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.

More sake, planning to have still more sake. Finding lately that alcohol makes the overwhelming terror seem simultaneously more extreme and less of a bother, both the effect of slight relaxation, I imagine.

Ever fallen in love with someone likely to harm herself and others? Should start writing pop songs, feel that I have a knack.

Peretz is still all curled up being adorable. Should really give him dinner, hate to disrupt his blissful state for mere food.

More sake, feed the dog, more sake, walk the dog, more sake, sleep. Makings of a plan.

Peretz is being quite the cuddlebug, as they say in the dog looking for forever home advertisements, this evening.

Peretz being cuddlebug:



Need a shower, going to take a shower.

Ended up getting not a toy camera as such but a solid state videocamera slightly cheaper than the similar toy version.

Been playing with its nightvision mode:



Also recorded myself singing the chorus of 'You Are My Sunshine' to test the mic:



All in all, seems a worthwhile purchase, wonder how long till it breaks.

Been playing with old digital camera, not much fun, feels like a tank in the hand, runs through batteries incredibly quickly. Thinking about heading to Target & picking up a toy camera or something to play with while waiting for repair of proper camera.

Feeling astonishingly beat.

Laundry's all done, been playing with old digital camera, one way to get through a giant slab of aa batteries, I suppose. It uses a nonstandard cable, wonder what I've done with it.

Going to head over to work to make sure servers made it through time change without any obvious hiccups. After that, more time outside with P, I think.

Spent some time reading Walser on the courthouse steps, wasn't the pheromone infused strip I imagined, go figure.

Went to Veracruzana in search of pupusas, they've stopped making them, sadly. Got a burrito instead, also quite good, so no worries.

Checked post office hours on the walk home, would've been easier to check on the web, nice day for a walk.

People are always looking for technical solutions to social problems, tempting to chastise them for that & people often do, not really any sort of clean distinction between the technical & the social, at least these days, quite intertwined. Mostly when there's an issue it's the choice of technical solution that's the real problem, or there's an obvious direct nontechnical solution but an elaborately technical one is chosen instead. Though I've always been fond of Rube Goldberg, so I don't know.

Sad to watch people tangled up in their own devices anyway, maybe I should watch some Cool Devices(banned in Canada) later, right now going to valk to town with my borrowed Walser while laundry dries, read it on a bench in the sunshine (chicks dig Walser), maybe get some pupusas or something.

Gray socks, gray shirt, ever grayer at the temples, genetics & circumstance conspiring to that end. Put brown under hair color on my passport application, a glance in the mirror refutes it. All clad in gray & brown, muddied & cold, nature turning to death.

Gave Peretz the last of the rice & pumpkin, his GI tract seems back on an even keel, but what the hell, he likes it.

Doing laundry. Thinking about record label business models.

Peretz is lying on the floor, head & forelegs in a sunny spot, smacking his lips. He's a good dog.

Camera won't power on, more enforced privation, sigh. Under warranty, already packed with paperwork, will ship it tomorrow morning, I guess, hate Sundays.

Also back on Standard Time, hate Standard Time.

Hate, hate, hate.

Love you though.

Bit of a long slide movie night in icy cold barn, left a bit achy & creaky. Made a short slide movie, variation of ghosts come & make everyone & everything hurt narrative, crude illustrations. People seemed to enjoy the hubbard pies, had a wide variety of sugary snacks myself, made me even more jittery. Lovely night sky in Cummington. Pleasant conversation with schoolteacher from the eastern part of the Commonwealth.

Sitting on couch with Jess, mentioned that I've been averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night for over a year now, wondering how long that could go on, doesn't really seem supportable, been doing it for quite a while, maybe it is.

People & their artlessness, sort of sweet, very dull.

Having some sake, watching Japanese cartoons.

Hubbard pies accomplished, going to head up to function in Cummington with Jess around 6, head hurts, should probably drink some water, going to walk the dog first.

Cylon, replicant, what have you- created with superhuman intelligence & strength, might easily be expected to expect being treated with a modicum of respect, inevitably get treated as crimes against nature, by their creators, no less, easy to see how they might get a bit tetchy.

Outside, bitterly cold winds, leaf vortices, the whole 9.

Evil cybernetic hubbard pies are baking.

Went & restocked on local soda, stopped by Randall's Farm after, mainly to get cream for pie making, ended up getting some other things, happyland flavor ice cream, for instance, I would have found pretty irresistible even were happyland not the name of the volume on my web server where most of the websites reside.





Turns out it's pistachio ice cream with lots of weird candies embedded, highly suitable.

RLETAAS means right lady endures tart, acerbic assertions smilingly. Thought I'd found one, apparently not, has sparked an interest in locating an actual one unique in my adult life, not terribly strong, still very unusual. What the hell, life's too short.

I want more life, fucker!

Just did a good deed, will presumably not go unpunished.

Recharging my camera battery.

It's gotten quite nippy.

Sneezing my head off.

Wake, wash up, walk dog, fetch soda, bla, bla, bla.

Will maybe go to strange paper slide projection thing in Cummington later, with Jess. It's a potluck, should probably make something, hubbard pies? Seems daunting.

Eyes are watering.

Also, my shoe order has been delayed, double drat.

Just spent some time repairing household implement, enjoy fixing things, sometimes a bit too much.

People's love of things constantly interferes with their ability to love other people properly, I don't mean commodities, especially, all sorts of things, abstract things (commodities being one sort), processes, patterns, whatever. Have felt so overtaken by my own turns of mind and preoccupations lately, they've kept me from being how others would like, they're the only reason I am at all, so much is occluded and obscure, it's a bit maddening. Feel like I'm failing someone very badly, useless.

At least I'm not in love with suffering, just with someone else who is, still not so great. World is plenty dark already without shrouding ourselves in our own dark vapors, that's how I feel about it. Others, well, others feel differently.

Still haven't gotten to that Walser book, drat.

Finally got around to updating Reader to Reader site, have been feeling pretty terrible about not getting around to that, it had gotten to be a bit of a pile and seemed depressing & overwhelming, so I kept putting it off, anyway finally done with that, feel better, about that, anyway.

Funny, being such a mess for so long, makes me feel unlike myself in some ways, more like myself in others. Has certainly been a clarifying experience, didn't really need any more clarifying about things, will take what I can get out of it, I guess. One thing that has become terribly clear is, while it all feels very normal to me, I am a pretty extreme sort of person. They run screaming.

Been enjoying listening to music borrowed from Cooper, nice version of 'You are my sunshine'. You really are, you know.

Just took a lot of vodka & scotch bottles out to the recycling bin, anyone looking at it might think I'm quite the alcoholic. As long as they don't guess the horrible truth- that I don't take the recycling out very often.

Finished off jar of mandarin oranges left over from yellow generals' scandal, very refreshing. Making dinner parties leaves all sorts of nice things around, pretty pleasant.

Could use a haircut.

Made myself some brussels sprouts in a cream sauce, eating a bowl of them now, dbrusselsprout.

Borrowed a recently translated Robert Walser novel from Phineas, wanting to settle down into it, can't seem to settle down, shocking, eh?

Trying to work out menu for next week's dinner party, somewhat inchoate at this point, something Edenic?

Once done with work, left the house intending to go on local soda run, passing through Easthampton on the way to glance at a four family house newly on the market, ended up getting bogged down in Easthampton hanging out with Chris & Jess, eating donuts, borrowing old time music, etc. Will maybe get soda in the morning.

It's funny, people who are attracted to artists yet repulsed by normal artistic attitudes, viewing everything esthetically, etc. Oh, well, can't help it if people like & dislike me for the same reasons, rougher on them, I imagine.

Feeling a bit flushed, should have a glass of water.

Banging on the wall by my desk continues, working from home again, pup lying nearby in sunny spot on futon, something I'd like to be doing a lot more of sometime, would make somebody an excellent shelled in Mr. Mom, no takers, of course. No accounting for taste.

Reading about naked eye visible Comet Holmes, learned about it from press release trapped in spam filter.

Still sorting through spam, it never ends, also watching my home web server being portscanned from deep within the China Railway Telecommunications Center subnets. Hello, 222.58.230.114, how are you today? No brains here, sorry.

Sun in my face through the open window, makes it a bit hard to read the screen, but it's no bother, really.

Sitting at my desk at work, thinking about people hurting themselves imagining they're hurting me, sort of funny in a way, also very, very sad.

Some people like examples, here's one- for a long time, I've been hosting a website of artwork for somebody that I designed for him, pretty nice, if I say so myself, only real public presence for his artwork. Anyway, he asked me to down it a while ago in the course of yet another stream of incoherent abuse & I did so. He seemed pissed that I hadn't downed it without him asking, so ridiculous the things people will be pissed about, not something I would ever do & something I would be quite pissed about if someone did it to me. Not sure what he thinks I was getting out of hosting his site, not much, was doing it as a favor, just another representation of multiplicity, I have lots. He also asked me to down another site by him & another person, felt a bit funny about that as it was really the other person's work, but she was foolish enough to put his name to it as well, so down it went. Assume she's aware it's down, she's left a dead link to it on her work homepage, anyway, unprofessional.

But I'm rambling. Fact is, there are a lot of examples. Most of them vastly worse than this, too sad to talk about, really.

Thinking about Camera Lucida, what makes photos interesting, flickr's interestingness algorithm. Mostly things picked out by that aren't interesting at all, like ad photos, heavily photoshopped, garish, sentimental.

Thinking about Komar & Melamid, Distinction.

Thinking about Barthes, hit by a car, unable to speak for what was it?- a month?- before his death.

Thinking about being inappropriately used, never had much use for propriety, much problem with being used. The reality is, bang a sensitive instrument on the table & it goes out of whack, no sensors seem too terribly damaged, recalibrating.

Thinking about psychodynamics, the transference, The Function of the Orgasm, The Mass Psychology of Fascism.

Thinking I should really get that Deleuze Cinema group going, should probably be web based given the size & distribution of the likely audience, might make a nice little programming/customization project.

Thinking about picking up new, complete translation of Ecrits Amazon recommended to me yesterday.

Cried myself to sleep, woke too early again, forced myself to stay in bed for a while.

Working on getting back to being a healthy animal, vigorous, alert, vicious. Coffee helps, cold air, also. Very much a creature of the cold, yeti, behold!- the Protong.

Slipping on stinky shoes, did order some fresh ones, going to go out with Peretz in a minute in search of the Urpflanze.

Thinking about endless stream of photos I've been generating lately, started with fairs, don't think it makes sense to read too much into that, think I just needed something flashy to pique my interest. Having a little fit of pique.

Enjoying prefabricated biscuits with sorghum while obligatory, imaginary sad-eyed mule looks on approvingly, good old sad-eyed mule.

Finished those biscuits. Sitting in the dark listening to Ethiopian pop music, mule likes it, too.

Went to that show for a bit, found it very dull, so came home again. Not all sorry I went, had fun walking around looking at things & people.

My sneakers have gotten incredibly smelly, time to get new sneakers I think, maybe socks also.

Oftentimes think about things to the point that I seem unsympathetic, don't bother thinking much about people I'm unsympathetic to, actually. So often it seems sympathy is where thought stops, blind loyalty & all that, don't think much of it. Sympathy without understanding is dead, worse, it kills endlessly, blind cascade of destruction & death.

Like to keep my eyes well fixed on what I'm destroying & why- not always the easiest thing being a hand of Kali, but she's got a lot of hands, somebody's got to do it. Best if it's somebody who knows what he's doing is how I feel about it.

May go to that show after all, could use to get out of the house.

Made myself some fried rice with local bacon ends, last of the farm share kale, other nice things. Farm share supplies are dwindling almost to nothing, though I'll have squash for a bit, sad to see it go.

Going to let fried rice cool for a bit, tastier when cool, maybe take P for a little walk.

Everyone who I talk to about it seems to understand pretty much exactly how I feel except the people making me feel that way, typisch.

OK, back to my fanatical killer robot rounds.

Urgent need to go out reemerged, feels like rain. Was thinking of going to see music at Hampshire tonight, may need to give it a miss.

Only 11/1 & already brooding on endless war, world's a hard thing to be in love with, I sure can pick 'em.

Strange to miss people who don't miss me, in a way they can't, never having known me, they got done with missing me while I was still there.

Peretz just stretched & gave me a thoughtful look.

Listening to 'Octopus', quite a good song.

House call took longer than expected, typical fucked up Windows network stack, on the plus side, there was a tortoise in residence.

Luckily, Thai place serves lunch till three, drunken noodle, mango with sticky rice (not as good as at place in Greenfield, still damn good).

There was something I really wanted to say but I've forgotten what.

Saw a pachinko machine in the entryway of antique shop on the way over to call, always wanted one. Nice Wim Wenders bit on pachinko:



Peretz seems to be feeling a bit better, no urgent demands for walk yet anyway.

Came home from work, done with work requiring physical presence to strong smell of doggy diarrhea, located source, cleaned it up, took Peretz out again. Putting him back on rice & pumpkin, cooking rice now.

Muscle pain's really a lot better, still a bit sore & out of sorts.

Need to go set up remote access for one of our editors in a bit, she lives right near nice Thai place in town, pleasure universe.

Got note from boss advising me to work from home today as much as possible as the banging by my desk has intensified, nice of him.

Finally decided that my desire to be able to do research was more important to me than coddling someone else's madness & have applied for a UMass borrower's card. Complete works of Thomas De Quincey here we come.

Not sure where it started, dreaming of streams of hex from the little machine language programs Aaron & I used to type in from an Atari 8-bit enthusiast magazine, maybe, these days it's urges to call things that aren't phones to locate them, to use tab completion while typing English, etc. Hybridized.

Straight from bed to out with dog, he has urges of his own, like everybody.

Between occupation & preoccupation haven't had much outside time, seem to get a good deal done somehow, helps if I make things an exercise of some kind, things that I can't do that with seem to fall by the wayside. It's a pity, because I have some projects in mind that require more than mere aggregation, maybe soon.

Hurt a bit less today, hoping shower will make me hurt less yet.