(Phaysis)

So, I’ve been negligent to this journal in the past month. Not unusual, but so much has happened and I haven’t shared. I know I should document at least some of the exciting and mundane things just to keep you people coming back. So negligent. For that, I’m sorry…but not that sorry.

Eh, five or six weeks back I quit IRC for good. I’m done. When I think of all the time I’ve wasted on that chat medium, I weep. That’s time I will never get back. Well, it wasn’t a total waste; there are some really awesome people on there. I mean IRC is just a tool for communication and nothing more, but the ratio of awesome people to absolute dicks (who are dicks just for the joy of it) makes the medium not worth the effort. I met some good people, and I really miss them. But the rest of the people, fuck ‘em.

I now have a lot of quality time available. I don’t have to expend so much mental energy constantly defending myself with wit and face-saving antics that I’m too fatigued and demoralized to be productive. Now I feel better about myself. It’s like turning up the squelch control on a noisy receiver; click, and it’s no more noise. It’s amazing. And oddly enough, I don’t feel lonely anymore since I’m now paying attention to the here-and-now. I’ve always felt like I was staring at the horizon on a long, dark, starless night trying to communicate with people just beyond, but now I’m looking at the campfire in front of me and finally connecting with the people who’ve been sitting next to me for so many years.

Case in point: I met a girl. Ok, actually, it’s more complicated than that. We’ve known each other for eight years back when she was in a shitty marriage. Saw each other for the first time in a while at a coffeeshop and decided to chat face-to-face; that evening, my laptop stayed in its bag. We’ve been hanging out quite a bit, nothing serious. Just good times and lots of laughs. Bringing some levity and sanity to things. People need more of that. IRC never gave me any of that.

And now, something that isn’t related to IRC: a month ago I noticed my eyeglasses were starting to break and it was only a matter of time before the whole thing came apart, so I went to the optometrist. Got a wild hare and decided to get contacts; it’d been ’93 since I wore them last, so I wanted to try again. Well, after the first 10 days, my eyes were so dry and irritated I had to stop wearing the contacts. Eyes got seriously bloodshot; looked as if I had pinkeye. Had to start wearing my new glasses.

Well, two nights ago I decided to try the contacts again; my eyes were finally clear, no redness. I put them on before going out for the evening; returned home four hours later and promptly removed them. Eyes were so dry that I scratched them while removing the contacts…I’m so out of practice. Woke up Saturday morning to the brightest red eyes I’d ever seen this side of the movies. They’re still embarrassingly red two days later. That’s all the evidence I need to tell me that I can’t wear contacts, which is a shitty realization considering how much I’d invested in those fuckers. I’m not sure if the contacts themselves are carrying a bacterial load or if their surface is rough from wearing them or if I’m allergic to the cleaning solution or whatever. All I know is that I can’t wear them, and I should probably consult my optodoc before trying anything else. Hmph.

In other news, my job lately is quite stressful. I don’t want to dwell too much on it considering this is Sunday night, the calm before the storm. My workload has been building up on me faster than I can process it, and I feel I’m on the verge of collapse. It’s not worth the 10% pay reduction I got (everybody got a paycut, thanks to the economy…whatever). It’s a job, and it supports the lifestyle to which I have grown accustomed, but the Depression-era rearing I had beaten into me tells me to not knock it because “I could be flipping burgers”. But c’mon. I’m getting new assignments and “side projects” every time I receive an email. And everybody wants their numbers in the early part of this week. Well I’m here to say that shit ain’t happening.

I went in for a few hours today (a Sunday!) to get a head start on the week. Hopefully I got the last part of the data collection for one of the tasks; spent three hours on it in the lab by myself with no distractions. I’ll crunch the numbers tomorrow after I kick off some benchmark runs for another task. Hopefully everything will have been for good. At the least, I got three of my required 40 hours done; everybody (on top of the paycuts) also has time limits if they’re hourly. Yeah, awesome. My checks are shitty; everybody’s is. Probably why my workload’s building up: nobody else has time left to do them. Feh.

Dammit. I’ve dwelt too much. Moving on.

The Ruby On Rails project I’m building for my site is progressing well. I have basic user functionality written and now I’m moving along into file uploads, doing all the groundwork for everything that stacks on top of it. Once I had my user and login admin code mostly finished, I decided — just for fun — to write a test harness to check it (I can’t check everything by clicking in a browser). Wouldn’t you know it, there were holes and flaws and errors and problems aplenty in my code. Who the hell put those there? I am so damned glad I worked up the testcases. Rails has a pretty powerful facility for writing tests. Now, since I’m starting work on the file upload feature, I think I’ll follow this programming methodology (some call it “extreme programming”) by sketching out an idea of what I want to the software to do, composing the tests to check for that functionality, and then writing the project code to make those tests pass. It’s a goal-oriented approach, and thankfully it’s keeping me on track.

And all this because of the free time I have available after I ditched IRC. Can you believe that? I certainly can.

IRC is the worst place to go if you have something to say.

No matter the message, no matter if you’re pontificating, ranting, trying to convince someone, convey your viewpoint, or call out for other people who agree, it’s the worst place to do it. There’s always going to be one motherfucker who has it out for you. He will issue the smallest number of words to completely derail you and reduce everything you’ve just said to the level of worthlessness.

“Why don’t you just blog about it?”

I’ve had enough. I’m not in with those people. Haven’t been for years. Trying to hold on to some shred of respect and fight for my own relevance. As in real life, so in IRC. This morning was a cascade of insults and issuances that pushed the thorns in a little deeper, and I’ve had enough. I cannot grow a thicker skin; I lack that ability.

I’m done with the oneupmanship. Done with the wit. Done with the insults. Done. I’ve parted all but one of the channels I’m on. It’s been a long time coming, but today was just too much. I don’t IRC from work anymore because I find it destroys any of the concentration I desperately require there. I only IRC in my free time now, and even that time is better spent doing something else. When my IRC window is open, I can do fuckall with any of my projects. Somebody speaks, the window scrolls, and there’s my attention running away.

Hi. My name is Shawn. I’m a recovering IRC addict.

So if I can speak my mind in a monologue on my blog, and if I can have realtime chat on one of many instant-messenger platforms, and if I can debate and argue on untold thousands of web boards and forums, and if I can share files with people in a lot of ways, then what use is IRC? What relevance does IRC have? It is obsolete, then. A ghost town. The domain of oldschool curmudgeons who do little more than idle unless it is to put some else down.

So I’ve done the one thing I do best: leave. I’m voting with my feet. You can say I’m “emoparting”. You’d be correct. You are always correct.

It’s been a long, unproductive ride.

My first week in my new apartment; the dust is settling and I’m starting to settle in on a nest of my own. Moving out, so far, is proving to be the best gift I could have given myself to mark my 36th birthday last week. I am now, finally, my own man.

My former roomate and I have practically broken all ties, and good thing, too. Less stress, less drama. He tried to draw me into some drama last weekend; hadn’t even been moved out 18 hours and he was yelling at me about taking the cable modem; a case of I-said-You-said. The jackass stole my cable internet account without my permission, and, if I have learned right, the only way to do so would be to file a bunch of paperwork at the cable office to transfer an account from one name to another…and both parties must file. So, it looks like someone impersonated me. A heady accusation to make, but it would be fitting as a final “fuck you” to someone he no longer cared about.

After being on the phone with Time-Warner sunday, I decided that the best disposition of the modem was to go to my old apartment, open the door, attach a note to the modem that said “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!”, drop it and my old keys on the floor, and lock the door on my way out.

I dusted my hands on the walk back to the car.

It pleases me that we are no longer in each other’s sphere of influence. I can remove the gloves when necessary now instead of biting my bleeding tongue in an insane fit of diplomacy. That I stayed in the same household with him for almost six years speaks volumes of my insanity, laziness, fear, poverty, and an unwillingness to rock the boat. It’s a testament to intersocial constipation. I held back so much shit over the years, it just stopped flowing. The long winter. The dead season. The minutes of decay in the hour of life.

After our friendship went sour, I stopped communicating, he stopped trying. We found comfort in plausible deniability: I was simply closing my door because I didn’t want to bother him with my loud music; he closed his door because he didn’t want to bother me with his smoking. Our avoidance of each other was because we didn’t get along, but acting as such would have been unbearably direct. We had to find nonverbal excuses. Everything was unbearably passive-aggressive. We didn’t talk beyond an infrequent “hey” and a terse discussion of bills. On occasion, it was friendly, but that was just on the face of it. In private, fingers would fly. In public, tongues would wag. Our rare instances of actual contact over important issues met with inflamed egos and enraged anger. Usually, someone left the house shortly afterwards.

But no more of that.

I am in my own place now. I can stretch out. I can change. I can grow, create, do stuff without commentary, remarks, surprise. I can sit in the common area without bother. I can watch a heavy movie without the risk of someone barging in the front door dragging three strange friends and interrupting the moment at a particularly heavy part of the plot. The environment won’t change suddenly without my hand on the handle.

I am in my own place. Now, instead of having to avoid when I go home, I only have to avoid in the rare public place. That’s easy enough; avoiding in your own private sanctuary is much more difficult and taxing.

I am in my own place. It’s over now. I hope he and I can reach some shred of reconciliation, but right now, it’s doubtful and for the short term unwanted. I’m out. It’s over. We’re done.

I am on my own.

Here goes:

I have announced to my roomate that, after 6 years of living with him, I am moving out. Thus ends our long history of cohabitation. It has been a long, cold winter.

Since the announcement, I’ve been looking at apartments; my goal is to find a one-bedroom flat as close to my current neighborhood as possible. It’s proving to be difficult. Feels as if the whole thing is backfiring on me. But, I keep searching.

I’ve found several places that fit the bill just right, but there’s always something that turns me away: high demand, long waiting list, no availability, obscenely high prices, stupid college-level restrictions like assigned parking, or some absurd anti-pet rules — one otherwise awesome place demanded that no dogs are allowed on the premises, period, which encroaches on any visit by my mother who travels with her dog.

I want to stay in this area, I seriously do, but I’m being priced out of my own neighborhood. I’m trying to be my own man and live on my own now that I can sort of afford it (I’m almost 36 and I’ve never had my own place — what the hell is that?). It’s time to try, but it’s an immense weight to do it. Pushing stones uphill.

So, tomorrow is an important day: I’ll have to make a decision on this one apartment I’ve been considering for the past week, pay my deposit and application fee, and await my acceptance. Failing that, my deposit goes back to me and I keep searching. It’s a juggling act with 12 balls in the air. I’m tired. This has drained me, dragged me down. It’s a full-time job, and since most apartment managers don’t work outside of business hours, it’s cutting into my actual full-time job. More stress.

All my previous searches for a place to live have been a cakewalk in comparison; I’ve either moved in with someone else or have found a suitable place within the first week. I’ve been at this since the first of the month and it’s growing long in the tooth. Ulcers from the stress; paralysis from the options; insomnia from the anxiety; cramps from the fear of uncertainty. I’m sick from this nonsense and I want it to end. And this is only half the work of moving.

Out of being worn down I’ll most likely settle on the place tomorrow and keep packing up my shit to move. Hopefully they’ll have the place ready within the week so I can start moving by week’s end. Then and only then can I be locationally and financially detached from my roomate (we’ve been interpersonally detached for years). I want the charade to end. I want the new beginning.

A month ago was the beginning.

It all started innocously; after using the same installation of Windows 98 since November of 1998, transferring it from one hard drive to another and then to another, moving it from one computer to another, with various pieces of hardware moving in and out, and with no operating system reinstalls ever, I had reached a point where the limitations of my desktop OS of choice and the benefits of the most recent OS version far outweighed the familiarity and sentimental value of the old ways. My system, no matter how well kept, how closely guarded, how well configured, had developed deficiencies, inconsistencies, instabilities. I was running out of drive space. I had a spare 120 gig drive sitting on the other IDE channel with 8 partitions, into which Windows XP and Redhat Linux 9 was installed. With the exception of one 10-gig partition, the drive, as it stood, was useless to my Win98 installation. After a year of waffling on the triple-boot idea, I made the concrete choice. I had no better option than to drop the burden, upgrade my computer, and upgrade myself.

There was a previously-installed XP ready and waiting for me on the 20-gig primary partition, I wiped the other partitions on the large drive and combined the space into one partition giving me around 95gigs on the remainder. Perfect. All NTFS, relatively crash-tolerant, all set up with proper file permissions and everything. And for a while, things seemed good, and they were, except for one minor thing: my screen was too dim.

I played with the display settings and realized that XP was using the “reference” driver for my Voodoo3 video card, therefore I had little control over how bright the output was, and no control over color correction or anything. With the card’s manufacturer, 3Dfx, dot-bomb-dead and in the ground for four years now, my chance of finding a suitable XP driver for the card were slim; the only pickings were from a hobbyist group. No official support. The card, though it still functioned and worked well, was now a burden. It had reached the end of its time in modern equipment. Long live 3Dfx.

It was then that I remembered, “Hey, what about the video card I got as a thank-you gift a year ago?” Yes, the ATI All-In-Wonder card, with the built-in TV tuner. YES! So I found updated drivers for it on the company website, installed the card, dealt with the driver install, rebooted, and boom, I had a new video card and proper configuration drivers. No more dimness. After a quick install of the tuner and video recording application suite, and a day-long scramble to buy a coax cable, cable splitter, and an audio cable to go between video card and sound card, I finally had suitable cable television in my own bedroom. And it was good.

These events laid the groundwork and set the reverberation pattern for what was next. After several days of “tuning in and dropping out”, spending the evening watching television instead of chatting (as is my idiom) on IRC, the sequence continued on to something which galvanized me, opened my eyes, and gave me a new outlook on things.

It was a Friday night. Typically, I would’ve spent the evening with my IRC friends at Flightpath, sitting around being bored while we all poked at our laptops. That night, the disinterest was too great and I decided to give that plan a pass when my friend and coworker invited me to join him, his girlfriend, and some other mutual friends at Spiderhouse for coffee and chatter. I was game for it and wanted to go. When I got home from work, I unwound with the standard amount of channel-surfing while I cooled my heals. It was in that surfing that I remembered a very important event was to happen that night, and that it was a requirement for me to watch. So that night, two weeks ago, I stayed home and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games.

There is something you must understand about me. When I was a youth, I made my life centered around activities that involved large groups of people, swarms. Youth conferences, youth camps, church groups, youth group outings, school football games, pep rallies, revivals, the works. I gave myself to situations like that, not just for the one-on-one interaction with strangers, but to be part of the mosh if you will. To lose myself in the whole, to be overwhelmed.

Now here I am, a mild 14 years later. I’m older, quieter, a staunch individualist. I’m typically no longer given to doing group things. For the most part, the world at large be damned; I’ll stand with my fist clenched and do my own thing. I’ve become learned enough to understand now, in this age of mine, that the “movement of the Holy Spirit” I felt those many years ago in all those youth conferences, prayer meetings, revivals, was little more than the overwhelming sensation of joining something larger than myself. A neurological, neurochemical process. The ruse is now shown for what it was.

After stripping down the facade of that, after removing the religious overtones, I now see what it was that I felt, and I acknowledge that I, still, am weak to the power of Many. I still have the heart to join with strangers for something bigger, something greater than me, greater than us. And, to me, the Olympics is one of few things still worthy enough for that kind of social junction. There is nothing higher.

So I watched the ceremonies. I watched the faceless audience. I saw the crowds, I witnessed the art, the pageantry, the symbolism of the ceremony. I counted each country that entered the arena during the Parade of Nations, saw their flags, their outfits, their proud representation for their home lands. And I absorbed every bit of this and wept. I wept that I was witnessing something that was really happening. I wept that I was part of that moment. I wept that history was happening, and that all I could do was watch and be overwhelmed while sitting in my bedroom half a world away.

It was after that experience I realized that all the things in my life that were big pains, huge troubles, everpresent hassles were nothing. I was set straight again, my perspective readjusted. All those little problems I had to deal with, the interpersonal tug of war, the bickering, the backstabbing, the worries about who said what and why, they became meaningless, useless, expendable. It was after a day or so of careful consideration that I quietly parted from the main IRC channel I was member of and walked away. Every argument and snide comment was washed away. Replaced. Upgraded. I walked away. There are too many people in this world to end up wasting time, heart, and tears on a small few who return so little.

I just quietly walked away.

So during the next two weeks, the Olympic competitions continued; our American teams won medal after medal; around 104 medals in all for us. Worldwide, there was fierce, passionate, astounding competition; an Olympian mountain of sportsmanship, peace, and cooperation between athletes from every country. Peace. I smiled and wept that life could be so good, and smiled that it indeed could be. I wept that I had wasted most of the past nine months pursuing the friendship of those who I ran with only to be returned with heartache, tension, and little good reward. And I smiled that I had removed it from my life, that I had lightened my load and lightened my heart. I wept that it took a total of thirteen days before anyone in that group bothered to contact me to see if I was OK. And now I smile to say that I am perfectly OK, and happy to rejoin the world and my previous and varied sets of friends in their endeavors.

A few nights ago, I watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympic games. I was sad and felt a cold emptiness about the closing of the events, but there was something underscoring that sadness: I felt hope because the event happened in the first place and that I, in my newfound happiness and in my own little way, got to be a part of the crowd again. The ceremony was a grand party for everyone at the arena and abroad, and I watched it all through my tears of joy. I’m different now; the touch has changed me. The long sequence of happenstance that brought me here has brought me to the world as it is now, as I see it now. I still am the individualist that won’t get a LiveJournal account simply because “everyone else has one”, but I (at least for this duration) have less trouble with the idea of going outside of my own track to see something new. Even if it means by doing the expected and the usual and going alone.

There’s a quickness in my pace and lightness in my step; the lightness is my loss of burden by the roadside, and the quickness is the pair of winged sandals on loan to me by Hermes, the god of Marathon.