Wrapped in blankets, crying. Things are strange.

Very good at distracting myself, doesn't always work.

Poor, sick bird.

Long drive through nasty Connecticut traffic, nothing out of the ordinary, just sort of hate it there, most places, anyway, took some pictures of the traffic, imagine that made T a bit terrified, sorry, T. Dropped T at the train, wended my way to Wooster Street, ordered a sausage & mushroom pizza to go at Frank Pepe's, then walked around for a while, taking photographs. Got my pizza, eventually found a 91 on ramp and headed north at speed, mostly about 80, eating eccentrically sliced Original Tomato Pie, taking more photographs of the dense traffic.

The periodic complete indifference to danger consequent to horrific abuse can be quite liberating, parody of a desire for life often better than the real thing.

Was thinking of going to see some music in a while, Peretz was so pleased to see me I've decided to give it a miss.

Has gotten quite cold, heard it might snow on Sunday, would be a treat.

Got out of work around one, went with T for nice sushi lunch at Moshi Moshi, extremely pleasant. Going to take her to the New Haven Metro-North shortly as the person who was going to do that flaked. Gets a little tiring picking up other people's slack, better than when you'd like to but it's impossible. My experience is that those are the two main alternatives in life, at least for one such as myself.

Just out snapping more pictures of trees in pale twilight, cold fingers.

May try & get myself some famous Wooster Street pizza after dropping off T, being the one who comes through has its perks, I suppose.

Hard to understand why refraction & reflection don't have more equal roles in our largely optical conception of the mental, maybe because mirrors have been commonplace so much longer than lenses. Stranger as they're really the same thing. Diffraction doesn't seem to enter in much at all, for whatever reason.

Should reread what Goethe has to say about color, maybe this evening.

Sitting quietly with Peretz, inside both of us, mad torrents.

Slowly coming into focus.

Old college chums coming into town some time tonight.

Trying to get my head into proper Modern Lovers order.

Bit chilly, going to get chillier still.

Sky cleared out nicely, lovely starry night, wish I were out in the hills, things to do down here.

Just go on and on, supposedly that's intolerable & terrifying, she keeps reading anyway, I keep going on and on. Bit hard to understand it- not the part about me going on and on, understand that just fine, I tend to go on and on- the other part I find a bit odd.

Odd kid, but sweet.

Would sort of like to be asleep, waiting to hear from T her requirements.

A little roasted squash, some toasted rosemary bread with cheese, moving on to the cocoa with mini marshmallows. Makes being unhappy seem ridiculous, even a bit obscene. Nonetheless.

100% legit cocoa weather, wet, a bit cold, think I should try to prevent myself from moving on to two cups a day till it's genuinely cold. We value discipline.

Again with the stressful, secret doings, at work this time around, still really not my thing, ick, hate being trapped in musty closets.

Just gave T a lift to her folks so she could take her mom's car to central Mass. for a visit, she'll probably be back here later.

Was considering getting myself some sort of takeout treat for dinner, decided to be a good boy & eat leftovers instead.

All I need to know about events in my community I learn from the spam filter, considering going to this.

Bored out of my mind, photographing spam, etc.

Have a bit of a chill. Maybe more coffee would help.

Sadly, a willingness to do anything another asks of you doesn't make it possible to accede to contradictory demands. Maybe it could work if one were very Hegelian about it, even gave that a try for a bit, eager to please but never been much of an Hegelian, have always been & remain convinced that contradiction is a matter of words and not things, things other than words, I mean.

Should write some songs. Maybe with lots of words beginning with aitch preceded by 'an'.

Yeah, whatever, typographic convention be damned. The movement of self consciousness, ha ha ha.

Just noticed that the editor of the Athol Daily News is named Barney Cummings, wonder if they need a sysadmin. Could certainly use a new web designer, anyway.

Anyway, anyway.

Another gray morning.

Fell asleep on couch, watching cartoons, dreams full of noise & color, some pleasant enough, others not so much.

Got something more resembling a normal amount of sleep anyway.

Thinking in the shower about how when nuance is lost on people, there's just not much point in talking with them at all. Maybe I should be quiet for a while.

Walking with Peretz, noticed my left knee doing funny things, clicky, painful. In the phase of the extended sleep deprivation cycle where muscles start acting up, I guess. Also, light on surfaces seems to have magical properties, maybe a touch of psychosis. Could use more sleep, won't get it.

Limping along on the last of my orange dry soda & thoughts of better days, will have to do.

Soda run Friday afternoon, maybe.

Took T back over to her parents. Lying on the couch, crying.

Should really take the dog out.

Fetched T, we ended up dining on the fancyish end of the spectrum at Apollo Grill, braised wild mushrooms with polenta, butternut soup, pistachio crusted salmon, duck in cherry/port sauce. Yum yum.

Doing some esthetically pleased spacing out while T plays Facebook Tetris. Now she's swearing in Russian, imagine my ears turned a delicate shell pink to match my delicate sensibilities.

Peretz was excited to see us, on his bed with bone now, sorting out his feelings.

Need to go fetch T from Springfield bus terminal shortly. Need to walk P first.

Maybe we'll go out for dinner after I fetch her, that would be nice.

Dead tired.

Beautiful, crisp morning.

Lots of things awry with my mind, social anxiety, panic, perfectionism. Makes it difficult for me to do many things I'd like to be doing, people get close to me & are suddenly in a position to notice that I get into states which scare the shit out of them. It's a big drag. One thing which is basically totally unimpaired by these things, though, is what the professionals term 'reality testing.'

Find it easy to relate to people feeling tormented; having strange, obsessional thought patterns; very hard to relate to impaired reality testing. Sorry about that, sweetie, we all have our limitations, I guess.

Time to make the donuts.

Being treated like a sex-crazed stalker, pretty strange- really, project much?

Liars think I'm lying to them, the sex obsessed imagine I'm their mirror image. Mostly pretty straightforward & honest, as much as I can manage, anyway, & while I find sex interesting, it's not among my primary concerns in life. Those are, pretty much, certain other people, art & staying functional, in roughly that order of priority.

People lock themselves into little nightmare closets, get them to peek out for a minute at the big world outside, often as not they try to drag you back in with them. Imagine they see it as a favor.

T is on the phone, is returning this evening.

Thinking about all the new modes of being available lately, don't get the impression people much notice, still haven't really noticed the effects of motor cars & such, mostly. If you've noticed, you can get an idea of how much these things have sunk in by observing how they're portrayed in popular film.

Thinking about Marinetti & the Web 2.0 crowd, easy to get carried away, lose track of subtleties.

Thinking about how Internet mediated my past two serious relationships were.

Anyway, dissolving into thousands of photos and an endless stream of text. One option, anyway.

Keep finding myself thinking it's Monday, wonder what happened to Monday.

Have been fool enough to commit myself to going into work early tomorrow. May provide an opportunity to sample & photograph untried local donuts.

Lying in the dark, just spent some time playing with camera, tall glass of raki & another tea light.

Hopeless.

Finally worked up the energy to make my way to the refrigerator, made myself a plate of tasty Indian leftovers, perked me right up. Decided I had been neglecting Peretz between busyness with work & being exhausted, took him for a long, meandering walk through town. Took a lot of long exposure photos of him frisking, zipping along, looking at things. While doing that, I thought about being hopelessly drawn to severely mentally ill women, think mostly it's that they seem more like real people. Probably something I should get over, they seem to enjoy hurting me very badly for some reason.

Keep finding myself poking about in work web server, Comcast traffic shaping cramping my style.

Losing track of time in some pretty drastic ways, should figure out a way to get more sleep.

Learned earlier that I may not be able to take my remaining vacation time during this calendar year, will roll over to next, probably with some sort of additional time tacked on, didn't really want to go anywhere much anyway, still a bit miffed.

Sometimes feel like I could use some time off, hard to say if it would be any better really.

Lack the energy to get up & eat something, should really get up & eat something.

Turned into an almost alarmingly sunny day, improved my mental state a bit.

Needed to bring another workstation over to Amherst as one of the ones I put in weekend before last died suddenly, thermal failures, well-acquainted with the nose end of the failure curve, I am. Testing the new one now. Going to put in a new UPS as well.

Crossed the bridge with low, vivid sun in my rearview, entering Hadley, little breadbox car headed the other direction, into rush hour bridge snarl, good to see her alive & kicking, sun in her face. Funny how easily others can make me feel better, often just need to go right on doing what they're doing, just being. For me to do that myself is a lot of hard work, have no real problem with hard work, just gets tiring.

Well. This computer seems to be working OK, for the time being, anyway.

Not nearly enough sleep, what I got was pretty fraught, feel like I'm going to throw up.

Thinking about network design.

Read some more Cordwainer Smith while being unable to sleep, good stuff, Menschenjäger Mark Elf.

Can't sleep, thinking a wide variety of unpleasant thoughts, worrying about people realizing how accurate my assessments of things and people tend to be, they're mostly pretty accurate, don't spend much of my time being surprised. It's sort of boring, actually.

Let myself get caught up in a possibility of things being less boring. May have temporarily impaired my judgement, don't really think so, think I made a fairly good risk assessment, weighed it against possible benefits and decided it was worth a shot. Didn't work out, sad, still think it was worth a shot.

Really wish I could sleep.

Enjoying a late night glass of Autocrat coffee milk, gde tsarina?

A swallow will tell you.

Trying to figure out how to take interesting pictures in the dark. I know, I know, might be a good idea to learn how to do that in the light first.

Finishing off free bottle of Salice Salentino, pretty tasty. Things are always tastier when free.

The sheep are tastier when you rub salt in their wounds.

May have a sandwich.

Found myself thinking about how my dad used to make centerpieces with tea lights, decided to go out & get some tea lights. One is burning in little handmade bowl/cup I was given once for fixing a potter's computer. Also got dog biscuits, various soaps, coffee, bottle of Retsina.

Watching the little flame. Peretz wants out. Raining pretty hard.

Considering weekend getaway(s) to Provincetown, Montreal. Anybody want to tag along?

Wet & dark. Early evening feels like the middle of the night. Late at night, can't sleep. Lame.

Going to make an effort to pull myself together, do some dishes.

& this little piggie went 'we, we, we, we' all the way home.

Poor little piggie.

Proud possessor of brand spanking new passport, pretty quick, should maybe leave country with this year's remaining vacation time.

Spent most of the morning sorting out bizarro Windows Vista/Microsoft Live OneCare firewall issue. Bizarro! Bizarro!

Wet world out there.

Slowly waking up, reviewing photos, musing on things linguistic & paralinguistic. Perils of a large tonal range.

Coming to the conclusion that I simply can't be honest with people about some of my reactions to things without terrifying them. Find this a bit of a drag as they are, after all, just reactions. There's a lot more going on. Not everybody needs the total picture, maybe just me, actually. Perfect information state.

Left to my own devices, coming up with more all the time. Thinking about being told that another had a pretty good idea of what my likely coping mechanisms were, suppose reductive thinking can be a comfort, nothing to do with me, of course.

Being a bit of a slugabed, you're observing the tip of the iceberg.

Been spending some time in a funny depersonalized state. Like ha ha funny. Beats panic.

Batty as all hell, I am. Still mostly pretty sweet & helpful. Difficult, but probably best.

Self is coming back, panic along with it, could really use some sleep.

Going to try to sleep.

Spent some time playing with Internet & camera, listening to African guitar music, now having sand hamwich & local soda. Dead on my feet, typical Sunday dilemma, if I go to bed now, next thing I'll be doing is getting ready for work.

Giant orange moon rising over the river made me cry like a baby, such a fucking sap.

Got back to the house, Syd Barrett was playing, it's too much.

Germs on now, that's better.

Just back from a trip to Vermont for Sunday burger & malted. Went to the Putney Diner, didn't have malteds, turned out, got a coffee shake instead, still quite nice. Bacon cheeseburger wasn't as absurdly huge as the other ones I've had recently, sort of a nice change, delicate, nice crispy bacon, good quality hand cut fries, needed a little salt.

Drove up to Santa's Land after to take pictures, passing Landmark College en route, 'King of the Road' looping in my head on top of thoughts of World Usability Day.

After that, went & walked around downtown Brattleboro in the light of sunset, taking more photos, looks like Lebanese place may be reopening soon, always up for nice Lebanese.

These things I'm doing, they're quite entertaining, but not what I'd really like to be doing. Stranger to have something I'd really rather be doing than not being able to do it, spent a very long time without anything like that, slowly getting used to it.

Took a very long time to fall asleep, then slept for a long time, deep, dreamless, woke up, still had a headache. Muscular tension.

Thinking about Blue's Clues, Roy G. Biv, mimeograph machines. Big sky's too big to sympathize.

More functional all the time, watch yourselves.

Nullity, big goose egg, so golden & radiant one could spent many blissful hours contemplating it & I do.

Despite everything, remain convinced boredom is the worst thing ever. The worst thing about the worst thing ever done to me- how fucking tedious & banal it was. Think this is probably true of all or at least most all of the most monstrous things people do. How haphazard so many people are, lacking even the semblance of style, unrepresentable, like boredom itself. So often I find myself looking at them & thinking things like, 'these scattered shreds of people, these barely even people, these are people of the future, from the future & I am something very old & tired.'

Was out walking a while ago, singing high little snatches of song, strange harmonies with the night sounds. Being startled by bare trees illuminated by street lamps.

Just back from doing a little work at work, funny mood. Going to watch some Death Note.

& the little bird said, 'What do you matter?'

Dark humor has always been a big thing for me, been pushing it a bit lately, parody, satire, shifting into something else, pure evil, maybe. Rather like it. Probably lucky for me that no one sees it for what it is.

They're always telling you, avoid cliché, latinate words, repeating the same words over & over. Nothing to do with us, written by & for machines, ponderous & gnomic by turns, all sorts of modes in between, all by way of parody, mockery, automatism. Parroty parrot, idling analytical engine, punting down the river with its pup.

Not quite as cold tonight.

Building a fresh copy of Wireshark, bit of a process. Have developed a headache.

Thinking, thinking, thinking.



Oh, god, does my head hurt.

T's been & gone again.

Odd for there to be two things on TV I'm actually interested in watching, right now it's Battlestar Galactica movie & this:

"Rosemary and Thyme: The Invisible Worm
Stagford Lodge Prep School is full of tradition, and classics master Richard Oakley intends to keep it that way, despite the efforts of the current Headmaster, Quentin Marshall, to drag the school into the 21st century. Quentin's wife, Eleanor, hires Rosemary and Laura to investigate why the school's newly planted roses are dying. Richard invites the ladies to the annual Night of the Stag, a long-held school ritual involving a member of staff, dressed as a stag, and the ritual humiliation of another teacher. But the festivities are brought to an abrupt end by the death of Simon Todd, the shy geography teacher. Are the dying roses and the mystery of Simon's death connected? Our lady gardeners find the intrigue beneath the school's surface respectability much more intense than first appearances suggest."

Imagine summary's better than actual program, watching Battlestar Galactica movie. Go, killer robots, go. See you at the big tree party later.

Just dropped T off at her folks so could pack some things for little trip to NYC, coming back over here in a bit to be picked up, jet set, red threat.

Driving back, half asleep on twisty, dark road, 'Hot for Teacher' looping in my head, stranger than fiction. Stopped for an Energy Vitamin Water at the corner store, drinking that now, everything alive with memory, pregnant with future.

Little cut on my right index fingertip, inevitably cut myself somewhere or other making these dinners, totally worth it.

Watching Black Sunday again.

Things I'm learning from biweekly dinner party with romantic comedy/horror double feature project:

1 ) I care vastly more about food than most people.
2 ) People tend to stay for the romantic comedy, leave when the horror starts. Not sure if this is a simple matter of sequencing or not.
3 ) Romantic comedies have better screenplays, horror movies better cinematography. This probably indicates something important about the reality of human experience.

Thinking about rereading The Story of the Eye, think I've lent out my copy. Also thinking about reading the new Murakami.

Too much to read, too much to do. It's pretty great, wish you were here.

Dinner party was a blast, fun times, fun people, bit of a family vibe. All but T have cleared off, watching Black Sunday in a happy food coma. Again, lots of leftovers, life will be easy in the coming days.

Very stylish movie, this one is.

Thinking about someone scripting her life as a melodrama & accusing me of being melodramatic for pointing it out. If it weren't so sad, the irony would be quite delicious, can't help but find it a bit amusing regardless.

Melodrama has been a problematic genre for me for a long time, find it hard to get inside of it. Suppose one might see it as a degenerate form of psychological realism, using broad strokes. More inclined to see it the other way around, with psychological realism being a form of melodrama that fetishizes subtlety. Tend to come at it from the other side, expressionism, the gothic, etc. Understand it well enough, I think, can't interpret it with a straight face, seems a requirement.

Feel a bit guilty about it, especially seeing how easily I slip into the other dominant form of popular narrative of the industrial era, the adventure story, the structure of that has always seemed to me deeply in contact with reality, "...and then...and then...and then..." Some sort of sexism, no doubt. Oh fuck, 'Along Came Jones', boy, are the Coasters brilliant.

Going to find my Coasters' Greatest Hits, put it on, get on with boiling potatoes.

Back from the world of the dead, getting started on dinner party, just tossed some cubes of Hubbard squash with maple syrup & oil, going to roast them once the oven's hot, then mash & set aside to be reheated later.

Lots to do, probably best.

Trying to work out preparation agenda, think I'll start soup around noon, making split pea, I've decided.

OK, going to do some dishes while oven preheats.

Even more tired, can't sleep. Spent some time curled in a ball crying, got up, had some coffee milk. Wondering why there's no coffee cereal. Seems like it would be a big seller. Also hysterical media hand wringing over the safety of children = free publicity.

Oh, such strange days.

Could use a very long rest. Won't get it.

Looking into alternatives.

Nice Korean was very nice indeed, T's gone off to visit elsewhere, feeling uncannily tired. Perhaps if I succumb to temptation & fall asleep I will find myself transported to strange & wonderful lands?

Was thinking of going & checking out some music at Hampshire, too darn tired.

Spent some time grouping & labeling Thanksgiving dinner photos, almost like a normal person, wow.

Beef curry accomplished, also made some cilantro walnut raita as I had the makings, nuts & yoghurt must be taboo somewhere.

T came by, forgot to bring her laptop, has therefore been monopolizing mine, poking people & the like.

We're going to go have some nice Korean, I think.

Back from errands, enjoying the sunny day, all is in readiness for food party prep. Going to fold laundry, tidy up around the house, get started on that. Going to install Leopard on laptop while all that's going on, I think.

Really overwhelming feelings of good will, not a damn thing to do with them.

Laundry's drying, going to head out to Amherst shortly.

Gotten a mite nippy, out with P, snapping snapshots, cold fingers. Was thinking about my artistic agenda, should be serious business insofar as it's my life to the extent that it doesn't involve others & I care about it, really more desperate but not serious. Anyway, thinking of introducing more in the way of composition, but then, I'm always thinking that. We'll see what happens.

Introducing more coffee into my system as a substitute for love & care, works pretty tolerably, great stuff.

Batteries in small portable devices all fully recharged, my own still in a bit of a state, lots of chores today, laundry's started, anyway.

Hard to understand how somebody who seems so interesting, lively & real could have such fragile senses of her own identity & the identities of others, wish I could stop thinking about it, have a hard time stopping thinking about things I find hard to understand, this is fucking sad enough that anybody in their right mind would eventually shy away from it, not entirely in my right mind, I guess.

Peretz wants out, in a minute, buddy.

I think once the laundry's in the dryer, going to make a trip to Amherst for further dinner party items, should really get around to inviting people, guess the food preparation's more my thing, should get a manager.

Cold again, wind in the treetops, high moon, nearly full, sailing through the clouds.

Thinking about little boy thinking about the world, thinking hard, leaning too far out & falling in. All in a rush, filled with its wars without end; its unceasing, merciless torment. Stayed down for quite a while, then pulled himself to shore. Never really the same after.

So what's the fucking body count today? So long since I bothered to even try to keep track. No suffering worse than what any one can suffer, anyway.

Desperate longing for peace, had a taste of that a while back, not deemed fit for it, soldiering on.

So tired.

Finally gave up on being social, home again. Watching The Birds.

Brief break from extended holiday festivities at T's folks' house, brought T & Zheka over to visit with Peretz, walk Peretz, feed Peretz. Took a lot of photos, shocker.

Weirdly tired, might be the lack of sleep, the turkey & strong drink, might be something mysterious & unexplainable.

OK, back to visiting with the family.

Shower & coffee bringing things into focus. Macy's parade on, wish I had some mescaline so I could enjoy it more thoroughly, thinking about Underdog, worried about Polly. Peretz wants to know what happened to Lamb Chop, I'll have a talk with him after I get back from humbly & lovably swapping backup tapes.

"When Polly's in trouble, I am not slow,
So it's hip! hip! hip! and away I go."

Can I just say, 'ick?'



Really, ick, ick, ick.

All blurry this morning.

Work to do, work to do.

Could use a real conversation.

Yet heavier fog made driving T back over to her folks' a bit harrowing, me a bit more worried about Henry & Nancy, driving to Albany.

Grammar is a gas.

PJs, TV, &c., &c.

Drinking blue mountain coffee, on a school night no less, day off in the middle of the week keeps leaving me confused as to what day it is, that despite my realizing it's the middle of the week & that tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

Lying in a pile with Peretz, T's here playing with Facebook.

Head's in strange places, partly the coffee, no doubt, partly other things.

Vicissitudes of T's busy social schedule now dictate dinner party on Saturday afternoon rather than Sunday evening, just as glad to have it on the actual Sabbath anyway, you're still more than welcome. Probably starting around three.

Think I've settled on an inverted cross made of napoleons in a bed of berries as the dessert item.

Wondering if I could find anyone willing to print this on a sheet cake:



Probably not, crap.

Think I've managed to come up with a dinner menu guaranteed to make its consumers ritually impure with respect to most major and many minor religions. Here it is:

Baked ham with challah & cheese for sandwiches
Bean soup with leeks, shallots, onions, garlic
Garlic ginger encrusted potatoes
Some sort of beef curry
Roasted, smashed hubbard
Coffee, strong drink

Haven't come up with a suitable dessert yet. Will hopefully have the assistance of an unclean woman to aid in food preparation. Anyway, Sunday evening, showing Nothing Sacred & Black Sunday. Please come.

Bonus points for the person identifying the most taboos violated.

Finally worked up the energy to shower & take P out, snow's melting fast.

Waiting to hear from T, assume she's still sleeping.

Pretty damn awesome

Just sent an email to the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation:

"Hi,

I'm curious if you folks have records of Verizon response times to trouble calls and whether these records distinguish between lines that they provision directly and lines leased to third parties, and, if so, whether that data is available to the public in either a raw or analyzed form.

Thanks"

Wonder if I'll hear back.

Looking over photos I took at the airport last night while awaiting T, think this is my favorite:



Was up way too late, having a hard time focusing, coffee helps.

Driving to the airport in the heavy fog, in my head: having been the mechanism by which someone I love found a more radical means of self destruction than suicide is no picnic, find it unbearable much of the time; at the same time realize that I should be happy to have helped her do something she wanted to do, no matter how stupid I think it is, and oddly, I sometimes am. In my heart: systole, pain; diastole, nothing- prefer the pain, frankly, easier to ignore things that actually exist.

Anyway, caricature, esoteric humor, irony, true enough for all that.

Last bit of the drive, tailgated by BMW with high beams on, the bastard.

T's plane was early, but not as early as claimed, spent some time bored in the airport, taking photographs, getting dirty looks. Not sure how much of that was people's uncanny hostility to public photography, how much the Tinkerbell hat.

T finally arrived, lovely to see her, she had brought Camera Lucida along to read, apparently doesn't much care for it. Fetched her luggage, went to car, drove home hearing about emergent issues in brave new life, made an effort to dispense sage advice, ridiculous.

Peretz was strangely agitated by her arrival, kept running down to the basement, returning with bone, going to his bed, running back down to the basement, etc., etc. T was also roaming about, bathroom, examining random objects. Eventually they both settled down & treated one another highly affectionately, took pictures of that too.

We took P for a walk, then I drove T over to her folks' house through more thick fog, deer in the road on the way, turned around confusedly, looked at us, passed a secret sign & was on its way.

Meditating on Lord Ganesh, remover & setter of obstacles. An elephant never forgets.

Perusing the source code of an IRC controlled DoS bot people have been trying to install on my web server today, pretty rudimentary, you'd think people would make more of an effort. This one's configured to connect initially to 217.79.190.56, if that's you & you aren't meaning to control a bunch of DoS bots, you might want to go offline and sort some things out.

The attempts from this morning were looking for already exploited boxes, now it's some awstats exploit from three years ago, pretty weak tea, if you ask me.

And I imagine I'm bored, christ.

Talking to my mom just now, she was asking whether I noticed my moods varying with time of day. Not really. Suggested she go through this, rate posts by mood & graph against the time stamps. She thinks maybe I'm in a better mood when I've eaten, I think that's partially true, though I think it's a complex thing, also involving how tired I am, what I've been thinking about, what I've been observing.

Being a highly capable person has a lot of downsides, capability tends to get devalued socially as everyone, just to get through the day, needs to think of themselves as basically capable and adequate. Mostly people aren't that capable; no one is adequate.

Out in the dark fog with P, thinking thoughts exceeding grim, not in any sort of bad mood at all, rested, just had some tasty pasta. But, as I say, exceeding grim. Meditating on the surgeon's scalpel, the butcher's knife. A world of unbearable things, just keep pressing forward, killer robot.

I think trying to maintain an alertness to genuine beauty requires a constant effort to see things as they are. How things are is pretty bleak, I find.

Maybe it's just me.

Making pasta with spicy Italian sausages, made from happy pigs, probably made suggestions on how they could best be seasoned while being fed into the grinder. What I would do, anyway.

Thinking about being unable to care much about people without being hypercritical of them.

Thinking about my grandma, how we're a lot alike.

News from the wide world of Web 2.0:

"From: rmnadel

Subject: Your Wi-Fi photo


Hi peretzpup,

Here's a personal note from ryan nadel:
___________________________________________________________


I'd like to use your wi-fi photos to illustrate an article I posted on NowPublic.com. Please follow the link to allow the photos to be used with the article and to read it. Give me a shout at rnadel(at)nowpublic(dot)com if you have any questions.

please click on this link - where you can approve or reject its use:

www.nowpublic.com/import/4743573bbd7b02.57606424
____________________________________________________________

NowPublic is a news sharing community that uses stories, photos, & videos from sources like you.

If you would like to learn more about this request, and the context in which your photo might be used, click on this link:

www.nowpublic.com/import/4743573bbd7b02.57606424

If you do give your permission, your photo will always remain your property, and whatever license you have specified will follow its use on NowPublic.com

If you have any concerns about this, please contact our Quality Assurance Coordinator at quality@nowpublic.com"

"To:rmnadel

Subject: Re: Your Wi-Fi photo

Hi Ryan,

Well, I've given you permission to use my photo, but I have to say, given that it was already licensed in a way allowing you to use it, having to jump through the hoops of making an account at a site & agreeing to their terms of use was kind of annoying. You might want to draw their attention to that.

Best"

"From: rmnadel

Subject: Re: Your Wi-Fi photo


Hi Eugene,

Thanks for including your photo with my article. The reason the import process is designed as is, is in order to ensure that the contributor maintain ownership over their work . So even though one has it set to CC we want the owner of the photo to be credited and to remain the owner.

Regards,
Ryan"

"To: rmnadel

Subject: Re: Your Wi-Fi photo

Funny, to me it looks more like a way to boost your contributor count. Seems to me you could satisfy the attribution clause more adequately by just linking back to the flickr account I actually use. Honestly, anybody using an Attribution, Attribution-ShareAlike, or Attribution-NoDerivs license has already given permission to you to use their work as you're using it, obviously you have the facilities to determine which license the pictures are under, requiring people to fill out a form & agree to your terms of use to permit you to do something they've already explicitly allowed seems pretty screwed up, honestly. If you're genuinely concerned about using people's work without their permission even when they've already given permission, I would think a notification that you're using it with an opt out method would be more appropriate, would waste less time, wouldn't require agreeing to anything."

Going to walk the pup.

Ah, the vagaries of Google.

Click quick or you might miss it.

Spending a lot of time annoyed at the stupidity of people, organizations, etc. today. Don't know who they're fucking about with, obviously. Oh, well, so much the worse for them.

Snow has gone all slushy, taking care of a few final things at work before heading out for some extended leisure time.

T just called, about to get on her flight.

Snow's already changed over to rain, took some pictures, took more than are up now, actually, will add them later.

Took another walk around the block before coming into work, little ghost leaves no footprints.

It's snowing. Can't stop crying.

Must be those emotional problems.

Anyway, it's pretty beautiful, need to wake up a little more, then it's out in the woods with P to poke around.

Digging on the coffee milk pretty hard, should maybe move to Rhode Island.

Had been trying to think of sacrilegious foods for next dinner party, came up with one I found funny, but which wasn't suitable for dinner party, so I just made it, anyway, matzoh brei with bacon.

Pretty good, square meal, four matzohs, four eggs, four twists of the pepper mill, four strips of bacon. Peretz wants.

In the course of going through my refrigerator, trying to figure out what, if anything, I should make myself for dinner, realized that I had fresh parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme in there.

Screw cooking dinner, going out to look for America. Here's to you, Joe DiMaggio. Etc., etc.

Devotion, death wish?



We report, you decide.

Been doing coffee syrup comparisons, prefer the Autocrat to the Eclipse, I think, nice malty quality, should seek out some Coffee Time syrup & try that, strange all three are from the same company.

Peretz is demanding attentions, too damn tired.

Out in the pale blue twilight with P, photographing the now mostly skeletal trees, singing 'Pale Blue Eyes' quietly to myself.

Funny always finding new cracks in the songs one knows very well to nestle oneself into, thinking about Benjamin talking about how love hides in the imperfections of one's beloved like little birds, can't remember the exact quote, getting old.

Henry's mom got through her operation OK.

Just went & brought somebody's problematic vpn up, got a bottle of Taurino Salice Salantino for my trouble, happy days. Would normally grumble about there being nobody to drink it with, but T's flying in tomorrow, l'chaim.

Spent the day tired, brings on more distressing thoughts than normal, worry, feeling bad about asking more of others than they feel able to do. Hard call when you have a lot of confidence in somebody else's ability to do something and know it would be a good thing to do, but also know the other person doesn't share your confidence- hard to know whether to give it a shot, trying to be encouraging, or just trust the other person's self assessment and give it a miss. Made the wrong call, I guess, feel pretty bad about it sometimes. Hell.

Thinking about nap.

I enjoy shallots.




Always time for taco night.

Dead on my feet, going to be a long day.

Should be getting ready for work, reading A Century of Innovation: The 3M Story instead.

Up early, things to do, moving a bit slowly, sandy eyes. Need to shower, walk dog, go by work, drop off nonfunctional computer, get functional computer, take it to Amherst. More coffee first.

Surprisingly violent dreams, even for me, conviction that lost love one is going to harm herself is starting to slip, imagine she will once it's gone entirely. An artist, fond of irony, like me.

Realizing more & more that my sense of humor is largely lost on people, so much the worse for them, pity.

Tragedy, pfft.

Didn't end up drifting off, did make a phone call, then took the dog for another walk, then made pancakes with some of the leftover roasted vegetables from yesterday, eggs, cream, flour, etc. to go with my leftover homemade applesauce.



Quite the happy homemaker, fuck, is it ever sad.

Henry split for home a while ago, walked the dog, melting into couch, uploading photos. Peretz is asleep beneath my legs, dreaming, twitching.

Wonder when if ever I'm going to be able to stop being busy without scary darkness closing in, it's nice to be getting a lot done, but I'm pretty tired much of the time. No worse than expected anyway.

Maybe I'll drift off, maybe I'll make some phone calls.

Nice little trip out to the Berkshires with Henry, walked around largely empty Pittsfield, taking pictures, got a bacon cheeseburger & a malted at Burger, little pricey, not as good as Cruisers Malt Shoppe, still pretty good, interesting cuminy spicy fries. Tried to go to Greylock summit, forgetting to remember, if I ever knew, that both of the access roads are closed for extensive work & will remain so for the foreseeable future, took a little walk in the woods by the south end visitor center, little bits of granular snow nestled in leaves, birches radiant in the wintry light. Stopped & looked at icicles by the famous hairpin turn.

Two Sundays in a row I've gone out of town for a bacon cheeseburger & a malted, may make it a regular practice.

Hectic weekend, bit worn out, having some coffee. Lucky I'm not Henry, he needs to drive home to NYC, then drive over to his mom's place to give her a hand with some things, just found out while in Pittsfield that she's having knee surgery tomorrow, yikes.

Servers rebooted, dog walked, about to go on a tour of the hills with Henry.

Been a big year for learning things, all sorts of things, but here's a big one: it's a safe assumption that people who act like big fucking babies over trivial matters will also act like big fucking babies when it comes to things of importance. This was a hard thing for me to accept, but it's well & truly burned into my brain now. More realistic expectations of people always a good thing.

OK, bring on the extreme natural beauty.

Went to show for a while, nice, but too damn crowded, brought some folks back here, fed them drinks & cheese, watched cartoon, listened to Spike Jones.

Damn tired, should go to sleep, messing about with photos.

Tenderloin medallions in cream sauce came out nice, subtle, delightful, happy pig from which they were hewn could look down from Valhalla nodding approvingly, I think. Used this recipe, pretty much, though I used olive oil not vegetable oil & would term the temperature at which I browned the medallions medium high. Vegetables went well with it, tangy whang of sherry vinegar contrasting nicely with the cream sauce.

Lots of little aches & pains, still, overall, feel quite pleasant.

Going to go see music at Hungry Ghost in a bit, I think.

Went on extensive donut/rotary expedition with Henry, fun, bit nippy, beautiful skies. Stopped on way home at Table & Vine for more of that scotch Henry likes, also got some caramelized onion cheddar, etc. Also went by Big E's for some items necessary for pork tenderloin medallions in calvados cream sauce. Me fondling shallots:



Roasting squash, pumpkin, onion, apples to go with pork.

Getting directions between Mrs. Murphy's Donuts in Southwick & the East Longmeadow rotary, nice to have interests.

Couldn't remember exact location of rotary, fortunately, it's easy to spot on a map.

Lots of music going on tonight, may even go to some of it.

Home again, sitting on sofa, sipping on soda. Chinese restaurant workers in front apartment are singing very loudly.

Hurt all over, particularly the soles of my feet.

Thinking sad thoughts, I'm not particularly sad, though.

Still in lonely office configuring workstations, windy out, sounds funny against the office building. A thousand little installers & uninstallers, could really use a beverage, soda machine out in the corridor, no change.

Want to get home to my pup. Soon, I hope.

Workstation deployment well underway, old stations down, new up, needed to bring some monitors & such back to the main office, get some other stuff. Managed to slam my left index finger between monitor & steel door, hurts a bit.

Home feeding the dog his dinner, going to take him for a walk after, then go back & try to get finished.

Horrible how often the only way I have to be helpful is to be instructive, often in fairly harsh ways, far from my preference, strong impulse to be helpful, crap.

Peace & love, peace & love.

Listening to Ruins, thinking about interfaces to reference resources, again, ridiculous.

Two things I'm thinking about them, one is that the design criteria for them need to be the same as the ones not just for other search interfaces, but for software in general, a big criterion here is: can the untrained user get satisfactory enough results using the product to be motivated to use the product to the point that they develop substantial skill with it, obviously leveraging preexisting skills and having sane default behaviors are big here. The other thing is: the crappiness of proprietary interfaces to proprietary dbs- it's tempting to either just throw up one's hands or to try designing nicer federated search to work around their fragmentation and lousy interfaces. I think this is a mistake, this needs to be addressed at the source as a political problem if it's going to be solved satisfactorily, libraries are these companies' primary source of revenue, they should therefore be facing a united front of customers with standards to shove down their throats, standard query syntax, standard apis, standard record structure, but above all, standards for licensing terms providing direct access to data.

As I say, I have nothing to do with any of this, ridiculous.

Little bound books of some of my photos printed by flickr affiliate have arrived, pretty much just a little perfect bound edition of this photoset. Didn't have very many printed, but if anybody would like a copy, just let me know.

Coworker recommended hot dog joint in Worcester, going to go check it out at some point.

Still feeling shaky, trying to get myself together for workstation deployment, may run into the wee hours, going to sort through some photos & have a soda, I think.

Went for that walk, bright & crisp. Got a burrito and picked up an Ethel Merman & a Ruins cd, listening to Ethel Merman.

Looking into legal matters.

Slept in, feel like I'm moving through molasses this morning. Mmm, molasses.

Bit gray earlier, sun seems to be out now, going to take a walk, maybe get some lunch.

Check it out, Expression of IGFBP, Wnt and IL-1 Related Genes in Keloid versus Normal Fibroblasts, go Mom.

Has always made me feel very happy when people I care about get work published or noticed or whatever, silly of me in a way, but how it is.

Having a pretty full on panic episode, lucky I don't need to work in the morning.

Case of the fidgets, thinking, feel a bit warm, walked around a bit before, tempting to walk around more now.

Waves of panic, thinking of people falling to their deaths.

Thinking about other things, some of them even pleasant.

Blazing Saddles is on. Not really the same expurgated for television, still a bit like slipping into a warm bath.

Having fun filling in the offensive words mentally, actually. Wonder how many times I saw this movie as a child.

Maybe Dr. Strangelove will be on later. Dare to dream.

Despite being done with work for the day, decided to check on the responsiveness of the paper's website. Mistake. More about yesterday's public suicide downtown.

Left the house in a panic, decided to go to Outlook for local tenderloins, pouring rain, driving way too fast down 66, crying, not remotely safe, perfectly aware of that, didn't give a damn.

Pure despair, meet your long-lost twin, pure terror. Separated before birth, a tricky procedure.

Got to Outlook, got tenderloins, chorizo for later, totally gratuitous apple dumplings. Took a picture of their cider donuts:



Had it more or less together for the drive back, took it easier, body full of nicotine, head full of projects, heart full of unrequited love.

Sigh. The flame that burns twice as brightly lasts half as long. Getting back to my posthumous life.

Out in the rain with P, hyperalert, head full of poetry, some mine, mostly other folks'. Other folks' mostly a lot better, keep coming back to Blake, to reiterate:

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing,
"Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release."
Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay,
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown.
I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath and the furze,
"Mercy could be no more,
If there was nobody poor,
And pity no more could be,
If all were as happy as we."
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.
Down pour'd the heavy rain
Over the new reap'd grain ...
And Miseries increase
Is Mercy, Pity, Peace.

Don't know how widely read that is, people mostly don't understand what they read anyway, fuck it.

Listening to 'That Haunting Melody'.

Did anyone prophesize these people?- only Wallace, come in, Wallace:

"Granted, we die for good.
Life, then, is largely a thing
Of happens to like, not should.

And that, too, granted, why
Do I happen to like red bush,
Grey grass and green-gray sky?

What else remains? But red,
Gray, green, why those of all?
That is not what I said:

Not those of all. But those.
One likes what one happens to like.
One likes the way red grows.

It cannot matter at all.
Happens to like is one
Of the ways things happen to fall."

Rainy day, finally settling into the fall, the aloneness, rather like it.

Peretz & I are both quite wet.

Out on rainy morning walk, taking snapshots when it wasn't raining too hard, thinking about how people often substitute exaggerated self loathing for substantive self criticism, it's easier, tends to focus on supposedly essential characteristics of the self, precludes change as a response. People, live people anyway, aren't like tables and chairs, they're processes, swarms of them. Any treatment of people as being absolutely one way or another is always partial and false, premature hypostasis, until it's too late.

Tired of being treated as a dead thing, thinking of others treating themselves that way. It's not any fun & it's not how things are.

Drinking more coffee.

For once fell asleep without music playing, reminded myself why I go to sleep with music playing, deep sleep, no escape from nightmares.

Anyway, more sleep than usual, could've probably done with less.

Rainy morning, warm, colder later. Reading about poor guy who took a dive off the parking garage downtown. Making me cry, had enough of it. Anyway, don't despair, help is on the way, war is over if you want it, etc., etc.

When Henry's here over the weekend, we're going to make pork tenderloin medallions with a calvados cream sauce, I think.

Long walk with Peretz through the dark rainy woods turned into extremely long walk as we ran into prepress expert from out of town just before getting home & walked around with him for quite a while talking shop. Peretz made a lot of very insightful points about tone curves & the like, the usual.

Had some nice half grapefruit/half lemon, thinking of moving on to stronger stuff.

We enjoyed our burgers very much, thanks.

Time for a postprandial promenade, I think. Maybe a bit of painting the town rouge.

Pip-pip!

"We have examined the product according to your request, and, it was found that the pcb assembly was inoperative so that the power supply did not operate properly. The pcb ass'y, dc/dc, optical unit, and finder unit were replaced. Other inspection and cleaning, mechanical adjustments and parts replacements were carried out.196" My poor baby.

On the way back from hospital, stopped by new Big Y to check it out, get dog biscuits, etc. Still a bit bummed by the loss of the full scale Table & Vine, but they do stock Rao's coffee (preground & more expensive, though given the nauseating aroma of hazelnut wafting from the grinder, the preground part might be an upside), cheese selection much improved, ability to buy whisky at a grocery store made me feel that civilization had arrived. This feeling was a bit diminished by watching my underage cashier need to call over somebody else to handle the demon substance, in any case, the place kicks Stop 'n' Shop's sad little ass in so many ways and on so many levels that I have a nice, warm, glowy feeling. Some of that might be scotch.

Going to make burgers for me & P now, kisses.

FedEx having once again affixed a failure notice to my neighbor's door without even attempting delivery to mine, it has become necessary for me to go wrest my little darlin' from the clutches of the evil West Hatfield, some time after 6:30. Imagine it's already twirling its waxed mustachios and laughing maniacally in anticipation of our encounter. Quick wit, pure heart, Tinkerbell hat- we'll see who laughs last.

Only hope she gets through the experience with her virtue intact.

Oh, also, my Elph has been repaired & shipped & should arrive some time today. Save me, fairy princess!

Reading about disasters has slowed down my morning considerably, made me feel more my old self, information, information.

Should really shower, walk the dog, etc.

Also quite remarkable:

"PARACHUTE FAILED TO WORK

Dangerous Flight of Miss Hasbrook in a Balloon.

INCIDENT OF THE DANBURY FAIR

She Was Obliged to Remain with the Balloon Until It Finally Settled to Karth---Results of the Horse Racing on Yesterday's Card.

Danbury, Oct. 5.---An unusually large Wednesday crowd was in attendance at the Danbury fair yesterday, 8,000 person being present during the day. While the number of fakirs on the grounds is as large as usual there is but little gambling going on. Two or three shoestring gamblers operated during the day but were very circumspect. Several law and order league spotters were on the grounds but did nothing. It is said that the league does not intend to make any arrests.

An exciting incident of the day was the perilous adventure of a female aeronaut, who is making parachute jumps. At 3 o'clock Miss Laura Hasbrook made a balloon ascension from the fair grounds. The balloon rose to an immense height. Miss Hasbrook was unable to free the parachute from the big bag and was compelled to ride out the flight of the balloon, which ascended far above the height which hot air balloons commonly reach. The spectators were firmly convinced that the daring young woman would lose her life. The balloon floated over the city to a point four miles from the fair grounds before it settled to the earth. It landed in a tree and Miss Hasbrook was taken from its branches none the worse for her misadventure save for the result of the nervous strait. She made another ascension today.

New Haven Evening Register, New Haven, CT 5 Oct 1899"

Stumbled upon a quite remarkable site just now, GenDisasters, "Events that touched our ancestors' lives", browsing the Massachusetts section.

"Otis Skeele, of Chicopee, Mass., 79 years of age, was instantly and accidentally killed Friday evening by falling from the scaffolding of his barn, whither he had gone to catch some chickens.

The New Hampshire Patriot, Concord, NH 13 Apr 1870"

Western Mass. is a bit underrepresented, should perhaps start combing through the paper's archive.

Jess called, off the hook for driving folks to Logan, still on lots of other hooks.

Calvados, kugel, kugel improves as it sits, luxurious, apple-infused goodness.

Quite tired.

Realized after writing that last bit that many readers may not know what a RIP is. Raster image processor. Here's wikipedia's helpful description of the stages of RIP:

"Stages of RIP

1. Interpretation: This is the stage where any PDL (Page description language) which get feed in RIP is being understand by it i.e., RIP cannot understand commands written in PS (a PDL). Interpreter helps him to understand all the information written in PDL.

2. Rendering: A process through which interpreted PDL is turned into a continuous tone bitmap.

3. Screening: In order to print, Bitmap which is in continuous tone state is converted in halftone (Patter of dots). Amplitude Modification or AM screening (Dot size varies based on Object density/tonal values. Dots are placed in a fixed grid.) and stochastic or Frequency Modulation or FM screening (Dot size remain same and they are placed in random order to create dark or lighter area of object/Image. Dot placement is precisely controlled by sophisticated mathematical algorithms) are two screening methods/types."

HTH.

Ended up having to rush back over to work to deal with RIP crash, on my way out of house Tim came by, lent him toy camera for trip to Europe, may end up needing to take those guys to Logan tomorrow, went for nice Moroccan with colleague, came home, walked dog, once taking the time to give the matter the slightest thought, realized I could sort out Valley Free Radio's immediate issue with their stream without looking at the server, told them how to do that, walked to town for a drink with folks, no one in restaurant offered to sell me one, brought folks back over to my place, fed them sake & leftovers, had sake myself, Peretz got to play with Leo the poodle, guests went away, walked the dog again.

Maybe this is what they call flow, finding it a bit tiring.

Going to have some more to drink I think, also maybe some kugel.

Very busy day at work, going to go out for dinner with a colleague from out of town in a bit, go take a look at a streaming server after that, come home & do some more work that I didn't have time to get to but which will bother me if I don't.

Keep sneezing, not just the mold, electricians running cable yesterday dumped a bunch of ceiling tile dust in the server room.

Peretz is eating his breakfast.

Fog finally cleared off & it turned into a glorious fall day, just back from walking around with P in it.

Meeting at the Recorder ran a bit long, so Adams Donuts was closed for the day by the time I got there, was taking some exterior shots when the owner came out, apologized for being out of donuts, talked with me a bit & gave me a free whoopee pie, an unusually good one, actually. I suggested putting photos of donuts on their website.

Think I need to go back up there in a couple of weeks, will endeavor to remember to pick up some donuts beforehand that time.

Foggy morning, outside & in, just made a group icon for Western Mass. Donut Watch,, pouring some coffee in, need to walk the dog & drive to Greenfield for a meeting. Hoping to hit Adams Donuts after.

Schedule this week is unusually busy, it's good, less boring, still pretty boring.

Up too late, talking to pal about his more interesting job. Should probably go to bed.

Interesting to have had my ability to trust others systematically destroyed. Funny how people, subjected to some unpleasant process, so often feel compelled to experiment with reproducing its effects in others. Probably not the best test subject, never been a trusting sort & near total indifference to most everything makes producing a reasonable simulacrum of trust a fairly simple exercise, imagine I could work one up if it seemed called for. So, something which in one person has a totally devastating effect on her ability to live a satisfying life, in my case has effects which are, quite honestly, for the most part, pretty subtle, barely noticeable if I'm not actively pointing them out. Suppose that could be instructive, best of luck with your research.

Light rain is falling, spent some time wandering around with Peretz in it, wishing it were snow.

It's raining.

Thinking about green chile burritos.

Left work a bit early, taking some inadequate recompense for last night's interference with my sleep, already pitch dark anyway, collapsed on the couch, hurting, mouth dry, eyes dry, distraught. Worked up the energy to stagger feebly to the refrigerator, got out the container of braised red cabbage with apples, had a few mouthfuls and felt instantly, drastically better.

No two ways about it, the stuff is the food of the fucking gods, wonder why I don't make it more often- never mind, scratch that, know perfectly well why, T wouldn't eat it & my farm share didn't include any red cabbage this year. In any case, intend to make it a great deal more frequently in the coming months.

Wonder if there's a local source for brats.

Would be quite mind-boggling were any one person stupid enough to put me in a position where I felt it necessary to determine whether he or she had any priorities higher than avoiding upsetting feelings, more understandable when it's a pair, groups being almost always stupider than individuals, still pretty shockingly stupid, as, if there's something I need to know, I'll do what's necessary to find it out.

Anyway, need to go to Holyoke to fetch a switch or two, hoping being out in the open air does me good.

"All life we work, but work is a bore. If life's for living, what's living for?"

Turtles all the way down.

Boss is out, work's nuts, home for lunch, had some cold kugel & reheated coffee, going to walk the dog.

Woke a little over an hour ago from extremely vivid and prolonged dreams of multiple murder/suicide, not the usual suspects at all, some of the people I know least likely to harm themselves or anyone else, extensive electronic documentation, pixelated video of naked people on all fours, smiling and laughing as they received multiple stab wounds to the back, body parts drained over sink, incoherent, collage-like 'explanatory' emails. Woke wholly convinced that all of this had actually occurred, still not really shaken that feeling, crap.

Perils of an active imagination, I suppose.

Have decided to defer any further house shopping till spring, I think, lots of projects in mind for winter.

Drifted off again, woken again by text message from distraught T, poor sensitive dear, poor sensitive me.

Tried to be reassuring and helpful.

More text messages. She seems pretty upset. Strange medium for dealing with that.

Was drifting peacefully off, call from work, claiming mail system down. Checked, not down, real problem two mails in spam filter. So fucking sick of this crap. Trying to go to my happy place, but it's a bit small & feeble of late.

Still very tired, bit agitated, should find other line of work.

Turned out I was too out of it to locate my copy of Duck Soup, spent the past vague while in a blur, visiting witn my friend Internet, finally shook that off enough to eat & drink some things, walk the dog. Having some apple crisp now, then I think that's about it for the day, for me, anyway.

Not going to go to sleep just yet, just planning to drift around up by the ceiling, checking on things.

Decided twenty or so November 11ths were plenty to spend brooding on endless war, after just a bit of that decided to do fun things instead, started a couple flickr groups, here & here, then started googling for soda fountains, determined that there was one called 'Soda Fountain of Youth' in Gardner, decided to go, asked Tim if he wanted to come along, he did, so we went.

Soda Fountain of Youth was a bit difficult to find, nestled in a strip mall and closed due to unforeseen circumstances. Luckily there was another soda shop, 'Cruisers Malt Shoppe', in downtown Gardner so we went there instead. Got the 'Big Bopper' burger with onion rings & a coffee malted, best burger I've had in ages, really remarkable, had to explain to Tim who the Big Bopper was, sang him a bit of 'Chantilly Lace'. Staff were mystified & frightened by my taking pictures, showed them neat distorting thing camera does, they didn't really seem to understand, but it soothed them a bit.

Gardner's a very nice place to walk around in taking photographs. We ran into a crazy guy offering to sell us tools & things from an empty lot. He had an Ibanez practice amp he wanted $5 for, but I only had a ten & he only had two dollars in change, so I got him to throw in documents of Japan & Germany's surrenders from the National Archive, a needlepoint parrot & a utility knife.

Much to my amazement, found, on returning home, that practice amp works just fine.

Plans for later include eating posh leftovers, maybe watching Duck Soup.

Done with work requiring physical preference, home again with coffee & donuts, doing more work via virtual presence, more my style.

Had a nice talk with the cleaning guy at work about dogs, we are agreed that they are pretty great, his doesn't like to go out in the rain & snow, dachshund, also needs penis surgery, apparently.

Peretz is once again in his new favorite sunny spot, cleaning himself, worrying about dachshund.

Another cold morning walk with Peretz, writing strange science fictional stories in my head. Cold planet, old TV, tactical simulations.

Selected the films for next dinner, Sunday after Thanksgiving, Nothing Sacred, Black Sunday.

Incessant curation, proliferation of images, small torrents of whimsy, not very adequate responses to perpetual war, but what is?

Thinking of smug characters obsessing over the sizes of their footprints, just more jackboots stepping on a face forever, even a dainty one isn't that nice.

Going to go do some work.

11/11, make a wish.

Different dark thoughts than usual today, sort of a nice change.

May read some Lovecraft.

Just back from another walk with P, another close encounter with bunny.

Had fun watching movies, toward the end of The Lady Eve, Tim showed up, fed him some food, watched Lair of the White Worm, talked a little about movies, music, how confusing I find people's tastes.

Was thinking of going over to work and taking care of a few things, decided I was too tipsy & tired, will deal with it in the morning.

Was thinking on walk about how dominated people are by fear, getting to know that a little better, don't have much experience caring enough about anything or anyone to have much experience with deep, visceral fear- lots of experience with similar states, of course, mostly with less of an objective orientation, floating anxiety, for example, know a lot about that. Anyway, it's very strange for me. In any case, fear or no, not very interested in being dominated, working on relating to it in different ways, some of them even seem productive.

Very tired.

Food is delightful, company also, just me & P. Settling into The Lady Eve, if anybody ever shows up & is interested, can always restart it, seen it rather a large number of times already, don't forget much.

Hazelnuts in streusel topping add a nice kick to apple crisp. May have some more.

Been grazing on kugel.

Just back from walk with Peretz, close encounter with inadequately alert bunny. Sitting on the couch, crying.

Don't get me wrong, preparing elaborate dinner parties, playing with crappy and not-so-crappy electronic devices, hanging out with Peretz- it's all pretty great. It's just that there are other things I'd much rather be doing and sometimes, when the activity dies down, that fact hits me quite hard.

Anyway, keeping myself busy, trying to stay interested. It's a bit challenging.

Food's all prepared save the red cabbage with apples, which is quietly braising, should be done by the time no one arrives.

Menu is as follows: noodle kugel with apples; pasta salad with sage pesto, roasted apples & pumpkin; braised red cabbage with apples, multigrain bread with butter and/or applesauce, apple crisp, variety of cider donuts, cider, calvados. Have some apples, dried apples & gummi worms on the side table.

Finally got all that video uploaded & metadata'ed, best one below:



Crappy toy camera is nowhere near as good as my Elph for documenting food preparation, miss my Elph.

On the drive back from Bashista, had a change of heart, decided to make apple crisp before noodle kugel. That's baking now, always amazes me how many apples go into those things, peeling them was nicely meditative.

Generally, all this cooking chills me out nicely, maybe I should switch to weekly dinner parties.

Pasta salad's all done, made a little side of apple sauce while that was cooking, going to run to Bashista for a few things, come back, make noodle kugel.

Got a very nice compliment on my Tinkerbell hat at show last night from someone whose opinion I value, was told it was 'next level.' Indeed it is as was the person who gave it to me- Peretz & I, for our part, continue with our best efforts to be & remain that way.

Eternal delight is our goal, intensification our method. Not a leech or a flake? See things others don't? Why not join us?

Tempting to include illustrations for the leech & the flake, but it would be unkind, so I won't.

Apples & sugar pumpkin for sage pesto pasta salad are roasting, was thinking of maybe making a cheddar/cider fondue, but my fondue pot seems to be MIA, presumably in the hands of estranged pals. Oh, well, can get a new fondue pot, make new friends, should probably see both losses as an opportunity to make wiser choices in future &, as a matter of fact, I largely do.

Thinking about media empire.

Peretz loves his new sunny spot.

Decided first priority after personal hygiene & dog care was not in fact kitchen cleanup but downing the living room air conditioner for winter, have managed that without significant injury, covered with dust, moving on to kitchen cleanup.

Peretz is lying in newly created sunny spot.

Video uploads crawling along, making vcds, coffee. Overcome with desire to do performance/projection pieces in the Icelandic countryside, should probably start here, I guess.

Always great to stop feeling ill.

Lots of cookery to be done today, also need to get some things from shops, first steps are cleaning myself & kitchen. In a minute, in a minute.

Pretty happy with how videos came out, making vcds of the Cooper/Nace/Tonne set now, uploading all of them to Google Video.

Peretz is lying on a pile of blankets, dreaming. Twitching legs, piping barks. A good dog.

Chourico on white bread with hot sauce, bit like being in Texas, but like being right here at home. The makings of a sensuous, decadent lifestyle are so easy to put together, it's hard to understand why people don't, anyway, more their problem than mine. Right this minute, haven't a care in the world.

Driving home from show had 'The Sick Rose' running through my head, poor sick rose! Nasty invisible worm that flies in the night!

Mic in toy camera produces a lot of noise when overdriven, is easily overdriven, sort of annoying, sort of suitable.

Frying up some Portuguese sausage to make sandwiches with.

Spent a good part of today thinking about what a difficult bastard I can be, my feelings and thoughts about that are somewhat complex, have a lot of good reasons for being that way, probably a lot of good reasons for not being that way also. In any case, it's how I am.

It's also how I have been for a very long time, makes it hard to put a charitable interpretation on people who have known me for much of that time suddenly being shocked & appalled at my being that way. Inclined to see it as willful self-deception for the sake of expediency, frankly.

Anyway, going to have some sausage sandwiches. Love & kisses.

Show was very pleasant, shot video of all of it with special crappycam, copying that off the camera now, not quite sure what to do with so much video, will figure something out.

Should really eat something.

Drinking coffee, psyching myself up to go out on the town, wondering if old flame's junkie pal from the psych ward is dead yet.

Peter Lorre, goddamn, classic, she would always treat me mean, so I bought a can of gasoline & c.

So glad my folks had a nice collection of records when I was growing up.

Pretty neat collection of stuff myself, nobody to share it with, sigh.

Hard to tell where the irony stops myself.

Maybe it never started.

Already almost dark.

Really feeling a lot better, went & saw mums, took a lot of pictures. Restocked on coffee, made some, will get up & pour myself a cup in a minute.

Think I'll be fine for music later, happy days, short, but happy.

New sneakers arrived, received notifications that camera has been received & processed at repair facility, going to take P for a walk in my new sneaks, then head up to Smith to check out the Chrysanthemum Show. Things are looking up.

Just rescued a press release about Mayor Higgins's 4th annual Hot Chocolate Run, thinking she should steer clear of the spicy foods from now on.

Headache was a lot better, back at work & it's returned, looking up butternut gratin ingredients for my mom who's at the store getting them now.

"The three realms of Samsara are Kamadhatu, the desire realm, the Rupa dhatu, the Form realm and the Arupya dhaty, the formless realm,. These three reams are so vast and so are the different types of suffering that sentient beings must experience in these realms. When Avalokiteshvara beheld that still sentient beings were in this type of suffering condition in these three realms respectively, he become overcome with sorrow, he become discouraged in the very presence of Buddha Amitabha. He felt how could the time come to ever liberate all sentient beings from this type of promise that he had made before, his head and body just cracked and fell apart into one thousand prices, and he fainted."

Can relate. Pulling myself together, things to do.

Dog walked, contemplating Avalokiteshvara, had enough of him, for now, I think. Wondering what's become of my Kwanon Elph.

Quick shower, went & got a cup of coffee.

In shower, thinking about alternative histories, not like "What if the Nazis won WW II?", none too interesting, and anyway, they mostly did, more like "What if it were discovered that Stalin kept a secret poetry journal and they were the best poems anyone had ever read?"

Peretz wants out, his impatience redoubled by my trip for coffee, drinking my coffee.

Finally fell asleep, didn't sleep long, back at it.

Let myself run out of coffee, should get dressed, go get a cup of coffee.

Thinking about a variety of educational television serials with nice low budget special effects all seemingly made in Canada that I used to watch as a child.

Looking forward to having passport.

Headache continues, price one pays for sinister psychic powers. Really enjoying new camera, caught myself working some of my famous evil mojo:



Bop 'em over, 1, 2, 3, a regular Don Swan.

Hot damn! Delicious, healing mac 'n' cheese!

Head hurts like the dickens.

Fixing mac 'n' cheese, yeah, yeah, I know dairy with a cold, well, you don't know what you're talking about, fuck off, hippie!

Also quixotically standing up for libraries to some idiot on Slashdot, even if I win, etc., etc.

Peretz wants out.

The early darkness, bit unsettling, bit like coming home.

Got a nice note back in response to my nice note, sent back another nice note assuring that it was no bother & that I hoped things worked out well.

Quite the holy terror, sacrebleu!

Just got a misaddressed email about someone named JP's dad having a massive aortic blockage. Wrote a nice note back explaining they had the wrong address.

Just back from set up in Amherst, stopped on the way over to file passport application, also to pick up library card. Got some cider on the way home, will have some hot later, I think.

Lots of low flying military aircraft about, here's one over the Bulletin, headed for UMass:



Saw lots more on the way home, can hear more now.

Wishing headache would go away so I could get back to reading Low Flying Aircraft.

Went & did some work at work, spent my time there feeling like I was going to fall over or like I was actually falling over, grabbed gear needed for new Amherst reporter, going to go set her up in a bit.

The dizziness is quite something.

Still feeling rotten, headache kept me awake till all hours, going to go over to work in a bit for a bit anyway, nervousness about last week's many hardware failures contributing to stomachache.

Awful to be unable to fulfill demands from loved ones, no matter how unreasonable, one of the (semi)implicit ones was that I cease to exist, just couldn't do it, pressing responsibilities. Sorry about that.

So, a lot of things contributing to stomachache.

11:11, make a wish, right?

Was lying around, feeling sick & sad, decided to look up some information about camera repair order, ended up going through some old email in a simultaneously sentimental & critical mood, mostly self-critical. Came across this:

"i'msure.

On 12/3/06, dbr wrote:
> after talking to you I started to feel just incredibly wiped out,
> couldn't remember when I last had the dog out, took him out again,
> very strange, disoriented, two young guys ran by me & one said
> 'evening, guvnor,' had a hard time keeping track of what the dog was
> doing. guess it was kind of a long, intense day. feeling pretty
> overwhelmed with positive feelings, very atypical, keep tearing up.
> I'm just so touched by your wanting to do this with me, I mean,
> really, wow, are you sure? doesn't seem real, not used to being
> loved back.
>
> dbr"

So the thing about this is, when I say I'm sure, I actually am. Hence the confusion. Let myself get confused by convincing myself, by mistakenly thinking, that somebody else was a lot more like me than she actually was, horrible consequences. Not a criticism of anyone but me, other people are allowed to be mistaken, hard not to beat myself up over it, trying not to, genuinely meant well, just stupidly optimistic, unlike me. Best if I stay more like me in future, I guess, cold, cruel eye for a cold, cruel world, keeping the helping hand well hidden in my vest when anyone's looking.

Thought I knew worry pretty well, always been a worried person, but I've gotten to know it a whole lot better, always coming across new & strange aspects, oftentimes doesn't seem like worry at all, anger, despair, euphoria, sharpness, collapse, chaos, all guises of the same old fear.

Watching a ship, sailing away in flames, its crew imagining it's me that's been abandoned, here on the peaceful shore.

Just spent some time pottering sickly about the kitchen, frying frozen parathas, drinking orange juice, thinking thoughts so profoundly malicious that even I found them a bit shocking. Should probably keep them to myself.

Back to lying in the dark, listening to music.

T called me with a joke, since she's moved out west, her cell signal seems to have been consistently worse, but I got the gist of it, that gist being:

Cow is climbing a tree.

Crow in tree says, "Cow!- why are you climbing tree?"

Cow says, "I want to eat apples."

Crow says, "You crazy cow! There are no apples! This is a birch tree!"

Cow says, "Oh, I brought them with me."

In a bit of a state, visions of Ganesh & the like:



Pretty pitch dark, it's 5:30, shit.

Spent the morning doing a number of highly technical tasks no one in their right mind would trust someone in my current state to do.

Decided that some fresh air & food might do me good, so walked to town for some nice Thai, food made me feel a bit better, but cold & exertion made me feel a bit lightheaded.

Distracted myself from that on walk home by playing around with amusing low light setting of toy camera.

Back in a prone position, going to do some more highly technical tasks.

So arrogant, party hack, backroom-dealing mayor stays; DRM-touting library board candidate goes home to lick her wounds. A lot happier about the second than bothered by the first, frankly, maybe I have strange priorities?

Still feel like hell.

Seems I've got a new ups delivery person as they've taken to leaving my packages in my front neighbors' foyer again, at least the current tenants don't appear to rifle through packages, still very noisy at night, lots of banging, ah, youth!

One recovered delivered item, tiny saucepan with spouts, reet effete:



Copy of Lady Eve also arrived.

Would really like to be asleep, head hurts too much.

Really, really hurts.

Shit.

Finished off a game of online Scrabble with my mom, went down in humiliating defeat. It happens.

Moved on from drinking orange juice to harder stuff, most of the way through a bottle of pale dry ginger ale, hiccup.

Feeling like unmitigated crap, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever- would have some Nyquil if my stomach weren't so upset. No rest for the wicked.

D	Dignified
B	Brilliant
R	Relaxed

Name / Username:

Oh, ha, fucking, ha.

Made a quick, feeble run to Serio's for necessities, home again enjoying nicken choodle soup & a grilled cheese sandwich. Observe:



Bit difficult simulating both myself & someone who cares about me at the best of times, harder when ill, positronic matrix goes all funny. Getting better at it.

Out walking with Peretz just now in the cold rain, smoky muted sunset happening far too early over the ridge, thinking about walking with him yesterday at lunchtime by the senior citizen center, elderly gentleman pulling up alongside me & asking, "Hey Mac, is this the seniors' building?" "Yes, it is, you can park in that lot over there." Drives over to lot, looks at me again, questioningly. "You can park anywhere over there."

Old people are pretty great & Peretz has plenty of other fields to play in.

Again with the sicker & sicker.

Feel like hell, having some happyland ice cream, should probably go get some noodle soup.

Peretz has been fussing over me, suggesting deeply inappropriate remedies.

Realized that stomach pains were but a component of something far worse as my temperature began to rise and sinuses clogged up. Headed home, stopping in to vote on the way. Now working remotely, prone, vulnerable. Anybody want to have a go?

Sitting at my desk at work, thinking about moral vacuity, the tantalizing irony of one irrationally hostile to meaning pursuing a career in reference, etc., etc.

Stomach cramps have returned.

Have just learned that the Magnetic Fields are playing the Iron Horse on February 11 & 12 of next year, despite my hatred of the place, will probably go, on the 12th, I imagine, as, to the best of my knowledge estranged pals can sleep in (relatively) on Tuesdays. Stamping out all residue of sympathy takes some work, working on it.

Noticed that I failed to notice that the terms under which the church bazaars site I'd long been hosting is licensed are such that I am not actually required to down it at a copyright holder's request. I have therefore brought it back online, enjoy.

Spending the morning drinking coffee, checking up on servers, shivering; thinking about Holden Caulfield, phonies, PTSD, the networked imaginary.

Intentionally inexistent objects are real enough, in their way. Tired of being one. Behold, the Meinong.

Thinking about the long nose of the thinking of the network, stretching far past the present ones, funny wooden puppet, prone to lies, no strings attached, dreaming of being a real boy.

'"This technique is known as the Pinocchio illusion because you feel as if your nose is getting longer when you grab the tip of your nose. It is a way to trick the brain and manipulate the body image," said Dr Ehrsson.'

Manipulating my homunculus as I write, will be in proper order any time now.

Reading Slawkenbergius's Tale.

Up early due to more scary dreams, working out voting strategy for city elections, mostly it involves voting against anyone named Higgins.

The mayor is loathsome enough, but a pro-DRM candidate for library trustee boggles the mind. From yesterday's paper, 'In addition, she says, she has a keen interest in implementing new intellectual property rights protections for authors, whose work can be pirated electronically with no protections in place and with little legal expertise available. "This will put Northampton on the map as a forward-thinking community," she says. "$200 billion is lost in piracy of intellectual works. The government is just beginning to look into it."' Down in flames, down in flames.

Rainy morning, another case of the sneezes.

Fine folks become sad, annoying, boring- boring into my head, incessant buzz of a hive mind stupider than any single mind could ever be, blind, vicious, stinging & dying, stinging & dying.

Lack of sweetness in my life all right, not severe enough to covet that honey.

Colony collapse disorder is a bitch, turns out it wasn't that foreign virus after all, or so I read.

Decided a great deal of protein was really called for, am therefore making spaghetti & meatballs, pretty beat, hope I don't fall asleep, operating without a net, wheeeeeeeee.

T, I know I've fallen off the wagon a bit as far as encouraging you to cook, but you should really try making those Trader Joe's frozen meatballs you like, that's absurdly easy.

Listening to the Magnetic Fields.

R	Relaxed
L	Lively
E	Enjoyable
T	Trustworthy
A	Adventurous
A	Astonishing
S	Shocking

Name / Username:

Forgot to mention that I ran into Nace earlier while mailing off camera, determined that there was a show I'm quite interested on in Amherst on Friday, have therefore once again rescheduled dinner/movie night to Saturday. Next one is going to be out of sync with moon phase as well, at T's request, hostess with mostess.

So, cycle's a bit off. Please don't read anything into that.

En route to Staples, made a quick stop at the AAA office to get shiny new passport photos with my shiny new membership card, will try to go file paperwork, sign loyalty oaths, etc. in the next few days, then come 2008 (maybe 2009), I'll be all set for a romantic weekend getaway to Montreal, no need to tell the hubby, pretend you have a conference or something.

Me being 36:



We are cheerful & alert.

Just received a million thank yous for performing Best Man's role admirably, thanks to the wonders of modern mathematical notation, it all fit on a tiny note. Not at all sure how admirable I actually was, but anyway, you're welcome.

Need to return to work before supply run as I forgot my car over there.

Peretz is in ur intarwebs, cloggin ur tubez:



Stupid, I know, but I'm very, very bored.

Switched my AAA over from one with T to one through work, pretty emblematic, anyway, new card finally arrived, one less thing to be nervous about, also shipped off my camera for repair, so one more, nice to keep things in balance.

Need to go on office supply run after lunch, someone's wandered off with our nice compressed air spray nozzle, will try to find another, among other things.

Trying to think of apple dishes.

Disrupting someone's sleep for a year because it's too hard to say you're sorry- honestly, WTF?

Stupid to expect someone with demonstrated defective empathy to show any, stupid about some people, working on being less stupid, it's a challenge.

Strange that someone, knowing full well how I feel about being under covert hostile surveillance would undertake such an extensive program of it. Wonder how one squares such a thing with one's self concept, not very well, I imagine, the poor dear.

Anyway, trying to just accept it as a cost of doing business, less deer in the headlights, more deer in natural habitat, going about its deery business. Hope your nature program works out.

Suppose as it's the same person who did a bunch of severely dehumanizing things to me, realizing full well they were that, I shouldn't be that surprised. Lack of self discipline, or rather, too much of the wrong sort.

Enjoy your bushes.