They were unable to fix my computer. It was brought back here and I was advised to call Dell for a replacement. I did and spent about three hours tonight on the phone with someone that pretty much revived what I thought was a dead horse. It still has a few major glitches but I'm getting sent some stuff that should be a big help. It should be back up to speed in the future. Meanwhile I have everything on the hard drive saved on a disc so I can use it on future computers. I ended up not deleting anything. I was told everything on here was erased but it wasn't...

I've had it with C. As far as I'm concerned I don't want to see her again. For the past few weeks I've been dealing and scheduling time to see her. Most times I just get to have her come over, tired and pissed off from work, where she comes and crashes on my bed. Saturday night she came over and bitches at me, insults me and criticizes me. For a while I wondered what I did and then I thought about everything. It really smacks of so many past relationships- Kelly, KT...I see myself getting taken advantage of again. I wait on her and do all I can to make her feel comfortable only to not have her give a shit. She said I lost my chance and that's fine. It was over long ago. I really doubt she gave any thought to me as anything, even a friend for quite a while. I've got better things to do that spend my time with a woman that treats me like shit. I've been through that before.

Of course she's really the only person I talk to besides my roommate and people at work but I can manage. It's better than putting up with that.

I told her about this page long ago, even showed it to her but it's very unlikely she'll see this. When she went on all she wanted to do was find the parts I'd written about her. When I did she got frustrated and said she didn't have time for it. So that's that.

I got a tv and hooked up my playstation which, considering that it's burned and covered in smoke, is amazing that it still works. I got some new games, including Guitar Hero II which should provide entertainment now that I am lacking in companionship.



I had a long weekend which inspired me to get my PS2 out and wrote a long post about what I felt and how down I was but the computer shut off before I could save it. It's probably best.

My computer is much worse off than I thought. It's been out since last Thursday. Turns out the whole hard drive is fried. I will have to buy a new one but I have the one I rescued from my old, pre fire cpu that has been sitting on my shelf. It may be able to work. Right now it's out of my hands.

Spent the day running errands- cleaning the bathroom, getting window insulation and window tinting. My room is bright the moment the sun comes up and it never gets really dark. I ended up getting tinting, put it up, didn't like that light was still getting in and covered most of it with tin foil like Elvis did. It's really dark now, finally. It's freezing though. I may have to get a space heater. In South Boston I used to be able to see my breath in the living room. Soon I will be able to see in in my bedroom. If C stays over she'll be freezing. I want her to be comfortable.

I've been talking to a new woman, K, though I'm not sure how it will go. I haven't had much luck with Ks and really bad luck with KSs. She's got a good head on her though. We may get along. Frankly, I need to meet as many people as I can. I really need to know more than a couple people here.

*The reason KT was KT rather than K is because Kam was going to be K but Kam didn't care if I used his name or not*

I hate this time of year. November until April is the worst part. I especially don't like the holidays. As a kid I loved it but that seems like thousands of years ago. Last year I didn't get anything from anyone. At least not in my family. J celebrated my birthday with me, made me a cake and got me the PS2 game Gun (now burned up). My dad sent me a card. This year I'm not doing anything for anyone except C and J. I'll send my nephews and niece cards and a check but everyone else is getting dick.

I feel so old. I noticed all these grey hairs at the temples. My brother went very grey around his 25th birthday and now that my hair is so short they are more noticeable. I really want my hair to grow back. My scar is far too noticeable and I don't like people seeing it.
I weighed myself and I'm 203lbs. I was surprised since I've been around 190-195 for years. I know the extra weight isn't fat because I pretty much have none. I've gotten much more muscular, which I love but 203 is shocking regardless.

I put my book on hold for a while. It's at a rough spot right now and I need to think it through and decide which way it will go. Meanwhile I've started writing a short story that's flying along. It's about a kid in a hospital. Of course The Willow Tree inspired it.

It's a great day. Democrats have won the House and the Senate. Mitt Romney is out of office and Rumsfeld has stepped down. While at first all these things seem wonderful they are not as great as you'd like to believe. To me, the Democrats are the other side of the coin and have proven themselves as guilty of propaganda and dishonesty as the Republicans. Though I'd rather have anyone but the Repubs in power, let's see if they can live up to what they've been preaching. Personally, I'd like to see the whole government wiped out and started fresh. After Sept. 11th it's a wonder that didn't happen. How Bush still has a job after the World's Greatest Screwup is beyond me.
Rumsfeld was picked to step down for months. He was given up to make Bush look better, some meat to throw to the wolves if you will. He's running out of meat. Powell, Ashcroft and now Rumsfeld all gone. I'll be happy when Cheney or Rove is picked.

On my front, my computer is still being worked on and I may have to start from scratch when I get it back. Fuck. I managed to save most of it but we'll see what manages to last. This really sucks. It will take a while to get it all back, if I can.

I found out there are at least two other Blog Day Afternoons. One was a snarky political blog (like we need more of those) another was some bullshit inspirational blog with bad poetry on it. Not sure which I prefer less. I'm considering a lawsuit. I'd rather not be associated with such tripe.

Murder.....


I talked to the guy downstairs working on my computer and its worse than I thought. When I downloaded the programs first it knocked out my virus protection then, without knowing, I allowed it access to the internet. From there it let all its little friends in who spread like flesh eating bacteria and wreaked havoc. I was able to scoop the surface and take some of the little nasties out but my network card is fried and the entire HD may need to be wiped.
It's not so bad since I've only had it for three months and I'm able to save all the writing I did on it but it's still a huge pain in the ass.
Now I feel like I've been living in the colonial era. What did people do in the olden, pre internet days? I can't even go and write since I have no CPU. I've spent a lot of time writing in a notebook, like I used to do in high school and college. I try not to do that because it seems so pathetic- years later I found all these sheets of stories I had written in college and it seemed so sad. No one would ever read them. They weren't bad, I actually was impressed that I could write so well so long ago, but I knew they would go no farther than the paper. Still, there's something to be said for just writing, your words tiny and smashed together, knowing no one will ever see it.
I've spent a lot of time meditating as well. I imagine I'm injured and far away and alone and it's actually reassuring. When I had my accident years ago it was this time of year- grey and dismal and I spent most of the days in a dim room with only periodic checks by the nurse and hospital food (which I actually loved). I watched bad reruns of terrible shows and could only see the sky and part of the top floor of the hospital. Once in a while a bird would rest on the sill and that was a moment of excitement for me. In my memories I imagine it as a raven though it was most likely a pigeon.
Now I remember what it felt like, laying in bed for hours, feeling your body heal but too drugged to do anything else, wondering about friends, school, the world seemed so far away. It felt like I was removed from society. You could have dug a hole, thrown me in and buried me alive and I would have felt no different.
I've been writing a lot, which gets me to think that maybe I should get rid of the internet altogether and become the world's most prolific writer. In fact much of my work is reviewing bios of authors for textbooks and that's pretty encouraging. I had planned to do a long piece about how miserable most writers are or how much my life seems to parallel the lives of a lot of accomplished writers and I still may but right now I have to say how many writers are driven by loss. Most of it loss of love or family or sanity. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Allen Poe, Harry Crews, Emily Dickinson, HP Lovecraft, all had difficulties in love that fueled their writing and made them such unique authors. Ambrose Bierce was a cynical, mean motherfucker that couldn't hold a job for too long before going crazy. I've become obsessed with writing and writers. It's seem to have taken the place of sex as my no. 1 interest, which is good because I got sick of thinking about sex all the time.

Now I'm reading The Willow Tree, one of the few books I saved from the fire that I haven't read. It's by Hubert Selby Jr. and it's still covered in smoke, though not burned or water damaged. It seems appropriate for one of his books. He's another one driven by misery but writes such goddamnfantasticstuff you can't imagine anyone well balanced writing anything so real. I'll have to do a piece on him when I get things back together. What a fucked up life. He died in 2004 and I just heard about it last week. Surprised he lasted this long.
I can't read any of his stuff without becoming very morose and incredibly depressed so I don't start any of his books unless I'm already in that state. Right now I'm not, I'm actually unnaturally happy, but it seems the perfect time to read it- on the train in the morning, passing by the abandoned projects, the sky grey and the air still wet from the night's rain. The woman next to me was reading Tuesdays with Morrie. I'm not sure why.
The Willow Tree is about a boy living in a tenement infested with rats who was beat up for dating a hispanic girl. The girl had lye thrown in her face and now her mother and grandmother, who can't speak any English are beside themselves with anger, fear, confusion, worry. Bobby (the boy) is slowly recuperating, his body bruised and too sore to move. It's a fucked up story but damn, can he write.

I blew off a lot of things in the last few days. One thing I am usually careful with is watching what goes into my computer. Thursday I said fuck it and installed some games that weren't cleared. Friday morning my computer wasn't working right. I'm very protective of it and have dealt with viruses before so before it grew out of hand I disconnected everything and took it to one of my neighbors that promised he could fix it. He says he'll get to it tomorrow.
I don't mind if he wipes everything clear- it could probably work better if he did- I'm just worried he'll clear out everything, including my book.
I built that computer from the ground up in July so I could rebuild another one in a short time but my book- that's a different story. Thankfully, a few days before I emailed it to J but I still have a ton of files that could get lost and haven't been saved.
It probably won't happen. I'll watch over it like a good parent while he does it.

So what have I been doing since then? Rather than sit around and watch tv, and since I can't write (at least not on my computer), I spent the day exploring. I went to Wicker Park, got some dvds and some more clothes. On the way home, on the train, this guy starts speaking to me:

"You gonna throw those away?"
I'm in my own world, listening to music, just want to go home.
"You gonna throw those away?"
"Throw what away?"
He urges towards the bags I'm holding on my lap. "You want those?"
I look at what I just bought. "Yeah, they're in bags with tags on them. I just BOUGHT THEM."
He turns away and sits beside me. I smell him putting on aftershave and hear him slapping his neck.


It's C's birthday. I want to spend time with her but she's working. She probably won't be in the mood to do anything afterwards. I already talked to her about what I have planned. It will be tough to find some time together though. I still want to talk to her today.

I had planned to make a really cool Halloween post like "13 Things to Really Be Scared About" then list all these true facts and what's predicted for the future but yesterday morning I was feeling kind of down so I decided to write an entry (on little yellow notes at work) on how I got that way. I wrote why I'm always so morbid and depressed and I know there are certain events that got me this way.
It was a pretty long post and detailed those events pretty well but after it was done I felt even worse. So much so that I didn't want to do anything. As soon as I got home I had a shitty dinner, went to bed and didn't feel like going out though I should have. I called C though she was at work and wrote some of a short story that probably added to my mood.
It wasn't such a bad night, though very lazy. About 230 am C returned my call and we got to talking. Our relationship has changed. I don't see her very often but I think she sees me differently than her other friends. I've made a decision to treat her very well, as I try to treat anyone I care about, and it's shown through in our time together. We talked for about half an hour and I felt much better. Almost every time I see her I can't get over how mature and intelligent she is for her age. I used to worry that she wouldn't do well because of what she's doing in life and she wouldn't be happy but she knows more than me in that area. I'm sure she plans it more than I know.
I put too much thought into this blog. I think about writing in it, writing some great entry or something really funny when I'm at work. Sometimes I write it down, sometimes I don't. I know it's taking time away from my book, though that is coming along.
I just hate going through another Halloween with no one around. I think I always knew I'd spend my life this way and I can't complain. As a kid, seeing how my parents were married I decided to take relationships very carefully and not get involved just for the sake of not being alone. That I'm sure I've done.
I think I like my hair this way. It's gotten no bad comments and even a couple semi good ones. I like not taking care of it and I love being able to feel my whole head. I wish I had a digital camera.