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27 September 00 I just got off the phone with Susan. It was really fun - we were at our respective houses, working on her web journal, uploading & downloading back & forth as we discussed our changes on the phone. "Oh, let's just scoot this up a bit so these columns are aligned. There, I'm uploading it now. Reload your browser. How does that look?" We both enjoy the creativity involved with creating one's website and Susan is quickly realizing how addictive it can be :) Susan's husband Ashley is out of town on business, so that means I get to spend a lot of time with her this weekend, yay! She & I try to spend some "quality time" together on a regular basis and talk about whatever we can think of. Sometimes it's trivial gossipy stuff, and other times we're digging deep into one another's psyches, trying to figure ourselves and each other out. It's absolutely wonderful to have a friend that I can do that sort of thing with! I've been giving a lot of thought to the concepts of forgiveness vs. letting go. I've written here about my last couple of relationship situations which ended on somewhat sour notes. I really don't think I did anything wrong, and I really do think those people were not honest with me. In discussing the forgiveness issue with others, I've come to the conclusion that I don't need to forgive these people for what they've done, particularly since they are not apologizing to me. But what I do need to do is to let go of all the unpleasant feelings I have because of them. If I can do that then they will no longer have any control over me or my emotions. Face it, being angry and bitter takes a lot of energy, and it also means you are continuing to let the object of your anger/bitterness control your life. Well, these two people just don't deserve that much of me! 25 September 00 It's 6:45am and I'm at work. I haven't been at work this early in *years*. We did a big network cutover at work this weekend, and that led to quite an interesting schedule for me: Thursday night - go out, get to bed at 5am Friday - up at 11am, in to work at 1:15, work till 1am, asleep at 2 Saturday - up at 11:30, in to work at noon, work till 7, go to beach party until 6am, asleep at 7 Sunday - up at 12:45, at work about 1:45, work till 8, asleep about 11 Monday - up at 6, at work about 6:20, I'll leave about 1pm. People are surprised when I say I never get jet lagged, but it's true, I don't. travelling across time zones to me is really no different than having a crazy schedule like above. But to be fair, I guess some people would have a problem with a schedule like that ;) The Beach party/rave on Saturday night was great! It was thrown by the same people who did the last party I went to in that location, back in July. We toted all the sound equipment, some blacklights, and a bunch of water & fruit down this trail to a little protected area within the sand dunes, and literally danced the night away. Not only is it a different and wonderful experience to be dancing outside, underneath the stars (or fog, as it was), it's also really neat to feel the bass reverberating through the sand, through nature itself :) One thing that was really good for me was the fact that I went there by myself. I went early to help everyone set up, and met a few people that way. As the evening progressed, Jordy showed up, then later Simon & Josie, but for the most part I was just hanging out by myself. I've realized that's the way I meet people. If I go somewhere with another person, a friend or someone I'm dating, I tend to spend all my time & energy on that person. But when I'm alone, I'm forced to meet and talk to other people, and that's good experience for someone like me who is pretty shy. 20 September 00 Hi there. Me again. I finally finished putting up a few pages about this year's Burning Man experience with a bunch of photos. Go check it out ;) So yeah, I have been really quiet as of late. I've had some major things going on in my life, both internally and externally, and I wanted things to settle down a bit before I started talking about them; I don't like to cry "wolf" everytime I *think* something is going on in my life. I'm currently single (again). This after spending about two months with (new) Tim in various degrees of involvement. What puzzles me is how something so intense, wonderful and mutual, something which had the potential to be the best relationship of my life, could have degraded the way it did. I have some partial answers, but as of yet, no complete explanation. It's sad, really. That particular situation, like others which have come before it, makes me wonder about why people cannot tell the truth. Or why people cannot tell the whole truth. Or why they just omit certain crucial facts. I try to be as honest as possible whenever possible, and apparently I am asking for too much by expecting the same of others. On the plus side, I got to spend some time with (Evil) Tim (who currently holds the distinction of The Best Relationship Of My Life) at Burning Man, and it was so nice to be able to talk to him about, well, everything. While we certainly have ups and downs in our relationship, I still feel like we're two halves of the same person. He really is great. And also I've recently have some very interesting and major revelations regarding myself and my interpersonal communications. This is an area which I am always trying to learn more about and improve, and I think I've just had some great advancement there. In part, I need to let others know what I need out of relationships, instead of basically assuming that I'll get it and then becoming all mad when I don't. Okay, now it's late and I need to get some sleep. 7 Sept 00 Okay, I'm back from Burning Man and have somewhat recovered and returned to "Real Life". I had a great time, despite harsh weather and the elements conspiring against us. We came through it all wonderfully and wonderfully filthy! Now it's just a matter of unpacking, doing laundry, and creating a web page where I can place my photos :) I'm hoping for some time over the weekend to do all this & get caught up on my writing. 23 August 00 I haven't felt much like writing this last week or two. Sometimes I am just quieter than others. It's a little odd writing in a format like this because I really have no idea who's reading it. I'd like to know. If you are reading this, please drop me a line and introduce yourself :) I guess I could at least talk about what I've been doing. Two Saturdays ago, I went to a rave with Darb, Allison & Joe and got to watch Sunbeam perform! That was fun! I've liked them for a few years now, and they played a bunch of good music (even if I only recognized two songs...maybe the others were new?). Last Friday night Tim & I left for a weekend-long campout rave called Fusion up in the mountains east of Angel's Camp. It took about 2.5 hours to drive to the town of Angel's Camp, but it took probably about another 45 minutes to traverse the 11 miles between town and the camping spot. It was nestled far away from everything, which was great because then we wouldn't be bothering anyone else with the loud music and such. We arrived about midnight, wandered around and found Raphael, Phil & Dave, set up camp, then wandered back up to the main dance area where we sat and listened to music and looked at the trees, stars and laser lights. The next day was spent being lazy. We hung out with Raph, Chris & Zoe and Erik and his friends. At nightfall, we went back up to the main area again where most of the people were, and things were pretty happening. We hung out and danced up there until the wee hours of the morning. I'd guess there were 300-400 people total at the party, but it was never too crowded. And the people were all very nice and friendly, and it was a good crowd overall. Burning Man starts in less that a week! I think we've got most preparations under control. <fingers crossed> We have a large but good group of people going this year. Yay! It should be great fun! 10 August 00 I've been debating whether I should go up to Mike and tell him just *how happy* I am that he broke up with me! Because of that, it's given me a chance to spend time with and get to know Tim, who is just an incredible, wonderful person! But I guess that wouldn't be very nice now, would it? <evil grin> The last couple of weeks have been pretty emotionally intense. Most of it has been good, and that is making me very, very happy. Yeah, I know that's vague, but sometimes I just want to wait and see what's going to happen in a particular situation before I say too much. My last couple of weeks have been pretty low-key. Burning Man is now only 2.5 weeks away, so our group is gearing up for that. We should have a pretty big, pretty cool camp this year. I'm also going out a couple days earlier than I did last year so I'll have a chance to see and do more without (hopefully) totally exhausting myself like I did last year. I've got a couple of things going on this weekend, so the weekend should be good. Maybe there will even be time for another motorcycle ride! A couple of Sundays ago, Tim, Adam, Angela and I went for a ride through the East Bay hills where they have some great motorcycling roads! It would be nice to get an even bigger group and head out again this weekend. There's something really fun about riding around in a big cluster of motorcycles :) Okay, off to do some more work... 27 July 00 It's after midnight and I really should be going to bed, but...oh well :) There's only one more day of work until the weekend. Work...the new job is great! I still really like it there, and I especially like the fact that I continue to learn and do more. I enjoy researching and fixing problems. I'm turning into some semblance of a "real" sysadmin :) The coolest thing about this job was how easy it came about - I was sitting at my desk at ZDNet and had just opened up my resume so that I could update it and begin my job search. My (now) current boss walked up to me with a job description and said he had an opening and wanted me to work for him. End of job search! Guess what I did today? I washed and waxed and Armorall-ed my motorcycle! It looks so clean and shiny, and it looks better than it has in ages! Yay! Oh, last weekend was a ton of fun! On Saturday, Tim, Simon and I drove to Fresno to go to a rave called Cyberfest. We met up with Brian & Jen, Mike, Wendy, Rob & Renee, Harald, Zuad & Mike, Monnia, Aaron, Erik, Chris, Zoe, and a few others whose names I unfortunately can't remember right now. Much fun insued! The rave was held at the fairgrounds and drew tens of thousands of people. There were four or five large dance halls, carnival rides (!); Tim, Simon & I all decided it would be a good idea to run around barefoot, and it felt good on such a warm summer night. We all crashed in our huge hotel suite afterwards, but we couldn't drag ourselves out of bed until the 2pm checkout rolled around. From there we went to IHOP and tried to drink enough caffeine to recharge ourselves, but it barely helped. We finally arrived back in SF somewhere around 9pm. But it was a wonderful night, for many different reasons. I want to write more but I'm getting really tired. Must go to bed. G'night. 21 July 00 Okay, super-brief entry. Life. Life is really good for me right now. I am so happy! Some things are just going so incredibly well that they have me all bouncing around! And I really like my new job! Yeah, it's busy, but it's a good busy. Doesn't leave me with a lot of time to update this during the day (except for right now - 4:45 on Friday afternoon), but hey! It's a cool job and I'm learning a lot. Technology is cool! Certain people are even cooler! 11 July 00 Things are good :) I've been spending a lot of time with friends lately, I've been meeting people and making new friends, been going out, listening to music and dancing, and I've got some fun exciting things on the horizon! Last weekend I went to a fun party at Aaron & Erik's place. What a wonderful house! Two floors with a curving staircase and 15+' ceilings! I hung out there with Simon & Tim (not that Tim). Tim (not that Tim) and I hung out again the following night, this time we went to see a Buster Keaton silent film at the Castro Theatre, and that was a lot of fun. They had the Alloy Orchestra basically doing live sound effects for the movie, and that just made the film! Monday I finally started my new job! I'm now working as a sysadmin at ZDTV! It's a different company than my previous ZDNet job, but I'm working with a bunch of great people that I already knew and had worked with before, so that made the transition so easy. I'll be doing a lot and learning a lot, so I've finally got some work-related challenges ahead of me! Yay! I had been way too stagnant at my last job, and I really needed more stuff to do! Burning Man is only about a month & a half away, so it's time to get rolling on those plans. It looks like Tim (yes, that Tim) will be coming out for at least a few days of BM, woo-hoo! I haven't seen him since February. We keep adding people to our camp - we're probably nearing 20 so far. Yay! Fun! 8 July 00 I've just had my first-ever vacation by myself! I had this past week off of work (I'm between jobs), and in light of all the crap I had been thinking about lately I decided I needed to get out of town to clear my head. My first thoughts were to either go to Mexico, Canada, or Germany - all places I had been to several times before. Then as I thought more, I realized I too often tend to stick with the familiar - I don't do new or risky things very often, despite what image I may have. So I decided to just take off in my car. By myself. With no particular destination, other than to try and stay away from anyplace i had been before. I've got a description of the trip on the way. Now that I'm back home, I have to say the trip was a great decision. I saw some beautiful and amazing scenery and returned home refreshed and revived. One major realization was to put the whole Mike breakup in perspective - it wasn't a painful breakup, so why was I letting it get to me? Anyway, it's over and done with, and as far as I'm concerned, I came out ahead. One of the CDs I was listening to as I was driving around pretty much summed up the situation - All these years they've tried to break you to your knees 5 July 00 Blah. I have reasons to believe that Mike lied to me about his reasons for breaking up. That bothered me. I really am one for honesty, and if I find that someone I trusted so much isn't telling me the truth, it hurts. I debated just letting the situation be as we're already broken up and that's that, but then I decided I needed to say something for my own piece of mind. Maybe also to put some sort of closure to the situation. And definitely to let Mike know that I knew. So I wrote him a short, to-the-point email. I don't know if that was the right choice; maybe I should have began a discussion with him before sending that mail? But I felt like a discussion would be flogging a dead horse. I wasn't trying to put our relationship back together, but if he was in fact lying to me, well, then that's no basis for a continued friendship either. I hope I was right in my assumptions. Several other people, as well as circumstances, indicated I was. Hmph. Maybe if he reads this he'll understand better what I was thinking. If you're reading this and you know Mike, ask him to read this. I just want to know the truth. 1 July 00 A new month, a new journal page, a new chapter of my life - you make the analogy :) Mmmm, it's mid afternoon, and I just got out of bed. Sitting here checking email, listening to John Digweed, and drinking a Diet Coke as I try to wake up. Why I am such a lazy bum that I don't get out of bed until 3 on a Saturday? Well, that would be because I didn't get home till well after 6am this morning! I heard about a psy-trance rave happening on the beach. It sounded fun, so I gathered up a few people and headed over with my co-worker Aaron, his housemate Erik, and Jonathan. (It was Jonathan's first rave, so I was anxious to see what he thought of the whole thing.) We showed up just before 2, which was also just as the music was getting started. They had found a little sheltered space on the beach, tucked in between a hill and a large sand dune, brought in a generator, DJ equipment and blacklights. There were about 75-80 people there - some huddled around the bonfire, others dancing in front of the DJ. We danced all night long (it was *cold*, and you had to dance if you wanted to stay warm!) and watched the sun come up. If really is neat to watch the sun come up while you're outside. It's almost like it makes up for the fact that you're out late ;) | |||
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