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Loose ends and bits of untidiness were set right today. The tax forms are in the mail, the checks from employment and from my art are either cashed or applied to my accounts. Whether they clear or not is left as a concern for the god who manages those affairs. As I bustled about doing these things, it kept occurring to me that the world we live in, here in America even, is still very low-tech. You write addresses on envelopes and these have to be read and sorted by hand. The same with tax forms. Elizabeth says computers play a role in reading tax forms, but I have my doubts. The State of Virginia, by the way, did collect $17 dollars in taxes from me this year, despite the meagreness of my income. In this land of lush horse-dappled plantations and eccentric movie stars they feel the need to tax a poor man.
In this land of lush horse-dappled plantations and eccentric movie stars they feel the need to tax a poor man. I treated myself to the finer things in life, for example a burrito at Two Moons. The burritos there are relatively inexpensive, but the atmosphere sucks. The employees all seem aggravated, the music is uniformly worse than even the low standards set by the Rising Sun Bakery, you can't eat indoors, and there is no coffee. It's as though it is occupied by a weary conquering army. Evan came by as I geared up to eat my burrito, and he drew a comparison between Two Moons and occupied Jerusalem. Ami Sage, Jenfariello's housemate, works at Two Moons, and she looked as weary as I have ever seen her. War is hell. Won't be fooled again.
I spent a long hour in the brisk bright sun in front of Higher Grounds, chatting with Elizabeth and Andrew of my house, the Dynashack. We're having a big party on May 9th. Mark your calendars, since YOU (yeah, you) are invited. Andrew has tracked down a "cool jazz band" to play. The theme will be
Space Party II: Dynashack's Adventures in the Ultraworld
party like it's two years from now
For those inclined to come, and for you stalkers too:
Elizabeth told me about the dreams she's been having lately. Monster Boy has been cropping up in a few of them. From the sounds of things, she dreams a lot, and very vividly. She says that Catherine DeGood told her that "we" have lots of horrible dreams about sex with our parents and murdering people and it is so horrible that we suppress the memories. I recall distinctly having sex with my mother on at least one occasion in a dream. But I think "she" morphed into many different people through that particularly disturbing scene.
I did much work using a Mac in UVA's Clemons Library (a new place for me). The machine crashed near the end of my session though, and I had trouble nursing it back into the Finder once it restarted. Those glorious machines are so hobbled by "security software" that it's a wonder they work at all. At least no one uses AtEase® anymore. In the history of the Mac that was a very dark period indeed.
The teevee was showing Reality Bites. I watched the beginning but needed to call it quits and take my pre-work nap. Now of course I want to see the whole thing at some point in the future. It's so wonderfully Generation X in that way I adore/am a sucker for.
Infoseek seems to be recovering a bit from whatever was fucked up with them for the past week. I might have mistaken incompetence for evil. It wouldn't be the first time. Either way, Infoseek does not get the coveted Gus seal of approval.
Here's a fun little discovery I made while surfin' da web: Web Pages That Suck. I spent considerable time reading most of the content in this well considered site, which takes you on a guided tour of some simply dreadful web sites. Not that I think my web pages rock by comparison. I am proud of my content, though, and it is the content, stupid.
what if I'm discovered?
I have a number of pages of links to various things that interest me here on the World Wide Web. I have to admit that I put them together mostly to encourage more traffic to flow into my web site. Interestingly, though, these link pages give me a certain "street credibility" within various groups on the Web, and in all of these I feel like a crass poser. I'd have to hang my head in shame if I was ever discovered to be the sorry little nobody I really am. I don't even like punk rock music, and yet, because of my punk rock page, I get bombarded with email from punk rock bands wanting to be mentioned. All because my page is near the top of Infoseek and Webcrawler searchs for "punk rock." The same with astrology. People who know me consider it hilarious that I am regarded as some sort of astrology expert on the web. Latest of all comes the authority conferred unpon me by my diary link page. I'm serious. What I have put on that page about Mighty Kymm and Jay has affected their days to such an extent that it was mentioned in their journals. I'm unworthy. I'm just a little kid with a computer, c'mon.I only follow about a dozen online journals and occasionally glance over the rest. I read the same ones everyone else reads, concentrated near the bottom of OpenPages, along with those mentioned on my Diary link page. Occasionally I take a random stab into the noisy peanut gallery at the top of OpenPages and like what I find. Recent discoveries include Backstory and Cory Glen. There's something compelling in both; it's the sublime isolation...
