December 10, 2000

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JeffMagnus node of the day: Windows Error Lookup Guide

Well, hi. I turned 23 yesterday. It was okay. I don't know if I have much to say here anymore. Many things don't seem worth doing, at the moment. Oh, I got photos from the Halloween party back, finally, and perhaps I'll manage to scan them eventually.

So, I've been studying for finals, and the last week of classes was hell. Very crazy; I didn't get nearly as much done as I should have, and I got very little sleep. Serves me right for leaving things till the last minute.

Anyway, I'm sitting there at my table studying away after watching a pretty good episode of Voyager, and I think of something that would make a good node. Riding in the dryer was born, and since I was racing someone else to do it first, I just wrote right in Netscape instead of in Emacs first like I normally do. After I finished that, I went on a bit of a noding spree, as if to try and make up for having no new nodes in the last two or three weeks. Again, all in Netscape, without the benifit of aspell in Emacs. I tried to make sure there weren't too many errors, but you never know. This day log makes the tenth in just under two hours. I don't expect to be back for about a week and a half, until after exams are finished.

And now, I'm really tired. No more studying tonight, I'm going to bed.

Wow, another day log just minutes after midnight !

What a dumb day. We looked at the house we're moving into again today and decided what repairs needed to be made. A lot of the rooms need paint jobs, and most of the carpets should be cleaned out. I'm really excited for the move, even though it's not until early March.

After we got back from the new house, I was going to go to a movie with my grandma (she's in town for awhile). My little sister wanted to go, so we were going to see the Grinch movie. Unfortunantly, the show was sold out, and we had to come back home.

I then struggled to burn three CDs for a friend and make a card for a birthday party I had later. I didn't really want to go to this party. It was held by Katie Sampson, one of my more instable and cynical friends. I went anyway, and gave her a gift. I came home early though.

So, now here I am... I think I'd better go to bed though. Staying up late isn't going to cure my cold.

Today (technically yesterday, I guess), a dream was fulfilled. Something that I had given up to fancy, something that I thought would never come to fruition. It's small, but in the life of a business major with a passion for music, it's huge. My a cappella group recorded the first CD in the history of our group.

We all crawled out of bed this morning around 7AM, and headed to an NYU dorm on 10^th Street to warm up and get loose for the day to come. Each of us was exhausted, as a night in NYC preceding this early morning does not mix well.

We took the N/R subway uptown to the recording studio. As we stepped into the beautiful building that would be our home for the next 9 or 10 hours, we felt the "preshow jitters." There was a tension in the air, as if we were about to give a live, on-stage performance. When we first entered the cozy little room with the microphones set up in it, we were in awe. This is where it would happen. This is where we would record and document our voices forever (or at least until we lose the CDs).

From the moment our musical director played the first pitch of the first song at 10:02AM to the last splicing of the last song at 7:10PM, I felt a swell of pride inside myself. As I probe deeper within myself for the reasons behind this sense of pride, I realize the answer. I've been in this college a cappella group for a couple years, but I have yet to get something tangible from the experience. Now, finally, I have something. This is something that will remain one of my most treasured possessions throughout life.

So this is how it feels when doves cry.

Time is nothing when you've nothing to lose... don't you know you can't hide something when it's living inside you Gravity Kills

Playin' the first Gravity Kills album so loud I'm sure my whole neighborhood is awake now.

Was depressed most of the day. Fortunately this evening consisted of some good dark therapy... friends, lots of alcohol, and the movies Se7en and Stigmata. Now I don't care what anybody has to say, but Se7en will forever be the most genius movie ever written (well, with the exception of Fight Club, but you can't talk about that, and besides, it was a book first). My sister knows Andrew Kevin Walker, and for Christmas last year, she gave me an autographed copy of the screenplays of Se7en and 8MM... to date, that is still my most prized possession...

Sure, I smile too much. Sure, I dress in color for the most part. But who am I to lie to myself? What makes me happy... really happy... is to learn all about the weird perversions of society, to study murders, victims, dark pieces of our soul. I am a freak, by nature. And do I mind now? No. Nature's domain includes every form of what society calls "unnatural" behaviour; in fact, there's nothing truly natural or unnatural under the sun... (Caleb Carr, The Angel Of Darkness). Give me throbbing music and the gritty underworld any day... I'd rather embrace your black desires than shun them, as that deep dark blotch on your psyche is driven in quite the same way as I, or anyone else, is. Know thine enemy...

Aside from my typical desire of being an FBI agent or a Homicide Detective, the most realistic and truly desirable position would be that of a psychological profiler... I think I could do it, don't you?

Working in Argos, from 11am till 5pm (only a half hour lunch break! dammit). I'll be spending any and all free time today studying for my Statistics 101 exam tomorrow afternoon.

I was suppossed to go to a party last night, but had to cancel, for various reasons. I saw Charlie's Angels on Friday, i thought it was very cool, though the critics don't seem to like it.

JavaJavaJavaJava is nice and easy, I need to write a CD class for Wed morning, I'll prolly get that done tonight in about 30/40 mins. (mmmmmmm arrays.....)

Gotta go, be back later to fill in info/data/etc.

---

Damn customers, ordering big heavy things, my back hurts now... I got my programming done, was reeeeeal easy. yeesh, this was a boring day... ;-) maybe better 2moro.

Here this day, I think back at what could have been.
I see my mistakes clear as day; slightly too sharp for comfort.
Someone I still love, whom once truly loved me, has passed. I watch and see what choices she makes and I mourn. What else is there for me to do. A world of half-way happy events, somehow missing that one needed thing. She used to write passionate wonderful things about me. Now her writings, although I could almost place myself in them, are about someone else. A love lost, what gained?

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. True especially to those who find another love.

Compare the value of anything once you have had something worth everything. Doesn't seem quite as grand. Shallow events continue to go, but somehow it's not as grand as when I had something I'm missing.

These disjointed writings brought to you by my melancholy adventures into my ex's recent writings. Update time. Oddly enough, growing up can be a great thing. There was a large amount of petty spite in this node. I talk to my ex, I still love her, but in a different way. I miss things - sure - but I don't feel much pain anymore, occational discomfort at the worst. Love made me who I am; it is one year from the day I first told her I loved her in just two days. I'm happy with life; waiting for love.

Thank you for your time.

13:10

The Wakeup Project: Close, but not quite a stylish-lung-tarring-item. I woke up at 11 o'clock or so and got up at noon, when I had alarm at 9. Well, at least this day will not be completely wasted like the last weekend was...

Usenet: Looks like hUpSiK has boldly gone to international Linux groups this time... Looks like the "official" translation for "Joka kodissa pitäisi olla ikkuna eikä pingviini" is "In the each home should be window nor penguin" (Comment from a random .sodat reader: "Fantastic text, almost better than what I can write in English" =). Trolls can be... interesting... at times.

16:43

OK, my personal MTA history:

Sendmail -> smail -> Exim -> smail -> PostFix

I junked Sendmail because version 8.8.8 had a serious security hole (hey, ever heard of a version of Sendmail that would not be buggy? *thwap* Plus, the config file format is WAYYY above the straight people's understanding. Thank God I'm Not Straight. I've heard of many newbies who got their brains fried when they saw sendmail.cf, and they could only blabber "UNIX is hard" for the rest of their lives and they could not even think of E-mail... =)

Geek hits! Geek bites! Geek shows you his sendmail.cf!--more--
You're permanently confused.

Exim was junked because it thought my local mail should be delivered to postmaster@ISP. *wide grin*

I now got Postfix, it seems to be pretty decent and at least the feature list looks impressive. AND it delivers local mail as expected, so fetchmail has actually chance of working =)

Sweet. Now I wish I would read my mail via POP3/IMAP so all this cool upgrading would actually make sense... =)

17:22

Whee, Postfix' SMTP banner can be configured. Woo hoo. Wonder-SMTP-server. =)

nighthowl:~$ telnet localhost smtp
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 Nyghtehowle Postfix, ESMTP spocken hier

21:00

OK, repeat from my Avocado diary, so you can see what my mysterious coding project was all about:

In January, eve of the XMMS plugin competition, I made a hardly interesting but working SID plugin.

Now, I spent another Sunday writing something that will be a bit more... interesting. InfoPipe is a plugin that opens a named pipe (/tmp/xmms-info) from which XMMS status can be read in textual, easy-to-parse format.

I needed this for my web cam page... I wonder why I couldn't find anything related from the XMMS plugin page, after all, this is a fairly obvious application of XMMS plugin API! =)

I also hope the configuration script works this time...

(The plugin is available from my home page: http://www.iki.fi/wwwwolf/code/xmms/xmms-infopipe-1.0.tar.gz)

---

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: Coy.pm sendmail smail smart host example.com named pipe

Updated:

I was in Kuala Lumpur this weekend.

Hmm... food...

Dinner Saturday was at the Hakka Restaurant on Jln Kia Peng. Yummy food, good company.

Lunch Sunday was at this restaurant called the Greenview restaurant in Petaling Jaya. The highlight of lunch was something called Sang-Ha-Mien, which is roughly translated as "Live Prawn Noodles". It involved big prawns, udang galah in local terms and a rich sauce.

Dinner was at this place called the Island restaurant in Sri Petaling, part of Petaling Jaya. There was this deep fried crispy fish with these ... erm ... things on top which made it taste like Thai salad. Interesting.

---

I also got to see my cousin's wedding photos. She had a grand ceremony (which I could not attend being in Sydney preparing for exams at the time) and had an Indian wedding, a Chinese tea ceremony and a western (sorta) reception. She's a Chinese girl who married an Indian man. She managed to wear costumes/dresses representing every major ethnic group in Malaysia while she was at it too. Amazing.

Woke up and noded about a day log and a dream log. My cousin called me and asked me to come over, I had not seen him for a while so I say, "Okay." While there a friend named Dayton Paul called and Rolie, my cousin, wanted him to come over to play some LAN games. Dayton says, "Sure," and he came. We played guitar and talked for a while, nothing pertaining to playing LAN games. We decided to call up another friend named Sam.

We all decided to go to McAllen, TX to eat at a chinese food place called Panda. On the drive there we had to stop because Sam had to pick up some money at the back ATM machine. Dayton made an interesting comment, "You know how if you put water into the coke mahines that they will freak out and spew out money and free cokes right?" Rolie and I said, "No, we didn't know that." Dayton said, "Whatever, I wonder what would happen if you pissed into the ATM slot."

Sam finished and now in McAllen. At a bus stop is a young Mexican-American girl and Sam dared Dayton to ask her, "How much?" Dayton obliges, he is one for dares. Rolie slows down as we began to pass her and Dayton sticks his head out the window, "HOW MUCH?" We drove off laughing at how the girl looked back at us. We were having trouble finding the place, we drove around a bit more. Rolie now dared Dayton to do the same thing to an old Mexican-American worker. Dayton stuck out his head and yelled, "HOW MUCH?" The man gave us a weird mean look and we drove on. We could not find the place to eat so we ended up eating at The House Of China.

While there I am commented on my shirt by the waitress and how she is a "long-time fan of The Cure." I smile and we are seated in the smoking section, though neither of us smoke. The waitress flirts with Sam, he doesn't flirt back. We ate and got our fortune cookies. I'm not sure which person got which fortune but here are three of them, first off with mine.

"You will meet someone special at a social event."

"Your current year will bring you much happiness."

"Be tactful; overlook not your own opportunities."

I remembered that yesterday that I forgot to add to my Day Log that we dressed up a boy in a dress and put make-up on him. He didn't mind though, see he's a bit on the other side of the spectrum. We finished and left to Hastings, a store that has pretty much everything you could want, minus food. On the way there a teenage boy is walking near the main road so Rolie dared him to tell him that. Dayton did and we all had a laugh, cheap laughs? Maybe.....maybe not. We messed around and I got checked out by a goth girl who obviously liked my shirt. We left and went to Sam's, he has DSL.

We downloaded a bunch of different crap, he downloaded 95.9MB's in 15 minutes, BASTARD!! Me and my 56K modem that downloads at 3.1k if I'm lucky. We decided on a LAN party.

We all go to another friends house, Carlos to set up and play some Covert Ops and Half-Life. Some of Carlos' friends are there, I know 2 out of 3 of them. Carlos invented a new type of bong and they take hits out of it. I deny the opportunity (no thanks). We setted up our LAN and played from 2 in the morning to 8:30 in the morning. I have yet to sleep and that's why I have no Dream Log as of now.

I have ingested way too many drugs. My stomach is rumbling, and I don't want to be at work.

Drugs for the day - as opposed to Five things I am thankful for:
Septra DS
Pyridium
Paxil
Acetaminophen
Ortho-Tricyclen

The Septras are big powdery white horse pills, and make me terribly nauseous. They are supposed to eradicate the bacteria which are happily living in my bladder. The Pyridium makes my pee orange and stains my underpants, it is supposed to make my urination less painful. The Paxil is supposed to make me less anxious and more happy. The Ortho-Tricyclen is cancelled out by the Septra, and is supposed to keep the babies at bay.

The outcome is that I have a sorely upset stomach, I'm wrecking my underpants (and my pee still hurts anyway), I can't have sex, and I'm still fucking depressed. To top it off, I think that the Paxil is giving me headaches. Hence the knockoff Tylenol.

I finally discovered this site realy early this morning, and I like it. After making my first few writeups and watching them get drilled into the ground by downvotings I feel a bit put off really. I won't however let this "minor" setback stop me from posting more writeups.

Hopefully someday soon I will manage to turn out some decent writeups and become accepted here and actually get some upvotes and maybe a cool or two. I hope so.

I have been described as a GAT (Geek of All Trades) by someone who was advising me on how to get by in this place. Actually i think that sounds about right. althogh FAT (Freak of All Trades) might have suited just a little bit better.

Fear

Life kinda seems to be falling apart.

It all began yesterday. In the morning, it came to my attention that Mr. Gill, someone I've known for years and admired, passed away because of some sort of cancer.

My mom didn't let me swim because I was sick. As it turned out, the boys lost by only 4 points to our greatest rivals. 4 points that, had I been there, I would have guaranteed for our team just by swimming. I could have just taken my time. But no, my mom decided that I was too sick, so I couldn't go. I was perfectly fine! I just have a little sniffle, that's all.

I've had a little sniffle about once a month every month for the past few months. I'm scared that it's AIDS ( equivalent of a pregnancy scare), but since writing that the fear has subsided a bit. I'm getting tested tomorrow. Fortunately, the only guy who I REALLY think I could have gotten it from, I didn't have sex with him until recently. So if I do have AIDS, I wouldn't have any symptoms. So that makes it more likely that I'm just sick, and it isn't AIDS. Then again, maybe I have it from him, and symptoms haven't developed yet. Who's to say?

I could get lucky and discover that I'm totally clean. Then I can celebrate, partially because I'm clean, and also because my eyes have been opened and I'm gonna be more careful in the future. :)

When I was worried that I might have AIDS, I went to an old gay chat that I used to frequent. I wanted to talk to my friend there about it, since he had AIDS. We had told each other a lot about ourselves, and I held him as a pretty close friend. I hadn't seen him in about 2 months though. As it turned out... he died in October. That was just the last straw.

I had never seen American Beauty before (SPOILERS BELOW), so I started watching that when I went to bed. It was kinda depressing too, but the end was uplifting at least.. it helped me get to sleep. I feel sorry for everyone in that movie. They were all victims. Except for Lester, who gets killed because someone else can't handle being a victim. But he was free, and that's what I want to be. I honestly don't know who I felt most sorry for. And it was weird... I couldn't relate to any particular character, but I related to pieces of them. Angela didn't want to be ordinary, and enjoyed people looking at her. The only difference between me and her is that I've actually done those things... The guy with the camera, whose name escapes me, reminds me of how I feel at church. I feel different, perhaps a little too unique. And his dad reminds me of mine. It's a little sad.

This morning I got up and went to church. My nose ran throughout the service, but I didn't care much. I still don't know what's up with that guy. I found myself getting teary eyes several times when I thought about Jason and Mr. Gill. The odd thing was that the guy who looks at me would get the teary eyes too. The day I get the nerve to speak to him will probably be the day that I die. I see pain in his eyes that seems to mirror mine, the pain of being misunderstood, of having to lie because people don't understand the truth. I don't know if he's gay or not. I don't really think that my interest in him is about that. I just feel a connection there. I want to know why...

My life

2:00pm: get up out of bed and get changed.

2:15pm: make and eat breakfast.

2:30pm: for the next 3 hours entertain both of my younger cousins by playing with them on the playstation.

4:30pm: start to do the stack loads of homework that i have to do for monday (ha!)

6:00pm: have dinner (a half made and cold one)

9:00pm: go on the internet till 3:00am and then start the whole process again.

what a fantastic, exciting life i lead.

i woke up this morning and knew i'd be this way, withdrawn, irritable controllably so, and i knew that i could live it on my own rather than having most all the people around me aware that i'd even woke up in this place nowhere. i had trouble falling asleep last night.. i told my head to shut up but it was not inclined to do so. it's always the little things.. i wish that always meant something good.

but anyway, everything is floating along nicely hardly praying for sweet death at all. who knows, perhaps things will work out. i am not really optimistic, but i'm not .. not optimistic?

i'm sorry.

the man came home yesterday. he came over, and we slept a lot of the day. we went to dinner at a steakhouse, got a few movies and a couple of bottles of wine and went to bed late. he's still jetlagged from being in cali so long. i'm still a morning person. i woke up at 6 today, walked cozmo, then went back to bed for a bit. i went to the store and left my man to sleep for a while longer. he woke up, we went for lunch, and now he has gone back home to virginia to prepare for the coming work week. I sit still at home, doing laundry and watching educational television. i am sad. he was here only a short amount of time. i will see him next weekend when we head to my mother's house. but i am still sad at not having him to sleep next to. to drool on. to talk to and hug, and be silly with. is this love, or codependency? that depends on your perspective. as with everything in life. i am okay. i am young and in love and all is well with the world.

Yet another damn scarab in my pocket. I got the little guy from another friend at the coffee shop. Jeez, when you ask for something, I mean REALLY ASK for something, it does have a tendency to just drop on your lap.

Which brings me to another weird thought. I can't date, see there's this thing hanging over my head now, and whatever it is, it makes it so I can't date. (Well, I could, but I don't think that would be right.) But last night, again, I ran into the guy who I know has been after me. I was with my own private mafia, we stopped so I could pick up some ciggies, and *BAM*, there he is talking to ficus. The strangest thing about him, yes he's attractive, but that isn't the point. It's that he has the same birthday as me. Thanks, but I've had quite enough weirdness from people I share the same birthday with. Not that that's bad, it's just getting really creepy. I know he listens to our conversations at the coffee shop, he interupts at just the right moment. I feel like I know what he's up to, because there are way too many similiarities between us. I know why it is he insisted on giving me his number.

But I can't date, so that's the end of that. Right? I just wish he'd stop turning up like a bad penny. I have enough to juggle and swallow right now.

Woke this morning, realised the time, rushed to get my bags packed and to get dressed so that I could have some time with my baby before he went to work.

I think I only made him a little late, I forgot my mobile though so couldn't sms him during the day. I'm not going to see him much up until Christmas as he has accepted shifts for after uni during the week as well as working weekends.

Got the train into Glasgow, met Iain's Big Issue vendor Tony. Tony's broken a bone in his leg, it's a clean break so it should heal well. Iain hadn't seen him in a while and has been a bit worried so I was glad to see him, though I can't imagine that the injury will help him on the street, it's getting bloody cold too.
I had just bought a take away hot chocolate and a cake when I met Tony, wish I had had the thought to have given him them at the time.

After chatting with Tony I got the bus to my home town, bought some turkey to treat my cat when he gets home. I got a phone call yesterday from my mum saying that he was at the vet. Buddy has had to have a small portion of his tail removed after having received a wound to it whilst out playing. Noone knows exactly what happened but whatever caused the wound severed the muscle beyond repair.

We were supposed to be getting Buddy home today, he had surgery yesterday and today if he had eaten and kept it down we would have gotten him home. But he didn't eat so I don't get to see him till tomorrow.

And so I am at my mother's instead of at home studying because I'm soppy, sentimental and need to see my cat happy and settled before I can feel comfortable enough to go back and get to sleep warm in my bed with my baby again.

Well then.. IainB and nine9 have jobs? I'll have to pay a visit to Argos and order some light stuff.. and perhaps we now have a good venue for a Scottish Everythingians meet?

This morning, after much procrastination, I was out looking for a good winter coat. And found one without too much trouble, in the Barras market. It's a big bluey grey duffel coat from BHS, probably from before the 80's (guessing by the logo), and I found a five year old bus ticket in the pocket. But it was a mere £15, and looks pretty good on me. I just wonder what Nick will say, seeing as he's almost constantly wearing a similar one..

Then I tried to study this afternoon, and didn't get on too well. I have two exams tomorrow - one a degree exam, the other just a class exam. And another on Tuesday afternoon, and another on Friday morning. What bugs me a bit is that this Thursday is Daft Thursday, GUST's 4 hour live broadcast and ensuing piss-up, and Friday is Daft Friday, the GUU's 12 hour christmas ball, starting at 8pm. But I'll live, I'm sure.

Oh, and I have the beginnings of a cold. I think I'll spend Wednesday in bed. There's also a plan to go ice skating in George Square's New York-style outdoor ice rink, but I think I may go to work instead and finish setting up conecam.

Now, do I go and sleep, or do I go and cram? Tough choice..

Weekend review (or, progress, loneliness, and let's drive david insane):

This ranks among my most productive weekends ever. I delved into the conformity of high school and:

1. Wrote six (count'em onetwothreefourfivesix) little mini-papers (usually 1-2 pages or so) on various topics dealing with technology of warfare in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
2. Spent several hours preparing for my AP Calculus mid-term
3. Wrote three (count'em onetwothree) rather long essays on various topics dealing with physics - neutron stars, black holes, anti-gravity, and galaxy clusters - verifying my A for the quarter.
4. Finished The Grapes of Wrath - It's an eloquently written story (beautiful language/descriptions) - but just not my cup of tea. I found it rather uninteresting (shall I say it? boring), and in some cases ventured into utter blandness.
5. Went shopping (with the mother), did some (alas) Christmas shopping; bought a new coat for an upcoming performance; and picked up the new NIN cd (that i've had in MP3, but can't live without the retail).
6. I now have 16 writeups until level 4.

It's a hectic time, just before mid-terms. I've taken to being a recluse, and, for once, I don't mind it. I like to spend my weekends alone sometimes. No matter that I find myself doing it more and more often.

i think i'm crazy

...maybe...

Much time was spent, and sleep lost, as I panicked over a performance I'll be giving later this week. And it hasn't been pure nervousness, or anxiety. It's absolute fear; verified every minute and pounded into my brain. For those familiar with keyboard music, I'll be playing one piece (yes, just one), and that's Chopin's C# minor Etude (op. 10). For those of you not familiar, it's a knockout piece; and perhaps I shouldn't be playing it. I've been feeling weaker and weaker over the past several weaks, hallow, emotionless. Almost as if I've been drained, the music suffers.

I can't put my finger on it, and it's driving me literally insane. I've done dozens of these programs before, and nothing has rattled me quite like this. Nothing has stripped me of all my confidence before, because I've always been ready. And even here, I've spent my hours in the practice rooms, my sweat and tears, blood weakening, shoulders and forearms pulsing in agony. Always pushing myself to the limit, and always chipping from every direction. I still feel failure

And so I've blinded myself with schoolwork in order to forget, to escape it. And every time it occurs to me, I feel shivers down my spine. It gives me a rush, and I want to punch something, or drive myself into a wall. Reassurance doesn't seem to work anymore. I'm hopeless. Maybe I need to eat something? This CD blows my mind.

I'm too busy to be lonely.

heartache makes my eyes hurt

8:31 PM

I have a date to the christmas party! My friend TC set me up with someone who I met last tuesday at the pool hall. For my daylogs I will refer to her as Sara. She's quite cute and kind of shy, but very pretty.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Before this, I had no idea what I was going to do today. I woke up around 2pm and was wandering around e2 and doing other net stuff, when I decided around 4 that I needed to get off of the comptuer and go decide what I'm going to do. I laid down on the couch for a while to think about it, and I was about to fall asleep when TC called me to ask if I had anyone going with me to the christmas party. I said no, so she asked if I was interested in bringing Sara, and I said sure... I might have sounded too enthusiastic :)

The whole group (me, TC, DZ, CR, Sara, and two of CR's friends) got together for a little while over at a friend's house for about an hour then went to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner. TC introduced me to the various types of alcoholic beverages and I shared her drink which was sort of like a milkshake with all kinds of evil sweetness mixed in. I didn't taste any alcohol, which is good because I don't like the taste. I'll have to order myself one of these next time.

I couldn't mention the christmas party because one person in the group wasn't supposed to know about it, so it made it difficult for me to talk to Sara about it. I wasn't even sure if she was aware of the arrangement or not. I did manage to accidently mention the party when I made a comment about how TC is going to have to get dressed up for the event. D'oh! I've got a big mouth.

I'm kind of excited. I'll get Sara's phone number and/or give her mine on tuesday so we can decide what's going on. It's going to be nice to not go by myself for once, especially with a pretty, intelligent lady. I would be happy to get together with her for other things (movies, etc); I'll look for some clues if she seems interested in me or not.

Even if not, I seem to be getting a good group of friends, so my social life is starting to look a little more positive.

I'm so happy :)

I think I'll watch Army of Darkness again. I need to buy this movie. It's good stuff.

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12:05 AM

Things to do tomorrow (or soon):

• haircut
• go to work
• gym
• grocery store
• clean apartment

Must get to sleep soon if I'm going to get anything done tomorrow.

I am in so much pain this morning. I like it, the pain. I love it. I’d live for it. It is quite a complex truck load of pain. Starting with the crown of my head: there is a dull notion of a headache. A half hearted headache that hasn’t yet matured. There are steel clamps on my cheekbones they feel as though they are trying to jut through the skin of my face. Why should my face hurt? Too much smiling last night. I’m out of shape that way. Back to the pain! When I turn my neck there is a sound, not unlike splintering wood. The back of my neck is glowing with stiffness. My shoulders are trying to roll out of their places. My forearms are panting. The pain in my hands spreads out from the centre of my palm to the fingers.The muscle beneath each of my breasts that lifts my arms is unhappy and, for every arm lifting request I give those muscles they respond slow with a deep groan and the time lag of an over-worked waitress. My belly is completely empty. Well it’s filed with cigarette smoke, I think, but nothing else. My pelvis is especially painful. The blunt little bones that form the corners of my hip seem to bump into everything. My robe rests on them and it feels heavy, as I walk and as I pass through the door if one brushes the frame it murmurs dully and joins the chorus of pain. The big mussels in my legs from the butt to the calf all have the same complaint. They don’t know if they want to constrict or relax. They try a little of each, alternately, without me asking or Irving permission as I sit. At last my feet like my neck have become avant garde musical instruments capable of making a whole range of cracking and popping sounds.

Did I mention that I like this?

What caused all this? Well, last night Nick convinced me to go to this party. I had asked Nick over. I was mad with loneliness, just wanted to talk: we talked, and watched most of walkabout which is like 2001 without the space men. He said: "this guy at filmmakers is having a party, lets go." I was only half interested but when I got there there was a little hot room where they kept the music going. Six or Seven people were dancing like there was no tomorrow. I joined them. I love to dance. I hear music and it activates my body. I’m like those frauds that say they can channel the spirits of the dead, only I channel the spirit of music and I don’t think I’m a fraud. I got dancing and I couldn’t stop. The song would end and I try to walk off the floor, but then the next song would start and one part of my body would start tapping or shaking time and next thing I knew my body would have pulled me out there and the music could be running right though me like a hose that can’t help but wave and gyrate when the water’s shooting out. Nick danced too, less. I don’t think he had anything that he needed to dance out. When I was dancing I was trying to shake something off of me. I don’t know what it was. I might have succeeded. Even if I only half succeeded, it’s worth all the pain.