Added two Windows backgrounds to the gallery. If anyone enjoys them, please let me know; I might make more of them.

The hard disk with all of my art on it is still kaput, but I salvaged some things I'd uploaded and finally made a gallery. There are so many details I want to fix and backgrounds I want to add but there's no sense in editing jpegs. Every section of the site's now up and running, in any case.

The election is still half a year away and already I'm getting worn out from anticipation. Meanwhile, I'm slowly admitting to myself that Bush is going to get reelected. It doesn't matter what horrible facts turn up about his administration or his plans or his two-facedness or his blunders-- most other people don't know and they don't care, because they think he's good God-fearing American and that's all there is to it. Every day I ponder why it is that my opinion on every single issue that matters to me is the exact opposite of the general public's. It's not because I'm some special little snowflake; I'm no better than anyone else. Am I just wrong? Was I born with some defect in my American gene?

Being an outsider wouldn't be so bad if one could do it with a ton of other people.

Made a 1024x768 Windows desktop of the site layout without the aporia logo or the darker column for text. It is quite soothing; "asiagay" was Charlie's description, and I'm down with that. Set your background color to RGB 22,26,183 and you're good to go.

I was just called back about a side job I inquired about a month or so ago, doing market surveys for a company in Atlanta. I don't have too many details except bling bling. I'll get my ass there for any damn survey they want me for.

So much to do and no desire to do any of it.

The site has gotten a new layout and two address changes within two days, but the dust has settled now. Like John Lennon said, "All you need is lerve.com."

Matt gets in tomorrow at 2:30 and I am very, very excited.

We've joined a new GLBT rights organization in Athens and I volunteered to create/host the webpage for it. Check out at http://athenas-shield.org.

That's all.

This week is quick and painless, since I skipped Monday and half of Tuesday and won't have class on Friday. I wish I could say I've spent all my free time doing something productive but I really haven't. Since Matt's been gone I've felt strangely... quiet. I've been hanging out with my friends as much as usual, if not moreso, but I feel like I'm not saying anything. That's not the best way to describe it but I can't find a more accurate way. Or actually, maybe I can: I guess I feel like something's missing. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Matt and I are moving in together at the end of the summer-- I'm moving into his place and renting mine out. We've been planning it for a while now and we're both pretty excited. Ironically, now that Dan, my roommate of two years and I are parting ways in a few months, we've been getting along even better than usual. We were unexpectedly united by our mutual love of Abby, previously mentioned (and rightly so) as the best cat in the world, and who we have unofficially adopted despite her belonging to our next-door neighbor. I've let her sleep on my bed on several nights, and I've caught Dan, who claims not to like cats, leaving dishes of tuna out on the porch for her. For her part, she seems to be as content sniffing around our place as she is anywhere else. Abby is the perfect cat in every way except one: she farts. She farts bad. She uses some sort of cuteness-powered nuclear ass fission to produce one the foulest stenches I've ever smelled. It hangs in the air at the scene of the crime for a good hour or so unless a fan is turned on, and she seems to emit these little treasures on a near-constant basis. Whatever it is in her diet that produces this smell, it should be outlawed as a crime against humanity.

Matt left on Friday to go to London with his mom and won't be back until this Sunday. I was excited for him, but he got sick the day before he left and felt so foreboding about the entire trip that I've felt anxious ever since I dropped him off at the airport. I'm also not used to going this long without seeing him, which doesn't help. But deep down I know he's having an awesome time and I can't wait to hear about it on Sunday.

On the bright side, Erin's 21st birthday was on Saturday. The party lasted pretty much the entire weekend. It was even crazier than last year-- more people, more to do, and even more random neighbors who showed up to join the fun. The highlight this year was probably the oatmeal wrestling, which Alex posted some pictures of. I crashed at Jon's Saturday night, worked on Sunday and took yesterday off to sleep. And speaking of sleep, I'm in the mood for a pre-bedtime nap.

busy busy

A preview of the long-overdue new version of this site. Instead of Anne Carson and Ace Combat 4, the triggers were Japanese woodblock prints and Hawaiian screen prints. Feedback of any kind would be lovely. Now I have three hours to finish this paper and need to stop stalling.

And to clarify, I do know that Lent is not itself a simple or secular idea. Far from it. It was simply what got me thinking about personal change, and stopping a reliance upon things I like (because I do like all of those things listed) that aren't necessarily healthy. So far I've abandoned the "interesting" and I'm working on the nail-biting and cussin'.

Lent

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Lent. The simplified, secular idea of forfeiting something in the name of soul-searching and introspection seems entirely healthy and logical to me. If I was practicing it I would probably need to give up profanity, which I abuse; food from Burger King, which I love too much; nail-biting, which I do every day; or the word "interesting," which I use too often (it's in 27 previous entries) despite the fact that the word is uselessly vague. (I actually think everyone would be better off dropping "interesting." And while I'm at it, I think anyone in class discussions who begins a sentence with "I just wanted to say that..." should be slapped in the face by each of his classmates, one by one. You don't really notice it until you start listening for it.) Just because I'm not doing Lent, though, what's stopping me from giving up one of these things? Or all of them? If I gave up these four things permanently, I would be a better person in four ways. Maybe I will do that.

And they upheld Muhammad's death penalty today. I honestly don't know what I think about it.

Sunday was Matt's birthday and we had an excellent day. That was also the day Dad and my stepmom decided to drop in for an inspection visit, so after we all had lunch together Matt and I spent the rest of the day watching movies, dozing on the grass at the Botanical Gardens, doing some chores and getting a nice dinner, in between several naps. It really was an excellent day.

Lots of good movies lately-- Spellbound, Bully, Camp, Lost in Translation (again) and, above all, Equilibrium. I was dully impressed, but a lot of people seem to enjoy panning its concept as derivative and silly without giving it an honest chance.

The DC-area sniper of 2002, a man who for weeks had the entire east coast afraid to linger in public places, is awaiting the judge's verdict on his death penalty ruling. For over two days straight now, though, CNN's coverage has been headlined by the Martha Stewart trial. I think I need to switch to a better news source.

Now that it's spring break and I have no stress for the first time in a long while, I've been plagued by headaches and nightmares the last few days. What gives?

The sky is hazy and even and the breeze is cottony and the summer heat has already rolled in like it'll never leave. This is pure Carpenters weather. I got back the grades for my Comparative Political Analysis, Folklore Narrative and Art History of the Italian Renaissance midterms: 85, 80.5 and 96, respectively. I honestly expected C's on all of them. Spring Break more or less starts tonight but I'm not doing anything special during it except work as much as possible. I'm just waiting for the summer, so I can finally get out of debt.

The computer is still fucking up, and in new and intriguing ways, but I don't really care anymore. Never mind that we had a snow day last week-- the weather has repented and now everything is bright and warm. It's sandal and sunroof weather.

Super Tuesday was really fun, and I'm not even sure why.

who let the geeks out

While I was just farting around on the computer Friday morning it began to make all sorts of awful noises and then completely locked up. One of hard drives died! Somehow this machine has survived six years of amateur modifications and general maltreatment, so I'm surprised that it was something so simple and boring that finally fucked it up. I stewed about it all weekend and tonight finally got pissed enough to disembowel it and find the exact problem. It turns out that it wasn't the crappy 3-gig master drive that went, but the 30-gig slave I bought and installed myself only a few years ago. I'm still figuring out what's lost. Off the top of my head I know it includes all of my music and videos and program backups, which is fine. But all my artwork from the last six years is gone, too, as well as all of my websites, and I am not happy about losing those. Hopefully I'll find a way to get some things off the old drive. I shelled out $100 of my nonexistant money for a replacement 80-gigger and tomorrow I'll get around to installing it.

Goddamn, I hope I can get my sites back.