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ed_rexMy Computer Ate My Homework
Thursday night saw me hunched over my computer, typing like a madman - or, more accurately, like a blogger with nearly a week's worth of words to get out and into his world. A good hour and a half of writing, then maybe half-an-hour uploading photos, when Young Geoffrey's own private disaster unfolded in stillness and in silence.
My spoiled brat computer, running Linux, decided to act up like s Windows box. 1500 (or so) words froze. Full-stop. No-go. No killing of the offending application.
And all my words were gone, as though they'd never been.
To suggest I was unwilling, at five past 10 in the evening, to begin a re-write is akin to suggesting a feral alley cat is likely to be skittish. Only by shutting the beast down for the night, smoking a bowl and setting in for a mediocre episode of The Simpson's was I able to maintain my equilibrium prior to hieing myself to my bedroom, where that night I allowed the cats to join me.
Which goes to show - yet again - how easy it is for the personal to trump the political. It has been said that "man is the animal that can abstract" but in some ways we don't do it very well; or is it that we do it too well?
Whatever, on the first night of the year one could really feel the turn of the season, could physically sense the icy clutch of Old Man Winter. The wind blew hard, the wind blew harsh. Rain plummeted from the sky like the frozen stuff we'll see soon - even here, in Hogtown. I abandoned my bike at Richmond and Spadina and took the streetcar home, thinking the weather most appropriate - Kerry had conceded and, despite my belief that the election would make little difference to the fates of millions of Iraqis (and other brown, black and yellow people around the world), the symbolism of Bush II's victory discouraged me.
That more or less half of the voting American public would vote for a man whose record is arguably the most incompetent in living memory and whose morality easily matches that of Richard Milhouse Nixon because they shared his view that women should not control the fate of their own bodies and that homosexuals are something less than human left me feeling that this autumn might be permanent.
But it won't be. I can't be. Our world is more than 4 billion years old and has seen many, many, many seasons come and go.
Autumn is not a time of death, it is the pause before the leap of renewal.
To hell with politics for a little while. The sun will rise tomorrow, and tomorrow after that. Personally, I've had a good week.
My Own Beautiful Scarecrow
Nevermind all the "objective" reasons it shouldn't work - the 22 year age-gap, that we can seldom manage more than one night a week with each other, that some of the music she likes hurts my brain - - I am involved with a marvellous woman. A brilliant mind, a strong sense of self, a sense of humour that ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous (and back again), and a sex-drive to put the horniest toad in the shade, were I a religious man I would credit God with some special blessing - as it stands, I just consider myself lucky to have met her and to have had her choose to let me into her life.
Last Friday saw us together (yesterday too, but I'm talking about eight days ago, people! Get with the program, Gentle Readers) for a quiet evening in. She did me the honour of allowing me share with her one of my favourite movies, Bliss. She didn't seem to appreciate it, but she sat through it, and didn't make fun of my tears when the end came. (And, in fact, the next day, said she thought it was pretty good.)
Saturday, we hied ourselves north to her place, where the lots are big, the houses nearly as large and no pedestrians are to be seen.
Unfortunately (for me) it was a dull affair - too many relatives with new babies or babies on the way make for something other than expansive conversation. And the fact the paela was loaded with seafood didn't help. But I digress.
Late in the evening I found myself sucking back a smoke on the front "deck" (is a concrete pad a deck? It doesn't feel like one). Laura joined me and we talked in the brisk night while inside kin with little else in common talked of babies and other inoccuous matters.
I asked what she had planned for the next night. I knew she was going to go out with her friends, to do something for All Hallows Eve.
But she didn't know. It looked to be cold and they were all too young for the default plans of an adult (a bar).
With nervous misgivings, I wondered if she might not want to invite them over to my place. She seemed surprised. Surprised and a little cautious, but certainly willing to entertain the idea.
My feet were suddenly cold. I'd had three or four beers and about that many glasses of wine. "Call me tomorrow morning," I said. "Let me sleep on it."
If, Gentle Reader, you sense that I don't like making decision when I'm (even a little) inebriated, you are correct.
By the time I got home, though, my doubts had mostly lifted.
I love Laura, don't I? I've been impressed by her friends - they remind me of the people I hung with when I was in high-school, and I liked them a lot. What am I worried about? (Besides being the legally responsible adult in my own apartment?)
Well, nothing, really.
When Laura called the next morning, I said "Yes", with only a trace of nerves.
All Hallows Eve
Laura came by sometime before 5:00. We hugged as though it had been years, smoked a much bigger joint than we'd intended and did what comes naturally - three times - before dragging ourselves out of bed shortly before 7:00, when people were expected to arrive.
What's there to say? All went well. For the first time ever, I had a dozen people in my apartment - all but one or two underaged - and they were lovely. Thoughtful, open, curious - and, as Laura pointed out later, pretty partied out. Though dope was smoked and K was snorted there was a reason my alcohol was mostly untouched. These people were tired and had to go to school in the morning.
Really, it was a pleasant anti-climax. So I'll leave you with some photos and hope that my next entry will be more interesting than was this one.
Laura, just because I love her, and she's beautiful to boot.
I discover what it's like to be (almost) tall. (It's kind of fun.)
Death is a cuddler.
She hugged me when she arrived, but I had no idea that was Maria-Clare.
And finally, some gratuitous pictures of my cats.
Thursday night saw me hunched over my computer, typing like a madman - or, more accurately, like a blogger with nearly a week's worth of words to get out and into his world. A good hour and a half of writing, then maybe half-an-hour uploading photos, when Young Geoffrey's own private disaster unfolded in stillness and in silence.
My spoiled brat computer, running Linux, decided to act up like s Windows box. 1500 (or so) words froze. Full-stop. No-go. No killing of the offending application.
And all my words were gone, as though they'd never been.
To suggest I was unwilling, at five past 10 in the evening, to begin a re-write is akin to suggesting a feral alley cat is likely to be skittish. Only by shutting the beast down for the night, smoking a bowl and setting in for a mediocre episode of The Simpson's was I able to maintain my equilibrium prior to hieing myself to my bedroom, where that night I allowed the cats to join me.
Which goes to show - yet again - how easy it is for the personal to trump the political. It has been said that "man is the animal that can abstract" but in some ways we don't do it very well; or is it that we do it too well?
Whatever, on the first night of the year one could really feel the turn of the season, could physically sense the icy clutch of Old Man Winter. The wind blew hard, the wind blew harsh. Rain plummeted from the sky like the frozen stuff we'll see soon - even here, in Hogtown. I abandoned my bike at Richmond and Spadina and took the streetcar home, thinking the weather most appropriate - Kerry had conceded and, despite my belief that the election would make little difference to the fates of millions of Iraqis (and other brown, black and yellow people around the world), the symbolism of Bush II's victory discouraged me.
That more or less half of the voting American public would vote for a man whose record is arguably the most incompetent in living memory and whose morality easily matches that of Richard Milhouse Nixon because they shared his view that women should not control the fate of their own bodies and that homosexuals are something less than human left me feeling that this autumn might be permanent.
But it won't be. I can't be. Our world is more than 4 billion years old and has seen many, many, many seasons come and go.
Autumn is not a time of death, it is the pause before the leap of renewal.
To hell with politics for a little while. The sun will rise tomorrow, and tomorrow after that. Personally, I've had a good week.
Nevermind all the "objective" reasons it shouldn't work - the 22 year age-gap, that we can seldom manage more than one night a week with each other, that some of the music she likes hurts my brain - - I am involved with a marvellous woman. A brilliant mind, a strong sense of self, a sense of humour that ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous (and back again), and a sex-drive to put the horniest toad in the shade, were I a religious man I would credit God with some special blessing - as it stands, I just consider myself lucky to have met her and to have had her choose to let me into her life.
Last Friday saw us together (yesterday too, but I'm talking about eight days ago, people! Get with the program, Gentle Readers) for a quiet evening in. She did me the honour of allowing me share with her one of my favourite movies, Bliss. She didn't seem to appreciate it, but she sat through it, and didn't make fun of my tears when the end came. (And, in fact, the next day, said she thought it was pretty good.)
Saturday, we hied ourselves north to her place, where the lots are big, the houses nearly as large and no pedestrians are to be seen.
Unfortunately (for me) it was a dull affair - too many relatives with new babies or babies on the way make for something other than expansive conversation. And the fact the paela was loaded with seafood didn't help. But I digress.
Late in the evening I found myself sucking back a smoke on the front "deck" (is a concrete pad a deck? It doesn't feel like one). Laura joined me and we talked in the brisk night while inside kin with little else in common talked of babies and other inoccuous matters.
I asked what she had planned for the next night. I knew she was going to go out with her friends, to do something for All Hallows Eve.
But she didn't know. It looked to be cold and they were all too young for the default plans of an adult (a bar).
With nervous misgivings, I wondered if she might not want to invite them over to my place. She seemed surprised. Surprised and a little cautious, but certainly willing to entertain the idea.
My feet were suddenly cold. I'd had three or four beers and about that many glasses of wine. "Call me tomorrow morning," I said. "Let me sleep on it."
If, Gentle Reader, you sense that I don't like making decision when I'm (even a little) inebriated, you are correct.
By the time I got home, though, my doubts had mostly lifted.
I love Laura, don't I? I've been impressed by her friends - they remind me of the people I hung with when I was in high-school, and I liked them a lot. What am I worried about? (Besides being the legally responsible adult in my own apartment?)
Well, nothing, really.
When Laura called the next morning, I said "Yes", with only a trace of nerves.
Laura came by sometime before 5:00. We hugged as though it had been years, smoked a much bigger joint than we'd intended and did what comes naturally - three times - before dragging ourselves out of bed shortly before 7:00, when people were expected to arrive.
What's there to say? All went well. For the first time ever, I had a dozen people in my apartment - all but one or two underaged - and they were lovely. Thoughtful, open, curious - and, as Laura pointed out later, pretty partied out. Though dope was smoked and K was snorted there was a reason my alcohol was mostly untouched. These people were tired and had to go to school in the morning.
Really, it was a pleasant anti-climax. So I'll leave you with some photos and hope that my next entry will be more interesting than was this one.
Laura, just because I love her, and she's beautiful to boot.
I discover what it's like to be (almost) tall. (It's kind of fun.)
Death is a cuddler.
She hugged me when she arrived, but I had no idea that was Maria-Clare.
And finally, some gratuitous pictures of my cats.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-06 06:15 pm (UTC)there is a 22 year age gap? how old is she?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-06 07:24 pm (UTC)I think the cats are warming up to each other, too.
Nice boots.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-06 08:32 pm (UTC)Great pics.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-07 01:40 pm (UTC)(as they would on me too)
Good photos though!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-07 06:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:A Realist I say!
From:Re: A Realist I say!
From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-08 07:01 pm (UTC)What lovely cats you have!
(no subject)
From: