Journal Archives from theDreamworld ... August 2002

August 31, 2002

There's a sad truth here. Still with me; replaying in my mind from not only tonight's events but from so many other instances throughout my entire life.

Do you know how to mingle? How to meet new people? How to make pleasant conversation at parties or get-together's? Do you know how to appreciate someone really attractive without getting depressed about realizing they aren't similarly interested in you? And that they never will be? Do you know when to leave a party or end a conversation? Even just to say goodbye on the phone? And maybe even have it feel like it was right to wrap things up at that point? Do you feel like you fit in? Or that you were good company?

Well, good for you. At least one of us can do some of those things. Because I sure can't.

I had a nice (and yummy!) dinner with Chris and Heather at their new apartment. Sarah was in town for the long weekend and she joined us with Erik. And Chris and Heather's friend Adam, who I had never met before, joined us as well. For me, going to parties or get-togethers has gotten more and more awkward each year of my life, and the last four years have just been horrible for that. I have gotten to the point that I'm nervous about everything I say, what I do, or how I sit. I end up second-guessing everything that happens and replay everything in my head during the situation and for the next few days afterward (and heck, that's what I do .. just play things over and over in my head and find all of the awkward moments or stupid things I say or do and then see it over and over again in my head. Maybe I'm just some sort of emotional masochist). Anyhow, Chris and Heather's apartment is great, and they were both really great to be around. Well ... everybody was great for that matter. But I felt out of place, and I felt so many times like I'd just made a complete fool of myself with something I said. Maybe it wasn't all that bad because nobody teased me about anything I said, but then again they're all really nice people, so I wouldn't really expect them to say anything anyhow. And I felt like a goof for a few different things I said and did while we were playing Trivial Pursuit. Again - maybe I'm making myself worry about nothing, but I would just say something and then think, "What the fuck did you say that for? That had to be the most idiotic comment you made all night?" And then at the end of the evening I ran into one of my huge problems of not realizing when to leave politely. Sometimes I just think my brain just doesn't work right ...

And I hate this! I know that even if I did say something stupid that I'm probably blowing things way out of proportion and nobody cares. And I know that these people wouldn't have had me over of they thought I was just some complete idiot. But that's just my brain - just what I think. What I feel, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.

It's clear enough for me to have seen in myself - I just don't have any self-confidence. But hey, I don't have much self-worth either. I don't really like me, and it's hard to understand why anybody else would. And it's not like it's all in my head. Heck, I've been rejected far too many times in my life by people who've just told me over and over again how worthless and stupid I am. And I prove them right because I'm worthless and stupid enough to return to those same people and their opinions time and again, somehow just hoping for just once that they might accept me or like ,e or tell me they respect or appreciate something I said or did. Just once. Just to make me think everything else has been worth it. But they never do. They just use me in some fashion, show me again how much of a loser I am, and then basically tell me to get lost until they need something from me again.

And still I go back for more.

And in all fairness, none of the people tonight have been like that to me. Part of me says, "...Yet ..." but they all seem to honestly just be good people - in fact, better people than me. And maybe that's what makes it so hard to feel like I fit in. Because I don't see it. And I see them all so happy and so in charge of their lives and , well, I just don't see how I fit in with that.

On top of everything else, I feel like I can't go anywhere at this point without seeing a guy that I want to meet. It's not a need for sex, even though there's an attraction thing involved. It's a different kind of desire. A companionship thing. It's not everybody, but enough that there's seemingly someone around every place I go that makes me long for their company. And it is a longing. It just hurts in the pit of my stomach to see them from afar and never be closer. Fuck, am I so lonely that every guy I see seems like salvation? Well ... that seems to cover it, doesn't it?

Nothing ever changes, does it? Just stupid, fucking pathetic ...

Posted at 4:27 AM

August 30, 2002

Today was another crappy day. Rather than just blow off another Journal entry with a nifty quote or song, I decided to just be up front and say I'm miserable. Granted, you don't probably want to hear it (and you may not even care), but I just can't hide behind some quote or something every time I get depressed. Hell, this would end up just being mostly quotes if I did that, and hopefully you're coming here to read more than just quotes, even if what you're reading is simply the sad reality of my miserable life. And heck, maybe you can read about how much I hate my life and somehow feel like yours isn't so bad. I don't know ... that works for some people.

So what's got me so emotionally fucked? Damned if I know. Certainly enough stupid, fucked up shit has been going wrong around me all week, but that's not exactly something new. So I just don't know why it's all getting me so angry and so horribly sad. It just is.

And hopefully next week will be better. Hopefully. Because this week has been simply exhausting.

Posted at 12:18 AM

August 29, 2002

Following what has so far, even up to this evening, been simply an abso-fucking-lutely miserable week, the crew got together at 'the Boy' for our renewed Thursday night get-together. I tell you; I probably would have gone off the deep end tonight if I hadn't had everyone around to just ground me and calm me down and even make me laugh.

As these evenings go, things were sort of subdued as we all just caught up with what everyone did over the summer and what sort of classes they have this semester. Subdued, yes, but that was enough to pull me through.

Damn, this emotional sinkhole I've been in all summer is simply miserable. I want out, but I have become more hopeless and despondent than ever, and I'm having great difficulty finding any chances for happiness at all. Ah well; I guess it's better to at least have the Thursday night bunch than nothing. And they are all great friends.

But why can't I feel like that's enough?

Posted at 2:32 AM

August 28, 2002

This.
Week.
Sucks.

... as does life in general ...

Posted at 12:47 AM

August 27, 2002

Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
- Cole Porter

Ev'ry time we say goodbye
I die a little,
Ev'ry time we say goodbye
I wonder why a little,
Why the Gods above me
Who must be in the know
Think so little of me
They allow you to go.
When you're near there's such an air
Of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere
Begin to sing about it.
There's no love song finer
But how strange
The change
From major to minor
Ev'ry time we say goodbye,
Ev'ry single time we say goodbye.

Posted at 10:05 PM

August 26, 2002

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

- Robert Frost

Posted at 10:05 PM

August 25, 2002

Well, on this last day of freedom before classes resume at BGSU, I did a whole slew of different activities for relaxation.

I watched all of the political news shows in the morning, yelling at the guests and hosts in the tv about how right or wrong they are. Sometimes I get so upset with these shows and their topics that you'd think there was no way that I could find them relaxing or enjoyable, but I do. It's a chance to just see people really look at two sides of politics rather than just being fed one view through a press conference or a news article. Even though I still see a l0ot of bias, I at least feel that most of the time it's better than nothing since there is no other option for hearing both sides of any issue directly.

Just after these shows ended I played a level of Warcraft III to completion. Finally, I'm up to the Night Elves portion of the game. I really kicked ass on this level today, and that's good considering I had to restart the level twice before because I got ripped so bad. But I rocked!

Just before I finished my level on Warcraft, I got a call from Christiana and spoke to her about her travels so far. She was in France today, just having ridden the train from Italy and waiting on a plane bound for England. She'll be jet-setting for the next week or two before she settles back in France for her own Fall semester. It was good to hear from her. She was tired, but she is having so much fun!

I stepped away from gaming at Warcraft while talking to Christiana and instead watched the tv in the background, getting to see the beginning of Terminator 2, which I love to watch again and again. I broke away after talking to Christiana and went back to my game, but I finished the level shortly thereafter, and I just sat back to enjoy Buffy, Stargate SG1, and Nash Bridges before the normal lineup of FOX Sunday night comedies.

During the news programs earlier in the day, I had surfed the net for news and blogs and stories and such, checking in on all of the things I keep up with. AS I watched tv again in the evening, I surfed around again and read some more stories (while watching tv in the background), and it was all nice and relaxed.

Now, as I sit here writing my Journal entry, I am converting some of my CD's into MP3's. I was actually doing this for a while during the tv-watching and the story-reading as well, perhaps making me seem like some new-Millenium-style REnaissance man (or not). But heck, I finally like the new version of iTunes, so I actually enjoy using it and might as well have some materials to play.

And since I'm just about to upload this, the rest of the night will just be watching the news and some reruns, maybe reading another story or two, and converting some more CD's. And then tomorrow it's up with the alarm for the first day back at the grind ...

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

Posted at 10:39 PM

August 24, 2002

Yesterday, my copy of the new Mac OS (OS X: 10.2, codename: Jaguar) arrived, and I barely had time to install it before going to dinner with Lee. I have been anxiously awaiting this since it is supposed to be much quicker and more responsive and includes many updated and new Apple-provided applications. The fact that I received my copy a day before the expected ship date was fabulous, particularly because it gave me a chance to install and tweak it (and play with it) before school starts on Monday.

When I got back from my evening with Lee and Lynne last night I seriously considered messing around more with Jaguar yet that night, even though it was late, but I fought against myself and anxiously awaited a chance to play today.

The install itself was from two CD's, and had sweeping changes. I had completed the install yesterday and spent some time poking around, and one of the things I learned was that there were so many new bells and whistles in some programs like Mail, Address Book, and a number of the Preferences Panels, that I needed to poke around to learn the new things and then spend time reformatting some layouts to suit my tastes. To their credit, Apple made an update system that retained virtually every setting and preference and imported every set of data. It was fairly straightforward.

Unlike with Windows, where a new version has a whole new designation (ie: Windows 3.0, Windows, 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, etc.), Apple uses decimal numbers (and sometimes whole numbers, as the leap from OS 9 to OS X last year). This new version is 10.2. While there are incremental updates to the Mac OS, they are usually smaller decimals (for instance the last version of the Mac OS prior to 10.2 was 10.1.5), similar to what Microsoft calls service paks or "necessary updates." Just like when you update from Windows 98 to Windows XP, certain things may or may not carry over and the occasional piece of software might not even work without an update or a tweak. I find that Apple's transitions on the big OS updates are usually a bit smoother than Microsoft's, but they still call for a little double-checking.

Most of what I spent time with today was learning new features and in some cases new programs, like iChat (a built-in chat client that interacts with Address Book, Mail, and a few other apps), and the new version of Sherlock, which puts every search engine you've ever seen to shame.

Ironically, the thing that took me longest today was updating Windows XP. I have an emulating program on my Mac that runs Windows XP, and I was checking to see that it still worked fine under the new Mac OS. While I was in Windows, I decided to check for updates, and wow! were there a bunch. And of course, you have to restart the damn thing after every two updates. Ugh! Microsoft ...

One thing that bugged me in the new Mac OS was what seemed like a severe lag in start-up time. It seemed odd considering early reports were that start-up was notably speeded. After a while I realized that Apple made a much more comprehensive Font management aspect to the new OS, and the way I had previously been storing my fonts left the system checking the tens of thousand that I have, rather than just the few dozen I keep active. Needless to say, the situation almost resolved itself once I figured out what the issue was.

After moving things around and tweaking and playing, I spent a little time checking that everything runs. And everything did. Except the Microsoft Office (which I found, as usual, amusing considering my constant opinions of Microsoft). I had read a review earlier that stated that all programs worked fine under the new OS, but that WOrd and Excel and Entourage all had buggy aspects that failed or crashed under Jaguar. WIth some concern, I looked around the web and found no updates or bug-fixes, but nothing from the Microsoft Office would run on my system. I decided just to reinstall it, and thankfully that worked. Even so, I find it typical that the only program to exhibit any problem at all was the stuff from Microsoft, and it wasn't even just a bug but the failure to start up the programs at all! But I'm happy with things as long as they work now.

With a final review of things, the new OS is indeed much faster, has all sorts of new features packed in, a bunch of entirely new application included, and even a whole bunch of wonderful, subtle improvements that have been taken into consideration throughout absolutely everything. I can easily see why all of the reviews were so favorable.

Posted at 9:38 PM

August 23, 2002

Today was meant to specifically be the day that I bought my books for the coming semester. While I knew I would do other things, this was my big goal. And as goals go, I was very successful.

Somehow or other I was able to get all of my books that are required for all of my classes. This pretty much never happens because usually at least one book or more is still on backorder. And even better, I only had to go to two bookstores rather than the usual three (and it was even the two more easily accessible bookstores at that). As if the bookbuying weren't already going well enough, I already owned one of the books and thus didn't have to buy it (Burroughs' Naked Lunch), and the grand total only came to $230 including tax. Last semester (Spring), my books cost twice that much!

The collection of books looks great as well, with everything looking interesting, particularly the books for my class on the Literature of the Beat Generation. I have been having some trepidation about returning to school, but the books are inspiring me a bit. So all in all, the book-buying gig was a tremendous success.

And while buying books was really my only big plans for the day, I ended up having a great evening out with Lee and Lynne (wonderful ladies who are Board members here at the Arts Center). We had a fantastic dinner at the Sylvania Country Club and the went to Lynne's for cocktails and conversation (as usual, I had no alcohol, just water, but I was quite active in the conversation). It was a fun time with lots of laughter and learning new things about each other. And Lynne has two wonderful dogs that just couldn't get enough of me scratching them behind their ears. We got together around 7 AM and ended the evening at 1 AM, spending far longer together than I would have expected, but I had great fun the whole time.

It was such a different sort of night than the Thursday night coffee get-togethers we have in BG, with different topics and such (which is partly due to age-group and partly due to common interests). Both in their own ways are great ways to spend an evening, and it sure beats being alone at the Arts Center (under any circumstances). I don't expect that we'll go out often, but Lee and I have been trying to share a meal every few weeks just to relax and enjoy each other's company. I can only hope that will continue, even as Lee prepares to leave her position on the Board here at the Arts Center.

Posted at 1:47 AM

August 22, 2002

Today could well have been very disappointing and depressing, but it turned out alright in the end.

To begin with, I had expected to have a Thursday night get together with Chris, Heather, Misty, Sarah, and Erik at "the Boy." Chris and Heather were to have returned from their respective hometowns with all of the stuff they are moving into their new apartment, and Sarah and Erik were to get a sendoff as they moved Sarah to graduate school in Washington, D.C. I had already known on Tuesday that things were not going as planned since Sarah decided she and Erik needed to leave earlier so that they didn't end up driving so late. Heather and Chris weren't even in town until well into the afternoon today, and Sarah and I just decided she should go and keep in touch with us. We both would have enjoyed the sendoff, but it just didn't seem destined to be.

On the plus side, Sarah and I had a couple of great, albeit brief conversations, and I feel confident we'll be able to keep in touch even with the distance between us.

On top of all of this, I've been dealing with having learned that Aphrodite, my large golden snail, is dead. It wasn't a crushing thing, but it was disappointing at the least. But I bought a new Betta and a new snail today, having thoroughly cleaned the tank out yesterday, and it's nice to have life and color and movement in the tank. So that ended up being a good thing.

On top of all of that, I received notification that my copy of the new version of the Mac OS (OS X: 10.2) has been shipped. This new version is dramatically different, faster, and full of more features, and it will be wonderful to have. And there's even a chance it will arrive tomorrow or Saturday so that I could have it already installed by the time school starts on Monday. Am I a geek for being excited about an updated operating system? Probably. But I can live with that.

Posted at 10:05 PM

August 21, 2002

Sometimes I just get so frustrated with the people in this damn building that I could just explode. I've lived in the Arts Center for well over four years now, and I had been a regular visitor to friends who were resident artists over nearly ten years prior to that. Yet no matter how long I've been here, no matter how nice I am to everyone in the building, and no matter how much previous contact I've had with someone here, I constantly find that other people here have no idea who I am.

Today it was Terry Burton who stopped me to ask if I had said something I was rumored to have said that bothered him. I hadn't, but it took fifteen minutes of conversation to find that he thought I was Greg, an artist who has a studio in the building but isn't even a resident (in fact, he isn't even here very often). So after I corrected Terry, he spoke to me for a while, mentioning things from a few previous conversations we have had, and it amazed me that he could remember what had happened and what we spoke about but not remember my name or my art form.

Don't get me wrong on this. I am generally pretty horrible with names, but I know for the most part that I either know the right name or I just can't remember. And even with my trouble getting names into my head, they usually stick after I've had a couple longer conversations with the person in question. And I can be forgiving about people not remembering may name under certain circumstances because I'm not terribly social and I live in a limited access wing of the building. But I also know that certain people in the building, who I like but usually only have brief, passing conversations with, always remember my name and that I'm a writer and a few other things. So it amazes me that people I've had lengthy conversations with on various occasions will treat me as if they have no idea who I am.

One person in particular drives me nuts with this. He's called Peter the Poet, and he's been a tenant in the building longer than anyone else, having been here when the organization was first begun. Peter used to come into Kinko's years ago when I was a supervisor to copy his poems. We had long conversations and I often commented on his writing. I moved away from town for a few years, but when I moved back, Peter was a regular customer at the copy shop that I owned, and we once again talked and shared poetry. And then, when I moved into the Arts Center when my business partner screwed me over, Peter and I were living in the same building and seeing each other much more often. I would hold the door open for Peter on many occasions when he was coming into the building on his bike. And he would always ask me if I was a new tenant and what was my name and what was my artistic medium. And I'd respond every time that I'd been here for x amount of time and that I wrote and that Peter and I have had many conversations in the past. And he would be oblivious.

And while most people aren't as bad as Peter, many of them, including a few of my next-door neighbors, don't know my name. A fairly large number of people can never even remember that writing is my art form. It's just appalling. Am I that uninteresting or invisible?

I can accept that I don't fit into the party atmosphere of some residents and that I'm a little boring at times, and I can even accept that very few people from the building ever spend any time at all hanging out with me, but it's just aggravating that they can't even remember my fucking name. Come on, is that asking so much?

Posted at 1:18 AM

August 20, 2002

"Well, this entry will be pretty long. I found this editorial article online, and I wanted everyone to see it, so I'm posting it here. The author is a bit over the top with his conspiracy-theories in some cases, but he rings shockingly true about oh so many things in the good ole' US of A. This was in the Baltimore Chronicle and was originally written and sent to the Washington Post, but they haven't yet printed it. I agree with the vast majority of what this fellow has to say, and I would be interested to hear what others think. Hell, that's why I have a Message Board (if you were wondering).

Open Letter to America from a Canadian

by W.R. McDougall

Dear America:

And so it has come to this. Your once-great nation has fallen into madness, an affliction of mass denial that brings shivers up the spines of millions outside your borders. Yours is a sick nation. But most of you carry on as though nothing at all is the matter.

Dark, evil operations run rampant in the secret corners of your government institutions. A dubiously constituted government pursues war at will anywhere on earth, discussing nuclear options that become points for cheerful chatter over lunch. Your military and intelligence agencies employ terrorist tactics around the globe even as they insist that such tactics are necessary in the fight against terrorism.

You have become a nation of monsters, America. Hypocrites. Murderers. Fools.

Your constitution is a shambles thanks to "national security" measures resulting from what might well be U.S.-government-sanctioned terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., covert provocations designed to justify a malevolent, poisonous, oil-based military economy.

Never mind that earth-friendly technology already exists to once and for all end dependence on oil, coal and nuclear energy from huge, out-of-control utilities and corporations. You would rather pay through the nose for your insecure comforts, wouldn't you America, and make others pay with their blood.

At the same time, you stand by as the Israelis' secular Zionists--whom you support through the supply of arms and money--slaughter untold numbers of innocents in the West Bank, then blame the Palestinians for bringing the terror upon themselves. (True, there are abominable Arab suicide bombers in Israel's midst. But are they not driven to madness and desperation by your infernal support of international terrorist politics?)

As I write these words, you support a nation run by a convicted murderer by the name of Ariel Sharon who with impunity is carrying out war crimes as cruel and horrendous as those of other sadistic tyrants in history. And you say, in your utter cynicism, 'When will these Palestinians bring this war to an end?'

You recklessly wage combat on other fronts, too. At home, your War on Drugs is a disastrous 30-year folly--a gigantic con game designed to benefit lethal cartels, corrupt politicians and menacing intelligence agencies across the planet.....

With your government's support, crooked multinationals like Monsanto buy up the world's water supplies, and take possession of the world's vegetation through Frankenstein technology already known to cause illness.

Does the FDA care about any of this? It does not. It has long been on the bandwagon to foist genetically altered food on the Guinea Pigs of the country--including every man, woman and child on America's increasingly toxic soil.

You are a nation of suckers, America, to be bled dry of your hard-earned pay through outrageous bank schemes, Wall Street rip-offs and fake government budget grabs. Your Pentagon cannot account for trillions in lost dollars.

Does this bother you? Not in the least.

Your whole economy is controlled by what is for the most part ravenous, international private banking interests in the form of The Federal Reserve, which with your government's consent leads you down the garden path to certain financial ruin thanks to a national debt you will never be able to repay.

How is it that private banks are responsible for issuing your currency? How is it that they are allowed to charge ridiculous interest rates on what they issue? By decree, this was supposed to be the responsibility of your government, which could create its own currency without charging interest.

Do you realize your congress could dismiss these banks in an instant if it so wished? But don't ever count on it. More important matters are pressing. The upcoming election needs investment.

These very same money men are the ones who, through unmonitored and unrepresentative world committees, are driving countries like Argentina into hopeless debt and social upheaval. These greedy overlords are creating strife and suffering on a scale too tragic for words in nation after nation. Just look at Africa.

They've got their sights on America, now, too; disrupting economic stability through so-called free trade initiatives and provisions for special favors and the endless flow of cash to corporate monstrosities like Enron.

Amid all this, where are those who are supposed to represent your interests, America? For the most part, your congressional representatives are nothing but swine gathering at the corporate troughs. Your president is a white-collar thug, a hypocrite who through his actions celebrates war, repression and greed even as he gives lip service to peace, freedom and justice.

George W. Bush deceives you daily, the war monger hiding behind a phony patriotism. He is an Enron buddy boy, a spoiled child lying in his teeth about his past and current dirty deeds.

Does he care about you America? Hardly. This is altogether obvious to those outside your borders who are politically aware and awake to the world around them.

You were never concerned about the disgraceful practices of George's ruthless father, either, a Bin-Laden cohort and friend to criminals and killers in global drug, oil and terrorist enterprises. Iran. Vietnam. El Salvador. Chile. Guatemala. Iraq. And on and on. The never-ending bully-boy story of blood, guns, drugs and money.

Does any of this matter? No, it's simply time to eat.

Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."

Few among you are the least bit concerned that no real investigation of 911 has taken place, that no serious investigation of the anthrax attacks is moving forward, that no authentic investigation of Enron, or the murder of one of its top executives, is underway.

How many of you give the slightest damn about the totalitarian measures your government is taking to keep its secret meetings, grubby files and treasonous activities from your eyes?....

When did you stop caring, America? Was it after your own FBI and intelligence agencies plotted the murder of President John F. Kennedy? Or is this just the raving lunacy of the conspiracy nut? What does your gut tell you, America? Is something a little amiss here?

Forget about it. Have some Pepto-Bismol.

Today, in futility, your own government goes to court against itself for information you are entitled to by law. But this is hardly deemed vital news in the community. It is a fleeting reference in an electronic sea of meaningless banter. For proof, just look to all the spineless wimps who constitute your mainstream news media.

Today, you excoriate, ridicule and ostracize the brave and true among you. Your best investigative journalists are fired from their jobs and ignored. Congress's few courageous souls are laughed at and dismissed out of hand as crackpots. The most honest and conscientious political leader in the country, Ralph Nader, is a powerless, near-invisible curiosity easily side-lined by hired goons.

America, you are a goddamn shame.

What law matters now in your despicable state? What justice? What truth?

When will you wake up?

If you had your druthers, you would right now gather your courage, take to the streets and march on Washington D.C in the millions. But I know you will do no such thing. The vast majority of you are spiritually, emotionally and intellectually dead.

As I write these words, I can only imagine what additional horrors your shadow government might be planning in what will surely be an attempt to justify militarism and totalitarianism on a universal scale. A nuclear explosion in one of your cities, perhaps? A massive bio-chemical attack?

Or perhaps it will be some Arab terrorist who finally commits the terrible deed, his last thought before death being the promises you made to him before you killed his family.

Posted at 10:32PM

August 19, 2002

Fuckin' Microsoft!

Yes, I am once again mad at Microsoft. This time it's not for their strongarm, illegal business practices or even their stifling of innovation in the computer industry. No, this time it's the good old standby complaint that always fits Microsoft - crappy programming.

I have been struggling with Microsoft's crap during this whole revision of the website. Microsoft, you might not be aware, thinks that it's too good to use universally agreed-upon standards in any part of the computer industry even when they say they will. Stand by JAVA/ Sure ... until they warp it so that they can try to gain dominance and edge out the other players. Well ... let's not get into examples here.

In this particular case, I am struggling against Microsoft Internet Explorer's ridiculous imbalance of coding standards. I can code everything all the way through, test it on Netscape Communicator or the new Netscape or Mozilla or Opera or anything, and the code does exactly what it's supposed to. And then I run it on Explorer and it has something wrong. Or something a few pixels off mark. Ugh! I could just kill somebody.

Now the irony is that Netscape is usually condemned for not applying all of the accepted coding standards, and that holds some truth in some parts of Netscape Communicator (the old Netscape). The new Netscape (6.0 or 7.0) has no problems at all. I, myself, use Mozilla because it's fast, full-functioned, and is open-source rather than another tool from some big corporation. It also has some cool features no other browser has. But regardless of how good Mozilla is, the vast majority of people use IE because it comes bundled with fucking everything, and it was for a while the best option for features and performance when Netscape was falling apart as a company.

So since so many people use Explorer, I'm stuck making doubly sure that the site displays properly. One of the big advances in my coding in this new version is that the site looks the same on every browser. The old site looked the way I wanted it to on every browser but Explorer, where it displayed text improperly and loaded more slowly. That was one thing I really wanted to get past, and I'm happy to say I succeeded. But geeze, the price I've had to pay.

Tonight was yet another nightmare of recoding a whole slew of pages because of one little thing that wouldn't display properly on Explorer even though it worked elsewhere. Ugh! Damn shitty Microsoft cheap-ass programming ...

Okay, I'm a bit calmer now. I just wanted you all to know what I'm going through to give you a better website.

Posted at 12:17 AM

Yes! <jumps up and down>. Let's celebrate because I'm finally uploading version 2 of theDreamworld website! Tee-hee! Isn't this cool!

Anyhow, this is it ... or at least this is what you get. I will say up front that I am personally pleased with the look and feel of things and am very glad to have made the change, even though it has been a bitch. The new pages have been made from the ground up - this is not just a bunch of changes to the old code - so things are cleaner and better designed (not that you'll ever see that) and should run more smoothly.

With that said, I still will probably find a few bugs or bad links that I somehow missed, so bear with me asa I uncover stuff over the next week or so. And if you find anything buggy or that doesn't seem quite right, then drop me an e.mail. Hell, drop me an e.mail anyway or sign my Guestbook. I just don't hear from anybody that reads this site, and I'd be thrilled to have some feedback.

As you may or may not have noticed, the Journal is pretty much in the same format (even though I think it looks much better graphically). I spent a lot of time exploring different blog software and services and decided that my initial feelings were right and that Greymatter is the best option. But the problem is that it requires a little more finesse with HTML and various scripts than I currently possess.With time I can figure it out, experiment a little, finally get it right, and then take the time to transfer all of the Journal entries from the last year and three quarters into the new code. But that will take buttloads of time, and I just can't spare that much time right now. I wish I'd realized that sooner, because I've probably wasted a total of two or three days combined over the last week weighing options and making feeble attempts. Oh, well. It's all something of a learning experience.

The only big shortfall from not updating the Journal code is that I still don't have a system where you can comment on individual entries. But I'm really into having that sort of thing, so it's not cut out - just delayed a bit.

Along similar lines, the new Message Board system I wanted also uses various scripts and Perl stuff much like the Journal stuff, so that was delayed also, even though I spent a lot of time looking at my options for that as well. On the plus side, my Message Board service, Voy, has a new system that allows a little better system, so I spent time updating and tweaking so that it fits in better. The big shortfall here from the system I wanted was a built-in chat/messaging system within the board itself and also a full search engine for the site. But those, too, aren't being abandoned, just postponed.

So, even if it is slightly less than what I wanted (and still want), it is still tremendously better (to my mind). I hope you feel similarly and enjoy the new format. On one last note, I will be doing a few more adjustments to the file sizes of backgrounds and images and stuff, so expect the whole thing to load more quickly very soon (although it seems to load pretty damn fast for me (but of course I have DSL, so most everything loads up pretty fast).

Once again, I'd love to hear from you. Anything! Please! I'm lonely! Just drop me a line!

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Well, I still feel like hell (not that anyone probably cares, but what the hell...).

I have faced decidedly disappointing attempts at getting a new Message Board and Journal system working just yet. While I refuse to just give up without a few more attempts, part of me is leaning towards just finishing off the site revision without the major modifications on the Message Board and Journal until later this fall. That would give me more time to try to learn about JAVA, Perl, CGI scripts, and a few other scripting styles. I can tell that none of it's that hard, but so far, without much time to play around with any of it, I'm really just not very sharp on this. With luck I might get things to work, but I have so many other things that I need to do during the next week that I'm debating how my time will be better spent.

The whole damn thing is my own fault for not working on the redesign of the site earlier in the summer, but taking responsibility for putting it off doesn't really help me in the least at this point.

On the plus side, just about everything other than the Message Board and Journal is done and tested. In fact the only other thing left is reworking a few graphic images, and I'm hoping that the photo manipulations won't take too much time. All of that means that the new look and feel is close, and the only question now is how many extra features there will be. That's the bottom line with the new Message Board and Journal systems I want to use - they will have a bunch more very cool features, but they might have to wait.

The overriding irony of this struggle with new systems and added features is that everything I'm adding makes it easier to make comments and feelings about Journal entries and Message Board topics, but the old Message Board has been all but dead, and I can count the number of e.mails I've received on one hand even if I lose a few fingers. So why I'm getting all flustered about possibly having to delay adding these features is beyond me. Maybe I'm just insane. Or anal. ... okay, so it's anal.

Still, I am much closer to what I wanted originally from the website with the new modifications. The new features would pretty much make things perfect, but that will happen if it's going to happen, and that's how I'll have to look at it.

I still want to do a little writing, too. Pretty funny considering I have about a week and have all sorts of other things that need to get done. Pretty funny also considering I've been saying this all summer. As much as I want to write things, though, I just can't. It's the worst case of blocked thoughts I've had in years, and now I even have a writers' workshop coming up in a week when classes start. Yea.

So "boo-hoo" for me. I'll just have to suck it up, 'cause that's the way life is. Man ... that sucks.

I got up earlier than usual because I couldn't sleep, and no matter how much I move around and try different positions, I just feel stiff and achy all over the place. Top that all of with the insanity that is the work I've been putting into the new, redesigned version of this website (which looms much closer now, even though I still have a few troublesome aspects to work out). The work on the website has been burning holes in my eyes and freaking me out with all of the programming and reprogramming and experimentation and reevaluations. Ugh! I'm more than ready for this web design work to be over.

Combine all of this with my growing anxiety over all of the other things that absolutely must be done in the next eight days before school resumes, and I'm getting tense. Ironically, I had hoped at one point that my last week before returning to classes would just be full of screwing around, playing games, watching movies, being a vegetable ... that sort of thing. Oh well.

If there's a positive side to any of this, it is that I have been far too busy and frustrated to get thoroughly depressed. And I would. It's there waiting for me to try to relax, and it has nearly overwhelmed me a few times over the last couple of days even with all of the preoccupying things I'm involved in, but eventually I'm just going to be hit with it. I wish it would just go away.

But regardless of what I want, I'll just have to live with what I get. That goes not only for my emotions but for my accomplishments over the next week. We'll just have to see.

Tonight was a fairly decent get-together at "the Boy" for me, Chris, Heather, Sarah, Misty, and Erik. Although we only stayed 'til just after Midnight (which is incredibly early for us), we had a nice relaxing evening of comfortable companionship.

We discussed all sorts of things, including our usual gab about current affairs and politics and school, and we had interesting discussions on how we viewed the concepts of souls, hell, and road rage (although the road rage discussion was mostly about me). Above all else we realized that the summer didn't last long enough and none of us are ready or willing to go back to school in another week and a half. It's just not something we feel ready for.

Even worse is that Sarah starts moving things to Washington, D.C. tomorrow for her start in grad school at American. We'll only see her one more time on next Thursday night before she's gone except for e.mail (which we all hope will keep us connected). Chris and Heather will be leaving tomorrow as well, both heading to their respective homes to gather all of their possessions to move up to their new apartment in Bowling Green. Over the course of the week they'll be moving all sorts of stuff from their homes and here at the Art Center, and I won't likely see them until Thursday night when we all get together to say goodbye to Sarah. And heck, school starts up the following Monday, so that's pretty much it for summer.

Yes, there is still time left to work on various projects that I want to see finished, but nine days is not nearly enough for all that I want to accomplish. I can accept that different things will simply have to be set aside and left for another time, but there's still a whole hell of a lot of stuff that simply must be done. Somehow I already expect to be frustrated regardless of how much I manage to finish.

"Come with me, and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove." - Christopher Marlowe

"It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death." - Eleanor Roosevelt

I've been writing these Journal entries the last few days, putting as much enthusiasm into them as I can - and to some extent I have been pleased with making progress on redesigning the website and with understanding myself better - but it's a facade to some extent because I'm just incredibly depressed even while I'm doing everything else.

I wrote the last few Journal entries thinking, "Well, these were indeed things I had done and thought about, and besides - nobody wants to hear me blathering on about how lonely and miserable I am. Hell, even I don't want to hear it." And yes, I still feel that way, but even after spending some of the day doing web design, I just don't have anything to write about because I'm so fucking preoccupied with this emptiness.

All it takes now is to see even a cartoon character that's an attractive guy and I'm all miserable wishing he'd be my friend or companion. How sad is that? I'm not kidding about this either. I watch tv and get melancholy or even teary-eyed when I see an attractive guy in a one minute commercial. Sometimes I think I'm just going to go crazy with having so much longing inside me. Other times I feel like my heart will explode. And sometimes I just feel paralyzed with the fear of being alone.

Here I have a fear of rejection, a fear of abandonment, and a fear of being alone. I used to think that I wasn't afraid of anything. But what's the quick end from facing a murderer or falling off of a bridge compared to the unending pain and emptiness of being alone. When I wake up each day it feels like a death sentence. It's hell. Simply hell.

How am I ever going to deal with this once classes resume? Can I keep myself together for sixteen weeks while I take care of everything I have to? I don't know. I usually manage, but I don't usually end the summer this whipped.

And that's how I feel - whipped. I'm just tired and hopeless. Beaten down. And I don't see a way out. And I don't know what to do.

It is certainly possible that over time I will learn things about JAVA and incorporate them into an update of theDreamworld website, but they are just not going to be coming in the next version of the site. I admit that the basics of JAVA seem pretty easy as programming languages go. And the things I wanted to use JAVA to accomplish were actually fairly no-frills stuff that would be more for my own satisfaction than anybody else's. Nonetheless, I can't seem to get it to work properly.

Had I more time to experiment and even the opportunity to get a real book to learn how to work with JAVA, that would be great. And I may yet do that so that I can enhance the website, even if only subtly. For right now, though, I think I need to be more focused on continuing with the work of the overhaul into version 2 of the website, otherwise I'll never get the new version up by the time classes resume. And if it isn't done by then ... well ... who knows if I'll have time to finish things around classes.

None of this is to say that the site will be any less improved from version 1. In fact, there are already a lot of cool things that work perfectly well now. A lot of the things are little details here and there that a lot of people will miss or just not care about, but it is all combining to make the site much more attractive and sophisticated.

At this rate, I expect tomorrow to see most of the main page finished. In fact, the main page will probably be complete except for needing to set up the new Journal through the Greymatter source code. And the graphics should be done tomorrow or Monday as well. That just leaves secondary pages which under the new design mostly just includes separate pages for the poems and stories. Most of the other things are incorporated into the main page to make everything more accessible. Hopefully everyone will like it.

In any case, today has been full of programming and reprogramming the html, and I'm glad to take a rest now. Sometimes things just don't work as easily as they should, and today had a bunch of those types of moments.

Yesterday I finished reading a different online story that was fresh and new (new to me and relatively new in general). It's a gay coming-of-age/acceptance/love story called "Finding His Own" (found among Drake's Tales). The story is a spinoff of the "For the Love of Pete" and "Brian & Pete" stories that I've suggested before from Dewey, and shares the same deep emotional and psychological insights and explorations found in the original series. And wow! is it long! - About sixty long chapters. It took a while to read, even spending a whole lot of time at it, but it was very powerful.

As is often the case in the stories I enjoy most, I could relate very closely to certain characters, and understand how they felt. I could see them face problems that I have faced and see how they dealt with it. And in this case something that doesn't always result happened. I learned something about myself.

The main character in this story, Chris, wants nothing more than for everyone to like him and to make everyone happy. In fact, he wants these things so badly that he blames himself whenever either of these things doesn't happen and someone doesn't like him or someone around him isn't happy. This self-blame is so strong that he has trouble accepting help from others or even letting people in on his problems and fears. Inadvertently, he keeps the people who love him most at arms length because he doesn't feel worthy and because he fears losing them like he has lost everyone closest to him in his life (his father died, his brother joined the Navy, and his best friend/crush moved away).

At the same time, his close friend (eventually boyfriend) Tony, who was severely harassed and beaten a few years earlier, tries to hide himself under baggy clothes and in back corners and with general avoidance of any living being. Tony has trouble trusting people and fears their intentions, and it is difficult for him to accept friendship or love without thinking someone wants something from him or will hurt him.

Things are much more complex and involved than just this, with both characters being a lot more expansive and with a large number of other very involved characters throughout the story, but these short assessments cover some of the key aspects that are relevant to what I learned about myself.

Both of these characters reminded me clearly of my own desire to be liked, self-condemnation, and fearful distrust of people, and made me think very much of my overwhelming fear of rejection. I've realized I have this fear of rejection for a long time, and it has always seemed irrational. I mean, most everybody probably has some amount of fear that they will be rejected by others, but most people overcome it. Not me.

I have trouble making friends, getting dates, or even talking to strangers at a party thrown by people I know. If people approach me it's much better - I have an initial trust problem, but I open up fairly well when someone comes to me and proposes friendship or asks for a date (it's just that it doesn't happen a whole lot). If it comes down to me being required to make the approach then it generally just doesn't happen. I can't tell you how many people I've wanted as friends or wanted to date that I was just too terrified to even say "Hello" to, and most times I can't even look at such people without being just horribly afraid.

So I've thought to myself, "Heck. Why are you this petrified by something everybody else manages to overcome? Even generally shy people aren't ever this bad." And I've never been able to answer this. Until now.

You see, both characters in this story have fears of rejection in differing ways, and I could completely relate. The difference was that Tony overcomes his fears after he's been around Chris long enough to see that he's "the real deal," while Chris still can't understand why Tony likes him and blames himself for everything that goes wrong to either of them. Tony is like the way most everybody else in real life seems to be and overcomes his fear in his own way. Chris doesn't. I could so see myself in Chris.

The big revelation was when Chris goes to see a psychologist and is told his biggest problem is a fear of abandonment. He has trouble accepting that people can love him or that he is good enough to love because everyone he has loved most has abandoned him, and he feels that anyone else he loves will do the same. And I saw the same thing in me.

When I was very little, younger than four, I thought my father was the most incredible man in the world and that my mother loved me more than anyone or anything else in the world. And then I learned, more and more with each passing year after that, that my father was a hateful, abusive man who didn't want or appreciate me and would hurt me in any way he could. And I learned that my mother was only interested in her own happiness and didn't care about me in the least and would support my father in any form of abuse he wanted to cause.

I saw each of the friends I got close to as a child all move away not long after they became my best friend and closest daily companion. I saw nearly everyone I knew, including those I had called friends, reject, make fun of me, and harass me in junior high school when puberty hit me full force before anyone else. By the time I was a sophomore in high school the teasing and invectives had mostly fallen away, but I was rejected again by people I had thought were my friends. College was a change as I actually seemed to gain friends with each passing year. But many of those people turned on me in petty attacks that they simply thought were amusing even though I was terribly hurt.

As the years have passed, I have met more and more people and thought of many of them as my friends. But time after time those people let me down by just using me or condemning me for being gay or telling me that they don't want me around when I'm depressed. And some of them just outright fucked me over and screwed up my life in ways that I'm still paying for.

And I have an incredibly hard time getting close to anybody now, even once I know them and hang out with them. Even Chris and Heather. Hell, even Christiana. I just can't let go. And now I understand it.

I'm afraid to get too close and let anybody abandon me or let me down. I'm afraid that once I start feeling that closeness and love and happiness that I need so much, that it will be ripped away from me once again. And I don't think I could take it even a single time more.

So now I know. Now I understand why I'm like this. It makes complete sense, but I'm not sure if that makes any difference. I'm still scared. And I don't know how to get past that.

Well, after many hours spent here and there over the last few days, I have the general layout for the new version of theDreamworld website designed and working. Even more, I have some graphics set and working and even the beginnings of some of the navigation tools. I found some great inspirations from a few sites, and I have examples on how to make code for some things I want to try. It will still take me quite a while to get things up and running since there are still graphics to be created and modified, text and links and more navigation tools to add, and a big struggle with trying to transfer the entire Journal system and all past entries into the Greymatter system. Even as complicated and new-to-me as much of that will be, there may be an even bigger learning curve as I'm going to attempt writing some applets in JAVA for a few things, and I am taking a stab at JAVA with no background at all.

I think that everyone who has read this website before will be shocked at the differences in the new version. The graphics are going to be incredibly different; the page layout and navigation will be so much better and more handy and accessible; and the functionality of everything will be phenomenally expanded. For example, the new site will be more functional and interactive because Journal entries will allow for any reader to leave comments about the entry from any given day. And the new Bulletin Board will have a lot more versatility in how messages are posted and it will have the Chat system built into the Message Board itself. It's all going to be much more modern and wonderful.

But so far, as always seems to be the case every time I work on modifications to the site, it's a total pain in the ass. You make one small mistake with the html coding and some crazy little thing can make a change for the worse the whole site if luck is against you (which is my life's story). So I'm a little stressed from working and reworking things, but I'm still pleased to be making progress.

Christiana called me today from Italy with the good news that she had just finished her last online exams for the summer classes she has been taking. She was understandably extatic and I was happy for her, but I was still pretty reserved and she noticed.

Even after the good evening last night, I stayed in bed this morning for three hours after waking up just thinking and not feeling too great about things. I want to be happy; I really do, but I'm just falling apart whenever I'm alone (and sadly, that's the vast majority of the time). I'm filled with an exhausted feeling throughout my whole body like you get after a long hard day of work, and I'm coming to tears at the drop of a hat for no apparent reason at all. I'm trying to do things to keep myself busy and all, but it's just not having an effect - I'm just staying in the same horrible depression.

Mostly I'm stuck struggling against this depression, but I'm getting frustrated, too. I'm sick of being lonely and depressed, and I want to just do something, anything else and feel anything else than how things have been. I'm concerned about how this will affect school, too. I only have two and a half weeks left before the new semester begins, and the added stress from classes with the added time-consumption of classwork is not going to make things bearable if I have this much depression wracking my soul. And the last thing I need is to get so distracted that I mess up my schoolwork.

But that's just a small concern. When it comes time, I'm sure I'll somehow manage with classes. Just the same, I'd still prefer to have a little happiness and contentment. Why is that so impossible to come by?

Tonight saw a get-together of the old Thurday-night coffee crowd from BG. Sarah had suggested getting together when we spoke yesterday, and we all liked the idea. Chris, Heather, and Mel rode down with me and we met up with Misty, Sarah, and Laura for a night of conversation (and coffee and cigarettes for most everyone but me). To top it all off, our favorite waiter, Joel, waited on us for the night. And even for what was a pretty short night for us due to Chris needing to work tomorrow and Laura having an exam tomorrow, we were still there from 7 PM until well after 12:30 AM. It was a fun night.

Laura was freaking out because of the torture she has been enduring from staying in the Dragon Lady's class. I'm amazed that she's been as patient as she has with the class, and she pretty much wants to kill the sadistic prof. We tried to commiserate with Laura and get her mind off of things, and we did seem to help. After a while, Laura was just a ball of energy and was joking and laughing with more energy and joy than you would believe. When she's feeling good, Laura is just incredibly fun to be around. She made me laugh quite a bit tonight, and that was truly a well-needed gift.

Among the whole range of topics we discussed tonight, we spent quite a bit of time discussing (and debating) our beliefs of spirituality and the order of the universe. We even argued about the merits of teaching creationism or darwinism in schools. It was a discussion that flowed in and out of other discussions over the course of the night. Another interesting discussion revolved around our ideas of relationships, the potential of soulmates, the importance of sex to a relationship, and the existence of romantic love. It was all quite interesting and involved. Let me tell you - never have you seen such a collective group of cynical romantic dreamers in your life. I hope none of the rest of the group are destined to feel so lonely and let down as I do by love. But then again, they all have committed relationships right now (except for Misty), so maybe they're not to be worried about anyhow.

We didn't do so well about getting together over the summer like we had thought we would when we last got together last time, but we are going to try to meet again early next week before Sarah starts her move to Washington, D.C. for grad school. Also, Heather's brother Graham may still be in town and would certainly enjoy the lively discussion.

Graham arrives tomorrow, and don't think that that doesn't float around in the back of my mind and force me to start thinking about all sorts of things again. In fact, Heather told me the other night that Graham has committed himself to accepting that he is gay (and not simply bisexual), and that actually makes me feel even more despondent. It's really ridiculous when you consider all of the circumstances, but I still have an incredible desire to get to know Graham better and spend time with him. And it bothers me tremendously that I'm so concerned about all of this. I'm just a freak, I guess.

Anyhow, I'm thinking that I probably won't even see Graham while he's here, so I should just get over it. And the fact that I'm worrying about all of this when I probably won't even see him surely makes me some pathetic sort of loser ...

So anyhow ... sorry I haven't done more than post quotes the last few days, but I have been simply miserable with old memories and depression. I can't say that I was much better today, not getting out of bed 'til after Noon (even though I first woke at about 8 AM), not showering until well after 2 PM, and not getting anything useful done all day. I've been tired, hopeless, and empty, and I have been crying at hating life more minutes of the day than anything else.

The saving grace today was getting a call from Chris, a call from Sarah, and then about an hour of conversation with Chris, Heather, and Heather's friend Mel. It was lighthearted and really helped to pull me back from the dark chasm where I've been stuck. Sadly that's not to say that I'm not still down, but it was exponentially worse before than it is now.

I apologize for having no real Journal entries, but trust me when I say that you will have gotten far more out of the quotes than any of the lonely, whining self-hatred that I would have written otherwise.

On a positive note, I have finally settled my mind on the new format for revising this website into a new version. Even better, I have some ideas on how to make new features work out. None of this is to say that I have anything concrete actually compiled yet, but the hardest part was deciding on a look and a method, and the rest should flow pretty easily now (which is good, since I've been postponing this all summer).

And with luck, maybe I'll start lightening up and feeling a bit better. It would be a welcomed change.

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts." - Albert Einstein

"Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." - Lord Byron

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about reality." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt