Never been one to let the carrier drop

Okay, so it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I don’t really have anything meaninful to say now, either, I’m just slacking.

I’m currently juggling the parking meter code, the next-generation battery balancing system (which I’m again putting noticible time into), my fusion project (which I’ve got other people putting noticable time into), and my everpresent attempts at creating music.

It’s been a month since I’ve smoked the greenage, and about six since I last smoked tobacco. (I don’t have any real interest in resuming tobacco, although I do have to admit that there are parts of weed I miss.)

I think the next addiction I’m going to give up is C&C/Generals. In fact, that might, from a wasted time category, make more sense than giving up weed.. since I still do productive and interesting things when I’m lit, but time spent blowing up computer-generated charicters is pretty much gone forever. Unless you think military strategy is something I’mg oing to need a lot of in the future – something that seems a wee bit inaccurate. Among other things, the physics model in C&C/gen needs some pretty noticable work – if it were actually to scale, the chinese nuke would wipe the entire map clean.. 😉

The real reason that I’m giving up weed for social events is, as observed recently, fear. I spend entirely too much of my time being afraid, but when I’m not under the influence, this fear doesn’t rule my actions and I can do risky things even while I’m afraid of them. When I’m lit, I’m much less inclined to take risks – and what success in my life I have thus far I owe completely to taking risks.

I had a good week.. P. was on spring break, and we spent it togeather, visiting her family and playing games and whatnot. We managed to get through the entire week with no horrid moments, which I suppose is encouraging for a possible reuinfication.. (as Bush says, I’m a unificator, not a dividificator). In any case, it was fun.

Sadly, my plans to go to Scott’s wedding and SoCal were scrubbed because of a data disaster.. a obscure bug in winCE ate 120,000 transactions on parking meters, and I had to build software to uneat them… Good clean fun, um, kind of..

Other than that, there’s very little to report in my life. I have a headache at the moment… that’s about it.

As usual, I think of lots of interesting and deep and meaningful thoughts to write down, and then when I actually get to the point of writing in my journal, I can’t think of any of them. It’s a conspiricy or something..

Oh, I will do a breif weed retrospective, since I promised I would and since it does seem worthwhile to marshell my thoughts on the matter.

I first smoked herb in the summer of 1995. The first few times I smoked it, it had no real effect on me. I understand this is not unusual. The third time I smoked it, I rather enjoyed the experience.

It definately makes me hear a lot more in music, and see a lot more meaning in everything and many more complex layers of meaning. It also makes me think about trends in my life from a longer perspective, and understand the big picture in a way that I’m not normally inclined to do. That is the primary reason that I continued to use it.

It also brings periods of almost transcendental happiuness, especially when combined with certain types of music. On the other hand, it also brings periods of extreme fear, inclines me not to talk to other people, and makes me even more clumsy than I already am, which is a pretty impressive stunt since I’m already pretty clumsy.

It occasionally provides me with a sense that there is a god, and I am talking to him/her/it (and sometimes, getting answers). Thus far I have considered this to be hallucinatory, although I’ve never gotten bad advice this way..

Is weed evil? No, I don’t think it is. Why have I not smoked for a month, and why am I seriously considering dropping it? Well, there are a few reasons.

First of all, it slows down your thinking for several weeks after use. That’s a awfully high price to pay for one night’s entertainment.

Second of all, it’s a carcenogen, just like tobacco. Okay, so you don’t use as much, it’s probably not as serious a risk, but still, cancer is cancer, and dead is dead..

Third of all, it makes it much harder for me to talk to other people. This is not something I need, believe me.

Well, here I sit, listening to appropriately sad and depressing roxette songs, procrastinating.. I’ve done some debugging today, and implimented one measily feature. Tomorrow I have to pack..

I’m going to Texas with P. to see her family.. which may be awkward, given current situations, or may not be. Anyway, I like them better than my own family and want to see them.. and it’ll be a interesting test of how our relationship has evolved and in what direction.

http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/faqs/hacker.html

This may be the single best document for understanding me I’ve ever read.

http://getregistered.org/?site_id=0000125393&media_id=0000165027

That’s a first. I mean, there are no lies in it, no attacks.. it almost doesn’t look like a republican ad at all..

Well, I just woke up (3 hours later than I expected to, but that’s a good thing I guess) – after having what has to qualify as the world’s weirdest nightmare. It had everything.. really good sex, dead pregnant mothers that when their bodies were exhumed turned out to have no babies..

I wish I could remember the whole thing – it would have made a _great_ book a-la steven king. A lot of it was set in Arkansas – it started out with a news story..

Pity, it’s gone like a soap bubble. I’ve been having lots of nightmares lately..

So today I’m going to clean the basement (heh heh heh) and figure out how I managed to break A$ in a attempt to fix it. (Important lesson here: it’s a bad idea to send off software without testing it first. I wonder what I did this time..)

(I already knew about it being a bad idea to send off software without testing it – this is akin to building a computer and putting the case on without testing it – it virtually guarentees it won’t work. Don’t believe me? Obviously you’ve never built a computer..)

But I’m awake, sort of – and thinking about breakfast.

‘Closed on thanksgiving’.

I had to stop and laugh for a few minutes before I could drive my load of trash in.

Yes, there really was a sign saying ‘closed on thanksgiving’.

Of course, there I was with my VW microbus with rakes and shovels and impliments of DEEstruction – but fortunately, it wasn’t thanksgiving, so they let me in and I guess that does away with any hope I have of not getting drafted.

My old van.. (which I am selling, by the way, if anyone wants a $750 Chevy Lumina APV that has a tendancy to eat thousands of dollars out of their bank account.. it has a good stereo, and a interesting collection of bumper stickers) has a sticker which says ‘Deep, considerate, sensitive, and horny’. A friend asked me about it the other day, and I made some noncommental reply.

After considerable thought, I’ve decided that sticker may be the closest I come to truth in advertising.

What’a amazing is that it’s still quite true, five years after I got the sticker. Although I think I’m losing some of my consideriteness, which makes me sad. (is that even a word?)

I mean, lately I tend to growl at my boss whenever he asks for anything extra, I seriously think about the state of my bank account before handing out money to homeless people.. I am becoming, slowly, a asshole. This is not something to be encouraged.. 😉

[In general, snapping at people is not something to be encouraged]

I’d claim that it was people rubbing off on me, but that’s a lame excuse. I alone am responsable for my behavior..

Anyway.. I’m seriously, seriously tired. I was tired when I woke up (at 12:30a) but I couldn’t convince my body to go back to sleep. I’m tired now, and I can’t convince my body to go back to sleep.

I’m about to make a serious attempt to find Seattle’s dump. This should be interesting.. [Why? Well, I have all these boxes of trash in my basement.. no, trust me, this is more than the garbage men are going to take.. yes, really..

I’m again solvent, which is reassuring.

I made the evil activesync plugin work. I”m not so much pleased as suprised.. there are tons of really bizarre, undocumented features in the activesync API which lead me to think someone at microsoft really hated the rest of us.

But you knew that.

What exactly does one search for when one is looking for the location of the nearest dump? I’m sure it must be on line.. everything else in this city is. Hell, they probably have a applet which lets you upload your trash..

There used to be a ad for a couple of kids with a truck who would come pick up your trash for you for a small fee. But I’ve forgotten the number, and I don’t think the ad is still there.

http://www.rpi.edu/~huberb/bush.jpg

No, I’m not feeling particularly cynical. I don’t know why I chose that as the word of the day, other than I like the sound of it.

Spalding Grey is apparently dead. I will go rent Swimming in memorium, I think.

The first time I saw anything by him, was with my friend Nicka in the basement of my parents’ house. Swimming to cambodia.. great monologue..

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P.’s grandfather.. the one who used to fly P-38s – might have cancer. ;-( And one of the EVDL people has terminal lukemia. People are dropping like flies.

No mail yet today, so I don’t know if I got a check from How or not. Need. money. badly. It’s been months snce H. payed me. I mean literally.

In all fairness, it’s been months since d. paid him. They’ve got a new CTO, and apparently the resulting upheaval is doing bad things to them getting checks out the door on time

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well, i’m going to get to sleep now.. I’m slowly moving back toawrds a day schedule.. it will be dark out when I awaken. Very surrealistic.

What’s weirdest is when I get on the schedule where it’s dark all the time I’m awake.

I think that might lead to depression

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I was going to do a ‘5-year-retrospective-thoughts-on-weed’ little article, but I lack the energy. Perhaps tomorrow. 😉

Procrastination is something I’m way, way too good at. I really need to stop.

So I’m still awake, sleeping fitfully after a really good party experience. (Well, for me it had a bit of good and bad.. like most party experiences..)

I think I will give up weed again. This time for very different reasons than last time – not so much because I want a clear head, as it does strange things to me. I have this problem with fear even when I’m sober – I’ve been trained very well by our culture that I must fear everything – and when I’m stoned, that goes double or triple.

And, to be honest, I think these days I might enjoy parties more sober.

What led me to this thought was this experience.. a absolutely beautiful fire-dancer.. doing this amazing performance.. and all I could think about (and I know this is very silly) is oh my god they’re doing fire dancing in a partial-frame building with no fire extinguisher handy.

And of course she dropped it once into a pile of people’s coats, and I was visualizing all sorts of disasters (you read about people in clubs getting crushed to death running for the exists) but, duh, it’s seattle, people’s coats are going to be wet here. Nothing bad happened.

I also had a couple of awkward moments with a probably gay guy who was probably attracted to me – but showed me nothing but love and respect and it was actually rather nice in a way. Then I kept trying to decide, do I tell him I’m straight?

At one point he asked me if I was rolling.. and yes, I seriously think he thought I was. I think a lot of people think I am at parties.. just because I’m perpetually, in some sense.. I think the music keys the memories of what it was like to be out there.

Anyway, I stayed until well past dawn, which I haven’t done since california. I met a guy who wants to make psytrance, and got a CD from him. Haven’t played it yet, but he said he might be interested in jamming togeather. One can always hope.

The whole adventure was beautifully ES – the map point directions included lines like ‘drive through the erector set’.

Everyone I approached turned out to be friendly. I have got to get over my fear of people… I mean, if you’re afraid to tak to people at a party, there isn’t much hope for you and you should just cease being part of the human race..

I can never figure out.. I always see my DJ friend twice during these things. once when she gets there and once when she leaves.. and then she dissapears. It’s really odd.. how does she do that?

I am slowly learning that the Seattle party scene might be filled with a bunch of other people who are just as afraid of people as I am. (No, couldn’t be…?)

Maybe I’m not the only person isolating myself because I’m sociallyinept. Or maybe…

Slowly I am learning to tell the difference between the voices that are hallucinations, the voices that are actually in the music, and..

I saw the most beautiful thing. There was a dog there.. I think someone from portland brought it.. (him? her?) – and, naturally, being my paranoid self at first I thought it was a sniffer dog. (Heh! by the looks of things it would have gone out of its mind from the number of positives.. besides, can you seriously see a cop following directions that involve ‘drive past the lego factory’?) .. but then, I saw it dance.. this dog knew how to dance, and was dancing with this guy.. it was sooo cute..

(Not to mention, made me wonder how smart the dog was. I mean, it could have been coincidence that it was moving to the beat… um.. I guess.. )

The chill out room was playing some really gorgeous stuff.. long, drawn out chords.. lovely, lovely stuff. The ambiance reminded me amazingly of this party I did sound for ( poorly 😉 ) in SoCal.. grass on the floor, giant tent.. (Oh no! tent, candles, no fire extinguisher… SHUT UP!)

A lot of my fear of fire stems from a bad acid trip. I’ve only had one of those, but it was the mother of all bad acid trips. I took acid after not sleeping for several days. Don’t do that, kids. I must have tripped for a week, and I was completely out of my head most of that time. I don’t remember most of it, but the moments I do remember were filled with deolation, confusion, fear.. and several times things spontaneously bursting into flame. They didn’t really, of course.

And then I got off on the god/christian trip, and things got worse and worse. Chrstianity is, for me, a very negative thing. I understand that it’s positive for many people and I’m happy for them. But for me, it’s a detrimental virus. See elsewhere in this journal for more about that than you would ever want to know.

Anyway, I’m guessing at this point I’ve lost my readers.. which is okay with me, because I’m mostly writing this for myself. ANd to try and unwind a notch so I can get to sleep.. P. is probably going to come over and watch a movie or eat or something.. and I’m guessing that will probably happen earlier than I will like given that I haven’tbeen to sleep yet.

I do feel really content and at peace with the world.. amazingly so. I keep debating inviting P. to come back and live with me again. I mean, I obviously love her, or I wouldn’t think about her so much. It’s obvious she has failings but then, so do I, so do we all. At the very least, I could try it again and see if the problems that manafested themselves last time became more managable.

I guess part of the proof to me that I love her is that I’m willing to forgive her, over and over..

My problem with her isn’t that she gets angry, I’ve realized. It’s more how she handles/deals with that anger.

I know that I want her to come back but I also want to be able to respect myself. (And I would still like to first *talk* to someone else of the female gender who might be interested in me, just for some sort of sense of comparison. But to be honest, I don’t really see that happening. Especially not with this whole fear-people thing.)

That beat.. just gets in your head and doesn’t let go.

I brought a couple of copies of a recent jam session on CD, but then after listening to them in the car I was afraid to give them out because I could hear too many mistakes. I’m going to have to start recording me and Tory multitrack so I can remove those. I wonder if Tory would be interested in doing multitrack editing with me. I think it’d be easier with a friend.. among other things, I could ask him if he wanted things left in or cut out. I always feel really bad about removing another person’s notes, even if they are mistakes, because what if they aren’t? I mean, who am I to say what sounds good and what doesn’t?

But, I was listening to the CD in the car, and on the way home I landed on the perfect going-home music – this 17 minute track that was just absolutely beautiful. I don’t know what we were doing, but we must have been doing it right.

I’ve never (or not in a very long time) tried jamming with other musicians whilest I was not sober. I sort of wonder what it would be like. But I also think my fear of people, and of screwing up, might make it a less than pleasant experience. The closest thing is when I played while a friend of mine sang while altered..

Anyway, now that I’ve written a largish essay which LJ will probably eat, I’m going to hit submit in the hopes that it doesn’t get eaten.