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| message board April 2006
What am I even doing posting new Journal entries at this point? It beggars the imagination. Posted at 9:17 PM
Why am I still alive? Posted at 10:00 PM
The religious/conservative right likes to say three things repeatedly about their opposition to the pursuit of equality for homosexuals: 1) "We don't have anything against homosexuals, but we don't see why they should get special rights." So to all of those deluded fuckwads I say read this. There are reasons we seek legal definition of EQUAL rights with straight people. There are reasons we want GSAs around to give kids a sense of support and safety. And there are reasons that we support anti-bullying laws is because bullying is wrong and causes long-term damage to all children it affects, although the reality is that gay children suffer much more greatly than anyone else.
Posted at 11:25 PM
<silence> Posted at 8:45 PM
You know, I'm beginning to think that my plants have a better life than I do. Posted at 11:32 PM
The colds that my grandma and I have had for almost a week are losing strength, and we are almost over them. The draining sinuses, the runny noses, the mild coughs (from the running sinus stuff) - those symptoms are mostly gone, certainly not any problem. I am still rather tired, mostly because I can't seem to get a full night's sleep, but my grandma has a severe neck ache that she is trying to make into more something she's had for days when in reality it only started to bother her late last night. I attribute most of my grandma's problem to not eating enough or sleeping enough and fitfully dozing while sitting up on the couch with her head lolled forward as a pull on her neck. Ironically the greatest pain in the neck here is my grandma, not her neck. I have suggested all sorts of things to do to alleviate her neck pain and to feel better, and although she has done some things, most of it she doesn't even try. For instance, I suggested eating well so that her body has the food to turn into energy so that it can build back her strength and make her feel better now that the cold is mostly beat. I also suggested - insisted even - that she use some IcyHot cream on her neck and shoulders to reduce the pain in her neck. She ate next to nothing for munch (and ate lunch rather late) and ate nothing for dinner, even though I was telling her every other hour that she should eat. The IcyHot wasn't used until almost 5 PM, even after having suggested it multiple times all day. She was always quick to say how tired she was and how much her neck hurt, yet she wouldn't follow basic suggestions to correct either of those problems. I swear that even toddlers are less problematic when they are sick. At least you can make them do what you know is best. My grandma simply refuses to follow my advice or let me help directly, like letting me rub the IcyHot cream on her neck. It drives me crazy because I know that my grandma knows better than this. If my nephew or niece were here and sick with similar symptoms my grandma would make them either lay in bed or lay on the couch under blankets, make the drink tea and other liquids, eat good meals of at least soup and such, make them take appropriate medicines, and make sure that they got plenty of rest. In fact she tries to be concerned about the remnants of a cold that I still have, even when I am clearly much better now. She knows how to take care of someone with a cold, but she refuses to do those things for herself, even when I insist or beg her to do so. She is simply infuriating. My best bet may be to take her to the hospital and have them feed her intravenously and give her drugs to make her sleep for longer than six or seven hours in a given night. After a day or two she'd probably feel like a million bucks, and she probably would have paid just about that much for a hospital stay of two days, even though all they did was things she could have done at home for free - things she could have started doing a day or two ago. Ugh! I don't know how I stand this. She really does drive me absolutely insane. If I were being paid to do this, it certainly wouldn't be enough. Posted at 11:07 PM
... and now a question for serious pop culture TV buffs - I used to always say that no one in their right mind would stay anywhere near Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury's character in Murder She Wrote) if they ever say her. The odds were always very badly against anyone and everyone who was nearby wherever she was, and they were marked for death almost surely. I saw no other TV character that could compare. J,B, Fletcher was simply the harbinger of doom. Now I wonder if it's worse to be ever be found around Jack Bauer (Keiffer Sutherland's character on 24). Even Jack's longest, closest friends and family are marked for death merely by association with them. Nobody is safe, really, and I believe that Jack is now far more dangerous than Ms. Fletcher, even though her show ran for twice as many seasons as Jack's has so far. So am I right or am I wrong? Or do any of you even know what the hell I'm talking about? Or could you possibly care any less? Maybe those are the more important questions after all. Posted at 11:40 PM
We are all infinitely stupid and ignorant, well-learned perhaps in one field or another, but blind and stumbling in a world of infinite knowledge waiting to be accessed. Posted at 9:47 PM
I hate being sick. It makes me have to suffer through the reality that there simply is nothing to watch on TV. Posted at 1:04 AM
Damn, I hate this! My grandma started saying she thought she might be getting a cold two days ago, and I had her take it easy and do all of the things possible to minimize or throw off the cold. That not only failed to work, but I clearly have picked up her cold with a vengeance. It's different than the cold I just got over - that one was lodged in my chest while this one is deep in my sinuses, making them run like a strong-flowing river. I had hoped, as I realized that the cold was taking hold in me yesterday, that I could throw it off if I treated myself well, but that's not apparently going to happen. Tonight, after a day where it just got worse and worse and worse, the cold is really horrible and making me miserable. What the hell is going on? I've gone for most of my life with hardly ever a cold, and now, this spring, I have had three very bad colds hit me in a row. This shit has to stop. I don't know what to do about all of this, but something must be done. I can't keep going through this.
Miraculously I am not moving like the Mummy (and by that I mean the old Mummy, like the Boris Karloff version that lumbers forward in a stiff, lurching fashion, not the Rock-version Mummy that moves like any slightly-less-than-three-thousand-year-old body-builder). I feel stiffness here and there, but fortunately I'm remarkably untroubled by yesterday's exertions. Today I've done seemingly miraculous things like finding my grandma's emergency alert system necklace (that I arranged for her to have in case she falls or has other troubles when I'm not directly by her side). She had misplaced it, as she does with oh-so-many things, and it took a full day to finally locate it, but it finally turned up - right after I'd arranged for the company that provides it to bring a replacement until we did uncover it. So that was resolved eventually, if not easily. Similarly uneasy was rearranging my grandma's direct-by-mail prescription service which changed at the beginning of the year because of changes made by her pension provider, National City Bank. Nothing about this transition was made easy, but after talking to five different people in two different companies today, I think that everything is properly reestablished, and my grandma's regular prescriptions are, at least supposedly, on their way. When you add in the trips to the hair salon (for my grandma's weekly visit), the recycling center, the grocery, and the cooking and cleaning tasks I did in between everything, it's been a busy day. I am once again rather tired and ready for a full night's sleep, but seeing as I haven't been able to get even a full seven hours of sleep during any night over the past week, I'm not so sure I'll get the full night's sleep tonight either. Tomorrow, fortunately, l should be a bit more relaxed and enjoyable with a trip to Toledo for some D&D and good conversation. A full night's sleep would be a good part of that, considering we'll likely be playing until rather late, but I'll just have to take what comes and deal with it. Heck, some day I'll be dead and I'll be able to sleep as long as I want. Still, I wouldn't mind one full nine hour sleep, just for once. It would be quite nice really. Posted at 10:49 PM
I am sooo stiff (and not in the good way). I started worked on the yard today, uncovering the air conditioner compressor, putting out planters, putting out hoses, picking leaves and twigs and little starts of trees out of the grass, and pulling some dead vines off of the fence at the back of the yard. Crawling around on my hands and knees like that wouldn't have been too bad - and it wasn't. It was the raking bit that really got me. You see, as fall wound out last year we had a very dry, hot stretch, and the front lawn really went to hell, drying out far too much. I have come to the conclusion now, after more consideration, that it wasn't specifically the minimal rainfall (since only a couple neighbors watered their lawns during this time and mine is the only one dead and dried out) but it was a heavy layer of thatch build-up that was blocking the rain and sunlight from the base of the grass. This spring has seen a lot of clean, fresh grass spring up, but also lots of dead, thick, dense masses of dead grass and very heavy thatch. I had tried, yesterday, to find a thatching rake but found none, so I was left to use a standard rake to loosen and pull out the dead thatch layer. It was hard, long work, and I only finished half of the yard (although that half, on one side of the sidewalk, was the worst by far, hardly even comparable to the fuller growth on the remaining side). I got blisters on the insides of both thumbs, even with gloves (one broke open while raking, the other is just huge), and I'm quite stiff, even after a warm shower and some stretching. The sad part is that I still have a lot more to do in order to get the lawn back to the full, thick green carpet I've had the past three years otherwise. I've had to do some seeding and feeding of the yard each year to fill in little patches here and there, perhaps where some leaves laid too long over the winter and killed the grass beneath or whatever, but I've never had to regrow such a large area. Hopefully the results won't be any different than my efforts in the past, and the lawn will be even better and more beautiful than before. That's what I'd like. It would be a lot more appealing when I look out upon the yard, and it would save me the constant complaining from my grandma who seems to think that nothing should ever die and all plants and flowers should spring forth full-blown and beautiful the moment the first day of Spring has arrived. My grandma's ability to find the one small weed in a garden full of gorgeous, lush, blooming flowers - and to focus on that as if nothing else exists - is one of her qualities that drives me insane. The fact that anyone she paid to do this would never hear a single complaint about such things, but she nags me about every such detail (whether it's of my doing or not) is one of the things I most loathe about her. These two qualities in my grandma, above any others, are the things that will likely turn me one day into a homicidal maniac. It's only a matter of time.
I am simply exhausted and have been all day. The only five or six hours of sleep I got each night while my sister and nephew and niece were here has finally caught up to me, and it really hit hard. I had hoped to work on the lawn a bit today. I did get out and buy the seeds and fertilizers and such that I needed for the yard, albeit a bit later than I'd planned, but I was so tired all day that I just didn't feel up to anything more by the time I had everything back and unloaded. We'll see how tomorrow plays out, and hopefully I'll be more energetic - or at least awake - so that I can get the lawn worked. The flower beds will be another matter entirely and will take a weeks worth of days, so they are another matter. Right now I just want to get the lawn fixed up and growing strong. So hopefully that will play out well tomorrow. But for tonight -- more sleep. Posted at 12:35 AM
My sister, nephew, and niece left this morning at about 8:30 with a full day's drive back to the Maryland coast. I missed them right away, and while I was (and still am) too tired to function regularly, I was clear-headed enough to realize that I'm really not getting much out of all of the growing up those kids are going through. As it is now, I see my nephew and niece only about ten days out of the year (if that), and that's only been the case during these last three years since I moved here to care for my grandma. Before that I saw them maybe one or two days out of every two years, and it took a whole day just for them to even be comfortable around me. I'm missing their entire childhood, and there's nothing I can do about it, and that really sucks. Who cares how I feel about anything, though? Nobody, that's who. So why do I write about this shit then? Damned if I know. Maybe this is just a testament to my miserable life. Perhaps it's an effort in futility emblematic of my desire to find any glimmer of hope in all of existence. Maybe it's nothing and all of those at once. Not that anybody cares. Posted at 11:40 PM
We were up early this morning for the traditional Easter Egg Hunt in my grandma's house (this is the only tradition we have in the family, and no thanks to my parents; my sister and I hunted eggs - raced each other for who collected the most eggs first, in fact - and continued to do this until I was about 27 and she was 31. It has always been at my grandma's house, and my grandma always hides the eggs. Once Hunter, my nephew was born the tradition was passed forward, and then when Christa, my niece, was born the race was also revised - the only tradition we have in the family, made into a tradition by my sister and me). After the Hunt and after checking out the chocolates and candy in their baskets and after breakfast and after they all went to church while I got showered and dressed ... we went to the Easter Brunch at Sawmill Creek Resort, as we usually do at Easter. The brunch this year was okay. The food was good, but not as good as it has been some other times, but the service, for the first time I've ever been there, was abysmal. We waited and waited and waited for everything. I think our server was the most useless, uncaring waitress I've ever encountered, and I can't say how much that disappointed me. And I was already disappointed, too. My friend Steve and our family friend LeElla both came up sick and were unable to join us for the brunch (and the day), and I was disappointed that they couldn't come and sad that they were sick. We already had a decent-sized group with me, my grandma, my sister, my nephew, my niece, and my cousin Dana and her daughter, my cousin Mimi. Having Steve and LeElla there would have been even better, but I must admit that we still had a good afternoon of great conversation. Once the kids warmed up to Dana and Mimi, everybody was open and talkative, and we talked for hours over our Easter Brunch and then for hours back at the house before Dana and Mimi had to head back to Michigan. I was concerned that the kids would get bored and fidgety, but they were great. They really enjoyed everybody's conversations, in fact, and joined in all of the time. They're much better about that sort of thing than I was at their age - or perhaps the few of us adults were more interesting than my parents ever were in similar situations (and that could have been, and most likely was the reality of things). After Dana and Mimi left we watched some TV, had a few small odds and ends to eat, and got things mostly packed up for my sister's early-morning departure tomorrow. It seems like they've hardly even been here yet and they're leaving already. But that's the way it usually is. It's usually a very quick trip like this. I guess seeing my nephew and niece briefly is better than not seeing them at all, which for a long time was the way of things. And I certainly do enjoy having them around. Tomorrow is far too early for them to leave, but I don't really have a lot of choice in the matter. Posted at 11:05 PM
Heck, I've been saying this all along. At least somebody else sees it, too.
Posted at 11:32 PM
My sister is here with the two bundles of energy that also are known as my nephew and niece. I've been working all day to get things done, even long after they got here, and I'm exhausted. The good news is that I can spend my time completely with them the next two days and enjoy their brief visit. The bad news is that the next two days are jam-packed with things that my sister wants to do for Easter. Sometimes all of this defies any logical understanding of why this is supposed to be "vacation" time or "a holiday." It sure seems to me like I'm having to work a hell of a lot harder and longer during these times. Posted at 11:40 PM
You'll have to excuse me if I fall asleep while writing this. It's late o'clock, and I've been struggling for the last hour or so to stay awake. I was driving at the time, so that certainly made things more interesting. And luckily for the oppossum that crossed the road in front of me, I did a good enough job of staying awake not to cause any vehicular manslaughter. I've been running around like mad for the past few days, trying to clean and organize the house and get bunches of things done before my sister arrives tomorrow evening. Today was no different than the last few, and just like in the previous days, I had to run my grandma to a few different appointments as well as do all of my work in and around the house and keep her on track for the things she needed to get done. With no small amount of insanity I agreed to also drive to Toledo today to spend some time with Mark, Steve and Steffen gaming in Mark's campaign. Mark has been making a fast-paced game that's incredibly challenging, and our characters are gaining lots of experience through near-death experiences. Tonight we faced off against a crypt full of ghouls, and one of my characters was unconscious and bleeding to death, the other character was one blow away from death, and two of my four companions were paralyzed (and the remaining two were spell-casters, not prepared for hand-to-hand combat. Somehow we survived that encounter, and while Mark has been really making things challenging, this is by far the worst we've been. There is still more of this crypt left to explore, and our characters are going to have to go back to town first to rest and heal and memorize spells again, so we have our work cut out for us. By the time we, as real people, not as the characters we control, realized this, it was 2:30 AM. We were all already quite tired and losing our edge, and it really hit me as I was driving back to Sandusky. I am so exhausted now, and I should be going to the grocery (or at least that had been the plan). I'm too tired for that now, so I'll have to figure some way to do it tomorrow. I have a whole list of things to yet be done, massive amounts of things, and some stuff inevitably just isn't going to get finished. Hell, some probably won't even get started. I'll do what I can, though, on four hours of sleep (at least I hope I get that much sleep), and I'll just have to accept that I can only do so much. I have done a lot, and I'm pleased with that, but there is so, so much more to do yet that it boggles the mind. But for now, sleep, sweet sleep. It will be no effort at all to drift off tonight. Better now than when I was driving.
Ack! I feel like I'm permanently dehydrated. I spent most of the day cleaning again (outside of driving my grandma to a couple of appointments, balancing her checkbook, paying some of her bills, and helping her to get some things ready for my sister's visit). After a very, very long day, all three levels of the house are fully cleaned and organized (well, I still have to mop on my level, but that's it ... well, and I have to do laundry and run the dishwasher and ...). I am, however, very achy, rather tired, and amazingly thirsty, so thirsty in fact that I simply can't seem to quench it. I drink a lot of liquids in any given day, around three liters of water at least per day, often somewhat more, but after wading through so much dust and dirt I am parched beyond belief. Hopefully this, like the headache and other aches I'm having right now, will end soon, perhaps being gone by the time I wake tomorrow (Ha! Like that's about to happen ...). But at least the bulk of the cleaning is done. There's still much to do before the weekend, but I feel like I might actually get everything done now. It's certainly possible now, that's for sure. Posted at 10:46 PM
Travesty. Travesty. Travesty. TRAVESTY!!! That's the only word I can even think of. I worked all day (other than driving my grandma to a couple of appointments and helping her pay some bills), doing some deep, deep cleaning. The second floor, where I live, is pretty dusty normally, but during the winter, with my humidifier saturating the air even more, the dust forms fast, forming a solid whitish-grey layer within two weeks (and when I say solid, I mean SOLID - completely white, even on dark surfaces). So I've been busy trying to make the place presentable for Easter company (and for my own comfort as well), and I've honestly only gotten started. After a wonderful shower, I sat down to eat and watch TV, and since nothing was really worth watching, I turned to American Idol. I never watch the show as a rule, and find it pretty horrible in virtually every way, but they have advertised heavily that all of tonight's contestants would be singing Queen songs with the surviving members of Queen playing the tunes live. I thought it would be cool to see Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon, and I figured that, while few artists ever do Queen covers that are even tolerable, perhaps there might be something worthy in this hour of performances. I have never been so horribly wrong in my life. Some performances were worse than others, of course, but all were just bad, plain bad. Freddie Mercury would have been spinning in his grave if he hadn't been cringing at the abominations that were put forth. I think the most horrible aspect of things, worse than the vocal-quality of the performers (which wasn't Freddie Mercury-quality but wasn't too bad) - worse was the emotions the contestants put into the songs. Queen's songs have their impact because Freddie put everything he had into every performance, and he put the emotional depth of each song into every note he sang. So when one girl sang "The Show Must Go On", a song Freddie wrote because he knew he was dying of AIDS and had little time left, it was disgusting for her to laugh after two different verses, like the subject of the song was some love song for a teenager. Few of the contestants seemed to have a clue about the emotional depth due to their songs. That, added to more-often-off-than-not vocals lapses and flat energy levels made this whole thing simply a travesty. Like I said, no other word even comes to mind. It was simply so, so horrible that I want to claw my brain out to erase the memory. But it's still there, and I can't get the memory of it to go away. The horror. The horror. Posted at 10:25 PM
I am clearly a very disturbed individual. Posted at 9:55 PM
All of three hours of sleep last night wasn't enough, shocking as that might be. I had to get up early and showered so that I could drive my mom to Cleveland airport. I was back and eating lunch before noon, and I was inadvertently napping immediately thereafter, having lay back on the bed to watch TV and surf the 'net. Clearly this could be one of the problems for me resulting from my TV dying - now I'm left to watch my smaller TV in my bedroom, and I have to watch that from my bed (unless I stand up, two feet in front of the TV). So if I do that when I'm tired, I'll possibly fall asleep, and with only three hours of sleep last night, uncontrollably dropping off to sleep was more than possible. So after about four more hours of restless sleep, I forced myself up so that I could at least do something with the day. That didn't really amount to much, honestly, and I'm still feeling super tired, but I'm nowhere near as bad off as I felt this morning. It would be nice to have more than that, but heck, this is my life, not somebody who has things work in their favor. I could easily fall asleep right now, and lying on the bed, watching TV and typing up this Journal entry, aren't making me any more alert, but I'm trying to go until something more like Midnight before I give in and doze. I'm ready, though. Of that you can be sure. Posted at 9:45 PM
I'm doubting whether I'll do any of the things I want to do with my life, accomplish anything worthwhile, help anyone have a better life. My dream of doing any of that here, through this website, has been a dismal, abject failure, and the dreams I have for helping children are completely impossible short of anything but my winning the lottery, and my luck certainly is not geared toward providing me even the most remote amounts of luck. Sadly, the most positive thought I have is that I can't become any most useless and impotent than I am now, and that's certainly small comfort. It brings to mind another Parsons song, but it doesn't exactly inspire me to feel any better about what my life has become.
After a long day of drawn-out, tiring errands, I finished reading Hawkes Harbor, the latest (a year or so old) book by S.E. Hinton (known for writing The Outsiders, That Was Then, This Is Now, and other massively popular books that were made into very successful movies). I've always gotten deeply involved in her books and very caught up in the lives of the characters. I always feel personally involved when something major happens to them. This new book was no different, even though it's the first thing she's published in forty years. It was, quite honestly, a surprising storyline that was nothing that I would have expected, but it was incredibly full and rich and very well worth every minute I spent reading it. The ending, however, is bittersweet, and it leaves me feeling sad. What comes to mind deeply, having just finished this book, is that it reminds me of how upset I was when my dear friend Ken died. The death of any friend would have been tragic for me, and the death of a friend at such a young age (twenty-four) was even worse. For me, the deep love and longing I had (and have) for Ken made everything so terribly, horribly worse, and made Ken's death more devastating than anything anyone could ever do to me. But on top of all of that was one other thing, the pain of knowing that Ken had died just after his life, after years of troubles and struggles, had finally become what he had always wanted. He had a very secure, very well-paying job that he simply loved; he lived in Atlanta, where he was close to a very large and very open gay community; he had all sorts of close friends, a roommate he adored (platonically), and huge numbers of friends always wanting him to visit them in various places across the country; he'd learned to drive and had a car he loved (he didn't learn to drive until he was twenty-two); and he'd been taking Accutane for about a year, and his acne, which had always previously embarrassed and upset him, had cleared completely, leaving him a young figure of flawless perfection in every possible way. He was dating happily; he was going out and socializing and partying happily; he was living happily. And then, in an instant, for no reason at all, after finally having everything come together, everything go right, he was killed. It was bad enough to have lost my friend, my sweet, young, beautiful friend, who I loved more than myself and more than life, but I saw him cut down when he most deserved to live. I have been a cynic just about my whole life, and I have fully realized that life simply and inevitably sucks, but Kyle's death shattered any remaining hopeful or positive views I had still retained of the world. Reading the ending of Hawkes Harbor was not quite like that, not that overpowering, overwhelming, but it was similar ... and it made me remember the injustice of Ken's death with crystal clarity. I wish, instead, that I could only remember the wonderful, happy times we shared and not these crushingly sad moments ... but I can't help it. I miss him so desperately, and it still seems so completely unfair. He deserved better than that. He deserved so incredibly much better. Posted at 11:18 PM
Today, after a few quick errands in town, I took my mom and grandma to Toledo for a day out. I drove them around town and showed them new developments: the new Veterans' Memorial Skyway (which is still under construction), the redevelopment of the warehouse district into a dining and shopping haven next to the still-fairly-new Mud Hens baseball stadium, the new Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Art Museum (which is also still under construction), new buildup of the University of Toledo, and new developments around the Franklin Park area, which was our main destination. We ate lunch at Claddagh Irish Pub at the Westfield Franklin Park Mall, then worked off some very filling (and tasty) meals by walking around the mall (which has been extensively remodeled and changed since either of them had last been there). I drove them out to see Levis Commons and all of the developing that is continuing in that area, and then headed out through Perrysburg, pointing things out, until we got to Maumee, where I wanted to take them to the Lazy-Boy showroom. My grandma is interested in a new recliner, and I had thought that seeing a wide variety of styles might allow her to find something that really appealed to her. Sadly, however, Lazy-Boy had closed that location and left, and the remaining location (I found out later) was back by Franklin Park, where we'd started the day. I took them to Furniture Row, the collection of six warehouse-size showrooms of furniture store in the Spring MEadows Shopping Center. We quickly found that there were few options on simple recliners since just about everything was sold as part of a set and there weren't a whole lot of styles. By that time it was almost 5 PM, and my grandma was tiring, so we decided to call it a day and head back to Sandusky rather than try to get back to the Lazy-Boy store. It was frustrating in a way, considering that was my main interest in making the whole trip, but both my mom and grandma had a nice time and found everything interesting and new. So the day wan worthwhile, I guess. And I certainly had a wonderful lunch if nothing else. Posted at 11:27 PM
I think I'm getting far too used to being disappointed by anything and everything. Posted at 10:02 PM
My grandma's back and you're gonna be in trouble. Hey-na, hey-na, my grandma's back. Not that that paraphrased song lyric made a whole lot of sense, but it's true - my grandma's back. I drove out to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport this evening and picked up my grandma and my mother, thus ending my "break." Some break - I had expected to get a great deal of things done, for myself and for my grandma's needs. Instead I got food poisoning and a cold that lasted well past its expiration date. Now, with very little to show for the last four weeks, my grandma's back, and anything I want or need to do has to be done around taking care of here - at least until mid-September or early October, the next time she'll go away to visit with other members of the family. I feel like I have all sorts of things that I need to do and no time to do them. That's probably because I do. Ugh. Does this ever start to get any better? Posted at 12:12 AM
My TV just died a few minutes ago, damnit. Not that it was unexpected - I've written in here before, over the past couple of months, that my TV's days were clearly limited. I'd had the top three inches of the screen blank with the next two inches showing the 'rolled over' image that should have filled that upper area but flipped upside down. The bottom had a similar effect but only in about a half inch area. Tonight it flickered once, went on as usual for another ten minutes, and then gave out, now simply displaying s single horizontal line across the middle of the set. I suppose this is one big advantage of LCD TVs over tube TVs - losing a pixel here or there isn't nearly comparable to the tube simply giving up completely. This particular TV lived a pretty long life, over twenty years, and considering that it wasn't a brand name that's pretty good (I didn't buy this particular one myself, as a side not - I always buy a solid brand name because they, to my experience, last longer and perform better for the most part, making any extra cost worthwhile). So now I have to decide what to do. Most people would almost gleefully go shopping for a new, technologically hip TV - and believe me, I'd love to do that - but considering my non-existent budget and ever-growing massive debt, the idea of buying a new TV, particularly to replace a 27" TV that had a great picture (at least up until a few months ago) - well, I don't know if I should buy a new TV or just suffer without. It's not like a new TV would make much of a noticeable increase in my overall debt, but it would be a few hundred dollars, most likely, and I really don't need to just carelessly increase my debt on something that is clearly a luxury item. It occurs to me as I wrote that last sentence that it's sad that I'm even writing about this like it's such a serious issue. There's certainly much more serious stuff going on, in my life of course and certainly in the world in general. So my TV died. Boo hoo. What right do I have to complain, all things considered? I don't know. Clearly I need a full night's sleep because this whole issue is seeming far too complex. Someday I'll decide, probably sooner than later. Sleep will be best first, though. Posted at 11:19 PM
This cold, coupled with my constant and repeated awakenings throughout the night, have been making me wake up very late into the day if I have any hope of getting even seven or eight hours of sleep in a given night. Add to that the loss of an hour last night due to daylight savings time, and I didn't even finally get out of bed until 1 PM. It's insane! 1 PM!! There bulk of the day is gone by that point. My whole internal clock is really fucked up, and try as I might, I'm not getting back to anything that resembles something "normal." MY grandma returns on Tuesday, late, and her requirements of me will without a doubt force me to be up early in the morning and ready to go, but that may well mean that I simply get very little sleep and feel exhausted all of the time but still unable to get a full night's sleep - that's the way it's been for the last five or six months, so why should things change now, I suppose. I'm just tired of being tired is all, and I want something to change. It's getting far too draining. Posted at 12:34 AM
Happy 30th Anniversary Apple Computer! Never has there been a company I have loved so much. Posted at 12:35 AM
Journal, by Paul Cales, © April 2006
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April 30, 2006
