New journal, new journal!! I'm now maintaining my life at: DriftWood Hi, I'm morgaN. This is my page. Here are the instructions: First, you should get to know me. Then you can get to know me even better, by reading my journal below. And check out all the content I've put up here over time. Please feel free to email me, about anything; I like it! Enjoy! 11-22-2000, 5:14am Since I've already started posting to it, I really ought to put up a link to the new journal, huh? Presenting: DriftWood!!! Be aware that I'm still working out some of the details, so things might change a bit, but it's very much a working entity. Enjoy :) 11-20-2000, 3:46am I spontaneously threw together a new page that I think looks really slick and has some nice features. I'm planning on having it replace Persiflage very soon. I'm excited! :) 11-19-2000, 4:16am Interesting night.. I joined Courtney and Laura to go to Revolution to meet up with some other folk and then on to some field to watch for the Leonid meteor shower. At revolution we joined Lana and Ted (actual name is Ed), the latter of whom I hadn't met before. It was noted that he had a copy of Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson (the author whom I so often mention), so I asked if he was aware of the Discordians (Discordians being mentioned many times in the book, some people learn of us through RAW, while some people learn of RAW through us), as a prompt for displaying my Sacred Chao tattoo. (To my surprise) He was blown away when he saw the Chao and shortly ran off to summon Betsy to see it, she being an employee there and someone I had met briefly on an earlier occasion. She came over with a look of confusion over what the excitment was. When she saw the Chao she grabbed my arm and kissed it several times and then grabbed my face and kissed me for a while, then kissed it once more. She sat against me and stared for a little while; kind of strange, I suppose. "Hail" was all I could think to say. Then she told me that she's actually considered amongst some to be an incarnation of Eris Herself. Good stuff.. So, yeah, this was cool. I mentioned that I had never knowingly met any other Discordians that I hadn't "converted" myself. She seemed rather surprised and told me of some festival or something she was at not long ago where she stayed in a cabin of Discordians. How strange that would be. This was a fine encounter, but thinking about how that would be, I can somehow appreciate the tradition of sticking apart. I thought of saying something like "ewige blummenkraft" upon departure, but she was busy working. As I was about to step out the door she surprised me with a charging hug, then ran back off. All hail Discordia!!!. Anyway, so Lana, Laura, Courtney, Ted, ??? (what was her name??), and I crammed into the girl-who's-name-I-forget's car and off we went. The back seat was truely a tightly packed affair. Eventually we reached some Manassas battle field and pulled over. I don't know how long we actually spent there, and hour or so?, it was quite a while. Lana brought up chicken fighting (one legged bashing into each other) and so I challenged her. This was not something I had done in many, many years, but I know I have relatively good balance and stamina when I bother to summon it. I took her on and quickly conquered, then Courtney fell before me, then Laura fled in terror. Then I think I took Lana on a few more times. I think I did well. Eventually Lana changed the rules, so that I was still on one leg and only using my upper arms to push, whilst she was using both legs and her hands... She grabbed me and hurled me to the ground several times, but I still thing I did pretty good. Courtney and I did our knee-fight thing, where we cross our legs lotus style (?) and then run at each other on our knees; there's not much rule beyond the basic premise. I'm sure we were entertaining. We generally (particularly me) bounched about and made merryment in the cold, overcast, night field. T'was much fun had by all. Eventually we returned, for a while driving really slowly while a car behind us with very bright lights matched our speed; it turned out to just be a pickup though. Back home, being Courtney, Laura, and I who returned to the house, I fixed veggi-burgers for the three of us, after receiving much praise from Courtney over who well I prepare them. And fulfillment was had by all. I was quite sated (saa.... tan!). I wish Laura good rest for the next two hours, and then at work shortly there-after. 11-17-2000, 2:08am Wow, I've worked three days now! I'm working again tomorrow, at 3:30pm, which'll probably be my regular starting time (though once noone's training me with anything I'll be somewhat free to come in whenever I want, so long as I work enough hours). I'm definitely getting used to the work quickly. In fact, I'll probably be pretty much solo tomorrow. I'm going to be rearanging the psych section; and I'm actually excited! :) In general I'm going to be pretty much on my own with this possition, basicly figuring out what areas most need attention and then giving it to them. Wow, morgaN self-motivating? Crazy.. Today we spent a lot of time stocking the erotica and sex shelves and nearby areas; it was entertaining to observe the ways the customers interested in those sections attempted to be discreet. I was surprised to get comments from two customers on my hair and none on my piercing; how unusual. The first comment was from a little kid, who upon seeing my looked to her guardian-character and demanded "what happened to his hair?!". I was greatly ammused. The other occurance was from these two women who were looking for some book that I'm pretty sure we don't carry, but they had to talk to every employee they could find first. They weren't rude or anything, just persistant, and they acted rather drunk, though I don't think they were. Anyway, the one woman was talking about this book she was looking for and then suddenly interupted herself with "your hair is colored!", refering to the red and blue streaks on the left front. Silly human. Then, giving up on that book, they went over to the sex section, while I was working on gender-studies or something, and discussed at great length which of those books to get. Tomorrow I'll be in the same area (it's within the psych niche), which should continue my entertainment. I think I should start writing down my thoughts more often. I don't mean like with this journal, I mean my philosophical, etc musings. I spend enough time creating intricate theories (and sometimes even pretty amazing simple ones), I really ought to record them somewhere outside of my tricky grey-matter. Actually, I guess I could throw them in here more often; I just tend to be in a different mindset when I get around to updating this. I think I'll put my journal in Smudge and maybe rant to it during my lunch hours. Anyway, I've got reading to do and fewer words coming to mind.. 11-15-2000, 12:06am Started work at Borders today. I worked 9am to 5pm, which meant I was up early and hit nasty traffic each way. Tomorrow I start at 1pm; much more to my liking. After a couple hours of requisite paperwork and policy walk-through, I actually got started with what I guess I'll be doing the bulk of the time. Basicly, in the back I help to sort the books coming from hundreds of boxes into huge shelves, by subject code (Borders has its own proprietary subject-coding system, which takes a moment to get used to, but isn't really too complex in nature). In the actual store, I fill the shelves with the sorted books, ideally just alpha-by-author, but many sections have lots of sub-subject breakdowns which I'll have to get used to. Relatively straight forward stuff. Oh, I learned that I'm full-time; wow, I'm like a working-man, huh. I get some cool benefits (I forgot my employee manual, so I don't know precisely what they all are) including health care stuff, paid vacations (eventually...), 401k whatever.. The bits that stood out to me were the 25% discount at all Borders (and 33% at all Walden Books!) and a monthly $30 allowance towards product! Yah cheap(er) books! Also, I gather I get free coffee and tea and cheap soda from the cafe, but I'll need to look into that a bit more. Additionally, there's some sort of book loan program, which I also need to look further into. It's sort of tedious, but I figure eventually it'll just move to being monotonous, and that's not so bad for someone who likes to philosphize all day. And today alone earns me $50! Hot damn!! The con this past weekend was excelent! Quite mellow. A bunch of the people whom I normally hang out with were, alas, not in attendance. I met a new guy, Travis, who's got dreads and caught my eye as soon as he entered. Basicly, he's a very inteligent stoner. And he was the only one in my small audience who seemed to actually understand the rant I went into about dualities determining experience and the individuals ability to intentionally choose the dualities they function under; in fact, he even liked what I had to say and wanted to hear more. Yah :) I also met Lily and Bree, who were new at the last con (LDC, a couple weeks ago, when I was in New York). They were much fun to hang out with, and Lily and I got into some deep conversations on any number of interesting topics.. BeckaB0O ("Crouching Rabbit") and Silent Bob and I ran about outside being secret agents of some sort and all caught up in pine trees while hiding as people arrived; this being after we made sand castles in the bit ash tray thing outside. I brought my day-glo laptop, which was fun to show off, and people enjoyed DJing through my mp3 collectiong. Anyway, very much fun was had, but it's hard to describe it all. Just a great overall atmosphere. Actually, the con left me wondering where I could get a nice big house, which all my friends could move into. We could have different rent setups; like personal (and shared) rooms for people who are willing to pay more, and then large dorm areas for anyone else, whether those residents be perminent or transient. I think often enough we could just crash in cuddle puddles all about the place. Also, we wouldn't have con rules :) I actually think something like that could work, if the place were in a location that was cheap enough. I think that some sort of business(es) could be setup and run by residents, such as making crafts or growing vegitables or doing web design or whatnot. Anyway, I like the idea. Oh yeah, on Sunday, after I got back from the con (and still quite sleep deprived), Davin came over and we got more work done on Comfort. We put up curtains over the entrance area, which helps to almost fully keep the light out and gives it that nice enclosed feeling. We also hung a long thing of white fabric across one of the walls, to a bit below halfway down. I'm planning on making an excursion to Home Depot when I have some free time, to look into more (powerful) blacklights. 11-10-2000, 4:54pm I got the job! Yah! :) I've gotta be gone now, off to the con... 11-10-2000, 2:36am Back to Home Depot today, while they were open. My mom got some replacement florescent bulbs for the kitchen light fixture and I got overwhelmed by the choice of paints. Black was easy and we found a good gold too. What had caught my attention, though, were the florescent spray paints! I ended up getting a red-tinted orange. I'm now waiting for the final touchups to dry and beaming, as I have the coolest looking laptop! Hodge (that's its name) is bright orange (and looks soo cool under black light!!!) with a hollow black pentagon on the lid and a golden apple, with black unmbra, in its center. I'm proud :) Also, in laptop news, my PCMCIA network card, which I won through eBay, arrived today (I only won the auction like 3 days ago!). I quickly jacked Hodge into the local network and started filling it up with a collection of music, for the Con this weekend. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm going to a con this weekend? Well.. yup; that's what I'm doing. I'm driving out in Smudge, with Davin and Darcy and Hodge (oooh, we'll have tunes on the way there! Slick!). I just rebleached my hair. The stuff I used, however, was much weaker than what I used before. So now the dark half of my hair is a light, sort of auburn but not really, color, with mildly dark patches. It's certainly interesting.. :) 11-9-2000, 2:56am Why is it that a Coke I had last night tasted like 7-Up and the one I'm having right now tastes just like Dr. Pepper?? Is someone trying to mess with my head? (And if so, is it me? (And if so, did I simply forget?)) I really wish Logan's Sanctuary were a real film; that would rock my world so hard! 11-9-2000, 1:03am I went to the "24 hour Home Depot" about an hour ago, only to be confronted by new little signs in the doors which list the hours as 5am to midnight, everynight. Damn. I really want to get some black and gold spray paint. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow. The job interview went really well. I talked to Brent, the assistant manager, for a while. For the next step they're supposed to call me back and have me talk to a different manager, but he decided to just have me talk to him right then. So we talked for a bit and that went well too. I also had to do some phone-based questionaire thingy, where I'm asked 80 questions, mostly yes/no type, to try and gauge my ethics. It took like half an hour. Brent said he'll call me back tomorrow or the next day. It all proceded with a very good feeling and it seems like I've most likely got the job :) .......... eeek! 11-8-2000, 2:57pm Wow, whodathought little ol' anarchist me would get so caught up in the election?; but I'm seriously hooked! This is actually exciting! I got back from the dentist just a moment ago. I woke up just in time to drive there, this being my first time going on my own. They're planning on filling two of my mollars or wisdom teath or something. At the moment I haven't got any fillings. Oh well. I rinsed with some flouride stuff and afterwards my head felt really odd for like 15 minutes. What am I doing to myself with all the flouride-infused water I drink each day?! One of the best ways to pull off a conspiracy is to make only fanatics rant about, thus discrediting it as lunatic-theory, and who do you ever hear talking about the stuff that's put in the water? fanatics... Being paranoid is much more fun than I expected when I first got into it :) 2 hours to job interview. I need food. 11-8-2000, 5:05am (I see that Davin has been doing it too..) 11-8-2000, 3:39am to 4:31am [by way of explanation: brought my laptop into the TV room, these are my thoughts as I follow the news] 3:39am 20 mintues ago they said that Gore is trailing Bush by only 565 votes in Florida! At 99.87%. Ghads, this is insane!! I'm enjoying NBC, the staff keeps laughing off camera. Tom Brokaw has gotten a tad silly. They keep focusing the camera on figures that the anchors are working out on whiteboards and the backs of their reports. I'm going to watch this through. I'm excedingly glad that my job interview is for the evening and not the morning. We're looking at a 500 vote difference now and they're making me stress (well, sort of anyway), but we've still got a potential 30,000 absenty ballets!! Did Gore just take Wisconsin back? What is going on!?! 3:45am Hahhahaha, Gore called Bush and took back his concesion phone call!! That's so beautifully cruel! :P These poor news and political folk; they're so tired! (hehehe) And what am I supposed to make of the dead guy who got elected!? Hail Eris!! 3:51am Brokaw is awesome. 4:00am Sweet; they took Florida back from the Bush dynasti (for now, anyway)! :P 246 Bush - 249 Gore They keep flashing the anchor's white board which reads: "Florida! Florida! Florida!" I like sleep deprived news folk; they're entertaining. 4:08am Hehe, the Gore supporters keep cheering the Democrat's Chairman guy (Bill Dailey) whenever he speaks of uncertainty. I can't imagine how excited they'd get if he took his coat off... Geez, both parties have really crappy music. Yah, Florida is uncolored again :) 4:13am 50,000 absenty ballets!?! This is never going to end... 4:19am I think that Gush and Bore should both just take a nap. 4:24am 1210 votes apart now. The Florida election guy estimates that the absenty ballets are only a few thousand. Frustration.. Unfulfilment.. Need for sleep building.. Brokaw needs sleep too. Shutup Don Evans! You're getting ahead of yourself (I hope so much). 4:31am Do I have a dentist appointment in 8 hours? Yah challenging the elctoral vote system! Alright, nap time... 11-8-2000, 2:19am fuck that's all there is to it. 4 years? i'll be 23 fuck (How many other journalers updated within 15 minutes of us?) 11-7-2000, 4:17am That metalic blue jell-roller pen that I had been bitching about, since I couldn't find it and was thus unable to complete the job application for Borders for about a month (the logic worked in my mind, anyway), was indeed in Courtney's possetion! I knew she had taken it. And what's more, she also had my metalic green pen and had almost completely used up the blue one!! Grrrrr.. and of course, AArrrrrghrr! Oh well, I guess the borders guy didn't mind me using the metalic purple pen to finish the application. Being neurotic is fun..... :) Speaking of Courtney, she's finally finished a site, which I've put online for her. Now you have yet one more STF member site to waste your time with. Oh, I haven't forgotten about the syncronicity rant and I still want to write it, but I'm way too tired right now. Actually, that doesn't seem right, some of the best rants are influenced by sleep deprivation. But regardless, I'm not inspired enough just this moment. Gotta sleep, big day tomorrow, waiting in line and pushing a couple buttons behind a curtain. Maybe I'll pretend to be the Wizard of Oz while I'm voting, that'll make it more fun, and the other voters I scare might be amusing too. Ahhh, something to look forward to. 11-6-2000, 4:50pm Borders just called me! I have an interview Wednesday evening, and it sounds very promising. It turns out that the night crew doesn't presently have a supervisor, and as a result can't be in the store when it's closed, at night.. The result is that they're working during the day, for now anyway. I gather that there are presently two shelvers and there are supposed to be four, so this possition is quite open. So long as I'm generally just scheduled between Monday and Thursday I don't really care what my hours are. Hopefully it'll work out :) So, I've decided I'll vote for Nader tomorrow. I know I talked about favoring the Libertarians before, but I think that realistically Nader would do much better for this country at this time (not that either of them has any chance of winning whatsoever, this year). I still agree (in some sense) with a great many Libertarian ideals, but I'm affraid I don't think they would work out so well in this nation, what with the people inhabiting it.. I think I'll write up a mini rant about my recent thoughts on coincidence/syncronicity later. 11-5-2000, 2:00am Late last night some jerk started using my mail server to relay spam. I'm really pissed off about this. He's mass mailing crap about viagra and hijacked my computer to deliver it! Anyway, I've been working on better securing SendMail, but it's a bitch of a program to configure. I've also been dealing with the hundreds of bounced messages, which were sent to addresses which don't even exist. It's not been pleasant. Davin came over last night, along with a coworker. We slouched about in Comfort with the fun lights on and stared at the trippy screensaver I setup on my laptop and listened to the one song - some trance by Astral Projection - which I've downloaded to it, on repeat. We were indeed comfortable :) I want more/stronger black lights. I also want colorful UV paint. Much fun would ensue. 11-3-2000, 3:28am First off, condolences and sorrow at our world's recent loss, Sneakers. Happy travels. Today was pretty slow and boring. I managed to get the first piece of "ceiling" up in Comfort. It's actually a disassembaled cardboard box with a length of carpet on top of it, which Darcy and I staple-gunned to the wooden beams running the length of the ceiling. We're hoping to insulate sound, and so put this under an exposed air duct which goes into the living room above us, and right over next to the TV in that room. We'll be adding more boxes and attaching cartons and styrofoam to them. Davin and I will probably work on that tomorrow night. I don't know how effective this'll actually be, but something is better than nothing (I hope). (While in the basement I demonstrated the problem to Darcy by saying, at the same normal volume I was speaking to him in, "Hey, Mom..", and getting a response from her - in the kitchen. ) Also, I've suddenly become interested (once again) in assembly language. I don't expect to become a guru at it any time soon, but I want to be able to do some fun stuff. I think the catalist (this time) was a screensaver I downloaded to my laptop last night, which flows through a vast assortment of "psychedelic" eyecandy. I'm staring at it even as I type this. I want to be able to pull off these relatively simple but truely stunning visuals myself! Oh, and on the topic of the laptop, I've named it Hodge, which is often associated with the Order aspect of the Discordian Sacred Chao (podge being the Disorder). I figured that a computer tries to be a creation very much founded upon systems of order. I'm planning on painting a golden Kallisti apple inside of a pentagon onto the casing. Oh yeah, while I remember, I bought the cutist little (about a centimeter tall) golden apple in New York! What a strange find. Hail Eris!! :) 11-2-2000, 3:20am I suppose today qualifies as successful... I finally submitted my job application to Borders!, for the Night Stalking possition. (Now I really hope (sort of..) that I actually get the job..) Yah! :) 11-1-2000, 1:58am THE funniest trick-or-treaters came by tonight. Three neighborhood teenagers, about 15 years old, maybe (Courtney said she used to babysit one of them, the hockey mask one). I don't know what they were on but I should've asked where I could get some. They came by right after a group of little kids left and I handed them some candy. The alien faced one was intrigued by my piercing and I let him slide it back and forth; they were amazed by my tattoo; they had trouble accepting that my hair was real. The alien face started making out with the lid of one our jackolanterns. Then the demon face started singing/chanting a vague naration of what was going on. One of them spotted a garbage can on it's side in the yard and exclaimed that it was a keg. He got them all chanting "a keg, a keg.." and then they looked at us (Courtney joined me for a bit, standing there and being amused) then pointed at her leg; I don't recall if he chanted "a leg" or if I just expected them too, but he did start saying "pants, pants, pants.." and pointing back and forth between mine and courtney's pants. They went on like this for a while, sometimes actually forming full sentences, continueing the naration untill they reached another word which they enjoyed repeating. Then they all ran off to the garbage can, shouting "a keg! a keg!". They brought it back up to the porch and mused over it for a while, then each proceded in turn to dry-hump it in some way, with great enthusiasm. The demon put it over himself and the alien started shouting "SHUT UP!". Hockey Mask looked around manically. The demon took the can back off and started shrieking. Then they all turned and ran off, still shrieking and shouting "SHUT UP". It was the funniest performance I've ever seen :) Alright, I should talk about the weekend. So, as mentioned before, I borrowed the red station wagon and drove to New York to visit Sarah P. First off, the tolls were insane; I payed like $15 each way (Courtney commented that when you also figure in gas costs, taking a bus actually is pretty reasonable for an individual). I was following directions from MapQuest, which worked very well for leading me to New York, but completely sucked once I actually got there. I got off the New Jersey Turnpike and went through the Lincoln Tunnel, from which I was supposed to exit on to 21 St. As soon as I came out I was overwhelmed by the huge buildings, bright lights, impatient traffic, etc. I had a choice between two roads and no time to make it; alas, neither of them mentioned 21st. I got onto one of them and drove for a while, still very stunned. Finally I pulled onto a side street and parked by a payphone. Sarah was amused that I didn't know if I was in Queens or Manhattan or what. Turned out I was in Manhattan and needed to get to Queens. With the aid of a map, she gave me directions to the Queensburough (sp?) / 59th St. Bridge. I followed them as best I could, wrestling with the surprisingly abundant - and agressive! - traffic for 4am, and eventually managed to find the bridge and get across it. There again I was confronted with choices which were clearly not what I was after. I went along with it, trying to spot something useful (what that would be, I don't know) and suddenly found myself driving through a building! I really don't know what the deal was; it was still a road, but there was a wall on one side, a tall ceiling, and either pillars or wall on the other side; and the road was frought with 90 degree turns around corners of wall, not something to be taken quickly, regardless of the impatience of the taxis. It was surreal. I got out of there and drove around and called Plotkin again (did I call her another time, as well?). I was at around 46 Ave and wanted to be at 23 Ave, so I tried following them down, but was confronted with a wall and a T-junction at about 43 Ave. I decided to just drive around with out any real order involved and did so for about 15-25 minutes, when I suddenly found myself directly in front of her building! I have no idea how I found it, but I did! Anyway, 10 minutes later I was parked (too close to a fire hydrant apparently; damnit!) and entering her building. It was great to see Sarah again, it'd been like 5 months! We brought in the gerbils and sat around talking for a bit, but shortly went to bed and couch - as appropriate - it being really late. Oh yes, she lives with Mike, whom I had met before, and he had a friend visiting as well. We caught a subway (actually, Sarah lunged into the closing doorway and fought with it violently until it opened back up to admit us) and went to meet Hugh (who was staying with Brett) in the city. We wandered about, shopping for costumes. The stores we went to had huge lines, but we persisted and got in the smaller line for the smaller store. Eventually we were admited. Sarah went straight for this black spiderweb patterned, fishnet-like top, which she purchased along with a tiara. We went to a massive used book store and split up within. I went to the occult section, where this sort of old dude and I made social recognition. He told me he was looking for books on time travel and asked if I'd ever traveled through time. I conceded that I was not aware if I had. He told me that he used to be a skeptic, until he did it, but I shouldn't worry, I'm young and have plenty of time yet. I love meeting interesting characters like this. On the way out, we came across each other again, and he said something very cool, along the lines of "happy travels" or "safe journeys" or something. Sarah and I returned to her place to prepare for Brett's party. She wore the top over just a bra, and had a long black skirt and black boots and such. She was, if I recall, a wicked queen/succubus. I put on my green military pants and coat and my paratrooper jump boots, along with a High Times tshirt and a tie-died headband. Plotkin and I came up with various explanations, eventually I was something along the lines of: a Knight of the Five Sided Temple, one of the millitary Orders of Discordia; or perhaps I was an infiltrator thereof; or perhaps it was reversed; or both. Anyway, we were running late and went with it. The party was much fun. Just as I hadn't seen Plotkin in 5 months, I'd also not seen Brett or Eve in that time (though honestly they're less prominent figures on the who-I-really-care-about scale that any of the other former residents of the House in Ithaca). Mike and his friend (Adam, correct?) showed up just after us. Their costumes were identical, consisting of a mask - with facial coverage like that of one worn by an avenger such as Zoro - which had some sort of brown fur lining it's top and dangling down about a foot on each side. I don't know why, but the masks were really unsettling (I was very tempted to track down someone selling them and buy about 30, for purposes I won't go into right now..). Sarah quickly tracked down the alcohol, which consisted of a cooler of beer in the bathroom. We each grabbed a Corona and she showed me how to open the bottle (though I'm sure I would've figured it out on my own...). Sarah and I mostly mingled with each other and the few people we knew. I think that we have a tendancy to do that when we go to parties; ahh well. As the party thinned out, we noticed that a bunch of people had amassed in another room, watching a TV with bizzare fixation. We went to investigate and learned that they were watching a video that one of them had made of a bread machine in action. For some reason we joined them. The dough turned round and round.. then it stopped.. then it sat.. and we sat.. and it sat... This went on for an amazingly long time. Then people started talking about polotics of abortion and I quickly made my escape. I was intercepted outside of the kitchen by a girl (I think she lived there) offering me an icecream mudslide. I graciously accepted and conversed with her and the others present for a little while. Then Sarah and I got into a discussion of the weird sort of drunk we were both experiencing; very clear headed and in control, just somehow "different", but certainly enjoyable. In fact, all weekend she and I seemed to be in pretty much the same mental space as the other, be it silly or vague or.. well, actually, usually just vague.. but specific varieties of vagueity, which we both shared. Oh, and I finally got my laptop from Hugh, which was exciting. Back at her place, Sarah seemed in an odd, introspective state. I decided to see where it could go if I started playing with her head. She actually managed to venture to a wonderful awakening place and took on this new energy toward life. I have "moments of lucidity" all the time now, but this seemed to be a pretty big, dramatic one for her. She recognized that she seemed to have been "asleep" for the longest time. I tuned in to her mind space and found memories of sitting on the long brown couch in the living room in the house in Ithaca. I said something like "but we're not on that couch anymore, we're on a totally different couch in a totally different place, at a totally different time", without really explaining what I was refering to. It seems I'd tuned in well, as she immediately sat up straighter and looked around the room and started talking about how that was so weird!, that she was there in Ithaca and then suddenly she was here in Astoria!, that this was indeed not the same couch! Wow, how'd I pull that off?! We followed this line of thought for quite a while. She seemed rather distressed that she hadn't felt "awake" in the past five months. I told her that most people aren't awake like that, at least not for long. I tried to keep it clear that regardless of her apparent lack during the previous months, she'd latched onto it now and what she needed to focus on was keeping it. Eventually we both had to crash, but I left her with a couple techniques I'd come across (but tend to forget to use...) for maintaining an expanded conciousness of ones daily life. Namely I told her to go over, in her mind, everything that had happened that day. Restrict it to that day, but make it extensive and precise. I later explained that it's an easy meditation to lose track of and she should try making an intentional association between it and a late night activity; she decided to try focusing her thoughts on associating the practice with brushing her teeth; I hope the association holds. The other thing I brought up was something I'd learned from a couple really nice guys I met at Burning Man. Basicly it consisted of, again, thinking about the day and saying "Today was a very successful day". It's a great way to reinforce a possitive attitude. I've brought it into my own life recently and am starting to see it's real potential. If you can't bring youself to say that it was "a very successful day" (and one certainly can't always say it), particularly if it's consistent day-to-day, then you've got to realize something needs to be changed. At any rate, we decided that we'd had a very successful day. As this post is becoming rather immense and it's becoming increasingly later (not much I can do about that one..), I'll end it here. Besides, I need the rest; I'm affraid today and yesterday haven't been as successful as I would like and hopefully I'll be able to build up the strength (not an issue I feel like going into) to submit my job application tomorrow. Happy journeys :) 10-30-2000, 5:21am Quick note to say I'm home again. I'll talk about the amazingly wonderful weekend after I've had a chance to rest; t'was a long drive and a longer couple of days. Oh, and, of course, I come home to learn that there was a power out shortly after I left, thus shutting down this server (which'd been running uninterupted for something like 90 days). Ahh well, we're back up now and I'll try to keep it that way. 10-27-2000, 8:20pm Courtney just had me laughing so much I wanted to vomit. I'll be leaving to New York to visit Plotkin shortly. 10-26-2000, 11:52pm My logs show that several government people have followed a link to my Burning Man journal recently; that's kinda creepy... Davin has moved in to STF! Expect continuous renovation from his page for a bit, it's brand new. Finally started work on creating a Discordian/Chaoist/morgaN ritual. Been meaning to do it for a while, but now I've actually started brainstorming and stuff. I want to make one that can be used at church or a con or something, perhaps during "worship" time. I also want to make some for outside groups. I really want to start getting together with people regularly in a setting not directly tied to the church, as I'm getting tired of the restrictions it attempts to impose upon group functions. Then I want to begin my subversion therapy :) 10-25-2000, 7:39pm I feel so huge when I let the gerbils run around my room! 10-25-2000, 6:39pm I need a costume for halloween. I'm going to New York to visit Plotkin, finally, this weekend! Brett is having a costume party on Saturday which I've been told to attend. Alas, I don't know what to wear. Current thoughts are an angel (my mom's got an angel costume I wore two years ago, and it'd go with my halo-hair (for some reason my mom really seems to want to make me wear a dress)) or Shaggy, of Scooby Doo fame. If anyone has any other ideas, any at all, please tell me! Thanks :) Oh, and just now at dinner, Darcy was telling me about a friend of his who reads this journal. I have no problem with this, of course, it's just kind of weird to have one of my brother's friends know what's going on in my life. Ahh, but I'd never discourage weird. 10-24-2000, 10:48pm Wow, I'm getting all these hits to my Burning Man journal suddenly, and they're coming from a page on the Burning Man web site. Right on! Smudge's new muffler arrived yesterday! I assembled it, which, for the most part, wasn't difficult. I backed Smudge into the bottom of the driveway, rather than try working on it in the street. There are six nuts which I needed to remove to get the old muffler off, three on each side. After working on it for a couple hours, I'd only managed to get two of the nuts, with another two stuck tight and the last two barely accessable and also apparently stuck. I tried working on it some more today, but I simply couldn't do anything but slowly round off the corners, which is far from usefull. Defeated, I decided to take it to a muffler place and ask them how much it'd cost to have them install it. My mom drove to Middas in her car, with me following. They wouldn't have any trouble getting the old one off, we were told; that's what torches are for. But, after waiting and waiting for someone to be available to look at, I was soon met with another defeat. It turns out the muffler I bought doesn't have a catalitic converter, which it seems I need to have. However, they say that there's no reason I can't drive around with it as is, without the tail pipe, but I won't pass inspection, when the time comes. So much trouble.. My mom called the place in Arizona that I bought it from and talked to the guy who owns it, who remembered talking with me two weeks ago. He said to find a garage which isn't a chain and we shouldn't have any trouble getting them to install a converter on the muffler I'd ordered and then installing it for us. This was good to hear, at least I'll be able to use my new muffler eventually. Comfort is really coming along. During the weekend (Saturday?) we got lots of carpet! We raided some carpet installer's dumpster and loaded the van. On Sunday Davin and I got to work setting things up. We got plastic drop cloths to protect the carpet in case the basement floods, which we laid out over the entire Comfort area. Then we laid out the rolls of redish/pinkish carpet on top of that. With the rest of the red/pink and our one chunk of white, we made a walk way from the bottom of the stairs to the back corner where Comfort is. We took the two matresses which were in the garage and laid them out, touching on their short ends, and put the final bit of carpet, a really big, ugly, sunbleached, beautiful orange thing, over them, making a sort of catwalk/moonbounce type of thing. And finally, we brought down my futon (leaving a big empty spot in my bedroom) and put it against the wall in couch-mode. Since there only seemed to be one power outlet in the basement and that not being in a very convenient spot, I decided to install a new one, bringing about another visit to Home Depot. Fortunately my dad installed the provisions for power outlets once upon a time, but they're in the "ceiling"... I went with it, and chose a spot in the ceiling in Comfort's back corner to install a socket. Darcy and I were unsuccessful at isolating which circuit breaker goverened that length of power line, even after flipping breaker switches. I was feeling impatient though and decided to install it anyway. I did end up getting shocked two or three times, which isn't a pleasant sensation, before we found some rubber gloves. At least I made sure to always have someone present when I worked on it, in case I really fried myself badly. But ultimately, nothing terrible happened and I seem to have done a perfect job. Yah! So now we have somewhere to plug in the black light, strobe, lava lamp, neon flower, xmas lights, etc... It's quite comfortable for hanging out in already, but there still is a bit to be done. Namely: finding more soft furniture; setting up a computer-jukebox; finding pretty sheets/cloth to cover the walls; creating and installing sound insulation in the ceiling. Regardless of all the stuff left to be done, I'm confident; we've come along with this so much faster and with so much more success than I ever expected :) 10-23-2000, 2:41am As I mentioned the other day, I was sick all week. I finally started to recover around Friday. Altogether it was unproductive and unpleasant. Oh well, such is life. Last weekend, however, was wonderful! Hugh was here! He and Laura and I went to Blockbuster and argued about what to get for a very long time. Finally we decided to get what we were holding, and quickly ran to switch our tapes with the ones we really wanted to see.. We spent the rest of the day watching those in my room, followed by laying in a heap on my bed. I miss the house in Ithaca... Eventually Laura had to head home and Hugh and I went to bed. I had marks on my neck that lasted all week.. On Sunday we walked to Lake Anne Plaza, where I spend not nearly enough time. At the cafe there was a black man in a fancy suit. All about him on the floor, with his slick black and white shoes at the center of the umbra, were strewn lots of roses. It was a beautiful image. Then we made a long visit to the great little used book store and on to Pirates Cove ("arrrgg!!"), where small time merchants setup their wares in little-bitty shops, to be managed by a central agent. Hugh bought some extreamly hot sauce (Death Sauce, was it?) for a friend, from the hot sauce shop. We went to Mr. Moo's, the ice cream place at the very back, where Margot and Ricky and I had spent about an hour talking with Mr. Moo. He recognized me immediately and soon asked where Margot was (the two of them are really amusing in converstaion together..), for which I had no good answer (Margot, where have you disappeared to?!?). We ordered a big, strong java ice cream (he makes the ice creams on the spot!) and suddenly Courtney was with us. She ushered us to the car and then chauffeured us to Borders, where we rendezvoused with Lana and began our observations of Laura in her natural working environment. Eventually the subject caught on to our presence and began throwing snide comments in our direction. Something about Laura always seems to make me want to bounce about and smile and sing (if I only knew the words)! :) In the evening Hugh and I made those wonderful Vanashing Oatmeal Raison Cookies. MMMMmmmmmmm!!!! They went pretty quickly. He and I spent the rest of the night figuring out how to play Illuminati NWO (a collectable card game of which I have thousands of cards and virtually no experience playing..), creating a deck each, and finally battling each other for world domination. The game was great, fraught with paranoia. He won quite well in the end, but I did okay holding my own for a while. We managed to sleep for a very few hours and then had to get up to return him to the bus station, from which he departed on his return trip to Ithaca. T'was a good weekend :) Oh, and he finally got to take home his CDR drive but (and I should've expected this (or did I?)) of course he forgot my laptop when coming down. Gah; oh well. Later, I'll write about the major progress with the comfort zone; right now I'm in dire need of some rest. 10-22-2000, 3:37am I have various things which I feel I ought to write about, but I really don't feel like doing so right now. It's late and I'm about to collapse. I did want to quickly mention a few things which have been on my mind recently, though. Hopefully my friends won't all start avoiding me after reading this... I really don't want to vote for Bush or Gore. I'm finding myself more and more favoring the idea of a government system resembling more of an anarchy than what would normally be thought of as a government. Until now I figured I'd vote for Nader, since that's who Courtney tells me I should vote for, and friends seem to agree. With those three as the only options, Nader would most definitely get my vote. Recently, however, I've been considering the Libertarian Party. My mom and sister have issues with them; the Libertarian's don't work towards healthcare and social security and other such good causes; certainly a downside. However, they really do fit better than the others what I really want from a government. What I want, ultimately, is to have the government stay out of my business. I want to be able to do whatever I choose, so long as I don't infringe on anyone elses right to do whatever they choose. I don't want to have the government spending my money on what it wants; I ought to be able to spend it on what I choose. That doesn't mean I'm against charities and research and other wonderful causes, I simply don't think that anyone should have the right to choose for me which causes my work is going to support. I'm afraid I'm probably not arguing this very well, but bear in mind, it's almost 4am and I've been sick. There's also the matter of "throwing away my vote". I think that it's disgusting that our system has us using such a phrase so often. Everyone should vote out of choice, not out of fear; that defeats the whole purpose! I want to vote for what I believe in, not against what I'm afraid of. Realistically I'm well aware that neither the Green nor Libertarian parties have any chance of winning this year (or for many decades to come, probably, at least with the Libertarians), but any vote for a third party demonstrates that there is support beyond the two virtually identical dominant powers. I'm so sick of both Republicans and Democrats. I think I made this point better earlier, when talking with my mom. Oh well, my inability to keep my eyes open for more than 5 seconds at a time is my excuse. Oh yeah, the other thing on my mind. I've just now been reading the Republic of Texas website. Regardless of my opinions of the culture and history of Texas, I really have an affinity for these Nation of Texas folk. They are trying to establish Texas as a nation in itself and in fact treat it as such already. Their government system appears (though I haven't delved too far) to be very much like what I've been talked and thinking about. They don't govern what people do. They do, however, enforce personal responsibility for anyone who infringes upon anyone elses right to do as they please. An example they give is that they have no speed limits (and extreme example to give, in some peoples minds, I imagine) (nor any seat belt laws) and people may drive whatever speed they choose. However, if they cause any damage they are entirely responsible for making retribution. I can easily see people shying away from such a system as it really is approaching anarchy (but not quite..), but it appeals to me a whole lot lately. Anyway, I'm very literally about to collapse and I consider that a good sign that I ought to be in bed. 10-19-2000, 11:41am This is just a quick note to show that I haven't disappeared or anything. I've been sick since monday night; my throat hurts beyond belief!! Anyway, it's making me grumpy and I really don't feel like writing much more just now. Hopefully I'll recover soon. 10-13-2000, 4:19pm My head smells like vanilla! Oh man, having a smell I like so much coming from my own head is just amazingly happy :) (new shampoo & conditioner) Gah, DopeWars and Tetripz are - appropriately - seriously addictive! Must stop playing... eyes aching... head drooping... scores improving? I swept the whole basement today. I'm not sure if that's ever been done by anyone. It made my nose hurt. Hopefully the cats won't pee all over the place to bring their scents back (my mom thinks that the moment I put furniture down there they'll all run up and pee on it, or something. whatever..). Is my putting so much effort into this comfort zone project an expression of my subconciously accepting the appearant truth that I won't be traveling for a while? I really don't want to accept it at all, but more and more it's looking like I won't be able to head out until spring. I feel like gagging when I remember that it was my intention to 'head out in spring' a year ago. Oh well, I suppose I'm imposing these constraints as to when I ought to leave upon myself; silly Discordian, what am I thinking? Lost myself in reality once again, I guess. Inspired by the satired cliche "reality is just a crutch for those who can't deal with drugs" (hehe), I've been contemplating my own variation: "reality is (realities are) just a crutch for those who can't deal with freadom". I think it's an interesting train of thought to follow. Ultimate freedom would involve being removed (or "trancending") from all of ones convictions. And of course there would be no way of communicating back the experience of true freedom, because it would necessitate escape from constrictive symbol-systems, including language. (I wonder if I could develop a bridge between this idea and some goals of gnosticism..) I can't decide if such a level of freedom would be desirable or not. In fact, I may have to come up with a way of looking at it that attempts to escape such dualities. I find the idea beautiful, if perhaps terrifying as well. I think that I could probably work this concept into a new paradigm relating to death and "after life"; one which I might even like. Oh yeah, that reminds me of last Sunday at Church. I was chosen to be a "guest speaker". We were supposed to split into two groups and I would be the subject of one of them, but everyone ended up opting to listen to me ramble. It was certainly unusual. I'd decided I would rant about my philosophies and stuff and let them all throw in questions at any time. I decided not to go off on Discordianism until people asked about it, since I'd already done a workshop on that at a con a few months ago, and it really doesn't define my "beliefs". Instead, I started out - very awkwardly - trying to explain the concept of not believing in anything at all. And then developing the idea that I accept things for apparent (I used the word "apparent" a lot, as I tend to when I get into my personal philosophies) convenience and entertainment, as an act of will, basicly. I'm not going to go into it all here, right now, as it took me quite long enough to bumble about trying to make some sense of it for them. Maybe that was the problem, I've successfully developed my own mental processes around my ideas to such a degree that I have a hard time thinking about them from a vantage outside of their functioning; the self aware computer; or maybe not.. I don't want to get off on that thought train right now. Anyway, they did ask various questions and enough of them (those not strugling too hard with staying awake; no blame of course, I've been there myself) actually seemed interested in understanding. How happy! So, I talked about choosing realities and paradigms to suit ones will. Then I talked about my strong dislike of imposition of order and discused questions relating to how that didn't mean I was against order altogether, nor against accepting a system of order and working with in it for the convenience it offers. I contemplated going into chaos magic and the theories behind that, but I figured I wouldn't be able to properly explain what they meant to me without my audience first understanding the system(s) I'm applying them within. Anyway, this paragraph is probably making less sense than I did on Sunday. "Sleep is natures way of telling you to go to bed." 10-12-2000, 3:21pm I've finally placed an order for a new muffler. I wanted to be quite sure I was getting the right type, with confusion increased by my '78 bus having a '72-'74 style exhaust system (I ought to check the engine and see what it really is). I called up Old Volks Home of Arizona (Ronnie's Garage) and talked to Ron. He said the exhaust system I was considering was "funky" and he wouldn't recommend it. Good to know. He told me what model he thought I should get, which had been my second choice. Since he actually has an understanding of these parts and these vehicles, I took his advice and placed an order. Yah! So, that's another $80 Smudge is costing me, but at least I'm not spending $200 to have a shop order and install it. I need to figure out where to get furnishings for the comfort zone and actually get them. I've got all sorts of fun ideas for lighting and sound and stuff, but I really ought to work on the actual comfort side of it. I've been playing with one of my old 486 computers (the latest incarnation of Inferno). I discovered that I'd already installed Win98 on it's hard drive, so I went with that and started playing around. I stuck in the Sound Blaster (8bit!) from the 286 and a network card that'd been resting on my bookcase. I installed WinAmp and copied over an mp3 to test it out. Not very pretty... I tweaked the settings a lot and had nothing else running, but it still wasn't a happy sound. I expect I could get resonable performance out of it if I used Linux, particularly if I put together my own distribution. I grabbed a hard drive off my bookcase (I've got all sorts of fun stuff on there!) which I believed to already have Linux on it. I wired it in and booted, and the drive started making a clunking sound! This is a very bad sound for a hard drive to make.. So, I guess I've finally had a drive die on me. This is particularly irritating since I don't have any more lying around to test with and I kind of wanted to leave the Win98 with the setup it's got. I guess I could pull my 40gig out of Elysium (my web/email server), since I'm not actually using it in there, but I really don't feel like shutting it down. I'm suspecting I may need to find a new system anyway, I don't think that Inferno has the juice in it to perform as a really slick mp3 jukebox and psychedelic visual engine. Anyone have an old Pentium they want to donate to the cause of comfort? 10-10-2000, 12:51pm I've made the spontaneous decision to create a comfort zone in my basement. The amazing thing is that I'm actually working on it; working hard! Davin came over yesterday and was surprisingly eager to help out. We agreed that the back peninsula (what used to be the play area, with lots of toys and stuff, so many years ago..) would be the perfect place. It's certainly big enough, but isn't too open, with walls on three sides. We began moving some boxes out of the way and quickly discovered that as a result of the last time the basement flooded (it was months ago, and only happens once or twice in about two years time; and it's not like a flood, just a wet floor in some areas), the bottoms of all the boxes in this area had become moldy and stuck to the floor. It was really nasty and smelled vile. We pressed on. All those boxes quickly made their way to the street (trash pickup being the next morning) along with all of those stacked above them. We rescued lots of styrofoam in the process, which we figure can be spray painted and attached to one of the walls. We sprinkled baking soda all over the slimy, moldy gunk on the floor, to absorb the moisture and opened a window and burned some regular incense cones to deal with the smell. Davin stayed the night. We had my blacklight on and fun visuals on my computer accompanied weird trance music. We had some crackers and listened to a helicopter and bounced about playing with stuffed animals. We burned some strong incense, which he thought smelled really funny. I got into one of my strange philosophical rants. Eventually we crashed. Back to work on the basement in the morning. We swept up as much of the nast as we could. Then we mopped the area with hot water and bleach, which worked really well. With all the crap seperated from the floor finally, we again sprinkled the area with baking soda. Then we went out to the Salvation Army to check out couches. I want to make the area intensely comfy and ultimately loungworthy. We've got two matresses in the garage which I'm planning on putting down as part of the floor. We may seek out carpet from dumpsters, depending on how much floor space is likely to actually remain. Salvation Army had some great couches, several were definitely comfy enough to qualify, and a couple were long enough (seven feet of sitting area, I estimated) to be very appealing. The prices, however good compaired to new furniture, we're still more expensive than we would've liked, generally ranging from $60 to $150. It was suggested to me that I try other locations in less yuppy territory. I returned Davin home to go about his life and I came back to continue work on the basement. I managed to sweep away all the rest of the grunge! The area is stained a bit, but so's the majority of the basement floor, from one thing or another. Then I went about dealing with boxes full of stuff. I've thrown out a whole lot of it (it's gone for two years down there untouched, no one's going to miss it), as in several very full large boxes worth. By throwing stuff out, and cosolidating and sorting things, I've managed to get rid of like 9 big boxes today. I'm very impressed with myself. Courtney is very impressed as well, that I'm actually doing something. I'm eager to have all this completed; not so much because I mind the work, I'm just very excited about having my own comfort zone! :) 10-6-2000, 1:14pm Last night I did this personally modified version of Carroll's Gnostic Pentagram Ritual. I altered it to include a meditation on "lust for results", to help me focus on the present moment and not on the expectation of another moment. I think it went pretty well; I'm getting better at directing my focus arbitrarily. I took a brief break for some water (all that mantra stuff!) and to do a little bit of setup for further upcoming meditation (such as turning on the blacklight and finding my lighter and other supplies). Then I performed a basicly unaltered version of the ritual, with more conventional "banashing" intentions, to help bring my mind back from distraction. I burned some strong sage incense and lay back on my bed for the final meditation. I found myself assalted with concepts I don't have words for as my reality became an ocean of illusions. I managed to calm the ocean and focus on traditional symbols, such as the pentagram, chaos star, and eventually the sacred chao. I particularly put attention into the chaos star, seeing it (as I enjoy doing) beyond simple symbolic or sigil form, but as a complex concept of 5-dimentional existence. It was truely beautiful. It's nice to know that I can indeed excersize some level of mental control over this particular meditation. Any way, that's enough chaos magic junk for now. If only I wrote about it in my magic journal as much as I do here.. I've figured out what family of exhaust system I need to get for Smudge. Even though it's a '78 bus, the system it needs will be one intended for a '72 - '74 bus. I guess sometime in Smudge's past, the whole exhaust setup must have been changed around a fair bit. Anyway, I can find the types of muffler I need and recognize them as such, so now it's just a matter of picking which one I want (and then ordering it and then installing it...). 10-5-2000, 2:24am Hmm, not too much has been happening. It would seem that when I drove into that ditch, I broke the tail pipe off my muffler. Now I need a new muffler. I've decided that I'm going to order one myself and then attempt to install it myself. This should save a lot of money and be an interesting learning experience; hopefully it won't take too long. Poor Smudge. I saw Jesse Jackson speak the other night at GMU. Courtney was covering the speach and interviewing people afterwards; I was just along for the ride. He's got good messages and all, but he's really a bad speaker. His rhyming thing is terrible, his hand gestures are lame, and his choice of words and metaphor (gods, the mixed metaphors he used!) were all just bad. Oh well, people enjoy passive participation. I was just talking with Laura N. She's a really fun person to be around. Conversing with her sometimes, however, can make me feel as if I were drunk and a stranger were attempting to explain some alien religion to me; I manage to continue to participate in the conversation, but every once in a while I realize I have no idea what they're talking about. This isn't always the case with her, and she's not the only person that can make me feel that way, I simply found it to be an observation that's arisen on more than one occasion after being around her. :) Hugh is coming to visit! He'll be visiting for the weekend of the 14th; 1.5 weeks from now. Hopefully he'll no longer have fleas... Meditating by engaging in absolute motionlessness, I've discovered, is best not practiced lying down with eyes closed while tired. Well, I guess that depends on desired results, actually. It can lead to some lucid dreaming, which is usually interesting. However, when I'm trying to journal my experience it helps to not be unconscious. I have been waking up with mental impressions set shortly before falling asleep, which I think is pretty cool; it sort of lets me pick up where I left off. I've been essentially off of soda for a while now. The other day I decided to treat myself to a Coke, but when I began to drink it, I found it relatively unappealing. It amazed me, considering that normally, when accustomed to receiving a regular fix, drinking some after being deprived for a while is a beautiful indulgence. But this time, it wasn't that big a deal and I wasn't too thrilled about the prospect of drinking the entire can of unhealthy caffein and carbonation. So, after weeks of not having a can, I only had about a third of my indulgance-can before returning it to the fridge. I'm proud of this, actually; I really succesfully broke the addiction and I feel good. :) Other random thoughts: I find smoke to be one of the most beautiful sights to behold. Sleeping naked is kind of nice. I wish the stick on my blinds hadn't broken, so I could make the slats go the other way and keep the sun out of my eyes in the morning. I need to find a way to visit Plotkin. Being a nocturnal person and going to be before sunrise, makes the following morning very unpleasant (or at least incredibly boring). Incense is fun. That 70's Show is excelent. I ought to clean off my futon and make it usable. I should deal with the pile of stuff I move off my bed onto my chair every night, and off my chair onto my bed every morning. Books are great; I need to actually finish one that I'm reading, sometime. I want more clothes.. I want to make my own clothes. Oh yeah, I made cookies today. Oatmeal raison cookies. They were so good ("orgasmic")!! I'm going to have to make cookies far more often... 10-1-2000, 10:44pm Church was boring today. Excessive planning, entirely reiteration of stuff we did last week at the retreat. Meghan's youth group showed up and she had to leave before the service was over, meaning we didn't really get to spend any time together. Alicia (sp?) also actually showed up today, but she too left before it was over, so I didn't get to talk to her either. Guh! Anyway, I remembered that today was supposed to be the first of our new monthly movie thing; where we watch not so mainstreme (or not at all) videos and then talk about them. Apparently I was almost the only one who remembered. Unfortunately I didn't have an oppertunity to mention it during our church group thing. I did talk to Davin about it, though, and he talked to (younger) Charley and we decided to go. But first I attended this workshop on Youth Adult Commitees being setup at UU churches. I hadn't planned on doing it, but I didn't have anything else to do before the movie thing and it turned out a bunch of old con friends showed up for it, so it was pretty cool. I drove to Marilyn's house with Davin and Sophie and we arrived just in time (actually, they started a bit late, because they knew we'd be late). The movie, picked by Michael, was Bulworth, a truely excelent film. We all enjoyed it muchly and discussed it and other politics and stuff and generally had good fun. While pulling out of Marilyn's driveway to head back home (others having gotten other rides) I overshot the somewhat narrow road just a bit.. and drove right into a ditch. I totally couldn't get out, with one wheel not even touching ground (I think) and the other spinning on wet grass. Crap. Michael hadn't left yet and tried to help, but couldn't get it. Then this guy who just happened to be out for a strole came along. It turned out he lived like two houses over and had a 4x4 with a hitch and strong rope. So he drove it up in front of Smudge, tied it to the tow hook (I didn't know all cars had tow hooks! That's so cool!), and slowly accelerated, while I balanced the clutch and put a little gas into first gear. And it worked! Smudge and I were plucked from the ditch posthaste. I continued on my way with little further trouble. I did, as I'd predicted, go the wrong way when I got on Route 7; but that road likes taunting me. The rest of the evening has been pretty uneventful. 10-1-2000, 1:26am I drove up to Pennsilvania to get Meghan, as planned. The drive took about an hour longer than expected due to extreme traffic locally, due to construction. Other than that, a fine drive. I got to Meghan's house around 3pm and we made it back onto the road at about 4:30. She was somewhat overwhelmed by the fumes Smudge put out, in an effort to get us high as well (Smudge is always stoned; we even caught him toking on the drive back). Eventually we got to Reston and headed for the church (Davin's party was at the Fairfax Unitarian church). We were a bit late, almost two hours, but we made it and still had four hours to go. Davin was styling and sporting some familier mannerisms. Margot and I talked for a long while. We played wink (what a violent little game..) and I was paired with Margot basicly the whole time, which was great fun. Devon showed up and her and I bounced about and slid on the slippery wooden floor and such. Meghan spent a lot of time with this girl we hadn't previously met named Sophie (right?), who seemed rather flirty towards Meghan. Meghan was relatively flirty towards most everyone, but that's just the way she is :) And so we all got to hang out and have a good time. And then midnight came around and we had to head out. I was to drive Devon home and then go over to Davin's to spend the night, along with a few other people from out of town. I really wanted this oppertunity to spend time with Meghan; we rarely get to see each other (prior to the visit two weeks ago, it had been months). And then, I guess because several other people wanted to also stay over, Davin's mom (surprise, surprise...) decided noone but the out-of-towners could stay. Crap! That totally sucked. I'll see Meghan for a short time tomorrow at church, where she's going to be picked up by some members from her UU church who are down here for some other reason. But it's not what I expected nor at all what I wanted. And so we all said goodnight. Devon lives rather near me and so she climbed into Smudge. This was her first time riding in the bus and she appreciated it's quirkyness and aesthetic almost as much as I do! I tried not to wine too much about not getting to stay at Davin's, but she seemed to understand. She's very cool like that, and many other ways. As I've said many times before, her and I need to hang out more; we're super hero like when we're together. I dropped Devon off at her place and drove home alone. And now I guess it's time for bed... 9-30-2000, 12:44am Well, I didn't end up going to the coffee place, perhaps some other time. Instead I went over to Davin's. First, we went to Costco with his parents to get stuff for his party tomorrow. That place is crazy! I think it would be a really entertaining place to be metally altered. Then Davin and I went to Subway (a 12" sub fits perfectly in my glove box!) and the rental place. We got Mission to Mars, which I'd wanted to see for a while. It didn't disapoint. It was pretty weird and rather unlike most mainstream movies. Finally a good modern sci-fi flic. Oh yeah, I've started journaling (on paper) my meditation progress. I'll continue with this log of experience as I go onto further chaos magic rituals. I'm currently working through Liber MMM, the student (Illuminates of Thanateros, 4th degree) syllabus in Carroll's Liber Null. I'm also playing around with some other rituals and techniques, with my own modifications. I don't exactly expect (usually) conventional magical abilities to arise from this. Rather, I think I can gain a lot of self discipline in reality, behavior, and belief manipulation, which is something I've been interested in for a while. That actually can fit quite nicely with a magical paradigm, givin the notion that "magic is believing". Anyway, I think it's interesting stuff and I'm having fun playing with it. 9-29-2000, 3:24pm To go along with this meditation type stuff I've been doing recently, I've decided to try commiting to keeping a dream journal. This morning was to herald my first entry. I set my paper-journal next to my bed, opened to the right page and with a pen close at hand. I woke up and immediately remembered to do this, grabbed the journal, and started writing. I didn't allow myself to gain full conciousness, because I didn't want to forget my dreams (or activate my psychic sensor, as some magic theory would have it, and I'll accept that as another explanation). In fact, I kept dreaming and I wrote frantically to keep up with what was going on in my head. It was very cool and I was thrilled that I'd managed to make such a great start on this dreamlog thing. Then I woke up.... !! I looked over and the journal page was blank! Damnit, I dreamed the whole journaling thing! I guess I implanted the intention pretty well before falling asleep.. Anyway, I felt like I'd already been writing for a while and I didn't want to write any more; so I still haven't actullay logged anything. Oh well, maybe tomorrow morning. I think I might go to Jamie's General Bean tonight. Devon tipped me off to them on her journal a little while back. Tomorrow I'll be driving up to Pennsilvania to pick up Meghan and then it's back down here with her to attend Davin's birthday party. Yah! :) 9-27-2000, 11:23pm Burning Man 2000 journal!! I've finally finished it off and gotten permission to use names (from those people I bothered to communicate with, anyway...). Now you may all spend extensive time reading a huge chunk of previously secret journal. Also, I swear I was sober at least half the time I was there! The amount of drug use (...) that you may read about is in no way indicative of my life in general. In fact, it had been months since I'd so much as had anything to drink. Anyway, I just like to disclaim myself since my mom reads this stuff (hi Mom!) and I'm afraid she thinks I'm some sort of drug fiend. All you others can go on thinking that I am a fiend; it's not true, but I find the image amusing. As for the sex; well, I wasn't really a participant, so nevermind that. Anyway, enjoy! :) Burning Man 2000 journal!!! 9-26-2000, 10:10pm I feel so special! Within less than an hour of getting back online I already had 5 different people connect to this site! :) Heh, It's also kind of creepy.... 9-26-2000, 7:12pm Eeek, we've been offline for the past four days!!! Around noon on Saturday, while I was still off camping with my friends, our connection to Comcast@Home, our ISP, was lost. Since returning home Sunday evening I'd been working diligently to figure out what the problem was. My mom made many calls to customer and tech support, almost all of the people on the other end being totally useless. I was pretty sure straight off that the problem was on their end or with the cable modem we're renting from them. Nothing had been changed on our end; I'm the only one who could even make changes and I was away! Regardless, I tried different network cables and a different network card (fortunately my server has several cards in it and it's really easy to swap configuration within Linux). For the reason that I run Linux, Bob from tech support absolutely refused to listen to me and would not discuss anything, not even their own hardware, because I run an "unsupported operating system". I don't want support with the OS! I know how to run it! I want support with their screwed up setup! We hooked the cable modem up to Darcy's Win98 box just so that we could get tech support to listen to us. Then, on the next call, I actually did talk to a nice, inteligent person from tech who thought the other techs I'd talked with were a bunch of idiots (and she's teaching herself Unix and recognizes it's supperiority in areas such as networking). She ran what diagnostics she could and saw that the gateway we were trying to connect to was being a bit flakey. She managed to connect through it to our cable modem and saw the the connection wasn't great, with about 10% packet loss and the rest not being very fast. She ran some tool called "push"; the impression I got was that it basicly floods the cable modem for a long time in an effort to purge it's stale buffers and let traffic flow freely (these aren't the best pieces of hardware we're dealing with here..). We let that go for about an hour and then Darcy tried getting an outside connection, but still couldn't get so much as a ping response from their gateway. Now comes the weird part: The gateway we're supposed to connect to is at 24.18.166.1 ; our attempts to ping it were unsuccessful . Our IP is 24.18.166.220 ; which is what Darcy had set his computer up as. Out of boredom, Darcy decided to ping himself (which is guarenteed to work, unless your computer is really screwed up), but mistyped the IP as 24.18.166.110 .... and got a response!!! This really made no sense, as the gateway (...1) is supposed to be the first computer we encounter and we shouldn't be able to communicate outside without going through it and we couldn't get a response from it. Regardless, this was kind of exciting. So, playing off the absurdity of this random find, Darcy took a step further and entered that number (...110) as the gateway... and it worked... Hail Eris!! So, we've decided not to call tech support and inform them that we're connecting through some unheard of box where the appropriate box isn't even working. I entered the newly discovered gateway address into Thud (our in-house gateway/server) and lo, it continued to work! And so now we're online due to some typo and no real knowing intention on the part of us or our service provider... All Hail Discordia!!! Anyway, if you've sent me any email in the past few days and it's bounced (I fear this is likely, since I run my own mail server and don't have a backup in place (yet..)) please resend it. I hope your regular fix of rants and ramblings hasn't been too long displaced and I'll do my best to ensure no further outages (Eris willing). I'll write about the retreat later, if I get around to it. Right now I'm just pleased to be reconnected. 9-22-2000, 4:36pm Off to the retreat shortly; will be back on Sunday. 9-21-2000, 11:46pm My mom suggests that I model nude for an art class at NOVA and she brought home a brief flyer about it. I find the idea intriguing; but then I remember that I have a tendancy to be intensely shy and easily embarrassed (I could make some embareassed pun here...). But it does go with my desire for making money without laboring. And it would be particularly amusing to have such jobs on a future resume.. 9-21-2000, 6:49pm I just bought yet another book: Peter J. Carroll's Liber Null & Psychonaut; I bought his Liber Kaos about a week ago. This new one starts with some immediate practical technique to chaos magic, meditations initially. Chaos magic is weird stuff; in a way it's not about changing the outside world, but rather changing one's own perception of reality (which works out the same, subjectivly, right?...). ("Magic is believing"; that hypothesis keeps coming back to me) Anyway, a lot of the theory that tends to go with it happens to mesh very naturally with the philosophy I've been developing for some time now and it's interesting to see where others take it. Should I submit to medical testing? It'd be pretty cool to get paid for being a guinea swine and be exposed to bizarre new chemicals... I could also be a sperm donor, but it's my impression they often want their subjects to be availalbe for periods as long as a year, and I don't want to be stuck here for that long. I ran into an old friend at the book store. We'd gone to middle school together and had only seen each other once since, a bit over a year ago. We talked for a while and I got to show off Smudge. A little surreal but somehow totally natural. Then on the way out of the lot, I spotted a van that must be related to Smudge; they look so much alike! This other one was the same color orange, but the upper area was white instead of biege and the spare was inside, and the paint was clearly much fresher. I wish I'd had a camera with me. I pulled up next next to it and admired it, with my own busses reflection in it's hubcap. So cute! I'm going to some UU church retreat thingy this weekend. I'm giving Davin a ride, along with a bunch of supplies and stuff. I bought a couple bottles of oil to make sure Smudge doesn't get thirsty (I've gone through two bottles in the past week or two...). This'll be my third such retreat and experience tells me it should be a good time. Buffy the other night was great. It was the dream episode finale from last season, which I'd only seen the second half of before. It was actually really clever (though I grew tired and irritated at the cheese thing before it even started..). I need to email the WB; they've stopped showing News Radio!!! 9-20-2000, 2:13am I'm back! Actually I got back early this morning, but I've been distracted. I was expecting to return home Sunday night (the same day I left) or perhaps Monday morning, but Tuesday morning was just fine by me and really shouldn't be a surprise considering my history of extended visits.. Let's see, what went on... I arrived in Carlisle, PA around 10am and tracked down Meghans home without difficulty; I even managed to find a spot to park without much effort. It was great to see Meghan again, after a couple months apart (or any length of time). We had waffles and then went off to her UU church. I had already met a couple of the people from the youth group at cons. Meghan brought with her a large box of costume items from which she created outfits for us, for the faire. I wore a really puffy white shirt and a cool green cap with a couple feathers in it, including one of a peacock, which a really liked with my hair sticking out around it. Meghan had on leather pants and a black bustier, which she occasionally complained about but looked really cool. Eventually we rode to the renaissance festival; a very long ride. Rob argued against everyone about the internet being one of the last straws in the impending collapse of society and discused his desire to live in the woods somewhere and hunt and use no modern tools and avoid contact with other humans.. And we finally arrived. I hadn't been to a ren fest in something like 5 years (with Kim, in the summer before 8th grade), but it was as I remembered. We wandered about all day losing and reclaiming others from the group. We ran into the youth group from another UU church in PA, which just happened to be there the same day. We met with Meghan's friend AJ and he joined us, with her leading him around and describing what was happening (he's blind). We listened to live music (including some by a friend of Meghan's; she knows so many people there!) and checked out the many assorted shops. I didn't really like all the prevailing destructive elements inherent to the faire, such as all the leather and weapons and (play) violence, but I still had a great time. Some of the jewelry was very cool and I considered buying a necklace chaos star (I'll get into all the chaos magic stuff I've suddenly been up to at some other time). We spent a long time in one shop that sold a variety of statues, big and small. Observing AJ "looking" at a number of the little figures gave me a greater appreciation for textural detail and I found myself curiously fondling items the rest of the day. Meghan bought licorice sticks (actual sticks, not candy or anything) and the two of us got many odd looks as we walked about chewing on them. She also bought for me a beautiful scented brass rose which I keep smiling at :) The faire ended for the day and we all headed back to town. People were dropped off and Meghan and I returned to her place. She put on a tape of Ladyhawke and I semi-dozed briefly; just long enough to miss the plot and just fully enough to somehow think these medieval characters had cell-phones. I was quite conscious throughtout the rest of it though and we sat about talking and laughing and generally being happy :) Eventually Meghan had to head up to bed and I slept on the sofa-bed in the living room. I partially woke in the morning when she was transcribing the last of her homework into the computer; the typing sounding very much like rain. I got up as everyone else was heading out for school and work, and I was ejected from the house as well. I went to my van and napped for quite a while longer. I then wandered around Carlisle a bit, though within a short enough distance that I could easily find my way back to her house. I discovered a deep store that included a thrift shop and used book portion. I left with several bags full of stuff animals which had only cost me about $3 altogether; my van floor is now littered with them. I returned to the house when highschool students were returned to the world. Again, Meghan and I sat about for a long time being excessively silly and very happy:) That night I had to leave, her mother appearantly having a 'no boys overnight' policy (the night before being a circumstantial exception). Since Meghan would be at school and then at work all the next day, it was time for me to return home. I was going to sleep in my van and leave in the morning, but I woke around 1am and decided to depart then, it being my favorite time to drive. And so I got back home around 3:30 and here I've been since. Anyway, that's a taste of what I've been up to the past couple days. I'll see her again in a little under two weeks and I'm very much looking forward to it. Ghads, why can't all my friends live closer to me?? 9-17-2000, 7:10am I'm on my way out for the day. I'm driving up to Pennsilvania to meet Meghan to attend the renaissance festival there. Should be a fun day, not to mention the drive there in Smudge... 9-16-2000, 6:22pm Whow! I just had the most intense dream! It's not like some crazy action was going on, it was more that my mind was breaking. I had just been reading some chaoist's theories about the quantum mechanical nature of existance and the universe itself and then curled up with Beta cat the "wrong way" on my bed and fell asleep. In my dream I was still in my room, though there were differences; for instance I had a copy machine and I think I might have been on a couch instead of my bed. It was some sort of holliday, vaguely; something like New Years Eve, perhaps. My adult neighbor was sitting on the floor saying that the only reason he was here was because there would be pudding and he wanted to know when it would be ready (I ate practically an entire pack (4.5 servings; I think) of instant pudding last night, I think it screwed with my head somehow). Devon and someone else who I didn't identify were also sitting on the floor. My head was feeling all wrong and I couldn't properly focus on "reality". There was this crazy music, too. Actually it was pretty good techno, but kind of dark. I had some concept that alot of this crazy stuff was going on in my head, and occasionally realized I was dreaming. I would get up and sometimes run around my room, which I think was a bit larger, and then open my eyes and find myself still lying there; and I'd try getting up again.. and I could not escape the dream no matter how many times I tried. And I realized that I didn't have any music playing and I could control it's volume some of the time, when I focused on it. Sometimes I could even make it stop, but occasionally I lost control of it and it would get really loud and join in overwhelming me. Then I got the idea that maybe I had taken some drug and forgotten (I could certainly compare various of the mental sensations with certain psychotropic substances I'm aware of (I had a different dream recently which included the familier helicopter sound and impressions)). I started shouting to Devon over the growing sound - music and white noise - "what am I on?!" in hopes that she could help me figure out what was happening. All this was increadibly distressing - well, not exactly what was there to see, but rather my inability to get a hold of any of it; very trippy, in an anxious way. I managed to escape again, and they all disapeared and the music was quiet and the lights were different, but then a noticed a giant echidna type creature across my room; crap, I thought, I'm certainly not out yet. Then I realized it was actually Beta, asleep about 2 inches from my face; that I could handle. I quickly sat up and jumped out of bed and looked around and ran out of my room. I'm pretty sure I'm actually awake now. 9-15-2000, 5:30pm Well, I was in a notably upset mood this morning. I'm certainly not over being upset at the situation, but whatever... I let out some emotion then drove to the playground near my park; where I used to go all the time with friends so many years ago. It was really nice I, so I parked my bus and just walked around the fields. Life is so beautiful. Some people really don't get it though and they can be such a downer. I picked up a whole lot of trash that careless people disrespecfully soiled the otherwise happy and tranquil area with, and threw that out. That helped me feel better about myself, that I could rise above the social programs that would have me disregard other people's messes. I really don't think it should be my responsibility to clean up after others, but I'm proud that I chose to take on the responsibility to make things better. Then I sat on a little ledge by the playground and sucked on a lollypop and blew bubbles (I knew putting those things in my glove compartment would come in handy later) for quite some time. I watched kids play, I watched clouds, I followed the glint of the bubbles in the wind, I absorbed and was amazed and rejuvinated. Hurray for life! I was really taking things to seriously. In this society, it's totally expected that one'll take things like this morning seriously, but I've been working to get beyond that. Why should I be upset? I recognize the situation, I won't forget it and can hopefully learn from it, but being unhappy serves no purpose. I've got to just remember that it's all a game and I choose what rules I follow. If I'm not having fun ("having the time of our lives"..), I need to change the rules, as their obviously not working for me. Anyway, I don't know what I'm doing next, but at least I'm happy again. Oh, and thanks so much to the people who emailed me! That really helped brighten things even more :) 9-15-2000, 9:44am I want out!!! Why can't I escape this stupid culture?! Apparently I don't have a job after all. The guy who "hired" me was very nice, but when he went to introduce me to the manager (ie, the guy who gets more money than the people who actually work at the station, because the paperwork says so), the managers greeting was basicly "we can't hire you". Well good morning! Thank you so much! I love losing sleep so that my day can be ruined; I think that's fun! It would seem that at Mobil males aren't allowed to be pierced. Because having a piece of metal adorning my body so dramatically impairs my ability to work at a gas station. I really despise working for money, paper work, the system, "the man". I managed to get past these issues due to the compatibility I saw with this job: nightshift! stress free! Gah, whatever... I'm so sick of this society already, and then to fucking be rejected by it because... why?!? "Company Policy". I'm so glad that we haven't interfered with any policies; this is the Empire of America, after all; built on the sweat of the subway and the toil of paper cuts, coming ever closer to that ultimate beaurocracy, that peak of paper work, that lack of any inefficient regard for the humans who it suffocates, they're just more statistics to file, after all. Fuck I hate this system. I really can't wait for the Great Paper Shortage, I may actually have some fun come the Aftermath. I just want out. So, do any of my readers have an excess of money they'd like to donate to the cause? Or perhaps we can avoid the system a little further and just deal in food and fuel? It's really hard to reform the system when it keeps kicking you in the head. 9-14-2000, 1:10pm Oh no, I've got a job! What's the world coming to?! So, I got called back by the gas station manager a little while ago. Tomorrow I train with him from 9am-noon. My regular schedule, initially, will be Friday and Saturday nights, 10pm-6am. Those are around the hours I wanted, but I would've prefered they be restricted to Monday through Thursday. Oh well. I'm starting at $7/hour, which is more than I've made at any "regular" job in the past. That means that before taxes I'll be getting $112 each week; not bad at all. If I can add two more days to my schedule, I can pay my mom back in no time and build up a bit to spend myself. So come visit me while I'm working, people!; it's the Mobile at Northpoint Village Center, by Giant. Now, I really don't know what hours to sleep to prepare for this, but I think I'll return that task. 9-13-2000, 6:06am Why am I so tired when I get up in the afternoon, but once it's been dark out for a while I'm more than wide awake? Sleep schedules don't seem to work with me. I was just out driving Smudge; ahhh, what fun! I'm definitely getting a lot better at it, though I'm still certainly not perfect. While out I saw another old bus of the same era as mine, painted red with a white upper area, and I parked to check it out briefly. If I'd had my notebook with me (as I usually do) I would've left them a friendly note. I went to 7-11 and got a donut and a slurpie. The woman working there didn't seem to comprehend my existence. I don't think I've really changed my appearance lately in any way that would cause me look more freakish to the "normal" populace; I've even been shaving somewhat more regularly which ought to help. Perhaps it's because I've been smiling so damn much, at everyone and virtually everything; maybe some people just don't get it, which would be sad. I talked to Aim-E on the phone earlier tonight, for like an hour. She's got such a cute laugh! Gah, sometimes I really wish this country weren't so wide... Out of curiousity, I following Davin's lead in signing up on MyOwnFriends (I'm easy to find, just search for "freak" within Virginia). It's sort of like a personals board; you post a little "ad" about yourself, throw in some keywords and maybe a photo (I like the one I used), and then people can contact you through their system, without actually being told your email address. I started to post some morgaN-style rant but then learned that my thing could only be 200 characters, so I made it brief and a little bit cryptic. I've alreay gotten three responses from people who say they like what I have to say and want to hear more. What an ego boost! So now I've started some little conversations with interesting strangers that I can have fun with when I'm bored; good stuff. Now, even though I feel like bouncing about and doing all sorts of stuff (I feel particularly compelled to start some sort of craft-type project, or maybe figure out how to make my own clothes), my body has been awake for quite some time and is eager to take a long break, so I guess it's time for bed... 9-12-2000, 4:31pm I've been copying my journal stuff from Burning Man onto my computer and just finished. It's almost a third the size of this page! It actually doesn't even lead all the way to the end of the event; I never quite finished it. I'll make it public soon, but first I need to check with some people to make sure they don't mind my using their names. Let's see, what's happening with some of the people in my life: Ami (who you'll be better introduced to in the BM stuff (unless you are her, in which case introductions should be unnecesary...)) and I have been emailing each other lately and I plan on calling her later tonight. Meghan and I have resumed email communication again. I'll be giving her a ride down from Pennsilvania for Davin's birthday party at the end of the month and possibly seeing her this weekend if I can make it to the renaissance festival in Maryland. Hugh is perpetually busy and still in upstate New York. Laura is back in the area; her and Lana have been hanging out around here a bit. Laura said I may be able to get a ride to New York with her some time to visit Plotkin and pass along Hazel and Lilly, the gerbils. Devon has just gotten a job at new photo developing place. I need to check up on Nik. And then there are so many more... 9-11-2000, 7:20pm Mowing the lawn is no fun. Debt is no fun. Why am I so tired today? I've had plenty of energy recently and I slept like 9 hours. Oh well. On the way to dinner out with the family, we stopped at the gas station I'm applying to. I went in and gave them my form. They seemed a little perplexed simply at the sight of me, but happy enough with my application, and will "get back to me". I think I'd prefer this job to the ice cream one so, assuming I get it, I'll leave the other one to Ricky. It'd be pretty cool to know someone working at the ice cream place, anyway :) 9-10-2000, 10:18pm I've put up pictures of my bus! And I've named him Smudge :) I still certainly haven't mastered driving stick yet. Yesterday Davin and I were hanging out and while driving I suddenly realized I was in the wrong lane and couldn't merge before hitting the toll road. After driving along it for a while in plenty of traffic, I finally escaped onto Rt. 7. However, it turned out, I was going the wrong way. Of course, we didn't realize this untill I'd already been going that way and stalling at most of the lights and getting really frustrated with all the traffic. Finally I made a U-turn and started on the way back. There was lots of traffic that way too, and sooo many lights! I got stuck at one light on an upward hill for the longest time. The light actually stayed green for a really long time, but it was red when I first reached it. After the light cycled several times I finally made it through, but the intervening time I got immensely frustrated! I don't get frustrated very often, but having a hard time while driving is definitely one of it's causes in me. Multiplying the unpleasantness and making it ever harder for me to focus and regain my cool - necessary to the zen of VW manual transmision - were the absolute jerks on the road. There were two lanes, I was in the right hand one with my hazard blinkers on and my "New Driver; Please Stay Back" signs in the back window, and these people would drive up in my lane, with a huge amount of distance of relatively empty road before reaching me, stop immediately behind me, too close to turn to go around me, and then start honking. What the fuck!!?! If I even tried to move with them there, I would roll back into them - even if I succeeded! Insensitive idiots. Gah, some people amaze me with their increadible lackings in both love and sensibility. After I finally made it through there I was still shaken and had trouble at several further lights. At one point a cop happened to pull up behind me and got out to talk to me. He seemed understanding but a bit impatient, told me to get it going soon, and drove off. Davin and I were planning on finally going cosmic bowling, but I wanted nothing more than to be in my house and have a glass of water. Finally we did make it back to my house and I did get that water and that was great. Then we continued with our mission, this time in the red station wagen that I've actually had extensive experience driving. We made it to the bowling alley with no trouble at all and just a little bit before they got the cosmic stuff going. Yah! They turned off most of the main lights and turned on the spinning colored lights and the light chains between the lanes and started the wonderfully bad music. It was a bit brighter than I would've liked, with some regular white lights still on, and I would've liked a lot more presense of black lots, where all they had was over the counters and not by the lanes, but other than that it was really wonderful. We played three games over a good length of time, not rushing ourselves. Davin is like a "serious" bowler - he brought four bowling balls! Yet somehow I beat him in the second two games (not by much, though). We both had a whole lot of fun and I'll definitely have to do it again! Afterwards we came back to my house for a bit and hung out, until his dad called and said he needed to be home. So then we headed over to his place, probably at a bit past midnight, and played around on his computer for a while. Suddenly it crashed (and it's a Mac!) and when it rebooted it wouldn't accept his password (he had it setup in multi-user mode with only one account) and he couldn't get into his own system! He tried endless passwords but couldn't get in. He logged a couple other older Macs into it as guests over the network, but all they could do was access files and not change anything and he couldn't find any files which would clearly contain the password. Todays report, I believe he said, was that he did manage to fix it, but I didn't get any details. Eris was out in force last night and really testing our dependance on ultimately trivial material "possesions". Hail Eris; you divine bitch! Today was a great day. After church Margot and Ricky came over to my place so that we could hang out and I could drive 'em around (I rode to church with my mom this morning, since I was too asleep to drive myself). We hung out in my room for a while, just chilling and conversing. Then we got into Smudge (I'm digging that name). They both love the van! Everyone seems to love my van! Yah!! :) We drove down to Lake Anne Plaza, where I've only been once in the past like 7 years, though I used to ride my bike there all the time before then. Margot fed the ducks goldfish crackers she found on the ground and then walked about barefoot in the fountain. We splashed each other a bit with it's marvalously refreshing water. We went into Smugglers Cove (the pirate place!) which is like an indoor market for small vendors. We went to the very back where the notorious ice cream place is. There we got a cup of this coffee ice cream stuff that he made with actual coffee like one would put in a machine and a couple Oreos. It was so good! We sat on a bench directly across from the counter and conversed with Mr. Moo, the ice cream guy. After finishing the cup we got a much bigger cup of the same stuff, but with even more coffee (at our request). We were probably there for an hour, just hanging with the awesome ice cream guy. Finally, Ricky and I got job applications. I can't wait till I go back there again! Then we drove back to Margot's place and watched House on Haunted Hill. They both said that it's far more scarey than most spook/horror movies. I found myself laughing at most of it; though it wasn't a comedy. Ahh well, it was fun. Ricky gave me a ride on his moped to his place to get some money which he owed me and to get me to buy him some cigarettes. What a ride! I ought to get a moped and just stick it inside my bus; that'd make getting around little towns so much fun! Eventually, Margot had to study (stupid "school") and I had to head home. I made it back with virtually no trouble at all. Life is so beautiful! :) 9-8-2000, 2:36am "A cautionary tale or a grim portent of things to come, I'll let you be the judge..." :) I went out driving earlier tonight, from around midnight till one, in my happy, healthy van. I drove around a few deserted parking lots and the roads between them, practicing getting into first, parking, and reversing. I stalled plenty of times and I got it going with big sudden lurches many times as well. And then I cleared my mind and focused without forcing any thoughts or actions. I started the van, put the stick in first, lightly fed the engine just a taste of gas, and ever so gently raised the clutch. At some key point along the clutches path I could sense the gears coming together smoothly and without strain. I could feel the van begin to move as I held the clutch in this tiny margine of comfort and serenity. And then, when the van asked me to, I fed it some more gas, let it take back control of the gears, and eased forward in symbioses with the machine. The subtlety involved amazes me. The perfect comfort I suddenly felt with the van was beautiful. I finally got it! 9-7-2000, 10:52pm Wow, that was a sudden rant I burst out with earlier. I don't know what to make of it, it seems to be lacking a certain element of, umm, coherence and sense, but I guess that's the way most good rants are. Anyway... I got my van back today. The bill came out at $981. Ouch! I payed $600 and owe my mom the rest. *whinning*: I don't wanna get a job!... Ugh. At least it works now. Lee not only got the engine working properly but also bolted on the passenger seat belt clasp, got the side door fixed, replaced the dead head lamp, patched and filled the spare tire (for free), fixed the emergency brake so it doesn't pop off, and other such assorted wonderful tricks. He also pointed out to me many of the various hoses and other such things that can come loose, which I need to be aware if the car suddenly starts freaking out on the road.. So then, I got to drive it home, following my mom, during rush out on roads I don't know with many red lights. That was stressfull. I think I might take it out tonight, to get some more experience without the anxiety I experience when I stall a couple times trying to get through a suddenly green light with a compact behind me on an upward hill.. Why did I choose to drive around the country in a van, when I wasn't able to drive such a van and I'm affraid of traffic already? Ahh well, I'm still looking forward to it :) 9-7-2000, 9:52am It seems it takes no time at all for this fucked up society to attempt to reclaim me and keep me subservient. What news do I come home to after a week of freedom and love? My van, which I'd not even had a chance to drive for more than a week, is still in the shop. It was supposed to get out 8 days ago (and how many days ago then?). It'll be released into my incapable hands this afternoon to attempt to return home with. Ahh, but first comes the payment. The cost having been estimated at about $600. The cost appearantly being closer to $1300; the amount I spent to buy the vehicle in the first place. My money in the bank being less than $1100. Why have people worked so hard to build themselves, and everyone around them, this cage from a peacefull life. They've installed booby traps so that even when you think you've escaped you're suddenly hit with a tax or a bill and beaten at untill you submit and convict yourself to a life of meaningless labor. Of course, the government's power exists by it's illusion of power. As long as they can fool most of the people most of the time, those people are their puppets. And the oppressed masses don't even recognize the overwhelming abundance of resources and "wealth" in this world being held by the system they serve; being held to ensure that they continue to rein and the masses continue to serve. If people just stopped believing in the illusion of power put out by the system, the system would begin to crumble. Not by millitant attacks on the system, that only furthers the bad trip societies been on for a very long time, but that's not necessary. If people just stopped struggling for control of others and stopped letting others control them, and instead took control of their own lives and left everyone else in peace, where then would be the conflict? We could finally begin to work together, instead of continueing to work appart. I'm so tired of being the victim of a society gone mad with an age old hallucination that doesn't hold up to even the slightest inspection by the most vaguely lucid of eyes. This system stinks. This system hurts people and keeps them from their potential freedom and happiness. This system is a fabrication propagated first by the people already benefiting and second by those that have been raised in an environment created by the "powers that be". There is no power anywhere. I want out. I've taken the first steps. I've recognized the situation and chosen for myself that I want no part of it. I don't imagine it'll be an easy trip from here on out by any means and I expect I may still sometimes fall prey to some of societies traps planted inside of me, laying still unrecognized and waiting. But I will attempt with all my will to shed myself of these straight-jacket illusory convictions I've been struggling with all my life. To rid myself of their control by dismissing their appearantly interminable order for the unproductive and in fact destructive bad trip that it is. . Okay, now I've gotten out a piece of the immense rant that's been struggling in me for more outward expression all day. Now I think I can get some sleep. 9-7-2000, 6:37am I'm back! I got in a few hours ago. I'm not going to go into any real detail about Burning Man just now, but rest assured it will come soon. I brought my paper journal out with me to cronicle my adventures. Alas, I spent very little time in my tent, where my journal lay patiently. So to make up for it, while at the airport in Reno and on the first of three flights back to the east coast, I wrote about twenty pages detailing what went on between Friday and Sunday. I still plan on continueing with what happened between Sunday and Wednesday; hopefully not taking so many hours to write. Once I'm done with all that, I'll transcribe it to my web server. Then, I've got to contact a few of the people that I mention to make sure they don't mind my using their names in connection with certain "questionable" activities. But again I assure you, the story will be told. Perhaps by the time I make it public I'll have reworked Drift Wood enough to finally implement it as well; I think it would be an appropriate debut to combine this story with my new story medium. Anyway, I really should rest. Ahh but I'm still so energized! I've been smiling for the longest time now!! 8-29-2000, 3:15am Ahhhhh! I'm psyched!! In like, less than 12 hours, I'll be starting my trip across this big ol' country. In less than 20 hours, I'll be in Reno, Nevada! Whew!! I'll have a new set of challenges when I get to Reno, in finding someone else who's attending and has a car or wants to rent one. I pulled it off last year though. But last year I had Hugh with me. Unfortunately, he can't get out of his obligations, such as work. I'm certainly saddened by that, I really wish he could come; but I'm not going to stop being immensely thrilled myself. Ahh well, it's hardly your last opportunity, Hugh. Likewise for Duane ("The New York Guy" :) ). I've never actually met him in person, but he seems like a very cool guy and it's really too bad he can't make it. So, I've been somewhat busy today. I made it out to Target and bought myself a tent (phew!). A big tent. Like, a really, really big tent! It's 7 feet by 7 feet at the base and 5 foot something in height, at the center point. It's not as light as serious hiker tents, but I'm not hiking and I'm certainly not serious, so I think I'll be okay. It's cost of only $33 is yet another of it's excelent qualities. I also bought a new sleeping bag, so now I finally have one of my own. It's really nice and it actually is very light; 3.something pounds. It's "mummy" style, so I can have it totally consume me (very much like the way Hugh sleeps, with his blankets..) if it's really cold, and it's rated for down to 20 degree weather. It was also thirty-some dollars. I'm happy about it; I'll definitely be able to continue to make use of it in the future, when I'm adventuring in my van. My grandparents came over for dinner, which was nice. They're pretty cool. A lot of old people and young people, it seems, have trouble communicating and getting along through the differences in the lives and experiences they've led. I'm very glad my grandparents are so cool with us. They'll ask me what my tattoo represents and they've never insulted or reacted negatively towards my bridge piercing. They ask me about Burning Man and my various plans and every once in a while mention that I might want to consider college, some day.. Also, they have basicly the same sense of humor as my dad, which I appreciate. Yah life :) So, the rest of the night I've spent packing (except for a break at 1am to watch News Radio, of course!). I'm just about through. I've got my big black hiking bag containing my tent and sleeping bag, the clothing that's past my BM worthy inspection, and various bits of other camping stuff, like my tiny little stove and my pan and dish stuff, and duct tape (of course) and so on. That'll be checked as luggage (ghads, at it's size, I should say so! (err, and I guess I did..)) I've got my very spiffy couriers bag (which I got at Target a little while back...) packed very full of rations. I've still got a bunch of food littering the dinning room table, but it'll have to hold off for future adventures; I don't have room and don't want the extra encumberance. I'll have that onboard with me. Then I've also got my little Pochacco purse-bag (mentioned approx. two months ago). It's got a bunch of little toys and things, plus over-the-counter drugs and many note books. I'm also going to stick Illuminatus in there, so I can read on the planes and such. I really hope that this isn't prophetic, but I was at about the same place in the same book (but not the same copy) last year, on my way out to Burning Man, and, about 10 pages from the end (of the first part of the trilogy), it got stolen along with the rest of the stuff in my carry on backpack. (It's such a complicated book that I started it all over again!) I imagine airport security should be fun; and no, I'm not bringing anything that could "reasonably" get me arrested (though who knows what I'll encounter once I'm in the desert...). I'll have to take my neato keen communist flask out of my wicked slick soviet coat at the metal detector. Anyway, enough of this rambling, I've still got a bit of final packing and I really ought to get some sleep, too. I'll try to maintain my (physical) journal during this excursion and then I'll transfer the new content here in a little over a week, when I return. And so, TTFN. 8-28-2000, 11:50am And now it seems that Hugh may be able to go to Burning Man as well, after all. After tragically planning for months to be working during it. Silly monkey... So, why'd I have to endure all that frustration? Things have worked out, after much effort and trauma and hard work and crap. But anyway, things have worked out, and for that I am glad. Good work, morgaN :) Appearantly the mechanic called (!!) earlier today, while I was still thankfully unconcious. He told my mom that we should expect the van to be healthy enough to be released from his care on Wednesday. Ghads, there's no way I could've made it to Nevada in time for any of the Burn if I left then. He figured out the problem he'd been experiencing with it, something to do with the carborator or something. I dunno, something totally non-fatal, that's the diagnosis I understood. And so, I'm pleased. I'll have a happy, healthy little van waiting for me when I get back next week. :) 8-27-2000, 9:00pm I'm going to Reno!!! :) I did manage to swing some plane tickets through PriceLine. $268 with tax for a round trip on short notice; not bad. I'm going on Delta Airlines, I imagine in the cheapest seats available. I leave BWI on Tuesday (I really wanted to go Monday, but this was the earliest it would allow) at 1:40pm. An hour and a half flight to Cincinnati, followed by a four hour wait. Then, a three and a half hour flight into Reno, arriving at 10:30pm. I really hope I can find someone to get a ride into the desert with... I'll be returning on Wednesday, September 6. My flight out leaves at 7:20pm, stops in Salt Lake City and Atlanta, and gets me back to BWI at 8:00am the next day. I'll probably be leaving the desert on either Monday or Tuesday of that week, so I guess this'll give me some time to bum around Reno. That's cool; Reno's interesting. So, everything is real again. I'm so excited and I just can't hide it, and all that. Now, I need to get to Target tomorrow to get that tent. I need to figure out what food I'm bringing. I need to see if I can actually arrange to meet someone in Reno to ride in with. What else.. I need to return my library books. I need find a right sandle to match it's partner. I need to pack my stuff up into my camping bag and my couriers bag; all of it. I need to call Duane (we agreed to keep each other up on our plans). Yeah, so I've got things to do. Ahh, but I'm happy again! :) 8-27-2000, oops It looks like I'm not driving out there. Duane and I discused going in his car, but ultimately he decided against it. This would be his first Burn and he seemed pretty overwhelmed; fair enough. My van, well, I still haven't got it. Driving out would take a long time anyway, and the event starts tomorrow. So, now I'm looking into cheap airfair, at least to get out there. I'm trying PriceLine; it's interesting.. Doing it like this adds other complications which I was hoping to not have to deal with this year. I'll need to find a tent (my mom found an ad for a nice priced tent at Target; yah!); I'll need to consildate what I'm bringing down to what I can carry; I'll need to find someone in Reno who I can ride intot he desert with. I managed it last year, but last year it was how I expected to do it from the start, and I had Hugh with me, and I left early enough to go Greyhound. Soo many complications!! Arrrggghh!!! 8-25-2000, 11:17pm It's a sad situation when I find myself swtiching between Frankenstein Conquers the World and Strip Poker on USA. Actually, Strip Poker appears to be one of the sillier American game shows. I think I may have scared off the guy from Michigan. That's okay though, as I've found a guy from upstate New York: Duane. He posted a message on one the Burning Man message boards today in the early AM and I got back to him earlier this evening. He emailed me back and almost immediatly (as in I'd had time to read about two lines of his email) called me on the phone. He sounds like a nice guy. He's done a lot of long distance driving in the past, and learned to drive stick earlier in the year. I sent him the same barrage of warnings I'd sent to Michigan guy, but that didn't seem to phase him; phew! So, I'll call the mechanic tomorrow (Eris, they'd better be open on Saturdays!) and find out just how my poor lonely bus is doing. Then I'll call up Duane and we'll figure out what to do from there. My moods improved for the moment, but my boredom still remains; I guess I'll delve back into one of the many books I'm partially through. 8-25-2000, 7:05am Damnit, Lee, when you say you're going to call: call!! So, my mom called Lee, the mechanic, earlier today. He was out, test driving my funny little bus, but he'd call back when he returned. Right.. I wait and wait and do more of the same.. Evnentually, I once again overcome my incredible discomfort with calling people I don't know. No answer! They're all gone already! Grrrrr. I get the impression he's a good mechanic, and he seems nice and honest, but he has no sense of keeping me informed on the only subject that's been on my mind for the past week. I want my car :( I guess I'm not getting it back today. I don't know if they're open tomorrow. Burning Man starts on Monday. This hurts. Are there any other ways I can get out there? Greyhound, I suppose. But what about all my food and water?? Last year I had Hugh to help me out, and I was in Reno early. How would I manage this year? I don't know.. This is really not fun for me at all. So, I looked up this drug Paxil earlier. It's supposed to help with "social phobia". I figured it'd be cool to have a pill I could swallow any time I needed to make a serious phone call or talk/perform in front of people or anything else like that. I don't think it's what I'm after, though. It seems it's intended more for constant medication, on the order of lots of weeks, daily. I don't want to be drugged all the time; I want a temporary drug. Besides which, it's contraindicated to MAOI's and certain more spiritual substances which I wouldn't be averse to indulging in require a temporary MAOI in order to do their thing. Paxil says not to use it and an MAOI within 2 weeks of each other in either direction; I can't plan that far ahead. Whatever, I've survived this long being myself. I'm really getting to hate this frustration. 8-25-2000, 3:43am I guess I've been making my frustration kind of appearant. How about some somewhat positive stuff. If all goes well, my poor sick van will be released from the mechanics care and back into my own tomorrow. I'm crossing the fingers in my head.. or something to that effect. Also, I may have found a passenger (if I didn't scare him off with my email of many warnings about my van and my skills with it) from Michigan. Damnit, even my good notes rely on hope and things basicly beyond my control, so they may well also turn out to be further (or contuing) frustrations. Blast! I'm getting so tired of putting all my energy into things based upon hope and faith, and then having them totally fail to fructify. Hmm, seem to have lost my positive spin there. How 'bout this?: I went to Chuck E Cheese tonight. My whole family did, that is to say. T'was fun. I like ski-ball and I like this racing game by Sega whose name I can never remember (not a 'Cruising' series game) which I play against my brothers. Hmm, what else.. I finished my shoes, finally. I've been working on reconstructing two pairs of old Converse Allstars into one pair. Actually, I basicly just tore the tongues from a blue pair and replaced them with the torn out tongues from a red pair. But this involved sewing them on by hand, through plastic and such. Any time the string would break, I'd put the project off for a month or so. I finally finished 'em tonight. They're my slick (but grungy) patriotic shoes, being all red, white, and blue and such. The right one I even laced up horizontal stripe style, and I drew red stripes curving along the white toe and around the white bottom edging. Ain't I the clever one. I'm thinking of playing with a patriotic type look; of a sort. Ya know, flags and said colors on clothing; but not tacky tourist stuff. Hippies managed to pull it off, back in the day.. Mmm, yes, but now I'm actually physically tired and I must be off to bed (being as it's half a foot away, this task is hardly daunting). Good night, satellite. 8-24-2000, 2:56pm I want to sleep. I'm not at all tired, but all I can think to do is sleep. Sleep untill something happens. I want something to happen. I'm so remarkably sick of sitting here. I'm also remarkably sick of going downstairs in order to change the location of where I'm sitting. I just want something to happen. 8-24-2000, 2:31pm So, what expenses has my unfulfilled wanderlust accrued for me so far? $1500 - the van. $74 - title and registration for the van. $26 - VW maintenance book $133 - camping supplies, first excurion $69 - camping supplies, second excurion $127 - food. That's almost $2000. Add to that the repairs that are still underway. How much, $600 maybe? Oh yeah, and don't forget that I've already spent $145 on my Burning Man ticket... But wait, morgaN hasn't even left Fairfax County in that van! But wait, none of these supplies have even been inside the van yet! But wait, Burning Man is completely on the other side of the country and starts in 4 days! But... can morgaN even maintain his own semblance of sanity in this time of great waiting and patience?? Can he cope for much longer with his months old desire to leave home and go off adventuring, independant of the trivial details of his present day to day to day to week to month life?? Can his overwhelming and still mounting frustration somehow manifest itself into some giant insidious creature of darkness, which may some day, or even some minute, very soon ravage the countryside and knock over barns and step on abandoned hardware stores and eat helpless schoolyards??? Time will tell. But based on my present situation, I'd say time is going to take as long as it wants before it gets around to said telling... 8-23-2000, 9:46pm I've decided it'd be fun to send postcards and such to people around the country while I'm traveling. If you want to be added to my list of people to write to, even if I don't know you, email me your address as soon as possible. I'll be hitting the road for Burning Man pretty soon, so you'd better hurry up; though I expect I'll continue with it during my travels beyond Burning Man. My family went to have dinner with my grandparents tonight. They're new old people appartment is really nice. Very spacious and well designed. We ate in the buildings dinning room. My grandparents made reservations (! weird..) and dressed up all formal. The food was pretty good, though we had to keep trading plates around to get the right things to the right person. The meal cost gets charged to their account, I guess. It was really neat seeing all the different types