I’m not sure how many times I’ve said this in my history of dreams, but last night I had quite possibly the strangest one yet. This time it seems like it could actually be a plausible scenario rather than something totally outlandish. Well, maybe. :-)

Will decided he wanted to more efficient so he started thinking up ways to make his day as productive as possible. He concluded that the best way to get the most out of a day would be to stay in bed, but upload his consciousness to Omni’s network and do his work remotely while his body slept. This way he wouldn’t have to bother driving or walking or otherwise expending energy. It worked really well for awhile, until one evening when he tried to return to his body he found he could not reenter it. As it turns out his body had died while he was working but he could not be convinced of this because his consciousness still remained alive.

Someone suggested that sounded a lot like Serial Experiments Lain, which I didn’t even think of until just then. I wonder if this would make an interesting short story? I might give that a shot as I’ve been trying to break out of the tedium of everyday blahness by being more productive myself. I really want to get myself excited about design again so I’ve been trying to redesign freshlydead. Thus far it’s been going amazingly well, thanks to encouragement from friends. (ie, constant pestering.) Thank you guys.

I’m slightly inebriated at the moment…but I promised dear Julian I would update this right now so I will. Mmm. It’s been a very emotional few days, but the wrinkles have been ironed out. There were a few moments where I thought “oh god, this is the end of it all!” but it turns out it wasn’t as bad as all that. Mmm.

Jon and I both got new phones yesterday. I spent a good chunk of time transferring my contacts from my old phone to my new one, but the funniest part came when Chris messaged me. Nice. It’s a Sony Ericsson 600-something camera phone thingie. I haven’t played around with it much, but so far I’ve noticed it has incredible reception. I get signal….in library basement.

Which leads me to today…just as I was about to leave work TR called me and asked me out for cocktails. So I met him out and hung out with him and some other guys in his band and my coworker Tony. It was really wonderful to be with those people again…so funny and lively they are…I laughed like I haven’t laughed in ages. :-D :D When they left for band practice I sat in my car until I was sober enough to drive, then came home. After a shower I started playing WoW and having more booze since I was already slightly intoxicated…how many fricken nagas do I have to kill for this stupid freaking drop? :-D Oh well, I don’t really mind. I’m having a good time.

Mmm.

Jules is a saint. Sometimes I don’t think I belong on the same planet as him. X3 He sent me the Air CD I’d been talking about in a previous post. Guuuu. That just about made my milennuim (as our friend Beetlejuice likes to say.) So kind and thoughtful and sweet. I love you so much Julian. :3

I got together with TR and Jeff over the weekend to watch “Kids in the Hall” which was really cool except for the fact that TR and I were both totally exhausted and kept falling asleep. Heh. It was cool to see Jeff and Ivy’s house…lots of room. I hope one day to be able to afford my own place. mm.

That’s about all for now. I must take a bathroom break. imagines Ross skipping through house singing “bog, bog, bog!”

I feel this weight…almost despair, really, after several conversations today. There is so much emotional burden right now, for many people. And it’s not just that game, that’s not the basis for the problems, it’s just bringing things to the surface. I really hope everything works out in one way or another. The sadness is almost smothering.

I love all of you so much. Something has to be done, for all our sakes.

Yesterday was one of the worst days I’ve had in awhile. The immaturity, childishness, and well…bitchiness of it all reminded me of my days in high school, which I recall less-than-fondly. Basically, the situation was that someone said something inflammatory about me in an open channel that had no basis in fact. It was a cheap shot and completely uncalled for, but worse than that, it was unprovoked. Through great effort on my part I managed to keep (mostly) calm and try to deal with it as maturely as possible but I was really upset. Not so much about what was said (because I know it isn’t true), but the circumstances surrounding it. She openly admitted she had no real basis for making such a claim, but still she felt the need to say it openly. There are just certain things one should keep to oneself, especially if it’s completely unfounded. Unfortunately for me there were only a few people around at the time; some of them defended me but most stayed out of it completely or watched and did nothing. Needless to say, it disrupted my concentration for the rest of the day so I was less than productive, not to mention fending off tears of frustration.

I’m grateful to have a friend like Rosey. After the incident, she showed up and we chatted most of the afternoon away. The silly girl didn’t even go to bed that night but instead sat there and told me about this weird animal outside her room that seemed to be telling her to sleep. Rose is the perfect example of a female friend who I know is genuine through and through and I can trust her implicitly without fear of random backstabbing. She is fun, kind, sympathetic, and best of all, quirky and cute. We laugh at the same sort of things (though admittedly she nears the gibbing point faster and more often than I) and share a lot of things in common (ie, unusual taste in men) but still have enough differences that we can learn a lot from each other. My point here is that although I mostly have male friends, she is a female that I get on with just as well, proving that not all women are evil, backstabbing bitches. :-)

Okay, rant over. I needed to get that out of my system.

I haven’t updated in awhile because I’ve been attempting to convert my journal from Movable Type to WordPress (mainly because I’m being spammed beyond belief in the comments section…30-50 messages a day sometimes) but have been running into trouble getting the importer to work correctly (ie, at all.) Chris suggested making the old blahg into an archive so I think I will do that for the time being. I am currently working on a cleaner, much simpler design for the site as a whole so perhaps a completely clean start is the best way to go. If I get ambitious later I might continue my attempt to import the old entries, but I’m going to move that to the bottom of my priorities list.

One major comfort I’ve experienced this week is that Will and I have officially decided to live together when I get to Seattle. So my mind is made up now over which city to choose…Seattle now wins by default due to presence of friend willing and eager to have me as a roommate. I had planned on visiting Seattle first and spending some time with Will before choosing where to live, but it is a huge relief to my mind to know that I’ll have a place waiting for me when I get there. I do feel a bit angsty over the fact that as of now he won’t have a roommate until June, and will thus have to pay rent on his own until then, but hopefully something will work out so that this doesn’t happen (or at least for that entire time.) Will has said that the idea of knowing he’ll be living with someone he trusts and cares about (and also, quite importantly, someone that Hiroko approves of) is worth the frustration in the meantime. I know it’ll work out in the end. Unfortunately because of financial issues involved in moving, I don’t think I’ll be able to afford another trip to Australia at that time so I might have to hold off on that for awhile. :-( I’ll have to see how things go though.

I’ve been feeling pretty bored and uninspired at home, which isn’t surprising. I’ve felt a bit better now that I have this to look forward to, but I feel it’s really time for me to get out of there. I hate winter, I hate being cooped up inside like this with no fresh air, I hate being cold, and I hate being that isolated from everything. I’ve mostly been playing WoW (no shocker there) but I’ve also begun to read House of Leaves which is unlike any book I’ve ever read. I found out about it after reading Silent Hill 4 forums that suggested books and movies with a similar feel or theme. I love the multi-layered storytelling it uses through use of footnotes. It’s a bit difficult to explain properly, but basically an old blind man wrote all of these notes and conclusions about a film he saw (ironic, yeah?) and after he died, his neighbor found the notes and began adding in his own story into the mix by explaining his reactions to what he’s reading. I’m not very far into it yet but it’s pretty captivating.

Over the weekend we went up to Green Bay to have a “Congratulations for Escaping ShopKo Headquarters, Ben!” party. We had dinner at a steakhouse which featured numerous stuffed animals on the walls including Effeminate Bear. The other Jon downed half a pitcher of water in (nearly) one gulp, then beat me in air hockey without claiming he sucks once. (gasp!) We introduced him and Ben to Katamari Damacy and a round of “WTF?!” sounded. Jon played it for a bit but Ben refused to touch it.

Because this was to be the last time we were all together before Peter goes to Portland, we decided to finish playing Silent Hill 4 even though we still had about half the game to go. Jon and I took turns playing and we finished it off sometime after 4:30. Sooooo tired. They were a bit disappointed in the lame ending, but at least the boss fight was cool.

Oh yeah, Jon and I went to see White Noise. It wasn’t bad necessarily, but it was pretty meh. It started as a cool idea but ended up being a generic-hollywood-type ghost story. (ie, special fx, not scary) sigh Oh well. Not too surprised really.

Ross sent me a new copy of Black Books last week, and although all the discs work this time (phew) the first two discs seem to be region 0 (as expected) but the third is region 4 (wtf?!). Oh well. I’m only planning on playing them on my computer anyhow seeing as they’re PAL format and won’t play on our standalone players. There’s a lot of good extra content on the discs, including an audio commentary for all the episodes of season 1 and 2.

There seem to be some wildfires burning around Perth which has left the city under a haze of smoke. :-( It seems they’ve got it under control but hopefully it gets put out soon. Suck. :(

I had a pretty lovely weekend. It was the first time I’ve been able to be with the guys since before Xmas since Jon’s been in California. In retrospect I think I spent most of Friday night watching Brian play WoW and chatting with him about it, but we did take a trip to Appleton because people wanted to get stuff at Best Buy. I didn’t get anything, which was just fine. I love that I can go in that place and not feel weird about leaving without a purchase. In times past I’d never have been able to do that. In Barnes and Noble I went over to the travel section and began reading a travel essay book on England written by the same guy (Bill Bryson) who wrote In a Sunburned Country, the Aussie travel book my work colleagues got for me before I left. I love the guy’s way of describing things, he gives you humor along with a lot of interesting details you’d never find in a “facts” type book. You get the sort of “average guy” view on a completely foreign place, and that’s really fun to read about. I read a chapter or two before Jon came and found me. I realized I probably wouldn’t want to buy the book but I definitely want to read it so perhaps I’ll borrow it from the library.

We tried my Spaced DVD in two of Jon’s computers and it was fine. Apparently it just has difficulty with PowerDVD running it; mplayer and VLC handled it just fine. So that’s a marked relief–don’t have to return the discs and wait for a replacement that may or may not be any better. phew

Dave had given Jon his old snowboard for Xmas so he was very eager for Jon to try it out. Therefore, he was pushing for us to go skiing on Saturday. Part of me wanted to go because I had fun last time but the cost and hassle of renting skis and getting the lift ticket made me a bit leery. As it turns out they planned to go to Nordic Mountain which only costs $34 for rental and ticket. Not too bad. Brian and Martha came along as well (good to get everyone out of the house) so they rode with Jon and I tagged along with Dave. Jon had never boarded before so he had a night of spills and thrills; similarly Martha hadn’t skied so she got pretty frustrated when it gave her trouble and before long disappeared into the lodge. I only fell twice this time, which is a marked improvement over last time, but then again, I only went on a beginner hill. Ah well.

Later on we watched Shaun of the Dead while the guys mucked around with the placement of the bindings on Jon’s snowboard and I played WoW with the Aussies. I was using my old 1ghz Thunderbird machine with a 64mb video card so it was a pretty incomplete experience. The game ran smoothly at the lowest settings, yet there were textures just missing. The entire landscape looked like a patchwork quilt and there was no indication of where the path was except on the minimap. Heh.

On Sunday morning Jon’s sister came over (she’s visiting from California) and we had lunch together. They planned to visit relatives in the afternoon so that was my cue to leave. But for whatever reason, despite the fact that I’d had a great weekend, as I approached my car I began feeling very angsty and frustrated. It was a very non-specific type of angst and had no cause or direction that I could discover. Of course, that just led to further frustration so by the evening I was feeling very irritated. I had no appetite to speak of. I didn’t feel like doing anything, not even playing WoW because my character had reached a point where quests were either too easy or too hard, there was no median.

Then, just when I was at my worst, Jules decided he and Ross would call me. I got the cordless phone and brought it into my room, feeling jittery with anticipation, my heart racing with excitement. This was such a rare and unusual occurrence as I’d only ever spoken to Jules on the phone once for ten minutes a few years ago (and never with Ross!) In less than five minutes my mood completely transformed; I was smiling and laughing and in jovial spirits; hearing their voices again was such a treat for me and I appreciated every moment of it, especially the bits of silence that passed between Ross and me when neither of us could think of anything to say. That’s one of the things I love about our relationship, the fact that he and I don’t need to talk to communicate. Together, there is so much subtext, and so much said without a word being uttered, simply through eye contact and touch. I guess that’s not too unusual really, but I just think it’s incredibly cool. :-) The call went on for quite awhile, probably over an hour, thought admittedly I wasn’t keeping track of time so that’s only a guess.

Later on when I commented that “my boyfriend never calls me!” I realized how strange that sounds in a general context. Of course I said it jokingly, but it actually made me stop for a moment to ponder. In a “normal” circumstance that might be a bit appalling, but it’s actually something I don’t typically think too much about. I don’t really feel like I’m missing out on something by not yakking with him on the phone on a regular basis. The core of our relationship was formed through text on screen so this is how we continue to communicate, as it’s natural. That’s not to say that I don’t miss hearing his voice. I do. On occasion we’ve used Skype, which is free, but most of the time we sit in silence anyhow being that neither of us are great conversationalists. It seems silly, then, to waste money on international phone calls. But, once in a great while, it is just plain wonderful to have a rare moment where we are able to do something traditional like talk on the phone. :-D That, right in that moment, was exactly what I needed. Thank you guys, it meant a lot to me. :-D :D

I’m feeling a bit bored and uninspired. I haven’t been in the mood to paint the last few days because I’ve been so tired (yes, from staying up late playing that game) so the painting is sitting in the basement awaiting my attention. Each time I go down there the smell makes me stop and actively sniff the air, instantly bringing a smile to my face. Linseed oil! That has to be the most wonderful aroma on earth. There is no longer any hint of paint thinner, so I’m left with that earthy, heady scent. Mmmm. Spectacular.

Jon and I are supposed to go see White Noise tonight. I’ve asked several people to go, and everyone else has turned me down on the basis of it seeming too scary for them, or thinking it’ll suck like The Mothman Prophecies. One thing I think the film has going for it is that it is using the concept of the film to sell it, not big names. Nowhere in the trailer is the name Michael Keaton mentioned, either in text or by voice, even though you clearly see he’s the main character in the film. I just wonder if this approach is going to backfire on them…granted, he isn’t exactly a headliner anymore these days, but I’m sure a lot more people would see the film if they knew he was in it, versus some random unknown actor. In any case, I hope to see it tonight and bring back a favorable review.

On a related note, it appears that The Phantom of the Opera won’t hit American theatres until Jan 21 despite its limited release on Xmas. Meh. Rather frustrating I guess but I’m not in that big of a rush with these things anymore. I’ve plenty of other things to do anyhow.

Oh yes, and Tripping the Rift is worthy of a good laugh. Nice animation and interesting characters with adult themes. Hmm. For some reason it reminds me of Sean. :-)

It’s been a very interesting week. I spent most of my time playing World of Warcraft which isn’t really shocking. The day before New Year’s Eve my gesso arrived so I stretched and primed two of my canvases. I only had a 1″ paintbrush so it took me forever (sigh) but it was a really great feeling to be doing that again. Then on NYE I spent the entire afternoon painting in my room. Unfortunately, though, the house is all closed up so the smell of paint thinner was ghastly and choking. My dad sternly told me I wasn’t allowed to paint inside anymore because of the smell and I snapped at him in frustration. I had to take everything out in the garage and we had to open all the windows to air the house out. :-( It was really cold so we had to eat dinner with our winter coats on. Dad knows how much painting means to me so we discussed other options such as sectioning off part of the basement (so the smell didn’t get into the heating system) and having a window open with a fan to take the smell outside. That seemed okay to me, at least better than being totally banned. Eventually I told him they make an “odorless” paint thinner so I ordered that plus a painting medium that didn’t have paint thinner in it (and a larger gesso brush.) Hopefully that’ll take care of the problem with smell…though the ventilation is another matter. I’ll make something work though, I must.

In any case, I spent about 3-4 hours on the painting, working extremely quickly to get the base coat down. I’m pretty surprised I was able to do that much in that time, but it was going so smoothly. :-) When Mom asked me if I’d had fun despite the smell, I said “It’s the most fun I’ve had since I got back,” which nearly put me in tears. It’s so important to me and the subject matter is so dear to my heart that every strong emotion connected to this is heightened just that much more.

So I was pretty frustrated when I left for the evening, but I felt a bit better knowing I wasn’t completely out of hope. I met up with Alisha at her apartment, and she, Rachel, and I celebrated New Year’s with booze, Conan O’Brien, and Total Recall. I only had a little bit of vodka left (not enough for a mixer) so Alisha told me to just dump it in a glass of wine and have it that way. It didn’t sound like a terrific idea by any means, but I didn’t want to waste it, so I did. Not too long after that I was seeing double, which has never happened before. I calmly went to the bathroom and threw up, then came back out and felt really tired. We all went to bed after that and I awoke the next morning with a bit of a headache but it wasn’t too bad.

I drove home and played some WoW and then TR called and wanted to get together. So I met him at a Chinese restaurant and told him all about my trip. The roads were getting pretty bad, and by the time we left the restaurant, my car had a thick coating of ice over it (it was raining and then freezing) which I had to scrape off. I cautiously followed TR to his apartment (which I hadn’t seen yet.) We watched his new A Perfect Circle DVDs and then some Tool videos. I remembered that I’d left my phone out in the car so I went out to get it and saw that the roads were only getting worse, and since it was already dark out I didn’t want to risk driving back. So we watched The Exorcist and I spent the night there. In the middle of the night TR burst out laughing, which woke me up, but it was hilarious so I didn’t mind. He lives right next to the train tracks though, so the trains woke me up several times. It wasn’t very restful sleep, let’s just put it that way. The following morning we went out to breakfast together, which turned out to be really nice since I never do that. I told him more about the trip and about starting to paint again. After that he showed me a bunch of places he did vinyl lettering installations around the city (for his old job) and then I headed home again.

It was really nice to see friends again as the last few weeks have been very lonely and I’ve felt pretty cut off from socialization beyond my family. It was difficult going from being totally surrounded by devoted friends all the time to not seeing anyone besides my parents. :\ It’ll be a bit different now that Jon is back from California, but over Xmas it was pretty tough.

I took my days off from work on Monday and Tuesday this week and basically spent the entire time playing WoW. I played it so much that last night all I dreamt was me being in PVP battles. I was completely restless. sigh Also, I got Return of the King extended cut so I watched that with my parents on Monday night. Tuesday my Spaced DVDs arrived from England, so I watched some of that. I think the second disc is busticated though because I can’t get past the menu. Not sure what I’m going to do about that. sigh

The WoW servers were having some majorly funky issues last night so I quit in frustration. It’ll be nice if they’ve fixed it by today. Also, my new art supplies should be arriving today so hopefully I can paint some tonight. Yaay, painting!