Thursday, December 02, 1999 11:17:58 AM
Can't stay in the house all day--just used the last of the coffee. And it's half decaf. I'll need a fix before noon.
The POTS line, plain old telephone service, the humble twisted pair...
The only essential feature of my first computer was a telephone jack. There was not 
much point otherwise, I thought. In another life, I imagine I had a phone before any of my friends, and had nobody to talk to. (Maybe that's still the case.) And, except for the stuff at each end, the twisted pair hasn't changed a bit. It's still just a connection, mundane for most, but fascinating to me.
A hustler from 1988 still entices me with the message he left. That was a time; hot boys, mumbled messages, and no unwanted entanglements. Just intimate affairs via the twisted pair.
Thursday, December 02, 1999 5:06:35 PM
I went out (hooray!) and got coffee, a grinder--only what's necessary for the next couple hours. But I forgot my bag. It's a couriers bag, and I never go anywhere without it. It has my wallet, my tire pump, and a space for a coffee can, a grinder, and a tube of Pringles mesquite-BBQ-flavored chips. I realized at the register. Fortunately, I had some cash in my pocket.
OK, so I'm depressed. I leave the house for work, and occasionally for a date (but only during epiphanies). But usually I don't forget things I do religiously, every day.
...
People shut down for reasons. Often it's emotional pain from childhood experiences. i have done my share of that. One has to nurture oneself inorder to withstand the pain of being open.
--from an e-mail sent by an enlightened friend (Brian).
That is a very hopeful message. It acknowledges the cause; emotional pain from childhood. It confirms reality; being open can be painful. And it gives a way out; nurture oneself. The advice is simple, and so obvious as to be taken for granted, or overlooked entirely.
Most of the time I am asleep, not feeling with delicate acuity, just feeling only the gruffest shoves. But recently, when I was awake (it's the epiphany again; aren't you sick of hearing about it?) I realized that life--when we are fully aware--is filled simultaneously with gales of laughter and quaking tears. And neither is good or bad. If we nurture ourselves we can feel everything--the agony and the ecstasy. It's life.
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