January 2005

tiny

03:18 1/30/2005

I'm feeling down today. I'm feeling down for a number of little reasons. I'm tired and hate the sleep cycle I'm in now. I'm worried about my budget, it still sucks. I'm stressed by the fear of thugs that's creeping into my life. I'm noticing myself age in the mirror and worrying about that, which ages me more. And I'm encountering a lot of anti-poverty stuff. Conversations on bulletin boards and in chatrooms about how poor people are losers and a drag on the system and it's their own fault and they don't try hard enough. I just get to feeling so small and hopeless when I run into this stuff. I begin to doubt my own validity and value. I never have felt terribly valuable or valid and being told I'm a weight and a nuisance only adds to it till I just want to crawl into my bed and cover myself up and hide from the world and wait for death to take me and relieve the planet of my unworthy bulk.

I don't get any days off anymore where I can just stay home like I love to do. The only day I don't deliver the paper is the day I find best to catch up on my work at the theatre. Plus with the show on every night except monday I have to go in for that too. I sure didn't want to get up today.

whine and rant

08:02 1/29/2005

So the welfare cheque comes, she's docked another $80. $20 from the transportation allowance and the $50 disability allowance. Geezus fuck. Well I'll get my doc to sign papers saying I'm screwed up and need special diet and that'll put $90 back on the allowance then I'll find out why the transportation allowance got shrunk. I'm entitled to the value of a bus pass, especially as I have a job and need transportation to get to it.

Speaking of thieves, I ran into ANOTHER scumbag today! I was delivering the last house on the first street of my route and on my way back to my car I saw him on the street. He was waving at a car, presumably in hopes of flagging it down. Then he saw me and my nice warm running car sitting unattended. He quickened his pace and I quickened mine. As I reached the car he was coming around the corner to where I was and shouted "Hey!" I wasn't giving anyone the benefit of the doubt at 4:15am Saturday morning and rushed into my car, slammed and locked the door and looked up at him with defiant fury and fear. He looked back at me with astonisment and fury and I backed up and drove off as he stood there trying to figure out how to continue. I almost stopped at the next house on the route and looked back to where he was standing still, wobbling back and forth looking stupified a block away. I thought no, I'll go do the last street and work my way back. I drove to the last street on my route and found myself constantly looking back to see if he was following, locking my door when I had more than one house and generally having a pretty hard time of it. Being that it's saturday and delivery time is guaranteed for 8:30, not 7:30, I decided to go do my cleaning job and finish the route after, giving the shithead time to move on to wherever. I finished that street and the last 3 houses of my route, leaving the two middle streets for later and on the way to the theatre passed no less than 3 more scruffy men at the late hour of 4:45am. Talk about feeling unsafe! The one I ran from was unshaven, in a ball cap and sport windbreaker with a frosted mustache. I think he looked decidedly unsavoury and he was also well into his 30s. Definitely thuggish and I don't care if I'm being assumptive. Yes he was indian too. the next two were walking together, one had incredible hair in a ponytail to his knees, they were slouching along in scruffy clothes ignoring my car as I drove past but being still nervous I decided not to wait at the light but make a right turn and then take a left at the next block and double back a few streets up. At that next block was scruff #2, a white guy with a handlebar mustache stumbling along drunkenly looking very much like human flotsam.

Is it getting worse out there or am I just noticing it more now after being attacked? Is it because I'm out there more for longer periods? I have decided the best way to deal with it is to use only my old beater bike and trailer to deliver the papers, like it or not, and carry only my cheap mp3 disk player and keys. That way I've nothing to steal. Oh, and I guess my PDA for reading at work. That's a little enough thing to hide and protect. First off I won't present as having anything attractive. Last week it was my fancy bike, this week my car. Secondly I won't feel like I'm protecting anything so will feel more reckless which will give me enough courage to cope with them. I suppose of course theres always the danger of rape and such but I simply can't afford to give up this paper route. I very badly need to make more money and I don't know any other way. Housepainting completely dried up and I just haven't a clue how to start it up again. Having welfare tighten up the purse strings like this makes it even more imperative that I learn to deal with these shits. There's only two ways with muggers, one is to be more violent than they, the other is too be more destitute.

crime

18:03 1/24/2005

Twenty fucking years and I've gotten maybe $100,000 out of welfare in all that time, if you figure $6-10k a year, minus the times I've had alternate income. Some shithead worker stole a MILLION dollars over 5 years. And THEY have the NERVE to treat US like scum and moochers??????

I"m so fucking angry I'm shouting at my walls and feel so impotent and helpless. We need to increase welfare rates. Crime is up because poor folks are so desperate that becoming a criminal is becoming an option!!!

Take my saturday night experience in point:read my story about an armed mugging.

#1 increase welfare rates. A lot of these people aren't going into crime because they think it's cool but because they just don't have enough money to meet their needs. that kid had to have lived with racism and abuse all his life and he was not well fed. Expecting him to come from that and just waltz out with the confidence and assurance to get employment in our modern society is unreasonable. He needs enough to live on, training options, choices. The next thing we need to do is stop being sheep. If these kids coming out and starting a life of crime expect to have to actually stab and kill people, they are not going to start as easily. We've been so trained to fear a little injury and the rare death that we just hand everything over. The cops tell us to just hand everything over. When you hand it over you affirm his violence, you give up your spirit with your money, and you teach him that he can take whatever he likes with the merest show of threat. Bullying wins, we all lose. Granted, there's a judgement call there. Most folks value their lives and if you really think he's seriously going to kill you, you're better off handing it over. I just believe in the good in man, even in these damaged souls.

After we've improved their lives and increased the risk in their behaviour, we need to amp up the laws a little, especially for youth. Lowered age of responsibility and increased penalties. Criminal records after the age of 13, why not? You can apply for a pardon if you've turned your life around. In fact, why not criminal record at any age and apply for pardon automatically at age 18 if you haven't been convicted again?

So next time, and the time after that, and long after my bones are fragile I will continue to walk where I damn well please and refuse to give in to violence. Someone's gotta show the way. Ours has become a culture of cowardice and sloth. The increase in crime and ill-health is the reward.

paper route

07:08 1/22/2005

Well that was a hellish week. I wound up taking on a paper route. Day one was yesterday and I started at the tail end of a blizzard. Snow, blowing snow, high winds, deep drifts. That overtop of the ice from Tuesday's Ice storm had me struggling hard. I took 2.5 hours to do the job and burned up a quarter tank of gas. It's a motor route with the subscribers widely spaced.

Ok, here's the thing. When you own a house, Please please go out on the street in a car and look for your house number. At night. Does it show up? Why not? Any chance it's too small or the same goddamn color/tone as the background? One fucking house actually has white on white. WHAT??? Are you nuts? The numbers are huge but you can't see them till you walk up to the house!!! I have been doing a lot of that. I have to get that part learned by thursday morning because my schedule at the theatre gets nasty and I'll be cramming in the paper route in the middle of all night theatre sessions.

Today was better by far. I got done in 90mins, used an 8th tank of gas and most of the snow had been cleared. It was bitterly cold but you can dress for cold. At least there was no wind. I also recognized some of the houses so that too helped speed me up. Since I don't have a paper sunday morning I'll switch my sunday night cleaning to then and that way monday delivery is easier to handle. For this week anyway. Won't work next week with the shows and all. Well I will be able to play some catchup on the cleaning nonetheless. I do need to restructure my cleaning schedule.

The paper route gives me something positive to worry about, increases my income that vital $150-$200 and the exercise burns off stress. Just because I'm driving doesn't mean I'm not working hard. My body aches from stem to stern. Brutally. When the snow clears up a bit and the cold backs off a bit I'll try doing my route with a bike. Have to do it on an off night when the papers are in early and I can start right away so I have extra time as I learn the tricks. Take longer to get there and climbing the hill with a trailer full of papers won't be fun, but it won't cost gas and that's important. I don't think I want to try and drag a trailer load of papers up the icey hill frankly so it may be a month or two, I dunno. Depends on how the road conditions change.

sucks to be me

00:40 1/20/2005
I dunno if I've just gone completely nuts or smartened up. I've had such a horrid couple days. Last night Dan comes on Yahoo and says to me "dan47wa_st (11:43:42 PM): hI Yolanda
dan47wa_st (11:43:49 PM): if your there
dan47wa_st (11:44:21 PM): so many emails can work against you
annrkiszt (11:42:39 PM): hey it's you
annrkiszt (11:42:43 PM): emails work against me?
dan47wa_st (11:45:31 PM): i am gong, i have short mood
Now it's been necessary to nag him to get him to talk to me. He often keeps it short and comes up with any quick excuse to quit. He has been promising to send me some money for 6 weeks and finally sends $200 and that's it, and that was how it went last time. His reluctance to interact has been going on since our summer visit now. His visit last november was great for 2 wks and then when I lost interest in sex for sex's sake, suddenly he was morose, distant, silent and would retire to any space in which I was not.
So I've been trying to run away from the likelihood he doesn't want to be with me anymore. He won't admit it. I've asked him and told him how I feel and he insists it's not true. I don't believe that. His actions say otherwise. It's quite in character for him to be too weak to dump a woman he's strung along so much.
Here's another thing. His jealousy has vanished completely it would appear. While at first I took it as a sign of healing and maturing, now against the disinterest and neglect I think it could as easily be a sign of just not caring. He used to be very involved in me. Wanted to know things about me. Wanted to know whom I'd seen and where I'd been. At times it was almost controlling. As time passes his interest has fallen steadily and now our conversations are two one-sided monologues that are pretty much unrelated. It's like talking with me is a chore he does out of duty.
So I've been getting deeper and deeper in debt. I'm terribly broke. My balance right now is $6,603.48 and the minimum payment each month is $195. That uses up everything left over after the necessary bills are paid. We're not including groceries, fuel for the car, food for rabbits, anything. I'll be cancelling my newspaper subscription tomorrow.
So I've downgraded my internet to the least, will cancel my newspaper. I'm trying to find a new home for the rabbits. They cost $150 a month and I can't afford it. I have cried a lot. I'm trying to make myself eat only one meal's worth of food spread out over a day. Today wasn't too hard as I'm too stressed and upset to eat anyway.
Dan wrote me telling me his yahoo was on so I got on and spoke with him.
dan47wa_st (6:53:41 PM): Hey love are you there?
annrkiszt (7:27:42 PM): I had yahoo off
dan47wa_st (7:39:28 PM): hey there you are
dan47wa_st (7:39:31 PM): Hi love
annrkiszt (7:36:57 PM): hello Dan
dan47wa_st (7:39:42 PM): How come your website is down?
annrkiszt (7:37:10 PM): I took it down
dan47wa_st (7:40:05 PM): Are you redoing it or something?
annrkiszt (7:37:51 PM): no, I just removed it.
annrkiszt (7:38:22 PM): and I'm reducing my account to bottom line bandwidth so I can't really put it back up anyway
annrkiszt (7:38:34 PM): I won't have enough bandwidth to serve a website
annrkiszt (7:38:42 PM): not like it matters, stupid thing anyway.
annrkiszt (7:38:48 PM): good for nothing
dan47wa_st (7:41:33 PM): ahh I liked it
dan47wa_st (7:41:42 PM): and I got stuff from it
annrkiszt (7:39:08 PM): you've seen it all
dan47wa_st (7:41:55 PM): why are you decreasing your bandwidth?
dan47wa_st (7:41:58 PM): cost?
annrkiszt (7:39:22 PM): yes
annrkiszt (7:39:36 PM): I have to pare at least $300 from my budget
dan47wa_st (7:42:17 PM): well how much will it cost now? In comparison
annrkiszt (7:39:48 PM): phone plus $12.95
annrkiszt (7:39:57 PM): so around $40-$45
annrkiszt (7:40:31 PM): the gym membership and paper subscription going, rabbits going, possibly car license too
annrkiszt (7:40:39 PM): must cut costs
dan47wa_st (7:44:21 PM): what?
dan47wa_st (7:44:32 PM): Your getting rid of your rabbits?
annrkiszt (7:42:13 PM): they cost up to $175 a month
annrkiszt (7:42:24 PM): I can't afford it
dan47wa_st (7:45:23 PM): well If I had more money right now Yolanda, I would send it
dan47wa_st (7:45:29 PM): But work is still slow
annrkiszt (7:43:09 PM): I am not asking you for anything
dan47wa_st (7:45:54 PM): I know your not
dan47wa_st (7:46:11 PM): I hate to see you get rid of your rabbits, I know how much you like them.
annrkiszt (7:43:50 PM): yeah, it sucks but then I probably won't find a home for them anyway
annrkiszt (7:43:57 PM): I am going now
That's his favorite closing line. I just don't know how to cope with his fantasy world. I don't want to devolve into whining. I don't want to get sucked back in. I don't want to be second guessing myself again. I don't know how to tell him all this. He's so stuck in this strange denial.
I did get an inquiry about my rabbits tonight. I so don't want to let them go. What if I don't find them a home as good as this? I can't let Flora go be caged up. She says she'd rather just live on Hay than leave. I know this is the best home she's known so I understand. A new home has to be as good. My heart hurts so bad.
I took down the website last night too. I'm going to leave it down. It doesn't gain me anything. I still have the server running if I need to share a picture with someone or something. But the whole website with writing and crap? What for? If it had ever bloody earned me any money, fine, then it would have value. But it never did and too now with the reduction in bandwidth it is pointless.
I really don't want to go in chatrooms or anything anymore anyway. Really I don't. I'm so very tired of dealing with people. I don't want to tell anyone what's going on with Dan. We've had so many fights and breakups it's silly anyway. I don't want to admit I've failed again. Yet again another man in my life has lost interest in me. Is this because of me? Everyone thinks so. They think I can't hold a man, that I'm fickle, that I must mistreat them or ask too much. Nobody wants to accept that it's possible for a person to be unloveable even if they try very hard to do all the right things. My mother didn't even love me for christ's sake. Hey world, sometimes it's just that way. Am I a victim? Of what? Yes I'm guilty of self-pity. I feel very sorry for myself right now. It's positively orgiastic. I'm also feeling very very worried about my future. I feel very stuck and powerless. I don't feel like I have the ability to make a better life for myself. I believe I've tried everything I've heard suggested and that these things just wouldn't work for me. Because of one limitation or another that nothing could seem to fix that. I have worked to overcome my limitations and come a very long way but it just wasn't far enough. I feel like a genuine failure. I'm tired of caring and trying and feeling and crying. I wish I could just shut down. This world really has no need or use of me. I'm just stuck here.
So what I really want to turn my effort into now is pulling back out of it into myself and into my own space. Just try to maintain my home and live in it and learn to keep to myself. Trying to socialize has been harrowing and discomfitting and I don't see that I've made any friends out of it. My memories of the events I have participated in are tainted with horrible insecurities. Worries about how I behaved and what I said and worrying about what impression I made. I don't want to deal with it anymore. Not now that I"m so depressed especially. What could I possibly have to talk about? How do I interact without whining? I can't think about anything but my current misery but that's off the list of acceptable conversations.
Perhaps the following table of my income and outgo illustrates that maybe I'm not exaggerating.

$27.00	gym	income source	income
$156.79	mortgage	welfare	$592.79
$18.84	house ins	paycheck	$130.00
$47.74	car	paycheck	$130.00
$38.00	prop. Tx
$98.00	gas
$155.00	lights	total out	$796.37
$10.00	savng	total in	$852.79
$200.00	cc min.	difference	$56.42
$40.00	phone	$55/4.5wks=	$12/wk
$5	bank fees	for	non-fixed

Now I realize I could dump the gym membership and increase my weekly amount to $18 but it's still bullshit, isn't it? Please note that the only other choice is to get rid of my car. If I did that, I'd have nearly a hundred bucks a month to eat on. Maybe in spring I'll do that. Of course though, Welfare would probably take away my transportation allowance, the value of a bus pass, which is a little more than my car actually costs. So I'd actually go down in income if I stopped using the car. This is what it was like when Dan met me only back then I couldn't get any internet for less than $25 a month and that bought me 30 hours of dialup a month. Now I can get the ultralight DSL which is probably not much better than 56k bandwidth but is at least always on. That's what I'm switching to.
I was pretty depressed when Dan came along. Feeling desperate and lost. He came along and started pouring money into my life. I started to spend more. I bought things I needed, I bought enough food to eat, I got the rabbits and fed them well. He stopped pouring in the money but kept assuring me he'd pay down the card so I should keep on as I was. I did. I shouldn't have really. It's a hard thing though to return to this low budget but now the card is so enormously high I just plain have to. If he does send money it has to go on the card. When the card is paid down then I'll have enough to eat. That's all there is to it.

leech attacks

17:20 1/14/2005

Once again some greedy shithead maxed out my webserver going for stuff. This time books. Hey, it's there for you, but not to park a download manager on it and get every last goddamn file, ok? The folder names have been changed and you will now have to get back to me to get the address, get it? If you want more than one or two files, get ahold of me and we'll arrange an ftp account. Do NOT park a download manager on my site, period. It fucks me up. It basically shuts my site down and I'll remove the files in question if people can't get to my actual website because of you.

dishes

22:33 1/13/2005

I'm all excited. There was a sale on at the store and I got 4 new plates for only a buck each. I found some nice bowls and a chinese dinner set for not much too (not as cheap as the plates but I was on a roll). So I'm excited to have some nicer dinner ware. My dinner ware has been an ugly mix of castoffs for years. Nice now to have some pretty and colorful new stuff. It's all still kinda mismatched but not the same way. The plates are all of a type though there's 2 patterns in them and the bowls same, and the colors harmonize with the plates although the style is vastly different. Still it's nice to have some stuff I picked out instead of castoffs

life changes

12:27 1/13/2005

Friend of mine told me there was a study in which they found that people who slept less had a greater tendency to weight gain and that a moderate sleep increase resulted in weight loss. Well damn if my weight gain didn't go with my sleep reduction plan! So while I'm reluctant to give up an hour of my day I've decided to go back to sleeping 8 hours. There's just too many things I've read which suggest the health gains outweigh the time loss. At least I know when I am rushed I can steal back that hour a day. Reprogramming will take awhile, currently I tend to want to wake up after only 6 hours and have to force myself back to sleep.

Flora (I assume) forced her way into the living room last night. Said bunny dug a great hole in the carpet by the bunny gate till the gate slid over far enough to let her in then proceeded to dig up a badly ailing houseplant and scatter the dirt with her own shit and piss all over the floor. I was not pleased to be faced with such a cleanup when I awoke, I tell you. Luckily I hate the carpet and it's already thoroughly abused by critters so the damage there didn't upset me as much as seeing the already sick houseplant further abused. Houseplants don't do well here, I can't keep track of time so don't know when last they were watered. To water them often enough to keep in memory would mean drowning them. I can and have killed cacti. Currently among the blighted plant members of my house are a pale scrawny spider plant clinging to life, a pair of hostas, one which isn't sure it wants to live and one that is doing less poorly. A fern that really should be dead by now but clings to life, an african violet that's given up blooming and just wilts on the windowsill, two bamboo pots with 2.5 bamboo stems each which are turning brown on the leaves although they have water and the mother inlaw's tongue that the rabbit pulled out of the dirt, a few pale spears without real roots. I watered them all today. It's hard to believe there was a time I had hundreds of houseplants and took good care of them. I didn't have a computer or multiple pets or any hobbies or job then. It was water plants, dust shelves and watch tv for me. Tiny apartment with nothing better to do. I'll try setting my calendar to pop an alarm telling me to water plants every 10 days and see. Hmmmmm, Outlook has Tasks and can regenerate every time you click it finished, so that might save my plants' lives.

odourosity

18:04 1/12/2005

My oh my didn't I have an interesting night last night! A couple of dodgy eggs had me riding the porcelain pony to purgeville. What's amazing is that in 2 hours my body managed to clear itself so that I'd drink a glass of water and within seconds that water came out almost clean the other end. Almost I say. heh. Well I'll spare you the details of how a roll of T.P. got used up. Kept me up so late though that today I had to skip my grocery run or be too late to the gym. This will be my first gym session since before my thyroid kicked me down. Not an auspicious start. I'll have to take it easy since I'm still recovering from being ill. It started weird. I felt like I was on some kind of drugs that didn't include the fun bits. Blurry vision, muscle tremors and tension, mood swing, abnormal perceptions. Oh, and pain and nausea of course. Yuck. I kept fighting the nausea because I hate throwing up and assumed it was caused by the large dose of baking soda I took for the heartburn. So that's when my body said to try a big mug of water. I guess it figured if I wouldn't let the ick come up, it would have to go down. Frankly as gross things go, I prefer that. Keep it as far from my face as possible! Now you may ask why I ate the dodgy eggs. Well they didn't smell bad. They looked a bit on the stale side and I just figured that was because they had cracked and started to dry out but they'd only been in the fridge a week or less. So I cooked them up and ate them. Other than the hint of rapini flavour that's conquered everything in the fridge they tasted fine.

Oh yes, rapini. It's a cheap food I can give the bunnies so I bought lots. Oh dear oh my doesn't it just STINK! It's going to be weeks before I get rid of that smell in there. Even the freezer part reeks of it. It's gotten in the eggs, the apples, the canned milk. I'll have to buy some boxes of fridge baking soda. Pity because it was a really affordable rabbit food. I wish I had a bar fridge just for the rabbits so it wouldn't matter.

So today I decided to eat boiled chicken and plain rice. I had that advised for feeding a puppy who had intestinal grief. Since I had a boiled chicken breast I figured time to make soup and after peeling off the part I wanted for breakfast with rice I boiled the rest a couple more hours. Now I have lovely tasty chicken noodle soup. Added a few herbs and seasonings and some noodles. Yum. Too few people realize just how easy it is to make chicken soup. If they knew better they wouldn't bother with that canned crap they buy! Just leave the pot boiling while you watch tv in the evening. Put it in the fridge when you go to bed. Next day when you prepare your meal take the pot out of the fridge and debone the chicken and toss in your flavourings and add-ins. Take off the fat that has collected and solidified on top and throw it away or something. Some folks use chicken fat for things but I don't like to eat all that fat and any other use inevitably means living with the stench of rancid chicken fat... Strain out the chicken and while it's cold it will be easy to pick out the bones with your fingers and put the meat back in the broth. Maybe some chopped frozen veggies from the store, a little bit of salt and pepper, some garlic and onion powders and a pinch of sage, parsley. In fact, that old song “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme” happens to be the perfect combination of herbs for chicken soup! And La Voila, you have soup! Add a handful of macaroni or spaghetti noodles or more exotic pasta if you have it and it's a well rounded meal for a lunch or light supper.

pity party

14:47 1/11/2005

Watching an incredibly boring book review chat show because it's on and beats the hell out of watching soap operas. It's really just noise and activity for my ADD brain. But one of the intelligentsia on there, a rather pragmatic fellow, says something that drives home. He says “Well after all, all art is born from self pity.” Wow. Now I don't agree entirely, art also comes of other passions besides self indulgence. It can come of ecstatic joy and pleasure. From being struck by beauty. From religious ecstasy. However, much of our body of high art is the self expression of self pity. Very self absorbed.

This then puts the summation on my slowly growing understanding of where my art went. I was a very creative young woman. I wrote so much poetry that I sometimes even got good poems. I didn't keep the stuff so you won't find it here. I drew and painted like mad. I was forever creating works of art. Enough that some of it was actually worth viewing on some level. I never archived it, never kept it. Either it went to new homes or it got torn apart and reused or in some cases just destroyed for taking up too much space. Thing is, I was a very melancholic kid. Constantly moaning about the horrible state of my life. Oh I had plenty enough to moan about and to this day you can see the tendency in me because it's a lifelong fight and I lose some of the battles or forget to stay on top of it.

The creativity died when I matured past self pity as a way of life. Sort of. It didn't really die, it just ceased to take center stage. Teh priority changed. Self expression as a form of art ceased to have importance and inspiration faded. Now my artistic expression comes out in mundane things, crafts like food, gardening, speaking about ideas, painting houses. It's a tame thing more of skills than inspiration. It's subtle and lies quiet, unnoticed unless you peer very hard.

It seems unimportant to be creative yet I do miss it and I sometimes think I missed out on a vocation. It seems I should be earning money, frankly. Using these talents to make a living. Then folks would respect me. Then it wouldn't be considered wasted talent. I feel like such a useless person. I cannot work in concert with other people and I am not entrepreneurial so that leaves me the realm of artist, yet I am neither productive enough nor pushy enough to use that. Leaving me useless. Worthless to my society. A burden rather than a blessing.

The price though of making art is depression and being even more dislikeable. After all, who enjoys the company of a broody self absorbed artist really? Other artists suffer them but they themselves need that service.

So if art is an expression of self, then artists must be self centered, for the most part. Perhaps in time I'll grow my self large enough for my art to be an expression of the world around me. That would be worthy inspiration. That would be something worth using up materials and time and other people's attention. It won't support me though. Of that I'm sure, because while I might mature as a person and an artist, my skills aren't being practiced enough to ensure they are commensurate with my maturity. Oh well. The world really doesn't need another artist. Doesn't need ME for that matter. I'm just here is all. I don't guess it really matters at all. I just would like to pull my own weight if someone would move over and make room in the harness.

rant

rant

14:07 1/11/2005

I won't write to the local paper anymore. I've gotten fed up with them on too many levels. However I still read it. Not the least reason being that I want to support their new initiative, electronic editions. Yes, that's right, I subscribe electronically and read the paper online. It's pretty decent software although it has it's flaws. That, however is not what inspired me to write this entry. Rather, what I WOULD write in the paper if I still wrote to them.

We have a debate ongoing about smokers and where they may or may not combust tobacco. The city has decided, nowhere. More or less. Well nowhere that employees work. They say it's not in public places but it's more or less noplace anyone ever has to work. So you're restricted to standing on sidewalks smoking, your car and home, and if your job has an employee smoking area. No restaurants or night clubs or clubs or sports facilities,etc, not even if outdoors. They restricted outdoors to keep things fair between businesses. I guess our dwindling smoker population is still a big spending one. The smokers are in an uproar. They write a letter bitching about it almost daily. Smoker's rights. Specially built ventilated rooms. GIVE US A WARM PLACE TO SMOKE!!

Does nobody but me see it? These people are addicts. This behaviour is classic addict behaviour. Let me chase my addiction as I wish. Let me indulge. Tell me it's ok. Tell me I don't have to let it go. That it's not hurting me or the people around me to indulge in my addiction. I could stop if I wanted but I don't want to and I have a right to destroy my body if I want to. I don't believe my addiction is impacting you, you're just being mean to me because you're a mean and awful person who doesn't want me to have any fun! We need to stop giving air time to this whining. We need to stop coddling this addiction. We don't give shoot-up rooms to heroin addicts in the bar. We don't hand out mirrors to coke sniffers. Why should we cater to tobacco addicts? We know beyond a doubt in many ways, scientific and verified, as fact, that smoke kills people. It kills the smokers and it kills the people who hang out with them. It makes you sick. It fouls the air, the rooms, your clothes, your skin, your teeth. It clogs equipment and causes congenital birth defects and lifelong chronic illnesses in children. What more do we need to realize that smoking is an addiction as foul as any other narcotic? Yes it IS a narcotic by definition.

I've been rejected by a lot of smokers for rejoicing over this new law. It's like a slap in their face. However, I do rejoice. For the first time in my life I can go whereever I like and when I come home I don't have to wash all my clothes and hair whether they are otherwise dirty. I don't have to cough and feel ill for the next 3 days just because I went out to see a band and do some dancing or spend time with friends haveing a coffee or a few beers. They can go stand on the sidewalk for 10 minutes and satisfy their craving for smoke. I cannot by contrast hold my breath for 30 mins then go outside and breathe for 10mins and satisfy my need for clean air.

Speaking of smoking outside. HEY SHIT HEAD PICK UP THE FUCKING BUTT!!! You don't toss candy wrappers and coffee cups on the street, why is it okay to toss that cigarette filter? Can't you see the mess at your feet? Hundreds of the stupid little things just lying there all bent and discolored with your lipstick and spit and breath and germs. All that nicotine and related poisons just waiting for some idiot bird to peck at it and get killed. Washing into the gutter to be leached into the water. Butt it on your shoe sole, make sure it's out, then put it in the garbage. How hard is THAT? I used to do it all the time when I was a smoker. I even would wrap them in a bit of trash or wrapper or tissue in my pocket to transport them to a trash if there wasn't one nearby.

Oh yes, I have been a smoker. I do know exactly where it's at. I started at age 16. Quit for 6 years at age 28. Smoked off and on another decade or so and finally quit for good a year ago when asthma struck. The asthma has healed itself since because I've been strict about not being in or around smoke and related pollutants. I know all about being a smoker. I know it's an addiction.

Be a sick addict if you choose but do NOT expect me to cater to it and risk MY health for your pleasure. Be you smoker, alcoholic, heroin junky or speed freak. Not in my space.

adorable bunnies

01:06 1/11/2005
Hoo boy did I ever find a time waster tonight. www.adorablebunnies.com/UPLOAD/ has a section where users upload stuff and it's all listed in one big nasty pile. There does seem to be some censorship of some form but pretty much just to keep the siteowners out of jail I guess. From porn to violence and every shade of sick in between. Gotta love it! Set some time aside and get your barf bag and box of tissue handy. This is a varied site that will both tickle your fancy and clench your bunghole and it might well toss your cookies. Personally I prefer the humour although the sick stuff fascinates me. I'm fascinated by both biology and psychology and there's plenty to study. I have no idea why people do these things to themselves, but I'm still interested in trying to figure it out.
Weather these days is cold enough to freeze this witch's tits so I've spent today lounging inside. I do have to get out the next few days and I'll be biking so it's gonna be wrap-up time. “Brrrrrrrrrr” I say, “BRRRRRRRR!!!!”

new shelf

23:08 1/8/2005

Is a good thing I decided to bike to the gym. I was so tired from shovelling snow and biking four blocks in fresh snow to pick up some shelf brackets at the hardware store that I almost didn't bike to the gym. Since the gym closed 2 hours earlier than I'd expected and was closing as I arrived, I'd not have gotten any exercise at all! Maybe tomorrow.

Got me a new shelf. All that space behind my monitor that used to be used by the monitor is perfect for the printer and vcr. My monitor is only a couple inches thick now where it used to extend back for 18". Very nice. I now have a 4'x10" shelf back there. I can put some stuff down on the desk behind and beside the monitor under it but now there's all that space on it. Most of the desk back there is taken up by wires routing here and there.

about the original blog on my website

16:59 1/6/2005

Wonder of wonders, I now have an archive of blogs!!! LOL. Link at the bottom to last month. I'll just do that month by month. Eventually I suppose I'll rearrange things so there is a page with all the months on it but for now you just scroll to the bottom and get the next month's link. Intelligent people paying attention to the link url will figure out how to manually enter what they need. No matter, I sincerely doubt I have an audience much less an intelligent one.

My new gym partner is a sysop with webcode tricks and applications tricks and I am hoping he'll be able to teach me how to write me up something to make a feedback form for folks. I am not sure exactly how I want it to come out yet.

I changed the site's 404 page. Not sure if you'll see it because you have to have your browser set to display the one from the site instead of a locally held error page. Internut Destroyer does this as default. Just to make it really hard for you to change it lists the setting as “Show friendly error messages” or something like that. Could be “Show friendly urls” but I'm not entirely sure since it's been some time since I had to setup IE. I use Firefox now, much nicer browser and far harder to get hijacked. So you wanna see the new 404 page? Ok. You'll have to use your back button (or the menu frame if you're using it) to get back here but click this broken link. If you don't know how to use your back button, please call the teacher over to show you. If you don't have a teacher handy, get off the computer and wait till you have supervision again. You could blow up the chipset you know! That would be very expensive. There are all kinds of hazards for people who aren't hackers. It could get stuck on a nasty site and start spewing toxic fumes at you! What if it refused to turn off? It might burn your toast!

Winter's Cold

04:54 1/6/2005

Got a gym membership tonight. I was going to do a workout but then I foolishly thought it clever to bike across town for an errand better run by car. This wore me out so thoroughly I was unwilling to work in the gym and spent a couple hours sitting in a cafe eating biscotti and recuperating before the bike ride home. Just in case you're not aware, by the way, it has been VERY cold around here. Here's an excerpt from a weather report:

Temperature: 0 F (-18 C); Visibility: 15 mile(s); Weather: 0.14 inches; Wind: from the S (180 degrees) at 14 MPH (12 KT); Windchill: -18 F (-28 C)

Cold enough for you? So yeah, biking was not only a matter of trying to keep my muscles moving in every part, including wiggling toes as I pedalled, but also of course I had to fight the snow conditions. Not like our city has any SNOW PLOWS. Now and then they'll use graders and these giant snowblowers that put the piles made by the graders into trucks to be hauled off, but this job is done with a small crew during normal work hours only so by the time they've got a small neighborhood done it's snowing again! So there I was fighting ruts polished shiny by idiot drivers who think spinning their wheels will improve traction, soft ground up snow at the edges, and singletrack foot paths when the parked cars and traffic drove me off the road. Blessings to all you who clear your walks, you are saints!!! So I spent 90mins doing this and when I got back downtown to the gym I was in no wise inclined to work out. I'll start Saturday.

tsunami

15:41 1/4/2005

Speaking of aggravations. I got the mail today. I dunno if I wrote about the money order incident. Too much trouble to read back. Well my mother tried to send me $50 for christmas. She didn't just send it to me, oh no, that would cost her cash out of pocket. She sold a 2nd hand book to a woman who's a cousin of a friend and told her to send me the money. Great. 3 way deals, gotta love 'em.

So I get this money order. Sender is listed as my mother (not) and the thing ain't signed. I can't cash it. I put it all down in a coherent letter and fire off a copy to my mom via email and return the order and ask them please to leave me out of it. Do they respect my request? No, of course not, they're busy being generous with the disability kid. ~sigh~ I'm the one with the disability, but I'm not the one who's screwing this up.

So apparently there's a personal cheque coming my way and I'm supposed to cash that, but also the goddamn money order, and by the time it's done I'll get double. I guess twice as much free money is recompense for being annoyed but I really would have rather they'd shown me more respect by not putting me in the middle of this. Oh well. Respect isn't something with which my mother is intimately acquainted. I've been learning it as an adult, I didn't know it as a kid. Don't get me wrong, mom's a perfectly nice person and everyone likes her. I just happen to know her with the familiarity of family. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt.

Back to the money order. It arrived today. The moron still hasn't signed it. On the upside she actually included her name on it, a return address on the envelope AND a full letter explaining things in her own handwriting. Just for good measure she tossed in the sender reciept. She says that the western union office won't refund it because she already put my name in the reciever. THAT sounds like bullshit and if true I dunno how they're going to get away with it indefinitely. If I change my mind, as purchaser and want my money back, I expect to use my reciept for that purpose! anyway, having all that evidence of intent I shall now take this on a crusade as far up towards head office as necessary because I'm annoyed and can't take it out on the silly old ladies.

So a lot of stupid little aggravations begins my new year. If it's true that the way you spend your new years is how the year will go then I better polish up my patience bank. I'm amazed at how patient I am. Especially as one of the big criticisms I've been given in my life is not being patient enough. I'm starting to suspect that people who criticize are really just trying to dodge blame and have no honest intent at all. However, that would mean they're passive aggressive and that's a tricky kinda person to scold. They're very good at twisting it back on you and gathering outside support. So it can get ugly in a hurry.

Lastly, if you haven't donated anything to the asian disaster relief effort, get off your ass and fix that. I don't want to hear that you're broke, you are not broke if you're reading this Blog. Reading this blog means you have electricity, access to the internet and most likely a computer of your own. It means you live in a country where that is possible. It means therefor that you're warm and fed and can take a bath or shower when you need to. It means too that you have some pocket change. It might be little and maybe was something you'd put by for a cuppa java at the cafe, but give up your own little luxury this month or a bag of potatoes or whatever and go give it to them. They don't have that much. They won't have for a long time. If it was you suffering in that horror you'd understand how much .25c is worth right now. This recent tragedy is our chance as human beings to show we're not just selfish animals.

crash

15:05 1/4/2005

Well didn't I have fun the last 24 hours. Nevermind the last couple weeks, it was. Last night my PC shuts itself off without warning. I went on the assumption that it was plugged with dust and overheated and I took it apart and removed the dust and rabbit hair with which it was plugged. I also reversed the case fans so it can take advantage of the draft coming in the jammed open wall vent. In summer I have an exhaust fan there to take away the hot air of the computer. When I went to reboot I found to my dismay that the PC didn't know it had an operating system! Well gee, ain't that fun? Luckily I'm a smart little cookie and had a drive image backed up. Restoring that required some re-do of the tweaks and installs I'd done since last backing up but boy oh boy does that ever save me trouble and grief. I re-imaged the drive after fixing up the details. I think I'll start doing these images every 2 wks instead of every month.

Backups are your friend.

So I wake up this morning to a very rude shouting insistence in email that I remove the crack for dream render from my site. Well gee, asshole, you ever consider making it possible for me to BUY the app if you don't want me cracking it???? I mean come on, the guy shut the company down last spring and left all the users hanging. Now he wants to bitch about people cracking the software? I tried to buy the fucking thing, mister and I DID pay the value of it to the hardy bunch of volunteers who are trying to make it work for them. So what do I get in turn for this? The fucker I gave money to rats me out to the software author. Geezus christ some people sure have got their priorities fucked up.

Like that's gonna stop piracy. NOT. I got that app out there, other folks will. So anyway, if someone needs the crack they'll have to go to a little more effort to get it I guess, huh? Well not like I've been able to interest anyone in this software. I like it, but most folks don't even twig to the idea.