not in the refrigerator

The most addictive thing about the internet is the fact that at some point, being online becomes as automatic and as natural as breathing. I don't really have to talk to anyone, or message anyone, or email anyone. I don't even need to do anything online, see. No need to read blogs, or browse sites, or search for information, or do the wiki.
The only thing I need is to be there. I sign into gmail as soon as I switch on the computer, not because I'm desperately wanting conversations (well, at least, not all the time) but rather because I want to be available for any that happen by. I want to stay connected.

I once decided to go a week without signing in, because I felt there was too much time being wasted merely in the exchanging of platitudes with people who lived in the same city that I was in, and conversing for hours with people whom I'd never met and was likely never to meet, either. I went almost six days before I broke down, but I did manage to stay away, see. The difference was that it was my decision, yes? Not some faulty electronic modulator-demodulator that decided to die on me and leave me stranded high and dry with a game leg and no internet connection.
The last three days have been hard.
Hard enough to get me calling people on STD numbers from the landline because of how much I missed talking to them. Hard enough to have me watching television to drown out the whining voices in my head - especially the ones cursing international time zones. Hard enough to send me out of the house and hobbling towards a neighbourhood internet parlour and one glorious hour of internet.
Yes, I'm addicted, yes I am.
I just missed being able to reach out and touch someone.
It's just that... once you've been connected, how can you possibly bear not to be?

shame

It isn't for myself that I feel it. I can take everything as a lesson now. I have done lessons for a long time; turned guilt and shame and embarrassment into something to talk about.
And now, again, again, again. I stand here where I stood twice before, and I think about my mother. I want to tell her there's nothing she could have done. I want to tell her I make my own mistakes. I want to tell her this means nothing, nothing. I want to tell her these things because I fear she will tell me the reason I failed is because I didn't listen to her. I fear she will be disappointed and hurt and, oh horror, ashamed.
Oh, it's the truth. But what was the reason I didn't listen to her?

Perhaps it was shame, the fact that I could not show my work to anyone until I had tried to solve every last detail, as clumsily and ham-handedly as I usually do anything. Perhaps design as a process does not work for me because I do not want to let people inside my thought processes before they are unravelled to my satisfaction. Perhaps design as a process does not work for me because I have no skill, no patience and no creativity.
Perhaps I waited so long because I was afraid of dismissal and ridicule and disappointing somebody. Other people's high expectations of yourself are hard to comprehend when you have none for yourself.

Perhaps I am never ashamed because I expect nothing from me.
If you were ashamed of me, would you say?

guilty

Only for my mother.

brief interlude of bewilderment

SO the submission's on Saturday, and I'm working very very hard to finish things on time.
All this post is for, is to wonder about the wonder that is the internet.
"I DNT HATE MOZILLA BUT USE IE OR ELSE"

All hail people who post so that others can find solutions.
I love help forums. I love the internet. I love Google. All hail the internet. All hail Google.

And I was only online to send some files to a person.


Sigh. :(
SATURDAY!
I have the heartburns.

forgotten episodes

A surprise comment today reminded me of old times and old boys. It saddens me a little to realize that I no longer remember in vivid detail every moment of those four (? five? three?) days back in January.
I do remember lots, though, if I think about it for a little while. I remember the concerts in the OAT. The surprise meetings of old friends. The long walks with past classmates. The discovery of new company for coffee talk. The loss of wallets. The giving of presents. The misjudging of people. The forgiving and the forgetting.
Plays. Poems. Midnight quizzes. Drunken messages. Skirts. Mosquitoes. Broken shoes. Borrowed shoes. Dawn walks through the woods. Buses. Whose Line is it Anyway. Elocution. Boys. :) Daily Crossie. Crossie finals. Finishing last. Missing singing. Pompous people. Prejudice. Damp grass by moonlight. Staircases. A cat on my lap. A mattress on my shoulder. A monkey on a railing.
Unexpected wins. Unexpected friends.

Saarang 2007.
It was a time.

at any other time

I love you more than I should
So much more than is good for me
More than is good

Oh the timing is cruel
Oh I need and don't want to need
More than I should

I am falling, say my name
And I'll lie in the sound
What is love, but whatever
My heart needs around

Oh my sheet is so thin
So I say I can't sleep because
It's so very cold

Oh but I know what I need
And if you were just near to me
Would you go...

I am falling, say my name
And I'll lie in the sound
What is love, but whatever
My heart needs around

And it needs you too much now

Trespassers William - Lie in the Sound