Perette

There are more important things than me.
350.org

Work

Reference

Journal feeds

My Journals

Friends

Intrigued by

Perette's journal: 2004

Contents

1. 2004-01-02 18:56 (Friday) journal

I'm continuing to plug away at the dominatrix & body rub business, although I haven't renewed any advertising. I'm unsure if I want to continue - I feel myself getting drawn towards some darkness that I'm unsure I want to go into. Actually, it feels like I'm already there, I'm just mixed on staying. It feels like the identity that I've had for some years is fading, and being replaced. The idea of lawfulness for its own sake has already been destroyed, and is gone. Despite knowing that being convicted will probably destroy any possibility of touring the world some day, remote as the dream may be anyway, I'm just not caring about the law. The aspect of me that is safety and discipline isn't working.

Yet, this is what I wanted. I don't want to be fucked by the laws because I'm one of the few that obey them. I want to be able to ignore them. So now that I can, why do I feel weird about it? Maybe the newfound idea that if I break a law, I can be punished; formerly I tried to comply with the law, this wasn't a consideration.

I don't think I should stay the same. Maybe this is how I change, become someone new that can cope with my life, because the me that was me couldn't. Maybe it's good that the me that is me isn't so committed to staying me as the me that was me was, because the me that shall be will have evolved and not be the same incapable critter.

2. Mood oscillation

2004-01-05 14:32 (Monday) journal

I'm reflecting on my mood of late. I've been in some kind of oscillation, swinging between okay and a state of paralyzing fear/pain. I get a little bit of stuff done on the upswings, but am completely unable to get motivated in the lows. I assume they're depression, because I display the symptoms of depression - except I don't feel sadness. Or maybe the sadness is covered up by the fear/pain. It's getting worse, too, I think. I was grinding away at the body rub/dominatrix business, even if I was scared of it, and I'm finding myself more and more fearful/paralyzed by the idea of it.

I guess my psychiatrist is doing well: he's cured me of the depressions in which I'm still capable of basic survival, and now I'm in the normal, unmotivated life-fucking depressions that everyone else has. Of course, this comment is an attempt to shift anger and frustration with myself to him, thus eliminating my feelings of guilt about my incapacity.

I guess it is depression, because in the moments the fear goes away, I just want to cry.

I fear people, I hate people. They harm me, keep me outside. But that's not true, it's me that stays outside, because I'm afraid of the challenges inherent in meeting people. I'm afraid of my own incompetence. That's why I'm fearing the body rub / domination thing - I have no meta-knowledge to assure myself of the skill of what I do. Therefore, I don't feel good about it, and therefore it has no worth, and therefore I have no worth.

Programming was something I excelled at, and I knew I excelled at it. I saw the others, how poorly they did the craft, and I could see how much better I was. That sense of being better is what has kept me going. But now my mind is in tatters, and I can't do the one thing that has made others find me worthy.

There are other things I'm good at, or could be, but since I haven't done them nobody would want to experiment with having me do them, because in this economy they could always find someone more experienced. Someone whose mind isn't a corrupt piece of shit.

My view of humanity isn't getting any better either. I still view people as generally self-serving, uncaring critters that would gladly harm me to take what they want - as long as they can somehow deny to themselves that they've hurt me, so that they don't have to feel the guilt. I think a lot of them are good at it. Or maybe I'm exhibiting a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia, thinking they're all out to get me.

I wonder if I should go for some group therapy, but then I'd have to be in some program which means I wouldn't be making money. Not that I am anyway, so maybe it makes no difference. Dammit, I've paid all that money into taxes all these years, and now I'm fucked and need help, but I can't get it because I quit my job on my own. I know mom & dad will help me out to some extent, if my money runs out, but I don't want to be a burden. Isn't this kind of thing why I've been paying a bunch of taxes all these years?

I hate them all. I hate them all. It's easy to hate when 'them' is such a vague term, just hating all the 'them' that I don't know. Just like they hate me, because I'm one of their "them"s. The world is just one big pile of hate, all of us hating our respective "them"s, the people that don't understand us, that disrespect us, that disagree with us, that are different from us.

3. Mood oscillation

2004-01-07 00:23 (Wednesday) journal

Damn, this high-frequency oscillation thing is weird. I'm used to slow oscillation, usually... *Rrrr*, I remember frequent oscillation only once before, just before I left Sam Asher Computing. It's hard to work with, because I'm not adapted to effectively harness the upswings when they're in little bursts like this.

4. My experience of Time

2004-01-07 23:24 (Wednesday) journal

So I'm thinking about timelines, and about the integral of enjoyment over time.

There's the idea of multi-verses, each of which is constantly splitting as they offer different choices and go into different possibilities. The timelines are like a braided rope. Fibers are twisted to form a thread. Threads are braided to form string, which is braided to form a cord, which are braided to form a small rope, which is braided into a larger rope, and so on.

The threads of a string touch each-other frequently along the rope, but two threads in different cords touch each-other much less frequently. The fibers of time in a thread are very similar, and though there are choices that cause time to move along different threads, the likelihood of several choices ending in the same end point is high.

You can, of course, get outside the thread by moving to the edge of a thread and crossing into a different thread in the string. Once there, there is a highest likelihood that time will stay in the threads in that string, but moving to another string is possible. If time gets to an outside thread of an outside string, it can cross into a different cord, and from the outside of a cord, a different rope.

The future is not set in stone. It does, however, have a high likelihood of continuing along a certain path. I remember back in November 2000, when the Gore / Bush election thing was in flux, I felt disoriented, like the timelines were gone. In retrospect, I think we were probably straddling the border of two large ropes - the outcome of the Supreme Court's decision affecting two very different directions for America over the next many years.

It doesn't have to stay this way though. If we let things be, those in power, who will make decisions and select what course we take, will keep us on a path they want. We can, however, change things. Major change can't always happen, as we aren't always in contact with other ropes to switch to. Yet, when the possibility arises, we must take the opportunity to choose the correct course, or we're stuck on a bad route until once again we come with a completely different time-rope.

So that's my theory on timelines, based on what I've seen or felt them do. Now, about integrating enjoyment over time:

In life, our goal should be to maximize the enjoyment we have. If we live very risky, we are likely to have a short life. Live very low risk, you usually get a long life. There will be exceptions, but if we averaged it out over many people, I it would work out this way. Or, to say it mathematically, length of life is inversely related to risk taken (though not necessarily proportional.

        let r = risk
        let t = time,
        Then t ~(inv)= r

        let e = instantaneous enjoyment,
        and E = total enjoyment from life.
        Then E = Sum [0 .. t] (e[t]).

So, the goal is to maximize E.

I think this next bit depends on the person. A low-risk life, to me, seems incredibly boring and not enjoyable. A high-risk life... well, some risks are scary, but not enjoyable; but a lot of risks are fun (enjoyable) to participate in. Again, if we average it out, we'll find that my enjoyment is directly related to risk, though not necessarily proportional. For simplicity, though, I'll assume it is. So:

        e = c * r, where c is a constant

Putting this all together, then

        E = Sum [0 .. t] (e [t])
          = Sum [0 .. t] (c * r [t])

But t is inversely related to r, so high r -> low t, low r -> high t. Medium r -> medium t. Thus, a curve looks like this:

   |              *****
 E |           ****     ****
   |       ***             ***
   |     **                   **
   |    *                       *
   |_____________________________________
                 risk
At one end, life is short so there's not much time to enjoy it. At the other end, life is so boring it's not enjoyable.

But maybe I'm making this whole thing too scientific.

Anyway, I was thinking about this and how we have all these new security procedures that take up time since the World Trade Center fell.

Diversion: Why is it just referred to as 9/11? It's like this euphemism for "the terrorist attacks where 3,000 people died", because we want to not think about that part of it. Instead, we want to turn it into this grand day when all the heroes came out and some of them died in the name of duty and all... Not that people weren't heroic and stuff, or that heroic stuff is bad. I guess what bothers me is that "9/11" feels like a cover-up for the pain of thinking about all the people that died, we're thinking about making memorials and parks and stuff, and trying to make ourselves so busy with stuff that we're not having an opportunity to go through the grieving process.

So when do the security procedures become too much? Well, no matter how many security procedures there are, there is always risk of an attack. Maybe lower or higher, but always present. In the WTC attack, 3,000 people died. Say the average person was 30 years old. Then, those people lost a combined total of 3,000 * 43 years (average life-span is 73, 73 - 30 = 43 years remaining in average life of those killed in WTC attack) = 129,000 years lost.

Each year, say 500,000,000 people fly. Assume security procedures add 1 hour to each flight. That means, each year, 20,833,333 days or 57,077 years are consumed by new security procedures. So with these numbers, if terrorist attacks occur less frequently than every 2.26 years with the old security, and new security is 100% effective, then in total more of people's lives are being wasted in security hassles than life-portions would be destroyed by terrorist attacks. Now, I realize this is a really callous way to look at it, and I think in reality there's a human factor of not having to go through grieving, plus collateral damage, etc. But, at some point, the security gets to be too much, worse than the original problem. Where does the cure get worse than the problem? When it saves half as much as it consumes? One fifth? One twentieth? One percent? One mil? Everyone would have different thoughts on this, but as for me I'd put it at about 1/5th.

5. Becoming a dominatrix

2004-01-12 12:11 (Monday) journal

I'll bet most people don't write in their journals with vi.

I'm either on an upswing or doing okay. Been feeling okay for several days now. I've been starting to feel in touch with my sexuality, like it's a strong energy source in me. The whole dominatrix things feels like an outlet (or is it a source?) of it, and I've been feeling less focused on age play.

Money-wise, I'm actually doing okay. Not huge, but if the last week repeated regularly, I'd have enough to cover all the monthly bills at about break-even point, assuming no splurging like Arisia, which is where a bunch of that's going to go. But, I'll learn a lot there which will allow me to become a better / more full-ranged dominatrix. I hope Amanda doesn't bail out, as 3 of us will be able to keep expenses at a very reasonable per-person level, but 2 will start getting expensive.

I've been taking the Red Cross "Responding to Emergencies" class, which involves first aid and CPR. The instructor is passing me so far. There's a ton of reading for it, and given activities lately it's hard to keep up. I am capable of reading the book and absorbing data, though not quite in the way I traditionally have.

So right now I'm at the Gates Motel again, waiting for another client who isn't showing up. This place is cursed. Bastards.

I need to dilate more. I've been bad about it. Especially with my sexuality up, I should keep myself ready to be able to screw so I don't find it frustrating when I'm in the mood. *Sigh*, not disciplined like I used to be. Sometimes disciplined in a different sense, though, which is an okay thing.

6. 2004-01-26 16:01 (Monday) journal

I've been selling a bunch of stuff on eBay recently, trying to get rid of excess junk around the house. I've sold a bunch of Model 100 peripherals and some ethernet cables so far. It's brought up the issue of what my time is worth. When I was working, my time clearly had a value of about $50 an hour (wages + benefits). Time outside work had value too, and I think that value was higher than time is now - in part because there was a lot less non-work time available.

Now, I have no work time. There is plenty of time to myself. I waste a lot of the time that I now have, in part because there is a lot of it but in part because I don't have the income to fill it with something more meaningful. And selling this junk on eBay - how much do I need to make to make my time worth it? Is just getting the stuff out of my house worth it? I'm making crap on the ethernet cables, but I'm still selling them because I don't want to just throw them away. Selling them is only making about $3 / bundle, and requires screwing around mailing stuff. So maybe I'm making $6/hour.

Yet, in dominatrix work I require $50/hour. However, I have to drive to client houses - so now maybe we're talking $20-40 / hour. If we consider the time invested in set-up and adjusting web pages and stuff, it's way less - probably $3 / hour, though that will increase over time because I'm having to invest less and less time as those things are in place and require less maintenance.

7. Rejection and Betrayal

2004-02-02 00:59 (Monday) journal

I grew up a part of society. A reject part. I was the one cast out, spat on by my classmates, pushed around because I could be pushed around. I was weak, and I was taken advantage of for it. As I entered adolescence, my intelligence blossomed and although among my peers I was still week, among adults I was respected. I was kept around to be preyed upon.

When I came out, I became an outcast. Though I was still intelligent, the fact that I wasn't a traditional sexual orientation or gender meant my position had to be reevaluated. I don't know quite when I became a part of society again, but I did. Maybe it was when people found my intelligence to be useful to them despite my sex/gender issues, or maybe it was that I conformed after my sex change. Though I was never a social maven, I was accepted.

As I've gone through this breakdown or whatever it is, I feel betrayed by society. I've taken care of a lot of people, and truth be told the friends I have have done a lot of care-taking for me. Despite this, I still feel inadequately supported. Some of it is the financial aspect: over the last 8 years, I've paid probably well over $100,000 in taxes, but I don't understand/can't figure out how to get help in this area. My friends have been willing to help, and I've gotten some, which is nice to receive because I have helped friends and it's good to see that that is balancing out in my moments of need.

So why do I feel betrayed by society?

Every time I looked for a part-time programming job, I was unable to find one. Asking companies I worked for about it, they were unwilling to allow for me. People said I was lazy because I didn't want to work 40 hours per week. So am I lazy, or was I trying to correct the situation I knew was happening, little by little? Maybe a little of the first, more of the second.

But lazy isn't really a good word for what I was. I've always been involved in stuff, been doing things. If I didn't want to be at work it was in part because I wanted to be doing other things, wanted to be able to dabble in enough of my interests to keep me happy.

I feel betrayed because when I finally started looking for help in October, I got the run-around. Every time I encountered somebody brushing me off and sending me elsewhere, it incurred delays because it just seemed too hard. Even now, I'm having a lot of questions about how much this idiot psychiatrist is helping. I keep going to him, is there a plan? When do I get better? Or do I just keep going, giving him money? Oh, wait, he gave me drugs so I'm supposed to be better now, just go back to programming, it'll be fine, really, I'm just being greedy which is obvious because I'm fucking incapable of reading for understanding and think I shouldn't be working until I can... But I digress into a sarcastic, bitter rant.

Everyone said they wanted to help. My boss said if there was anything he could do, he'd be there. But when I first started calling and showed up his cube to ask about how to get help through workman's compensation (where my GP sent me), I was told that would be too hard to work and I should just try to do it on my medical insurance.

When I saw my GP, they said I should see a shrink right away, I was seriously fucked up. A compassionate voice, telling me they cared. But when I tried to schedule, I needed referral numbers and then incurred a 3 week wait.

Yet it's my choice I quit my job, so no financial help for me.

I am bitter as all hell at the society I live in.

Am I just looking for a scapegoat for my problems? Probably, in the sense that reasons/persons responsible for my problem are irrelevant. This is the state of things, advance from here. I have no motivation though. Motivation in me was based on an idea I could make things better, society could grow and I could evolve and benefit as part of that. Now, though, I perceive no future for me.

I think in part, I don't see anything interesting occurring in my life. I've always had dreams, maybe one day I can go hike some mountains or visit Japan or China or something. Now, I perceive survival indefinitely. I realize that this perception is not necessarily correct, but when I think about what doing any of it would mean it seems pointless anyway. Doing any of these things requires effort to assemble the financial resources, which seems just not worth it.

I think a difference now is that I used to like my work. Doing work I liked to get paid, save up money, then try something new I'm interested in seems like a viable plan. Doing a sucky job for Goddess knows how long to save up and get away for a brief time -- not a good cost/benefit ratio for me, I'd rather be dead and just save the effort.

But what about my new job? I do like it sometime, if I like the client. But, I'm not getting rich off it either.

I'm tired, I'm going to sleep.

8. Cost/benefits of head shrinking

2004-02-06 12:05 (Friday) journal

Yesterday's appointment with the shrink went okay. After the few weeks of considering whether or not he's been showing any value, he actually did raise a few points that seem valid. Still, I didn't bother to set up another appointment, as I question if the cost/benefit ratio is good enough to warrant continuing to see him.

It's interesting that I mention cost/benefit ratios in my last diary entry too. Cost/benefits must be in the forefront of my thoughts. But I digress...

The point he raised is that of the things I find most important to my happiness, I'm not affecting change to try to get to where I want to be. The things that most mattered to me are:

- Having close relationships with my friends, and establishing new
  ones to replace those who have moved elsewhere.
  This is a gradual process, and hard to control.  I am making new
  acquaintances, and some of the RKS folks are moving from acquaintances
  to friends.  I'm also meeting people through work, but I wonder how
  close/intimate the relationships formed this way can be.  On the
  other hand, I've established 2 to 3 that show potential.

- Having a open creative outlet.
  I have this journal, and the web page in general.  The work in November-
  December on web pages and the m4/HTML macro package was definitely a
  creative outlet, and it felt good.  Yet, now I'm idle again.  I don't
  have a large-scale project in which to pour creativity.  There's a bit
  of a conflict with close relationships, as focusing on a project takes
  time away from friends.  Often, when I'm focused on a project I become
  very introverted while I'm working.

- Being able to commune with the Goddess.
  My feeling is I should be learning disciplined techniques like meditation
  and energy work, and learning herbs and layouts and stuff to provide a
  structure for me.  However, I think these things are there to help
  provide a formalized way of communicating - free-form communication has
  worked well in the past.  Or am I just being lazy?  Maybe these things
  would allow me to get closer via the discipline that comes with learning
  the techniques.

I think the goal is to find a balance between the three points, and establishing a creative outlet is probably the first item that needs to be addressed.

9. Yoga, Progress on work

2004-02-18 15:01 (Wednesday) journal

On Monday while hanging with Anita, she introduced me to Yoga. She got a video at Wal*Mart that she's been using to learn. I found it relaxing, invigorating. It seems to be effective in focusing on the body as a way to manipulate the mind, and looks like it would be good for the body as well. I intend to grab a copy of the video when I can find one, so I can learn it as well. This would be a good discipline to learn for improving my magickal skills.

Tommy finally got my listing on the DPF site, so I've been getting interest calls in AB/DL sitting. I'm thinking that given my nature, this would be a good direction to focus my dominatrix career. Obviously I should try it out for a while, see how I enjoy it as I do it a bunch, but I've had the thought that maybe creating an AB/DL retreat / baby-sitting service in the Greene county area might be (a) fun, (b) profitable (not far from NYC, Boston, Montreal, and mildly far from Toronto; (c) a long-term thing I could do - I think being a mommy wouldn't be as susceptible to aging issues as other dominatrix things; (d) a nice place to be in terms of being close to nature and mountains and places to hike and stuff.

I've been realizing that I don't want to program again. Maybe get into networking, or some other technology that is more tangible than the depths of software.

At the same time, I seem to be looking to the future again in the last 24 hours. At least, the possibility of finding something for a medium- to long-term future, either doing network stuff or finding niche dominatrix work that I'd feel safe doing, seems better and that is a nice feeling.

I still don't feel attached to Rochester. But the idea of Greene County or Hudson Valley region - it feels like that could be a home in the future.

Progress on the house has been okay. Blue bedroom is repainted, the new foyer ceiling is up. I need to finish patching foyer walls, then repaint - the new color is antique white, which is roughly what it is now I think.

It's become sunny out, so I'm going to go for a walk in the sun.

10. Mood swings

2004-02-26 00:22 (Thursday) journal

I've been mood swinging the last few days, I think from stress of stuff going on. Newton busted and had to go back to Apple for a few days, and generally I feel overwhelmed by obligations and stuff I'm working on. Electrolysis uses up some of my sanity as I try to bear the pain.

11. 2004-02-26 10:49 (Thursday) dreams journal

From where I can remember, I was driving counter-clockwise around downtown Rochester. It was very different - not only from the actual state, but from its appearance in an earlier dream which I can't remember. Anyway, as I was turning west on 490, which wasn't an expressway, I was looking at a car flying in the sky. At first I thought it was jumping something and was going to crash down near me, but then I realized it was a banner being pulled by a plane. Someone who I thought was my cousin said she'd almost had a plane pull an announcement for her birthday years ago, but hadn't.

Mom and dad were there, and mentioned they weren't sure if they could see the forest fire. I climbed up some stairs to a cement patio, looked to the east, and there were areas that I thought could be plumes of smoke. A moose came from the scrub to the east, it was deranged from being burned and trying to get away from fire. It rampaged toward me, then collapsed. There was a second moose that came out, and I think it chased me a bit, then I realized it was a young moose.

Somewhere along here, a totoro came out of the woods. I was scared, I thought it would hurt me. Me and the moose went and hid under the stairs, but totoro found us. He grabbed the young moose, and healed it. He may have held me or the unconscious/dead moose too, and used the energy to fix the young moose. It also took a toll on totoro, in the form of increased insanity. It was splitting his mind, he seemed torn between his natural self and another part that made itself look like a business man and said it had to go see his wife.

This dream seemed symbolic. I think the totoro represents me, and the weights I have taken on and the hazards that have come with those.

12. 2004-03-08 15:55 (Monday) journal

So Newton is back has been operating well again! Not a single crash since he returned last Wednesday. They wiped the hard drive, so I had to reinstall from scratch but it's okay if it means a functioning machine. The netbackup script worked fine, and I was able to restore all the files and the resource forks without any issues.

I'm taking the time to re-rip all the CDs using iTunes, which seems to crunch things a little better than Lame. Probably some option in Lame that I'm missing.

I was supposed to have my first age play client today, but I think something's gone awry. He called this morning about a plane delay, then I haven't heard from him since - I hope he's okay. The La Guardia site shows planes are late, but not this late.

Also, I've been talking to a woman from Pennsylvania who is interested in playing. She sounds intelligent, has a life that's not in a rut, has some overlapping interests, and has a sense of self that I don't think she defines by someone else. She's arranging plans to come visit in a few weeks, but I'm hoping to have an opportunity to visit her beforehand when I transport crap to Matt.

I've got to hammer out accounting and taxes RSN. Then I can determine what finances will look like for FCOW, which is in late April. I'd like to go again, and I'd be in the right region to do some more AT hiking afterwards. Hmm, maybe I should arrange a post-FCOW hiking trip using the mailing list.

I've been experimenting with the Abilify again. Darn that stuff knocks me on my butt, but I wonder if it does something to the focus of my mind. I'm trying to monitor my mind's performance so I can figure out what's what, and if it works the way I think.

I think generally my mood has been stable, in part because of the little rays of hope of maybe a career I don't hate (working with age-play) but mostly because of the idea of a gal in Philly.

13. 2004-03-14 18:37 (Sunday) journal

I'm back from a trip to northern Virginia to visit Mike, Tina, and Matt and drop off some of Matt's stuff. I took the opportunity to meet Ellen too. Overall, a good trip, lots of sunlight on the way down and 13 C temperatures made for an open sunroof and sunlight for me to absorb.

Music, on the other hand, was kinda messed up because I've been re-ripping music with iTunes since I got Newton back, thinking its slightly better compression might be good. What I hadn't noticed was that the better compression sounds like crap. In Lame, when I set -V 0 (outstanding quality variable rate), it uses whatever bandwidth it needs. So, if there's silence, 32 kilobits is fine, but if there's a fancy guitar riff then 320 kilobits it is. iTunes, instead, seems to use the requested bit rate and it bumps it up a little bit here and there for the fancy guitar riff if you request variable bit-rate. Requesting a minimum bit-rate of 64 kilobits with high-quality variable encoding resulted in about 72 kilobit encoded files that sounded like an old audio tape that'd been left in the sun on the dashboard. A Looney's Hack Show prediction: the Wow & Flutter Facility. After using Lame, this seems to be a stupid way to do it but I'll probably just use iTunes to re-compress everything anyway because I'm lazy.

I'm signing up for FCOW, and I might set up a trail hike afterwards.

14. 2004-03-16 06:53 (Tuesday) - dreams journal

I was somewhere here in Albany, near a hospital I think. I walked along a road. I heard a noise, I looked. There was a small building with a table near it, a woman was seated. She asked for water. I had some water in a cup, I think it was melting snow but it was dirty. I collected more, noting fresh pools of water around but worrying they might be contaminated. I sat with her. I remember repeatedly iterating the Japanese word 'mite', water.

I was in a room with 4 people. I got a feeling of loss, then realized someone had passed away recently, within a few days I think. I knew the names of all the people. They were working on a spell, trying to contact the dead or something. I was there to be a messenger, it seems like I was astral but it felt like I was physically there, they offered me physical things. They started a spell, suddenly things went black and white and there was someone there, she didn't move but I thought she was approaching. There was a clear message: "Don't open the gate." I repeated it several times, hoping they would hear, then I was here and awake.

Thinking about it, the old lady near the hospital - For a moment I thought she was dead, I wonder if she is and she is the one they were trying to contact.

15. 2004-03-16 12:01 (Tuesday) journal

So I think my first AB/DL scene went off okay. I could have been better with discipline, I think, but overall okay.

And, Jim the Mason just contacted me about a possible short-term Perl coding job for Verizon, which is kinda evil - old Bell Atlantic folk, I think - but might be okay to see how my mind does. I'll have to talk to them and see what their desired turn-around is and how complex what they want is.

The place I crashed at in Albany - what a dive! It was an old cocktail bar / hotel, and it looks like it degraded into a real shit-hole but has been getting fixed up a little. Still needs work, like the room was okay but there were tools and junk in the hallway. The cocktail bar / restaurant look long since functional, but the hotel remains. Bed was functional and room okay, though.

16. 2004-03-19 23:10 (Friday) journal

I'm at Geva NextStage checking out the Geva Improv Comedy troupe. They seem okay so far. Life has been okay recently, though I've had a little headache which probably resulted from lack of sleep. Tomorrow is a T-A-G get-together, but Ellen may be coming into town tomorrow - she was going to come today but didn't - in which case I'll stay here and do Rochester stuff instead.

I've been working on a new Purple website trying to expand on the AB/DL scene info, because I'm thinking that's where I'd like to be in the long-term. There's a lot of investment to do for it though.

I can still feel my tendency to be lawful tugging at my behavior, maybe more-so than it was a few weeks ago. Apparently continuing to interpret things in a realistic manner is going to consume effort for a non-trivial amount of time.

On the way back from Albany, I got a call from Jim the Mason. He put me in contact with a guy at Verizon Wireless who is looking for a Perl programmer to rewrite some stuff, but after thinking about it for about half the drive home I concluded that it wasn't for me. It was a position where they would want me to work in-house, 40 hours/week, and I'm pretty certain I am not capable of doing that. It would be different if it was something I could hack on Newton on my time, 20 - 30 hours per week, but the regular office environment would reproduce the failure scenario and further tear my mind.

I feel like I've been connecting to the channels of the universe again. I'm noticing times I'm predicting things, like imagining I hear my phone ring just before it rings. On Tuesday, I knew that the guy from Verizon was going to call just before I got to a particular rest-stop on the Thruway, and my prediction was about 1 mile earlier than he actually called. Again, coincidence or am I doing it again?

17. My role in the future

2004-03-26 01:12 (Friday) journal

So the future seems to be decided, again, and I'm switch back on the side of "good" for the moment. I was visiting fuschia tonight and a message came in while looking at one of her Tarot decks that Justice is the card for me. I read up on the meaning, it's about having chosen a side which results in the rebirth/healing of the Earth and her goings-on (okay, that's an over simplified 1-sentence version).

I was thinking about things on the drive home, and I'm concerned that my house may well be tainted with some of the negative energies that have been brought through it by Kat, Matt, and myself over the last few years. Talking with Sue, she thinks a minor purification ritual might be adequate to fix things.

I've also been thinking about the amulet. I don't know when ritual is to be done, yet, but I get the feeling there are going to be two components. One, I need to do by myself. Then, a group ceremony. Thinking about it, maybe I should rework the purification spell and cast that on Beltane by the light of day, and then pick it up with a group on/around May 18 (roughly year and a day, and new moon). Sue thinks just before new moon would be ideal... I need to think on this, to me since I'm getting it back and symbolically reconnecting, then just after the new moon makes more sense.

I got up the proverbial balls to ask a rather brazen question of the Tarot tonight: "What am I?" I am a directing force, and the choices I make swing the balances. So I've made that choice, at some point, and I'm going to have my abilities back by my own hand. Hopefully, I've learned in the last year how much it sucks to not be magickal, and how I can help people with my abilities. Hopefully, I won't allow myself to remain in a bad situation, as I did with many things that lead to my frustration and the casting of the original 'start fray' spell.

Anyway, I made an appointment with John Amos, the open-minded dude who approved me for SRS a decade ago. Hopefully, he's better at the talking part of psychotherapy / counseling than the last doctor.

Ellen and I are staying in contact, which I didn't expect. I hope we keep it up.

18. State dump

2004-04-01 22:38 (Thursday) journal

Tomorrow I'm going to see John Amos, a psychologist. I'm hoping he'll be able to direct the self-repair progress into a more productive direction than the spin it's been in for a while.

Memory / intellect performance has been okay lately, although I'm certainly not pushing my brain the way I used to. I'm concerned that much like therapy for a physical injury, we must gradually ramp up brain use and not simply drop me back into an environment like I was in before. I fear that in that scenario, I'd simply tear my mind apart again, and create further damage in the process.

Issues in my life:

- No sense of direction.
- Bored with my life.
- Lack of desire to be productive.
- Sense that being productive doesn't get me anywhere.
- Not sure what I want to do work-wise.
  I don't think I want to do the dominatrix thing long-term, but I
  can't figure out what else to do that's got a flexible enough
  schedule to give me time to live.
- Not sure how to achieve financial balance given other confusion.
- Not sure how to integrate my magical aspects into my life.
- Friends leaving, inadequate replacements (number and value).
- Not sure how to balance need for sleep and need for sunlight versus
  need for interesting social stuff which all goes on late at night.
- I have always lived looking toward the future, planning for some time
  when things will be good and I'll have enough and I'll have time.
  Sense now is that I want to live now, screw the future, carpe diem.
  I don't know how to do this, and don't have the financial resources
  to do it -- unless I start dipping into savings heavily, which is a
  limited time offer.
- I'm not getting anywhere (or feel like it) in getting my life in good
  order.
- Midlife crisis?:
  - Having trouble making decisions, or feeling like either way I'm leaving
    something out of my life that I'd like.
  - Feeling like I can't do everything I'd like to do.
  - Perception that the things I do in my life get in the way of having
    "better" fun, which I couldn't / wouldn't have anyway because I
    can't afford it or don't have the time or whatever.
  - Inability to resolve choices between what I want to do and being
    responsible / what I think I should do.  In part, because I'm not
    sure what I want to do, but there's a lot of stuff I want to try.
- Possible chemical issue involving mood swings.  Bipolar disorder?
- Weak faith in humanity.
- Not sure how to integrate spiritual issues into my life.
- Not sure how to integrate being universal or Earth balance point 
  thingie into my life, and having trouble dealing with the idea of
  being whatever it is that I am.
- Not sure how to deal with mental health types when they'll just say
  that I only believe I'm some kind of universe balance thing because
  of chemical imbalances in my head, then try to brainwash it from me.

I should document the catch-22 that occurs in my mind: I want to be happy.

  I need to achieve balance in my life.
    I need to develop the spiritual aspect of myself to fulfill my destiny.
      I need to have friends to support me through this process.
      Sometimes I need to take time to go off to go and do my own thing.
        When I'm off on my own I can't make income, so finances are bad.
          Eventually I will be bankrupt.
            So get a job.
              But if I have a job I won't have time to develop my spiritual
              aspect.  (Contradiction.)
          Accept the idea of being destitute.
            If I'm to fulfill my destiny, I need resources.  Something to
            edit on, and access to the internet.  Thus, not destitute.
            (Contradiction.)
          Figure out how to live off the government.
            I'm not sure I find this acceptable, and it's hard anyway.
          Start a cult, and collect tithes to support me.
            That's not acceptable, and will interfere with my destiny.
    Don't fulfill my destiny.
      Not acceptable. (Contradiction.)
  Learn to live without balance.
    Don't know how. (Contradiction.)
Don't be happy. 
  Present state, but I'd rather be happy.

19. 2004-04-08 22:02 (Thursday) journal

After a few crazy days, I'm having a moment of semi-calm as I munch a Chicago Classic at Pizzeria Uno. Mood swingy action is still in force, and I've been noticing it's the old cycle: Stress -> desire to change, desire to change + no method seen -> trapped, trapped -> fear, fear -> panic, panic -> depression.

I saw Borghi-Sensei today, and she didn't want to prescribe a mood stabilizer, preferring to defer that responsibility to someone who specializes: a psychiatrist. She did, however, prescribe some stuff that is meant to deal with anxiety, so if I start going into the fear cycle I'm to try this stuff out and see how it works.

I had a nice scene last night with a first-time BDSMer. He enjoyed it, felt safe. I haven't done any topping quite like that in a while, and it felt really nice to do it.

The next few days are going to be nuts. I've got an AB/DL client visiting from NJ, then a body rub when that's over. Monday I've got a forced feminization scene planned, go to Connecticut Monday to dump off Jack and then return to Albany on Tuesday - Wednesday to do another age-play scene. Eeek! Financially it will be a very good thing, if all goes well, but it's still going to be a lot of stuff in a short duration.

I've been thinking about my issues with wanting to bail from Rochester. I think there's some justification, in that Rochester is really depressing throughout the winter when it's gray all the time from lake effect clouds. Bad thing for a photosensitive type. However, I think that a lot of my desire also stems from attempting to run away from problems I've created around me: I've neglected a lot of small maintenance on my house, and it's building up; I've never purged stuff effectively - no, I've been a pack-rat so I've actively collected crap, and the crap is just getting in the way now; I've got some projects that I've started and just stalled on for extended periods. The problem is, as individual tasks they are mostly not so bad (restoring woodwork excepted; that's hard on all scales), but when I look at one I see the whole pile and then I'm overwhelmed and don't know where to start.

Still, I don't know how to heal some of the damage that's been done - both my disconnection with the house, and disconnection with the neighborhood since my bike was swiped last year.

Regardless, whether I decide to sell the house or stay, the shit that's broken should be fixed. I should start fixing some of the stuff, and maybe see if I start reconnecting to the house. Sue thinks the completion of undo-spell may also help restore connection.

I've just noticed that when I'm writing in my diary and I start thinking about what to write next, I brood. I think I brood pretty effectively too. I should have someone watch me sometime and see if I can brood as effectively as Angel. Not as much, certainly, but maybe my brood- quality level is comparable.

20. Anxiety

2004-04-13 13:10 (Tuesday) journal

I've arrived in Albany for another scene with a client from Boston. I came up from mom & dad's, where I dropped off Jack and some of my stuff last night. On the way up, I started doing the my-life-is- screwed panic-trapped-depression thing, so I just took one of the anxiety pills Borghi-Sensei prescribed.

Where the hell is my life going though? I don't want to do anything within the normal constraints of society. Yet, I've got the perception that anything I'm doing I can't succeed at, especially when I start thinking about the hell that is going to be my taxes. Again, feeling of being overwhelmed and trapped. I don't want to stay in Rochester, because I should be somewhere with more light, but I don't have anywhere else to go. And going to a specific place implies some reason for going there and setting up some life there, either buying a house or renting a place which involves a lease - and again, we're back at the idea that going anyplace else implies a reason for going there, and the stability that comes with being a standard part of society. Being part of the ol' 9-5 grind. And when I see that, I just don't want to be a part of it.

There should be stuff I'm excited by. I should be interested in possible relationship with Ellen, but that possibility is starting to just blend in with all the other crap that seems like a hassle. And this RKS board stuff, crap, I'm doing a crap-load of the fashion show and the things other people are supposed to be doing they just don't do without telling me, and when I find out they just expect me to be able to do this even though I haven't got the resources set up. Arrrrr...

I wish I wasn't so bull-headed, and that I'd just be able to give up and end it all. But no, I'm stupid and have to believe that things could get better, but I do nothing to make things get better because I don't know where to begin or what would be right.

21. 2004-04-27 16:27 (Tuesday) journal

This past weekend was Full Circle of Women (east coast). It was good to see people again, it felt good to be cared about. I gave Big Orca to Rica, because I know she'll take good care of her. Still, it wasn't like it has been in the past -- I feel disconnected, unwilling or unable to reach out to others or let them connect with me.

Part of this, I've realized, it just that communicating is a pain in the ass. I appreciate people caring about me and wanting to help... but the current state of problems in my life is the culmination of a few years of shit building up. Relationships gone wrong, becoming more realistic, maybe overshooting realistic in favor of a pessimistic view of life, burn-out at my job, being taken advantage of again and again, and finally abandoning lawfulness in search of a way of coping (which then necessitates grieving about the loss of who I was and a life that was, in some ways, simpler).

However, when people want to help, they want a quick summary and then to be able to provide advice as to how to fix your life. There's a lot of issues in my life for which I still struggle to describe the nuances here, in my journal, and it's downright hard. A lot of the stuff is linked, being both caused by some prior events and causing some later ones. But, in the quick "let's fix your life" conversation, there isn't time to go over the whole sequence of dependencies and decisions. So the listener starts in with suggestions, which I've already considered and tried or thrown out. And after this happens a few times, I'm at the point of frustration with the difficulty in conversing about something that's hard in the first place, and doing it for the Nth time because I've done the conversation several times before. And then I want to talk about it even less the next time, and I want to talk about new progressions less with the few who are in-the-loop.

Which is part of the reason for making most of my diary public (that is this journal). In theory, people can follow what the hell is happening in my life here, and actually read back and have the whole context on what is going on and not have to make me go through the struggle to put it into words again.

In reality, though... Journals have a sort of reverse problem. In theory, for journals to work, everyone needs to publish one and we all need to keep up with everyone else's journal. However, that would require us to all keep up with the goings on in everybody's lives constantly, which has the drink-from-the-fire-hose problem. It's much easier to just bump into someone again, do a quick update-context state transfer, and go from there. This works great when things are simple in someone's life, but when things get complex then it falls apart.

With the display at just the right angle and the right light conditions, I can use my iBook with the backlight off. I'll bet I get nearly tolerable battery life this way.

I did a hike from the CT/NY border to Salisbury, CT on the Appalachian Trail, then a second one from Rt. 23 outside Great Barrington to Mt. Everett. Dad wants to do a loop that was published in ATC news which goes from Bear Mountain up to Everett, which should finish off Connecticut for me. Massachusetts will still have the Dalton-Chesire gap to be filled in.

It feels good to sit in the warm sun.

It's been about 2.5 weeks that I've been here at mom & dad's, and I'll be heading back to Rochester and regular life tomorrow. It's been a low-budget trip... well, FCOW was pre-paid... so financially things are looking alright. I got my federal tax refund a few days ago (the miracle of direct deposit - sometimes, technology does rock), so that should allow budget to stretch a few more weeks.

22. 2004-04-30 18:46 (Friday) journal

Step 1 of this weekend: Locate amulet, generally prepare. Done!

23. 2004-05-09 22:34 (Sunday) journal

To finish off the events of last weekend: Step 2 (celebrate Beltane) went well. I got a nice spanking at the play party Friday, and had sex with a male friend on Saturday. On Sunday, step 3, returning to the grove and retrieving the amulet was also successful although we were short one person who didn't show up. Still, the ritual felt intuitive once we got started, and fit together nicely. I am again a Wicca, and have willingly accepted back my assigned tasks. As usual, Heavenly Father seems to be part of the mix and I don't quite know what to do with this, but I think I am less anxious about it too.

I've been working long hours getting the play space ready for the fashion show play party. I've got many little bruises at the moment. Things have been progressing quickly though, so I think the space should look pretty good by Saturday.

I've been looking at job listings a little in the last week, but they all seem very intimidating so I don't apply.

24. Don't make people's lives suck

2004-05-12 00:08 (Wednesday) journal

If you're doing something with other people, and you're going to half-ass something, then do the rest of them a favor: don't bother doing it at all.

Last week some folks at RKS took the garbage out to the dumpster. They threw out the conduit we'd ripped down. Now, first, the stuff should have been recycled. There's a scrap dealer within a half mile, so it isn't a problem. But no, into the dumpster it went. And that's where they really just fucked things up. Instead of opening the front and putting it in, or bending the stuff to fit inside from the side door, they just jammed it half-way in the side door and left it. So now, the side door can't close and there's a bunch of shit hanging out - so there's really no way to collect the dumpster without the possibility (likelihood?) of crap falling out and damaging the garbage truck or just making a mess. So, they won't collect it until the stuff is cut off and put inside so the side access panel can close again. The property manager figured out it was RKS, so now one of us has to go down there with a Sawzall and waste time dealing with it.

I just don't get it. What kind of miserable retard do you need to be to not realize that doing something like this is going to seriously fuck up someone's day? The first thing I thought when I saw it was, `Oh shit, the garbage guy ain't going to be happy about that.' (Unfortunately, it was already too late to move the stuff because new stuff had been thrown in afterwards.) Did these folks realize and just not care? It would be an extra few minutes of effort to put the stuff in the front or bend it up or something. Was that too much to expend, when they could half-ass it and make a bunch more work for someone else, someone they thought they wouldn't know? If so, they're a couple of lazy S.O.B.s.

So herein, I declare my first rule of etiquette:

         Don't needlessly fuck up someone else's day.

I'd bet if we all obeyed this things would go a lot smoother in all of our day-to-day lives.

25. 2004-05-15 11:32 (Saturday) journal

I'm stopped at O'Bagelos for a snack before resuming the insanity that is coordinating the RKS fetish fashion show. The latest problem is that I trusted Matt to get a gift certificate from Naughty & Nice, but he didn't so now I'm running around trying to get it myself, but Cindy's not there, so I'm calling other people to try to get it picked up later but before the show... *Frustration!!!* I shouldn't have trusted him, my gut said not to but I did anyway and now I've got a problem. I should trust my instincts.

My left hand hurts for unknown reasons, but my big toe on my right foot hurts for a known one - I stepped barefoot onto one of those stupid plastic rug-protector things when it was up-side down, and one of the plastic pokey things that hold it in place on a rug punctured the skin. I hate those things, not only do they look stupid and always jam on the door, they also hurt like hell.

Jayce is here, so I'm going stop writing and be social.

26. 2004-05-17 15:46 (Monday) journal

The RKS fetish fashion show, dinner, and play party went off okay. The show about broke even with itself overall (~$40 loss). I took yesterday to rest and recover a little, and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things again now. Unfortunately, Newton has yet another hardware problem in which he doesn't go to sleep correctly, so I'm going to have to take him to Mac Avenue today and get him fixed. This unfortunately means I won't have him for a few days, and I was just getting around to checking out RentACoder.com to see if I could find some light software work.

27. 2004-05-21 19:02 (Friday) journal

I'm stopped in at Cathay Pagoda on Main Street East in Rochester, which makes a delicious hot & sour soup. Most hot & sour soup is pretty much the same and accentuates the hot but not the sour, whereas the Cathay version has more sour and it balances out nice. A good variation on a usually generic theme.

Newton went for a vacation to Apple and had the screen-closed sensor replaced or something, and he goes to sleep correctly now. I'm still very pleased with the Apple software, but I'm increasingly uncertain about the hardware. On the other hand, they've been good about fixing it when there's problems.

Work has been busy the last few days, I'm getting some AB/DL interest from the Freetime advert. I had my first short-session AB/DL client today, and it went alright despite there being confusion about the session start time. I've been making enough to pay the gas bill, buy a replacement paddle for my oven shovel (it cracked on Monday), and buy a slapper. And I've got most of credit card bill money set aside, I should have that complete by tomorrow.

Food arrives.

28. Feeling Upbeat

2004-05-22 17:57 (Saturday) journal

I'm hanging out in Shoen Place in Pittsford, relaxing on an overcast but nice-temperature day before dinner & session with a regular client who I really enjoy spending time with. He's one of the people that makes this job nice to do. Anyway, can't write much - almost time to meet.

Things seem to be going okay. I've been watching Buffy season 6 while scanning / sorting paperwork and junking the crap. Enjoyed Nuts & Bolts comedy show last night, and had some snuggle time with Sue & Amanda afterwards. Generally, things are okay... hopefully they will stay good.

29. Yard sale, work, and my journal

2004-06-06 21:41 (Sunday) journal

I love the smell of glutaraldehyde in the evening... No, wait, the stuff is kinda nasty. And I'm supposed to minimize smelling it, because it's a nasty chemical. Nasty! Nasty chemical - don't mean a thing.

It's been a busy couple of days, having run a tag (aka yard, garage, junk, house, barn, lawn) sale on Friday and Saturday. I didn't make much, but it covered an advert in the paper -- I have my doubts about how effective it was -- plus maybe $20. And I got rid of clutter, and it forced me to junk a bunch of stuff I didn't want back. I still have CoCo stuff to get rid of, as it didn't sell. I might give some of it to Sam down the street if she shows interest in the CoCo 2 I gave her.

Today was a pretty good day. I had a client out in the country. It was a fun session, we did a friendship bonding thing, ze made a nice dinner and I got to relax in hir hot tub afterwards. The nice little perks like that make being a dominatrix okay sometimes.

Mood has continued to be up lately. I've recently started on Lexapro, which is a mild anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drug. There's a 20% chance of complications due to bipolarity in me, but I figured that ending up on a simpler drug was worth the risk. The simplicity principle.

I spent 3 days last week at Sue and Amanda's place in Toronto. I got to know my way around Toronto a little better, learned more about navigating the TTC. Amanda and I got to see part of a movie shoot, and the three of us saw part of a TV show shoot one evening.

This week promises to be busy and full of nice weather. I'm hoping to take advantage of it by doing an overnight cycling trip on Thursday.

I've been re-reading some of my diary from earlier this year, and I wrote some really interesting stuff. It's weird now, I feel like I should write in my journal as a matter of course, to keep a record of what's going on in my head. Yet, when I'm in an upswing there's not a lot interesting going on in my head. `Everything is okay.' But when something's wrong, then I start deconstructing my life and reasons for things, and it's interesting.

I kind of wish I could deconstruct my state now and write it down, so I could use it as a recovery point when I go into a depression. It's hard to find anything to write down, because nothing seems introspective enough. Not that stuff isn't worth remembering; it is. It's more that simply remembering, by memory, seems good enough for most happy memories.

The important bits to write down aren't what I did. That I can remember. It's how I felt about it, what things meant to me. Take the derivative (or is it the integral) of my actions, that's what I want to write down because that's what's interesting. Maybe even second or third level derivatives / integrals.

So if I'm not writing stuff down, it's not a bad thing. It's probably an indicator that things are easy in my life right then, because I can do 2 + 2 = 4 and happy actions are easy to deal with. It's when I need to differentiate 3/4 tan (7e^x)y sin(x/pi) that things get hard and I need to work it out on paper. I think that's the stuff worth reading, too.

30. 2004-06-08 12:12 (Tuesday) journal

I think in part I wanted to try being a dominatrix because I had an illusion that it would be easy. I knew it was illusionary, but knowing something is an illusion and being able to see around the illusion are different things.

Now, I think I can say the illusion is gone. I spend probably an extra hour every week doing laundry created by my business. Another hour or two doing high-level disinfecting and scrubbing gear afterwards to get the disinfectants out. Then there's dealing with advertising and promoting, purchasing, accounts payable, and research. And of course, all the talking with customers about their fantasies and What I do and What They Want. It all adds up. Even though I'm only actually "performing" - doing billable work - a few hours a week, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes. It can be tiring.

31. 2004-06-13 21:17 (Sunday) diary journal

At O'Bagelos this week, discussion touched on the idea that people, even in positions of authority, don't want the responsibility they've been given and are happy to have others take action on their behalf. It's that behavior that find frustrating. One of the most frequent times I see it is when Amanda is driving. She's an intelligent gal, but put her in the driver seat and tell her 'go to x' and she will immediately respond with, "How do I get there?" or "What is the best way to get there?" It doesn't matter if she knows the way; even though she's been given then authority to drive, she still seems to want someone else to take the responsibility of routing there.

Furthermore, she wants simple instructions - you can't just say, "Get on 590 north." That's too hard from my house, and causes recursion on "What's the best way to get there?" You have to say, "Go to Humboldt Street, jog over to Marion, then take Browncroft to 590 and go north." Otherwise, the myriad of choices is too much - you could take Middlesex to Blossom, or Humboldt to Winton to Browncroft, or Humboldt to Winton to Blossom, or ... eeeeeek, hard decision, make it for me! Sometimes I wonder if she was the only one that knew how to get somewhere, if she'd still ask the question.

I do a similar thing under certain conditions: when I'm driving and someone's directing me to somewhere new. It depends on how they give directions, and I think it's more a buffer limit of like 3 events that I can queue up. It's like the manager memory limit proposed by Simon Trafalga in BOFH: if you put in more than 3 items, it trashes the stack. So, I can buffer go to Lake and Ridge, turn right and go to Woodlawn and turn right. Okay, that's 4 items, so my limit is 4. Put in 5, and suddenly I've got go to Lake and Ridge and buy a donut, return Anita's call and remember to call dad for Father's Day.

I think that the difference is that once I've been somewhere, I can be directed there with a single instruction later. So, "Go to Anita's" the first time requires someone direct me there, or a map or directions or something. After that, Anita's is a single item. So then you can say, "It's the Chinese restaurant one block south of Anita's", which makes conveying instructions to me easy. Whereas with Amanda, I think you'd still have to give directions from home, because she wouldn't want to make a decision as to how to get to Anita's; thus you can't get to the Chinese place without specific directions to Anita's.

Oddly, while there's a lot of this in industry, there's another problematic class which I think is a sort of reverse: people with responsibility and no authority. They're responsible for making schedules, tracking progress, but they don't have actually authority to make anything get done and aren't in charge of anyone that gets anything done. These people hold onto their responsibility, seeming to know (without being fully aware) that the illusion of importance is what keeps them in their positions. These people strike me as pompous, touting their importance to insure their perceived importance is high enough to stay employed.

Which, of course, you could accuse me of with this stupid journal.

32. 2004-06-14 21:26 (Monday) journal

As a pro-dom, I find it quite disconcerting when a client abends a scene early. In RKS, there's the friendship around playing and there's an opportunity / expectation that we'll cuddle or otherwise share a moment when a scene is done. If something goes wrong, it might not be cuddling but there is still an opportunity to talk and do care-taking, so I can understand what's up in the other person and be there for them. With a client, it's like they return a nondescript error code for which there is no explanation and I just have to let it go. It's uncomfortable to leave someone without knowing they're okay.

33. 2004-06-27 21:24 (Sunday) journal

I've been thinking about why I'm an ESPer and other people aren't, and about the ways I've seen things and what they've meant. So, I'm perceiving that my access to a view of the future is a lot like the way we see things with our eyes, and the way we learn to interpret what wee "see" in the future is very similar to the learned behavior of interpreting what we see with our eyes.

A child fresh out of the womb doesn't know much about the things around it. It probably learns quickly mom, boob, food things. Other stuff we learn as we grow up, but most stuff we need explained to us or we need to study it to figure it out. We learn or figure out by interacting with stuff around us, we can poke it and move it and drop it on our foot. We can study it when it breaks and figure out why. You can't do that with the future.

There's also stuff we learn on-the-fly. Like, if you hear the squeal of tires behind you, you're in danger. It's not like you can study it in great detail, but we still learn it. There are predictive things we learn too: if you see a ball come into the road in front of you, a kid might run out chasing it. Your driving instructor teaches you that, and after you witness events in sequence you learn one might lead to another.

So if someone is psychic, I think they may have learned how to interpret what they can see in the future. They learn some small things, the equivalent of mom, boob, and food. Learning those few things and the predictions about the things, they can begin to extract more detail about more things with improving accuracy.

34. 2004-07-19 09:15 (Monday) journal

I've returned home from the week-long trip of Cycling the Erie Canal, put on by Parks and Trails New York. It was enjoyable, overall, though there were a few days of rain that weren't so bad at first but really started to drag on at the end. I think I've learned a bunch of New York geography better that I did, and maybe even a few bits about history.

The route consisted of some paved trail, some packed crushed-stone trail, and some roadway. There were a few hills, but overall it was relatively flat, considering the distance. Some sections paralleled the barge canal, some paralleled remaining portions of the old Erie canal, and some were on abandoned railway beds paralleling the Mohawk River.

Most folks on the trip seemed nice and friendly. There was this guy, Jim, from Washington DC area who chatted with me a lot. There was also this cool girl from Chili, NY who rode with me & mom for a day. She looked like she was ~20, but she was only 15... too bad, I might have had to ask her out. She seemed really self-possessed and confident, so she came across older than she was. Once in a while, though, as the day went on I could see the 15-year-old in there.

My bike did okay, though I needed to have both wheels trued at different times. I got 4 flats, mom got 1 - I probably should replace the tires if I'm going to do another trip on the crushed-stone stuff, which seemed to frequently jam itself into the tread and then hammer through if I hit a bump or moved onto a paved surface.

The food was great, with the exception of overnight at Medina which had a really limited selection (ham & scalloped potatoes; a variety of quiches for breakfast). And there was plenty of it in most places. I heard some of the rest-stops were short on food for later people, but mom & I tended to be earlier in the pack so we munched well.

35. Banks

2004-07-20 12:00 (Tuesday) journal

When you're an entrepreneur, everyone tries to fuck you. Even credit unions. Usually, they're cool - much less aggressive than banks at stealing your money. But when you're an entrepreneur, you don't have direct deposit, and then they start nickel & diming you. $0.32 for each bill payment transaction, $1.50 at foreign ATMs.

The policy at ESL used to be 10 free ATM transactions per month, wherever you wanted to do them. Now it's infinite free transactions at ESL ATMs. But who needs infinite transactions? Ten should be plenty, given that you can also get cash back from purchases at stores, which doesn't count as an ATM transaction.

Bastards.

36. Starwood!

2004-07-21 09:09 (Wednesday) journal

I'm here at Starwood, and things are a bit muddy from the much rain in the area over recent weeks. We did opening ritual last night, and I found it very draining - not a feeling I'm used to, I used to be able to source a lot of energy. Though, maybe it was more in a physical context that I found the fatigue. I certainly didn't feel the same level of energy flowing through me as the first year I was here.

Anyway, during ritual I got to thinking about Melissa versus Galla priestesses. The Cybeline priestesses want to call themselves Mellissae because they've got vaginas, not castrated male genitals. Yet, this has bothered me. For me, I see it about the experience and choices, not about what's between my legs in this case. I chose to have my old genitals removed, I still have memory of growing up a boy, I know what it's like to have testosterone pumping through my veins and the raw sexuality that goes with that. I don't know what the teenage sexual pressures are for a GG, I don't know what a period is like, I will never know what child bearing is like. So, while I do have a vagina and I perceive that now I'm woman (hear me roar?) I still differentiate myself on the Galla side of things. I am a transsexual woman, not a GG, because I have a different history, a different experience, a different set of choices and challenges. That doesn't make me more or less of a woman, it's just the kind I am.

Sometimes I wonder if the Cybeline priestesses are subscribing to the gender hierarchy, with GGs being being higher than transgender girls.

37. 2004-07-29 18:20 (Thursday) journal

I had a fun time at Starwood. It seemed smaller, yet more commercialized that prior years. Despite that it was fun - lots of good musicians, some interesting discussions (some sensible, some wacky). I ran into Liz from Monroe Ave and Dave from WITR there, and even happened to be camping near them.

I hung out a little bit with the CAWmunity (Church of All Worlds), which is going through a tiff with the founder, Oberon-Zell.

I've been buckling down since I got home and getting some stuff done.

38. 2004-07-29 21:00 (Thursday) journal

I'm hanging out with Dave, and we're talking about doing the Ren Faire together. It'd be nice to do something more than dinner with him.

39. 2004-07-31 19:38 (Saturday) journal

I went to the Ren Faire with Dave today. I enjoyed myself, though it's a lot of the same. I did pick up a gorgeous purple leather dress. The top is vibrant purple with like snake-skin black marks through it. The bottom is formed from various leather patches, including some matching purple; it gives a bit of a savage look. I think it'll be cool for BDSM.

Anyway, I've been playing with the violet ray a bit, and learning how it performs and stuff. I think I figured out how it operates safely: P = I * E, so assuming you can shove whatever max P through the wand, and all attachments have a minimum voltage E to work because they all have some sort of spark-gap isolator, then there is a maximum current that results. I can not increase to a dangerous level because I = P/E, P is fixed, and for I to increase E must decrease which means there isn't enough voltage to jump the spark gap. Hence, anything without the spark gap isolator is an accident waiting to happen. I wonder how many people have created their own attachments without them.

So mood continues to be up, stable. A lot of my friends are physically ill, though; one had muff tumors removed and another one cancerous lymph nodes. I hope everyone heals and recovers well.

40. 2004-08-05 13:36 (Thursday) journal

So life continues to be okay. I've been making enough dosh to pay basic bills, and spending some spare time doing woodworking making a little bondage bench out of spare 2*4s that I got from the RKS demolition. It's turning out good, though at some point I'll need to tear it apart and sand it down. I'm going to wait on that until I've worked in the kinks, I'm sure I like the attachment points, etc.

Sometimes I get bored, but that might be more the cleaning than the playing. I'm still deciding. Anyway, I guess I'm more finding an interest in having a creative outlet beyond BDSM, but still not certain about the time for it.

I'm going to miss Kage when he leaves.

41. 2004-08-12 01:01 (Thursday) mirror book journal

I felt inspired to read Tarot this evening, with a feeling that a message needed to arrive. So I read, and the message is:

The period of struggle is almost over, and the period of beauty is about to begin. The cycles of nature have come to this point, when I am to deliver the important message. Masculinity and femininity must be integrated or balanced to reach success, and we must look to love, passion, creativity, and desire lest we fight with ourselves to no end but tiring ourselves. Thus, the tradition shall be restored.

My interpretation of this is that we must balance the Galla and Melissae priestesses to restore the Church, and that I need to get off my ass and make this happen. I need to focus on the positives and creative in my life, and neither get caught up in the rut of questioning myself nor waste time looking for a reason & scapegoat for the problems in my life.

So, given I'm the one asked to deliver the message...

Melissa and Galla priestesses are equals in the eyes of the Goddess. As above, so below, therefore in the order the Melissa and Galla priestesses shall have equal say in voting, equal involvement in ritual, equal stature in each-other's minds.

42. 2004-08-19 19:43 (Thursday) journal

So I think I just got ripped of by a client. I thought I set down the client fees down in one spot, and they aren't there anymore. It's possible I misplaced them somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure I put them there. So at the moment, I'm of the belief that the client swiped his own client fees on the way out. I'm kind of stunned by it, disappointed that someone would steal from me. I mean, I try really hard at my job and I invest in all the tools to do it well and I try to care about it - why would someone who knows how hard I work steal from me?

I know the answer, they just steal because they don't care and can get away with it. They don't care about other humans, it's just them that's important in their eyes.

If the dosh doesn't turn up, it'll be interesting to see how I handle the next few months, dealing with the impact of this. The head-crash last year was due in part to my bike being stolen and the fallout from that, but there was stressful job and stuff too. I wonder how the anti-anxiety, anti-depressants will handle me against this. Or if it'll just help carve the ruts deeper into my mind.

43. Fast ferry BAD

2004-08-21 16:54 (Saturday) journal

I had my first Fast Ferry experience today, and it sucked.

It started yesterday, when I surfed out to thebreeze.com to check the schedule, and the page doesn't work any more. It worked a few days ago, but now I just get "Sorry - we could not find Http://thebreeze.com/demo_link.html" when I try to navigate anywhere off the front page. This is apparently a result of the craftsmanship of netsmartz.net, which has a warning that pops up at one point that reads "Currently our online booking is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers 5.0 and above. You may experience difficulties if you are using Netscape or other Mozilla based browsers or Macintosh computers." And even though the warning is confined to online booking, it should refer to the whole site, which no longer works at all with Safari (though it did a few weeks ago, even a bunch of the booking stuff).

Now, I'm probably getting into a rant here, but the HTML 4.0 spec came out back in, what, 1998? December 1997, revised April 1998; so call it 1998, 6 years ago. Back then, I could see a warning like this. The browsers weren't standard, each had various proprietary HTML extensions which were handy. Even for a while after the spec came out, there was a period of adopting the spec, implementing the changes and full CSS support, etc. But that's happened now, and there's a established open standard that people can use to make stuff work portably. I can't imagine needing to put such a warning on any of my pages, I'd view it as a badge of shame for my incompetence. I'd be ashamed of my inability to make it work correctly. Yet, here we are, fools from one company hiring the incompetents from another to make their site work, and getting crap.

So anyway, the site doesn't work in Safari. I assumed, since it worked before, that the site was hosed (once could even argue it is, since it's not portable). So I called up the toll-free number that was on the front page, and got the recorded info. I screwed up here and transcribed the time of departure wrong, my fault.

So I left today with plenty of time, planning to get to the terminal a half-hour early. Well, it would only be 15 minutes early, because of my error. I get there, and there's a fucking fair going on in the parking lot. There's vendors parked along one section, taking up a bunch of parking. There's a couple of spots I can see right near the ferry terminal, but those lots are blocked off with "lot full" signs... Grrr. There's a bunch of other cars orbiting around looking for parking, and while I'm orbiting I notice there's numerous trucks with boat trailers taking up 4 spots each in the car-park area. It's not clear why they're parked there, because over on the other side of the ferry terminal is a designated boat-trailer parking lot with extra-large spots for these vehicles, which is where I end up parking when I figure out it's futile to park in a regular car spot. So, since I wasted about 10 or 15 minutes there, the ferry takes off as I'm walking to the door.

So what am I ranting at? Myself for not calling the toll-free number twice to make sure I'd heard it right. netsmartz.net for being incompetent, and the ferry people for hiring incompetents to do their web site when there's so many good, talented people out there who could do it right. An unnamed someone for putting a fair in the ferry parking lot. Law enforcement for not enforcing the parking situation, and making boat-trailers go in the boat-trailer lot, which would have probably freed up enough parking to fix it. Maybe just the world in general.

It's feels like the world is conspiring against me, what with incompetence annoying me, the lack of justice, truth, and honesty around me; dealing with the Anita move bullshit, and in general putting me up against a bunch of challenges. It feels like the universe is trying to see if I'll buckle and go back to the dark side. I hope I don't, I want to keep my soul and my sanity.

44. 2004-08-22 03:28 (Sunday) mirror journal

I felt inspired to do another tarot reading tonight. I believe this one is directed towards me. Message follows:

Past/present/future: Communications were sent in the past. Now, effort is leading to successful ventures in my life, but I am still out of touch with my sexuality and/or am using it as a tool, not necessarily because I want to. More communication is coming with new ideas, and I must work out what will work in my life and what is relevant.

Emotion/intellect: The emotional damage of the past is healing, as is the damage to my mind. I am integrating and stabilizing the emotional aspects of myself, and using my mind to create success.

View: Still, I need to take time to be sure of my direction, not because I'm necessarily off course but because I might change my mind about my destination or my reason for going there. Failure to pay attention to my desires may lead to me ending up stuck in a rut again, because I will fail to change my life to reflect the changes in my self. Others see me as still recovering, possibly lonely as I go through the process of fixing myself.

45. 2004-08-23 09:07 (Monday) journal

Yesterday I took on an unusual geeky task for me: I disinfected a Windows machine. My client-turned-friend/lover, Dave, had a 3-year old machine running Win98SE that had a couple of viruses that Norton had missed for some reason, and a ton of ad-ware / spy-ware junk that had gotten installed. The machine was dog slow, crashed often and was just flakey.

I talked to Matt L, he suggested using AVG virus scanner personal edition (Grisoft.com), which is free for personal / non-commercial use, so I installed that. Initially it screwed things up, I think some ad-ware crap conflicted and the machine kept hanging. I reinstalled Windows with no effect, so I booted to DOS from CD went scrounging for stuff and moved 4 things that looked like ad-ware out of the way. That fixed it enough for AVG to run a scan and repair a couple of viruses. Then I installed SpyBot: Search & Destroy, which found 300 infestations of crap that it removed. There was still some weird menus on Internet Exploder, which I cleaned up by whacking the contents of c:\windows\temp and rebooting. The only thing left was a variation of the KAK virus. It was pretty similar to the original KAK virus, so I followed the removal instructions with an aware eye and moved a couple of other things that didn't look right, and voila!, I got the bastard.

I'm quite proud of myself for having achieved this. It's the first really geeky thing I've done since the brief hack back in December when I was converting my web pages to HTML 4.01. Furthermore, I was able to do it on Windows, and a bad version of Windows at that! It makes me more confident that the feeling that my mind is working better is real, not an illusion. It's nice.

46. Presta valves suck

2004-09-05 11:22 (Sunday) journal

bench woodworking

Life's been busy with some little construction projects, finishing the woodwork on my St. Andrew's cross & bondage bench. After a few week's lull in business there's been a flurry of activity and financial worries that were starting are reduced. After a bit of hot-and-steamy weather, things have toned down to nice 28 C sunny days. I want to get out for a cycle ride today after fixing the rear tire of my bike, which is the subject of my first rant.

Dad always hated Presta valves. For the unacquainted, Presta valves are French-designed inflation valves that are popular on higher-end bikes. Dad grew up with the English measurement system and so anything he comes across that's metric is, for him, an irritation. He can't identify the size by eye, he doesn't have a comprehensive metric tool set, and he doesn't have a supply of replacement nuts/bolts around. In addition, I think, it's just not what he's used to so he's prejudiced against it. I figured the same thing applied to Presta valves: his tire pump didn't fit, you have to screw around to get the adapter to work, and they're different, therefore they're bad.

On this one, though, dad was right. Presta valves suck. I got my bike a year or two year ago, and I set up my pump in Presta mode because it was obvious that the valve adapters are a nuisance. Thus, I didn't need to deal with the adapters.

The first difference with Presta valves is you manually lock them down. Instead of having a spring to keep them shut, you turn a little nut thing to keep the valve shut. This is fine, and I don't have a problem with it. Except, the little screw in the valve is so small it bends easy, and the first time you don't take the pump off perfectly straight it catches on the nut and bends the screw. It'll usually straighten when you tighten the nut, but now it's suffered from metal fatigue so it bends easier the next time and it's just a matter of time before it gives up the fight and the valve blows apart to pieces, thus requiring replacement of the whole tube.

The second difference is that the Presta valves don't lock down in the pump well. Thus, they tend to leak if the pump wiggles while pumping, and tend to push the pump off which leads to the pump coming off unexpectedly and not straight and catching the nut... see problem #1.

The third difference is the valve is screwed to the rim. You put the valve through the rim hole, they screw it down. This is a nuisance when you're changing the tire or fixing a flat. It's not so much that you have to loosen the valve to get the tire off, it's that to get it on the best way seems to be to tighten the valve on, seat the tire on the rest of the rim, loosen the valve and push it in, seat the tire near the valve (which involves pushing the valve in so the tire edges can sneak around the inside valve components) then tighten it all down again.

All that might be fine if you're a pro-cyclist and don't get flats because a street-sweeper is run over any roads you'll race on before you're on them. If you're just an average recreational cyclist and just want it to be convenient and easy, then Schrader (American style, like on your car) valves are the way to go. So I'm going to drill out my rim.

Another thing I've been thinking about, and I may have mentioned this when I was around Starwood, is the way a lot of people that claim to be Earth-centric spirituality types and who talk about saving the planet don't really do much about it. They pay lip service to it in a crowd but then go climb into their SUV to return home, where they don't make any effort to comply with recycling regulations already in place. We whine about how the Christians don't practice the peace and non-judgment that they preach, but when it comes to us I guess we don't need to practice what we preach either. Come on guys, stop being a bunch of hypocrites and practice recycling. Breaking down a cardboard box and putting it in the recycling bin takes maybe 15 extra seconds versus stuffing it in in the trash. Putting the grocery sacks in there takes maybe 30 seconds? Get off your lazy asses and show the Goddess you care about her creation, and you're going to make effort to take care of it.

I forget who I was talking to but we discussed the concept of being nice to each-other as a luxury afforded because we are well-off enough to think about these matters. People who are in a daily struggle for survival don't think about whether or not their actions hurt someone else, because they're just concerned with making it to tomorrow. Unless you know you're going to be okay until tomorrow, and be in good shape then, you don't really care what happens to anyone else. It gets interesting to look at my mental state over the last year or two as I broke down, and how my attitude towards the value of human life went from sacred to walking meat that can (and should) be destroyed at will to allow me to survive. The odd thing is that, though I'm doing better now, and people aren't quite walking meat, I don't see the value of life returning to sacredness. I wonder if this is something that will take more time, of if this is a permanent change to me.

47. Improved computer-controlled sump pump

2004-09-11 08:53 (Saturday) journal

The recent hurricane that passed through the northeast caused a lot of flooding, including an inch or two in my basement. I hooked up the sump pump which had been disconnected since Sue used it to drain her boat and pumped it out, but as the day progressed it was evident the pump wasn't restarting without intervention.

Yesterday I went and bought a new sump pump at the pet store (well, it's just a little fish-tank water pump with like 400 L/H capacity) and hooked it up. The old one was driven strictly by timer and I suspect done in by being at a 10% duty cycle and often running when there was no water. So I'm taking the time to shell-script pumpd, the sump pump control daemon. It runs on Beldandi and grabs the METAR weather updates from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and parses them into weather condition reports. It then determines if the pump needs to be run and the frequency and adjusts dynamically. It also keeps a snow-pack estimate to handle snow melt in the spring.

The daemon may require a bunch of fine-tuning, especially the snow pack code. I had it running for about 15 hours now, and it's working pretty good. The parser did fail overnight, though, when Rochester had clear skies.

48. Transgender awareness among BDSM clients

2004-09-13 13:17 (Monday) journal

It's weird dealing with potential clients who aren't transgender-aware. They don't seem to grasp anything beyond male, female, and guy in women's clothing. It's odd to deal with because I understand that selecting a dominatrix is a bit more intimate or personal than, say, selecting a shoe salesperson. Thus, desires of the heart/soul come into play, so I don't think it's fair to expect equality that I would expect at my old job. No, that's not true - I expect to be be treated fairly, equal to any non-trans dominatrix, but I also realize that some potential clients won't find me acceptable and I respect this.

On the flip side, I occasionally get asked, 'Are you male or female?' or 'Are you a man or a woman?' So I explain I've had a sex change, long ago, but often they don't seem to get it. 'So do you live as a woman?' Duh! Or just 'Oh... I was looking for a girl.' Well, yeah, I am. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but it seems to me if someone had a sex change you'd figure they're living in their new gender. What'd be the point otherwise, unless they screwed up, but then why would they describe themselves as woman? I realize there's some she-males and other gender variants working the industry, and especially amongst the sex trades, but if you've had surgery then isn't it readily apparent that it's not the same as a she-male or drag queen? Apparently not.

49. Consensus bad

2004-09-17 11:20 (Friday) journal

Why you shouldn't try to arrange social events by consensus:

It doesn't work. Say, for example, you're planning a fetish munch. You ask on a newsgroup, "Hey, does anyone want to do a munch?" Everyone says, `Yes'. Then you ask, "So when can people make it?" And there is mostly silence, because people don't want to say anything because that implies a commitment and they might have an opportunity to do something else they'd rather do. So you select a day and time and say, "Can people make it Friday?" Several people say, `No, I've got X going on.' So you ask, "What about Saturday?" Some of the same people, and some different people, say, `No, I've got Y going on.' And so it repeats until it's the weekend, and then it's too late because everybody's made other plans because nothing got nailed down, and nothing happens.

Basically, it falls into a few problems:

- A couple of people want to join in whatever activity, but when
  compared to anything else they've got a possibility of doing then
  they'd rather do the other thing.  So, it's virtually impossible
  to schedule them in.  If you asked them, "Is there anytime you
  could make a munch that you wouldn't have something you'd rather
  be doing?", and they actually thought about it, then they'd say,
  `No.'  
- In a bunch of people with a variety of schedules, you'll virtually
  never get 100% agreement on a time.  Give up.  Set a time early,
  so people can set the time aside if the event is important enough
  to them.  The more time wasted in negotiating, the more time for
  people to make other plans that they then feel committed to.
- Some people think they want to do stuff, but then they're lazy/
  introverted/whatever, so when it comes time to go to whatever event,
  they find their dishes need washing -oh!- and they're a Buffy
  marathon on.  So, even though they don't have anything better to
  do, to avoid confronting their own fears/introversion/whatever,
  they make up excuses that there's something they'd rather do.

So if not a lot of people show up, don't be upset about it. It's not the coordinators fault for not trying to time things better or anything. It's mostly just the way people are unrealistic or dishonest to themselves in saying they want to take part. And if a couple of people get together and get to know each-other or have fun or whatever, then you did good. Even if it's a small fraction of what it seems like it should be.

50. I'm getting to hate ABs.

2004-09-18 00:10 (Saturday) journal

I want to rant about how much I'm getting to hate ABs.

I like being a dominatrix. It's interesting, I meet new people. It's a lot of work, considering advertising and coordinating and maintenance and scheduling and paperwork and prospecting and all that stuff. I'm not getting rich off it, but it's enough to live off of, or at least will be once I've got an established clientele and I'm not reinvesting all the money. In part, because I can live on a small budget... if I had expensive taste, I'd be screwed. I really have to be much more cautious with spending versus when I was a software engineer.

I'm really getting to hate my AB clients. On the good side, I have one regular AB client, and the scenes always seem awkward but he seems happy so I guess it's okay. I've had one other AB client who was really fun to play with, and I enjoyed the time together. I like the DL I play with from Ohio, and I seemed to have an okay scene with the guy who seems to have a vinyl sheet fetish.

There's one or two in the pipeline who could be fun, if they ever come to fruition. That's where I'm getting kind of pissed though. Weird calls seem to come with being a dominatrix, and I accept that as the territory, especially as I'm learning to deal with it. However, the sheer number of weird calls for AB stuff seems to be much higher versus any other fetish. In fact, versus all the others combined.

So what's a weird call for a dominatrix?

The same person calls me several times, asking the same sequence of questions. I ask for an explanation on about the third time. `I'd like to get to know the service before I hire someone.' After about the fifth, I stop answering calls from that number. He starts calling with restricted ID, so I indicate I'm finding the calls creepy and harassing. He stops calling for about 2 weeks, then calls back with a new question sequence, but I can still tell it's him. I clearly ask that he not call again and hang up a few times. He starts disguising his voice, so I'm not certain it's him until we get into question sequence. I directly indicate I don't want his calls, but he calls anyway. I finally bitch him out, he hangs up on me, and I call him back on the number I've got from several months ago and continue bitching him out, and hope that I've unnerved him enough by calling him back that he won't call again. It's yet to be determined if he'll be calling again.

A similar set of calls from Michigan. Seems normal for a few calls, then gets into self descriptions that set off a detector in my mind - they remind me of George from University Avenue, this guy who I used to ride the bus with occasionally. George was easily identified because he wore a big old 10-gallon hat and talked with a Texan accent. He claimed he owned a ranch and stuff down there, but I think the story may have changed a few times between he used to own and he does own. I think he was going to some kind of therapy, and he just had these perpetual lies, or maybe they were like an alternate invented reality that he lived in to escape the pain of life in the real world, so they seemed real to him. Anyway, this guy from Michigan rubbed me the same way. We talked a while, did a phone trial scene. Eventually, I said I had to get other things done. `Oh, okay, one last thing...' Ten minutes later, I had to explain I really had to go, stuff had to get done that day, we'd talk again tomorrow after I'd had time to think about the scene and come up with some new ideas. An hour later, he calls back and wants to talk more. And, as compensating and a deposit on a session, he's sending me $100. Well, maybe $300. Make it a nice round $500, money's no object (see that George thing above). He'll get a money order and send it today, he's already pulled my address somehow (probably DPF, because Tommy [an AB] fucked it up when he finally gets to adding me to the babysitter list on about the fourth request, and put in my real name rather than work name, and I'm nervous to try to get him to fix it for fear he fuck it up worse. Fucking incompetent idiot). Eventually, I do a callback to verify his phone number and he's given me a wrong number. Well... it's his number, but a woman who doesn't recognize the name I ask for answers. Hmm, must be the extra servants he's got, since he's single and doesn't have a wife. I eventually declare I don't feel comfortable with him, and I'm not interested in doing a scene. Incidentally, the dosh he supposedly sent, which I would have returned because of my choice not to do a scene, never shows up. Lying fuck.

He calls back a month and a half later... I suspect it's him after a bit, but he gives a different phone number when I ask. Researching it, it's a dead number. Oh, he made a mistake... No, no one knows him at that number either. I eventually demand he give me a number that I can call him at right now, and now it matches up with the prior month's records. Rrrrrr!

When other folks get told I don't want a slave, they get it. I beat them, they go away happy. No permanent contract. The ABs, I indicate I'm not interested in being a phone mommy, but they just keep calling back, even though I tell them I'm not interested. I guess part of my frustration is that I don't want to be part of some codependent relationship, but it's explicitly what they're looking for. If they just needed to talk occasionally - a confidential outlet - and they showed some drive/intelligence/problem solving/desire for growth, I probably wouldn't mind. But they just want me to play mommy, and apparently want/expect me to do it for free.

Incidentally, I'm not entirely alone in my observations -- one of the DLs I talk with, who is intelligent and interesting and I like talking with him because it doesn't seem all codependent and shit, has described similar observations about a lot of ABs who can't figure out how to relate to the world so they regress into their fetish, which leaves them less configured to cope with the world and so they regress more and more, until they're lost in some distorted reality where they spend their life looking for the mommy to make them into the baby they want to be to escape the big bad world.

Then I've had 2 ABs who just didn't show up for day-long sessions. Several day periods of my life were arranged around their sessions. There's a third that's looking to do the same thing next weekend, based on lack of response to e-mails I sent this week to confirm that we're on.

I mean, I don't want to be a money whore. I want to retain my humanity in this venture, to know my clients well and enjoy their friendship or at least acquaintance. The ABs are just pissing me off so much... But besides the above frustrations, the AB jobs pay crap. A typical session is 2 hours between negotiation, scene, and cleanup. $50/hour to make that income (ignoring expenses). Sometimes someone goes off into subspace and needs cuddle time, which is just kinda cool though I don't get paid for that time... but sometimes clients tip, too, or take me out to dinner. So the experience is usually fun, and the generosity of some makes up for the occasionally cruddy experience. An AB scene: I cover all expenses, so it comes out of my profit; scenes run many hours long, they're always jawing me down on the price, they want to negotiate details to the Nth degree (taking up hours in the process). I'm making a lot less. Basically, I'm making babysitter wages. Which I might be okay with, if they didn't treat me so bad the rest of the time.

I'm really tempted to drop the scene. I've invested a lot in it, buying gear to support it. If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have offered service to them. I think for the moment, I'll wait until the end of year to make a decision, implementing some new deposits to see if that separates wheat from chaff.

Bastards. There, that feels better to get off my chest.

Right now I'm up in Toronto with Sue, my sweetie, who is going to sleep next to me, and I can think of much better things to do than writing in my journal.

51. Using quotes

2004-09-18 16:11 (Saturday) journal

I'm bothered by the usage I see for quotes lately. Direct quotations are okay with me, and to surround a slogan:

        "GE: We bring good things to life."
And there's the not-quite-believing usage. E.g., I had a "reliable" Ford, which meant it only broke down every 6-9 months or so. Recently, through, I've seen quotes used I think to indicate things of importance, but using them this way makes them look unimportant. For example: 
        Loading zone: "15 minute parking only"
So is this the zone's slogan, and it really doesn't matter? Or 
        Inflammable chemicals in use. "No smoking"
This just reads stupid. Don't use quotes this way. If it's important, use bold or something.

52. 2004-09-18 16:52 (Saturday) journal

I had my first Ikea experience today. I've heard for years about how cool Ikea is, so I thought I'd summarize my experience.

The store is huge. I went to the one in Toronto, Ontario. If you've seen it next to the QEW, you've only seen half. The ground-level outside is the upper deck of the parking ramp, so the store is actually 2 stories inside.

Going through is a different experience. Typically stores are a big open box with rows and columns - a grid system. Furniture stores are a little different, with areas inside the grid system, but a grid none-the-less. Ikea is set up like the children's game Candyland. You start at the beginning and meander along a marked path, with shortcuts labeled here and there to skip between parts of the store.

It's got a nice restaurant built-in, for which I didn't notice prices, and a snack shop downstairs with dirt-cheap hot dogs & stuff. Hot dogs 50 cents, pop 75 cents. 2 dog and pop combo 1.50. Canadian.

It's also got a warehouse area. When you see something you like that's furniture, you get the aisle & bin number and then go get it from the warehouse yourself. Sometimes, things have a sequence of numbers and you get the component pieces. This seems nice for something like shelving, where shelf count varies depending on spacing, or you might want something 1, 2, or more shelves wide. There was also some shrink-wrap kit shelving, if you didn't care about flexibility.

The shelving quality depends on how much you spend. You can get crap shelving, that looks flimsy and not quality but seems pretty sturdy when you poke it, for cheap. There's a range of prices up to a nice quality, and some medium-price stuff that's made of untreated wood for you to finish yourself if you want to make the effort.

I took advantage of being able to get component pieces, and got 2 cross-braces, which are just these hinged-metal rods that form an X on the back of a shelving unit to strengthen it up (triangles, the shape of strength!). I figure I'll just buy some wood at Home Depot and make my own shelving, but the brace Ikea had was nicer than anything else I'd find and cheap ($5 each).

I was amazed how many people were in there milling around. It's like Kittyhawk's report on Wal*Mart during a hurricane. I didn't realize people need (or think they need) that much furniture.

The one thing I went in looking for they didn't have. It was a lamp I'd seen in the catalog, new this year, and apparently everyone else thought it was cool because the store is out and so is the warehouse. I did see some nice wall-mount shelves that I thought would look cool in a kitchen, with semi-transparent doors and built-in lighting. Not a bad price, either. Probably a nightmare to keep clean, though.

The more unusual thing I found about Ikea was the price tags. Items were labeled with price, location of design, location of manufacture, source/type of materials, and disposal plans. For example, they note glass and metals are recyclable, wood components are a renewable resource and can be used as fuel (presumably by incineration, which has its critics) when disposed. I wonder how the stuff compares to non-Ikea products - is this just a marketing avenue or is there a significant difference in material choices?

Overall, an interesting store to visit but I still don't quite get the hype. If you want off-the-shelf shelving, it's a good place to go. A good variety with a lot of flexibility, especially versus the shrink-wrap kits you'll find in the average department store which go together exactly one way. You could easily decorate exclusively Ikea, which might result in a consistent decorating style for a household.

53. Telephones in the Catskills

2004-09-23 21:44 (Thursday) journal

PCS phone service sucks in the Catskills. It's strange, too, because usually the phone sees service - but only rarely can it talk to it. Sometimes, on the top of a mountain, it thinks it's got like 80% of optimal signal (4/5 bars), but when it tries to connect to the network, it can't quite manage it. Which is kind of strange when you're at the top of a mountain overlooking a wide valley and you've got line of site to 400 km^3, maybe more... certainly more if it wasn't for the haze. Part of me wonders, `How can this NOT work right now? The thruway's down there, and that's got service along the whole thing. How come it won't talk to me?'

Analog service seems to exist pretty reliably, though it's roaming on my plan. Maybe I should change that.

So I'm almost a year out of programming, and I've just been thinking that I still don't miss it. I occasionally get into hacking something on Newton or Beldandi, like the sump pump project, but when I think about doing it as a job I still don't want to do it and I have no remorse that I'm not doing it. I don't miss it.

Speaking of the sump pump, I put the sump pump code on my web site at perette.barella.org

54. Adult babies are just too frustrating

2004-10-07 23:32 (Thursday) journal

Toward the end of September, I became adequately frustrated with continued AB/DL aggravations that I've decided not to accept new clients, and will probably drop the service entirely next quarter.

I had a good cycling trip with mom last week. We got a ride from Sue & Amanda to Toronto, then spent 2 days cycling around Toronto and 3 days riding back to Rochester via lake-front bike paths, various lakefront-paralleling roadways, and Route 31. We had great weather for the trip; no rain, moderate temperatures, a lot of sun. I liked it.

I've re-arranged my living room, and I think I've managed to come up with a nicer arrangement. The house is really starting to feel a lot better, having gotten rid of a huge amount of junk that I had pack-ratted over that last several years. I'm still trying to get rid of a few things, but the bulk of the junk is gone.