Journal Archives from theDreamworld ... March 2005

So, yeah. My mom's here. That hasn't been a problem, really, which is good. We've all been running around to the broker and the tax preparers and back to the broker's and to the post office ... all of that while I've had a guy repairing our front rain gutter and all. You'd be amazed how much time that sort of thing can take, but at least now my grandma's taxes are done and her investments have been revised for the better. Heck, we even got the last of the packing and stuff done today, so she and my mom are ready to head out in the morning, leaving even earlier than me (which is insane, really, considering they plan to leave the house at 5 AM to get to the airport in time). I haven't stopped for a moment all day, but I got all of that stuff done as well as read a number of assignments for classes, and got a lot of other small things done around the house. I'm not even tired right now, but I have to try to wind down so I can get to bed and have a halfway decent amount of sleep.

Tomorrow will be busy, too, but then things should slow down a bit and life should hopefully be a bit more relaxed. That's the plan, anyhow. Sweet.

On the plus side for the day, I got a 97% on my first World Lit. I paper and an 'A' on my second Vietnam War paper, and I'll even add in on the plus side that I got caught up with my e.mails and got a good bit of reading done for this week's assignments. I'd love to say there was more that was positive, and maybe I could include the pleasant barely 60 degree temperature during the middle of the day (a veritable heat wave, all things considered), but for the most part the day was crap, and it was bad from the start.

I woke up with less than five hours of sleep and a raging headache. I suspect that the two things were in some ways connected, but the lack of sleep was mostly just due to not getting to sleep until nearly 12:30 last night and still having to get up at 5 this morning. Anyhow, I was dragging pretty seriously, even with the migraine aspirins, and I plodded through getting ready. I also, to my detriment for time, tried looking for a financial file of my grandma's I've been looking for for a day or two to resolve an investment issue, and while the idea I had of where to look for the missing info was a good possibility, what I needed wasn't there after all. Not only didn't I find what I needed, but the looking added to my slowness and made me quite late. I was running 20 minutes late by the time I got on the road, and that's very late based on my avail bale time.

Time became an even bigger problem as I found that Ohio Route 6 has yet another detour, this time sending me far along Ohio Route 2, out over the bay bridge. The extra time needed to cover the detour, even at my 70+ mph speeds (way above the speed limit), was still an extra 10 minutes I didn't have. When I finally got to Bowling Green I was amazed that there were even parking spaces still available (I guess that was another plus), b ut I parked quickly and made my way onto campus.

The day of classes passed pretty quickly. I grabbed gas and some Arby's to eat on the road so that I could skip dinner, and I called my grandma to be ready to go to the bank to check here safe deposit box for the investment info I was looking for. The detour on the way back took forever, and once I got back a quick phone call revealed that the broker had been able to make contacts to uncover the information we needed about my grandma's investment. That allowed me to avoid the bank trip and do some organizing of things of my grandma's.

All of my efforts didn't stop her from insulting me shortly thereafter, and seeing as it was the same demeaning nitpicking that she's engaged in incessantly for the past four weeks, a treatment which I've made clear I don't appreciate and don't want to hear, I was as a result understandably frustrated. I dropped everything I was doing for her, said a few choice words, and made my way upstairs. I've been fuming about the mistreatment all night, and I'm quite sure that she doesn't have a care in the world - she has either completely forgotten the incident or (as is more commonly the case) she just doesn't care that she offended me and won't even consider that I could be bothered by anything.

Anyhow, I got a bit more reading and stuff done after that, but it's taken me the whole remainder of the night. Now I'm just wrapping up, and I want to read one more thing before going to sleep. Sleep's looking awfully good, though, so hopefully the reading will go quickly. Wish me luck.

Well, they're gone. My sister and the kids left just after 3 PM, and the day seemed far too short.

We had time to share a nice breakfast and a nice lunch, and my sister and I had a good talk about my grandma's continued care, about our parents and their various problems, and about plans for a week-long visit in July. I would have loved to have done a whole lot more before they left, but the day just isn't that long, and they had to get to Cleveland and slog through the lines of returning holiday travelers before heading home. As it is, they didn't expect to be home until well after 10 PM, so it would be a long day for them before they could rest.

Once they had left I picked up the house a bit for my grandma and picked up my level of the house a bit, too. I had hoped to read one last reading assignment for classes, but I got to writing an e.mail reply and wound up writing for quite a while. By the time I was done and had checked on my grandma and done a few things for her, I had time to grab a quick dinner, and then get things ready for school tomorrow. All of that took me un til 8 PM, and while there's a lot more I would have liked to have done today, I decided to just sit back, watch some tv, surf the web, and write this Journal entry before I have to go to sleep. In fact, there are a couple of chapters from online stories that I didn't get a chance to read earlier today, so I may read them before crashing for the night, but that's about it. It's been a full, satisfying day, and while I have a lot to do tomorrow, I'm feeling pretty good about the coming week.

Christa had us all up early today (6:30 AM) so that she and Hunter could start hunting for Easter eggs. Considering she didn't get much sleep last night because her head had been clogged up from her cold, I don't really understand why she didn't try to sleep longer, but I guess I do understand when I think back about Easter egg hunts at my grandma's.

For my sister and I this was our rare, really enjoyable holiday. While most holidays meant invariably having our father explode about something ("Stop bouncing around!", "Now the meal is ruined since the potatoes aren't mashing right!", "I said just bring me my beer, damnit!"), and watching him getting drunk and scary (which, come to think of it, was pretty much the norm, but just seemed worse since any holiday almost seemed like it should be a break from the normal reign of terror), Easter was different from all of that since our father wasn't really there. He never went to church with us (because it wasn't a Southern Baptists service), he was never there when we hunted eggs, and he wasn't always even there when we ate Easter dinner, but even when he was, my grandma had fixed the whole meal herself. Easter played out such that we got up early, got cleaned up, went to church for Easter Sunday (where we usually fought or wrote each other notes rather than listened to the service or sang or payed attention), and after church we went to my grandma's house where we'd see what the Easter Bunny had left us in our baskets and then hunt for eggs.

The egg hunt was a huge thing with my sister and I. My grandma has a large living room and a large dining room, connected with a large archway, and the eggs were hidden throughout both. My sister and I 'called' one room for our own, and then we started hunting for eggs at the same time, racing to get all of the dozen eggs from our room before the other sibling got all of theirs. That sounds much easier than it was. My grandma is quite tricky in her Easter Bunny role, and she can hide eggs incredibly well (so well, in fact, that one egg was so well hidden one year that it didn't get found until the following July when it made its presence known - quite vociferously). Finding all of the eggs was a true challenge, and my sister and I hunted eggs against each other until I was 22 and she was 26. The Easter traditions broke down for a while as my sister and I didn't regularly come back to my grandma's for the holiday (and much of that was me, avoiding coming back since my parents had moved into my grandma's upstairs and I didn't want anything to do with my dad). My sister picked up the tradition again after Hunter was born, coming to Sandusky to visit my grandma every Easter for the traditional baskets and egg hunt. It wasn't quite the same when Hunter was a little kid or even when Christa was a baby, but for the past few years it's been like old times, with each of them competing heavily against the other in the race to collect eggs. This year Christa won (although my sister was helping her, and I left Hunter to find his eggs by himself (which I think is the way it should be)).

Unlike the old Easter tradition, the egg hunt now comes before church, so after the competition, everyone got cleaned up and headed out (except me, of course. I excused myself to get some of my readings done for the coming week of classes (and I did get a good bit of reading done), but more importantly I won't step foot in the Methodist church while they hold their boldly anti-gay stances (and it's not like I feel I'm missing anything anyhow - church has never done anything but frustrate me, so I'm happier without the ugliness of organized religion). After church they all came back, and shortly thereafter we headed out to our lunch buffet. Christa's cold and lack of sleep had caught up with her quickly, and she slept through church and lunch, and even slept for a couple hours after we returned to the house. That left Hunter and I to spend more time together (which has been happening quite a lot this visit, pleasantly), and we talked and watched cartoons, and hung out most of the morning (before and after he was at church), at the luncheon, and during the afternoon. We had a light dinner and made a pie together towards evening, and then watched Alice in Wonderland as a group. Hunter and Christa and I watched the Cartoon Top Five and Teen Titans afterwards before my sister made them go to bed, and since then I've been tapping away at my new keyboard, creating this Journal entry.

Tomorrow is the last day of their visit, and they'll be on their way to Cleveland and the airport by 3 PM. We'll probably only hang out a bit and have lunch in that time, so I won't see a whole lot of any of them yet before they leave, but as much as I feel like the visit is far too short, I'm still really happy that they were able to come. It has been a real treat for me, and I wish it happened more often.

My sister, nephew, and niece arrived yesterday, late in the afternoon for an Easter visit. My grandma and I had been out on one errand or doctor appointment after another all day, finishing with some grocery shopping just as my sister called to say she was on her way from the airport. By the time they got to the house we had put away the groceries, but it was late enough then for dinner, so we rolled right into that. After dinner we sat around and watched some cartoons with the kids, and by 8 PM we were all pretty much couch potatoes (although I watched Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis' season finales while they watched the first part of the Little House on the Prairie miniseries <gag>.

Today was a bit different. The kids were both tired, and Christa, my niece, has a moderate cold, so they were sort of cranky. Let me tell you - coloring Easter eggs with a tired, cranky 9 year old and a sick, cranky 6 year old is a bitch, no matter how you look at it. We survived that, though, and came out with some cool looking eggs, and then we went out to lunch and to visit the Easter bunny (or more realistically, my sister paid a hideous sum to have the kids' picture taken with some sweaty, costume-clad unknown person for, to my mind, no good reason). Hunter, my nephew, wasn't really into it, but he did it because my sister wanted him to. Fortunately the line was short and we were out of the mall quickly.

Afterward we went to the library (of all places to go on a vacation). Hunter has to do a report in a couple of weeks on a state, and he got Ohio as the state he presents on. While my sister took Christa to the Children's department to read her a story, I took Hunter and we dug up some info on basics like the state bird (Cardinal), the state bug (Ladybug), the state tree (Buckeye), the population and so on. We also got photocopies of some info about the Underground Railroad and maps of the routes the Underground Railroad took through Ohio, and we also got information about Serpent Mound and other natural construction wonders of the ancient Hopewell and Adena peoples. I suggested looking up all of the presidents who came from Ohio (8 of them, the second most from any state after Virginia with 9) and looking up all of the famous astronauts from Ohio (the most from any state). He should have plenty of info for his project. His school does a lot and pushes the kids to really learn, but he's still just in fourth grade, so it's still not all that complicated. Hunter's interest had run out by the time we left, so we went back tom the house and read (my sister and I, for classwork, me for my undergrad classes and her for her PhD) and made drawings (Hunter making sketches and Christa coloring). We just vegged out for a bit like that, eating snackish stuff now and again, and eventually found ourselves at 8 PM and the second part of that dreaded Little House on the Prairie miniseries.

I fled upstairs to watch the Star War cartoons collection, and Hunter joined me about 20 minutes later. He was completely bored by the Little House crap, and he had to get away. So we watched tv together for a couple of hours and talked and joked. Hunter and I are a lot alike in our interests and even our habits, so it's easy to talk with him once he has taken the time to get used to me after having not seen me for months and he relaxes enough to talk. Even if the visit ended now I'd have had a great, bvery satisfying time, but we're only half way through, so there should be plenty of time to enjoy everybody's company yet. That'll be cool.

Seriously, this baby is covered in aluminum. The darn thing gleams. The sleek lines and the contained power don't hurt either, but it's the shininess that gets you. It's much more shiny that my Titanium G4 Powerbook even was.

I could rave about the darn thing forever, I imagine, yet I'm phenomenally tired after all of the appointments, tasks, setting up the new computer, and taking care of my grandma and my sister and nephew and niece. There's been a lot to do and the bottom line is that I'm knackered (whatever that means). So rather than gush on about the wondrous features and droolworthy abilities of my new Powerbook, I'll just suggest that you check out the link above.

Meanwhile it's beddie-bye for me, and even the demanding nature of my new Powerbook, expecting me to install and update programs and files for days without end, all until it has all of the knowledge of the ancients, is not enough to keep me conscious and trying. Maybe soon, but not right now. And I need to get some reading done, too. But not tonight. Tonight, it's all about sleep.

---------------------------------------------------- It's an odd, though short, set of circumstances, but read the entry below and the entries for the entire previous week to see why this blue text is here and why the normally white text is in black. I'll give you a hint: black is for mourning. ------------------------------------------------------

I realized this morning,while in a computer lab and fighting with the problems that had arisen from what should have only been a simple mistake while remotely accessing my website to update it, since I can't do it from Sandusky with the Powerbook dead and all. I spent about an hour fucking around, losing about a half hour of what I had hoped to use as time to read some assignments. Oh well. I never even fully fixed the problem, although it should now be working.

It wasn't just my struggling against my own fallible humanity that made me realize how much I'm technology's bitch. It was this whole desperation of mine to figure out how to live without a fairly-recent-model computer and deciding to spend thousands of dollars to get my fix. Yes, there a many reasons why I do have to have a more recent computer than the half-working Powerbook G3 I've been using since my Titanium Powerbook G4 died - however - no matter how good the reasons are, they're still just excuses. If I had no money (which to some extent I don't, but enough of that) ... but if I didn't have any money I would find a way to get by without. I'd have to. That would be it. Instead, I'm so hooked on new technology that I drool over every sight of it and jump around like a giddy schoolgirl when I get something new.

So with all of this in mind, I reminded myself that it was actually a good thing that the new Powerbook I'd ordered wouldn't get here 'til Monday, meaning I'd have plenty of time to spend, uninhibited, with my sister and nephew and niece. I was pretty content with the whole thing, too, at least until I got pulled over by a highway patrolman on my way back to Sandusky.

He had me; there's no doubt about it. He got me on radar at 69, and I'm sure I had been slowing down when he got that reading, since I had just passed a guy while driving about 75. WHat can I say? I speed. You do it too, admit it. Anyhow, the patrolman was very nice and, even though I had a speeding ticket in November (the first I'd had in like four years), he just gave me a warning. I haven't had a warning since I was a teenager. The cops always want to write that ticket, at least for me. But not today. Today I got away without getting my just deserts, and the effect was just as strong. I drove 55 mph all the way back to Sandusky, and I was high on anxiety for the next hour.

So considering everything that had happened during the day and everything that I'd been thinking, and considering I was getting back an hour and a half later than usual since I washed and detailed the car before leaving Bowling Green, ... well considering all of that I was shocked to find a box sitting just inside the door that looked curiously like the right size to be my new laptop. In fact t, considering that the darn thing was still in Shanghai, China a day ago, I was nothing short of shocked. The shock lasted only so long, however.

All of my plans for reading next weeks assignments for school flew out the window. I did take care of a bunch of things for my grandma, and I did take care of a few last cleaning and organizing things around the house, but I've spent the last nearly six hours checking out and setting up this new beauty, and while there's a whole lot to do, I'm fairly functional. All of the backup I tried to do on my bookmarks and browser files have disappeared, which pisses me off and will be something I address soon, but all of my other important files (like my website files and my financial records and my school files) all backup up okay on my external harddrive when I sent them off from my dying Powerbook last week. I'll be thankful for at least that partial small wonder.

Tomorrow I'll write more about the Powerbook itself, because it's a wonderful, wondrous, notably different laptop than my last one. It's shiny.

Now, though, I'm taking my Powerbook to bed - or more realistically, it's taking me to bed. Let's face it, I'm it's bitch. And I can live with that.

I should be happy - or at least content - even if I am tired. I've been running around non-stop since about 7 AM, and I've gotten an unbelievable amount of things done, making it conceivable that I'll actually be on top of things by the time my sister gets here with the kids. I've even had to put more effort than I expected in getting my grandma fairly well along, doing a lot of cleaning, organizing, and decision-making that she simply couldn't get done in the couple days we have left (and don't think that we get to rest for the next two days - there are still many things that need to be done). So yes, I'm tired, but I should be feeling rewarded for getting so much done, shouldn't I?

Well, sadly that's not the case. Being on top of things is great, but the day has gone from bad to worse as I've been tracking the movement of the new Powerbook I ordered. Original estimates had the new computer arriving sometime Thursday, which I though was great, I was supposed to allow 1-3 business days to get the computer ready (because of some made-to-order customizations) and then 1-5 days business for shipping. I ordered it on a weekend, so I wasn't surprised that it didn't even start processing (much) until Monday. I was even pleased to se it listed as ready for pickup on Tuesday. Sadly, it sat there for quite a while. It started out in Shanghai, China. I guess it was manufactured there, and then they customized it and repackaged it, then called FedEx. And FedEx waited. Earlier today FedEx picked it up and took it to the loading ramp for their international air freight carrier. And then in sat there for over an hour and a half doing nothing and finally missing the departure time of the next available flight by 2 minutes! So now it's still sitting there and waiting for the next flight out. I have no idea yet when that will be, but my expected delivery date had been shifted back to Monday now. I suppose that isn't horrible, really. It'll still get here before I go back to classes again next week, and it will have gotten here in the range of time suggested by Apple, but I'm disappointed. I'm anxious to have a fully-functional machine at my fingertips again, for one thing, but I'm also frustratingly aware that if the Powerbook had arrived on Thursday I could have spent some time doing basic set-up. Now, with it coming Monday, I'll be spending a good part of the day with my sister, nephew, and niece, seeing them off to the airport, and then getting done the last things I need for class the following day. The next day, Tuesday, in addition to being mostly spent in class or on the road, is the day that my mother flies into town, arriving not long after I get back from Bowling Green. Granted, she and my grandma leave early on Thursday, but I have class again that day, so at best I won't really be able to use the new computer at all until late Thursday or possibly even Friday (depending upon how tired and loaded with schoolwork I am. So it's no big deal, really. My schoolwork is pretty much all reading assignments (or stuff I can do by hand on paper) rather than essays or other things that need the computer, so I don't even have to worry about working around the various limitations I've got here. I'll get by, obviously, but it's just disappointing I guess. Maybe it's better this way anyhow. Now I won't have anything holding me back from enjoying my sister and the kids during their visit. That's cool. But once that new computer's in, I'm all over it.

Ugh! I am so completely exhausted today. It's been non-stop with classes and readings and cleaning and balancing my grandma's checkbook and a whole list of stuff. Right now I just want to go to bed, but I still have things I need to do yet tonight. Tomorrow will likely be worse, but I've got all sorts of crap that has to be taken care of before my sister gets here. I have more stuff than I need to get done just for myself, and I'll surely have all sorts of stuff that my grandma should have done that I'll be doing too (like getting her all packed for her trip to Florida, something I've been pushing her to work on for two weeks, during which time she even had help from Agnes, who generally comes to clear my grandma's first floor once every two weeks (mostly just dusting or sweeping, really, because she's only here two hours and my grandma talks her ear off over coffee for half of that). I've been telling my grandma every day for the last week that she needed to be completely done packing today since there would be so much to do in the next couple days before my sister arrives. I even left her a reminder note before I left for classes today. Is she packed? No. Does she even have her outfits all selected? No. So guess who gets to do all of that now, too?) Well heck, it's not like I have anything else to do …

One exam sent off, one paper ready to submit tomorrow, problems solved with Financial Aid (at least for now), and files ready to try for an update to the website tomorrow once I get on campus and can access a computer lab. All of that put me where I need to be for the most part, but even better, I had time to clean.

Not that I'm a clean freak (neat freak, yes; clean freak, no (and the difference is that "neat" means everything in its place while "clean" means, well, clean)), but things were so, so bad that it was pretty horrible, and with my sister, nephew, and niece coming here Friday, I had to get going on this whole level of the house. The problem is two-fold. First, this second floor space just seems to accumulate dust like a magnet attracts iron filings. Maybe its because it used to be mostly attic space, maybe its because my parents did such a shitty job with the additions that were made up here, or maybe it’s the complete lack of any air circulation system, but whatever it is, this place builds up a visible layer of dust in no time flat. Compound that problem in the winter months, making the dust accumulation on an order of magnitude to normal, like 1 to the 100th extreme. This is due completely to the humidifier that I use up here which simply pours out heavy, visibly water-laden air, and that makes the dust gather all the faster. I can't do without it or the place becomes so dry that I electrocute myself with static shock every time I move and I end up getting ear infections and cracked and bleeding fingers because my skin dries out so much. Seriously. So the dust is horrible, but it's a necessary trade-off. And when I say it's horrible, I mean that in less than a week I get such a heavy layer of dust that it's like a light coat of white spraypaint. Two weeks is like a heavy coat of spraypaint, where the black tv shell is now white. Take that up to a month or so (which was the case when I got to things today, and you have this chalky layer everywhere. I had to vacuum everything off with the vacuum attachments before I could even start dusting, it was that thick. So yes, it was necessary and horrible. There was so much dust that I fully expect having to redust and revacuum a fair amount of stuff in a day or two once … well, once the dust settles, to use an old phrase. But it's amazing to see things shiny and not all white. Really, it's like a different place.

Anyhow, it was a decent day overall. My depression has let up a little. I'm not sure if it's due to being so busy or the fact that my headaches have been constant and I've been popping pills for them two or three times a day with minimal effect or maybe just because I can see colors around here again. Maybe its none of those things. In any case, it's good not to be overwhelmed with depression, so I'll take it. Not that I'm happy, really, but anything beats where I was.

Zounds! Egads! Stand fast and be amazed, gentle folk. Witness the most miraculous of events!

Okay, so I actually have not only finished a complete draft of my Vietnam War paper, but I've refined it quite a bit and feel it's just about good to go. I also revised the essays for my World War II history exam so that it feels ready to submit. And as if that all weren't enough, I got a number of little tasks done here and there and also spent a fair amount of time with my grandma. Heck, I even got a full nine hours of sleep last night, believe it or not. If not for the painful migraine I've been fighting with constant medication, today would have been simply fantastic.

I'm still frustrated about the new computer issue, too, but I must admit that I'm starting to feel some excitement as well. It's not like I have much choice in the matter anymore anyhow, so I might as well enjoy it.

So my wonderful G4 Titanium Powerbook is about as functional as a brick; the G3 Wallstreet Powerbook I'm using is slightly more functional than that but slow, limited, and unstable (it crashes more often than is acceptable, although not to the extent that I can't get things done); I had no cake or celebration for my birthday today (which isn't really that different than most of my birthdays in the last ten years); and I'm tired and lonely (which is par for the course). I could certainly have had a better birthday; no doubt about it. Still, it wasn't a total loss.

It became readily clear that I wouldn't be able to stand going for long without access to at least the sites I visit daily from my bookmarks, so I spent some time this morning (less than I had expected) and set up a good list of bookmarks to visit my favorite sites. Visiting those sites helped lighten my mood slightly. I also got a lot done on my schoolwork. The two long essays of the exam are done, although I want to tweak them once or twice more before sending them in, and I got an outline make for my Vietnam War paper and found a whole bunch of supportive quotes for my arguments from a wide range of sources. Those quotes are flagged with Post-it notes and waiting to be typed into the computer. I'll do that tomorrow and hopefully get a complete draft written out before the end of the day.

My sister called in the evening to wish me happy birthday, and I had a good talk with her, my niece, my mother (who had just arrived and will be there for a few days), and my nephew. My nephew was the big surprise. He usually doesn't talk much on the phone, and I often feel like he doesn't really like me or at least he's wary of me since he doesn't know me very well. I never know quite what to say when he isn't talking, and we end up just awkwardly saying a couple pointless things and then saying goodbye. Today we talked for quite a while, though, both of us, and he was really open and willing to talk. That was actually the best birthday present I got today, and it meant a lot to me.

As far as my immediate problems are concerned, I have quickly decided that going for days, weeks, or months without a functional computer is out of the question. The G3 is great as a fill-in, and I'm grateful not to be completely dead in the water, but it's problematic just to write papers for my classes or to get Netscape not to crash because the animated advertisements on one page or another overload the slower CPU. Considering my Distance Leaning/Online course requires much more intense functions than this Powerbook can provide; and considering I can't access any of my backed up files with this older operating system (including my Quicken files (which even includes my checkbook), my date book, my address book, my files for this semester's classes); and considering I can't update my website or check my e.mails (although I can check two of the six accounts I use for various things right now via webmail systems) or even surf the normal sites I usually frequent (at least not without crashing Netscape); it seems I have no choice but to buy a new machine.

I don't like it that I'm being forced to buy a new machine, and I should find that funny. Normally I'd love to have a new, shiny piece of technology, particularly something as wonderful as a new Powerbook with all of the bells and whistles that I could have, outclassing even the last one I had, but I dislike being stuck with having to buy it right now. If I had won the lottery and had the cash to buy a new Powerbook, I would still have waited until this fall or next spring when the next release would come out, because I can tell that the next revision will be major, possibly going to a G5 chip but also almost certainly employing liquid cooling technology and a host of other cool new technologies. Even if I didn't wait until the next revision, I would have liked to wait at least until the next major version of the operating system comes out, the new Tiger OS X. According to fairly reliable sources, it's supposed to come out on April 15th, and if I could have waited a month to buy a Powerbook, that new OS would have come preloaded and as part of the Powerbook install disks. Apple usually does a deal when they release a new major OS version where they send a copy of the new version free to anyone who bought a new Apple computer within the month prior to the release, so I guess I might (emphasis on might) still get the OS without any extra cost, but I'd still have to go for a fresh install and everything. It would have been simpler if it came all tweaked out in the newest ways. And of course let's not forget that I haven't won the lottery, so I get a dandy huge new debt to weigh down my credit cards, as if I needed more credit card debt. Chances are that my opinions here will change once I have that shiny new beauty in my hands, but for now it's, I think, understandable to be frustrated.

It's funny, really. I'm basically getting a new Powerbook for my birthday, and for the life of me I can't get excited about it.

---------------------------------------------------- The following few days of Journal entries will be posted late en masse because my Powerbook died unexpectedly and left me with an inability to post updates until I can get to the BGSU college computer labs or until (eventually) my new computer is available. Thanks for your patience in waiting for my timely return to daily posting. ------------------------------------------------------

Remember how I wrote in yesterday's Journal that my computer was giving me some trouble? Well, not that you're likely to be reading this for a few days (when I can hopefully get some Journal entries made and uploaded to my website from a computer in one of the campus labs), but the trouble just kept getting worse.

I tried a number of things to fix what was going wrong, running different tech tools on the system, shutting off certain components, avoiding certain programs. Nothing worked. It wasn't until the computer froze up while I was trying to reinstall the system software from CD that I became quite sure that I had an inescapable hardware problem. I have a couple ideas what the issue may be, but neither thing is something I can fix. I'll have to send my computer in to the shop (which means through whoever I can get to send it to Apple to work on). That will invariably cost money and take up a hideous amount of time (Apple is noted for great customer service, particularly on their hotlines, but for horribly slow repairs on equipment). I can't really afford a delay, and I'm going crazy already without my computer readily available.

What I do have available is an old G3 Powerbook (a Wallstreet version like my old laptop (my current, dead laptop is a G4 Titanium Powerbook (an Onyx version)). Unfortunately this old G3 is only slightly better off than my G4. My G4 won't start at all at this point, so I guess anything's better than that, but this G3 is pretty messed up. The hinge on the clamshell has no tension, so I have to lean it against a wall so it stands up. Neither battery works any more. The right swappable bay doesn't run any components any more. The whole system crashes every once in a while through a system fault. It took me an hour to get ethernet to work (having a working ethernet cable helps, I found all too late). And the darn thing runs as slow as can be. To top it off, my older version of Dreamweaver, my web design software, runs okay on this machine, but the older version that runs on this older OS doesn't recognize the newer files from the more recent version of Dreamweaver that I've used to make all of the recent version of my site files. So short of designing a whole new website, I'm stuck until I can get access to a more recent (and working) computer with Dreamweaver MX.

I'm also stuck without most of my e.mail and bookmarks. I could set them up, but it would take all sorts of time, and considering this G3 is just a stopgap, I don't see the point in even trying. Time is not my friend, and I'm feeling really screwed. As it is, I spent hours trying to keep my G4 alive and hours more getting this G3 to function at its nominal level.

I had been limping along with the G4 earlier in the day, trying to work on the long essays for my World War II history exam, and I got a lot done. If I hadn't had the computer problems I might even have gotten the whole exam done, but that didn't happen. The good news is that I was able to get a copy of the Word file onto a Zip disk before my G4 completely died, and I've been able to get it copy it from Zip onto the G3. And Word even recognizes the file, even though it's made with a newer version of Word. You can't imagine how much I'm cheering that one little stroke of luck. Of course I'm not going to be able to use my printer with this G3 (no USB ports), but I should be able to get things done and be able to go early to campus and get printouts (hopefully <crosses fingers>).

My plan, I guess, is to make some calls tomorrow to Apple service, the Apple Store in Troy (Michigan), and some Mac-savvy friends. I'm hoping I can find out what might be wrong and get an idea of how expensive this problem is and how long I'll be without a computer. It would be bad enough if it were just the case that I had to miss out on my daily doses of e.mail, news, and surfing of the sites and stories I frequent, and it would be bad enough if I couldn't post to my website often, but I still have school for another month and a half, and I have a hell of a lot of work to do on a computer, much of which requires files that I can't even access from the backups on my external hard drive right now (because this G3 doesn't have a Firewire port). I'm seriously considering buying a new Powerbook. I'm reluctant to do so because I can't really afford it, and if I were going to buy one, I'd rather wait until the next revision comes out in the fall or next spring. Unfortunately I may not have any option. The chances are pretty good that I can expect my computer to be gone for at least a month, regardless of the price, and if that's the case then I would just be screwed. So I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'll call around tomorrow and get some info and ideas, and I'll go from there, I guess.

I'll also be trying to finish both essays for the exam and trying to send them by webmail. Then I have that Vietnam War paper to jump into as well. I certainly won't be getting any rest or even any of my normal relaxation (via the web). Today was bad enough, but tomorrow's going to suck. Some fun way to spend my birthday, huh?

While I wasn't blessed with the luck of the Irish today, I did survive. I gave my presentation in my Tech Writing class (and that went well), and I operated all day on just four hours of sleep (actually a bit less than four if we're going to be specific). I got through some necessary reading assignments tonight, and I have solid outlines for both of the essays for my World War II history exam. I had hoped to be further along on the exam, particularly considering it's more like two short papers than two long essays (particularly considering the expectation of plenty of fully cited quotations from all of the books we've read so far in class). Since I'm not too far along on this, I'm getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to work solid on the exam until it's done. That should suck. Hopefully I'll make good progress, though.

If I survive with little sleep tonight and a long day tomorrow, I still have another, even longer paper to write for my Vietnam War history class. That one's due on Tuesday.

All of this would be more than enough 'fun' without my new problem; my computer, which I took to school today for a class (something I almost never do), is locking up when it heats up (which, being a laptop, is often), and it's proving to be a royal pain in the ass. As long as it's cool it seems to be fine, but if it heats up then it freezes. This has never been a problem before. I've had problems with heat build-up (although not as severe as it seems to be heating up tonight (whyever that is)), and yet I've never had this lockup problem. So I don't know what's up. I hope that I at least can get these papers done. After that, I don't know what I'll do if I keep having lockups.

So like I said, it's not like I've had the luck of the Irish - but I'm surviving.

Caesar certainly set the bar for having a bad day on the Ides, but while my day hasn't been remotely as bad as being stabbed to death dozens of times by friends and colleagues, it still sucked. I took my Tech Writing Midterm Exam today and really bombed that, not because I didn't know the material but because there were so many trick questions that could have gone one way or another (and of course I picked the wrong way time and again). But heck, that was only worth 30% of my final grade ... I also found out that my World War II MIdterm, which is coming up/due in a couple of days, is a take-home essay exam (not what I expected), and requires two four pages essays with full citations from the texts, meaning that I basically have to write two full short papers in two days (three if you count Thursday, when I'll be at class all day) without any preparation or forethought. And then I'll have a whole two days left to write my Vietnam War paper from start to finish so that it can be turned in on Tuesday. Oh, and did I mention that somewhere in there I have to get all of the readings done for each of my classes for next week? Yeah, that, too. Oh, plus I'm supposed to have all sorts of stuff to show for my Tech Writing Proposal, and it's barely begun. Plus I have to meet with Financial Aid, the Arts & Sciences College, and my Thesis Advisor all sometime this week. And that's without counting the stuff I have to do for my grandma. Maybe it would be easier just to get stabbed a few dozen times. At least it would be over quickly.

For as bad as today was, it has been better than the past few, at least in the sense of how overwhelmingly depressed I've been. Don't get me wrong - a more pleasant part of hell is still hell - but I wasn't completely crushed today like I have been feeling. It's a matter of degrees, but I'll take any improvement I can get, so in this sense today has been a good bit better. Hopefully the trend will continue.

If I didn't have the responsibility of taking care of my grandma then I would surely have shut down this week. As it's been I've barely been functioning, barely been sleeping, and barely been keeping back tears. A huge part of me just wants to give in and give up, and an even bigger part of me resents that I can't do that because I'd be leaving my grandma helpless. I'm glad to be able to take care of her like I am, but the whole situation has been very difficult for me. I should probably be glad that my commitment to her is keeping me from spiraling into a fetal state, but I'm not. I'd much rather just plunge into that spiral and let go. It would be so much easier.

I feel so lost and alone, even with some of the wonderfully supportive e.mails I've had recently from Solace. As much as I don't want to believe it, I'm starting to face the fact that I'm not likely to ever have another lasting loving relationship. A boyfriend, a son, or even a best friend that I would see daily - I can't see any of these things happening anymore, and facing that means that everything I've ever wanted, needed, or expected since I was a small child will never happen. I don't know how to have any motivation to do anything if there's no hope of ever having such love in my life.

All I feel is a constant empty ache, and I just want to shut myself off from everything to ease the pain. But I can't. I don't have that option. And in the end that really just makes it all the worse.

What do you expect me to say? Do you expect me to keep whining about being lonely and depressed? I could certainly do that. Maybe you figure I'll cite some news article and rant about something? Sorry - no news of any substance to report or comment upon. Or do you expect me to say something witty or creative? While you certainly deserve that, I just don't have it in me right now. I think that all you get is this pointless commentary. Tomorrow I promise to have something worth reading. Today I just can't pull it off.

I think if I get any more sad - and I've been getting more and more sad each day - then I see myself getting no sleep, rarely leaving my bed, and having migraines that no medication will stop. I'm pretty close to that as it is, and I think if I cry anymore I'm going to drown.

Is there a point to even hoping for more than I have? Is there a hope in hell of ever having any fraction of the simple happiness I want and need? How many years do I have to have my dreams crushed before I face the facts?

Steve paid a surprise visit to me today, having had to make a service call to one of his clients in Sandusky. He showed up just after 8 PM and stayed until 11:30 or so, and we talked a lot about politics and the stupidity of corporate America on a lot of issues. I loved seeing Steve and getting to talk, having not visited with him in a while, but I will readily admit to not having the best experience possible. You see, Steve had had a "spillage mishap" while he was pumping gas to fill up his truck, and he had a serious gasoline smell to him. Something about the gas in the air seriously fucked up my eyes, and they're still dry and sticky even now, well after he's gone. No matter what I do I can't seem to get the liquid levels to come back to balance in my eyes, and it sucks tremendously. I guess it's a small price to pay to see a good friend.

I also got both a letter in the mail and an e.mail from Chris today, offering happy news from New Zealand. Things are going great for Chris, and it looks as though he'll be leaving New Zealand in July to head to Korea with Alice and James to live and work. It all sounds pretty exciting and extravagant to me, and I'm very pleased to see Chris so happy. Chris (and Chris (another Chris) and Sarah and Solace) have been very supportive and encouraging by e.mail to me while I've been sort of down lately. The good mojo has been a real boon, and considering how depressed other things have gotten me today, the positive emotions from my friends have been all that's kept me sane. I wish I could see all of my friends, gas smell or not, but a rare visit from Steve and supportive e.mails from many others (as well as cool calls from Chris (yet another Chris, specifically my friend in Indiana)) have been the high points that have kept me going, and I'm eternally grateful.

Depression and loneliness are killing me here. Each is bad enough on their own, and they're certainly an unpleasant duo, but the overwhelming slowing of everything I do when I get depressed and lonely like this is beyond frustrating. I can't read, write, move, think, shower, or even walk at a normal speed, and it's like taking Sisyphus's place at rolling the boulder up the hill when I try to do anything at all - one misstep and I get knocked down, banged up, and have to start all over from the bottom of the hill again. It's frustrating, and the crazy thing is that rather than get mad at the situation I just end up getting more depressed (and ironically even more slowed down by the weight on my shoulders).

I hate living like this. It's so pointless and frustrating, and I honestly don't know why I keep going or keep trying. It's certainly not leading me to a better future.

Today's experiment has yielded definitive proof that no one at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles is remotely able to use a camera. An old, unproven theory was also reconsidered today, that all BMV workers are sadists who take joy in producing the worst photos imaginable; while the hard evidence seems indisputable, no empirical data regarding the true mental states of the workers has been ascertained. State and federal authorities refused to comment ...

Longing for your sweet embrace,
the gentle curve of your smiling face,
my love for you will never cease,
rest, dear Ken, in eternal peace.

What the hell is wrong with people? Are they really so selfish and hateful and stupid? I just don't understand it at all.

My World War II paper is done and turned in. In fact I had it turned in by 2 PM (which is neither a good nor a bad performance considering I had gotten up at 5 AM and worked almost constantly to get it done). I even got some readings done today, more than I'd expected or hoped for in fact.

The big treat of the day has been my primetime viewing, however. Stargate SG-1 was absolutely fantastic tonight, one of the best episodes I've seen in a while. Stargate Atlantis, which just finished, was good as well, although not remotely as excellent as its counterpart (largely this Stargate Atlantis wasn't particularly exceptional because it was in part a "clip show" that incorporates clips of old episodes as part of its composition. As clip shows go, it was very well done, but any clip show will always fall short of a fully original episode). So based on these two things, it's been a good night of entertain ment already, and I still have Battlestar Galactica, 8 Simple Rules, and the season finale of Monk to watch, all of which should be decent. And then blissful sleep. All-in-all, this should make for a great end to the day.

I took yet another exam today, this one in World Lit. I think I did okay, maybe even quite well, but I'm not really sure. I never know how exams will go usually, particularly essay exams, and I try not to even have any expectations and just wait 'til I know something for sure. So we'll see how that one went.

I did get my Vietnam War exam back today, and I got an A- on that (an average of the A-s I had on each of the essays). That was better than I had worried about considering I ran out of time and didn't get to finish the last essay as fully as I would have liked. I guess I had all of the important stuff covered, though, so that's cool.

Now if I could just get some progress made on my World War II paper that's due tomorrow then I'd be much happier. At this point I think that I'll get up before the crack of dawn tomorrow and pound away until it's done and e.mailed out to my prof. I have a few appointments to take my grandma to, so that will interrupt me a bit, but I think I can get done somehow. It's getting ridiculous that I'm finishing things off this late in the game, but it's getting to be par for the course (or courses, as the case may be). I just want the damn thing done. I still have a hell of a lot to do even once that's out of the way.

Lest you forget, I'll repeat - shoveling snow sucks. Actually the snow wasn't even bad today. It was the sheet of ice underneath that was a bitch to scrape and chip away, and that has left me tired and moderately achy all day. I'll most likely feel better by tomorrow, but the tiredness has made work on my paper slow-going. I've still got time (albeit not much), so I'll be able to still get the paper done, but it would have been nice to have finished it today as I'd liked. Ah well.

It's been a while since I've sang the praises of the Supreme Court, but I once again have to give them due credit. In the past few years the Court has made some incredibly important decisions and have made them in ways that I feel are very just, very logical, and positive steps toward further defining and supporting the rights and freedoms that are constitutionally guaranteed to all Americans. The conservative right would have you believe that the Supreme Court in these decisions are acting as "activist judges" who should keep quiet and let the legislatures and executives of our various levels of government decide who gets certain rights and who get certain freedoms. If the right had it their way, only the types of people they like would be free and alive and the rest would be damned to intolerance, arrest,and murder. Fortunately the Supreme Court has always remembered exactly what the U.S. Constitution defined as the role of the courts:

With all of that said, I must commend the Supreme Court for abiding by their duties. I haven't agreed with all of their decisions in the last decade, but I have agreed with most, and certainly I've agreed with their decisions in what I have considered the most important cases, at least the ones that have been the most important in my eyes.

Today's decision to find the application of the death penalty to minors to be unconstitutional was a landmark decision. I personally hope that this paves the way for future decisions that will find it unconstitutional to try minors as adults in any situation, but such decisions are, in all likelihood, a long way off. Nonetheless, this decision is very important, and the justices made the right decision even in the face of much opposition. I applaud their courage and conviction (and integrity).

Tomorrow they will hear cases regarding the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments in courtrooms and other public venues. This is a hot topic, and I have no idea which way they'll go. I certainly hope that they will build upon the concepts of the separation of church and state and make clear that no religion (and particularly no single religion) should be given influence in matters of governance or jurisprudence. We'll have to wait and see what the justices themselves feel (the jury's still out on that one (sorry - couldn't resist the bad humor)).

In any case, here's the article about today's decision. Once again, my kudos to the the justices.