Sonnet 87 by William Shakespeare

Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate.
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

Venting...

Ok, I realize that not everyone has the same amount of Internet exposure and experience I have but I find it so frustrating that a good portion of our users expect the impossible from us and don't have any concept of what is realistic....

First, we cannot know everything about every browser available. When our users are too spastic to figure out (even though we've posted it in the online HELP) that their browser is caching and then we tell them it appears that their browser is caching - they then get annoyed that we don't know the exact steps on how to clear the cache of AOL v. -0.5!!!!

Second, the Internet is full of kids and weirdos. GET USED TO IT! In the past couple of months there have been several users who have posted blogs - they don't protect their blogs and then they get comments....or they publicly post their email addresse and they get emails!!! SURPRISE.....not all of the comments and emails are nice rays of sunshine....Sometimes, they're 13 year old kids trying to freak you out and they've succeeded when you go running to the police or to your provider and expect us to track down these people when they use FAKE information. Yes, I know it is a complete shock to you that someone can invent and use FALSE information on the internet but they do it.

Where to these people have the time to sit around and be freaked out because someone called them a doody-head (yeah, I am not kidding) on their blog and then, to take it SERIOUSLY?? And how can you take the word "doody-head" seriously????....this happens more often than I ever thought it would.....If you are that paranoid or easily bothered, then don't have a blog - or at least not one that can be accessed by anyone....

Ok, I need to get back to it. I just needed to vent for a moment...Oh and you can feel free to call me a doody-head.....

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Never Let Me Go

That's the title of the book I just finished reading (by Kazuo Ishiguro). Well, not actually reading, I listened to it on my mp3 player. All I can say, through the tears that are running down my face, is wow. I don't know how to describe it really. I can't do it justice. It's been a long time since a book made me cry - though I am more prone to that type of behavior these days....Maybe when I gain a little perspective I can properly review the book. I will say this, hearing someone tell a story, like these audio books I keep buying, makes me feel closer to the characters. This book made me feel like I lost a close friend - not the sort of thing I need right now - but regardless of my personal baggage, to have a book move me in such a way is always wonderful as well as unsettling....

Anyway, I crammed in over 8 hours of homework today and then finished the book - I am burnt out! I am going to go be a vegetable for a while!

Afraid....

I had never thought about it before. Not really. But the topic of fear came up recently. I was asked by someone "When are you most afraid?" - in my typical fashion, I responded quickly with some quip about my fear of spiders (except for Bathroom Spider and Porch Spider, two arachnids, from a long time ago, I had developed a fondness for), especially SURPRISE SPIDERS - you know, the ones that come from out of nowhere and lower directly in front of your face, usually while walking forward so you have to do the ArachnaSpaz, a dance to avoid running head long into a SURPRISE SPIDER. But my fear of spiders is pretty much limited to my encounters with them.

And then there's my fear of being surrounded by a large body of water, like the ocean. This has never happened to me before but sometimes during movies about the wide open ocean, with no land in sight, my pulse quickens a little...but being in Chicago, I don't really have to deal with this....

And there's my fear of being buried alive - and this may, or may not be tied into my purpose for this entry in a moment. Now, when I watch movies again that have either an unsteady cave or some psycho killer intent on burying his victims, again, my pulse quickens and my breathing becomes a little ragged. But I can walk away or turn my head. But it's a little distant and removed from me.....

This all got me to thinking about my fear. My flip response to the question made me out to be a brave soul, not scared by much. But it dawned upon me, I am afraid. I do have fears. Usually, they are global things - I used to fear nuclear war and mushroom clouds. Or malevolent alien invasions. But again, remote things.

And then I ordered new cable service.....

Finally, my real fear. The cable guy. Comcast Cable is coming today to install something. With my new found "freedom" (read being abandoned, jilted, walked out on, left, divorced, etc.) there has been a resulting depression (read: hiding in my apartment for days on end without talking to a soul. Ignoring my phones and email) and heemiting. Recently, there was news story all over the place about the woman who was killed by her cable installer. It dawned on me that by being so alone, I was now vulnerable in a way that I've not been in, well, about 10 years - the last time I lived on my own. Were the cable guy to be some psychotic killer (trying to tie it back to my fear of being buried alive), it might be days before anyone knew I were dead.

So..

On my way home from the train station I realized I needed to buy cigarettes. I am always slightly ashamed of buying cigarettes, I feel as if I am buying heroin laced with ivory muled here by one legged children. There are three gas stations near my home that sell my cigarettes but one, the one closest to me and most convenient no longer receives my business as I believe they were party to the theft of my bank account a couple of years ago. So really, there are only two that I patronize. I realized, as I was headed in their general direction, that I had been to the next most convenient one recently to purchase my smokes and therefore, I could not go there today - because it would mean, as interpreted by the clerks, that I suffered from an addiction. That I was a smoker....Now, having worked in retail, I know that I rarely sat in judgement of any of my customers. I simply wanted to get the next person and then to get home, or off with friends, or anywhere but behind that register...Why is it that I presume to be so fascinating or note-worthy that random clerks actually think more about me or my purchase? Am I so self-centered? I hadn't thought so....until now.....

Anyway, as I stood in line to order and pay for my cigarettes I got stuck behind one of those women...those women I abhor...she was purchasing about $273 worth of lottery tickets, rattling off numbers, changing their order and getting impatient with the befuddled clerk all while carrying on a conversation on her cell phone. She punctuated her conversation with heavy sighs, intended to express her displeasure with the service. At one point, she turned to me to give me a look, imploring me to agree with her...I stood impassively staring at the display behind the counter that offered chapstick, mouthwash and condoms - all the makings for a lovely evening. Finally, the clerk tallied the woman's order, only to have to repeat the total for the woman at least three times because she was still carrying on with her phone conversation, peppered with vulgarity and slang. The words all mushed together in her mouth before tumbling out. I couldn't actually make out much of what she was saying - only those words that she actually bothered to enunciate. Not that I really cared but the mouthwash and condoms were now boring me (that was not my evening ahead) and the ice cream cooler at my thigh was too tempting...The woman then proceeded to rummage through her purse, pull out her wallet and count out the money, all in ones...she made a big procession of ensuring that each dollar was just that, a single dollar - no Siamese twins, she pinched the corners of the bills between her talon tipped fingers and rubbed them together...the process was arduous but I remained stoic....just staring vacantly...this time because a song began to play....

I wondered why the tears were welling up in my eyes...this song, I don't even recall what it was, didn't mean anything. It wasn't "our song" - not that we had a song. One of the serious deficiencies of our relationship, at least for me, was the complete lack of romance. Traditional romantic gestures were always trivialized. Believe me, I am not some sap tuned into Love FM all day long but there's something about holding hand in the rain - not intentionally, not "Hey, its raining, lets go hold hands" but that moment when you're walking with your beloved, unexpectedly it begins to rain and, yet it hardly matters. S/he reaches over and takes your hand and you continue to walk..in the rain....I digress. So there I am, standing in the gas station, brought to tears by a less than memorable love song...wondering what the hell was going on? What was happening? I knew I took the crazy pill, which is actually the anti-crazy pill...so what on earth was all this??? Its not like someone died, I chastised myself! And then it struck me...

Someone had died....

I was mourning.....

I died...When T left, the me I've grown to know and be comfortable with died....and I was left, a lone mourner, standing vigil, graveside....Everyone is pretty much past the comforting phase, not that they shouldn't be, but life has moved on. When I didn't have the nervous breakdown most seemed to fear, they sighed with relief and moved on...I mean they still say things like "Well, with all you've been through" and "It's no wonder, with everything going on as it has" when any little thing is awry, but the urgency is gone and they're mentally composing grocery lists as we converse....

So that's it....Now being that I believe things often work in a cycle, I am brought to the thought that there will, hopefully, be some sort of birth...a new me...hopefully improved...but probably still as freaked out by spiders and being buried alive...But I don't know when that will happen..and for now, I am in some sort of in-between place..so lonely because I am gone...The me that I lived with daily for over four years...four very formative years - I've always been a late bloomer....and now she is dead and I am left waiting for the birth....It is my hope that gestation isn't too long and that I will emerge from my cocoon with Monarch wings...we shall see, we shall see...

On a lighter note, this interim me is in love...with an imaginary man...I know this sounds laughable...and ok, so he's not totally imaginary and it's more like lust or longing but nevertheless its there and when I think about him, which isn't often but isn't infrequent, I sometimes smile....I know, I know, it sounds stupid and it is stupid - I promise, I know this - and while I may daydream about stalking him while waiting for the freight train to pass and let me get on to work, I know that I will not stalk him....I might email him but it will be business...but when I email him, I will smile...and for the moment, this makes me less broken...


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9:30pm

Every so often, Mary calls me...It's usually about once or twice every few months...And while Mary calls me, she doesn't actually mean to call me. She is trying to reach her niece, I believe the niece is named Ann/e....And when I don't answer the phone, she leaves me/Ann a message, even though my voicemail clearly states my name, which is no where near Anne...Anyway, when Mary does reach me she becomes quite confused..Mary says we sound alike, me and Ann...She tells me this pretty much every time we talk...as if it's some how kismet - we sound alike so it shouldn't be so odd that this occurs....or something like that....Then, she becomes a little irritated, insisting that she dialed the right number. She says this in an accusatory way, as if I've hijacked her nieces telephone number. She asks if I've had my number long and I say for over 4 years (or three, or two - when the calls began). She usually sniffs at this contemptuously as if I am lying...And then she goes back to insisting that she dialed the right number...and then we go over my number (this is not my real number): 807-555-6295. She always says that, yes, this is the number she has dialed and I always say, well, this is my telephone number and it has been. This is where we usually end the call because we've reached a stalemate. Neither one of us willing to budge...Mary called tonight, but because of a bizarre slew of calls I've been getting from out of state numbers, I've stopped answering any number I do not immediately recognize.....I should put Mary's number into my phonebook so I am sure not to answer when she calls....Unless I begin to miss her and then I can answer and we can dance.....

Crackers...

So I stepped outside to enjoy a cigarette, the sunshine and my new MP3 player...I wandered down the street and around the corner while listening to the opening of a David Sedaris book...I decided to hover at the edge of a nearby park, not daring to go in as I might just have to horizontally occupy one of the benches and never return to the office...there I stood, rather, there I leaned, on the black faux iron fence absorbing the audio book, sunlight and nicotine...I stared vacantly at nothing, though really it was up at an apartment that I had been to a couple of times recently for a failed tryst and puffed at my cigarette...I thought of nothing but David's voice and the words he wove together, rich images of kids in bushes and family dinners fought for air in my mind....I realized, rather suddenly, that I should head back to work though I wanted nothing more than to stay and absorb...On my way back, just before I turned the corner, a woman, looking bored, approached me - her arm outstretched, offering me something. I have become accustomed to simply accepting whatever it is that is handed to me (hence the 30 some odd sample size Honey Bunches Of Oats cereal that I've thrust upon my coworker) and so I stuck out my hand and said thank you. For all I knew she could have been handing me a bunch of worms or a million dollar lottery ticket but, being the Pavlovian dog that I am, I simply take, regardless.....It turned out to be...well..two packets of Ritz Crackers...Not a box of crackers, not some foam cracker that will amuse me like the foam ear I have from Cingular...No, two packets of crackers that look like the remains of a desk eaten lunch...you know the crackers, they sit in your desk drawer and you only review them when you're searching for that elusive packet of catsup...You never throw them out because some day they might come in handy, like when the communists invade ala Red Dawn and you are forced to survive on what you have shoved in that drawer, but you know that you will never eat them. No, they will get shifted around and overlooked until at least one of the crackers disintegrates, not so much because of the shifting, but because of the shear lack of interest...and there they will remain, until either you get fired, you quit or your office moves...and that is exactly what happened to these to packets of Ritz Crackers...sigh.....