Er. October went. Where on earth did it go? I was supposed to do things in October that I didn't get done. The sky's a turbulent bowl of confused clouds and light right now and the buildings are glowing with the reflection from the Sound.

So on Saturday, I finished setting up the firewall in the morning, after going to the computer store and picking up some more RAM and a new NIC. It was really about ready to go, I just needed to finish setting everything up. I got that done, set up DHCP, and went to clean the house and do laundry.

Six hours later, I come back and log in. No packets are going through. I swear and switch on the workbench monitor, which was still plugged into the firewall. A bunch of hex numbers and various whining about wd1 (the device formerly known as the hard drive on that system)...and it won't respond. I hard reboot it. "no operating system."

Then it just refused to boot at *all*.

All done machine go bye bye. Fuck.

So that night, I popped over to BWH for a while and picked up three machines--two functioning, one not. I spent Sunday fiddling with it when I wasn't gaming--in the new motherboard, I couldn't get the NICs to work, no matter what I did. Turns out that this is a Known Problem with these particular NICs.

It is impossible to underestimate how much i hate hardware. I expect hardware to *work*. The first time. Every time. Even old hardware. Grrrr.

So hopefully tonight i'm going to go get the NICs reset and then i'll be in business.

But while I was fiddling with hardware, I was also updating my pictures pages. They're not done yet, but you can see what I have done over here.

a post I was attempting to write to a list and decided that it didn't fit into that discussion really well. so you guys get to read it. whee!

I am, by nature, an extremely solitary person. i'm not built for social contact, and though I do enjoy other people when i'm around them, it's never on the top of my list of priorities. Companionship is not something I need, it's something I provide to other people in return for the intangible benefits of social contact--knowledge I don't have, sex, acceptance, stuff like that.

With me, it's always pretty obvious within the first couple of months how compatible i am with someone new, how well our sex drives match, how well our lives in general mesh, how well we travel together. It's not so much that I'm always thinking, "now, will this person be a good person for me to live with/marry/whatever?" but that it becomes obvious whether or not they're a match for me fairly quickly. I used to try to simply take relationships as they came, but I've found that having a relationship with someone who I *know* doesn't mesh completely with me makes me insanely unhappy.

And when i'm with someone who I actually mesh that well with, though it's never trouble-free, the trouble is always...muted, i guess. If I'm capable of being seriously irritated or even angry at someone, then there is something seriously awry in our relationship. [If i'm meshing well with someone, there is a serious measure of empathy going on between us. The wonderful and irritating thing about having an empath for a partner (when you're one yourself) is that you can crawl into each other's heads. When I am that close with someone, being angry at them is like being angry at myself--counterproductive and silly.]

however, if I waited for people to come along who were my match like that, I'd be celibate for really long periods of time. (I get one every five years or so, and there always seem to be frustrating circumstances that cause us to eventually part ways.) So I have sex with people who are friends, or who i'm not planning on having a relationship with, because honestly that's easier than having a relationship that falls anywhere short of really amazing. It keeps the parts working, so to speak, and it gives me more practice at social interaction, which I'm still not very good at. And, well, it's fun!

But, for me, relationship sex is so much *better* that there's really no comparison. Part of it is practice, part of it is comfort that the other person is aware of and accepts (and sometimes celebrates!) the things that make me an occasionally difficult sex partner, and part of it is being able to *feel* the other person's pleasure and joy, being able to feel and reflect their desire, knowing that at that moment, there is nothing else in the world for both of you but each other. I don't get that out of sex with people who i'm not in that intensely committed bond with; the only thing that really comes close is sleeping with people who i've been having sex with on and off for eight or nine years, because they know me in ways that only long aquaintenceship can reveal.

I'm really happier and better off single than partnered, and I know this. I miss relationship sex, though.

And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, Oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now. It's all that there is

--Leonard Cohen

dream imagery

You are feeling isolated from the rest of the world. It's fall, and the weather wraps around you like a coat. Your skin is about a light-year away and accelerating at speeds previously thought impossible. You are falling.

You are shrinking.

You remember leaves, warm water, the sun, as if they were theories you studied in class. According to the chemicals sizzling along in your brain, summer is a prehistoric period and the sky has always been grey and there has always been a light drizzle falling. Your history starts here. Nothing from before is trustworthy.

But this untrustworthy history crowds in on you, an unwelcome guest, invisible. You touch a wall and the flicker of a girl's smile touches the top of your head, unfriendly bird beating you with its wings. flick. A car crash. flick. the color of dandelions. flick. a dog, sleeping. flick.

until you reel away from the wall. But now even the ground is doing it. It's as if everything is stuffed with memories and you're breaking the bubbles and spattering them all over your hands.

flick. a skinned knee. flick. someone climbing into the guts of an atom bomb. flick. A morning DJ's voice from twelve years ago. flick. a rock being loosed from a hand. flick. a whiff of tear gas. flick.

There is, a long way off, an earthquake. The ground shudders and bucks. The memories stop and you are lying on the ground when your vision clears and your eyes are able to perceive light again.

And stumbling, hurrying, you try to get to shelter. you know there is shelter, a place where you can hide from the rain that you know will be bringing memories again as soon as the spell that the earthquake has cast wears off. All too soon, now. There must be shelter. There must be.

The world has been reduced to wire-frame. Color has been reduced to yet another theory. You pant, wanting to cry. My wires have gotten crossed again. I am helpless to prevent this.

Somewhere in here, a pressure has been building. You move slowly, like through syrup. Through water.

Water. I am dreaming.

And you arrow upwards, break the surface, and wake shivering and alone, mewling with fright.

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