home | archives | bio | stories | poetry | links | guestbook | message board
previous | archives index | next

December 2003

December 31, 2003

For a long time, I used to have an all-night party on New Year's Eve. It was a somewhat geeky thing, immediately, because we played a Dungeons & Dragons adventure each year, a complete scenario all the way through, starting in the mid-afternoon on New Year's Eve and playing until we finished, often early the next day. So it was always nearly 24 hours of straight eating, drinking, gaming, and joking, and it was a collection of a bunch of my closest friends, usually about six or eight people each year, many of whom were a regular part of my New Year's event.

This went on for twenty-one years, from 1980 until 2000. If I had had things my way, it would have continued forever because it was incredibly fun, and it was in many cases the only time I saw some people all year around. You see, many times the people who came to the party had made a special trip from where they lived in some other state or other country, and it was a way for all of my friends to be together for at least once a year. During the final years of the game/party, different people dropped out, going so far as to tell me I should stop having the party because we were adults now and should do adult things (which means go somewhere to get drunk and screw people). I was accommodating for the last six or seven years of the party, holding the event many times on a weekend before or following the actual day of New Year's, thus allowing people a chance to do what they wanted on New Year's and to not have to worry about work. It still wasn't enough for some people, and they just stopped coming. B

By the time I got to 2000, I was still committed to having the game/party, and I was still really excited about it. Certain of my friends looked forward to it as well. But in 2000 I had only a scant number of people show up out of who I had invited, and it hurt to realize that the people I had thought of as my closest friends didn't even care enough to call and say they weren't coming or even call and say "Hello." I had been fairly isolated and alone for much of 1999, and 2000 continued much the same until I finally had my nervous breakdown in March (and April and May and June), and by the time New Year's day approached in 2001, I hadn't heard from any of the people I had considered my friends, the people I would have normally invited. I had gone through the most horrible experience of my life, and I had been abandoned and ignored, and I didn't feel like inviting any of those people to my party as if nothing had happened. As it happened, I didn't even have the party at all since you just can't play Dungeons & Dragons without a few people. The fact that nobody even called about the party before, during, or even long after New Year's day told me clearly that I wasn't just making assumptions about how these people had stopped being my friends (assuming, of course, that they ever really were my friends). Just about everybody knew that my New Year's party was my favorite time of the year, and for nobody to even call was like a slap in the face.

Since that time, I haven't had the party ever again, and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are generally just about the most lonely and depressing days of the year for me. I've tried to do other things or keep myself busy, but nothing ever matches up to the fun I used to have. It sucks.

This year, I had decided that I would play a Dungeons & Dragons-style role-playing game on my computer, living the closest thing to the old days that I could. My plans had been to play Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, but since it has been unwilling to install, that idea has been a bust. It's a shame, too, because the Baldur's Gate series is about as close as you can get to the old style of fantasy gaming that I used to enjoy.

Since I couldn't play that game, as I would have wished, I instead played Neverwinter Nights, a different fantasy role-playing game by the same software company (BioWare) who made Baldur's Gate. It's a bit different, being a solo-style adventure where one character is guided through the adventure rather than a group. I played that game all day, practically, and it was okay. That's as much as I can give it - okay. The game itself is actually pretty well-done. It has a good story-line and game-play, and it's been interesting and distracting. I still miss the human element of my parties, so I guess that's why playing today was only okay, but it's been better than New Year's usually turns out to be. I'll play more tomorrow, that way still sort of continuing the tradition in a way, and it'll be a nice way to relax.

My one break from Neverwinter Nights today was a call from an old friend, Doug. Doug and I met in Boy Scouts and became close friends because we saw each other when we spent time with our mutual friend Rob. We all played Dungeons & Dragons together as kids, went to movies together, and goofed around together. Doug and Rob were my closest friends as a kid, and even though Rob grew distant over the years, Doug and I became better and better friends. When the time came, I was at Doug's college graduation, I was the best man at his wedding, and I became the godfather of his first child, his first son. Doug lived in Lafayette, Indiana when I got my first management job there with Kinko's, and we spent more time together, and we still kept regular contact after I moved to Chicago and Doug moved to Indianapolis. But then things changed.

I had spent a visit to Lafayette helping Doug move into his new house in Indianapolis, and our visit had been sort of short because of this activity. After that day, I didn't hear from Doug again until a little over a week ago. He had become busy with work, two kids, and family responsibilities, and we were quite a ways apart. In truth, I had always been very diligent about keeping contact by phone and mail and visits, and I found myself unable to do that anymore. Partly, I just couldn't afford it because my financial situation had changed drastically, but I also, very shortly after that last visit, had my nervous breakdown, and I just wasn't capable of calling anyone without being an incoherent, blubbering mess. And the fact that nobody called or came by to help or just be there didn't help me at all.

I had tried to e.mail Doug on a few occasions, early on, and his lack of a response just left me assuming that he, like my 'friends' in Toledo, just didn't give a damn, and I just let him go. A few weeks ago I thought about Doug and ran a search for him on the net. I found his website for his personal computer consulting business, and I could tell from his resume there that he had left his previous job to put everything into his consulting business. "well, good for him," I had though, and I let it drop.

Strangely enough, Doug sent me an e.mail the following week, having himself been thinking of me and deciding he, too, would run an internet search. He found my website, scanned through things a bit, and sent me an e.mail asking to try to restart our friendship. I decided to give it a go, and we swapped a couple of e.mails. Doug was to visit in Sandusky over the New Year's holiday (his father and step-mom still live here), and we planned to get together and catch up with each others' lives.

As it turned out, I missed a call from Doug while I was watching Battelstar Galactica yesterday, and it was too late to call when I found the message on my machine. I called the this morning to talk to Doug, and he had just left his father's house and was headed back to Indianapolis. I guess seeing him just wasn't meant to be (at least not yet). We made plans to talk this evening, and Doug went on his way.

When Doug called this evening, things were a bit awkward at first, neither of us seeming to know what to say, but that passed quickly and we were catching up about each of our current situations and what was going on with our families and all sorts of things. It wasn't really a long conversation, only about an hour and a half, but it was very fulfilling. Doug was always one of my closest friends, and his absence was hard on me. The chance to talk to him again was nice and holds promise for the future.

It's funny in a way. Doug was one of my most constant participants in my New Year's party during the early years and up until about the last six or seven years. Talking to him on New Year's Eve was comforting in its own way. It'll never be the way it was for me on New Year's, but today was okay in its own way. That may not seem like much, but it beats being depressed any day. I'll take okay without any argument.

Posted at 3:02 AM

December 30, 2003

Today has been a busy and fruitful day, even though it has been far from productive. I woke up fairly late for me (after 10 AM), and moved rather slowly through things at first. I had fallen asleep late last night while reading posts on one of the message boards I follow, and I had also found new chapters posted for some of the online stories I follow, even though I was snoring long before I had a chance to read a word of them.

Around getting cleaned up and having an incredibly wonderful lunch of my customized chili, I caught up on surfing the web, finished catching up with the message board I had fallen asleep in front of, and read some great but seriously long stories. Drake, who I've written about before, had posted two new (and very long) chapters for A Place to Live, the first chapters to be posted for that series in a while. Additionally, a new chapter of Plan B (the continuation of Plan A) was posted to Driver's website, and I was very anxious to read that as this storyline has become my second favorite current story (second to Storm Front, of course, but not a surprising second since I am always so deeply drawn into Driver's writing). There were other story chapters as well, and I admittedly spent much of the day just reading online stories. That's okay, really, because relaxing was the name of the game for today, and I certainly did that.

My original intention, in fact my plan for the past few days, was to rent a couple of videos with a 'rent on , get one free' coupon and watch those as well as the recording I made a while back of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries that the SciFi channel had created. That was the plan, but since my reading of various stories stretched until just about 7 PM, I decided that renting video's, even with a nice coupon, was sort of silly. The Battelstar Galactica miniseries was about six hours long as it was (even though some of that was commercials), and that would easily take the rest of the night.

Many people had been critical of the Battelstar Galactica miniseries, having wished for something more true to the original television series, but I think a great job was done telling a fresh story which reinterpreted the old storyline and characters while it still gave tribute to the original way things were portrayed. My only big complaint was that it should have been longer, maybe three or even four days worth of miniseries rather than two. The storyline that was created could easily have supported that, and many characters and situations would have been stronger. Take Boxy, for instance. He was a young boy who was lucky enough to get a ride on a small ship after his planet was nuked. He could easily have been missed in the whole storyline, and I'm sure many people didn't even pay attention to him since he was so briefly in the story. Boxy was a notable character in the original series, though, so those of us who remember the original series could invest his character with a lot more significance - having that sort of depth of character in the story rather than just from a fanboy's memory would have made the miniseries better for me and certainly for anyone who was new to Battlestar Galactica. As I've said, that would have improved the show, and that's really my only complaint. I liked it a great deal overall, and there were really wonderful departures from the old storyline that made things much more creative and unpredictable.

At some points during the day, between reading story chapters and such, I accomplished some very significant things as well. The first accomplishment was that I poked around some of the Mac online publication sites I follow and found a suggested solution for the printing problem that came up with my installation of the new operating system. I'm happy to say that it worked like a charm, and my printing works flawlessly once again. That means that my only real problem continues to be my inability to install Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal.Hopefully the tech support people will get a solution to me soon, and then I can play.

With my pr9inter working fine, I played around with iCal a bit (iCal being the Apple-provided calendar program that I use to keep track of all of the classes and appointments that my grandmother and I have. With the last few adjustments made, I could (and did) print out calendars for my grandmother so that she knows what's coming up each day.

The one other big item was a carryover from yesterday. It wasn't a big issue for me since I was on the phone just about every time I was driving, but I couldn't get any sound out of my iPod-connected car stereo when I tried. Usually, I just connect a cord between my stereo in-jack and the output jack of my iPod and then I can listen to any of the many albums that are recorded as MP3s on my iPod. Yesterday was the first time I have had any problems, and I'm still not sure what went wrong. I suspect there was a probe lm because my battery had drained to a very low (pretty much dead) point. After charging my iPod to full strength and re-syncing with the programs on my computer, everything works like normal and with no problems. I still couldn't really tell you what went wrong yesterday, but it doesn't seem to be an issue now.

So like I said, it was a full and busy day - enjoyable even - but not very productive. Heck, I've even found that I've had e.mails and a phone message that I should have responded to during the day, now that it's late, but they'll just have to wait until tomorrow (well, one source, anyhow). It's been quite nice to relax today, though, lying back on my couch and watching a movie without trying to get something else done at the same time. It was quite nice. Hopefully I'll have time to do something similar before break is over.

Posted at 11:55 PM

December 29, 2003

Just call me the social butterfly.

I woke up early to my alarm today, great plans in store for a very fulfilling day. I rapidly got myself ready - still, I did read my e.mail and surf the net like I do every morning, so it wasn't like I was rushing to get ready.

I did leave pretty early, though, heading out to Toledo by about 10 AM. I talked to Christiana during the whole drive there, finding out about her Christmas celebration with the family she babysits for and learning about the oddities of the family pets at the place she is housesitting over the holidays.

Once in Toledo, I wrapped up with Christiana and made some quick shopping excursions. I read two day-to-day calendars each morning (currently a collection of Zits! comics and a collection of Get Fuzzy comics.)(I have had two for a number of years, originally because my parents, for three years running, bought me Far Side day-to-day calendars after I had already bought a calendar of my own choosing. Eventually, I came to appreciate the idea of two calendars in the morning so that if one wasn't too funny or interesting, the other might well be - that way, I always had some little bright spot in my mornings). Anyhow, I went to Barnes and Noble, knowing that they would have a large selection, and they were even marked 50% off! I couldn't find a Zits! calendar, which I really wanted, but I picked up a FoxTrot and a Dilbert calendar (and I ended up buying a Zits! calendar online through Amazon when I got back this evening, because I really enjoy that cartoon). That was stop number one, and I was rather pleased with my purchases.

I went from there to OfficeMax. My old saddlebag-style messenger bag is getting frayed and split in places after a year os so of use, so it's time for a new backpack or something. I need something with padding for my laptop when I need to carry it, but also with room for my books and files for classes. I ended up finding a great series of bags from Wenger, one of the two companies that make Swiss Army products (thyme knives, watches, sleeping bags, etc.). I got a very sleek but roomy messeger-style bag that seems really durable. I'm pleased.

I had sort of hoped to shop for a wallet, too, but I had run out of time. I raced through the streets and highways to get downtown to International Park to join Lee for lunch at the Real Seafood Company. Lee, for those of you who have been reading this Journal long enough to remember, used to be on the Board of Directors of the Collingwood Arts Center while I lived there, and we got along really well and talked a lot. The fact that Lee is in her 70's doesn't really mean much - we still enjoy each other's company and talk about all sorts of things, old and new. I haven't seen Lee since mid-summer. She has tried to get me to come to Toledo for lunch and even a couple of parties she has thrown, but her offers always came during times when I was swamped with work for school. I really wanted to see her, though, so we made arrangements for today. We ended up having a fantastic meal and talked for just over four hours (we wonder what the waiter must have thought!). It seemed like we could keep talking about things forever, but I needed to get going to meet up with Steve for dinner and conversation, and Lee and I were pretty happy that we had discussed so much and had such a good time. I

got to Steve's house (a rental place that he's had only briefly), and he wasn't back from work yet. I noticed that I had a message from my sister to call her (although I have no idea why her call didn't ring through on my cell phone), so I called her while I waited for Steve.

My grandmother has had concerns about her investments and her house because of arrangements she made a little over a year ago that put all of her assess into joint ownership with my mother. She would like to see and estate lawyer to set things up in a better fashion, and my sister fully support her decision. We all expect my mother to completely reject the idea, however, so we have been planning a meeting with my brother-in-law and his mother, who had set things up just as my mother and grandmother had and then made exactly the same kind of changes we are looking at. Since my grandmother is staying with my sister, and my mother is there, too, the 'summit' is just about to come together, and my sister just wanted some last-minute ideas and advice. We spoke for a while, and Steve drove up just as we were finishing our discussion.

Steve showed me around his rental space, and he has a really great deal. It's spacious and very interesting. We talked for a while, and caught up on some of his computer activities (he's building a few different custom systems (PC systems), and there are parts and Linux software everywhere). We left, not too long thereafter, for the Olive Garden. Somehow, I managed to eat well again, even after the large lunch I'd eaten, and the food was quite wonderful. Steve and I talked for a long time as well, staying at Olive Garden for a little over three hours before heading out. We spoke about all sorts of stuff - politics, our preferred presidential candidates, the serious need for a people's revolution in this country (Steve is a bit of a revolutionary/anarchist, and this is a regular topic of conversation), and the old group of people we used to consider friends who have isolated themselves or turned outright unfriendly. We spoke about all sorts of things both about ourselves and current events, and it was one of the best conversations I've had in a long time.

We left at about 9 PM, and Steve agreed to let me go to Tony Packo's to pick up a 'bucket' of chili to bring back to Sandusky (I've had a serious craving for a while, and I picked up some Asiago Cheese Baguettes at Panera Bread for dunking earlier in the day, having had the chili thing decidedly on my mind). I took Steve home and we talked some more. Steve gave me this great little Japanese lidded bowl (white porcelain with herons drawn across it in blues and hints of orange). It was a great little gift, and I was very impressed. I left a little after that, just before 10:30, and got on my way. I'd had a great time.

I stopped by Meijer to get a few groceries (chili fixin's, mostly (I like to create my own concoction)), and I had to get some gas before I could get out of town, but I was finally on my way.

Christiana had called me just before I left Steve's, so I called her back and talked to her on the drive back to Sandusky. Lee had called her and spoke for an hour and half during the evening (I had asked given Lee Christiana's number and told her to call since Christiana wanted to hear from her), so we talked about Lee and about Steve and about things we're both thinking about for the future. We were both pretty tired by the time I got back to Sandusky, so we ended our call shortly thereafter (in fact, my phone ran out of battery power just as we were saying our goodbyes), and I put away all of the things I had collected over the course of the day.

I surfed the web a bit, but I've been tired. In fact, it's amazing that I haven't fallen asleep as I've written this, but I had such a great day that being this tired is really satisfying. Days like thesis are what makes life worth the struggle.

Posted at 1:39 AM

December 28, 2003

It took a good part of the day, but the installation and upgrading of all of the applications on my computer is done. There is a very noticeable speed boost in all operations, and there are awesome new features in the OS and the various Mac applications that I am still discovering as I use the system. The modified look is really sleek and spiffy, and for the most part this has been a huge improvement.

Sadly, though, there always seems to be one or two problems that arise with any major OS update, and this was no exception. I spent a few more hours working on the Baldur's Gate II expansion, BGII: Throne of Bhaal, and it simply will not install. I've tried everything I could think of, and I finally gave up and sent an e.mail to the technical support team at MacPlay with hopes that they'll have some ideas. This in itself may not prove to be a lasting problem (hopefully), but there is one other issue I have to deal with since installing the new OS - printing.

I had no problems whatsoever at any point in the past with printing, whether with a random printer I connected to via ethernet or with the HP 5550 inkjet that I have here at the house, but I have serious problems now. Going to the File menu and trying to print or hitting command-P results in any program crashing. Strangely, the little printer buttons in iconbars on Microsoft Word or Mozilla work just fine - no crashing and the document prints. That doesn't always help me, unfortunately. This is not just a problem for me; I had read about this earlier on Mac online forums, and it seems to only be an issue with HP inkjet printers and no other kind of printers. As luck would have it, of course, that's the kind of printer I chose to have, and I seem to be screwed. The suggested solutions that I've seen so far haven't worked for me. With luck maybe I'll find a new solution that makes a difference, but I'm suspecting that I may just have to rest my hopes on Apple releasing a minor update sometime soon that corrects the problem. I don't suppose it will kill me, particularly since I can still print through the iconbar if I need to, but it just isn't the same as having full control of the process.

In completely unrelated news, I watched Chitty, Chitty, Bang-Bang for the first time in years. I used to love that movie as a kid, and while it's not as magical and wonderful for me as it once was, I still had a good time watching it. I watched Tomorrow Never Dies, the James Bond film, two nights ago, and I wasn't very impressed with it. I used to really like James Bond movies, but they all seem exactly the same for the last few years. It's a shame, because I really like Pierce Brosnan (both in that role and in general), but the storylines are just so formulaic that I don't feel like I'm getting anything new. I guess between these two movies I've had my Ian Fleming fix for a while (he wrote both the James Bond books and Chitty, Chitty, Bang-Bang), and tonight was worth it for sure.

I'm glad the computer reformatting is over. Now I can spend a little relaxation time before I buckle down to finish my Thesis. Tomorrow will bring a trip to Toledo for visits and a small shopping excursion, and that should all be fun.

Posted at 10:25 PM

December 27, 2003

Tired. I actually fell asleep surfing the net in bed, and I just woke up, so I'll write a Journal entry before giving in to sleep again.

I spent the whole day on my computer, reformatting my harddrive and installing everything from scratch, starting with the new Mac OS. So far, I am incredibly impressed with the new OS X - it's faster, has a lot of great new features, and has a cleaner look. I'll have to get everything installed before I can make any real judgments, but things look great.

The installation and upgrading of all of my software went smoothly throughout the day. Things took quite a while, and I have a lot left to do, but most all of the OS X applications are installed and updated, all of my files are installed, my Windows environment (through Virtual PC) is installed and running smoothly, and OS 9 is installed and running very smoothly (even better than before). I still have to install all of the OS 9 applications and a few OS apps, but I'm getting there.

My big stumbling block, which I messes with for three hours or so before giving up for the night, was installing Baldur's Gate II and the new expansion I just bought and was hoping to play. Initially I couldn't get any part of it to install, even the original Baldur's Gate II which I had previously installed and played with no problems. I got past those problems and installed that, but I simply cannot get the expansion to install. Tomorrow will start with some more attempts, but I'm completely out of any new ideas for what to try.

So I'm tired and my bed is calling me. Not much of a Journal entry, I know, but it's the best I can do.

Posted at 4:09 AM

December 26, 2003

It's been a tiring day. I started out by spending about two hours shoveling snow from the driveway and sidewalks, and I spent the rest of the day cleaning up my harddrive and backing up files.

I normally run a backup every six months, but I usually only do such an extensive backup as I did today one every year or year and a half. It's been a year and a half since my last big backup, though, and since I intend to completely reformat my harddrive and install everything fresh, a valid, full backup is incredibly important.

I have ended up deleting unnecessary files and reorganizing things and then backing up to my external LaCie d2 drive, then backing up to what I call my 'Phantom Harddrive,' which is a bare-bones set of files and folders to maintain structures and important documents in one concentrated place without applications or OSes (which can be separately installed) . After those were done, I burned copies to CD-Rs, and I was finally done. It took a lot longer than I expected, taking me seven or eight hours, but it's done, and tomorrow I can reformat the drive and install things fresh, hopefully without too much trouble.

I'm tired, though. It's not like I've done much of anything after shoveling snow this morning, but I'm pretty beat anyhow.

Posted at 12:03 AM

December 25, 2003

I've been thoroughly enjoying Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, the expansion pack for this third set in the game. The gameplay is great, but what really impresses me is the storyline - it's very fresh and unpredictable with lots of intrigue and surprise. It's been a wonderful way to relax for the day.

Granted, I didn't even start playing the game until about 3 PM today, but I had fun for most of the rest of the day once I got started. I'm still debating whether I want to keep playing tomorrow. I'm having a great time, and I desperately want to relax and enjoy myself some more, but I also have a lot to do in the short amount of time that's left over break, and I should probably get busy finishing things off. If I get done early, then I'll still have time to play, but at least I won't have frittered away time that might have been desperately needed. But then again, I may just say screw it tomorrow morning and go ahead and play anyhow.

Posted at 1:45 AM

December 24, 2003

Snow has been falling here like a bitch today, somewhere around 4" or 5" or something like that. The snowfall had been constant all day until late evening, melting off in the early hours, collecting as a layer of slush, and then mounting into a solid layer of standing snow. I actually shoveled three times today to keep things clear for me, the postman, and the paper boy, and everywhere I went had a layer already covering it again by the time I was done in each repetition. When I got back tonight, the temperature had dropped enough that the standing moisture on the drive and walks had turned to a thin but slick sheet of ice - not continuous, but covering enough pavement to make it dangerous. Screw that stuff - hopefully nobody will be out on the sidewalks tomorrow since it's Christmas Day because I certainly don't plan on doing anything with it until the 26th.

While the snow was a pain in the ass, I did have a great day by going to Bowling Green and visiting with Chris, the last time I'll see him before he heads to Florida and then shortly thereafter to New Zealand. He was still working at finishing his Senior Project today, still working in the hot shop (the glass blowing studio) for most of the day. I headed out and met him at 7:30 at his place, and we chatted for a little while, and I looked around at some of his new sketches. He's incredibly talented, and I'm impressed that he is so capable in so many artistic mediums - pencil, charcoal, watercolor, oils, glass, ceramics, and even sculpture, from what I've seen. Chris had a special surprise for me as well - Christmas gifts. He gave me his Spiro-graph set (which is cool because this was one of my favorite toys as a kid. This is the more modern version, though, not quite what I was used to, but cool nonetheless). The best gifts, though, were a new earth-toned, deep ceramic bowl; a spherical vase with a loose weaved design; and an incredibly cool crystal-clear mug with a spiked handle - all very impressive and marvelous, and way more than I expected or deserved. I love them, though, and I couldn't thank him enough.

We left shortly after that to search for a place to eat. In recent years, finding an open restaurant on Christmas Eve (even on Christmas Day) hasn't been that hard, but this was Bowling Green and not Chicago or Toledo. Heck, most of the city's population was gone since the campus was on break. Consequently, not much of anything was open, and even some of the restaurants I had expected to be open were closed (at least by that time in the evening). With some holiday luck, though, we found an Italian restaurant open, a place we didn't even know existed before (and had, in fact, probably only recently opened). It was downtown and called 'Cucina di Betto.' The food was fantastic, the best Italian I've had in a while - nice salads, wonderful three cheese baked rigatoni, and a huge, rich tiramisu (we ordered the same things). I bought the dinner as sort of a going away gift for Chris, and we had a good time talking over the food.

After dinner we headed to the mall. Even though the mall was closed, the theatres inside were supposed to be showing Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at 9 PM. The key word in that sentence is supposed to - the doors were locked when we got there at about 10 minutes to 9, and a couple just leaving said the doors were locked and that the theatre had decided not to run the last showing for the night. There were still a lot of cars in the parking lot, obviously watching the ends of whatever movies they had gotten in to see, and two more carloads of people came before we left, all intent on seeing Lord of the Rings as well. None of use were at all pleased, and I was seriously disappointed. I wasn't going to let it ruin my evening, though, because today was about seeing Chris one last time and not about seeing Lord of the Rings. Chris and I drove around town a little to see what was open, hoping maybe to find a video store open, and everything was closed except Wal-mart (of course) and Blockbuster. We looked over all of the New Releases in Blockbuster, debated a few, and finally had a coin toss that left Pirates of the Caribbean as the winner. I had already seen the movie in the theatre but was happy to see it again since I had enjoyed it so much, and I knew Chris would like it. We went back to his place, watched the movie, talked a little more, and then eventually got me on my way, the time already past 1 AM.

I called Christiana on the way back to Sandusky. She's house-sitting right now (alternately with babysitting/nannying for the family she usually lives with/works for), and we hadn't spoken in a week, so we had a lot to talk about. We had a great conversation and spoke for about an hour and a half, long after I had gotten home, but we were both tired and called it a night.

I checked a few things around the house and on the web and then started this little Journal entry. That's what got me to here and this late-night entry. Since the day has officially come, let me wish a Merry Christmas to all for you who celebrate it. I am by no means a religious or spiritual person for the most part, but I appreciate the Christmas season for the ideals of giving and caring. I think that gets lost a lot in the modern world, but it shows through every now and then. Enjoy those things, giving and caring, because they're all that really makes a difference in this world.

Peace be to you and everyone. Thank you for reading.

Posted Written at 3:02 AM

December 23, 2003

Today was the day. After getting up early, I gathered up my grandmother and her bags and made our way to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Getting things together before leaving, the drive itself, and even getting into the airport and through security went without a hitch, quite unexpectedly.

I had been going into today worrying that any number of things could go wrong: my grandmother would be too nervous and upset to sleep or would get so agitated that she would be completely freaked out at the airport; I wouldn't be allowed to help her into a wheelchair at the terminal while I left my car at the curb; I would take a while to find a place to park; I wouldn't be allowed to get a boarding pass and accompany my grandmother to the gate (which really concerned me because of the raised terror alert that came about a few days ago); we wouldn't have enough time to eat lunch like we'd planned; or the flight would be late (which would have made sense this close to Christmas). None of these things happened, though. It all went perfectly. Go figure.

I was thrilled to have the day go so smoothly, and my grandmother was completely at ease and relaxed, something that is far from her usual anxiety when she travels. I was able to get back and take care of a lot of different little tasks that I've been putting off, including trimming my hair. So now I look and feel a little better, and I have the house to myself for three and a half weeks.

Today was a very good day.

Posted at 11:14 PM

December 22, 2003

A fair portion of my day was spent taking my grandma to her hair styling appointment, repacking her suitcase, and going over everything with her in preparation for her trip tomorrow. She's quite anxious and nervous, and that affects both her memory and her paranoia, and keeping her calm and assured has been a top priority. Even with all of the time I have spent with my grandmother, however, I have been extremely busy on my own project.

I got myself up early this morning to start work on the update and expansion of the website. I ended up spending all day until just moments ago, but I think that I have everything done. There were widespread updates to outdated or changed links and link descriptions throughout the site. New links were added in various Recommended Links sections. The Bio page has finally been updated, and I added a few new items throughout to spice things up. I also updated and linked the Online Portfolio.

The biggest factors have been the addition of the stories and poems that I made and workshopped this past semester. All stories and poems have finally been revised and are now posted. One story that had previously been posted has been revised a bit: A Few More Keys. The added stories include Blood and Guts, Last Defense, Paper Heart, and Point of Origin. The added poems are Abnegation, (A)mused, Ashes, Busted, Capital P, Dubious Quality, It's All the Rage, ... It's the Thought that Counts, Letter Home, Mean Accommodations, My Pet, Play Again?, Self-Medicating, The Backstroke, The Terminal, and Speaking with the Dead.

Next semester brings another Fiction Workshop, so look forward to even more stories. Following that, I have specific plans for a lot of writing during the summer and Fall semester that will bring a lot more poems and stories, very likely including some continuing stories and starts at a novel. Hopefully this current batch of new writing will be a reward for any of you who have been patiently hanging around for so long without anything new. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you like the new stories and poems.

Posted at 12:19 AM

December 21, 2003

I could use a good dose of boyfriend right now. Cuddling, a kiss, and a few kind words - that would be perfect.

Will this ever be possible?

Posted at 7:57 PM

December 20, 2003

It might be the holiday spirit, but more likely it's just my sense of justice and revenge; I was filled with glee when I read this article. It looks like the Boy Scouts are finally getting their just rewards - both in reduced contributions and now in lost access to public parks and campgrounds. I'd like to think that perhaps they would start to rethink their bigotry and show what true honor, duty, and respect are about, but I sadly doubt that such a thing will happen.

Scout Suit Over Denial Of Public Property Rejected

A federal court has thrown out an appeal of a San Diego judge's ruling that declared the Boy Scouts' use of city-owned land in Balboa Park unconstitutional.

The ACLU sued the city and the Boy Scouts over the Balboa Park lease in August 2000 on behalf of a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple. Each couple has a son. The Boy Scouts bar homosexuals and require members to express a belief in God.

In July, U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. concluded that the Boy Scouts' lease of the 18-acre Camp Balboa violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

Jones said there was "overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence" showing that the Scouts are a religious organization. But he refused to rule on the legality of the Scouts' free use of another public area, a half-acre on Fiesta Island, saying he hadn't seen enough evidence to make a ruling.

The scouts appealed to the 9th Circuit.

The court dismissed the suit calling it premature because the issue of Fiesta Island had not been decided.

The case now returns to Judge Jones to set a trial date on Fiesta Island. If he again rules against the scouts, the two issues are likely to return to the 9th Circuit.

In 2000, he U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Boy Scouts have a constitutionally protected right of "expressive association," which allows the organization to exclude gay members.

Posted at 11:34 PM

December 19, 2003

I slept in until a quarter to ten this morning, but I'm still a bit tired. Today was a big shopping day for my grandma and me, getting groceries and toiletries and stuff for her trip and for my stay during the next few weeks. We had a good day between us, talking a lot and everything, but today was sort of a bust for getting anything else done. Every time I'd start to work on something, my grandma would call to me to find this or help with that or give her my opinion, and that's all fine, but it doesn't let me get anything done.

I love my grandma dearly, and I'm glad that I can be here for her, but I'm getting to be very happy that's she'll be staying with my sister for three and a half weeks; I'm even anxious for her to go. It's terrible of me, I suppose, but I want to get different things done around here, and I can't do so if I keep getting interrupted. That's part of the whole reason I got so far behind on my Thesis is because of this kind of interruptions, and the Thesis is one of the things I clearly have to get done before break is over. There's a lot more, some of which aren't as important like updating this website, but I want and need to get them done just the same. There's a lot of things I want finished up before classes start again, and there's really not a whole lot of time for me to get all of it done. So as much as I'm shamed to say so, I can't wait to get my grandmother on the plane to go visit my sister.

Posted at 11:17 PM

December 18, 2003

A few weeks ago, my grandmother and I were grocery shopping at Meijer and saw one of the prize offerings that are usually around the store in one form or another. You know, the tall cardboard box with the slit at the top and a pad of entry slips that you fill out and drop through the slit with a meager chance in hell to win? Well, strangely enough, I won.

I'm not a lucky person. Things don't usually work out for me, even with meticulous planning, and I just have to accept that I'll have to do things a few times to get them right, or I'll just have to accept that nothing will come easily. The only time I've won anything before in a sweepstakes type of thing (as opposed to say a carnival prize, where you actually use some level of skill to throw a ball or toss a hoop to win a prize) were tickets to Bablo Island, an amusement park that was a big attraction outside of Detroit in the seventies and very early eighties. There were tickets to get into the park and for lots of rides - it was a great deal. Less than a week after getting the tickets, I was sideswiped by a car while riding my 10-speed bike, and I ended up with a dislocated ankle, thirteen broken bones in my foot, and a full leg cast that kept me in the hospital for a little over two weeks and kept me stuck in the house all summer. It was worse, actually, because my mom had left my dad with my sister and I and moved in with my grandmother, all before my accident,yet when I got out of the hospital I was right back in the house with my dad and everyone else, my mother having decided that she needed my father for medical and financial support for situations just like what had happened to me. So that whole summer was simply one huge streak of abysmally bad luck after my little "lucky win" of tickets that I never even got to use.

So 'winning' this Meijer prize left me with some trepidation, being the paranoid person that I am. I was called to conform my address, and I was told that my prize should arrive in a week or so. Well, I couldn't remember the exact nature of the prize. I knew that it was a Meijer Toy City sweepstakes, and I felt like I would have a gift certificate for toys arriving in some amount, like $100 or $500, or even $1000 - I just didn't know. Well, a HUGE box arrived today, full of toys. No gift certificate (which would have been much nicer, in my mind), but many, many toys, probably about $300 -$500 worth of toys. Now don't get me wrong, while I still think a gift certificate where I could make my own choices would have been better, I was still pleased to have won anything, let alone a box of toys. Unfortunately, nearly all of the toys were for kids of about age two or three. Consequently, there were few that I thought my niece and nephew would like and absolutely none that I liked. In fact, I never would have chosen any of these toys myself as gifts, had I been given the choice. Nonetheless, I had a box full of toys. I pulled out what I thought my niece and nephew would like - or more specifically, the toys that weren't too young and babyish for them - and wrapped them and boxed them up. I even got the post office to guarantee me that they'll arrive before Christmas. The remaining toys will have to be taken to Toys for Tots, once I find out where they're collecting. There are still a lot of toys left, so there's a lot left for charity.

As busy as sorting out these toys was, I still had my main event for the day, which was visiting with my friends at Big Boy in Bowling Green. I heard from Kristina later in the day, telling me that she was going to have to cancel since it was snowing like crazy in Cleveland and there was show up to her knees. She had already skidded off the road and into a ditch (although she and her car are alright), but she didn't want to take any more chances with a trip across the state. I also got a return call from Laura saying that she would be there but that she would only be able to stay for a little while since she had other engagements and parties to attend before and after.

I talked to my sister on my way to Bowling Green, and we smoothed out issues about my grandma's flight out to my sister's as well as her stay. I gave my sister some gift advice for my grandma, and we talked about a few other issues, all while my niece and nephew were wrestling in the background. It was a nice call, and a nice lead-in to visiting with my friends.

Chris was already at Big Boy when I arrived, and we had only just started to chat when Laura arrived. She had brought each of us these huge stockings full of toys (by huge, I mean like four foot tall!). They had a candy cane and Silly String and Play-Dough and a few other little cheap toys, but it was a great gift. I had brought hand-made and hand-painted Christmas ornaments for both Chris and Laura, each very unique and interesting, but I felt overwhelmed by Laura's gifts. I had wanted to buy more for each of them, but I just didn't have time to really look around. We were all happy with what we got, though.

Laura ended up staying for about an hour and a half, and we all talked about the end of classes and what will be coming up next semester. We also discussed what we'll be doing over break and how things will be for Chris in New Zealand. After Laura left, Chris and I talked a lot more, some about politics and current events, some about art and his Senior project that he's finishing in the next few days, and some about the internet and my website. We talked about all sorts of stuff, really, and we didn't leave until nearly 1:30 AM. I drove back rather late and surfed through e.mails and net news, and I'm finally wound down and ready to sleep. It took long enough, but I'm ready to go to bed. Just as the sun's about to come up.

Posted Written at 4:23 AM

December 17, 2003

Emperor Bush sounds off again (surprise, surprise), and manages to show his homophobia, segregation, and right wing religious bigotry, somehow placing all of this in a "call for tolerance." Personally, I feel certain that Bush doesn't know what tolerance means, being a word of more than one syllable, and he probably meant "call for segregation," which is more aptly what he clearly wants. Fucker.

Bush Would Back Constitutional Ban on Same-sex Marriage

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- While calling for tolerance, President Bush said Tuesday he would support a constitutional amendment, if one is needed, that defines marriage as being between a man and woman.

"If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that," Bush told ABC's Diane Sawyer.

The president -- in an apparent nod to some recognition of gay civil unions -- also said it would be the position of his administration that "whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they're allowed to make, so long as it's embraced by the state."

Overturning the state's ban on same-sex marriages, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in November cleared the way for lesbian and gay couples in the state to wed, ruling that government attorneys "failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason" to deny them the right.

The court gave state lawmakers six months to craft a way for gay couples to marry.

The president criticized the court, saying it had overstepped its bounds.

"It was a very activist court in making the decision it made," Bush said. "As you know, I'm a person who believes in judicial restraint, as opposed to judicial activism that takes the place of the Legislative Branch."

Bush said a constitutional amendment will be needed if "judicial rulings undermine the sanctity of marriage."

In October, Bush said administration lawyers were looking for some way to legally limit marriage to heterosexuals.

Asked by Sawyer if gays were sinners, Bush responded: "We're all sinners. We're all sinners."

"No distinction?" she queried.

"I think we're all sinners. One of my favorite Bible verses says, 'Why would I take a speck out of your eye when I have a log in my own?' And having said that, however, I do believe in the sanctity of marriage. But I don't see that as conflict with being a tolerant person or an understanding person."

Bush counts many conservative Christians and Christian groups among his supporters.

Face it, Emperor Bush, you have a whole forest in your eye, not a log, and you obviously don't want gay people to have the same rights as you. Heck, if you had your way, you'd be executing every black person you could, just like you did in Texas. Gays are no different. All you want in a Klan-driven country with no blacks, Hispanics, or any other non-Anglo-Saxon white races; no Jews or Muslims or any other non-Christian religions; and no gays, lesbians, or transgendered, non-straight people. Heck, you probably want women barefoot and pregnant, too, out of the workplace and only in the kitchen or the bedroom. You want your little supremacist utopia to be the model for the United States, and you're making certain inroads, sadly. But you're an evil fucking bigot who won't succeed in the end. You will be brought down and shown for the hateful, discriminatory bastard that you are. You can't hide behind political double-talk and smoke and mirrors forever, and eventually everyone will condemn you for who you are and what you stand for. You fucking freak.

This website has similar sentiments, although it is more amusing.

Posted at 2:28 PM

December 16, 2003

I'm finished with two more classes, bringing the total down to just one last class to finish tomorrow (well, with the exception of finishing my Thesis by the beginning of next semester, but I'm taking a break from that for a moment).

I was quite upbeat this morning, looking forward to being so much more close to freedom, and I was relaxed and even happy. I had a great drive to Bowling Green with very little traffic to slow me down, and I arrived with plenty of time. I picked up my Fiction Portfolio and found lots of positive comments and a message that my final grade for the class was an 'A'. That just added to my good mood, as you might expect.

I was even pretty happy with things as I stepped into my Online Documentation class. I had my report finished, ready to turn in, and I was ready to take the usability test and write out evaluations. My prof wanted to talk with each of us, one on one, to go over our final grades and stuff, and I knew that I have a pretty solid 'A', so I was fairly looking forward to this as well. Strangely, though, I was to be surprised with something quite unexpected.

Angela, my professor, praised me extensively on the website I had designed, and she went over my evaluation of it in detail, again with wholly positive comments. But then she shared,with me as she had been with everyone, the group evaluation comments from out group members of the group project we had completed earlier in the semester. We each basically rated ourselves and our individual team members, numerically and with comments, based on a few different criteria. I, who always hate group projects because people are either combative or completely negligent as part of a group, was fairly pleased with this group. One member was fairly weak and did little or got her work done late, one was fairly driving and controlling, although I just compromised or went along with her rather than force confrontations, and one person was pretty easy-going. I felt that I had put in a lot of work, compromised, and been a part of the team. One person from the group agreed with my assessment, fortunately, probably the easy-going person. One other felt that I was very demanding and pushy (probably the one who didn't do much and was fairly weak), and the last one said that she felt I had a "my way or the highway" attitude and couldn't accept anybody else's ideas.

A long time ago, when I was first a manager for Kinko's, I was accused by my employees of having a "my way or the highway" attitude. I did. I fully admit it. But I also was in a store that had to be completely turned upside down to take it from being one of the worst stores in the company. Besides, I reasoned, I was the manager, and things were supposed to be, by definition, my way - that's why I was put in charge and not the employees. Anyhow, I digress. My point here is that I know what a "my way or the highway" attitude is like; I know when I have it; and I know that I was being very accommodating with the group in that class because I really didn't want any problems or conflict at all. Yes, I would push the group to work on things in class when we had extra time, but I didn't want us to have to meet outside of class (which everyone else claimed was the way they wanted it as well).

I don't know; I'm still really bothered by this. I was both very angry and very sad after I left that class today, and the trip back to Sandusky, with constant rain and a stream of idiots that think rian means they have to drive 25 in a 55, just managed to make me crazy with frustration. Like I say, I'm better now, and I've leveled off a bit on how I feel about this, but I'm still displeased. I put in all of that hard work; I was nice and compromised or gave in without any argument; and I tried to make sure we got work done in class so that we didn't have to figure out how to get together otherwise. You just can't win. If I do nothing in a group, nobody at all does anything in the group and I end up doing it all myself at the end so that I don't get a bad grade because of them. If I try to make things work then I'm some sort of oppressive ogre. Just wait 'til these people get out into the real world. Their bosses will be a big surprise to them when they want things done their way without compromise. I hate having to work in groups.

Posted at 9:58 PM

December 15, 2003

This is one of the funniest stories/jokes I have read in a long time, so I thought I'd share. It's a letter home from a kid at camp.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Our scoutmaster told us to write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and were worried. We are OK. Only one of our tents and two sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Chad when it happened. We never would have found him in the dark if it wasn't for the lightning. Oh yes, please call Chad's mother and tell her he is OK. He can't write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the search and rescue jeeps, it was neat. Scoutmaster Walt got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn't hear him.

Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blowup? The wet wood didn't burn, but one of the tents did. Also some of our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back. We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Walt gets the car fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked OK when we left. Scoutmaster Walt said that a car that old you have to expect something to break down, that's probably why he can't get insurance. We think it's a neat car. He doesn't care if we get it dirty, and if it's hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the fenders. It gets pretty hot with 10 people in a car. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped and talked to us.

Scoutmaster Walt is a neat guy. Don't worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Terry how to drive on the mountain roads where there isn't any traffic. All we ever see up here is logging trucks. This morning, all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scoutmaster Walt wouldn't let me because I can't swim, and Chad was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scoutmaster Walt isn't crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn't even get mad about us not having life jackets, He has to spend a lot of the time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble.

Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges. When Dave dove in the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Wade and I threw up, but Scoutmaster Walt said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said they got sick that way with food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and became our scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time.

I have to go now. We are going to town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don't worry about anything. We are fine.

Love,
Brandon

P.S. how long has it been since I had a tetanus shot?

Posted Written at 12:58 AM

December 14, 2003

Ah, snow - the wonder of the North. It snowed again today. This isn't the first snow we've had, even though there has only been one other time that the snow has actually not melted off as it made contact with the ground. This is the first snow, however, that it has really accumulated, probably to about 6" deep. That's not horrible, really, and it's actually very pretty, laying on the ground and dusting the trees.

The problem is the sidewalks, driveways and streets. I've said it many times before and I still feel the same - if the snow would melt immediately off of pavement, I would love winter unconditionally. The cold doesn't bother me, really. And the snow on the grass and trees and rooftops and everything is beautiful. It's also great to be able to make snowmen or have snowball fights or build a snow fort. It's all great stuff. In fact, up until I was about sixteen, I loved snow. But at sixteen I started to drive, and it's been a love/hate relationship ever since.

Snow on any type of pavement means it has to be shoveled, something that's not any fun at all. Today was a prime example. This snow wasn't too bad for shoveling, as things go, but my lower back would never admit that. Even worse, though, the street is a mess and will probably stay that way. The city never seems to find its way into our neighborhood. I think they may, in fact, abandon most neighborhoods and just plow and salt the main streets, but it won't take long at this rate for our street to be a solid sheet of ice, and that just makes things ugly for getting in and out of the house. It ought to really suck next semester, when winter will be in full force and I have to travel more often than I do right now.

On the plus side, Sandusky is sort of an anomaly in northern Ohio. Toledo and Cleveland get huge amounts of snow, partly because the storms gather moisture as they pass over the lake. In Sandusky, though, we are at the southernmost point for Lake Erie, and the winds often pass us by as they carry across the lake to Cleveland. On top of that, the earlier parts of winter aren't so bad because the temperature of the lake takes a while to drop, and the effect on the city is to leave things a few degrees warmer than the surrounding area. You'd be surprised how often I'd drive to Bowling Green for classes just these past few weeks and have left a pleasant, clear, snow free day in Sandusky to arrive in BG and find it cold, overcast, and covered in a layer of snow and ice. It's not perfect being in the snowbelt, but Sandusky is one of the better places to be because of these curious little benefits with how winter takes hold.

The big problem now will be driving. I'll have to drive at a much more moderate pace, which means getting to and from BG will take longer, and I already know that I'll have to use different roads than what I use right now at some points because sections of road I usually travel are already icing up pretty bad - not a pretty situation when the road is flanked on either side by deep drainage ditches and any sliding on ice becomes a seriously dangerous situation. At some point, I expect that the roads will be so bad due to the weather that I may have to completely alter my route and take the Ohio Turnpike and Interstate 75 to get to and from BG. Those roads will certainly be much better maintained, but traveling that way will also increase my travel time by around an hour, just about doubling my time.

I guess I shouldn't be all up in arms about this. It is just snow, and this is only the first time I've had to shovel so far (and I have a snowblower for when things get worse. I just have to get it fueled up and ready to go). I even have a new, solid snowshovel and some salt to melt the snow and ice. I'm fairly prepared. I just don't have to like shoveling or driving in the snow, that's all.

In a perfect world, the snow would always melt on pavement or maybe there would be heating coils in all pavement that could be constantly turned on in the winter so that all pavement was kept clear without a need for shoveling and salt and snowplows. But that's in a perfect world, and in our altogether imperfect world, we'll just have to deal with things as they come, the same as we've done for centuries. Rather archaic, but what we're stuck with, just the same.

Posted Written at 1:24 AM

December 13, 2003

Amazing! I ache and I'm practically falling asleep as I write, but I've finished off all sorts of things here today - getting caught up on e.mail and web stories, making laundry clean (yeah!), finding my apartment under the layers of dust and grime that have built up over the last couple of months, and getting lots of other stuff organized around here. A busy day, but rewarding. At least now I have a pleasant environment to work in.

Of course tomorrow I plan to work on my thesis most of the day, followed by the same thing Monday. No big excitement or anticipation there, but hopefully I'll make some real progress and get the Thesis close to being finished (well, a guy can dream, can't he?).

Anyway, we'll see how things go tomorrow. Hopefully I won't be as stiff as it feels like I will be. That would truly suck.

Posted at 12:16 PM

December 12, 2003

I can see my desk! Sure, it's not such a big deal to you, but the stacks of workshopped copies of stories and poems, the stack of flagged books for research on my thesis, the OS X box sitting there and waiting to be installed (which itself was under a pile of papers from classes), and all sorts of stuff. Granted, there're still a few stacks of documents that I'm working on, but I've opened up huge tracts of real estate. It's quite nice.

I also finished buying and shipping Christmas presents today. That was fun and satisfying, and I'm most satisfied that I don't have to worry about it any more. At least that's one less thing to worry about.

It would bore you to tears of I wrote about everything I did today, and most of my accomplishments were not of much consequence, but let me go so far as to say that I finished off a huge amount of little tasks that I've been putting off for weeks and months, so today has been very rewarding and has eased a lot of stress from me. Tomorrow should be even better at finishing backlogged stuff and reducing my stress, but then Sunday and Monday I want to dig back into things and work on my Thesis all day on both days. Not very glamorous or relaxing stuff, but something that needs to be done (and once it's done, I'll be incredibly relaxed and pleased).

Posted at 12:59 AM

December 11, 2003

Wow! What a day! I was wired when I got back last night, and I settled in to read e.mail and check for anything new in the sites I follow on the web. I was lying on my bed, checking stuff on the net - and then fell immediately asleep. I woke up about 5:30 in a very uncomfortable position, put the laptop away, and went back to sleep. I woke up about 8:30 and felt a lot more human. I was actually quite energetic, too, maybe partly due to the first full sleep in days (even with just less than nine hours of sleep) and maybe due to knowing that the bulk of classwork was over and done with. In any case, I was feeling pretty good.

After lunch I took my grandma with me to Toys-R-Us so that we could buy some Christmas presents for my niece and nephew. We took about two hours looking at pretty much everything, but we came away with some great gifts: a new Kirby game for my nephew's GameBoy Advance, some Barbie clothes and a remote control Barbie VW Beetle for my niece, a K-nex roller coaster set (which is fucking huge, making roller coasters that have a five foot tall peak hill on a five foot wide track) for my nephew (I've gotten him K-nex sets before, and he loves building things with them), and a Hello Kitty beaded necklace-making kit for my niece. They're great toys; now I just have to get them shipped out to my sister's, hopefully to arrive by Christmas.

I left town shortly after I brought us back home. I have had a whole stack of books from the campus libraries that I've been renewing all semester, books I've been using for research for my Thesis, and I wanted to get rid of them, liberate myself. I already have all of the information I need from them, really, and I can go back to campus if I need to check one again, but I just wanted that stack off of my desk. They came from multiple libraries on campus, though, so once I got into Bowling Green I had to run from one end of the campus to another to unload everything.

I finally made it to the Student Union for some dinner, and I found Sara and Bo talking, so I joined them. Erin and Jonathan joined us not long after, and I even got to talk to Adam briefly as I caught him walking by ( This was the last I will see of Jonathan - he moves to Ann Arbor tomorrow). We talked for a while, having a great time, and then went to the final BFA Senior Poetry and Fiction Reading. Mary Beth read poetry and Andrew, Jill, and Joy read short fiction; it was a good set. We talked outside, briefly, afterward, and then I went on to join Chris at Big Boy.

Laura had been going to join us, but she was swamped with final projects and couldn't get away. Chris and I looked forward to talking, though, and we ate and talked and joked 'til nearly Midnight before we left for our separate ways. Chris is working on the final aspects of his Senior Project for art, and it sounds really amazing. Hopefully I'll get to see it before he leaves. We'll see. I'm going to seriously miss him next semester. Things just won't be the same.

On the drive back to Sandusky, I tried talking to Christiana on my cell phone, but her cordless ran out of battery strength, and I kept losing her each time I called back. That pretty much cut off our call. I'll talk to her this weekend, though. That'll be cool.

All in all, this was simply a fantastic day. I was able to relax and just enjoy myself, and even though I'm very tired, I feel like I've been liberated from a lot of tension and stress. Let's hope I can have a few more days like this during my break before next semester.

Posted at 2:12 AM

December 10, 2003

I am incredibly tired, but I'm wired at the same time. Maybe it's all of the sugar-filled Sprite and Sierra Mist I've been slamming down all day to give me energy to stay awake; maybe it's having turned in the vast majority of my final projects, for better or worse; maybe it's that I only have one more project to complete and two more meetings with professors to finish off the semester (not counting my Senior Thesis, which is another matter all together); maybe it's that I had a fun time joking with Kill and Erin and Sara and Jonathan for this last day; maybe it's that I've found out that Jill and Sara will be in my Fiction Workshop next semester; maybe it's that there's a new chapter of Storm Front posted which, even though I don't have time to read it yet, I am thoroughly looking forward to; maybe it's that my copy of Baldur's Gate II:Throne of Bhaal is on its way through FedEx ground; maybe it's that I'm going shopping for toys for my nephew and niece tomorrow. Does it even matter why I'm wired? I just am! And man, I am going to crash so hard once I finally let myself lie down and go to sleep.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll start writing decent Journal entries again, writing about something other than final projects and crap. We can only hope.

Posted at 11:29 PM

December 9, 2003

Well, we're on the countdown to D-day (Due Day, the day everything is due), and I still have all sorts of stuff to get done. It's already late; I'm tired; and the alarm is set for 5 AM, which means I'm getting less than base-level sleep - that ought to make me pretty loopy tomorrow, particularly by the end of the day - but I don't have much choice. I think I'll be okay except for the final paper for Modern Fiction ... which I haven't started yet ... and which I still have no idea what it will be about. Sure, I have other stuff that's not finished either, but most everything else is close to ready. I guess we'll see how amazing I can be tomorrow; who knows, I might actually get things done!

Posted at 12:24 AM

December 8, 2003

I am incredibly tired and achy. Getting up at 5 AM really sucks, and I would highly recommend against it, but getting up so early did allow me time to get some things accomplished. I finished all of the short papers that inspect/evaluate poems for good techniques (which SUCKED, by the way), and I covered 21 poems. Yeesh! I'll have to tweak those a little bit; I already found some typos and stuff during my first run-through, so there's bound to be more. I also tweaked all of the other stuff that's pretty much done, and I found a lot of things I had missed that needed to be corrected or rewritten, so the tweaking is well worth the while. I also got mostly through Mrs. Dalloway today, but I've read it before, so it reads a bit faster that way.

I still have to finish reading Mrs. Dalloway and write a short paper about it. I still have to write a final essay for that class, Modern Fiction, and I have no idea what I'll be writing about (a clear subject would help ...). I still have to revise all of my poems and stories for the final portfolios. And I got back some assignments from my Online Documentation professor that make me realize there are a number of little details that need to be added to my online portfolio website, the final project for that class. So I've still got a hell of a lot to do, and I have just tomorrow and Wednesday morning to do all of it. Yea.

On the plus side, I had an amusing, laugh-filled dinner with Jonathan, Sara, Jill, Erin, and Andrew. This is the first time Andrew has joined us, and I think he was shocked at how weird and uninhibited we can be in our discussions and jokes. He seemed very entertained, so I guess we did well.

Posted at 11:48 PM

December 7, 2003

Yes, yes, let's kill the poetry teacher who assigns so many bullshit papers analyzing poems for their appreciable qualities. I've got eleven down and only ten or twenty more to go, depending on how you interpret her instructions. Yes, kill, kill ... it's the only way ...

Posted at 10:40 PM

December 6, 2003

I'm making slow but steady progress on my schoolwork. That still leaves me with a huge stack to finish before Wednesday, but it's still quite possible. I finished the poem that I'll workshop on Wednesday; I read and critiqued the last of the stories that we'll be workshopping next week; I finished the final essay for my Fiction workshop; I finished almost all of my personal website project for Online Documentation (I still have to scan about 50 pages of one document and set it all up as a .pdf, but hopefully I can do that next week), and I've had Christiana thoroughly review my website, so I have a valid opinion about it; I've finished my final evaluation memo for Online Documentation; and I've started rereading Virginia Wolff's Mrs. Dalloway for my final meeting with Phil for Modern Fiction. That means I still have to finish Mrs. Dalloway; write a short paper about it; revise all of my fifteen poems from this semester for my workshop portfolio; revise all of my five short stories for that workshop portfolio; write my final essay for Modern Fiction; and the one project I dread - write short essays about twenty poems. All of that plus a little bit of tweaking here and there on stuff that's pretty much done - just because I'm obsessive about things like that - and all due by Wednesday. Yea.

So, as you can tell, my life's just one big ol' ball of fun. Sheesh ... when does it stop.

Posted at 11:24 PM

December 5, 2003

The fact that there supposedly aren't enough votes for an Anti Gay Marriage Act to pass in Ohio doesn't make me feel much better. To know that the legislators in the statehouse, most of whom are Republican, have sufficient numbers to even make this an issue, even if it won't pass, is extremely upsetting. It's bad enough that there's rampant homophobia in this state; we don't need unconstitutional, discriminatory laws to add to the bigotry.

Ohio Anti-Gay-Marriage Bill Unlikely To Pass

There are growing indications that there are not enough votes in the Ohio legislature to pass a Defense of Marriage Act.

The legislation would define marriage as an act between a man and a woman, and supporters believed they were mustering support after the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules same-sex couples have a right to marry.

House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford), backs the bill where it is not in committee.

" Ohio needs to clarify how we define a marriage," said Rep. Greg Jolivette (R-Hamilton). "The Massachusetts ruling puts more pressure on us to be proactive, so the courts know where we stand."

But, Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Cincinnati) has reservations about the bill, which he said could send the message that Ohio lawmakers are intolerant toward the gay community.

Gov. Bob Taft has pledged to sign it if the bill comes across his desk.

But it is expected to face a tough fight in the Senate.

An attempt last year to pass DOMA died when then-Senate President Richard Finan decided there wasn't enough interest in the issue.

Current Senate President Doug White (R-Manchester) has promised to send the legislation to committee if it passes the House, but would not commit on putting it to a full vote. It is not a "high priority" White said.

Sen. Mark Mallory (D-Cincinnati) said the anti-gay-marriage act still doesn't have enough support to pass the Senate.

" We need to get away from this same-sex discussion," he said. "There are larger issues."

34 states have Defense of Marriage Acts.

Posted at 9:24 PM

December 4, 2003

Today started out with a surprise - a tickle in the back of my throat (no, not a French tickler, a tickle). I have had to wonder of Sara's case of the flu had gotten to me; with the long, hard hours I spent yesterday getting things done early and late, I had worn myself down, and that would have been the perfect setting for the flu to gain hold. After initial coughing and a slight aching in the morning, I felt better throughout most of the day, even though I still occasionally felt that tickle, but now, as it gets late, I've been feeling things more strongly in my throat again, making me cough and clear my throat quite a bit. I really can't afford to be sick right now, so hopefully this is a very passing thing, but we'll just have to see.

Fortunately, the day wasn't ruled by my potential cold. I had a great time at Big Boy tonight with Chris and Laura and Laura's friend (whose name I can't remember). Laura and her friend only stayed briefly, but that was more than I had expected anyhow - Laura had called me earlier and told me that John's (her boyfriend's) father was in intensive care and that things were complicated and she couldn't spare the time to be with me and Chris, even though she wanted the break. As it turns out, she decided that spending a half hour or so with Chris and me would be good for her, and since John was at class, it wouldn't take her away from him. So I got to see Laura and chat with her, even if not for a long time.

Chris and I stayed for another hour and a half or so after that, just talking between us about stuff that's going on and what's going to happen during the next month or so before Chris leaves for New Zealand for classes. Damn, I'm going to miss him a hell of a lot. I'm glad he's going - it's a great opportunity for him, and I think he'll get a whole lot out of the experience - but I'm going to miss him just the same. It's not even like I can drive to visit him once he leaves, and I don't know when (or if) I'll ever see him again after he leaves. It's sad, but I've made it clear that I want to spend some solid time with him after classes are over and before he leaves to stay with his parents before leaving the country. Hopefully we can go to the Toledo Museum of Art and a movie and a meal or two. Just sitting and talking would be great, but I want to spend time with him, whatever we may do.

After I had dropped Chris off at home, I drove back to Sandusky and talked to Christiana on my cell phone. She and I had a good talk. Her visit to New York City over Thanksgiving break was very disappointing considering what she had wanted and expected, so she was still bummed about that. I don't blame her, really. What should have been a nice break from school and work ended up just being a fight with family members with no chance to even take the train into NYC for sightseeing. Fortunately, Christiana is doing well with her classes, so she has that going for her, but it seems like a lot of other things are far less than enjoyable. Hopefully that will change soon; I'd like to see her have a bit more happiness.

But there's not much I can do for her from here. It's really just hopes and good mojo that I send her way. With luck, that will be enough. It certainly can't hurt.

Posted at 2:03 AM

December 3, 2003

I got up far too early today (on purpose) to work on school projects. I had to finish a poem, read a book, write a short paper on said book, and finish a bunch of things that were supposed to have been done on Monday. Loads of fun, as always.

Somehow, without any extra time to spare, I managed to get everything done that was due today. Unfortunately, I was given a new assignment for a paper to be due next Wednesday; I knew that this paper would be coming up, and it is less pages than I expected it to be, but I wasn't expecting it to be due on Wednesday, the same day that it seems absolutely everything else is due.

Well, there is one other thing that's not due on Wednesday, my Senior Thesis. Technically it's due on Monday (which is a surprise in a way, because I though it had been due on this Monday just passed), but I'm not far enough along to get it turned in on time, regardless of the date. Phil has okayed taking an incomplete and working on it more later. The downside is that this means I'll be working on the Thesis during my break between semesters, cutting short an already short break. I guess I should appreciate having the extension on my Thesis, but I'm already disappointed that I'll have to work during what should have been a brief period of relaxation. Oh well.

For now, I'm extremely tired and extremely pressed for time. I have all sorts of shit due next week and very little time left to complete everything, even without having to worry about the Thesis. The battle begins tomorrow.

Posted at 1:12 AM

December 2, 2003

My apologies to the South for yesterday's comments; there are apparently fucking stupid people everywhere (I've been following this case for a while, and I continue to be amazed that it gets tossed from one court to the next without being overturned for being the ludicrous case of injustice that it is).

Kansas Court Retries Gay Teen Sex Case

Three judges of the Kansas Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday in the long-running case of Matthew Limon, a young man sentenced to 17 years in prison for having consensual oral sex with another youth. Limon was just 18 years old when he received the draconian sentence for violating the state sodomy law.

If Matthew had been caught fooling around with a girlfriend, however, he would have been subject to a maximum of just 15 months behind bars under the state's "Romeo and Juliet" law. That law limits the penalties for underage sex between straight teenagers, which range from a slap on the wrist to a short jail term.

According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, at least one of the judges found some of the state's arguments "utterly ridiculous." In a brief filed last September, the Kansas attorney general defended the discriminatory Romeo and Juliet statute based on a public preference on behalf of relationships that could lead to marriage and procreation.

Further, the brief claimed that "sex between persons of opposite sex poses fewer medical concerns (from a disease and pathology angle) than does sex between humans and animals or sex between persons of the male gender." The state's brief also made several inexplicable references to bestiality.

According to the Capital-Journal, presiding Judge G. Joseph Pierron Jr. implied that the state's interest in promoting marriage and conception would not pass muster as a justification for the differing treatment of gay and straight miscreants. As for the "medical concerns," Pierron pointed out that venereal diseases are not the exclusive domain of gay males.

" I'm just trying to come up with a reason," Pierron told Deputy Attorney General Jared Maag, "other than you don't like homosexuals."

This is the second time that Limon has pled his case before the Kansas

Appellate Court. In February of 2002, the court rejected his equal protection claim, and the Kansas Supreme Court declined to review the matter. The ACLU then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the appeal, but for months, the high court took no action in response to that request. Finally, one day after issuing its strong gay rights opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court sent the Limon case back to the Kansas Appellate Court for reconsideration in light of Lawrence.

The appellate court is expected to rule by February, the Capital-Journal

reported. That ruling could also be appealed once again to the state Supreme Court, and theoretically, back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Posted at 12:07 AM

December 1, 2003

Ah, the glorious American South, where discrimination knows no bounds. Fuckers.

Boy Says Mom is Gay; School Rebukes Him

In an extraordinary case of discrimination by public school officials, a 7-year-old Louisiana boy was scolded by his teacher, sent to the principal's office and required to attend a discipline session after he told a classmate his mother was gay.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Marcus McLaurin was in line for recess on Nov. 11, when a classmate asked about his parents. Marcus explained that he had two mothers, because his mother was gay. When asked what that meant, the boy replied "gay is when a girl likes another girl."

Later that day, Marcus' mother, Sharon Huff, was concerned after receiving a call from the assistant principal, who informed her that Marcus was in trouble for using a word so bad that it couldn't be repeated over the phone. But her concern, Huff said, "was nothing compared to the shock I felt when my little boy came home and told me that his teacher had told him his family is a dirty word."

Marcus came home with a "Student Behavior Contract" for his mother's signature, where he had been obliged to detail his transgression. "I sed bad wurds," wrote the second-grader under the heading, "What I did." Under "What I should have done," Marcus wrote: "Cep my mouf shut."

At the top, teacher Terry L. Bethea wrote: "He explained to another child that you are gay (underlined twice), and what gay means."

On a separate form for the Louisiana Department of Education, Bethea said Marcus "told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room," she continued. "I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their own children in their own way."

Marcus's final humiliation came during a one-hour "behavior clinic," where he was obliged to write repeatedly: "I will never use the word 'gay' in school again," the ACLU reports.

"At the ACLU, we often deal with schools that mistreat gay children and children who have gay parents," said the ACLU's Ken Choe in a press release. "But this is beyond the pale."

On Monday, the ACLU sent a letter to Virginia Bonvillain, principal of Ernest Gallet Elementary School in Youngsville, demanding that Marcus's disciplinary record be expunged, and that officials apologize to the boy and his mother. Further, the ACLU asked for "assurances that (school officials) will neither engage in such censorship and discrimination in the future, nor retaliate against either Marcus or Ms. Huff."

"To tell a 7-year-old boy that he can't talk about his family not only makes that child feel confused and hurt," said Choe, "it violates his constitutional right to free speech and equal treatment."

Although the ACLU told Principal Bonvillain that it seeks "to work with you to resolve this matter without resort to litigation," the cases cited in the ACLU's letter suggest that the law is on Marcus' side.

Posted at 1:29 AM

previous | archives index | next
home | archives | bio | stories | poetry | links | guestbook | message board