the older gentleman Craig, my instructor, was teaching, ended up spinning out and landing in a gravel pit...oops.
The third day was by far the best. Cameron and I were the only two taking the three day course instead of the two day course, and so we ended up being the only people on the pad or the track at any given time...how cool is that.
First things first: we spend the early part of the day driving the autocross again. Cameron and I go at it tooth and nail, trying to best one another's times, and he manages to stay ahead of me for a considerable length of time by a margin of two tenths of a second...until I pull 1:00:01 - a hundredth of a second away from making myself the fifth or sixth Bondurant racing school student ever to hit a time of 59 seconds on the course. (Craig later tells us that one of the instructors, a former world champion, managed a time of 56 seconds - dizamn). Cameron comes in behind me at 1:00:26 - not much, when you're talking in terms of seconds, but miles when you're talking in terms of crossing the finish line. What can I say; I rule.
Later in the day, we donned full racing suits, balaclavas, and helmets (can you say 'hot'), and after a tour around the track in Craig's car, we strapped into our own cars (I was rather fond of mine by the time I left) and hit the pavement. Cameron ended up high centering his car, which...for those of you who don't know...means that he ended up grounding the undercarriage, like a beached whale of some kind, atop a ridge of gravel and dirt, with the front left wheel and the rear right wheel completely off of the ground.

(Uh, I wrote this a while ago, and now that I'm moved into my dorm at college, I'm not really enthusiastic about finishing it. Besides, I don't know anybody who'll actually read through that whole post, so I highly doubt anybody's going to be missing anything. Info on college later.)

2002-12-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

Not to bore those with whom I've already spoken, but:

GODAMN!

Bondurant racing school is the -shit-. I just spent seven and a half hours strapped via a four point harness to an insanely souped up 400 horsepower Mustang, whipping around cones and practicing skids and jumping on the breaks and laying on the throttle, and I cannot tell you how close to heaven this puts me. The fact that I've just gotten back from being taken out record shopping by two fairly good looking individuals to finish of my day means that this is about as close as I think I can get on this earth, at least in public, and I cannot complain.

However, I'm also completely wiped, and I'm heading to bed. I just thought I would share my utter elation with the few people who actually take the time to read this damn thing.

peezout

2002-12-26T08:22:00.000-08:00

ADDENDUM: Alright, so. He was doing well right up until the last entry, at least in terms of appeasing my volatile female nature with something topically sensitive and flattering.

They always second guess themselves, don't they?

(The new format is rather snazzy, though, I must say. Now all you need are better archives, T.)

Anyway, today I leave for racing school - the Bon Durant racing school in Phoenix, AZ. I'm going to bring my laptop, so hopefully I'll get to detail my no doubt fascinating adventures at high speed behind the wheel of a five-liter mustang that doesn't belong to me. Until then, adios, muchachos.

2002-12-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

I'm sure Tim's entry about his visit here is going to be more interesting than mine. To get to it, you can follow the Cruel Addiction/Babel Fish Production Facility link on the left hand side of my own blog. For my part, then, since it appears he's begun to write an interesting and more or less accurate account of his time here in Colorado, I'll just summarize, and say that I completely enjoyed myself. Granted, we didn't sleep much, and getting up was the last thing I wanted for pretty much the entireity of his visit, but I was pleasantly surprised by how laid back everything was, and by how things turned out (and by what a fantastic smile he has. Killer, I tell you).

Today, I wake up at 8:30 am (Hah! It's 6:00 now, I highly doubt that 'wake up' is going to be the proper phrase for what's going to happen in two and a half hours) to go snowboarding with BJ. Ironically, Tim wanted nothing more during his visit here than to see it actually snow, and right now we have about 5 or 6 inches of fresh snow on the ground, and it doesn't look like it'll be letting up anytime soon. Sorry, Tim - if only you'd stayed 3, 4 more days, you'd have seen it DUMP snow. Fortunately, that means that the mountain is going to be lovely, and well worth the pain of staying up this late for.

Anyway, I'm beat. Brain doesn't function..can't sleep...must ride...

-moi.

2002-12-07T03:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, so. I had nothing to worry about.

I picked Tim up at the airport right on time, and instantly it was like...yeah, okay. This is the person I've always known. I was a little nervous until after we ate, but once I had a little bit of food in me and we started talking, everything went so smoothly that I couldn't have asked for a better introduction. Last night, we went out and supported my friend Bailey at Liquid. I tried to warn him about the effect of the altitude (7000 ft. above sea level, and such), but he didn't really register it, I guess, because three rum and cokes later, he was like....whoooooooa. We spent the evening hanging out and dancing and avoiding local drama, then we came back to my pad and threw on the first episode of Oz, watched The Mothman Prophecies (kinda - we talked more than anything) and then watched Monsters, Inc., which he really enjoyed. After that, we headed to our rooms and passed out - all in all, a very chill evening.

Today, we slept until fairly late. He woke up 2 hours earlier than me and let me sleep despite the fact that I told him to wake me up, spent the time playing video games and listening to records downstairs. We headed out after a while to get food at City Market, met up with BJ, ate food, Tim went down to take a nap for an hour. We were late to Scoots...there was some minor drama because I didn't have the equipment there on time, so we headed out to the sushi place to support my friend Kevin who was spinning there. Had sushi - Tim had sushi for the first time ever and dug it (I was so proud!) - went back to Scoots, I threw on a break and hiphop set and got quite a few props. Now we're back at my pad, Pierre and he are playing DOA3, I'm writing this as quickly and succinctly as possible, and who knows what the evening'll bring...but in any event, I thought I'd just say that I think I've found a friend I want in my life for a long time, even if it's only through letters and phone calls. I'm so glad that he came, and that I had the balls to invite him.

This is a very content md signing off.

2002-12-04T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have come to the conclusion that I require a small army of nubile manservants to fan me and wash my clothes and bring me freshly picked fruit delicacies and, perhaps, some new DVDs.

Today, I go to pick up a friend of mine (Tim, the person I was sending writing back and forth with) from the airport. It's creepy, because I've never actually met him, and I'm a little bit nervous as a result. I'm sure there's nothing to be nervous about - I'm laid back, he seems laid back, we've known each other for years and never really had a problem - but meeting someone you've never met face to face before like this is a bit nervewracking. I mean, what if we don't get along in person, and our friendship suffers as a result? How do you go back from an experience like that?

Strangely enough, I'm not as nervous as I maybe could be, but I'm sure that'll change while I'm standing at the airport and his plane is deboarding and I'm waiting to set eyes on him for the very first time. That's when it always strikes. Before I met Nick and Justin, it was that way - walking up to Justin's hotel room here in town, and waiting to deboard the plane in Seattle when I went to visit Nick - that was the worst of it. It was substantially easier after that, once conversation was flowing and we had things to do, but that moment...that sucks.

I still haven't decided what to wear. I'm debating dressing semi-nicely so that I stand out and he'll be able to recognize me immediately, or dressing down so that we can more easily go pick up the speakers and amplifier from Liquid, since we need them in order to listen to music over here, and he's bringing me some new records that I'm going to be dying to throw on. I guess I'll try on either, and whichever strikes my fancy, I'll run with. Have a feeling it's going to be jeans, though...I don't feel like carrying that equipment up the stairs from Liquid to the car in my big platform boots.

Gah. I'm too tired to blog right now. I haven't slept yet. Need to go and keep my idle hands busy. Until later -

2002-11-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not really sure what to say. There is so much that I've been doing and dealing with in the last week and a half alone that anything I might've written about before that point in time just seems senseless and forgettable. I guess I'll start from a week and a half ago, then, and see where that takes me, since I'm not sure that I could cover everything even if I wanted.

I turned 21 on October 29th. I hadn't planned on going out, since I had a minor surgery of sorts a week beforehand and wasn't supposed to drink for two weeks following (oops), but I ended up getting dragged out to a club anyway. Club 'Liquid'. Don't let the word 'club' mislead you - this is a basement bar and very little else besides; it's underneath a restaurant called Scoot'n'Blues, a biker restaurant geared toward the Iron Horse bike rally that comes to town every year - they make as much on that weekend as they do the entire rest of the year. So I guess to make ends meet, they hollowed out the downstairs basement area and created a rather kickass, cozy little barspace. This is where I was taken. Turns out a friend of mine, Mike Bailey, along with his friend Matthew and a guy I cannot ever remember the name of but have met on several occasions have set up to spin that night. Drink-buying ensues when it's found out that I'm turning 21 that night, and I drink I don't know how many shots of Jaegermeister - I guess this is a birthday thing - chilled to a frosty -3 degrees. I don't, for the record, much care for Jaegar, but after the third one, it got much easier to take. The bartender's name is Jonny, a shortish guy with Italian looks and a fantastically charming bartender's smile - those guys SERIOUSLY know how to ham it up - who refuses to take my card at the end of the night, saying that he thinks there's a law somewhere that you're not allowed to pay for anything on your birthday. More about this guy later.

So I'm not quite ready to turn in, and neither is Bailey, and since I haven't seen him in a while, I invite him back to my pad to spin for a while, because I picked up a few house records along with my new breakbeats and he being the house DJ that he is, I'd like him to check them out. Once we hit the pad, we chill for a solid four or five hours at least just listening to music, and somewhere in the mix he asks if he can give me a birthday kiss. All in all, that wouldn't be so bad if he weren't involved with a girl I know, like, and even respect despite the fact that she's fucked me over on more than one occasion. One supposes I'm simply generous, that way (but more than one suppose it's because I just don't know any better, and I'm not sure they're not right). I tell him no - that I don't want to deal with potential fallout, yadda yadda. We listen to records a little while longer, and then he goes home so that he can be there before Maudi, his girl, wakes up for work.

October 30: I recover from my birthday.

October 31: The hunt for a costume begins. I cannot for the life of me assemble a decent costume. I prowl around town looking through various stores, including one semi-bondage store (eep) and one lingerie store (where I buy the black corset I end up wearing that night), as well as two rental stores which somehow manage to close five minutes before I get to each of them. With a satin black corset, black boots, giant black feathered wings (and I mean seriously pro wings, not this half-assed bullshit you see on 13 year old girls), and satin-finish black synthetic pants, I am set to roll. I deck out in far too much eyeshadow and darker lipstick than I would ever choose to wear in my right mind on any other occasion, and I hit Steamworks, where I've told Bailey he's able to use my turntables and mixer for the set they're spinning that night, just so long as he can get me in the door without cover and without having to wait in line. When that's arranged, Pierre and Matthew come and pick me up, and we go hook everything up. When we get there, it's already packed wall to wall with people. Getting from the DJ stand (where I spent most of the night, out of the crush of the crowd) to the bathrooms - maybe a 40 foot journey down the length of the steel bar - is a 30 minute process. I employ Pierre's help in getting me there on more than one occasion, and meet up with a few people I haven't seen in ages - at least not since The Space, the old warehouse we used to throw parties in, closed down. 3 pitchers of free beer for the DJs and about 800 people later, I have to say that the DJs tore it up, and everybody went home happy. Afterward, Clayton (a hiphop DJ I met that evening), Matthew, Bailey, and Jesse (another DJ friend from quite some time ago) came over and we threw records on, mixed a little, talked about music, and hung out. Two hours later, I was guzzling water and hopping into bed, thoroughly satiated on the eve of my favorite holiday of the year.

Nov. 1: I have Pierre's number. I wake up late, give him a call around 2 in the afternoon, and he invites me over to throw around a few breakbeat records. I get over to his place and while my mixes aren't really solid, he shows me a few things and some music that I totally dig on, and I guess I didn't fuck up too badly, because he invited me to spin with he and his friend, Morning Bear, later that evening at Liquid - the bar where I ended up on my birthday. Jonny hooks us up with free drinks all night, and and totally refuses to take my card when we finish up. I have no cash, I can't tip him - how bad do I feel? Basically, though, it was dead that night - 30 people all night, maybe 10 in the room at any one time, including the guys from the band upstairs. We use it as a night to screw around on the tables and get ready for the next night, which I'll get to in a second. I get a warm reception for some of my breakbeat records, but mostly I watch Pierre and Morning Bear spin. Pierre's been on the decks for six and a half years, and Morning Bear (who's actually 30, but seems like just another of the kids - very laid back, fairly alternative culture) has been doing it even considerably longer than Pierre. Watching them is an incredible experience. The end of the night, I tell them to leave my tables, mixer, speakers, and amp at the venue, because they're frankly too heavy to be carting around all over again (but better than the stuff they'd been using, so I figured I'd leave it for the event the next night). Morning bear insists on taking the tables and mixer back to my house, but I'm too faded and intoxicated to unload anything, so I tell him he can take them home, bring them back the next day - they won't fit in my little car anyway. We pack up, head out. I hit Pierre's house for a bit of lounging and chatting.

Nov. 2: Wake up, shower. I wake up at 4pm and anxiously wait for Morning Bear to call me. Tonight, we're spinning for a full house: The girls from Fallen Angel, the lingerie store that I bought part of my costume from, is hosting a Coyote Ugly night at Liquid - no flair, no bottle tossing or bartending tricks, but quite a few chicks in hardly any clothing whatsoever serving alcohol. The crowd is a guarantee. At about 7 he calls me and tells me he'll meet me at my pad at 8. We'll be the ones setting up and spinning until about midnight when Pierre arrives, since he's got to cook at Steamworks until about 11:30. We head to the venue, set up the equipment, and already the room is fairly full and noisy - people already drinking, playing pool, chatting, getting raucously loud. I set up everything, soundcheck, and we're off. Once again, bartender Jonny hooks me up with insane amounts of liquor (which he's buying for me, technically), and I throw him a five dollar tip for the previous evening, explaining that I had no cash.

Back to spinning for a moment, though: I have never in my life had to deal with such stupid fucking people. Morning Bear brought very little hiphop. He's mainly a house DJ, though he tends to have a little bit of everything. Immediately after starting to spin, we get one of the less..trim..girls from the Fallen Angel asking us to put on some Eminem or KidRoc or anything like that to 'get it going' so that the girls can dance on the bar. He throws on KidRoc (I was so completely startled that he had the remix to begin with), and immediately after that a second girl from Fallen Angel asks for some '80's stuff'. Morning Bear is starting to get seriously pissed off. He does what she wants, though - a bit of Michael Jackson, a bit of.."I just wanna use your love...toniiiiight..."...okay. So then we get an employee from the club asking for country, or something with more of a rock beat. At this point, Bear gets on the mic and says something to the effect of, "You motherfuckers need to let the DJ spin his shit. If you're wearing a cowboy hat, get the fuck out, because we're about to blow this place apart - you're too old for this shit." Not that this wins him any points, but I myself was laughing my ass off. I won't elaborate further, but suffice it to say that the requests continued all night, as did the occasional disgruntled announcements. I throw on my few house records, my VERY few hiphop records (I require more), but mostly Bear spins. By this time, the place is -packed- with people. I've had three beers and I'm feeling pretty good; I try to pay....Jonny turns me down. I ask him if I'll ever be able to pay my tab, and he looks at me a second, then tells me no. I hit up my record bag, grab a 20, slip behind the bar, and when he's really busy and I don't think he's paying attention, I tuck it into the pocket of his hawaiian shirt. That's justice, right?

This is where things started to get a little bit crazy. They announced this wet t-shirt contest after playing twister and giving out body shots. I am NOT a wet t-shirt contest kinda girl, but there are a few people who've been circulating around the DJ table all night whom I've been chatting with, and they're all telling me they'll give me tips if I enter. I tell them I don't have a change of clothes, and I am NOT entering the contest in the uberamazingsexycool shirt that I just bought. Jonny, the helpful son of a bitch that he is, tells me he'll lend me his wifebeater if I enter. How do I tell them no? ...I swap clothes, and get in line with the rest of the girls. A couple of them are from Fallen Angel and drop dead gorgeous, but that size zero pair of pants comes at the price of absolutely no breasts whatsoever, so I'm feeling pretty confident. My friend Katie showed up, and she's built a lot like me, perhaps slightly smaller, so she's in the running...but next to us, there's a chick with I swear to god double-D size breasts. Of course, the rest of her is double-D as well...so...why not stick it out and see. Right? Right. Then they announce that they're going to give six guys spraybottles if they'll volunteer, and they get to spray us down while we're standing on a chair in this sort of ghetto-rigged plastic-enclosed area overtop of a tin washbin. Shit!

I'm third, and I take a serious beating from these guys. How do you respond to that? Easy. With a "Fuck you! Is that all you guys have? HUH? Is that it? COME ON!"

I'm in good standing until the big girl gets up there, and then...her shirt comes off. RIGHT off. During the applause at the end, the girl who ended up naked and I ranked the same applause, but...they announced that she won. Defeated and absolutely freezing, I go quickly change back into my shirt, still unable to believe that I even dared do that kind of thing, and along the way, I am consoled by several people who tell me I should've won, as well as a laughing Jonny who gives me a shot of whiskey 'to warm me up'. Nevermind that a few guys I've known since I moved here showed up about the time of the contest. I will never live that down.

Once reattired, they break out the hula hoops, I discover that, while I can keep them perpetually moving, I can't do anything neat with them like I could as a kid. Pierre shows up, and then we -really- start to get down. I tip the chick bartender for having helped out the DJs all night, and she gives me a keychain with a blue bear on it. It's a plushie bear, but it has...well, it's anatomically correct. Thus is the theme of the evening, really - inflated condoms all over the place, lingerie hanging from the bar. I hook it to my record bag. Skip time an hour. 1 in the morning.

My set.

I don't know how to describe what happened. Those friends of mine who showed up in time for the contest that I mentioned showed up because they heard that I would be spinning that night (how flattered am I?). I get Pierre to push the house over to breakbeat, and then I start into my set. I get on the mic: "You guys like Dire Straits, right?" The crowd becomes HYSTERICAL. Dire Straits in breakbeat format with Money For Nothing, Chicks for Free - that guitar riff is unlike any other, and they were completely wild. "ARE YOU GUYS FEELING THAT?" Whistles, screaming, girls jumping up and down, oh my GOD what a rush, right into "Days Gone By" and a track remixing Alanis Morrisette's "So Pure" -- not my favorite kind of electronica, but club crowds dig stuff that they recognize. I throw a few more records to a crowd that virtually devours it, and close with, "I...I'll do anything...that you want me to...yeah I...I'd do almost anything..that you want me to.." An oldschool 70's remix that's so happy and uplifting you can't -help- but groove to it. On the mic, one last time: "That's it for me - goodnight, thank you, you guys fucking rock..." More screaming, more yelling, more whistling. Tips. Drinks. The rest of the night is a blur.

The next day, I get a few phone calls telling me I tore it up...and a note from Jonny delivered by Pierre containing a 20 dollar bill that reads: 'tip-4-the music mix queen - Jonny "Barkeep"'. Bastard.

Morning Bear isn't sure he wants to do that venue anymore. Tonight, I meet up with Pierre at Steamworks when he gets off work for a drink, and we hopefully discuss Friday night - he needs the money, I need something to do and more time on the turntables. With any luck, Bear'll chill out and decide that he needs the cash too, and I'll get to watch the two of them throw down. I'll need more records before I can justify spinning again anytime soon, though - I dislike too much repetition.

There's...more, that I want to write about. Conflict. Strange conflict, things I never would've expected to feel or think about, but isn't that how it always happens? And it's always about boys...always. It's still about boys, this time. There are just so many people who read this, many of them potentially family members I respect, that I'm hesitant to elaborate any further. Besides, these DJ adventures are slightly more interesting than any of the personal details about my unexpected dilemma. If you're reading this, you can do me a favor and pray to whatever higher power you believe in that I figure it out, and soon, because it's coming down to the line.

This is now-needs-a-DJ-name-md signing off, for now.

2002-10-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I have a new picture up, for better or for worse, thanks to the kind courtesy of my friend Ian, who has agreed to host the picture for me on his ftp. I can't say that having a picture that's even more of a close up of my face is going to fall on the 'better' end of things, but as it turns out, it's just as blurry as the last one, so all's well. Besides, it has my new eyebrow piercings in it, and I'm -all- for showing off my jewelry.
There isn't much more to report, lately. I've been cleaning my house like a woman crazed in preparation to head to school, and while it feels really good to get everything simplified (feng shui, anyone?), it's also extremely time-consuming, and I want to make sure I do it right. I -do- hope to have something worth posting in terms of a piece of prose, but I'm hesitant to publish my poetry here, since one of the goals Tim and I (Tim being the person I'm doing this writing exchange with) have been working on is publishing at least a few pieces sometime during the coming year, and the lack of copyright over the internet is cause for some concern. I -promise-, however, that I will get around to cranking out something within the next month or so.
My dove is driving me crazy. For those who don't know, I have a dove named Isis, and -all- this bird does is make the same noise over and over. If anyone wants it, by all means, let me know. I can't handle it anymore, and I feel guilty yelling at her when it starts to get to me. I'd let her go, but it's cold where I am, and I'd have the horrors if I went outside and found out she'd kicked the bucket because she'd become to domesticated. I should've stuck with the damn chinchillas.

Mwah!

2002-09-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

Well, it's another early morning after a late and sleepless night. I've been staying up a lot lately, something I attribute largely to the fact that I've reacquainted myself with someone I've known for a while online who seems, suddenly, to share 95 percent of my interests...including the most impactful of my passions, writing. Poetry. The sharing of thoughts across the medium of cyberspace is so simple and painless, it's easy to slip into that anesthetic comfort-zone. We've been sharing pieces back and forth. The last time this happened...

What am I getting myself into?

It has been a refreshing change of pace. Writing prose off and on with other people is entertaining, but not quite as satisfying as getting and giving feedback on singular, stand-alone pieces you've done by yourself. It's rewarding, and it's a way to pursue growth, change as a writer, the ability to lever yourself out of your head and into someone else's so that you can approach issues with a fresh mindset. If you're reading this, Tim, thank you; for both your support and your constructive criticism. It is deeply appreciated.

I also wrote to my extended family earlier this morning, a lengthy letter comprised of information regarding where I am, what's going on. It'll be interesting to see what (if anything) comes back from that; I am fairly unfamiliar with my own family's branches. My family has always been a bit like the black sheep...not something that causes me any disdain, necessarily; I suppose every family has one. As I say...it will be interesting to see. I've also included the link to this blog in the email to them, so with any luck, this can be a forum and a playing field for yet more online communication. Welcome to my life, fam.

2002-09-15T05:42:00.000-07:00

Okay. Okay, wtf is this? Other than fairly amusing, that is.

Schedule's all backwards. Staying up too late, sleeping not enough. 6:34 am. Woke up at 11pm. Very, very sleepy...think I'm going off to play some The Thing, or maybe some Dead to Rights...

2002-09-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

Oh, my GOD.

So, check this out. I wrote something on the HR Giger website guestbook, but it didn't parse through, because there was a length limit. So I wrote to his agent, instead, feeling that I should really try to get my appreciation for his amazing work across to -someone-, in the hopes that he would see it, and maybe feel some of my gratitude for his inspiration. I sent the following letter:

<< While I certainly don't require a response, I would like this to be passed
along, as it seems that the guest book decided to crop my entry. I guess I
feel that the only thing that makes the work invested into art worth it is
to get real, solid feedback about it, and while H.R. may not feel the same
way, I can at least send it along with my best wishes.

It read:

After a long love affair with your art, starting with a movie made
before I was born (which to this day remains my single favorite science
fiction, without contest), I have finally reached a place in my life where I
am able to pursue study of the art of others in order to, with any luck,
track down and secure a degree in art and creative writing for myself. The
purchase of a small book of Giger artwork, then the addition of two posters
was merely prelude for further interest and finally a stumbling across this
page, almost entirely by accident while browsing.
I don't know what it is about the art you create that touches so many
people. A fascination with the strange symbiotic nature of human and macine
- the Japanese certainly seem to share that preoccupation - or the poetry of
the human machine, juxtaposed against a colder, more inanimate, and yet
somehow equally as organic background. It seems like the easy answer, to me.
It's too easy to wax philosophical about that kind of thing, and any art
critic or biographer with half a brain would be able, no doubt, to come up
with the same thought, however valid it may be. I, then, will choose
something more simplistic: that they are expertly rendered, masterfully
emotional pieces that convey through a very real sense of movement and
composition something otherworldly and therefore fascinating, their lines
asthetically pleasing, the content unusual and unique. The mind eats that
kind of thing like candy. And let's not leave out the obvious: they just
-look- wicked, don't they? They have achieved something by touching masses
of people in one way or another, a credit that very few revolutionary or
original artists can claim.
For me, they are at once simultaneously inspiring and uncontienably
depressing. I think, Will I ever have the discipline to create something
like this, that I'll be able to look at time after time and say to myself,
'yeah. Yeah...that's slick.' Maybe not. But if that's the case, at least
I'll have your work to come back to.

With all Sincerity,

Mary Marguerite (blah)
dijitalangel@hotmail.com >>

This morning, about 10 minutes ago, I received a windows messenger blurb saying that I had received email from Les Barany - his agent. The letter is as follows:

Dear Mary,

What you had written in the guest book deserves to be posted in its entirety.
Giger receives regular printouts of the Guest Book monthly from our webagent,
Thomas Riehn, but he does not control what letters are posted, what not, or
how and why they may be edited.
The truth is, I haven't had the time to look at the letters, myself, in more
than a year, but when I last looked, it was quite disheartening. There were
not too many well written and thought out entries such as yours. Till now, I
did not realize Thomas is editing letters just on the basis of their lenght.
Personally, I think that's a mistake.
I would much rather if he eliminated some of the short, obvious, moronic,
poorly written letters, mostly from fans of the Alien movies, not really true
fans of Giger's artwork.

As you can see, I am answering you and writing to Thomas to save some time.
I hope he will be able to find your entry and restore it to its full lenght.
Ultimately,
I think the Guest Book should be a reflection of the quality of fans Giger's
work attracts so it can be a useful testament and reflection of the higher
levels his art is appreciated on. The best way to do that is to print only
the best letters, unedited, unless there is a good reason.

Best Regards,

Les Barany

......................I don't know how to explain the rush that reading that gave me. Giger will be getting my letter. Giger! I've idolized his art since I was about 8 years old and saw Aliens for the first time, without even understanding why. Some days, amazing things happen. This has truly, fully made my day.

2002-08-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

Bash.Org

For the computer geek in you.

Italy is good so far. I've more or less figured out how to hit the shift button on these Italian keyboards without having to look down, and figured out where the apostrophe is, too, so I'm in pretty good shape. The only downside of this is that when I go back to the apartment and type on my laptop, I can't remember where everything is on the American style keyboard, and have to get used to things all over again. Bah.

Anyway, five days and counting until I'm home. Ciao!

2002-08-08T04:58:00.000-07:00

so, as most of you already know, the update below was written in a text file and then transferred, so it's the only forward-chronology part of my otherwise reverse chronology blog. i'm not going to be able to use caps here, because there is a strange button where the shift key should be. this cracked out keyboard is not going to prevent me, however, from delivering to you all of the information about my trip that you never wanted to know.

today i went shopping and got a haircut, and it's somewhat short, even for me, and every european. i don't know just .how. european yet, since i haven't been back to the villa to get the opinions of my intrepid travelling family + 1, but i'm sure they won't hestitate to give me the full quality of their impression the moment i walk in the door.

it's damn hot, and i need to go back to the villa to shower and possibly change. all black, while fashionable, is hardly the call of the day.

take easy

2002-08-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Aug. 3, 2002

Well, I'm sitting here in the Fairfield Inn and Suites of Albequerque. It's about 2:10 am, and my flight for Italy leaves at 11:00 or 11:30 am. I'm tired, but I'd really like an internet connection, as I would like to be able to keep updating my blog regularly throughout my travels. This entry (and likely several others, until we're settled in Florence) will probably have to be out of sync with the actual date it was written, unless I get up the balls to make a call to Durango just to post to Synapsis.

I'm writing on a new laptop. Yay! Compaq Presario 700 series with an AMD 2.4Ghz 1600 processor; it's actually faster than my PC at home. Screen resolution only goes to 1080, but I can hardly complain, as I have 14.1" of 1080 to work with. Was on clearance, too. Don't I feel special.

Before I hit the sack, I just feel the need to vent about how many drivers out there don't turn their brights off the MOMENT they see someone else's headlights. I, for one, do, and it's amazing how many people will get to 20 yards of your car before they suspect that their brights are keeping you from seeing the road. I HATE you people. Seriously. Especially those of you who have halogen or xenon lights; you can all go to hell for all I care, and double that when it rains. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't drive a matchbox for a car, but since I'm practically skimming the road with my ass, that kind of thing drives me nuts.

/vent.

nini.
-md.

Aug. 3rd: 4:12PM Colorado time

We're making our descent into Cincinnati, OH at the moment, with 7 minutes before we end up missing our flight to Italy. Why do I have the feeling I'm going to get to know OH better than I ever wanted to (which is not at all?). Will write more on the next plane, assuming we make it.

Aug. 3rd: 10:17 PM Colorado time

Well, so far so good. We made it to the plane with plenty of time to spare (30 minutes, not 7, I'm not sure where that figure came from, but my mom is crazy when she travels), and we've been there ever since. So far, playing games on my little machine hasn't turned out to be kosher; either my games don't like XP Home, or I'm being spanked by the gods for having bought another Compaq.

We arrive in Rome at 9:30 or so in the morning, which means I should probably get a little bit of sleep since I don't want to be backwards there from the get-go (and the four of us are packing into a car for a 2 hour drive immediately following landing - whose brilliant idea was that, anyway?), but I'm not sure that it's even going to be worth the effort of trying. I re-read both Maus books (excellent graphic novels: if you haven't read them, go do so), and have pictures of rodent holocaust floating around in my head, not exactly light fare on which to drift off to dreamland. I'm guessing my computer can at least deal with Diablo II, which is the most mindless instant-gratification game ever created (kill creature, get cool shit, sell cool shit, get cooler shit, rinse and repeat), so that's probably what I'm going to occupy my time with until I think I can manage to drift off. Anyway, that's all of the news from the peanut gallery for now.

PS: I LOVE first class.

Aug. 5th, 6:53 am Colorado time -- 2:55 PM, Aug. 4th Italy time (I think the dates are right. Might not be.)

Didn't sleep on the plane at all, not even half an hour. Not even a five minute doze. We landed and waited for what seemed like ever by the car rental place, then drove 2 hours or so here to Porto Ercole, which is a lovely, beautiful, brightly-painted little harbor town (and we were already almost killed once en route, but I attribute that fact solely to Tony's driving rather than the Italians on the highway with us). The hotel overlooks the harbor itself and much of the town, as well as a giant castle on the opposite hill. This would've been a hell of a place to have set up during any kind of war; you've got incredible lookouts in the mountain formations on either side of a narrow inlet to a moderately sized bay.

Finally took a cold shower, and I feel like a million, now, if a tired and well-shuffled million. Mom decided she wasn't tired - she slept a bit on the plane - and went with Tony into town to go wander by the water. Cameron and I, on the other hand (Cameron being my younger brother, for those who aren't aware, and Tony the man she's been seeing for a year and a half or so) are exhausted, and we've decided to kick it in the rooms for a while. I finally figured out how to get the converter set up on this jack mounted maybe 6 1/2 feet off of the ground without the weight of the converter itself yanking the plug out of the wall. Hopefully our villa will have more...practically located equipment. I guess we're staying here tonight and tomorrow night, then we're off to Florence, which is where I really want to be: I adore it. I love the Piazza Signorelle, I love the Ponte Vecchio, I love the Uffizi gallery and I love the population: mostly young people, it reminds me strangely of Boston, with grey cobble streets and hip stores, but with vastly cooler architecture and an art history that continues to surprise me. I'm constantly turning a corner here and stumbling into a relic of ancient Roman history or a grand fountain composed by Bernellini that absolutely blows my mind. I could soak in this culture for a hundred years and not even begin to finish seeing the incredible things kept here.

Not sure when I'll have access to an I-Cafe, but I'm hoping to jettison this stuff off to Synapsis before it gets too long to retype, in the event that I have to do so, and can't just jack my laptop into their network (most computers have slots into which you insert a pre-paid card, and the computer is designed to tick off the time you have by a clock - maybe there will be a hub to plug into that accepts a card? I hope so - not sure how easily I can route myself to my blog from out here).

The bed and the water are hard, the gelato and the pasta are (presumably) soft, and life is undeniably good. I no doubt miss anyone taking the time to browse this thing of mine for updates terribly, but I'm sending you all pasta vibes telepathically in about 4 hours, in hopes that you can not only partake in this delightful cultural experience, but also in some way share the amount of carbohydrates I'll be intaking and thereby save me from having to work quite as hard when I get back.

Peace.

9:34 PM -- Porto Ercole, Arrival day

I collapsed and fell asleep with the sun coming in off of the large terrace - the man behind the counter gave me a smallish room, but the biggest terrace of the three rooms, and told me I would enjoy the view. Slept until maybe an hour ago when I woke up and stumbled, groggy, down to dinner on a lower terrace of the restaurant which also has a spectacular overlook of the harbor and castle. The castle lights up at night -- we watched the sun sink and the lights come on, the crowds change from men and women in shorts to evening crowds on mopeds. I had the seabass: a bit fishier than I expected it to be, but mild for an ocean fish, and fileted expertly at my table by the only waiter in the place who speaks English - I suspect he was probably the head waiter, and he was pretty cheerful for being relegated to my younger brother and I's table. Pesce alla griglia - remind me to ask what griglia means when I have fully digested my food and am no longer at risk for being upset by the information.

Tomorrow, I'm likely as not going to be awake for breakfast, and so I told my mom to call me and give me the haps on what we would be doing. It's hot and humid, and I find myself wishing I'd continued to go through with getting a tan so that I could wear shorts and not blind everyone in sight. All of these people and their blessed olive skin; I feel too pasty for shorts. Tony said he spotted two I-Cafes right down the street, so I'm going to let the laptop charge tonight and then pack it and bring it with me tomorrow (as long as it doesn't turn out to be too heavy; maybe I'll do that tomorrow evening when we're winding down). Otherwise, the plans are open and we're just taking it easy in the way all people do who have become comfortable out of their element.

I'm thinking that sleep sounds like a really good option, at this point, so I'm off to do just that. I'll pass on the DVDs for the night, since it seems I can hear everything - and I do mean everything - not only through the walls here, but through the ceiling, too. Ai.

Wish me luck. Goodnight, America.

5:41 PM, Tuesday the 6th: Florence

Finally! We're here. After a few sweltering, blistering days in Porto Ercole (and I do mean hot and humid, people), we're finally here: in the city I really want to be in, about to go do things I really want to do (like get a haircut). The villa we're staying in is beautiful; now that I've unpacked and showered, everything is looking a lot more manageable than it was. I am feeling slightly dehydrated, which I suppose is normal, given that we've just spent from 10 this morning until twenty minutes ago packed into a hot car on the highway (I get so carsick in the back seat, too), but it means that this entry is going to be a bit short, while I go chug down some ice water and get ready to take Cameron out to see the Ponte Vecchio.

Much love to those I miss.

6:51am, Wednesday the 7th

So, we didn't go do any of the things I talked about yesterday - or, rather, I didn't, because I fell asleep. Cameron, Mom, and Tony went down toward the plaza near the Uffizi to watch the street performers, which they say are out in droves this time of year with all of the tourism going on near the galleries. I woke up early this morning and went out to find out that the people taking care of our house (Tony's sons, actually) lost the blank checks my mom gave them, or at least can't find them. She's making herself a total wreck about it. We'll be going to an internet cafe today for sure (hurray!) to cancel those check #'s and I can finally get this stuff posted to my blog to inform everyone that I'm still alive and kicking, and maybe I'll find out whether or not I can plug this laptop in. I worked all day yesterday on a piece to send off to a few people, mostly fictional stuff, and I'm pretty pleased with it, though it gets weak toward the end, because I was tired and carsick. That, I would also like to be able to send off, because it is now too long to retype, as is this.

Anyway, I need to go jump in the shower and get changed for the day, and mom and I will be going out to get coffee and breakfast down near the Palazza Vecchio before the sun comes out and starts heating things up. I need a haircut, we need to visit the I-cafe, but I'm sure I'll have more information for you later.

Peezout.

2002-07-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is not turning out to be my morning.

A good friend of mine has had housing trouble for the last two years. He lived with me for some time, and then moved out; a few months later, fights with his girlfriend caused the loss of his apartment, and he ended up moving back in with me. Both times, I didn't charge rent, nor did I ask that he do anything except get back on his feet.

Now, I come to find out that the last time, while I let him live here -by himself- for three weeks, during which time I stayed with my mother...his girlfriend (or he) stole from me.

Not only did she take two bottles of my perfume - Emporio Armani and Noa, not cheap stuff - she took a bracelet which I actually saw her wearing while I was at her house the other night. I'm missing a whole other pouch of my jewelry, to boot, and I suspect that she may have it - in it was also a necklace and bracelet my mother gave me for christmas that cost, together, almost $800. One of a kind jewelry hand-made by a woman I deeply admire, artistically; something extremely special to me. More than that, it contained jewelry that I bought myself, purchases made over a long period of time, all designer, all outrageously expensive, all one-of-a-kind, and all very, very special to me, because I bought them -myself-. I know that she and her boyfriend - my friend - think that just because I'm not struggling financially it's okay to use me that way, but it absolutely devastates me. I keep telling myself, it's only stuff...it's only stuff...but I LIKE that stuff. More than that, it's an ultimate betrayal from people I know and trust.

Later today, I go to my mom's and ravage her house the way I did mine tonight looking for my jewelry, but if I don't find it...it's time to confront my friend with it.

2002-07-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

Alright. It's 6 in the morning or so where I live. I've just had a conversation with someone I know online about religion, while I'm overtired, and as a result, I'm now too worked up to sleep.

Let me set up the circumstances for you. I am a religion-floater, by which I mean I take elements of religion that I find appropriate to my life and apply them in order to create a solid, meaningful set of values by which to live. Lately, I've been studying Buddhism: I find its optimism, peace and ability to not judge others soothing, and an admirable goal to strive for, as I like most people struggle at times with both.
The person with whom I was having this discussion is a professed Christian, loosely, by his definition. He probably finds much the same comfort in his faith that I find in the one I'm exploring, although I wouldn't call myself a full-fledged Buddhist.

Somehow, it gets around to religion. It usually does, this late/early, and I mention that I find it interesting that most religions all rely on the same foundations, beneath all of the dogma. Break it down, and it's all the Golden Rule, I say.
He tells me I'm 'flat wrong', and launches into a thousand reasons why religions all over the world don't carry themes of salvation/redemption/transcention. To be fair, I launched a thousand reasons back at him as to why they could, but ultimately, the conversation became circular and off-topic, and I ended up leaving the conversation feeling shut down and dismissed intellectually, not to mention debased where my belief in the basic nature of human kindness is concerned.

If all religions aren't the Golden Rule - and I still believe that they are, but supposing this individual is correct, which I admit is a possibility, as he's an intelligent person - if all religions aren't founded on a basic love and a want to become something more...what the FUCK is all of this for, anyway? What hope do we have of basic unity, when the most primal and persuasive wants of our lives can't be reconciled by common themes? Religions move thousands. Based on what? On the Jewish need to separate milk and meat? On the Christian need to abandon birth control and populate the world with a million hungry children? What is it FOR, if it isn't to bring one closer to something else - something more important, whether that's one's inner self or a higher being we can hardly fathom?

I don't know that I can believe we are separated by gaps as vast. I have to believe that the human soul naturally gravitates toward something more, that we are strung together by dint of our hope, and that those hopes are mirrored worldwide. It's the only thing that makes any sense. If that's ignorant, if that's flat wrong...then life is considerably more bleak than I think it is, and we should all be hoping the sun collapses on itself five billion years early and saves us the trouble of wiping each other out.

2002-07-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

I guess I've filled my blog with enough crap lately that I owe it a decent, full post, although I'm not entirely sure just what to write about. My life is hanging between a span of lazy time and a wall of incredibly busy time, and it feels stagnant as a result -- like I'm treading water. All of that is tempered by knowing that as soon as January rolls around, and I'm getting ready for school, things will suddenly sweep me off and carry me along at a torrential pace until the end of my second schoolyear, as I'm going to be forced to do two straight years with no vacation in order to catch up with my classmates. I wonder how I'll feel, two years from now, when I'm able to pause with a two year degree and contemplate where I want to go with my life again? Probably the same way I felt when I graduated from boarding school - rushed, as though I need to be somewhere doing something, unable to wind down. At the same time, maybe I'll feel as though I need to continue school that way - skipping vacations and just plowing through it until I'm done and I can move on.

Until then, there are things I have to get organized for myself. I've got to really dedicate myself to whatever it is I finally decide I'm going to do with my education, and that alone is a feat I haven't yet been able to manage. Now, I think I know what I want to do - art production in order to make video games, loosely - but how do I get there? How do I turn a mediocre talent and a fine imagination into fine art? There's a lot to consider. Will I have the resolve to sit and draw from anatomy books day after day? Will I pursue a classical art education first, and then stylize myself? Will I even be able to -find- my own style? I have no idea what the answer to any of those are. I know that I write constantly, but I don't have the resolve to sit down and hammer out something definite and conclusive that I would send off to be published. I receive a lot of support regarding my writing...and yet, I've done nothing with it to date. Am I condemned to spending the rest of my life in indecision?

I don't know. I'd sure like to find out, though.

On another note, I keep hearing about people I graduated with getting engaged/pregnant/married. It's a disturbing trend. I turn 21 in 3 months, and I can't even conceive of anything like that. It isn't that I don't understand the desire, but...how does that fit in with the lifestyle of someone my age? Probably because they don't live my lifestyle. All I want to do is write and draw and spin for the next decade or so, is that too much to ask? People tell me that I'll probably change my mind four years or so down the road at most. Maybe they're right. Probably not, though. I met someone once whom I would've dropped everything in my life for and battled the thicks of life selflessly for. Once was enough.

Alright. Enough dramatis. I'm going to play some Soul Reaver, and let my thoughts boil off.

2002-07-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

So, I've done my part for the day to spread the blogger madness. Two people I know have succumbed to the temptation and created blogs of their own. I can't promise that the content will be any good, but then, I'm not responsible for your having clicked on the link to follow it to whatever madness or idiocy might there lie, so.

Babel Fish Production Facility (name...pending?)
Nullspace

Endorse, support, spread the word.
(Just don't tell'em I'm responsible.)

2002-07-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

Clairvoyant Asshole!

No, literally. Someone on one of those naughty games I play on showed this to me. This guy reads people's asses like most people read palms.

(Right.)

2002-07-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

It's raining!!

2002-07-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

From afar, Castor grins. "Hypothetical question: you can have anything on a sandwich,but it's the last sandwich you'll have. What would you put on it?"
You paged Castor with 'Umm.'.
You paged Castor with '-I'm- making the sandwich, or somebody else is? This joint Meritage down on Main street makes a DANK Italian.'.
Castor pages: Someone else. The ultimate sandwich maker in your opinion.
From afar, Castor was initially thinking of something really nice, with cappicola ham and maybe some avocado but then got this odd thought. It almost seemed like a waste to go with something so simple when I could have something really interesting, but if it was the last sandwich I was ever going to have, I think I'd like a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich on white.
You paged Castor with 'You are so wierd. ;)'.
From afar, Castor chuckles. "Am I?" =)
Castor pages: There's probably a whole essay that can be written about that... about why I thought a PBJ would be such a great last sandwich.
You paged Castor with 'Maybe.'.
From afar, Castor chuckles and pokes you to blog more. ;)
Long distance to Castor: Cheshire laughs. Funny you should say that; I have the edit window open. I just dunno what to put in it.
You paged Castor with 'My blog isn't even that interesting, though. The links are cool.'.
Castor pages: Talk about your odd friend who yabbers about sandwiches.

There you go, dude.

2002-07-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Been a while, I know. I went back to Seattle for a four day stint, and returned home three days or so ago, deciding that I'd eaten dinner out enough times in my travels that I need to do some serious self maintainance. I'm hitting the gym four times a week now with my trainer, I had my hair cut yesterday and got a tan, bought a couch - which isn't really self maintainance, but made me happy, so it qualifies - got a facial today, and I'll be getting a salt scrub tomorrow and a massage later in the week. Yum. :)

There's a lot to catch up on, here, but I think I'm going to keep it simple and say that the fires are almost totally contained - whee! - and that I have a shitload of links for you that need posting. One of them is here, at A Minority Report spoof. Warning - do -not- follow this link if you haven't seen the movie. There are some spoilers in there. Very very funny stuff, though.

This twisted sign language guide is good for a cheap laugh.

Both of the above links were provided by my more than gracious Seattle host. Thanks, babe, you know I adore you. :*

2002-06-26T06:45:00.000-07:00

I'm home from Seattle, much to my pleasure and simultaneous dismay - pleasure because, let's face it, nothing is quite like home, and dismay because I really had one of the best times I can remember in quite some time while I was there. My pets are happy to see me, though, and with a high performance driving class and a trip to Italy coming up, I can't really complain, and life is good.

Oh, except for maybe that everything where I live is on FIRE. For those who don't know, I live in Durango, CO, and right now it's a burning, smoky, chaotic hell. Two nights ago another fire in addition to the Missionary Ridge fire started, and the smoke in town is insane. Nosebleeds and coughing blood have become regular occurrences, only prevented against by wearing a mask of the more heavy-duty construction type while I'm at home, which sucks, but works until I can manage to get my HEPA filter fixed. It's foggy (re: smoky) almost all of the time, and a lot of people have been evacuated already. My mother is working 14 hour days at the national red cross headquarters here coordinating lists of shelters and pre-and-post-disaster information on people who have been evacuated, and I've been sucked into the job (for being National Red Cross Disaster Assistance team members, the people she's working with are awfully slow - Microsoft Excel was giving them fits). I don't mind doing it, so much, save that even being up and around outside is unpleasant, and I'd much prefer to stay indoors and play video games.

I bought new ones in Seattle. Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future (PS2) is the most questionable title, perhaps, but certainly anyone who played this game back in the golden days of the Sega Genesis will no doubt squirm with pleasure at the thought. Nevermind that I can't perform the stunning arial tricks I once knew how to on that side-scrolling wonder in this new and unsettling 3d environment. It's simply something to aspire to. More oldschool Sega goodness will be brought to life with the release of Toejam and Earl III for the xbox this year. GROOVIN'!

On a more perhaps acceptable note, I also purchased Morrowind for the xbox, since it seems that it doesn't run on any computer outside of those perhaps employed by NASA and the federal government without issue. The xbox copy seems to work perfectly well, I'm happy to report, and I've already spent way too much time just running around the world map they've laid out and no doubt screwing things up royally, but having a damn good time with it. Non-linear gaming is the wave of the future, I tell you.

Anyway. That's about enough out of me. It's 7:43 in the morning, I haven't slept yet - the insomnia, my god - and I'm dying to get this mask off of my face. Must nap and awaken in time to retrieve my ID and pay bills...oog.

2002-06-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Well, what can I say about my last week?

I'm sitting in Seattle after a wonderful week of watching movies at the Seattle International Film Festival. At a friend's house, actually, and I'm online rather than out cavorting around because he has to work this week - I extended my ticket so that I could stay for the last week of the festival. There have been some really interesting films on, my favorite of which probably has to be The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (with Macauley Caulkin's younger brother! Go figure... maybe there's some talent in that family yet), though it's a tough choice. Out of the 15 or so I've seen so far, I probably only disliked 2 of them, and they were particularly bad.

I've been going out every night (and during lunch too, usually) to these great restaurants, but they're being unkind to my body - I'm going to have a LOT of gym time to put in by the time I actually get home; my trainer's going to put her foot RIGHT up my ass. It's okay, though - I haven't seen this person for quite some time, and it's nice to hang out with him again, even if it's only for two weeks.

Anyway, will update more later when I can think of something to say, and I'm not so damned hungry.

2002-05-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

I mux. I know it's a bad habit, but I can't help it. Anyway, since most of the people reading this don't even know what mux is, I'll break it down: I play writing games. And one of the people I was fortunate enough to meet during my time on one of these said games is a woman by the name of Jen de la Cruz, an artist of considerable talent (and she can write, too! Am I jealous? Maybe). While chatting with one of her friends the other day, I was reminded of her website, which contains a gallery of her pieces as well as an interesting journal detailing some of her artistic process (which I think is super neat) and her personal thoughts, too. She makes bugs and things out of dangerous hardware like razors, bullet casings, and fish hooks - how cool is that? It's definitely worth checking out. The link I'm providing here leads directly to the picture gallery of her bugs, but there is a menu on the left hand side that leads to the rest of the site's aspects, so click away.

Beware of Art: Gallery

Well, I got my confirmation letter from Northeastern's college of Arts and Sciences. Turns out I'll be there in January rather than in the fall, which I was wait-listed for. 17,000 people applied for 2800 positions this year. Rough stuff. And here I am, haplessly pursuing an art major after years of convincing myself that it just wasn't practical - taking up one of precious few slots that potentially better artists than myself could fill. It's somewhat daunting to think that I might find out that my talents can only go so far, and that I'll never break into the field. There's no surer way of finding out whether or not you have a gift than to try to apply it in school. Intimidated? Oh hell yes. And why is that? Well, when you see things like Polykarbon, you look at the stuff you're struggling through putting on paper and you have to wonder if you'll ever produce anything even remotely like that.

Random thoughts.

2002-05-16T04:35:00.000-07:00

So, here I am, five-thirty in the morning, at the end of a serious battle with my schedule. I managed to sleep through until four this morning, but couldn't quite reach the finish line - something I've set to be nebulously around the region of six-thirty AM.

More and more people I know are finding out about my blog, and it's causing me to rethink just what I want to do with it. Until now, I've used it as a place to store various rants and links that I personally find entertaining (making some wonder why I don't just stick to bookmarking webpages), but it has more potential than that, and I'm simply not tapping it. Maybe once my schedule normalizes entirely I'll have a better shot at writing thoughtful, poignant blog entries about something that actually matters. Maybe.

Until then, it's gratuitous oddity and twisted humor for all! In celebration of this fact, all of my links are fifty percent off. Happy surfing.

2002-05-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine sent me this link - I'd seen it before, but forgotten it. Very funny stuff.

Kerpal calls the Neighbors.

Thanks, Pace! :)

2002-05-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say tonight (errr...this morning, insomnia strikes again), except:

1) Don't eat too many Sour Punch straws in one sitting.

2) Go here. 8-Bit Theater

It's hilarious if you're an oldschool gamer, and -still- hilarious if you aren't. Very well done.

2002-05-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

Time for your semi-pseudo-daily blogger-enforced McBeating.

With summer coming, I've been hearing a lot of talk from people who're concerned about their looks. Have they gained this weight, will they be able to lose it in time to squeeze into that fly little bathing suit? There is a lot of moaning and groaning going on, but it helps to know that things could always be worse.

And even worse....

I bet they were trying to get high. Gross.

This guy is my new personal hero: Badass Bus Driver To coin Vin Diesel: "Did NOT know who he was fucking with." Only in New York, I swear to god.

Anyway. That's about it for now. No sleep yet...going on day three.

2002-05-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

A lost link has been restored to me by the kind and generous Wil Wheaton (actor prodigy and fellow blogger - if you haven't yet, visit his site here: Will Wheaton Dot Net. I haven't had time to peruse it all, but what I read I enjoyed.

And here, of course, is the link in question, to a flash animation that isn't necessarily the most complicated or best I've ever seen, but for one reason or another never fails to crack people up, including myself.

Weeeeee!

Thanks again, Wil, you're a champ.

2002-05-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

--Three weeks and I hadn't slept. Three weeks without sleep, and everything becomes an out-of-body experience. My doctor said, "Insomnia is just the symptom of something larger. Find out what's actually wrong. Listen to your body."
I just wanted sleep. I wanted little blue Amytal Sodium capsules, lipstick-red Seconals.
My doctor told me to chew valerian root and get more exercise. Eventually I'd fall asleep.
The bruised, old fruit way my face had collapsed, you would've thought I was dead.
[...]This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you.--

--"Fight Club", Chuck Palahniuk.

And so it is with me. Nothing as extreme as three weeks, but I won't say I haven't had fits and starts of insomnia where three weeks was looking like a real possibility. Today, only two days, watching the sun come up for the second time and wondering why I can't shut down - why we're a generation of people who can't turn off and just let it go. Sometimes it's stress, and you lay in bed listening to your brain berate you for hours at a time, thinking that if you ever meet whatever entity set this whole thing up, you're going to have to lobby for a mute button as your one kind deed for humanity version 2.0. Sometimes your brain's off, and it's the heart and the adrenal glands that can't cut off. Sometimes you're just awake, and you have nothing better to do than sit around and talk about something you don't think you're ever going to have again, and how great it would be to have it, which isn't really all that strange when it comes down to the line, that's just human nature, baby.

My insomnia? I've tried everything, all of which worked for a time, promising a solution, then ceased to do so. It's like I'm at war with my brain. Is it any wonder that my brain is winning? Meditation, hypnotism, acupuncture, valerian root, st. John's Wort, warm milk, counting sheep, exercise, Tylenol PM, NyQuil, Trazadone. Finally, Ambien. And while Ambien continues to work, the ten milligrams of it that it takes to put me out also makes me physically ill, offering me distubring hallucinations and the inability to walk prior to actually conking out. At twenty one years of age, that's not a really viable option for me, and the bottle is still full.

Doctors tell me that I don't enter REM until four or five hours after falling asleep..and that leaves me precious little resting time before I'm called to wake up by the necessities of education and presumed adult life. What sleep I do have is dreamless unless I take the ambien, in which case I always wake up somewhat disturbed and unable to remember what might've caused me to feel that way.

Sleep. It's so simple, and yet so many of us are denied that basic condition. Why? My parents sleep easily, my grandparents the same. Mine is a generation of sleepless people. There's a reason for it. I just don't know what it is.

2002-05-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

So I haven't blogged in a while. I've just discovered that I'm going to be spending 20 days in Italy this July, something I'm looking forward to, but something I'm also somewhat hesitant about - that's a lot of pasta and chianti to work off, and after a while, you start to wonder whether or not you're speaking your own language correctly. Thankfully, we'll be in Florence, where everybody seems to speak English, anyway, and I'm more or less familiar with the layout of the city. It reminds me of Boston - grey cobblestones and storefronts populated and orbited by youth culture. I even found a record store - Mastelloni - in one of the smaller piazzas to feed my DJ habit, but it's difficult to try and explain jungle or drum and bass to people when you don't speak their language very well. ("Boom tat, man, boom tat.") More on this later, I suppose.

Hopefully, I can make up for my recent inattentiveness by merit of the additions I'm going to make. I've added a picture that, while it isn't the best quality (polaroid) nor the most flattering, will hopefully lend a personal touch to the site. Though there's a somewhat nasty white buffer located on the right-hand side, it's to be rectified tomorrow, if the gentleman storing the picture for me on his website switches the image out for the new and improved version. Also, I've come across a bundle of amusing and varied links in the last few days, which I'll post. And they are, in no particular order:

*What's Better? - a pointless and yet highly addictive random voting site.
*Ja Da - strange and meaningless flash animation.
*Haunted Painting - Freaky. The stuff at the bottom is bunk (photoshop, anyone?) but the painting itself gives me the willies.
*Hi Tech Mods - A site dedicated to high tech computer modifications. I'm not talking about installation of hardware (although there is plenty of drool-worthy hardware on the page to study and lust after) - I'm talking about blacklights and extra fans and cooling pumps and effects tape and plexiglass windows for sporting at LAN parties engraved with biohazard symbols. These things look like what I'm trying to do to my car.

Aaaanyway, that's it for now, but there'll be more to come. With any luck, it'll be something that requires more thought than the brainless sensationalist postings I've been making lately. Maybe even a short story. Keep your fingers crossed.

2002-04-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

Don't be a skank.

2002-04-17T02:06:00.000-07:00

If you don't have this, you must get it.

Drempels

On another note, I was perusing some of the darker and more twisted sides of the net today (stileproject, rotten - you know the drill). I came across an article on both of the aforementioned sites that was pretty fascinating. Now I'm not an avid porn person - in fact, I can't say that I'm a porn person at all, really. But have you ever wondered what goes into making a porn flick? What's the process? I mean, we all know that regular movies are shot in bits and pieces. What about porn? How do they slice and dice the scenes to put it all together? Well, if you want to know the answer to that (as well as to many other questions you might've had), read this and enjoy.

2002-04-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

I can smell your brains.

2002-04-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have the flu.

I made it through the whole of cold season without a drip from the nose or even the thought of a cough, and here I am at the tail end of it, bedridden on the first nice day in weeks nursing a sore spot on my hand from the IV of fluid I took yesterday and waiting patiently for 8 hours or so to pass so that I can take another painkiller (which I don't necessarily need anymore, but find enjoyable nevertheless). Yesterday was the worst of it, and now that I'm rehydrated I think I'm in the clear. Saline and glucose IVs are the stuff of life.

What's frightening is the fact that it seems most of North America has the same thing I do right now, despite the fact that the doctor told me that it was a mutated virus from my respiratory infection two weeks + ago. Either he's lying to me, or everyone had the same cold I did, and they've all got the same mutation, now, too. Either way, it's an unpleasant thought.

As an aside...spending a full day in a hospital is always a very uncomfortable experience, not the least reason for which is the fact that you're never feeling too great at the time. In addition, however, there's something about the sterility of the room, the vibe of the flourescent lights, and the sound of someone screaming down the hall and cussing out nurses that renders the whole thing somewhat disturbing. When I think of the struggle of life and death I think: messy. Truth is, it can be, I guess, but the fact that that mess can be in some way contained is startling and, in my opinion, a little bit creepy.

2002-02-22T04:59:00.000-08:00

So we come to the end of an era, and the start of ...something else that isn't an era, but is starting, anyway. I didn't really want a blog, but I given the fact that I spend a large part of my conscious time either online or writing, a combination of the two was bound to eventually happen. So the big question, the penultimate question, the question that burns a searing hole in all inquisitive, soul-searching minds, that the web-weary and forlorn crusaders of a digital universe are asking themselves is this: Okay, great, now you have a blog. What are you going to do with it? What will you share with the world? Do you actually believe you can possibly have anything interesting to say that we haven't heard, oh, a kajillion times before? Just who the hell do you think you are, anyway? And to these people, these lackadaisical, brilliant travellers of the universe of the bit and the baud, I say:

Eat me.