A chunk of boyish childhood: I once looked for a long time at a dragonfly wondering where its eyes were after downing it with a BB Gun. In truth it no longer even had a head.

M

an, I haven't had this much fun since Big Fun! By now it's old news that there is a new webring (a network of web sites joined in a circular formation) called Archipelago for online journal-keepers who meet the personal standards of Lucy Huntzinger of Aries Moon. Archipelago is designed as a response to the unmanageable riot that the OpenPages journal webring has become. To create a smaller webring but to advertise it in OpenPages necessitates an uncomfortable process: rejection of some of the flood of applicants. Among those journals who have admitted their rejection so far are:

• Nilknarf by Doug Franklin. See the entries for the 16th and the the 17th. Having had a long life of ups and downs, he takes it all in stride.
• Elly's Slice of Cyberpie by Elly Jordaan. I've never read someone so pissed off! She refers to Lucy sarcastically as "Queen Lucy" and goes on to quote email she has obtained that was destined only for members of the fledgling ring. This has been some of the best reading I've ever seen in OpenPages!
• True Lies by Theresa Jordan. She's pretty HOT too!

Others comments on the Archipelago soap opera were written by:

• Ophelia Z. says the new journal ring is a good thing.
• Grinder rants about how link pages can't include every URL on the Web and he goes on to state that the Internet is being seized from the nerds by the touchy-feely self-help get-in-touch-with-that-inner-child crowd.
• Al Schroeder of Nova Notes is rather pleased with Archipelago. But you should understand first that he's one of the chosen ones.

If you know of any more comments on this saga please email me.

My life has threaded through a nonstop series of exclusive cultures. This Archipelago crisis reminds me of sixth grade, when my classmates and I first started realizing the power of social leverage. In those pre-computer days I kept an index file with a card for each of my classmates. Along with such basic information as birthdays and eye colour were pithy descriptions and intelligence rankings. You can imagine the stir this caused as it was gradually discovered by those whom I did not admire. The file was eventually confiscated by one of my teachers. The exclusivity of the Grand Air Trine sprang from the same mentality. But now, of course, the issue of who gets to be a desert island in the Archipelago has nothing whatever to do with what I think.

If my social life were a garden and my friends were plants they would have to be a cold-weather-resistant variety of cactus.

I had a teevee party for one tonight. The housemates went off to do other things that, for need of sleep, I could not do. Cliché alert: watching teevee is better than staring at a wall, but it lacks something and it makes me feel guilty. I wished Amy would show up like she did yesterday. It occurred to me I wouldn't know how to find her even if I wanted to visit her. What kind of a sorry excuse for a social life do I have anyway? If my social life were a garden and my friends were plants they would have to be a cold-weather-resistant variety of cactus. And oh the weeds I'd contend with popping up around them! This metaphor is working rather better than I'd expected.

It also occurred to me that Jessika has almost completely disappeared from my life. I'll have more to say on this when I've fully considered it. I'm almost there.

I went off to bed for my pre-work nap, and eventually started dreaming.

W

alter Miller had finally started including graphics on his web pages. I was watching a television show about it. A graphics design expert was pointing out the flaws in poor Walter's use of scanned images. Particularly upsetting for the designer was the fact that Walter had scanned an image that was bisected by a book binding. The binding was described as "freshly broken" meaning that the book had been opened for the first time when it had been laid flat upon a scanner.

The dream came to a tidy conclusion and I felt the bed shift under me as if to punctuate. In this instant between dreams, my alarm went off. It was WNRN playing some horrible punk rock show, featuring exactly the kind of punk rock I hate with a passion. The lyrics went something like "Just shut up! Just shut up!" yelled in a cracking teenage voice. Such garbage is a far cry from Hüsker Dü.

Being awoken in this rare moment, I was completely disoriented. I'd had no clue that I'd been sleeping at all, let alone that I'd been taking my pre-work nap. I found the dream I'd just had to be strongly sublime, yet I could remember very little of it. Much more happened than I stated above, you see. It somehow also involved Cecelia the Brazilian Girl, but I can't for the life of me remember how.

I walked through the cold streets to work. I hear it might snow "in the higher elevations."

If you care you can see a detailed unsolicited summary of my web pages courtesy of Gabby. I do not feel worthy. Lately I've been reading my stuff and thinking that it's all just crap. By the way, Gabby recently did (or perhaps redid) her Autobiography, and so now you and I can know better from whence she came.

I feel like mentioning some Aries birthdays just now. Yesterday: Jenfariello's housemate Ami Sage. She celebrated at the Tokyo Rose. Today: Liz Phair. She's 30 now.

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