something about not having access to email makes me feel lonely. i guess that access represents a certain promise that something wonderful may be dropped into my inbox.

having no access to email is like i am purposefully cutting myself off from human interaction.

eventually i should get a cell phone or something. but email has these unique qualities that make it unlike other types of communication: the potential to be stylistically literate, the ability to communicate something to someone immediately as you think it, the ability to communicate without needing to disrupt what someone else is doing. (and of course the ability to communicate something that would otherwise be intimidating in person)

considering all of my strange idiosyncrasies, email fits amazingly into my lifestyle. not having a cellphone means i still can go out into the world and labor under the illusion that i am unreachable, that i am alone and isolated, and sometimes that is nice. nice that i can have an experience and not be interrupted, and not feel anxious about being ‘out of touch’ because being interrupted is not even vaguely a possibility, except by my interaction with the experience itself.

of course cellphone ubiquity is reaching maximum saturation. soon the concept of privacy without interruption will be…unthinkable.

happy birthday justin

weather is really nasty outside

i wonder how long i’ll be without power

suddenly happy for my gas heat, otherwise i might be freezing

no more internet

suddenly happy for web and database server installed on my laptop

i can hear trees and branches coming down (very loudly) with heavy thuds

my laptop says i have 2hrs and 45 minutes of juice left

suddenly happy i don’t have a car parked outside under the trees. then again i’m in a house near/under trees. if the trees fall on my house, i hope i survive

3am

wow. i’m scared to be in my house near all these trees

2:21 remaining on my laptop

sirens outside – not a good night to be out

4am

big freaking heavy branch just fell on roof above me. luckily there is a second floor between me and the roof. scared the crap out of me. almost glad i wasn’t asleep yet to be woken by that. i hope it warms up, otherwise it’s gonna be a really nasty bunch of days coming up (what with *finals* and all)

1:32 remaining on my laptop

430am

starting to think my web database UI is much better than anything i could do in Access, and that’s with all the limitations of HTML. there’s just something incredible powerful about using code to generate the form rather than to respond to events in the form. in fact with all the flexibility i have in laying out the form, i haven’t yet encountered a situation where i need an event driven piece of code to be triggered.

57min of juice left on the ol’ laptop. better leave some for tomorrow. no clue when i’ll have power again.

for various reasons, i did not return to austin for thanksgiving. this has given me the mental space to begin work on my web database final project, in exchange for missing my family and our cooking together.

it’s worth noting how various things in life drop off the radar so that we can stay focused on the task at hand. running? cooking? house cleaning? couch buying? day of the week? weather? laundry? work? regular sleep? (people?)

every few days i do the dishes. that seems to calm me. i like a clean kitchen, i like dishes drying on the rack. i seem to care less about the hovel i’ve created out of my living room floor. i must admit it’s a comfortable hovel, if not a little austere: laptop, on floor with halo of scattered magazines and books, the occasional empty glass, a sock or two.

would i still do this if i had a couch?

i shave every other day. but that does tend to drop off if i don’t have to worry about making appearances at work, or going out socially to well-lit places.

i always shower after i wake up. this is a constant, unless a shower is wholly unavailable. it seems without this i cannot transition mentally from a sleeping mode to waking.

similarly i always wash my face and brush my teeth before getting ready for bed. this too is a constant, a division between consciousness and not, a preparation for change. something about being in water. i guess helps mark the division, since it’s not often that i’m in water. i guess that’s why it’s so odd to be soaked by an unexpected rainstorm. granted you’re wet and uncomfortable, but even after you rot for a bit until you’re finally able to undress and put on warm dry clothes, it’s like you’ve crossed over into some uncharted space, everything becomes cozy, warm, and feels like it did when the power went out as a child and mom would light some candles and we’d all run cause the electricity was in the air.

wow. serious mindrot. i just spent the day writing php at strongs. it’s kind of the thing that could just go on forever, so thankgoodness i stopped myself around 11pm.

now i’m totally unsure of what to do next. maybe some pleasure reading in bed?

happy things: today is the last week of classes. thursday i turn 23. today is the first day of december and december is a good month.

here’s a funny cartoon courtesy of amy at cornell. in the same vein, you might want to check out some of the goodness that is david rees’s get your war on.

does it really count as “buying something” if you are riding your bike into town to be around people while you work and you realize (a) your ungloved hands are really cold (b) it’s going to get a lot colder tonight on the way home (c) your other gloves are smelly and massive (d) there is a gap on the way (e) the gap just happens to have these light gray polartec gloves that satisfy a “balance and order in the universe” feeling in you that your imminent hand-coldness will be alleviated with the perfect product for the purpose all the while matching your gray pseudo-jacket and providing a previously unknown level of finger dexterity such that you are able to reach into your jeans pocket and pull out your keys to unlock your bike and continue on your way.

i’m renaming today “buy nothing useless day“