Major Pain

I switched majors today while registering for classes. Fill out a bit of paperwork, see how many credits transferred, and I was done, except for more line-standing. The most rage-honing part of the day was waiting for my book list to print out when the printers were breaking down every thirty seconds.

The most expensive and exclusive technology school in the state, and they can't even keep their own damn laser printers working.

Darkside

Darkside's new haircut still looks like him. He always looks like himself. I always want to hug him when I see him, and today especially. We hadn't seen each other in far too long.

Most often-heard comment by people seeing or hearing the two of us interact: "You two really need to get together, or get it on, or something...."

What I don't want to do is jump the gun and try pulling something on him before he's ready for it. Surest way to fuck up a friendship, and I don't want to try to do anything romantic at him that isn't easily backed out of if he expresses discomfort. He knows I love him; he knows I'm attracted to him. We're honest enough with this issue; we just avoid discussing it.

I have been working carefully with him on getting his heart un-broken. It'll benefit everyone in the long run: him, for not being broken inside; me, for not having to deal with his pain (though I can block him out any time I choose, it still hurts me to see a friend in pain); Sis, so she'll know he's stronger for it all; his eventual Significant Other, whoever she may be, for having someone who's whole at heart. He never did the whole high school dating thing, where you get your heart broken while you're still young, with a short attention span and hyperactive hormones. He's waiting until twenty-two to get his heart mangled over and over again.

I've been reaching out to him and clasping both his hands. We're friends, and that's likely to be eternal. Though I'm not Sis, and I'm not his lover, and I perhaps never will be, he's learning that it doesn't hurt to be touched anymore ... never mind that this is all in the stretches of the imagination on a plane other than ours.

Today he reached back.

Today, as I was stressing over other paperwork, he walked up to me, grinned at me, made a few snide comments, and then told me he did have to leave. I put my hand up to wave goodbye, and he reached out and laced his fingers through mine and clasped my hand for a few seconds.

The sensation has remained with me all day.

I think I'll stop trying to hide it when I am upset or unhappy, at least around him, to maybe show him that other people have dark emotions as well. He knows me best as a bright creature of air and fire; I have a cheery nature and a quick temper. He's never seen sullen anger rise in me and remain for years on end. He's seen the end results of such an anger, something that's scarred me for years, and may well continue to disfigure my mind for years to come. He's never seen such an anger grow and eat away at me. He's never seen me after someone's broken up with me. He's seen my discontent at being single; my frustrated sexual energy being diverted to nervous occupations such as staying up all night typing online, but he's never seen me truly lose control of my temper; never seen me fly into an absolute rage.

The people back at home used to be afraid of me, because they never knew how my uncertain temper would erupt next. They knew they'd been asking for it, but when they got it, usually a screaming session from me, or something involving their schoolwork and utterly arcane, they never knew how I'd gotten from point A to point B, though they all admitted that I was effective.

Bottom line is, we've all got problems.
Bottom line is, no matter what his fuckups are, I love him, as he cares about me no matter my fuckups.

He thinks he's unworthy, the poor fellow.
That's as may be. I intend to prove him wrong. Not by proving myself lower, but by proving us both human.

The Updates from School Begin Again

Sitting in my usual computer lab at one of my usual computers, feeling very tired and very sore.

I am tired because I crashed out at sometime around two this morning, and woke up at five-thirty, and sore because Darkside and I were just arm-wrestling.

"Either you've been getting stronger, or I haven't been working out enough," he commented. Usually he will eventually beat me, though we may be going at it for several minutes. Today I beat him several times in quick succession. Apparently I've been getting stronger. I let him win once, and he called me on it. Finally, near the time when he had to go to class, he rediscovered a certain trick of leverage and proceeded to beat the hell out of me and my arm. I'm going to be sore for the next couple of days. Then we arm-wrestled with the other arm. He beat me a lot faster this time. My left arm is not strong.

He now gets to taunt me about classes that he has had in the past that I will be receiving the supreme joy of taking. Not all classes are well-loved by the students. Not all teachers, either.

Shiny Hyper People

I guess lack of sleep makes me hyper, if I've managed to make myself awake.

I've got my computer at home partially set up the way I want it. Two monitors, two keyboards... it may be a little weird, but it enables two people to look at the same project at once. But we can't have the second keyboard, the mouse, and Pablo plugged in at the same time. We have to choose between Pablo and the second keyboard and the mouse.

Sis and I came up with the most hilarious way to freak out her genetic sister, "That Woman." My computer, as I mentioned, has an extra monitor and keyboard. So what we do is, we set up the laptop in such a place so that the monitor and keyboard can be put inside the closet, with the cables hidden. Dude then sits in the closet. That Woman comes into the room, and the laptop begins typing and doing Completely Weird Things. That Woman would completely freak, because she is *not* a computer person by any means. Computers are like black magic to her. She doesn't understand them even to the elementary extent that Sis and I understand them. Sis has to be helped out with things that I understand pretty well. Then, I'm the daughter of a computer scientist, and I'm majoring in computer science.

We'll see.

This is going to be interesting, though. Already we've been having alt-tab wars.

The Jumping Monkey

Once upon a time, when I still lived in Alaska, in the deep dark depths of the middle of October when BJ and I were moving out of our rented cabin and back into the loving households of our respective parents until we could move to Arizona for college, there was a plastic box filled with interesting toys that were Azz's.

Now, many of these toys were battery-operated. Azz had taken the batteries out of each and every one of these toys, packed them back in their plastic box, and had tossed the whole thing into a very large cardboard box containing most of Azz and BJ's clothes. The box was then sealed with duct tape.

Now, BJ's father had a pickup truck, and was assisting in this move. This great huge cardboard box was sitting in the middle of the walkway between living room and bedroom, and getting in the way. So Azz hauls it to the middle of the living room, where it will still be in the way, but to a much lesser degree.

As she's hauling it, things inside slip and fall and crash and tumble (muffled within the layers upon layers of clothing and such) and suddenly, from deep within, there is heard this sudden and intense rattling noise.

"What the hell is that?" asks BJ's nosy and noisy little brother.

Azz makes up a story about a goddamn jumping monkey stuffed animal, one that every now and then turned itself on. The only thing to do, since the duct tape was so well sealed, was to wait for the batteries to run themselves down, or to wait for it to turn itself off.

Then Azz went into the bedroom and started packing with her back to the door, to avoid showing BJ's brother and dad how very red her face was...

...BJ's dad knew damn well what it was, and he laughed his ass off.

A note to Darkside that never got passed. Written in shaky Elder Futhark. Time estimated.

Hi, [Darkside]

My first official CIS class. DSL is working well. Internet Explorer is not.

I hope I will do better in this class than I did in the last one.

DS fuckin' L!!

I'm online.

hackers and other mythical life-forms

Gods.

I was just reading the book The Great Rip-Off, by Lavinia Harris.

General plot:

Our heroine, a disarmingly female type, about fourteen or fifteen, with a disarmingly male name, is recruited by her genius father to work on a top-security computer telepathy project because she has both the computer skills and the telepathy to carry it off. She makes a bad beginning with another young computer genius new to town, but they are soon forced to work together. He has taken on a top-security project too large and difficult to handle alone, and takes her into his confidence. She recognizes stolen data from her father's project. The two young computer experts must enlist the help of the researchers and track down the miscreant -- possibly from among their friends at school!



It's very, very, *very* eighties. But Sidney (the girl) has guts, and finally tells her basketball hero boyfriend-person to stop treating her like his property and get a life. And ... oh gods.

The other computer genius, the guy -- he moves like a cat, at first impression he's a prickly prick, upon getting to know him better he's got this awesomely evil sense of humor -- he fences and knows other martial arts ...

At the point where Joshua is rigging the fire alarms, I got an instant flash to Darkside.

Did I mention that this was one of the pivotal books in programming my absolute adoration for computer scientists?

Mood swings

I swear, it is not safe to let me do something on the computer when it's coming up fast on Bitchy Witchy Week, nor when I haven't had enough sleep for the past three nights running, nor when I haven't had lunch, but especially not when programs intimately associated with the internet have been crashing on me, and in evil evil ways.

I'm a downright bear.

I think I'll go sleep some more, and go offline.

fridge light

We've got a fridge light now, after about three months without one. This is a good thing. Good things are good.

Sore Arms

My arms are still sore from having arm-wrestled with Darkside. That was much fun, totally. I normally rarely clobber him in that area; today I beat his ass completely.

Until he found the correct way to inflict leverage upon me, I was so winning. He beat me with the left arm though.

I like having fun with Darkside. He's my best friend and we're going to have lots of fun with each other.

Odd realization:

I would rather have a smallish orgy in my room while I'm trying to sleep than I would have a hyperactive kitten trying to play with my room while I'm trying to sleep.