Yes, what? A question I should be asking, I suppose, because I feel so afraid now. Moving. Apartment hunting breeds fear in me so strong. I am pair bonded to having a permanent address, a phone number, citizenship status. I know how easy it is to simply fall through the cracks to be forgotten int eh numbered society. So I am afraid of finding nothing my August first, and simply moving back in with Peter and Athena ... my room there is empty. Aaron moved away last month. It is almost as if.. as if.. as if.

No. I want to move up int eh world, to a place of sunny reflectiveness, treeable cat entrances, safety in a known address where people would be proud to visit with me. I shall find something. Tracey and I will.

What? Exhaustion as the running of two companies takes up so much detail time. Contractors wholie, who tell the truth, who all sound the same. I understand the personal reference now, the hiring family members, the known evils. I get it. We all do. Reading people. Yeah right. Not that quickly. Putting fear in their hearts works better, I'd say, but it is so uncivilized. Dragon lady? Hmmmphf. I feel remorse every time I discuss business with a competitor - something which seems to be happening more often lately, twice this week. A sign of success. We are the company others are checking up on now. :) But. Still I'd rather laugh and play withthese talented people than compete. I spent too many years at Peter's School of Enforced Sharing.

What? Pain in my abdomen as the biological annoyance that makes me a target for pair bonders and lustful entities makes it even worse for a few days. Why me? What is the reason for me being me and not not me? Logic. Cheap logic. The answer is it is definitional and not an ontological matter at all. Perhaps the metaphysics of the situaiton are interesting, but certainly they are no answer to such a question, not unless you enjoy pondering the imponderable on purpose, as does Tracy.

What indeed. Back to "why" please. It is more fun.

I'll pray for awhile to find an apartment. It seems about as causally related as any other method is to getting a good place. We'll see. Tracey and I have developed a plan of action. With her incredible phone voice and drawingin personality, she'll book appointments, and I'll do the leg work to see the places in the evenings.

She's also developing many contacts in the film industry lately, looking to move her career into high gear in movies! I love it. I think she'll be great as a director. Patience.

The Sunday mornign bath water is running. When in doubt inthe morning about what is to be done, decide you woke up too early for the rest of the world, and have a bath. God, I'm an asshole. I've been terrible to people this week. I haven't called around to say hi to the people I've been developing socially. Today I should then. Later when the sun is up higher.

Bathe.

Closer still. ALright. Hear it? The clashing of neurons soaked in a light fuel? Sizzling, sparking, a torent of energy emitted absorbed by the ceaseless scramble for thoughtful sense? Didn't think so.

[My first 10 minutes: Richard chirps a virtual good morning to me. v-friends are nice to have. The silence of one's own wonderful space, with v-companionship a slip of the fingers away. A who glance around the v-room tells me what everyone is upt to this morning. Richard has been up for a couple of hours itseems, and is now working on a client. Peter was up until the wee hours of the morning and will only now be rising. Others pop in and out catching up on the morning's gossip, and grabbing a quick cup of breakfast something or other before wandering into p-reality [ physical reality ] for other interactions. Letters from friends from around the world chirping and chattering, a din of plans and reports, of merry making and soothing conversation. Hella wondering why eveyone in TO has been so quiet lately.. wondering what p-distractions must have been happening to keep us out of e-touch so long. And on to my next ten minutes...]

I've been this crazy hypochondriac lately, picking up other people's ailments - er - symptoms. Peter walks int he door!!!

Here I am agaian. I have something to think through. But my mind is a haze off whispery shallowness. What is it? fear at not finding a place t live? At having talked to too many competitors this week? Of leaving my house just for an hour now? God, what is it?

I feel ok really. A litle nervous that I am dying of something - probably terminal boredom. what have I done to amuse myself? Nothing. I owe so many people phone dalls.. but not today. Today I am a social lug. A burden.

Critical of self. Aha. And what does this indicate, oh wise self examiner? What, again with the what. Why.

Yes. Let's try this the right way around. I have an unspelled out offer on the table to become an internet reporter on tv. Details I know not yet directly. Hmmm. A yes or a no. But what is that about? WHy does it pop up now?

Is it Richard and hi sonce again avowed single status? A little. He and Peter haved talked a couple of times finally. For real. Peter invited him out to a performance, and Richard went. GOod. He seemed better the next day, better than beofre. Less bumped up about Allision. He came away thinking that perhaps he had been abused by her. I wonder. The pair bond abuse? Why did she think him prime material? Beyond his obvious qualities, it seems clear that although he likes to pair up with a woman, he doesn't like to be the target of typical taming that many people get into in nesting. Poor him. Just so long as he does not ever point that shit at me!

Why... I'm not getting anywhere here. Yes... A feeling that my life, that I am becoming normal. A fitter inner. An insider. No room for persoanl identity. A feeling of others surrounding me. Empathy waves from those too close. Let me out of this sudden understanding into a protected place - an empty place. I fibrillate between still wanting to learn the social scene and its requisite dancing and the intense desire to be alone with myself. To ask why.

But I avoided a perfectly wonderful invitational last night, and went to the horse races at woodbine yesterday with Tracey instead. I didn't even wqarn her of my bigger copout. she wondered why I suggested the races. She simply wondered.

And I avoid today asking why clearly. "What," I see myself saying. WhaTT?" Indeed.

Off to a movie... again I run.

I had a pair bonding dream. Cool.

I was walking down Sarta Rd. arund the corner and back to where I lived. I passed by Joey's old house, and Richard walked out. He invited me to come along to Annabelle's that evening with the others. I was surprised at this whole thing, and said I would like to join them. Inside, a couple sat around chatting and talking. Suddenly they were under the covers of a bed clothed but giggling. Richard pulled a cover over my head with him. We giggled too. Then the covers went away. He went over to the woman as she cycled, and I wandered upstairs. Trying to make a phone call, I noticed the man on another line up here too, and another also on a phone down the hall. I ducked in to a small room pulling ht edoor shut. I didn't dial out. On my mind was th estrong feeling of being left out. Noone wanted to talk with me. It felt like Richard's fault. I pulled on whatever clothes I was missing. I noticed then that I felt sexually unfulfilled, wanting sex badly and feeling inadequate. Leaving the house angrily, betrayal in the air - my air.

I woke up at this point feeling the same way, frustrated angry alone. But during my shower, I figured it out. I was feeling pair bonded with Richard. As soon as this clicked in, I turned it off with a sharp and resounding decision. No thanks! I feel sorry for anyone living in that sensation who has not got a permanent person with them. Soul mate indeed. It's a feeling, an emotion, a voluntary way of being.

I was clearer than this. I can see the behaviour of the pair bonder more clearly. I see it as something another person must satisfy in some fashion. With Richard it will be to find a beautiful woman who would like to pair up and who isn't also a breeder. (Ya right) To feel confident, he seems to require deciding as I have not to live this way internally, or to find th eright person, the other half. It was this realizationthat clicked for me the desire not to be that way. Easy enough.

Ican see him now as an empowering force because he does not dote this stullifying energy on / at me. Pair bond desiring people are weak only when they have not satisfied the sensation. They are strong otherwise. I must encourage Richard to make a strong choice, either way. No threat in that to me at all. The only threat I feel in waking life is that he may accidently point this shit at me. I'm not that sort of girl. :)

[ ... one year ago today:Causality Loops ]

No matter what happens, the next day comes around. Most of the time. But for each of us, one day wil be the last. A race car driver dies suddenly. Tracey's cat Smudge is suddenly deathly ill. I look at my life and suddenly feel trapped. A great force of will comes over me. Echoing, "you will not feel the desparation of nihilism any longer. Do not trael on this path. Only unhappiness prevails there. See it for what it is, the dark ponderings on death, so attractive and paralysing. This path seduces those without the character to call upon their own will to free themself. Free yourself now. You have lived with the children of nihilism. Now travel with the children of will. Stay in your own person, that of creation and will power. Death cannot be overcome on either path. You know this."

Wow.

I do know this. This voice of power was invited to live in me many years ago. As I recover from having over excercised it in past months, it is stronger than ever. Why. Because it worked so wonderfully.

Cool.

Funny how many people think that I am a sad person. I am only somewhat that way. In some sense I am more ppnderous - in need of pondering when I am sad than when I am otherwsie. Joe and I were discussing this personality slivering just now. I simply cannot believe how wonderful it is to have him bopping around again in my day to day life. I hope it is for good reasons. I think so. He and his wife are very recently pregnant, and this may be a factor. However, it does lend itsel fto playing D&D finally again. I can't wait.

No office cats yet. Just wait. prrrr. tracey seems somewhat more rational again. She has taken up phoning to potential apartments while I do the leg work inthe evenings.

But I diverge away from the mind's journey into personness. Again I hope with desparation almost certain failure staring at me. Be me. Do what I want. Yeah right. So many little decision sto be made that I cannot simply do what I want. They snowball into too manyother people's backyards. Is every social person / business person caught like htis? I shall not be for long. Simply and soon, I shall be living directly for my happiness, and as a consequence for the betterment of others. But oh they try to cash in their chips early, before the hips have multplied with the predictability that it seems only I really see.

This month's goals: recession proof my enterprises. Easdy, and with a little foresight, fucking obvious. Funny that it seems only mildly conservaive to do this. It is intensely long term thinkng to do such a thing. I should wirte a partners' report on the subject, for my eyes only. Yup.

... just a sec ...

Ah.... the time for hte meeting is encroaching. Richard is not yet here, so I should plan my cab ride accordingly.

[ ... one year ago today: Burning Bridges ]

The water is running in the shower, but I want to write something out.

Themes and variations...

[ ... one year ago today: IKEA ]

On broods, I seem to be equally committed to avoiding them as I was a year ago. Then a brood, now a pair bonding.

On niceness, I am similarly unchanged. Now however I am able to see the source of this concept, the underlying British morality that oozes through the Canadian culture I know so well finally. I can see the enforced ceiling that arises in one's ambitions in the attempt to be nice. Nice people cannot rise higher than decency will allow. As Peter's version had it, as unto the least so unto him. As Tracey would wish, unto everyone, comfort.

And my refrain on this, as unto the best I can achieve using all my resources wisely, so unto everyone else if they figure out how.

On competitors, my heart yearns for their success independent of my own. My stomach churns at the thought of addressing a zero sum game as if they is the way things must be. Please listen, there are other models besides the zero sum game that can also function.. even with a defector or two in the midst. Please read Danielson's naive but telling book on gamew and automatons. Title escapes me.

FSC beckons.

Point:

[ ... one year ago today:Fluff ]

Counterpoint:

Amazing: ONE YEAR LATER: Athena at it again

Shall I reply? Shall I indicate the aniversary was nearly dead on in this behaviour? Shall I bother even to go to such a stuffy event where friends will attack unless warned off? I don't appreciate any music enough really to do this, even the beautiful melodies Peter produces. But I bear no ill will to these souls, once deemed the brood, and now the Shattered. My title for them: Insinuation. You can catch Peter busking on CityTV's street captions. He's pretty intensely cool doing this. He's the guy playing two recorders at once - beautifully. But do I want to enter into the life of the Toronto back street artist? No. How shall I tell Athena though... I don't want her to be upset or troubled by my existence. I don't know really why she spontaneously once again started communicating with me. Although I have attended one or two venues these guys were performing at, that is no reason for any personal or social contact to really accrue, IMO. I'll hve a chat with Peter once again to ward off any hard feelings. Me, I have none, I'm just not interested in forming personal, one-on-one relationships now.

That last remark is very true. Maybe I am as nuts as last when I decided never to say anything interesting but only to write it.

Here's this year's interesting decision. I did go back to talking with people - conversations got dull while I didn't, and in fact, my own inputs lessened and dulled after awhile. The things you learn. :) This year, I am also experimenting but with who I talk and socialize with. I figure that since I ought to learn finally how to interact socially, in groups and in public, that I ought to spend my extracurricular energy meeting with groups instead of individuals. This serves the end of putting myself into the sort of situation where I will find it easier to observe and practice the social dance that I know so little of. And as well I'll meet and interact with many more people per unit time / energy. Although I'll be talking and discussing interest9ing things again (I already restarted this), I'll be doing so with more people at once. This moderates last year's desire to do wonderufl things in public. Essentially, I am expanding what sorts of public I engage in. Now both writing and social events count as public. I feel this is rather scientistic, but int he end I will learn this mode of being - to some extent. [Have faith.]

I think I'll go to the FSC Building shortly. There are more interesting things to do there. The aprartment hunt is heating up. Tracey and I are very dedicated to finding the ultimate place, and I suspect we are going to pull this feat off. But we are both nervous about the impending upheaval as our lives shift into that next phase of living as grown-ups - living with close friends without Peter's communal virus that is.

We both seem to have a fairly grown-uo perspective on this. I really cannot wait to findthe right place though. We will - faith!

Catching a single fishI did end up going off to see the Shattered Spectacles last night after getting home from dinner with Tracey. They are really coming together wonderfully. I hope soon to be able to say that they came together. :)

But I went not so much to see them, or in fact to discuss my proper titling with Athena, asto talk with Richard who I suspected of having made his own way there. In fact he was there, and enjoying himself. When I arrived home and checked my messages, there was a forward from his messages, a note from Aliosion. She skipped leaving for her home in Mexico so that he could act as white knight to save her unworking computer. He and I had just earlier been discussing that her plane had left, and jokingly indicated that that did not mean she had. But for the joke to come true. I've been waiting to see the look of relief on his face for days. Indeed it wa there, and survived quite a number of hours. I hope with all my heart that he can endure being staked out for an extra week. Shades of fatal attraction loom before Richard.

Many times male friends have tried to spell out the male psyche for me so that I might better endure and respond to the catcalls and other forms of sexual notice with more understanding. Now I see that as men grow older, and some more distinguished, successful, etc., the game turns around. Women become the aggressors, and middle aged single (only?) men the prey.

Now I find myself counselling Peter nad Richard about why women might treat them so badly. They are so used to being hte pursuers that I think neither of them have been watching closely enough to see the signs that they each ought to become much more picky and careful about who they are willing to smile at provocatively. The room for a junk fish strategy has narrowed, and they must more carefully spear fish in the attraction game. Even witht he drive all of us share (although not me so much more recently with my desire to seekonly social situations) to find other amazing people inthe world, this stage oflife indicates a more careful preening of one's contacts is desired. A switch fromhaving to throw undesirable fish back in to the waters to missing some relaly good ones.

I have always wondered when the switch would come about my own attractiveness. I seems at hand very shortly. Time to actuate the back up plans. :)

Nothing.

[ ... one year ago today: Lead ]

Tracey has booked quote a number of appointments for today to see apartments. I think today may be the day of finding. I hope. It would be nice to get a head start on moving out of here and into something with her.

I've been reading Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon fr the past few days. It very powerfully pulls me into the cell with Robashov with his thoughts and understandings of his own situation. I feel I understand the power of history beyond and above the importance of mankind from this book. The greater feeling of movement inexorably pushing towards the unknown, and this fellow's need to remain a part of this greatness. Wonderful. How can a person truly relinguish the self sufficiently to follow this sort of course?

Is it possible to see even beyond what I think of as long term into the annals of what these marxist / hegelian types know of as History? Into the future beyond anything our generations imagine, the course of necessity, of the real and true. Ahh... indulgence without sentience. The equivalent of lizard brain on the cultural and social levels of the world. More sophisticated that the basic architecture of the mind or person, the lizard brain adds in some basic drives, survival drives. And yet the same lizard speaks foolish nonsense for the sentient being to take as only advisor. So the hegelian historical movement ignores the rational aspects of the social realm. I'm not sure what those things are, but I suspect muchly that they must be there. Have we as a race ever tapped into rational race thought?

I've come down with some sort of mild and annoying bug. Dizzy and nauseas, I've decided to sit out from going to FSC today. Peter said he may come by to chirp at me. I don't understand cats anymore.

We've found an apartment that Tracey and I both like. Now it's a waiting game. Let's hope! The previous people are computer consultants operating out of there and so the phoe line situation is stupendous already. I think that we should get the place.

I guess I'm just bored. I've been reading books and magazines. And now I find htat there is no point in having read most of themags anyway. They never really say anything I couldn't have said myself if I had thought on the subjects they indicate. I think I'll just ead the subject, and lay back to think directly on it. The magazines become food for thought in a way perhaps surprising to the included authors. Why would they spend such leisurely time riting out in beautiful style that which lacks deeper understandings? Perhaps it is the magazines I've chosen that bely the thoughtful person intrigue: Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Heavy Metal, Analog. Is it only the academic journal that will make me spend more than a minute per page? Yes. Bored. But not excited, which I do prefer. Let's hope that the apartment comes our way.

[ ... one year ago today: ... ]

I'm feeling weary and a bit sick. People do not meet their on deadlines. They will yea say so easily even when they know they are lying just to gain my cooperation. Fascinating. I've done this rarely and only when the package is good enough that a few little details don't much matter. But there must be a better way to go about this. Something.

In the end, people who don't do this, who are instead honest up front about the facts be they good or bad, these are the poeple I will end up interacting with.

The person I was is gone. [identity crisis, uhoh] My mind isn't interested in many things anymore, only hard to solve strategies- the nexessary. Not the enjoyable. What was ever enjoyable anyway? The possibility exists that there was neveranything intrinsically enjoyable to me, and that I've been adapting to the circumstances, even those I created, by enjoying what I had to do.

Once upon I was in school a lot and I spnt my time thinking of two things, the subject matter and the matter of teaching. For awhile as a consequence I was a good teacher. Funny. But after four years, I didn't enjoy it any more; it became repetitive. I could not do what I thought the proper and needed things to do it well. But my mind worked in ways I liked. I thought with ease about so many things. Now I read inmagazines arguments that seem obvious to me, and yet unimportant. This is my rationalization for not having made the arguments already. But I believe this. I do.

Who am I trying to convince? Shit. A business geek. It's hurt me a lot that some of the people I hir eturn out to be annoying orlosers or theives. Some are so incredible, and some are ridiculous. I guess there isn't much middle room around me for the mediocre. That explains a bit. But... I want my ease of thoughtfulness back. More than that, I want new or interesting or intricate things to think about. I'm respectful of what is the necessary. And honestly these things I want are not the necessary things in business. If they are, then in spheres I do not not yet operate in. Perhaps I shouldn't hold my breath either. Dear me oh my.

Have I lost it? Is it the company I keep that is different? It was always so easy to slip into business chat in grad school. Business chat there was about Hegel and Popper, Chomsky and Quine. The bridge between metaphysics and my ow interests were short and solid. It was always easy to discuss what really intereted me under this rubric. Perhaps that is why it seemed my mind worked easier. Now the bridges are thin and rickity.

I shouldn't get depressed about this. Much longer anyway.

I'm glad to see that Richard is escapading with another female already. Good for him even if she suddenly can't seem to afford to visit him. I find his taste somewhat amusing. People seem to select on such narrow selection criteria. His happens to inclue their being in a far away place. The best of many worlds perhaps? What is going on besides the obvious programmed in stuff. Is anyone doing something more adventurous?

It's 10 pm. Lat efor me, and I'm waiting to be caught up with here at the office. Steve, Sab, Tracey, Peter, Richard and I had a funny dinner, laughing and joking. It was really painfully fun. A nice change from the seriousness, and a nice addition to it. Heh.

Peter went off to perform, and then we're meetingup again for some other weird cool thing. I got a little stir crazy and walked back here first though.

Got an apartment. Signed and sealed. A really nice place on Mt Pleasant. A new image for me, the east side ofthe city - first time I've even wandered around there. Not quite walking distance from the office, but a really nice neighbourhood. Tracey and I'lll be able to walk around at night, have people over with a good feeling to it, etc. Really exactly what we both wanted. Sunny, dish washered. :)

So it's been a year and some odd since I moved away from Gilmour street. Athena and Peter and fro awhile Aaron stayed there contented all the while. Contented I guess in an unsettled way. Aaron working behind a closed door. Peter insisting on dwelling inhis basement. Athena romanticising about her finance love. Their band, their peotry and writings, their disputes.

A sound... it must be the people upstairs. Cool.

I wonder what is h0olding the others up. I sort of expected that they'd catch up with me faster than this. No probs. I'll stay unafraid here alone in what is suddenly a strange place. I should probably sleep here for a night or two to get over this odd feeling. And someone turned off the door's chime. I'll have that fixed again.

So I've been living on my own for the past 1.5 years, and that comes to a close with my hearty desire to room up with Tracey. Very curious. It took me quite alot of thought to see that I'm not losing privacy. I find inmy apratment that I've created no intrinsically interesting to me things to do there. All the things there were geared towards running the business. When this office came along, and I started to work fromhere sometimes, I lost the requirement to everr really be at home except when I wanted to be alone - by myuself or with another person. That can easily be had while with Tracey,a ndas well, the warmth and companionship of having a friend around who understands me is gained once again. So I think it is insane to live with a person in intimate detail... Trcey and I will try to work through those silly details and live as two free souls sharing space - kitchen sink space. not soul space. Very cool. I don't know if I like myself being this nice. It is powerful, but honey draws more flies?? Is that what this saying is supposed to indicate?! Flies?? Alright. The spirit of said saying is that the flies stick in the honey? Umm.. Being sweet is better than smelling bad to draw flies. Why? I just don't get cliches without experienceing their reality creating situations first. Gravy - you had to be there.

Alone here. Entirely alone.

People wonder how I can write a diary in a public place. Heh. It is so quiet and lonely here that the voices of the people I was just having dinner with echo in my ears unanswered. Easy. It is such a quiet place - a few keystrokes, lost in my own thoguhts about nothing much. I wonder why this isn't obvious to others?

The silence is nice.

It's like learning another language. An incommesurable layer of interpretation travelling along with normal messages. Ghosts everywhere, indicators of some network of Borg signalling. How I travel with such confidence, and at the same time thorough blindness must blow their minds.

Subject: things I need to do

Change:d

cat tags

driver's license

other cards?

Banks address?

car insurance

vehicle reg.

parking permit for Mt. Pleasant

phone numbers

call Margaret about loation of lines and jacks

call Bell about switch over date

talk with landlady about moving out next weekend

leave full contat info with her including forwarding address and phone numbers

So I didn't die and I didn't decide not to write. My computer is finally re-setup, and so here I am, able to write out thoughtoids once again. It's not as if I don't have other access... but so many little details needed to get looked after - dish washing liquid, ceiling fans, finding where the cats have wondered away to, running companies.

I did notice a quite severe case of info withdrawal. I guess I really am an internet addict if not a netscape surf addict. Info and communication are just too cool here. The information withdrawals symptoms were just ending, and I felt it was high time to find out how the eworld is doing. Thank god, it's ths same old place. Funny how everyone else thinks about the changing rate of change on the techno frontier. Me I see a stable communication op.

Way more cool. Social stuff seems to be seeping into my understanding of reality more and more. I have a lot to uncover. It seems that the social stuff is another way to transmitting information about what is going on, more like Borg than anything else that I know of. A many to many pinging to create and dissolve social events of incredible complexity or simplicity. Us psychological people simulate htis bottom -up, and it's no wonder we think that the whole enterprise is rarely worth it. Social people are performing all of this in various top-down fashions. Faster easier cleaner. Possibly even fun, like designing the game of chess - not simply playing it.

I have a lot to learn now. But I am able to do simple manipulations in that sphere - the channel is starting to become clear. Questions arise. For awhile I was concerned about becoming overly predjudice - sensitized to social and cultural types. But that is not truly happening. There ar etolerance mechanisms for social people too. I seem to be a able to carry many of the values I hold into this new shpere. Hmmm. And I get more of the cliches now, not a lot but more.

Progress.

[ ... one year ago today: Gophers in our midst ]