Year: 2002

another thing that has changed is that now I have a car. It’s alex’s old car.

Laura played a dirty little trick on Jason by telling him that she had a new boyfriend (because when she got back, I was a new man, no hair, and a car!) anyway, he was amused when we showed up at his party together.

OK, it’s been eleven days. A lot has changed. (I cut my hair.)

I don’t know what finally pushed me over the edge. Maybe if I hadn’t been working 13 or 14 hour days for the week before it wouldn’t have happened. Laura was out of town visiting her parents in Texas. Now she’s back, and things are finally settling down after a nice four day weekend. Work is far less stressful.

The site I was working on is live, and has several thousand signups already. (duh.) We just didn’t get the project until a week before it was due, so that was the issue, really. That, and poor project management. (we were still getting changes from the client even as the site went live, so development was all fucked up.)

In case I haven’t already said this, Final Fantasy X kicks all kinds of ass. The book I’m reading is really good right now too. (yes, still the same one.)

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I was up till 4 AM playing FFX, but I feel like I’m swimming today. Everything is slow and water-like. Also, when I’m sitting still it seems like I’m still moving.

I had this image as I was walking into work of air completely surrounding me, drowning me.

Any minute now I’m leaving to drive Laura to the airport. She’s going to Texas for a week to visit her parents. I’m working on this amazingly retarded website for virgin atlantic. But it’s all about discounted fairs to london, supposedly $200! I’m tempted, actually. None of that Texas crap for me. ;)

I got my rollerblade cyotes today! (got ’em on ebay for $60)

My desert-island, all-time, top-five most memorable breakups a la Nick Hornby, in chronological order:

1. Kaia
2. Emily Mohowald
3. Megan Opp
4. Kate Christensen
5. Annie Baril

I don’t know whether Kaia or Emily Mohowald deserve to be on the list. I don’t really even know if that’s how you spell Kaia’s name. It’s pronounced like kayak but without the last k, and with an ‘a’ at the end. Anyway, she was the first person I’d ever slept with, and there’s a nice funny story to go along with it–one that I’ll spare you, for now. I spent months afterward hoping to see her downtown. Run into her at a show, or a coffee shop. When I finally did, she ignored me, and pretended she didn’t know who I was. Hell, maybe she didn’t know who I was. We were drunk and stoned. The lights were off…

Emily I broke up with. Actually, that goes for at least three, maybe four out of the five above. I don’t know, I guess I regret the most the relationships I know I could have held on to. With emily, it was a lot like Hornby’s second relationship. I just wanted to feel her breasts. Only, with her, I got to. We spent this totally memorable day at home, “sick” from school, at her house, and I remember taking a bath with her, then making out for hours on her futon. I told myself I was in love with this other girl, a girl I knew better from my school, and one who I considered more up to par in the intelligence department. Truth is, I didn’t know Emily at all. She could have been einstein for all I knew. I also talk about how she told me after our day home from school together that I was the first person she’d ever fucked around with. And I didn’t want to be her first. I was scared to death of taking her verginity, and I knew she wanted me to.

There are a couple of people who didn’t make the list who probably should have. Lia, and probably Heidi. Strangely, they’re both of them girls I now despise. OK, I don’t despise Heidi. I don’t want to talk about her, or to her, or around her. Maybe it’s too soon. She was only a year ago. Lia I don’t even want to think about, I still see her occasionally around town, and she always walks by with her nose pointed in the air like she’s obviously far too good to talk to me. Heh.

I’ve started reading High Fidelity to Laura. She’d never heard of it, never seen the movie. It’s so good, every other paragraph or so makes me tingle.

I’ve also been reading my old journal far too often recently. The document (which I’ve relatively recently converted to a largish 350k text file) is really fascinating. I wish I’d written in it more often at times, and yet there is so much! Every third or fourth entry reminds me of some forgotten moment, some element of my past so powerful, so crystal, that bringing it to mind causes all kinds of emotional knee jerks.

I’ve been surfing for web community links all day. I wanted to include a blog link or two, but I realized that blog communities are really weird. It seems like they’re all super specialized small intense bursts of social activity. This versus a site like Mac Fix It or something where they have hundreds upon hundreds of users that show up every day or so, log in, and help other people.

Web communities are the bomb.

oh yeah, check out my sister (second from the right) on the cover of last sunday’s Star Tribune.

I find ordinary fiction relatively boring. That is, unless it brings something else to the table. Probably the most common “other” thing a book can bring to me is beautiful prose. Poetic prose even. The one I’m reading now does this well. It’s funny even. Funny is good too.

When I write, I should think about this issue more. Not when I write here. That’s not what I mean. This is more of a journal really. I mean when I write stories and stuff. When I write boring prose, it should be poetic. Or funny. It can be funny too.

I’d rather write science fiction.

Last friday I saw William Shatner right here in Minnesota. He was promoting the release of his movie (he directed and starred it in) called “Shoot or be shot.” I didn’t see the movie, in fact, we didn’t even know he was going to be there. It was weird. He seems nice. He’s short. I didn’t shake hands with him or anything, just watched from 10 feet for a few minutes.