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steph's Diary
===============
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 13 22:46:57 1996]--
From: Good Morning Balham (steph)
Subject: Things they never told you...
It's funny; they teach you lots of things at school, but nothing about
what's really quite important, namely how to cope when life gets tough.
I suppose it's that you're expected to know how to cope, but how are you
supposed to learn? Where are you supposed to get this information from?
I ask (rhetorically, maybe) because the only place I've seen it to date
is in the book I've just finished... It strikes me that somehow letting
people know how to cope with life _before_ _it_ _happens_ would be a hell
of a lot more useful than trying to instil some politician's twisted
version of morality into the heads of the young.
(I know this is strange; I'm leaping straight into a diary without any
introductions or explanations. All I can say if things get confusing is
that I'm writing this in the present, and the past, if it proves at all
important, will come up of its own accord.)
So. A job interview this morning which went fairly well; perhaps they might
actually give me a job? (Gods know I could do with the money, let alone
something to do during the day - I get so lonely for some reason.) And now
I'm in Oxford, on a spur of the moment thing. And currently reasonably
perky, which makes a change.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 19 21:32:36 1996]--
From: Good Morning Balham (steph)
Subject: What was
So I ended up crying on a Friend in Oxford, rather than actually enjoying
myself. Such is life.
And now I'm feeling low again, while having to put up with a cold and the
fact that my friends aren't around.
Sorry; there was going to be some point to things here, but I don't have
the courage to write what I need to write, or the gumption to write what I
want to write. Maybe another day.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jan 6 20:45:13 1997]--
From: Good Morning Balham (steph)
Subject: New Year
And not a bad one at that; I spent it with good friends, some of whom I had not
seen in a long time, and came back to Cambridge almost refreshed. And I've
started work today. Things might be looking up.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jan 9 21:00:47 1997]--
From: Good Morning Balham (steph)
Subject: Was
Dear you,
I never forgive, and rarely forget, and that's why it's always an uphill
struggle for me to get on with you. When you criticise, it's always unfair,
and when you chat amiably it's so often so much prattle at just the wrong
time.
As others have mellowed, you've become sharper and more acid. And yet I just
cannot afford hostilities, especially now I'm building. Building ways to
be more me, and more content. Talking to thin air in your guise is a part
of that.
Yours,
A.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jan 9 21:37:15 1997]--
From: Fight For Another (steph)
Subject: Is
It snowed this morning, and I walked to work in the glorious flakes that
swirled in the breeze. This evening, after work, I walked into town, kicking
the snow around, and thought.
There's something going on. Paranoia says that I always think that something's
going on, but sometimes I'm right. Something's going on, all right. An ill
wind, blowing right this way.
(Cat's wool, a child's plaything,
Risking it all on a one-shot daydream...)
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jan 9 21:37:49 1997]--
From: Fight For Another (steph)
Subject: You were a cut above the rest...
...you had the razor edge.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jan 28 16:53:29 1997]--
From: Fight For Another (steph)
Subject: Now
Don't you just hate days at work where there seems to be absolutely
nothing worthwhile to do?
I do; redoing the entirety of the previous two days work in a slightly
different way because of somebody's braindead software... Pah.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Feb 9 19:06:08 1997]--
From: Fight For Another (steph)
Subject: Thoughts for the days
I've been thinking. Happens a lot, and perhaps I should do something about it
but for the moment...
Truth and love are both a lot like what drowning must be like. You can either
struggle, and get drawn deeper in, or you can think clearly for a moment and
try to decide on a course. Then the only way to survive is to follow that
course, unswervingly and with as much determination as you can manage.
Otherwise you just start drowning again. So I swim.
In different circles people'd ask what I was swimming from; I don't know
about here - I can't say I know or mind who reads this - but the answer
is probably `past loves and truths', and I'm swimming with a lot of
dead weight. It's going to be tough to get to wherever I'm going.
But it's been tough before.
This winter sunlight is growing dim. Sometimes it seems that with no reason for
hope, there's no reason to dream. And with no reason to dream...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Feb 10 12:16:07 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Hmm
That wasn't too clear, was it? But let it stand.
I've got another one of my headaches, for no readily apparent reason. It's
not sitting in front of a monitor for long periods of time, because I usually
do that without any trouble. So it's either completely random or I'm coming
down with something. Time to hit the paracetamol...
And it's still wet outside.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Feb 10 17:41:17 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Precipitation, Good.
I used to think that meant that it was good that there'd be rain. To
someone aged ten that doesn't make a lot of sense.
To someone aged 22 it makes a lot mre sense; even though I now know what it
really means, it's possible to like rain and ignore knowing better...
Ignore knowing better; I did that when I shouted at someone (electronically)
today. I shouldn't have, but I did, and well, he'll cope.
In the meantime, I have a puzzle to decode...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Feb 10 20:50:39 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Belief
I believe in...
Chocolate hats, autumn leaves, umbrellas, sugar mice, trees, cobblestones,
paperclips, whiteboards, the North Pole, clocks, Schubert, carpets,
firelight, reflections, hills, the London Underground...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Feb 10 20:56:04 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: and...
...bricks, croissants, motorway service stations, clouds, magic places,
memories...
And a very few people who won't fall.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Feb 12 17:33:18 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Today
...or rather last night, but editing things at a connection this slow is too
much to deal with.
I made a choice. I chose not to involve myself in a dispute that would feel
more hassle than it's worth, even though it was a dispute I had every reason
to get involved in. Instead I chose to do something fun with friends. And I'm
glad I did it. For all that I perhaps feel ideals, that something is right, or
that something is wrong, expressing that never did me any good, and perhaps I
have learned to keep my opinions to myself, on the basis that sharing them is
hassle.
I abhor hassle, so these days I just don't mention my right(ish)-wing politics,
my views on Europe, LBG rights, and so on. It's easier, in circles where you
_might_just_ cause controversy by expressing those views.
Which is a shame, because if nobody speaks, we're at the mercy of those who do,
beccause they don't think.
There will be war, yes, but not mine. Not today, and not on a wet Tuesday
evening when I could be enjoying pancakes with friends.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Feb 12 18:38:46 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Now
It's nice when what I do is appreciated.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Feb 13 17:47:34 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Now
We've got new entercards at work now. They have pictures on them. Quite how I
manage to look so utterly dodgy is beyond me. (Quite why everyone insists on
comparing my card to someone else's who happens to have long hair is another
mystery. Some people are so easily pleased... :-) )
On a different matter, a bitterer soul than I would curse tomorrow. Perhaps
stay in bed and wait for it to pass. Me, I just wish I had a reason to find the
14th February special (everybody say aah...) and then wonder why, given that
the huge body of evidence suggests that relatioinships are just another source
of angst and hassle.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Feb 14 17:51:38 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Eye into Mixed Wax
...yet another person who's kept me sane when I've felt and acted the
most insane, and like so many of the others I barely see her these days.
She was...
...a compensation for another loss (though how you can lose something you never
actually had... *shrug*)
...a wonder for taking me out of myself, into a different world where it just
_did_not_matter_ what other people thought, a point of light that danced
unpredictably and wonderfully so, in the dark.
...someone who when a crunch came, felt able to talk about it to me.
...a believer in magic, and in the magic in us all.
Live, and be ever as you want to be, Eye.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Feb 17 17:48:02 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Above
Gods, that was fulsome, wasn't it? I wonder why I'm thinking of her...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Feb 17 18:02:15 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: Matters of conscience.
When we do the Right Thing, it is because we are informed by our conscience.
And what is conscience but a feeling? So when we feel ill will towards someone,
why and how do we know that hurting them is not the right thing? I don't know
and I wish I did.
I have a horrible creeping feeling that I'm going to have to let go of some
things in the near future.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Feb 18 17:51:49 1997]--
From: Cat's wool, a child's plaything (steph)
Subject: And what a prophecy that seems to be turning out to be.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Feb 20 17:39:02 1997]--
From: Broken glass and shattered light (steph)
Subject: Now
There are more important things in the world than changes and announcements;
when it comes to it, it is far more important that I can be me, and here,
when others need it, than for me to play Canute with the tide of other
people's relationships.
So I know where my thoughts will be tonight. And tomorrow, and the day after,
for as long as it takes to throw the rope that I've been thrown when I was
sinking into that well.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Feb 21 16:45:27 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: Now and then
How much of a lie is a half-truth?
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Feb 22 01:30:42 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: What a week
I haven't had a shock like the one I had this week for a good couple of years.
I haven't had a revelation like the one I had this week for as long as I can
remember.
It takes a long look in a very special kind of mirror to realise that you're
not the person you were two and a half years ago. To realise that when you've
found what passes for a goal to aim for - a reason to live if you will - you
can pursue that goal, and everything is secondary to it. It becomes a lot less
important that you can't do X, or that you must do Y, because as long as you're
working towards Z you're moving. There's strength there.
Z'll change, of course. You select a goal based on hope and uncertainty, and
when hope dies it's time to move on, to aim for a new goal.
There was a Juliet Bravo episode called `Reasons for Leaving', which I remember
from when I was very small. `Reasons for leaving'? There aren't any. Not for a
long time yet.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Feb 22 21:34:00 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: Memories
Did you know that I still think about you, about that brief time we
spent together, even now months later when I have moved away from the
world that brought us together? There is no reason to, and yet I do. I
remember your sister picking you up from work, the awkward way I said
hello. Later you were standing there in your sister's kitchen - did
you ever know the story behind that friendship? - and you looked
lost. I've known that feeling, a feeling of being out of place, and so
we talked. I remember the kiss that came later and my bewilderment at
it.
During the hours of telephone conversation that followed, I remember
it was uncomfortable, then as natural as could be. Separated though we
were by many miles - I was at my parents' house and you at yours - I
managed to pay you a visit. I remember that hot Summer day, and the
feeling as I kissed you good-bye when the coach came to take me away
that this was close to perfect.
Later you would visit me at home, in Cambridge. The long walk from the
bus station in town to the house comes to mind, as do the long, happy
cuddles we shared when we got there. I still wonder at my ability to
be happy with what we could share when we really had so little in
common.
I also remember when it almost became a chore, when what I wanted to
do didn't involve you, but there was only the one day you could
visit.
And I think of that last Sunday. Cold, windy, but so wonderful. Being
by your side, watching the film - it was all I could think of we could
do together - and dinner later. We walked up to the top of Castle
Mound, and I showed you all I knew there was to see from this one of
my magic places. There was talk of a future, even though we both knew
that it would end on this high note, and the next day, sitting on a
kerbside as the world walked by, it was agreed: our worlds were too
different.
Would you laugh at me now, for writing this? For having reverted to
the old trick of searching for the love which I found with you by
chance? Perhaps, but I'm an old fool, dear (you would always point out
how old I was), and in spite of a lot of things you wouldn't believe
that've happened, I'm a more-or-less happy old fool. So I don't regret
loving you, and if one day I meet you again I at least will be able to
look back with a smile. Because you're proof of something I never used
to believe: that someone might love me.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Feb 24 17:38:57 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: Weekend
My parents paid one of their flying visits this weekend, and surprised me with
a portable CD player. *bliss* Now I can listen to CDs in my room, while I
think, dream, and answer email!
And then on Sunday a bit of one of my teeth fell apart and I couldn't eat
anything on that side of my mouth, and hot and cold things hurt like hell. The
supposed `emergency' hotline is only open on some weekdays... It's fixed now,
but 'twas mightily annoyinh.
Never let it be said that I never actually talk about events in my diary!
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Feb 25 17:44:03 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: Now
I'm glad the day's over; it's been one of those tiring days where you don't
feel like you've accomplished anything even though you feel like you've been on
your feet all day.
Oh, and when the die is cast, will I land on Mayfair or on Go?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Feb 26 17:40:07 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: Now
A better day than some, it has to be said. A friend's got a job, which is good,
though I won't be able to join him to celebrate because I've got something else
planned for tonight. Roleplaying. Perhaps I enjoy that so much because I don't
do nearly so much of it in real life?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Feb 26 17:50:39 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: Dice
I've just thrown a pair of dice a good dozen or so times, and they've come out
as nine a little more often than I might have expected. They're the dice I use
for rolling up passwords, too. Bit of a bummer if they're not fair.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Feb 27 11:27:42 1997]--
From: Majestic, Imperial, a bridge of sighs (steph)
Subject: Now
Have you ever worried about something for a good long while, and then, in a
flash, realised that perhaps it won't be quite so painful after all? It's
realisations like this which keep us going, even in spite of the feeling
that we were crying `wolf', and the guilt of having bothered those whose
shoulders we cried on.
It's time to bring a bit of the past into the open.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Feb 28 12:20:29 1997]--
From: And all but the bitter residue... (steph)
Subject: Now, forever now.
It is all very well for me to say that I have recovered from the depressions of
the past, all very well to believe that I am somehow over it, but I wonder
whether things have changed at all. I still suffer the terrible inertia, still
spend time staring into blank space, only now it is not my own time I am
wasting. It is the time of my employers, and needs to be spent to the best of
my ability. That it isn't is a cause for guilt on my part.
It is not always this way, but was it ever? And are there really any solutoions
anyway? The antidepressants were a stopgap, but I was taken off them just after
Finals. The cognitive therapy I'm on the waiting list for will come as and
when, but not now. And friends are a finite resource. A wonderful one, and a
surprising one at times, but they'll never be always there. The only person who
can be always here is me, and being a friend to myself is not one of my
talents.
Is this what they call stress, now I'm in the real world? It doesn't feel like
stress. Not like the sound of that word. I feel more tired, weary. And I'm
hoping that it changes, because this sluggishness makes me no use to anybody.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Feb 28 23:56:11 1997]--
From: Follow the road this night (steph)
Subject: Now (later)
When the paths we walk take us near darkness, we see the shadows some light
must have cast. There, but for the grace of the Gods, go I.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Mar 1 18:31:15 1997]--
From: Follow the road this night (steph)
Subject: Now (earlier)
The afternoon is gone,
And what's to do for me
Anyway? To visit you,
Bring you a cup of tea
You might not like? To
Sit in silent sympathy
Might not be right. To
Bring you a furry friend
To hold might not go down
So well, and in the end
I did nothing but write
These words. Which mend
Nothing, put nothing right
Yet here they are...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Mar 4 00:02:50 1997]--
From: Follow the road this night (steph)
Subject: Doors
OK, here's an easy one for the budding engineers among you. There's a door, as
in the diagram below:
----wall------|------
\
\
A \ B
---------------------
Person A is vey absent minded and so walks towards the door with his hand
stretched out in front of him to hit the doorplate. At the same time, person B
opens the door. Design a door such that person A does not hit person B in the
face / chest / stomach, this being desirable when you are person A and person B
is, e.g. your boss.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Mar 4 11:04:47 1997]--
From: Follow the road this night (steph)
Subject: Misjudgement revisited.
I was wrong, I was wrong to ever doubt...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Mar 4 16:09:59 1997]--
From: Follow the road this night (steph)
Subject: A few random things
Mars Attacks! It's ace, go see it.
Yes, I know sliding doors solve the problem, but the real challenge is to solve
this with a _real_ door. (How appropriate.)
Another crunch soon. As I said to a friend, I'll either be grim and
determined or bouncy and cheerful. It says a lot that I've got to this point.
I'm coming to enjoy the journey as much as any destination.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 5 17:06:08 1997]--
From: Follow the road this night (steph)
Subject: Now
I was eating an Opal Fruit. Then *crunch*. I was eating a bit of filling paste
that the dentist had put in a week or so ago. Glorious, isn't it?
(So, I've got an appointment tomorrow at ten to three. And I've finally got an
appointment with the doctor to see about this strange lump on my neck... Do you
get the same feeling I do? That, having more-or-less stopped falling apart
emotionally (in public, at any rate), my body's decided to start crumbling...)
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 5 17:39:00 1997]--
From: To share oak memories, willow faces (steph)
Subject: Now
Ever made so many false starts at a diary entry that you just give up and leave
it at a remark about how many false starts you've made at that diary entry?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 5 23:08:48 1997]--
From: To share oak memories, willow faces (steph)
Subject: We just thought it was a nice night, officer.
We left town about midnight, drove around a bit, parked, and well, you know, it
gets kind of cramped in the car, so we went outside... We thought it would be
nice.
What? No, we didn't hear any bullets. We were rather, ah, occupied. *blush*
(Oh, and no, we don't know anything about people coming back from the dead, a
taxi called out into the middle of nowhere, or the chap with the silly camp
voice who's currently trying to chat up your Chief...)
Not under arrest, you say? But you'd prefer it if we didn't leave the station?
Call of Cthulhu - don't you just love it when a plan falls apart?
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Mar 6 17:40:40 1997]--
From: Impure coincidence (steph)
Subject: Now...
...let's see. If X is Y's aunt and Y is X's aunt...
(It has occurred to me that I might have to imply some unlikely things about
some people's parents to pull this one off...)
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Mar 7 16:19:48 1997]--
From: Impure coincidence (steph)
Subject: Will be
I have been in a good mood all today; I don't know why. With luck and a
following wind I'll be tolerable this evening, though don't place your bets
yet. We'll see.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 3 01:10:03 1997]--
From: Impure coincidence (steph)
Subject: No
Put it this way, I didn't stick around. I didn't _not_ enjoy myself, but I
wasn't having the time of my life. Too many people around, too many thoughts
and too many memories. I was right to go, and I was right to leave when I did.
Perhaps that's enough.
Jennifer said that when she hadn't met me except on line she had a strong
impression that I was odd, a recluse. It's certainly the impression I must have
given to a lot of people in college. Maybe it's the impression I'm giving
now...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 10 20:16:03 1997]--
From: Impure coincidence (steph)
Subject: Now
The lump on my neck is nothing to worry about, it seems. Either a small gland
(though why one should have random glands appear on one's neck is frankly
beyond me) or a sebaceous cyst (whatever one of those is) and it should go away
within a couple of weeks or a couple of months, depending on which it is.
And I'm on another course of random silly tablets.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 10 20:37:25 1997]--
From: Impure coincidence (steph)
Subject: Earlier and elsewhere
Something's shining. (And she's single again, which some might see as a danger
in itself.) But what I thought I wanted then I don't want enough now, not even
were she to force the moment to a crisis.
I survived that one; perhaps because I never knew her that well? I doubt that.
I think it's more that she didn't really mind, and I never made a big deal of
telling her how I felt. That's the story. The concluding episode has us
chatting idly as friends, or something.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 12 15:35:54 1997]--
From: Impure coincidence (steph)
Subject: Now
All alone in the office... Silence. And silence. And silence. Silence here is
almost deafening, because without voices and people moving around there is only
the roar of the machines, the fan, and the air conditioning next door.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Mar 13 17:35:06 1997]--
From: Impure coincidence (steph)
Subject: Today
Today is exactly one year after the killings at Dunblane. They might not
believe it, for all that I have criticised the emotional balckmail of the
Snowdrop campaigners, but the families there do have my sympathy.
As do those of the schoolgirls, shot today by a Jordanian border guard as they
took advantage of the Israeli-Jordanian peace to visit the area.
Do places have memories? How many tears must the Earth shed if they do?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Mar 14 17:01:16 1997]--
From: Tunnel at the end of the light (steph)
Subject: Now
Either I'm being paranoid or I'm being right. If I'm being paranoid, I'm sorry.
If I'm right, I'm sorrier.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 17 00:43:03 1997]--
From: Tunnel at the end of the light (steph)
Subject: This Weekend
Glorious, glorious, glorious. A weekend spent building silly (and less silly)
things with Lego, seeing Mars Attacks (I was serious, go see it, it really is
ace. Pass it on, infect your friends!), eating Pizza in a Pizza Express
apparently more like the Turf than the Turf itself, visiting G&Ds (need I say
more?), playing with a ball bought in the lovely Animal shop next to G&Ds in
the sun (yes, there was sun!), and getting that truly _wonderful_ family tree
down on paper...
And all spent with a friend. What better?
What else is there to say? Lots, actually, butbutbut...
Thank you, that was perfect.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 17 00:45:31 1997]--
From: Tunnel at the end of the light (steph)
Subject: Seasider
`Some birds. No sense of humour. Go play with your My Little Ponies.'
*giggle* I wonder if he's worked out I'm male yet... I wonder how silly he's
feeling if he has. :)
Wild Roaming Wilderbeast indeed...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 17 16:46:19 1997]--
From: Tunnel at the end of the light (steph)
Subject: Oh, and...
...if anyone's bothered, I was in fact being paranoid. Thanks to a certain dark
horse for helping sort that one out.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 17 17:27:39 1997]--
From: Tunnel at the end of the light (steph)
Subject: Now
It's spring again. The trees are blossoming, the daffodils are out, and it
looks like we're in for a shower. Everything's beginning to feel that little
bit fresher...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Mar 18 17:25:21 1997]--
From: ...destined to be found in a cheap hotel (steph)
Subject: Now
I should've known that making bad puns would make it take ages to say
farewell...
Ethiopia...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 19 00:08:40 1997]--
From: ...destined to be found in a cheap hotel (steph)
Subject: At that time of the night...
Yes, I have been listening to `Clutching at Straws' too much, haven't I? It's
made it to the nameline and the subject line of this entry, too... I'd almost
forgotten parts of that album, but hearing `Sugar Mice' over the weekend made
me want to listen to `Warm Wet Circles' and so on once more.
But there are more rings of truth this time.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 19 16:51:13 1997]--
From: ...destined to be found in a cheap hotel (steph)
Subject: Now
It's one of those quiet `everyone's gone home' afternoons. I've just found an
entry in the hardware database with a note attached saying `Loud bang and smell
of burning log'. I can't get this floppy disk drive to work. Lanfear may be
right in calling computers spawn of Satan after all...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Mar 20 17:44:07 1997]--
From: ...destined to be found in a cheap hotel (steph)
Subject: Now
Kaleidoscope... So many mirrors, so many little pieces of broken glass. What do
you see in it?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Mar 21 11:31:25 1997]--
From: ...destined to be found in a cheap hotel (steph)
Subject: Now
There is no light, not here, not now. Just the thrumming of the darkness.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Mar 21 17:23:51 1997]--
From: Lost in a kitchen sink... (steph)
Subject: But
Hold the kaleidoscope up to the light and you can see stars, flowers, and a
myriad of colour...
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Mar 22 23:21:36 1997]--
From: Lost in a kitchen sink... (steph)
Subject: Night
Sometimes it's easy just to be alone, to read, listen to music, enjoy the sun
as you do something even so mundane as hanging out the washing. That's when
you're alone and not lonely, and that's the best sort of solitude there is. We
all need to be alone sometimes, but very few people need or deserve to be
lonely, and the more you get to know people the more the difference becomes
clear.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Mar 22 23:29:34 1997]--
From: Lost in a kitchen sink... (steph)
Subject: Oh, and...
...did `you' really think I'd not be curious about the identity of this
friend, not to say able to make a few plausible stabs? *sigh* You
don't learn, do you? And you've not really softened that much, either...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 24 21:48:33 1997]--
From: Or thrown in a wishing well... (steph)
Subject: This diary
Yes, I do edit it subtly, from time to time. Usually just excising the odd
word, but it's the odd word that crosses the line from the acceptably vague and
the unconscionably precise.
So the moral of the story is get it while it's hot, 'cause later it might be
not (quite so long. Er. Couldn't make that rhyme.)
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 24 22:24:36 1997]--
From: Or thrown in a wishing well... (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
I'm an odd one, me. Afraid of everything, even what I hope for, and really more
afraid of change than of anything else. And when it comes down to it, most of
what I've thought to be troubles over the past few months have been down to
fear of change. Whether there are associated good reasons for the fear, there's
usually a fear of change there too.
It explains the stubbornness I have about my politics; it explains my fear of a
change in government. I remember when I was small being terribly opposed to
moving house solely, really, because it was a change. The new house was larger,
with a huge garden, and closer to the centre of town; once I was there I was
happy. I've been afraid of going to University, moving into a house with some
friends, getting a job. Yet I've been happy with them all after the fact.
And I suppose I've even been afraid of love, because in all but one case it's
been unreciprocated and done damage to good friendships, and changed me from
calm, unassuming me into someone where everything seems to be spinning out of
control. Even the one time it was reciprocated there was the fear - `is this
wise' - and the same out of control feeling. You get the idea.
Fear of change. In myself, in others. Fear of... the unknown?
`Aware of what will hurt you, you're prepared to remain this way
So sad yet safe in your affliction, afraid to start a brand new day'
Perhaps.
But perhaps I can change, both more quickly and more slowly than I thought.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Mar 24 22:25:42 1997]--
From: Or thrown in a wishing well... (steph)
Subject: And...
...that took forever to write, because I'm so damnably uncomfortable with the
L-word.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Mar 25 16:29:06 1997]--
From: Or thrown in a wishing well... (steph)
Subject: Plant
What do I call the new plant I have sitting on my SCSI floppy drive? (I can't
even remember what the species is called at the moment. For such things is the
WWW meant, and probably utterly useless.)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Mar 25 16:53:54 1997]--
From: Or thrown in a wishing well... (steph)
Subject: Plant
it's a Dracaena Marginata, apparently. So, anyone got a name for a plant that
looks like this:
http://pathfinder.com/@@EAp4zwYAApw71WLb/vg/TimeLife/Houseplants/Foliage/Hires/
E06045XH.JPG
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 26 16:00:14 1997]--
From: Exile from Lamkejem (steph)
Subject: Motes...
...and beams.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 26 19:36:02 1997]--
From: Exile from Lamkejem (steph)
Subject: Narapoia narapoia
That makes two people who wondered whether I was talking about them a couple of
entries back; neither of them was right... Sometimes I wonder whether I'm
being _too_ cryptic here.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 26 21:51:00 1997]--
From: Exile from Lamkejem (steph)
Subject: Now
Only tomorrow to go, and then I'm on holiday; four days at Eastercon in
Liverpool, and then three days off work just to relax - *bliss*. I need a
break, I think.
And I'm dreaming of Summer, and of taking some more time off around then so
that I can join in all the fun...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Mar 26 21:52:48 1997]--
From: Exile from Lamkejem (steph)
Subject: Netscape 4
I shouldn't bother, if I were you. What the world really needs is a decent free
web browser... Pity I'm not the one to write it, really...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 2 15:44:09 1997]--
From: Exile from Lamkejem (steph)
Subject: Easter
Well, I went to Intervention, this year's UK national SF convention. And,
it was great fun, as cons are.
And yet, and yet...
I find myself in a situation where there is no reason for the resentment I
feel, and yet I feel it still. When others announce their plans, and
nevertheless cover them in a veil of half-truths and somebodies, an old wound
reopens that little bit.
I find myself in another situation where I will have to be honest where I had
hoped to avoid it.
And I am nevertheless healthy, and happy, and able to take pleasure from those
places, people, and things which give it, and also able to make others happy,
which is perhaps more important in some ways.
Every kaleidoscope needs the little pieces of broken glass.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 2 23:13:31 1997]--
From: Exile from Lamkejem (steph)
Subject: Now
I'm glad I had the conversation I just did; it helped me understand quite a lot
about the other party, and also, coincidentally, about me.
Only one more day of holiday left, before I go back to work on Friday,
Saturday, and possibly Sunday as well. Next week's going to be looong...
(With a friend visiting at the end of it, so I shouldn't complain!)
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 2 23:18:47 1997]--
From: Companion in the madness, in the mirror (steph)
Subject: I'd like you all to meet...
...Francis, an amazingly cute frog with a permanently hopeful expression on his
face, who leaped into my arms while I was in Liverpool.
The uncharitable have characterised his face as `permanently stoned'. Hmph.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Apr 4 15:33:06 1997]--
From: Companion in the madness, in the mirror (steph)
Subject: Now
And suddenly I am struck by the notion that I may well be just as vulnerable as
ever I have been. I want to be safe, and yet...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Apr 4 16:44:39 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Now
This too is wrong, foolish and futile. Never let me forget that. I have lost
sight of what is right, good, and proper too often now. So often that I do
wonder whether it is even possible to stick to these things.
I'm prejudging, of course, but who can criticise me for a prejudice against
myself?
Don't answer that one... I know...
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Apr 5 08:42:04 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Dang and blast it.
Having received no message saying `you don't need to come into work on
Saturday', I came in. Then spent five minutes trying to get into the building,
having forgotten that they changed the PIN that goes with the entacards when
they changed to the new shiny entacards with photos on. Of course, never having
had to use this PIN (you only need it outside office hours) I hadn't exactly
had a good chance to memorize it.
So I trundle off in search of a phone box. The nearest one is ten minutes walk
away. Directory Enquiries. `Laser-Scan Ltd, please' (long pause at other end)
Apparently nobody there under that name. L-A-S-E-R. `Oh, with an
`S'?', shortly followed by `Oh, it's hyphenated.' *sigh*
I get through. Someone in accounts is in to let me into the building, but the
person I'm supposed to be working _with_ isn't. So there's not much point in my
being here at twenty to ten on a Saturday morning, really.
So I'm back off home. Life. Don't you just hate it?
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Apr 5 09:24:19 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Later...
And as I walk out of the Science Park to go home, who do I see coming the other
way but my coworker, whose car had broken down. *sigh*
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Apr 5 12:39:10 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: ...and still later
I've just spent a morning sitting in the office doing next to nothing. The one
thing I have done turned out not to have been useful. Why did I have to come in
today?
Well, whatever. At least, I suppose, I'm now owed five hours off.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Apr 5 16:14:19 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Now
A couple of hours spent futilely searching for a birthday present for my
brother, about whose interests I don't have the faintest. It'll just have to be
a card, an apology, and a banknote, I think. I'm so disconnected from my family
that buying things for birthdays and the like is always hard. I don't suppose
it's any easier for them.
Compare and contrast some of my friends, for whom I could come up with a
thousand gift ideas at the drop of a hat...
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Apr 5 16:15:50 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Today
You could say that it's not exactly going well, couldn't you? I'm half tempted
to go to bed and not surface until Monday morning.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Apr 6 13:39:32 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Plausible stabs...
All too damn plausible...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Apr 6 21:27:16 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Now
Return, strange, relief, voice in the wind. Walking along the river, a new
development, phone calls, classical glories. Through it a current that has
stopped short. Relief. Strange returned relief.
Listen to my breath. Listen to the wind. Listen. Breathe.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Apr 8 08:56:12 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Mornings
*sigh* Need to get in at 8:30. Am so dozy when I get up and trundle out to work
that I don't realise that it's only 7:30 until I'm nearly there. Go back home,
lie down for forty minutes, come back to work, muck around with NFS, get
shouted at just for doing my job... Mornings. Pah.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Apr 8 14:45:40 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Working here...
...has its compensations. I'm currently typing one-handed (stop that chortling
at the back) while eating an ice cream, fromn the nice ice cream man who visits
the buyilding every now and then. Glory :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 9 08:10:15 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Ha
I said I was swearing off mono for a while because it's bad for me. So much
for willpower.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 9 10:14:52 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Now
Ditto the above. Except, once here, I do nothing but note who's on, sit around
a while and log off again. Afraid? Of what?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 9 16:42:34 1997]--
From: Reprehensible persistent delusions (steph)
Subject: Now
How can I try liking myself? I am likable, for people like me, and this has
been said by people whom I would trust to say were I annoying or irritating, so
it has the ring of authenticity about it. So I suppose the first step must be
to believe that I am likable, in spite of my faults.
And what are these faults? Others do not see it, when I see myself as whinging,
selfish, and however many other adjectives, so it must be my own mud-tinted
spectacles.
So I can look at my qualities. I won't say `look for', because I know they're
there. There is an exercise you can do (best with a friend who's prepared to
disagree with you and stop you going on about your faults) which proceeds by
listing, as honestly as possible, what one believes one's good points to be. I
won't list them here, but they exist. Possibly chief among them is that I am
strong, both for myself and for others, both for my sake and for theirs. And I
am willing to let others be strong for me.
I'll like myself. But there is another side to this bargain, with every friend
I have and trust: you must be prepared to be honest about what you _don't_ like
in me, because I have no wish for an inflated ego.
I seem always to be going around the same circle, and every time I believe that
perhaps I have it aright this time I find later that I have to do the same
building again. Is this a problem? Perhaps not as much as I feel it, when I
have so much to thank friends past and present for. Nothing is ever destroyed,
so nothing has to be rebuilt. And we grow. We change. We dream. And we always
build.
The only circle I go around is the one I create in my mind when I am at my
lowest ebbs. It's really always progress. We always build.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Apr 10 08:12:59 1997]--
From: Rediscoveralicious! (steph)
Subject: Last night
A so-called friend participated in the killing of the woman I love. It's
understandable that I fell to pieces...
We laughed about it afterwards, of course. Isn't roleplaying great?
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Apr 10 22:03:54 1997]--
From: Rediscoveralicious! (steph)
Subject: Evening
By the purest of coincidences (a friend happened to be going to see it) I have
managed to see Star Wars in the cinema, which is probably a good thing since
I'll be seeing The Empire Strikes Back in a couple of days :)
I'd say it was well worth going to see it; the small screen doesn't really do
it justice. My only real gripe is that the scene with Jabba the Hutt at the
beginning looked a little fake at times where Han appeared to be putting his
hand somewhere which my mind said should have been somewhere _inside_
Mr.Flabby. That and the dialogue which was mostly the same as in the scene with
Greedo... But that aside, it was great; I'm looking forward to TESB and later
to ROTJ. Whatever anyone says, I still say that Ewoks are great!
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Apr 10 22:09:12 1997]--
From: Rediscoveralicious! (steph)
Subject: Evil and computery woes
My new (well, old, actually, but it's new to me - someone was going to throw it
away, if you can believe that) SCSI CD-ROM drive is all happily installed in
tacitus. The only snag is that it's currently only outputting the right sound
channel. *deep breath* So I'm going to have to take the lid off the box _again_
to fiddle with the mess in there, which is beginning suspiciously to resemble
the garbage compressor from Star Wars. I'm convinced there are screws that have
fallen down the inaccessible bit of the front panel that I'll never see again;
the case even rattles when I move it.
And I appear to have got behind on news again. I blame work, mono, mail, and
having a social life in approximately that order...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Apr 13 18:03:34 1997]--
From: I guess it's kinda catchy... (steph)
Subject: Now
That was a good weekend... Some money seems to have found its way out of my
wallet and into other people's (notably Culpeper's!), but it's worth it and
what's a job for anyway?
Ended with a slightly wibblesome turn, but the wibblesome has a habit of
happening to me.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Apr 14 08:28:31 1997]--
From: I guess it's kinda catchy... (steph)
Subject: One down...
...and only a few other things left that still might get at me, one of which
I'm working on. If I can learn to believe that you can be a friend again, I
think I can believe anything.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Apr 14 11:17:51 1997]--
From: I guess it's kinda catchy... (steph)
Subject: Hungry
I obviously didn't have enough breakfast. I'm absolutely starving, and have
been all morning, and yet there's still half an hour to go before I go off for
lunch. *gripe*
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Apr 14 16:42:07 1997]--
From: I guess it's kinda catchy... (steph)
Subject: Exaggeration
Exaggeration is a flatterer
Who would call you Queen of the World,
And exaggeration is a dreamer
Around whose colours swirled
Possibilities that delight and entrance.
Exaggeration is a storyteller
Who would tell you every story,
And exaggeration is a child's smile
At the tales of love and glory
In a world so much larger than her life.
Exaggeration is a lover...
Exaggeration is your lover...
Well, OK,
Maybe I exaggerate.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Apr 14 22:01:21 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Fear
Fear drives so much of what we do or don't do. A friend's novel ends on such a
note. I won't quote much, for that wouldn't be fair. But...
`I feared that I was a fool, and so I was a fool. [...] I give up these fears,
I cast it all into the dark. I shall be what I am, whoever I am, whatever I am.
I shall strive from this time forwards to do the best I can, to be the best I
can.'
Just give hope a fair chance of winning, that's all I'm asking. Then... Well,
we'll see.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Apr 15 11:29:22 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Help
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Apr 15 16:59:49 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: And
...it came, when I needed it. Thank you.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 16 11:15:28 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
It has been a busy and profitable morning, I think. Sometimes there are days
when I feel I have got nothing done, and have felt the will or need to do very
little. At other times, though, it is accomplishment, accomplishment,
accomplishment, and the breaks, the escapes into life here, are well earned.
I am feeling better than I did yesterday, I think, but there is still the
feeling that I am weighed down.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 16 17:20:39 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Afternoon
Went to the dentist's (did I mention to anyone that might be listening that
that fillingy bit fell out over the weekend?) expecting a patch before he was
to fill it properly early next month, but he decided to to the filling today,
and a long and complicated process it seemed too... Relatively painless,
though, and hopefully more likely to stay in place.
I remember when I was small and had to have teeth out because it was too
crowded in my mouth, that the injections hurt like hell; it put me off going to
see a dentist for a good many years. Today's barely hurt at all, and what pain
there was during the drilling was entirely copable with. Is it my tolerance for
pain that has grown as I have grown? Is it the wonders of modern dentistry? Who
can tell?
New Dentistry - New Danger!
(And I bought myself a new pair of trainers which might just last; they
certainly ought to, given how much I paid for them!)
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 16 23:18:15 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Mazes
The image of a processional maze is a very powerful one. Tracing a path towards
an ultimate goal, the resemblance to life's path towards an ultimate destiny
(as the ancients saw it) is striking; sometimes you are moving towards your
goal, and then you are diverted, and seem to be walking away from it.
Disheartened, you continue, and are rewarded by turning again to face the
centre of the maze; eventually, through these elegant twists and turns, you
reach the centre.
I don't believe in destiny, but I do believe that some things are worth walking
towards whatever the twists and turns.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 16 23:25:41 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Minor detail
You can't just come to me and say you'd like to know me better, you know.
That's even harder than trying to say something when someone has just said
`Well you start a conversation, then!'. You have to realise that there's a lot
more to it than that, and I don't think you'd benefit from what I might tell
you if you did `know me better'. For that matter, I don't think I'd benefit
either. Better for the moment that you're just another voice in the wilderness,
I think. I don't hate you; I just don't know you, and I don't have the faintest
clue whether I can trust you.
But hey, maybe I would look good in something velvety and clingy? Actually,
somehow I don't see it.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Apr 17 11:40:58 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Good Lord
I appear to have made it onto at least three people's fave diaries list.
I think I might just be a weeny bit flattered :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Apr 17 16:11:23 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Computers
Bane of my life. Blow them up, the whole lot of them. Well, perhaps not mono,
and maybe not the one I'm typing at or the machines it gets its files from, and
I'd actually quite like to keep the one I have at home...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Apr 18 08:23:46 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Memo
Organise some driving lessons
Find out about train times for travelling to London and back next week
Back up computer
On no account talk about mint
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Apr 18 16:38:11 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
I feel worn down, rubbed off at the edges, and uncertain. Maybe all I need is a
rest and a hot bath, once I've got out of this airless office.
Maybe.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Apr 18 18:34:05 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Definitely
I'm going to take that bath, probably with some bergamot in it. I need to
relax; I've felt a bit on edge all day for some reason.
(Oh, and don't be surprised if I don't make many diary entries next week. I'll
be commuting to London and back for a course on Windows NT and so won't be able
to log on during the day.)
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Apr 19 21:05:28 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
I think I've got some bug or other, which'd explain the depression-like
ground-downness. It'll pass.
An early night would be good, though. Time to dream...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 23 18:50:19 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
Three days of commuting to London and back have done me in. I've caught a cold,
feel dreadful, and won't get a break until sometime late next week because I'm
working this weekend.
I saw a friend last night, who saw fit to suggest that hope is justified for
me. I cannot be so certain, so comfortable. I'm not a gambler. Better by far,
perhaps, not to play.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Apr 24 19:40:03 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: But I will...
...because I can be the best.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Apr 25 19:14:35 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
You made me laugh, whoever you were. I think I caught a couple of names (Helen?
Julie?) but I can't be sure. Sometimes I hear people on trains, in just that
same situation, and their laughter, their joking, is so full of joy at hurting
and taking advantage of others. It was good to hear a sweeter sound of laughter
again; sometimes it's something I long for.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Apr 25 20:50:12 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
The smell of fresh grapefruit permeates my room; I'm dreaming again... Don't
mind me...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Apr 27 16:44:44 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
It is strangely quiet and subdued around here, even though there is chaos as
large parts of the house are rewired. The sun is out in the garden,
intermittently, and certainly enough for me to sit out there, enjoying a book
while the scent of summer wafted past me. It is a long time since I have spent
any time reading, and one of the few things I appreciated commuting for was the
time it allowed me to myself, to read or write. I am grateful for today as
well, when I might well have been working on some tedious computer upgrade had
it not been possible.
There are few certainties for me. Among the many, many things I would like to
hope is that I will be able to enjoy such days for what they are in future.
There are others, but I won't go into them here.
No, I don't think I hope for a Conservative victory at the election; rather, I
would say that I am afraid, so deeply afraid of any other party winning. Every
party but the Conservatives would destroy the things I hold dear to some extent
or other. I do not know why, or how, but I have always believed that we must be
United and a Kingdom if we are to be Great. The options at the next election,
no matter how many other policies of the Conservatives' I may or may not agree
with (and there is no doubt that I have mellowed considerably in my views over
the past few years), are this or combinations of Scottish devolution,
independence, and the ceding of national powers to Brussels. If these decisions
are made, they will be made irrevocably, and I fear that change.
There is, perhaps, precious little that is rational about my political views
and the arguments I have used in the past to justify them, but I will always
believe that what I feel is important, and I will follow those feelings. If it
leads to isolation in my political views, then so be it. If it leads to my
being isolated in other ways, so be that too, though I may not acquiesce as
calmly to that. I've become comfortable with at least this one part of what I
am, and for now nobody is going to take that slight comfort away from me.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Apr 27 21:03:32 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: How odd...
...that another diary, for entirely different reasons, expresses a point of
view that is opposite to that in the entry above. Coincidences can be like
that, I suppose.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Apr 28 11:08:38 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
The Land comes out in my memories every now and then, even now. Strange, and
sometimes I wonder if I've really got over it to any useful degree, or whether
I ever will.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Apr 28 17:40:56 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
I wish I could be comfortable with what and where I am. I crave certainty.
When? When do I get to be free?
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Apr 29 11:36:52 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Morning
In today's light, I am already free. What is freedom if not the ability to
leave the cage? I am free.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Apr 29 16:54:51 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Afternoon
A night many moons and half a life ago comes to mind, a night which started
with worry and ended with smiles and relief. I am where that night is, always,
wherever the stage, whoever the players. If ever, whenever - forever - I'm
there. For you all.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 30 11:07:29 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
The courage to take comfort is one of the harder things in this world to
muster. I will dare, but the sky must be clear before I can fly.
(And if that's not coded in numerous oblique references that nobody 'cept me
will get, then I don't know what is!)
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 30 16:58:03 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Afternoon
Perspective is what you get from looking ast things from a distance, or so
someone once told me. Talking can give you that; thanks, Keith.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Apr 30 17:20:46 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Colours
I am green, as the grass in my dreams is green,
And deep as the midnight sky.
I am purple as the first signs of rising dawn,
And blue as the morning
I first learned to fly.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 1 08:28:51 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Election day
And the first day of Summer. It is a gloriously sunny and warm day outside,
which traditionally favours Labour, or so it is said. It was warm five years
ago, though, and the Conservatives still got in with a majority which I
happened to have predicted a few weeks earlier.
Whatever the result, election day gives me a buzz. In 1992 I was too young to
vote, but I helped with the local Conservative party effort, and sat at thje
doors of the polling station taking the numbers of the voters' polling cards.
The one thing I truly felt then was the sheer scale of this: this is what
people are doing in every town, every city, every street and every village, all
helping to choose a government. Democracy is a wonderful thing, and though it
isn't perfect, I am glad and proud to have it as part of the government of this
country.
However apathetic you feel, please use your vote, even if only to spoil your
ballot paper. It is a precious thing, hard won, and not to be squandered.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 1 11:20:01 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Growl
Accounts want to upgrade all their PCs fo Pentiums. And what are we stuck with
here in the Computer Department? A 386 SX-16 and a 386 SX-33. Typical.
But on the other hand I've made these crudgy old boxes of Cthulhoid wiring (and
there'll be no discussions of the creeping horrors this'll summon _here_) able
to remotely admin the NT server, so at least I don't have to walk quite so far
to fix someone's `I've forgotten my password' woes.
Almost lunchtime, and I am _hungry_...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 1 14:12:35 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Afternoon
...but I'm not hungry to find out that my root partition has died the death.
(It now thinks that /usr is a very large file of indeterminate status.) But
hey, this is what backups are for, and all my data was on a different disk
anyway, and I've been meaning to buy myself a 2.5Gb disk anyway.
The only disaster is the time it'll take me to put it all right, which I don't
really want to have to spend on a nice Summer day like this one.
And for the first time in my adult life there is now an election in which I
have not voted Tory; in the local elections which are also being held here I
chose to give the Liberal Democrats my vote. In local government they have no
sway over the constitution of the country or its role in Europe, and they have
shown themselves competent in many a council. We shall see.
And if the Conservatives win nationally, or the Liberals win locally, should
the trust expressed by my votes be betrayed, I will not give it lightly again.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun May 4 17:56:24 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: And so...
...it was decided. I cannot blame myself for this Conservative defeat, much
though my first thought might be so to do. I hope I can be magnanimous enough
to congratulate and support Tony Blair's government should it do good; I would
certainly once have been a good deal less flexible.
I will condemn those who crow in their victory, whose Schadenfreude on the
defeat of those who governed was at its height on the night of the first of
May. I was not so when those I supported were the winners five years ago.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun May 4 17:59:39 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
Life goes on. I don't like the changes to the ending of Return of the Jedi, or
the so obviously matted in singers in Jabba's palace, but it remains a good
film, well worth seeing again on the big screen.
And as life goes on, my wondering at what is to come increases...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun May 4 22:16:00 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Parallels
Watching a video tonight, and seeing a trailer for the video release of
Independence Day, I see for the first time the comparisons that might be made
with the better days in which I saw Mars Attacks! - a far better film.
And I have finally grasped how someone can be too free; in some ways Andrea was
precisely that.
These parallels, of my creation or of the world's, I could live for.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 6 07:46:37 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Point
Perhaps I have not been in the position of overthrowing a government I
despised - someone made just that point on the Election entry - but I think
enough of myself to believe that even then I would be slow indeed to show joy
at others' defeat. I don't think this is an unrealistic belief.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 6 07:57:58 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: The Naming
How would it be a good thing to give a name to things I already believe? Is it
not enough to follow an anonymous heart?
I already know the answer, of course: it is for the comfort gained by gathering
with others that people band together and give themselves a name. So it would
be better to ask what name is the right one.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 6 13:38:57 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
This weather is silly. For that matter, all this dashing around to fix things
for people is silly. In fact, let us go the whole hog and assert that the
people themselves, nay all people, are silly. And perhaps that this silliness
is the symptom of the greater disease: the universe itself is silly. And anyone
who chose to create it, dare I say it, is silly.
Well, actually, they got a _few_ things right...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 6 14:08:15 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Hmm
Why do the new people I meet always turn out to be completely insane? I mean,
you wouldn't catch me going `ooh' with a friend at a furry sheep in Cambridge
Craft Fair, would you?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 7 09:53:12 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: I'm not old!
Honest. Look, I can walk without my Zimmer frame!
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 7 15:50:33 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Afternoon
Gods, I feel tired. It may be the fact that I got to bed at 1am last night, but
it feels more like an all-over tiredness rather than a lack of sleep; I ache
and can't concentrate. In the past I might just have said `this is depression'
and be done with it. Now I'm more certain that it's the weariness that's making
me feel down rather than the other way around. Ah well. Only forty minutes
before I can go home.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 7 16:02:03 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
I am always thinking of the worst that could happen, the best that could
happen, and words. The disaster scenarios I paint in my mind are often
unlikely, but enough of them have come to pass for me to pay attention to them;
they don't dominate my thinking as much as they used to. The others, the
`dream' scenarios, are often as strange, and I've not known any of them to come
true, but sometimes I surprise myself with the way my imagination constructs
interesting (and indeed possible) situations I'd never considered.
And the words? It is like a song, playing in my mind, some small part of which
I can let out to show the world.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 8 13:08:31 1997]--
From: Cast it all into the dark (steph)
Subject: Now
I will speak if I am called to. And not before.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri May 9 08:20:42 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Logs
You could almost make a poem out of my logs:
Little Miss Impossible,
Falling from the sky now and then
(Now with added sheep),
Floating through the swords:
Question the unquestioning of the mind.
Then again, maybe not...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri May 9 13:46:01 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Telephones
I loathe phone-supporting people trying to use computers. Trying to type
commands one-handed so I can keep hold of the phone with the other, not being
able to hear a word they're saying because of all the hubbub in the office
around me, getting frustrated when they're slow and annoying and don't know how
to do anything...
Can I explode and go home now, please?
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 10 08:28:39 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Now
I wanted to make an entry here, but it was too cold and depressing.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 10 13:31:00 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Later...
I cannot speak. There is something here that I already have around me, had I
but given myself to see it. There is something here, and I think I would
abandon my fear of change to embrace it...
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 10 18:15:18 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Now
And a beautiful rainbow on the way home...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun May 11 15:44:41 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Now
I seem to have spent about thirty pounds on good and interesting stuff today;
to think that I started off with a positive bank balance, too! Still, it does
mean that I now have a room smelling gloriously of pine forest, and books to
start investigating.
`The future holds the past and all hope.' I've liked to think that true, and
it's an interestingly fitting dictum to what I'm looking into at the moment.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun May 11 21:36:26 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Walking in the rain...
Down the river, in the dark, feeling as if I am adventuring again, as I was
when I misguidedly sought a place that was beloved of a man I loved. Moving
down a river which, however mistreated, has always flowed out towards the sea
as long as it has lived, and will do long after I am gone.
What we have wrought is beautiful. But it is time to make it live with what
gave us life.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon May 12 08:49:19 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Mornig
Did I mention that I hate Mickeysoft networking? No? Consider it mentioned...
At least the complete disaster which made Friday so hideously stressful has
gone away of its own accord.
Need coffee...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon May 12 15:04:57 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
It is strange how fast today has gone. I would say that most of it has been
spent here, but that's not actually true, because I've been dashing around and
investigating things today just as I always do, and jobs are getting done.
It makes you wonder how time works; the only conclusion I can come to is that
there are a lot of different times, each of which affects us in a different
way. There is the time of the clock, which measures out the day into
evenly-spaced intervals, says when we must go and when we must return, and how
long we are gone; there is the time of the world, the passing of the sun
overhead as the earth spins, and the turning of the seasons, of the tides, and
the wheeling of the stars. And there is the time of the heart, which passes
slower when we yearn to move, or faster when we would remain in this moment.
I love all these forms of time, and the many other ways in which we may find
it. One of my dreams is a room full of clocks, all ticking, all moving. Just
call me Taragorm...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 13 15:05:17 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Nemesis mine...
You know, I don't miss her one bit. And I'm glad of that.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 13 16:37:09 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: And...
...now I understand how much greater the pain and confusion could have been,
and I feel gratitude that it was only what it was for me in as great a
measure as I feel sorrow at what it was for another. What do we create, what
do we destroy, what are we? They aren't the easy questions they seem to be.
Something I heard one night on the radio I have been meaning to write in here
for some time comes to mind: We are all children, and we are all maladjusted.
We measure the difference in our maladjustment by the degree to which we can
hide it, and I am brought to wonder how close, how often, how many of us come
to so sharp a precipice. We are fragile beings, so terribly fragile. It is part
of our beauty and our curse.
I know that many of you will not understand this - I do not expect you to - but
it is as good a place as any, perhaps better than most, for words that I felt
had to be said.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 14 10:28:33 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Do you believe in magic?
amf's nameline of the moment, and a strangely interesting question. I'd have to
say that the answer to the question (at least, the question most people would
understand it to be) is no. I believe in the inherent `magic' of nature, and of
the world, and of our minds, certainly, and the magic that we create by
combining these: words, music, art... That places, a church, a mosque, a garden
hidden in the midst of a bustling city, can be special and magical I don't
doubt.
And yet, in the dark, alone, I can believe in something more, and that
something may as well be called magic as anything else.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 14 16:39:44 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Now
You know computers are getting too mystical when the DEC engineer recommends
you clean the tape drive three times before using it...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 15 16:27:20 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Now
It's only when mono goes down that you realise how used you've got to its being
there... A pleasant way to fill the holes in the day between answering
questions, doing things for people, meddling in things man ought not to wot
of.
And I don't get my day off tomorrow for working last Saturday, because
otherwise there won't be any Unix support in the building. So I'm a bit twinked
off.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri May 16 09:33:25 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Morning
In late to work, because I spent a good part of the time I should have spent
going to sleep answering a long mail from a friend. A poet whose plain talking
is welcome, for it is clear and kindly, and not as hard as honesty, even
well-intentioned honesty, can be.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 17 03:03:18 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Now
See `Scream'. It's well worth it... Insanely meta, if you know what I mean. If
you don't, you will :-)
A friend has just sent me some poetry. It is apposite and beautiful, and I am
much more than just grateful for it.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun May 18 17:58:14 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: But revise you must, Auntie!
---------------------------------------------------[Sun May 18 18:01:16 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Afternoon
Haven't yet found some woodland to walk in, and by the looks of the map around
Cambridge, I'm not going to find anything larger than a postage stamp, which is
to be expected from a drained swamp, I suppose. Whether I'll be able to think
of somewhere which will have all the desired woodiness and get there is another
matter.
I wasted three hours of the afternoon by just falling asleep, but made up for
it by walking along the Cam, downriver, for one and a half hours, getting to a
pub (which was, alas, closed) and walking back. I've not worked out how long
the walk was in terms of distance, but it was a pleasant little amble.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon May 19 17:08:27 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Woodland, woodland, I found some woodland!
Complete with bluebells, a beautiful glade, wandering among the trees in the
sun, and later in the rain... How could I have guessed that I'd find something
like this such a short bus ride away from Cambridge?
It was once part of the wildwood, you know, the great forest that once covered
the land before our needs for agriculture caused us to clear it. But we had a
need for wood, too, and so we kept our patches of forest, understanding that
we had to care for the woodland even as we took away from it. And so Hayley
Wood survives and may it grant many others in their turn and time the
wonderful, solitary, joyful experience...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon May 19 22:33:06 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: When all is still...
...and nothing stirs, the slightest spark...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 20 14:10:57 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Another would have said it better...
You look inside and all you see is pain,
The chance to lose, this fear that wipes out gain
And pride and honour, beauty, truth, so much
We live by holding strong to. Keep your trust
And keep your heart unwalled, so weak, so strong,
For there's yet time, years yet to live, and long
They will be if, imprisoned for no crime
But being alive, you serve your trudging time
In fear, alone, and in the soulless night.
So walk head-high and on into the light.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 20 16:07:20 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Babylon 5 Quotes
`I would never tell you anything that was not in your best interests.' (Delenn,
The Gathering)
`All Minbari believe is around three...' (Zathras - War Without End)
I shouldn't complain if I were you; I could be quoting lyrics, after all!
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 21 19:46:45 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Today
Mono being down all day results in three things: me doing slightly more work,
me reading a bit more news, and me sending and receiving hideously large
amounts of mail.
Hey hiddle eh ho, eh?
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 22 10:23:08 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Joy
I am glad at the joy a reader gains from faith, and I do not wonder at that
faith if that joy is there. It is not for me, because that belief would
restrict my capacity for joy, rather than increase it, and nothing more; no
reasoning about invisible pink unicorns, or anything like that.
We each have it in our power to begin our worlds over again, to misquote Tom
Payne. I'll create a belief that is me and mine, and if your God exists and is
as fair and just as you believe, I only gain infinitely more in what comes
after.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri May 23 08:36:36 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Now
Downbeat, resigned, tired, and yet I've got a weekend with a friend and her son
to look forward to. Perhaps it's that I hate the organisation for these things,
that the way I put things off until the last moment makes things seem like
hassle even when the result will be fun. Or perhaps it's just one of those
days.
Perhaps I'm picking up other people's exam stress :-).
---------------------------------------------------[Fri May 23 10:20:49 1997]--
From: Blue as the morning... (steph)
Subject: Microsoft offers a better way of working because...
...world domination has its advantages.
...otherwise they'd go bust.
...they know you'll spend all your time filling in Registration Cards!
...fish fish fish. Fish. Herring. Fish.
...Bill Gates is the new God for a new Millennium.
(I wonder whether any of these'll win me a trip on concorde?)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 27 08:27:39 1997]--
From: When is rock not rock? (steph)
Subject: Weekend
I spent this weekend just past with a friend and her six-year-old son, camping
and walking in the Lake District. I can't really describe it all in
moment-by-moment detail - I'm not very good at that sort of thing - but I'll
try to give a few impressions. Suffice to say I had a wondrous time.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 27 08:35:46 1997]--
From: When is rock not rock? (steph)
Subject: Castlerigg Stone Circle
My causal mention, a couple of months ago, that I'd like to see a stone circle
was what sparked this trip. I was asking out of pure curiosity back then, and
nothing more.
I wasn't expecting much beyond a circle of stones, and a feeling, perhaps, of
history, yet when I walked into the circle there was a difference... Not really
a difference in the air, nor in the soil or the stones, but just a feeling of
difference, of `elseness'.
It's magic, and I don't understand it, but I certainly believe in it now.
What was it the stone said? `If you come here and say ``Old Stone, there are no
gods, I shall say ``There are no men.'' '
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 27 08:44:41 1997]--
From: When is rock not rock? (steph)
Subject: Caitlin Matthews
I find it disappointing and perhaps a little angering that she does not have
the respect for historical truth that I think is absolutely necessary if I am
to look at the ways of the past and their bringing into the ways of the
present. That she would claim as gospel truth things we are at most extremely
unsure about is nigh on inexcusable.
I have no reason to disbelieve my friend, who has done a great deal of research
into the Celts and their ways, when she tells me that Matthews' (publicly
stated) wont is to make up much of what she writes as history.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 27 08:50:42 1997]--
From: When is rock not rock? (steph)
Subject: Beliefs
I love a world where a Eastern Orthodox Classical Pagan (and there's a lot of
explanation to go behind that) is bringing up a child free to believe what he
wishes, which in this case happens to be the old Norse gods.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 27 08:59:26 1997]--
From: When is rock not rock? (steph)
Subject: Chocolate
Chocolate pancakes and hot mint chocolate drink, with a mint leaf on the top!
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 27 10:12:10 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Logs...
There appears to be no way to get yourself to appear in your own logs. This is
strangely disappointing.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue May 27 16:37:59 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Memorials
Should anyone ever want to remember me after I am gone, I would like nothing
more than that they place a bench in a place of beauty in my name, so that
travellers will take the rest it offers and think of me for a moment as they
enjoy the view.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 28 14:16:26 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: What would you do if the world was to end at dawn the next day?
What final things would you take the last opportunity to do, what things would
you say before the end, how would you spend those last few hours?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed May 28 16:00:23 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: What is this feeling?
It is not envy, nor jealousy, nor anger, nor fear, nor nervousness. It is the
feeling of change in the air, that I am passing on the wheel. It is the breeze
in the trees saying `last time, last time' and the water in the stream saying
`past time, past time'.
And no, I won't explain that. If you understand it, you understand it, and if
you don't, you don't.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 29 08:07:03 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Apologies
...are due to someone I spoke to last night. I'll talk to you properly
sometime, I really will. I was just a bit randomly wibbly last night, and I
didn't mean to offend or anything.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu May 29 13:10:41 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: There are few words of comfort that are enough.
I remember when I was taking my finals, and I was as scared as a very scared
thing, a small creature faced with an impossible task. I wasn't easily
persuaded that I would be OK, and I don't know what I can do for those of you I
care about who have Finals now. I can only really try to reassure, be as
virtually there as I can while being physically so far away, and do as was done
for me at the time by a near stranger who saw fit to call me `Petal'...
*Hugs* I'm with you, all of you.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri May 30 10:18:50 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
Someone has just told me that getting lots of light into the back of my eyes
(by looking through a window for a long while first thing in the morning) will
reduce depressive feelings. Is it really that simple? I have to say I have my
doubts...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri May 30 15:25:23 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Why?
Why do I always ascribe the worst motives to my actions, even when they are
clearly the right things done for the right reasons? I deserve better than
this, I am told, and logical thinking forces me to agree.
On the other hand, perhaps it is better that there is in me the awareness that
the Right Thing can be done for the wrong reasons, for if that awareness were
not present, how easy it would be to do the Right Thing with the most cowardly
and self-serving of aims in mind!
As it is, I am as aware of the journey as of the destination, that I must be
the most courteous traveller in every village before I may reach the towered
city at the road's end. How many of you can understand this? More to the point,
how many of you would set out on the journey at all?
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 31 02:30:44 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: A good evening
Though I'm going to break a promise I made myself; I'm going to make a diary
entry under the influence... But I won't be long, and then I'll go to bed and
have a good hard Descartes.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 31 08:47:41 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Gods I'm tired.
I do not feel up to being at work this morning, I really don't. I want sleep...
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 31 11:17:12 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: I surprise myself
The description of self-serving motives in the entry two above as `cowardly' is
oddly insightful. By some people's metrics I'm no coward - foolhardy, you might
say - and I'm glad of it.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 31 13:33:10 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
Continuing in the tradition of this diary, as it seems to be dully and
unexcitingly developing, I'll make a short edit and then go off and do
something else. Sleep, in fact. I shouldn't feel guilty about the fact that I'm
getting some sleep while there are oodles of guests arriving for a barbeque,
yet I do.
Last night I dreamed of flying.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat May 31 23:08:53 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
What are we going to call you? Minuet would be a good name, I think, if you
choose to visit us again...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jun 1 20:11:56 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
For what cause do we make mistakes such as we have? Honesty. It is the right
reason that leads us to do the wrong thing. I don't see how I could be
otherwise, these days; it is something I owe, and something I could not readily
abandon. Lies of omission are not lies, though, and I would do well to learn
better to keep secrets.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jun 1 23:08:06 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Minuet
You came back. Next time, there'll be a little something for you...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jun 11 00:00:25 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Recent past
Mono has been down, but there isn't really anything to report now it's back.
Except perhaps...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jun 11 11:08:38 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Rain
It is falling outside, cooling and refreshing, and I am stuck in my little
corner in an office with no outside window, feeling cut off. It is a strange,
strange thing to wish for the rain. I wonder how crazy this sounds, and then I
realise that I really don't care, because as much as I am my glories, I am my
follies as well.
And it'll still be raining come lunchtime...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jun 12 01:00:44 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Narapoia, me?
Either there are some guests around who happen to have randomly stumbled on my
diary, or someone is reading my words behind a veil. It, or my thoughts about
it, is really quite amusing...
And in other news, I got thundered and rained on this evening, and spent most
of the rest of it writing a pointless (but fun) computer program. But hey, I'm
on HOLIDAY! *bounce*
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jun 15 22:41:33 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
I wish it were possible for me to be clearer in my mind what I'm trying to say
in these diary entries, so that they'd be clearer. Unfortunately, I'm blessed
or cursed with oblique, cryptic thoughts that lend themselves to cryptic
entries here, and the feelings of the past few days are no exception. Don't
worry, I'm not unhappy or depresses and I haven't randomly fallen in lust with
some complete stranger, I'm just realising as much as ever how inadequate
language, wonderful though it is, can be.
To press on... Meeting people you've only known by names and words (here, or
perhaps in mail or news) in real life is rarely unsurprising, and seeing them
in guise after guise, well, it is perplexing how complicated someone I had a
simple image of can turn out to be. We are all mirrors, in some way or another,
but it'll often take real life to reveal what the terminal contrives to hide.
And I've got my enthusiasm back. Buying a MicroVAX (oldish computer, for anyone
not in the know) for L30 has perked me up, and the project of trying to get it
to work (curse DEC and their bizarre MMJ serial connectors!) is currently
running around my mind like a demented hamster. It takes something like this
for me to realise how much I lost (and how noticeable it would have been) when
my spark and enthusiasm evaporated on my return from the Land.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 16 16:33:34 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: More now
Tired but content. I like it when something I do works...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 16 22:52:22 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Evening
My work has been implicitly criticised, in a public forum, by a coworker. I
find this a mite annoying. Ah well, I suppose I should get used to it; it's
what they pay me for, when all's said and done, and over all I'd definitely say
I enjoy the job. It's just niggling that someone appears to have the impression
of me that I don't get things done, especially when I can't recall anything I
have been asked to do for this person and haven't got around to doing.
None of this would happen, of course, if USENET stayed on topic, but the day
that happens, Michael Fish'll be predicting a cold snap in hell...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jun 17 12:37:27 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Mickeysoft
So it's official now: Mickeysoft are setting up a research lab in Cambridge.
There goes any chance of buying a house here for a reasonable price, I guess.
(Not that I was planning to at any point in the near future, but it was one
plan...)
I'm not quite sure why I dislike Microsoft for coming here so much; I suppose
it's that they're on my front doorstep now, which greatly increases my once
vaguely ambivalent distaste for Bill Gates and his wish to dominate the world
with rubbish.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jun 17 22:50:41 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
This is the real me, revealed because I am drunk and newly omnipotent. I won't
say anything that readers don't already know... Just that these moments were
not just to be mine, and that their successors will not be.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jun 18 09:08:03 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Oh. Oops.
I did try to make a diary entry. And it's not hideously embarrassing, which has
to be a Good Thing. Damned if I can work out what it's about though!
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jun 18 22:40:38 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
I ache. And yet...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jun 18 22:42:33 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Words aren't really enough.
I feel things, and often I simply cannot articulate those feelings here, or I
do not for others' sake. It is frustrating, as much I suspect to the readers as
to your diarist, but a necessary veil.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jun 19 15:12:54 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Good Gods.
I appear to have made diary of the hour earlier today. It goes to show that
computers like me as well. He says. As the backups explode and a little smiley
face appears in the middle of the screen saying `Ha ha fooled you'...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jun 20 10:29:42 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: And yet... And yet...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jun 20 16:05:43 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Timing
I seem to be gifted with the silliest sense of timing out there... No sooner do
I send a letter to a friend than said friend reappears. Not that I'm
complaining, really...
I've just been for a walk, out in the rain. It's something I've been doing for
a good few years now in various places, because it helps me think, or sometimes
simply because the world is beautiful and it pays to take the time to look at
it. And what did I think about on this walk of mine, this wet afternoon in
Chesterton? Same as always: the past, the future; and words, some of the words
that you're now getting here.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Jun 21 02:56:30 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Change
Why would we seek to change someone we know? If we see the flaws in them, and
feel we know how they may be mended, we ought, perhaps, to try, but when we
have failed once, what would cause us to try again? A care for others, even
when they cause us pain, anger, and annoyance? Persistence for persistence's
sake? Or is it just a selfish wish that we might change what annoys us, that we
might be less vexed in the future?
It perplexes me that some people can react so strongly to others that they
cannot cope with what they see, and wish to change it; it perplexes me that
they should be so persistent in the face of complete failure. Make no mistake,
I think that some people do need to change, but I suspect the only person that
can make that change is them, and no amount of pushing, prodding, or insulting
is likely to change that; some people just won't change at all.
And I have seen myself change again, influenced subtly and strongly by the
lighthouse on the rock (as it were), choosing to see glory where once I saw
antagonism, friendship where I saw unease, and flying towards the moon this
night as I think I always would, were my skies as clear as this.
I am a private person, open here only in the merest nuances of words that you
will maybe never understand, and I can only try to move to speak in my
roundabout way, content at least in the knowledge that I will face dawn again
whatever comes, and that some day a guide will take me there and I will not be
alone.
I fly.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Jun 21 16:51:43 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
Tiredness, and a feeling of uncomfortable silence that worries me.
On the other hand, Beautiful South's `Blue is the Colour' is excellent :)
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jun 22 00:02:37 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now, later
I have been thinking. Someone wished me something cryptic a few days back,
which I think was them wishing me well, but looked at another way, it could be
seen as a less strong wish for happiness, or something more negative than that.
I think the intent was positive, but...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 23 16:20:10 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Now
Back at work, and the day is dragging very slowly towards an end. I feel
depressed, in the absolutely literal sense. Heavy weights are pressing on me,
from all directions. Disappointment that I'll have to wait for something I've
been looking forward to, worry that a friend will become uncontactable when
they vanish from the electronic ether with the deletion of their University
account, tiredness, and the sheer boredom that this day has brought.
As always when the world feels like this, I feel lonely, and about to cry,
though I am surrounded by people and no tears will fall.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 23 17:00:36 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject:
And so I choose not to be surrounded by people.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 23 18:45:32 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Which means I'm now very hungry...
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 23 23:22:27 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Much later
There was a moment, with people sitting around the table in the pub, where
everyone was lost somewhere, in thought. There was a trace of sadness in that
silence that lasted for only a couple of moments, before it was broken and the
chatter continued as usual.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jun 25 09:09:29 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: Last night
Got home, tired, to find a cavalr-2 in the kitchen, so I completely failed to
have my usual useful lie down after work, and watched people play Theme
Hospital etc. instead. Dinner later, followed by a trip to the cinema to see
the Fifth Element, incidentally bumping into a couple of other mono people (I
_hate_ the word spod!) on the way. A gloriously silly film with a significant
lack of plot and more hardware than anyone should find necessary.
Got back home to find housemates earnestly catching the leak from the radiator
pipe in the front room in glasses. A plumber was called, and I decided it was a
bit pointless to stay around and watch people play with piping (oo-er) and went
to bed. Not that I could sleep for some reason.
Woke up with an aching neck to find that the plasterer had already begun work,
and the water seemed to be OK again, so I walked to work in the glorious rain,
and settled down for another exciting (!), interesting (!?), fun (!!??) day at
the office.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jun 25 14:41:05 1997]--
From: Passing into stone (steph)
Subject: The Cam Monster
Anyone care to join me in fabricating evidence and so on for the Cam Monster?
We could make it the shape of a piece of brie (such as the one that fell in the
Cam many years back) and sell cuddly cheeses with eyes to the tourists... I
like this idea already. Cuddly cheese, chocolate in the shape of cheese.,
cheese T-shirts, cheese hats, cheese ornaments...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jun 26 00:04:12 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Oh, and I forgot the animated 3D singing Brie...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jun 26 08:09:07 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Morning
I'm feeling perked up for some reason... I want to do something fun and
interesting and bouncy!
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jun 26 11:22:15 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: VMS/VAX
Are there any VMS-ites around mono? It seems amazing to me that there's been
nobody in the VMS section for years... Does nobody here like VMS?
I'm biased, I've got a MicroVAX, witter witter...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jun 26 14:34:16 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Wet
I got wet this lunchtime, walking home for foodies. Actuially, that's an
understatement, as I got completely soaked to the skin and had to do a
complete change of clothes before I went back to work. I _like_ rain, but not
quite this hard.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jun 26 23:33:34 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
It is humbling and uncomfortable to think that I cannot make the entry I want
to make here, even cryptically. Even though this always is less than a year's
span, it feels like I have always been here, for all its good and all its ill.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jun 27 09:25:25 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Strange juxtapositions
That's all I wanted to say, really.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jun 27 16:28:56 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: I'm annoyed
They've got rid of one of my favourite bits of mono, you know, the one that
used to be accessed via <GGGG>... Now I can't gripe anonymously any more on
here :-(. Yes, I know there's `I Wish', and I suppose I'll end up using that a
hell of a lot more, but I want `Bugger' (can I say that in a non-X-rated
diary?) back!
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jun 29 00:01:13 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Now
How many times must I delete this paragraph before I am able to say, to myself
and to you, what I mean to say?
Is there now no love, no growing bond of care, that I can see created before me
without pain, resentment and loss? Is this the result of what I have become? Or
is it a thing which would be so much worse if I chose to step outside the
circle and walk away, feet torn and bleeding?
Oh, me. I speak in these ideas which will mean nothing to you, any of you,
unless you chose to look for them. It's a futile exercise, to be sure, but
that's just as true as the whole darned thing.
Words are inadequate...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jun 29 00:01:47 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: And that's just one more reference, unintentional though it may be.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jun 29 00:02:47 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: A plural you pronoun would be a useful thing.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 30 00:01:48 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Conversations
(i)
I don't think I would fly to Canada to meet someone I had become friends with
online. For that matter, I wonder how far I would go, and I suspect it wouldn't
be far; it would seem too rash and uncontrolled a thing. Do I really value
friendship so little?
(ii)
Is it strange to avert one's attention from something one does not want to know
about? Is it really so weird to choose to ignore something, in order to feel
more comfortable?
(iii)
Very little really stops hurting, you know. The memory of pain is painful
itself, sometimes; the fact that the hurt was a year, two years, three years
ago doesn't matter, it's still there, and anything can remind me of it.
(iv) (anticipated)
I'm OK really. I keep going, and usually I'm reasonably happy. Much of the time
I have my enthusiasm back. Really, I'm fine.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 30 10:30:19 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Work...
We have someone here doing work experience with us for a couple of weeks. It's
a curious feeling; as if I ought to be doing something for him, but I'm really
at somewhat of a loss as to _what_ to do. He's here to learn, but we can't just
let him tinker with expensive kit on his own. On the other hand, I'm going to
feel dreadful just letting him watch me take computers to bits and put them
back together again...
*sigh*
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jun 30 13:05:43 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Aahh
Thank the gods for Ewan's experience with apprentices in the shipyards before
he became a sysadmin; that's just right for putting nervous work experience
people at ease.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 1 10:58:53 1997]--
From: Get your Cuddly Brie here! (steph)
Subject: Ditto the entry several above
I should so like to be happy for people.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 2 16:34:58 1997]--
From: This bleeding heart, not beating much... (steph)
Subject: What a day...
Actually, what a week. So far. It's been stressful and busy to hell and back,
and I wish it were over. Sadly, I don't think it's going to let up for the rest
of the week, and the weekend will probably be just as bad in its own way.
I'm going home and I'm going to have a nice hot bath with something relaxing in
it...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 2 16:36:19 1997]--
From: This bleeding heart, not beating much... (steph)
Subject: Scratch that bit about the weekend...
...hopefully, anyway.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jul 3 15:08:10 1997]--
From: This bleeding heart, not beating much... (steph)
Subject: Today
Woke up, felt dizzy, fell down stairs, winded self. Felt very ill, about to
throw up, variously hot and cold. Ate breakfast, went back to bed. Phoned work
to say am ill, went back to sleep. Woke up about midday feeling OKish if
perhaps a little short of energy... How odd.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jul 3 16:56:25 1997]--
From: This bleeding heart, not beating much... (steph)
Subject: Now
Feeling a lot better, even if I do still have the obligatory headache. I wonder
why all that lot happened... Maybe it's my body telling me to slow down and not
to have such a hectic time of things at work? Or perhaps it's my subconscious
telling me that drinking decaffeinated coffee is evil...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jul 4 22:01:05 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: Good lord.
Monochrome is now even easier to use... I now only have to type *breath*
[ESC][G][Z][M][L][M][Y][D][A] to make an entry here, instead of the confusing
[ESC][G][L][M][Y][D][A]. Wow! I'm so impressed.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jul 4 22:11:13 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: When I look, I know what I see...
It is what I will always see, because it is there. If ever, whenever, forever
there, and always painted bright.
Reflection.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jul 6 23:08:16 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: A thought.
Endings, and thoughts of endings, were never my wish. When I spoke those few
months ago, it was from surprise and fear that a step was being taken that was
ill-considered. Satisfied that it wasn't, my fear reverted to the usual
everyday background narapoia that something will be up.
Fear of change speaks loud in all I do, and no less with friends than with
others. More importantly, it moves on, so I fear change from what I once feared
change _to_...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jul 6 23:13:44 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: Weekend
Fun, having a friend visit, buying Champagne the sheep, Malady the lemonbalm
plant, and sacrificing yet more at the altar of the Great God Culpeper.
Definitely fun, even if being host makes me feel that I should ensure that
my guests' time here is somehow out of the ordinary; a feeling that I can't
always follow, of course, especially not in the sweltering heat the Gods have
chosen to bask Cambridge in these past two days.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jul 6 23:14:50 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: And finally...
...an evening spent clobbering gribbleys with the gun someone else was
pointing :-).
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jul 7 13:15:40 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: Endings
Argh. A friend has been dumped; when he first got together with her (I don't
want to use a name, or a pseudonym, and `his ex' still feels rather odd) I had
a feeling they'd last quite a while. I had no idea they'd last what must be
well over a year, or that it'd all go horribly pear-shaped... *sigh*
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jul 7 22:55:25 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: It's far too hot
Too hot to move, really, and to think or concentrate or be social, really. I
look at people and find myself looking through them. It really needs to rain. I
think I preferred it when it was raining.
I know I'll be lying awake, listening to the faint tick of the backwards
clock, even though I will try to sleep because of the exhaustion the heat has
brought.
And I also need to think about what to do about the entry above. It's not a
question of avoiding taking sides - that comes naturally most of the time - but
more one of how I'd go about what I most want: to actively not take both sides.
That particular path of my life has a lot in it that I need to keep around, for
one reason or another, and that means keeping on good terms with all the
relevant people. Anyone else would be suspected of being up to something, but
I've seemed to be able to get away with it in the past. Just as well, really...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 9 14:25:00 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: Aha, it's back...
...though to be frank I don't miss it nearly as much when it's away now that
there are so few people I know around here. Monochrome is a very strange place.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 9 14:28:04 1997]--
From: Living a life of polystyrene... (steph)
Subject: And in other news...
(In no particular order.)
I spilt coffee into a computer I was upgrading yesterday. Today it's working
fine.
My back aches.
I have a shiny exciting VT320 on my desk alongside my DECstation.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 9 17:12:55 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Argh
You do realise that there is no right answer to that question?
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jul 10 19:44:30 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Now
I can make no useful entry here. Consider this a placeholder, and expect this
diary to lack edits for a while.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jul 11 11:45:42 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Now
OK, so I'm crap and can't keep promises to myself. But hey, there's a chance
that something might be done about my ever-aching back, and I have to tell the
world about it...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jul 11 16:28:57 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Now
A good day, all in all. These are still my glory days...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jul 13 10:56:45 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Last night
They held a firework display on Parker's Piece last night, as part of some
Cambridge `Summer in the City' festival type thing; it was one of the best I've
seen for a while, though nothing has yet managed to be as good as I remember
Northampton's 900th anniversary fireworks. Celebrating a friend's exam results
with sweet fizzy wine (surprisingly pleasant, actually), as well, which was
cheering.
`Microcosmos' on the big open-air screen wasn't particularly enthralling, so I
trundled off home early.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jul 13 11:00:50 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Now
British Grand Prix today, but it's not the same with it being on ITV and with
Damon Hill in a car which could probably do 60mph down a hill...
I'm feeling tired, physically very worn, even though I slept well last night to
be woken this morning by that most pleasant of sounds: the splash of rain on
leaves. I don't think anything sounds quite like it, and I'm reminded again of
Hayley Wood, which I want so much to visit again.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jul 14 08:45:40 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Now
I got into work this morning at 8am, because I needed to supervise a DEC
engineer working on one of our machines. You'd've thought perhaps that this
would make the day feel longer, but I only really feel as if I've been here for
an hour or so, and it's already quarter to ten. I'll never really understand
perceptions of time.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jul 14 08:55:23 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Nor do I understand...
...the strange dreams I've been having of late: trying out pipe organs in a
particularly opulent corner of Harrod's; a dinner where you adopt the social
customs of the person to your right; being unable to stop touching a friend's
arm, much though neither he nor I wanted it; kissing someone (I can't remember
who) in the rain. The coherent story-dreams are rare with me, and precious, but
I value all these flashes and snippets (dream-bites if you will) as well.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jul 14 23:39:03 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
Associated with a story of mine - it's the story I'm most proud of, and it's on
my web page if anyone's interested - there is a song. It features towards the
end of the story, as the protagonist is making his way to discover the gods,
and it's played on the sound system in his capsule in remembrance of a lost
love and a past world. A love song, I think, but I've never completely written
the lyrics down and it means so many different things depending on what mood
I'm in, and which verse I'm thinking of. I don't know if I ever will.
It's an old song. It dates, with the story, from the time I was in the Land,
and its development has charted my halting progress from where I was then to
where I am now. To be sentimental about it, it'll only feel finished when this
part of my life is finished: when I have truly passed on the wheel.
Until then? I'll think of it, write it, hear it, as part of what I'm always
thinking, writing, and hearing. Every waking hour, I will.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 15 23:28:13 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Now
I've been accused of being cryptic, and on reflection it's a bit much to expect
everyone to pick up on the reference to the Land in the entry above. In
particular, if good friends of mine don't get it, I'm probably well on the way
to making no sense at all. (Not that this is a bad thing; amf's diary seems to
trundle along quite readably.)
The Land is Palestine. The Land is Israel. The Land is the West Bank. The Land
is the Gaza Strip. The Land is Jerusalem. The Land is what some people call
Holy, and it's the place that I spent six weeks in several years ago, to come
back not quite the person I was before... That good enough?
As for passing on the wheel, well, that's _deliberately_ cryptic, though I've
wibbled enough about it in the past to let people in on the metaphor.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 16 23:38:28 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Hm, pleasant.
I've been doing something with friends almost every evening recently, and it's
great. It feels like the good bits of being a student.
What more is there to say?
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jul 17 16:43:16 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: It looks so gloomy outside
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jul 18 17:14:46 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Grr
Why do I have to go and get a cold when I'm trying to have fun?
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jul 20 01:26:38 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: It is all worthwhile
All the trouble and pain it has taken to get to this stage where I can be
happy, it has all been worthwhile, and it continues to be so.
That someone I know can remark that I look so much healthier and happier these
days than once I did is more completely cheering than much that I've heard
recently. It's more completely solid than much I've been cheered by, too. It is
a good sign, I think.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Jul 20 19:57:08 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Convocation
Every time I go to an SF convention, I'm reminded of how much I enjoy them,
which is always a great surprise and relief to me, because getting organised to
go always seems such a great effort. It seemed a great effort with Convocation
as well, even if it was held in Cambridge...
To backtrack a little and explain: Convocation was the 16th Unicon and the nth
(I forget what n is) UK Roleplaying Society convention combined, and I think it
worked well. It had a large number of the usual suspects from SF fandom around,
as well as a large number of roleplaying fans, and the mix worked well for a
roleplayer and SF fan such as your humble narrator.
I can't really give the full joys of the con, even a short weekend one such as
it was, full justice here, but I'll give you the edited highlights; anything
more will have to wait until I write a real con report for TTBA.
Steven Brust's two man bagpipe impersonation.
The incredible coffee machine.
Complaining loudly about TSR and `The Complete Fishmonger's Handbook' &c.
The all new Baron Munchhausen storytelling game; `So Baron, tell us about the
time you impregnated the Pope!'
Beating the Damerell comprehensively in a game of pool. (Yay!)
Buying three traffic cones... (I _was_ feeling a bit silly...)
...the list could go on; in short, I had a good fun time :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 23 16:42:53 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
I am quenching unnecessary fears, and bringing back the old optimism, to an
extent at least. Confident that I am a good value of me, I would walk to the
stars if it were necessary, and I would build the bridge there of hope.
We cannot build everything of iron and reason. They are strong but they are
also cold, and I at least thrive on warmth. I'm like that, and I'm not changing
it.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jul 25 00:50:41 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: And so...
...I wish it could have been otherwise. I was wrong, and I was right, and it is
all entirely confused in emotions anyway. If one thing is clear, it's that
those emotions were there, and it's clear to me why they were. That's
friendship for you.
That doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? I'm wibbling. Ah well.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Jul 25 16:01:27 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Gods
I'm glad the week's over; today's been a pig of a day for having the impossible
asked of me, and I'm tired and worn. I need a rest, and the weekend'll be good
for me.
I only hope that the silence I'm hearing from a friend is an expression of
their being busy rather than offence.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jul 28 16:13:38 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Today
Work's been quite good today; I've had a chance to play with a Silicon Graphics
O2 that's come into the office so we can port our applications to it, and lo,
it was extremely cute :-)
Someone's managed to delete *.* in their Windows directory *sigh*
On the other side of the coin, I'm more stuffed up than SuperTed and it's
giving me one hell of a headache. I want to be healthy, dammit!
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Jul 28 16:20:15 1997]--
From: A chemical vision of you (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
What is it to be human and alive?
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 29 08:24:55 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
There was an edit here, that I've deleted. Nobody appears to have read it
(though how can one be sure that the logs are accurate?) and in effect it need
never have been there. But I'll note it because it's unusual for me to write
and delete quite so much in here, and if anyone really wants to know what was
here, I can probably summarize it for them.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 29 08:51:50 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Blee
I woke up at about 7am this morning feeling extremely hot and sweaty, and
couldn't sleep again until eight, and hence managed to be late for work.
Now I'm just feeling vaguely queasy and a laptop is giving me grief.
Blee.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 29 11:29:41 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Booze
I will admit that the symptoms described above might be caused by an access of
incohol last night, but I've never had hangover symptoms turn out to be more
like a cold/fever than a hangover... And I do appear to have the sniffly
headachey feelings associated with a cold, so perhaps that's it.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 29 14:17:27 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Afternoon
Well, I've decided that I'm not going to do myself any good trying to have a
driving lesson this afternoon after work. The only mystery is why I'm sticking
around here _at_ work. The answer, of course, is that I'd feel hideously guilty
if I weren't here.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 29 16:36:03 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
There was a time when I could have written lengthy eloquent entries about the
way I am feeling at the moment, but that time is passed, and I regret its
passing.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Jul 29 22:56:31 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Evening
I'm glad I cancelled that driving lesson, because I was still feeling queasy
and slightly groggy this evening when I went over to a friand's for a jolly old
game of Star Fleet Battles. For anyone not familiar with this particular
example of wargaming, it involves pushing little square bits of cardboard
around a large rectangular bit of cardboard, writing on bits of paper, and
rolling dice. From quite another point of view, it involves going very fast in
very nice spaceships and blowing your enemy's doors off. Take your pick.
By and large, I'm pretty dreadful at it; I can never remember all the funny
rules (of which there are over four A4 ring binders' worth) and I have a sense
of tactics that makes land wars in Asia seem like quite a good idea actually,
but it's definitely fun.
Blee. If I'm still feeling ill tomorrow, I may take the day off work.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 30 15:08:55 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Help me.
I want to go home.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 30 16:46:03 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
Gods, am I glad to be going home now.
I only wish email were more reliable *sigh*.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Jul 30 17:06:37 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
It's B5 tonight, isn't it? That'll take my mind off the increasingly broken
world...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jul 31 09:42:59 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: B5
Unfortunately, season 4 is proving really quite uninspiring. Perhaps it's just
me, but I remember being enthralled by each new episode of season 3 I saw (and
season 3 was the first I saw episode by episode as it appeared), and so far the
metaphysical wibblings of Sheridan at the bottom of that big hole Fail to
Inspire [tm].
Let's hope things improve; I'm hopeful... The _good_ bits of what we've seen so
far are actually quite good, after all.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jul 31 16:30:09 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
It's definitely time to do some planning and investigating, because by the end
of this Summer I'm going to be needing a holiday, and so far trundling around
the vast countryside visiting stone circles is sounding like an extremely
tempting option.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Jul 31 23:16:00 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Evening
Sitting in the pub, listening to Alanis Morrisette. It's music that takes me
back, but also lets me think of the future, and even if everyone else hates it
and wouldn't listen to it if they could possibly help it, I love it.
When I pause and think `why', I think I'm clearest that it's got enough of hope
in it. Pain, anger, revenge, but also hope, and hope goes a long, long way.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Aug 1 09:18:58 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
I seem to have lost the knack of getting up in time for work. For the second
time this week, and more recently of late in any case, I've managed to wake up
at about 8:45 and arrive at work by 9:15. I'm trying to get to sleep at a
reasonable time, and managed to get to sleep by abtou 12:30 last night.
At least this morning's lateness might have aplausible reason. I remember
waking up to hear that the Tories had won the by-election with an increased
majority and making vaguely jubilant noises. It's a very encouraging result,
after all. However, I then fell asleep again and when I woke up I swore a bit
and finally made it into work.
Now, given that alarm clocks don't seem to be very good at waking me up, how do
I combat this alarming inability to get up?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Aug 1 14:25:45 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Discussions
There seem to be a number of matters on which I am very stubborn, and the
result of this is that although in my head I may agree with all sorts of
arguments for something - opposing abortion in this case - my heart sticks firm
with my original opinion and I feel lost. I cannot but believe that we must
allow abortion, and I cannot conceive of changing my mind.
Do you think any the less of me for this? You understood when it was politics
we were discussing; can you understand here?
And do you understand that if I did change my mind, it would be for all the
wrong reasons?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Aug 1 14:48:55 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
Someone who has left is using too much space on the VMS systems, and nobody is
willing to say that we can delete his stuff. One of my coworkers has just
suggested dumping all the stuff in his boss's directory and then LARTing the
boss for using too much disk space. Do you think they're learning?
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Aug 2 00:09:12 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Evening
Why is it so out of the question for me to discuss sex with a group of friends?
More to the point, why do I become annoyed at this to the extent that I become
unsettled for the remainder of the evening and end up leaving? After all, I'm
reasonably happy to discuss such things with individual friends; it's just
discussing it with a group of people that bothers me so.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Aug 3 15:26:58 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
Today is Sunday, and I'm sitting in the living room waiting for a friend to
phone. I would have talked to him yesterday, but I was rather busy. For quite
some time another friend has been enthusing wildly about a Japanese animation
series called `Bubble Gum Crisis'. Now, what with his descriptions of it, my
indifference towards `Akira' and the sequel to BGC, `Bubble Gum Crash', I think
I could have been forgiven for being a little sceptical.
However, when a friend of this friend visited with the entirety of the BGC
series, ands I turned out to like it, it was a pleasant surprise; by and large,
the series appears to have a plot, and it's probably worth five hours of any
Animesceptic's time to have a look at it.
Then this friend of mine, on whose call I am still waiting, phoned, but I had
to dash off for the next item on the day's itinerary: Men In Black. I enjoyed
it, though I agree that there would probably have been enough jokes to make it
a little longer.
And so back here, for the rest of the evening. The itinerary - I should point
out that I don't normally schedule my time quite so rigorously, and that this
was all Someone Else's Doing - had this down for `beer'. I decided not to drink
anything alcoholic, and as a result, I think, I enjoyed the evening a lot more.
I'll just end by describing an interesting exercise we took part in last night.
Everyone is told that they will have to tell at least one lie in the next
half-hour (though I think more time would have made the exercise more
interesting), and then conversation continues as normal, with the proviso that
people are allowed to remark during this period that they believe they have
detected someone's lie. After time's up, you see who was good or bad at lying,
and at guessing what's true and what's false. An interesting experiment, even
if most of the lies appeared to be about people's liking for cabbage.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Aug 3 15:35:50 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Hmph
Still waiting...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 5 08:28:31 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Last night
Well, said friend arrived, as arranged on the phone an hour or so after I made
that entry, and after an evening of pizza, pub, and finally ocffee and Great
Game of Britain, I trundled off to bed. A good evejning, and it was good to see
Dave again, even if only briefly.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 5 08:32:47 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Oh, and...
I trust she's got the brains not to be misled. If not, well, c'est la vie :)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 5 16:33:22 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
Holiday plans, and plans for a weekend break... The world is looking bright.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 5 23:32:33 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Hmm. (Something's Shining)
Not only bright, but amusing too, I think. If what I suspect is true, a friend
of mine is amusingly wrong about my feelings for another friend. Even if it's
not true, it's a bit of a giggle.
It's good to laugh, especially when once I might have cried. Consider, if you
know me, the associations of the name `Stephanie'.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 5 23:35:37 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Earlier
Lying in the bath, reading of rain, while the hot water steamed the room up,
and made my face tickle ever so slightly as I read and enjoyed the scent of
bergamot and rose geranium in the water and the air. A little space of calm,
to be treasured and taken up more often.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Aug 7 16:30:01 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
My Driving Theory test was this morning, and I think I've passed it quite
easily, so it shouldn't be long now before I can take the practical test, and
hopefully pass it so I can be done with all this learning to drive nonsense.
It's expensive, eats up time, and the only reason I'm doing it is because I'm
contractually obliged to by the company I work for.
To get into the test centre to take your test, you have to produce a form of
photographic ID along with your provisional driving licence. Digging out my
passport, I was shocked at how unlike the person on it I really am; not just in
appearance, either. While I have certainly grown my hair (or just let it grow,
to be precise), it's that the me of back then that I see when I look at that
photo is almost alien to me now. The past is truly a foreign country, and I can
think of more than a few people for whom this is just as true. I can also think
of a good many for whom it is not the case.
It is hard for me deliberately to change my mind, harder still for me to change
my heart. The only way these things do change is accidentally, and gradually,
almosst imperceptibly. But a long road has been travelled, and even if the need
to reverse time were no obstacle, the sheer difference between me then and me
now means that there can be no return to the feelings of the day, some four or
five years ago now, when last I failed my driving test.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Aug 8 16:39:44 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
It occurs to me that I am not good at sympathising. I feel sympathy, yes, and
in buckets, but all too often the expression of that wants to boil down to a
hug, and there's little in that in an electronic form.
The sympathy is no less great for its poor expression.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Aug 9 22:38:22 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Argh
And then I am given another chance to realise just how true that entry is.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Aug 9 22:51:15 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
Dammit, if it can take me fifteen minutes to write nothing, I probably oughtn't
to be dialed up and logged on trying to write a diary entry anyway.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Aug 10 22:57:41 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Sunday
Damon Hill almost won the Grand Prix today. Would have, had the electronics on
his car not played up on the final lap. It was a tremendous drive, and second
place is quite an achievement. But it's not good enough, really. On a general
scale, who wants to come second?
Rationally, it's worth compromising; better to have something good than nothing
at all. Emotionally, it's a whole different sack of cats. I remember wishing it
weren't.
(I'll stop doing all these ludicrous real-life-event-and-my-thoughts-on-a-
related-topic entries soon, honest...)
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Aug 11 13:53:11 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Day One
It's far too hot. If this heat doesn't break soon, then I will...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 12 13:27:02 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Day Two
(The above refers to a horrible suspicion I have that the world is going to
prove that if you thought the last month was pear-shaped, you ain't seen
nothing yet... I may well give up counting before I'm proved right, of course.)
We had a brief respite from the heat this morning, with a grey sky and a few
much-needed drops of rain, but now the weather's reverted to roasting form and
the only sane place to be is inside, perferably somewhere inside and _cool_.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Aug 13 11:01:56 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Day Three
A thunderstorm this morning helped clear the air a bit, but it's become
unpleasantly hot and humid again, and we can but hope for another storm, or
better, a change in the weather. Unfortunately I missed the thunder and
lightning by virtue of being asleep - it didn't wake me - but maybe there'll be
another chance to see them some time soon.
Maybe, as has been suggested, the feeling of unease I have is heralding some
sort of `new era'. I guess we'll all just have to wait and see.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Aug 13 11:20:03 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: And besides...
Putting `Day Three' at the top saves me the bother of wondering whether I'll
just write `Now' at the top of a diary entry.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Aug 13 11:38:45 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Storms
Looks like another thunderstorm is brewing...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Aug 13 15:32:36 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Weather
(Seems to be my preoccpation these days, but that's understandable.)
It did pour, as I was walking home from work for lunch, but ti was actually
more refreshing than anything else, the only slight problem being the holes in
my soles which let the water inin copious quantities. Still, new socks meant
that things weren't quite as squelchy as they might have been on the walk back
to work, and I've spent the best part of the afternoon doing small but useful
things to the systems.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Aug 14 22:22:35 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Day Four
The coldest heart I thought I knew of beats yet human in another diary. It
sometimes scares me how complex and unpredictable people can be.
At work, I have been rushed off my feet, busy by virtue of being the only
support for anything (PC, Unix, or VMS) in the company...
At home...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Aug 14 22:24:22 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Evening
Did the door behind me suddenly become very interesting, or something?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Aug 15 11:57:28 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Hmm
I suspect one of my housemates has either gone completely barking mad, or had
rather too much to drink last night. I was woken by the sound of him attacking
the weeds in the front garden at midnight...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 19 08:41:52 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
That downtime was probably the shortest two weeks I've ever known!
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Aug 20 23:59:14 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: *grumble*
A friend's sister and her boyfriend are staying in the house I live in while
she seeks a place to live in Cambridge. As a result, the house feel s quite
crowded place, and it's become hideously untidy too. (Whether this is their
fault, or my housemates deciding that it's suddenly not worth keeping the
place tidy is not quite clear.)
It's driving me slightly round the twist. I'll be glad when things are back to
normal.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Aug 21 22:22:14 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: I'm being unfair
There's no reason for not liking their staying here, really. It's just an
objecting feeling to the change it makes to my routine, the way my day feels.
Discussing this over a pint or n in the pub suggests that I'm not the only one
who might feel this way in the circumstances, though, which is nice to know.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Aug 21 22:24:56 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Something's shining
Watch closely. I don't think there's anyone who's playing precisely the game
they seem to be playing.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Aug 22 17:33:11 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: It's extremely annoying
When within five minutes of announcing to the world the thing you've been
working on for the past few weeks, someone decides to mess about with it for
the sake of their own practical joke.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Aug 25 08:51:38 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Weekend
Fun. Visited Oxford for a housewarming; brief but fun.
Pondering, though: What is meant by your request (urging?) that I should
develop more self confidence? What would you have me say or do differently, or
say or do where now I would not say or do anything?
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Aug 25 23:44:47 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
Darlok slime! We forgot to mention that your repeated attempts to reduce us to
gibbering paranoid wrecks are doomed to fail!
(Something is bound to go wrong sometime; things are all going far too well
otherwise...)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Aug 26 10:57:01 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Now
Perhaps it's just another late night last night, or perhaps it's an excess of
introspection, but I'm having one of those tired and weighed-down days. Itching
to get away on holiday, to take a break, perhaps, I don't know. How must I
appear to others, when I am feeling like this? Now there's something to
imagine. Imagine you're walking along, and your point of view suddenly rotates
180 degrees about a point half a metre in front of you, so that you're now
looking straight at yourself. What do you see?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Aug 27 23:49:11 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: It seems like my clothes will never get dry...
It's been raining almost all day today, and it's now fairly clear that the hot
weather has broken. This means that the clothes I put on the line yesterday
have got wetter and I shall have to investigate the (occasionally functional,
nevertheless liable to ignite clothing and buildings) tumble dryer so I have
something to take to wear on holiday next week.
Yes, it's the great Steph and Lanfear Assault on Britain, coming soon to a
stone circle near you. I'm looking forward to it a _lot_, because there's not
much I need right now more than a break, and how better to enjoy a break than
with a friend? I'll admit the mostly unplanned and vaguely random style of this
trip is niggling a little on my over-regimented mind, but only just a little.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Aug 27 23:52:18 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Conversations
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone and found that you
couldn't really carry it on because there was never enough in what the other
person said for you to get a handle on? It can be quite frustrating. It's been
suggested to me that it could be that the other party just doesn't want to talk
to me, but that's not the case since they started the conversation! Probably
just a clash in conversational style.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Aug 28 17:17:06 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Ah, that's good.
Holidays are now sounding a bit more planned. We know where we're starting from
now :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Aug 28 23:36:04 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Night
I know I will dream tonight, for the wind blows through the trees, and that
always takes me far away. A sense of power that I've used in poetry in both
good and bad lights; the beauty of someone's face and hair in the wind, or the
turmoil and confusion that always seemed to plague me back then. Memories, of
hillwalking in Wales, or of the morning after the 1987 storm. None of this
explains why I love the wind, really, but I still know that I'll dream.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Aug 29 10:51:56 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Hmm
Just goes to show that I can get just as strange and sentimental on caffeine as
I can on alcohol, really, doesn't it? But then, I _Like_ me when I'm strange
and sentimental, so I shouldn't really complain...
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Sep 6 01:17:26 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Night
I'll write about my wonderful week of holiday and stone circling - for which
public thanks to Lanfear for driving us around the place - tomorrow, probably.
For now I'll just mention one thing that put a special end on the week. On my
walk back home from the bus station, I saw, for the first time in my life, a
shooting star...
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Sep 6 12:19:41 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Stone Circles
It started as something that was said in a conversation, that maybe I'd make a
holiday of going around the place visiting stone circles, and then Lanfear
suggested that we both do this. It sort of turned into a plan, and so that's
what we've been doing this past week.
I got to Oxford at around lunchtime on the Saturday, and we went straight on to
the first stone circle, the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire. Pitted and
ancient, they were the first of many circles, lines, and other stone monuments
we visited over the course of the week; others included Stonehenge and Avebury
in Wiltshire, Merrivale, the Hurlers, the Merry Maidens, and the strange Stone
with the Hole down in Devon and Cornwall, Harold's stones, Arthur's stone, and
the Druids' Circle in Wales... I've certainly forgotten some, but I hope to put
some of the photos of these on a web page, which'll describe the whole trip.
And when we describe the trip, it won't just be the majesty of the stones, or
the awe one can feel in their presence that will be described, for these
stones do have their own power and magic. I do not know how anyone could walk
into the circle of the Merry Maidens and not feel the change in the air and
the hand around their heart. Walk into the circle with an open mind and an open
heart, and see what you feel; that is all I can urge.
The Maidens are waiting.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Sep 6 12:22:17 1997]--
From: Breath and the Door (steph)
Subject: Diana
She is gone. Lest there be any doubt, I shed tears watching her funeral on
television. I, too, felt love for her.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Sep 7 01:04:01 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Choices
There are essentially two paths I could now follow, based on the thinking I've
been doing of late and the ways I've voiced those thoughts in conversation. I
could have given up all that did me good and rejected any change in me for the
better, choosing to imprison myself some notion of what is `right' and `me', or
I can keep hold to the strongest aspects of me, and move to change the weakest.
I think you can guess which path I have chosen, and it is neither wrong, nor
foolish, nor futile.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 8 21:50:50 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Driving Test
Tomorrow. At 9:30. Eek.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 9 09:38:24 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Yippee!
I passed!
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 9 16:05:30 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Now
Funny... It's five past five, only twenty-five minutes to go before hometime,
and I feel like a chocolate break. Can't be good for me, but hey, I suppose I
have a good reason to celebrate :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 9 23:55:43 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Now
A clear night meant a cold walk back from this evening's gaming, and Summer's
now fading fast. When I was younger I never used to notice these changes as the
year went by, seeing merely their consequences: snow, the falling leaves, the
long hot days... Since my first year at Cambridge, and maybe that's since my
first breath of independence, I've been more aware of the turning of the year;
it feels good to note these things. On a large scale, there's nothing new in
_that_ feeling.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Sep 10 15:16:52 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: I'm looking for the euphoric state of yesterday.
'Cause I like me when I'm like that.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Sep 11 16:37:06 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Today
Feeling strangely bouncy, above-averagely paranoid, and more than a bit
tired... Some might not consider these three compatible.
Ah well. I'll bounce as long as I'm feeling bouncy, try not to worry so much
about motives, and then get a quick nap when I get home. That sound good?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Sep 12 11:15:29 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Alcohol
About three weeks ago, I gave up alcohol, because I felt that I wasn't enjoying
it any more. That was fine for the next week or so. Then I went on holiday and
didn't have much opportunity to drink; it wouldn't have been fair, since the
other person was driving. This week, I've been Not Drinking for its own sake
(and partly, I'll admit, out of sympathy for a friend who can't drink at the
moment), and because I really didn't feel like keeping it up last night, I had
a Bailey's. The strange thing is that I didn't particularly enjoy it.
Which leads me to wondering: what is it that makes me want to drink, if it
isn't enjoyment of the drink itself?
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Sep 13 02:01:05 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: I have never seen the sky so clear.
At least not as far as I can remember. The stars are so clear tonight, so
beautiful; I spent much of my walk home gazing upwards, avoiding the amber
glare of the streetlights, and even stopped in the small park nearby to look at
the sky for a while. Orion, the Plough: these were obvious, but I don't know
any other constellations, and on a night like this I wish I did, and that there
were somewhere dark to gaze from.
When I was young I was fascinated by space. I would be endlessly borrowing
books from the local library about the planets and stars, and many evenings I
sat out on the picnic table in the garden looking up through a pair of
binoculars, trying to make out the constellations from the books. Somehow I
could never see them. Now I can.
Or could if it weren't for the lights.
Stargazing was on that big to-do wishlist too, wasn't it?
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 15 00:00:30 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Slimelight
All good fun, but I've yet to manage to stay completely awake and bouncy for
all of it; I wonder how everyone else manages it. They can't _all_ be on speed,
after all. My shoulders ache.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 15 00:03:51 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Mother Teresa
Fearing a stampede, troops kept the poor she devoted her life to helping from
her funeral.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the authorities' actions, I find this sad.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 15 16:28:22 1997]--
From: Stone of the Hearth (steph)
Subject: Hmph
Today has gone by quite fast without my doing anything much of any use. And I'm
feeling tired, worn out, and generally fed up. Just thought you, my loyal
readers, might like to know.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 15 22:36:26 1997]--
From: Shadow of a Memory of a Blazing Hope (steph)
Subject: Cold
And quiet, except for the ringing in my ears left over from Saturday night.
There are people downstairs I've chosen to leave because I felt like it. No
thought, no consideration, just action. It's a small part of a small
reinvention of a small piece of me.
Silence. Close my eyes, and I could be in so many different places. Or, indeed,
in so many different dreams: riding a horse through woodland to near an old
steam railway, rocking an unknown baby to sleep, posting a letter to a famous
politician's daughter...
There's more, some of it inappropriate here; I've been dreaming a lot more
recently.
And still this silence, which would speak so much louder than words if I were
listening at all.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 16 23:41:09 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Now
A good evening spent wargaming. You look very silly when you try to whirl round
to face your one remaining useful weapon at your enemy and your engines give up
the ghost. But still...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 16 23:44:43 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Today
Headaches and general dopeyness all day. Maybe tomorrow'll be better.
In other news, I need to get something sorted, not least to confirm or allay a
little paranoia. And there may be something else; I'll get back to you on that
one.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 16 23:46:22 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: You are lucky! Full moon tonight.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Sep 17 16:15:35 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Mutter
Bloody Mickeysoft...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Sep 18 16:11:45 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Today / This Week
I think it's now beyond doubt that I have a cold, and that it's that that's
been making me feel tired and weak all week. This is what's known in the trade
as a Bloody Nuisance.
As is the feeling that the old moods are drawing in just as Autumn is.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Sep 18 23:14:12 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Something's Shining
Maybe. Just a little bit. Around the edges.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Sep 19 10:25:13 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Wales
I have a great love of Wales. It saddens me somehow that the referendum result
was the `Yes' it was.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Sep 19 11:05:40 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Dreams
Dreaming again. Last night I was a mage, dressed in white, with a white staff,
walking over some cold windy hills. Running later, for there was another on the
hillside dressed all in black and intent on destroying me.
I don't remember much more, except perhaps that later it might have been that
_I_ was the one in black...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Sep 19 13:36:49 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Endings
Jack May, who played Nelson Gabriel in The Archers, died today. He'll be missed
by cast and listeners alike. Nelson's black silk sheets were once the talk of
the village, apparently.
A train, carrying among others journalists reporting on the Welsh referendum,
has crashed just outside London. At least three have been killed, and as many
as 150 are injured.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Sep 19 16:16:09 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Now
The plant on my desk is dying.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Sep 19 19:02:22 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: So...
...I've moved it outside the inner office for the weekend, closer to the
window, and given it a little water. That should perk it up a bit.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Sep 20 18:18:21 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Energy
When I woke up this morning, I had a sudden attack of energy, so now the
computer room at home has all its old tables back, and it's even plausibly tidy
at the moment. The Vax is back up, which is nice, and I have a new Cunning
Plan.
Cunning Plan (n.): see Daft Idea
Daft Idea (n.): Install Win95 or WinNT on a spare hard drive and play with the
Internet Exploder 4 beta. See how dreadful it really is, and whether there's
any chance at all of any of the feeping creatures being useful...
Hmm. What with work being interesting enough to keep me there an hour longer
than usual last night, I think the geek side of my life is looking up :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Sep 20 18:18:48 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Party Tonight
*Bounce*
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Sep 21 03:07:19 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Not bounce
Oops.
I really didn't want to do that.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Sep 21 18:27:19 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Not bounce (ii)
And neither did you. Still, I suppose we shall have to live with it, and I
shall have to think about what the hell I'm playing at.
Because right now, I have very little idea about anything, least of all how I
feel. And about what that means, I have no clue at all.
There was going to be a dramatic diary entry, speaking of cold winds and the
like, but life's turned out less dramatic, mainly because I'm not very good at
real drama and partially because it's very hard to be actively angry when you
have no real idea quite how, why, or with whom you are angry.
I feel dreadfully lost.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Sep 21 22:31:34 1997]--
From: Stone of Bargaining (steph)
Subject: Conversation, over the washing up
O Gods, how did I bring us to this point?
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 22 09:23:41 1997]--
From: Insert Depressed Nameline Here (steph)
Subject: Thought
And the past five entries only go to show how things fall apart precisely when
you think they're just beginning to come together.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 22 16:01:07 1997]--
From: Insert Depressed Nameline Here (steph)
Subject: Still...
The only thing there is to do is to follow the current plan of action.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 22 22:47:57 1997]--
From: Insert Depressed Nameline Here (steph)
Subject: Now
`You could just give it all up and walk away and nobody would know. I can
shout at you until I'm blue in the face, but what good would it do? You'll only
do what you always do: what you damn well please.'
`It's the way I am,' said Careff, turning to leave.
`These days I wish I knew _who_ you were. What happened to all that stuff about
duty?'
Careff stopped. `When there was something worthwhile defending, I could've
fought for this place. But now? What's the point in duty, honour, or anything
else now?'
---
Careff's just a character in one of my stories, but I'm thinking about him a
bit at the moment, because when it comes to actually making the decision, he's
motivated by a lot of the stuff rolling round my mind at the moment.
And no, I'm not saying what conclusion he comes to.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 23 13:20:08 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Good, good.
Now ask some stupid questions you think you already know the answers to, 'cause
they're not that stupid a load of questions, and the answers aren't the ones
you think you're going to get.
(This was an announcement by the Use Your Diary to Send Messages to People
Society. Er, UYDSMPS? Uydsmups?)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 23 18:14:01 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Woo woo woo
Right. That's that all cleared up, then.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Sep 24 16:14:36 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Ouch
I hate confidentiality sometimes...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Sep 25 00:49:10 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Now
Life is progressing, which is a good deal better than just going on, and a
little mystery is occupying me: an unidentified someone is sending one of my
housemates flowers. Now, far be it from me to be nosy, but I'm deadly curious,
and when a direct question fails to elicit the answer... :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Sep 25 13:02:50 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Aha.
Mystery solved. This is too easy.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Sep 25 22:42:11 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: A strange evening
Bridges crossed, hands extended, things are changing. But it would appear that
in spite of all of it, I have lied in the midst of honesty. It is an easy
thing.
Here is the entry I was going to write:
I want it all back. I want a return to the glory days, and for our names to
shine among the stars, for all of it to have happened, and none of it to have
mattered. We were great once, and can be great again. I would pay any price for
this, and yet it seems it can be done for nothing more than mere effort.
And at this moment it cannot be.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Sep 25 23:13:32 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Two edits excised
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Sep 26 17:57:50 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Now
Everything is encoded in here; there're good reasons for it. Partly I like
being cryptic and devious, but a lot of the time it's because I want to convey
distinct things to certain people and impressions to others.
If you know me reasonably well (and have been keeping track of things) your
best guess about what I'm saying is likely to be right.
Although I may of course be trying to mislead...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Sep 28 21:34:46 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Weekend
Spent in Oxford with a few friends (and some notable absences), watching
strange videos about robot hospital beds, playing multi-player Tetris, and
Illuminati until 6am in the morning. Fun, certainly. After a few hours' sleep I
got back to Oxford bus station and thence back to GreenEnd.
Coincidentally, I bumped into a friend outside Oxford bus station whom I hadn't
seen for a while. He'll be back in Cambridge in a week or so, which'll be good.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Sep 28 21:42:14 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Forging links
It's something I've not traditionally been very good at, but it's very
necessary, and sometimes it seems that much more so. It is enough just to
exchange a word or two, express an interest, and you have forged a link,
crossed a bridge. I have a tendency to spend time close to only a very few
people, almost to become dependent on them, and it's very easy to believe that
that's enough. When one of them goes away for a while, though, I'm lost.
More friends are no bad thing, and it takes some effort to build a friendship,
but not as much as it does to rebuild one or to do without entirely.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Sep 28 21:56:49 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: A cast of thousands
Lots of people appear in this diary, by name or reference. Reading someone
else's diary made me think that perhaps it might be useful to provide some sort
of guide to who's who. Unfortunately it's not quite that easy, because ther
isn't what you might call a one-to-one correlation between names and people!
Anyway, the cast:
Cavalr-2: A friend I've had since shortly after I came to Cambridge. A
geek, goth, lunatic... I could go on but I might get thumped.
Lanfear: See that entry about forging links? It can just sort of happen,
without you really noticing :-)
Andrea/Andy: An ex. Someone I went out with for a little while a year or so
ago.
Katherine: Just a friend, who continually manages to surprise me these
days. Like so many others, someone I've fallen for in my time.
Something's
Shining: This is a toughie. Half the time it refers to a particular
(female) friend of mine, who's been known to cheer me up, and
the other half it's a reference to something good being there
amidst the madness and darkness.
Eye Into Mixed
Wax: Was once a friend. Now I have no contact with her. It's a
shame, in a way.
you: Well, now, that could be anyone, couldn't it? Could even be
you :-)
Some of these are pseudonyms. Unless they need to be made clear to tell the
story, I'm not going to say who they are, and I've doubtless missed a good few
people out. I'm going to have to think of how to refer to a few new people in
the story too - watch this space!
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Sep 29 22:57:59 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Hrvijni er Plinw
Ghili doo hniopl fhiewnl ls, lvuang cxkwpz ki i lofnw. Ghi flomn, bjen bje,
lvua er plinw ki ls fhiewnl. Ghili cxkwpzo ki, i noddfe lask munbb.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Sep 30 13:01:14 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Now
I like this weather. The persistent, pervasive drizzle, the overcast greyness
of the day, and the misty air of the evening; they're all special. I'm most at
home in Autumn, even though that's when my life is often at its bleakest.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Oct 1 15:12:48 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Now
Names, names, names. Who would have thought that such little words would have
such great power?
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Oct 1 23:20:36 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Now
An evening of telephone calls, or at least that's what it seemed like, and one
of them was definitely a pleasant surprise when I was least expecting it.
Chatting at length, it seems I may have a reason to get away from Cambridge
this weekend, which could be both a good idea and great fun. We'll see.
It's another strange repetition, in a way. I have this feeling, that I've
alluded to in this diary before, that my life is going round and round in
circles, with the same things happening again and again, with different people
in the various roles. The metaphor is being strapped to a wheel.
Things happening around my life now are very like things that have happened
before. I could be inventing the similarity to fit in with my view of the
world - I can't say - but I'm watching for the same patterns and trying to
avoid them because there's hope. However many times it may seem that I have
tried this and failed, I can leave this wheel behind and move on; however much
the entries in this diary may be of confusion, I never stop hoping. In this at
least, as one of the other people I spoke to on the phone said, I'm persistent
and stubborn.
The future is waiting around the corner to be bright, so speak to me.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Oct 1 23:23:53 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: In the beginning...
> 16th October 1994
>
> I don't know how long this will last. It may turn out to be a one
> minute wonder as most of my fads are. But I thought I would give it a
> try.
Excuse me while I reminisce quietly. It all seems so long ago...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Oct 3 10:59:29 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Passwords
It's time to change my passwords again, and experience that strange feeling of
having to think when I log into a machine.
If I don't make an entry here for the next week, then, it's probably because
I've forgotten my password. I wonder... What if there were passwords for social
life, and you forgot one of _those_?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Oct 3 14:48:07 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Now
Where did it all go?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Oct 3 23:46:57 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: Weekend
I shall be away from this place for a little while and be glad of it. I had
rather hoped and expected to be away from Cambridge and all its associated
baggage this weekend, and a trip to Nottingham to visit a friend is just what I
need.
Thank you for calling, and for inviting me.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Oct 3 23:49:05 1997]--
From: Every heartbeat a requiem (steph)
Subject: They burned down the thatched pav.
I've just received the Old Wellingburian newsletter - from my old school - and
found out that there was an arson attack on the Thatched Pavilion at the start
of this year's cricket season. The old wooden building with its lovely thatched
roof was gutted. Why would anyone do such a thing?
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Oct 5 18:19:04 1997]--
From: This is reinvention. This is glory. (steph)
Subject: Returning
Wanderings, and candyfloss, and the Big Wheel, dodgems, `Wild Mouse'
rollercoaster, silly ghost train (with the human touch - a man paid to shout
`wooarrgh'), hooking frogs or perhaps whales to win (fin?) furry animals,
Teletubbies everywhere you look (preferable to the Spice Girls), conversation,
reminiscences, a very strange John Lewis restaurant (complete with waiters -
*boggle*), caves, the oldest Inn in England (bet it wasn't always called
that...), a distinct air of seaside nowhere near the coast, tower blocks,
glorious coffee in the morning, Channel 5, Radio 4, several hills, and most
importantly a friend.
Or, more concisely, I'm glad I went up to Nottingham for the last night of the
Goose Fayre. ;-)
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Oct 6 16:13:20 1997]--
From: This is returning. This is glory. (steph)
Subject: Now
It's raining. I like rain, but I miss the thunder. Untuned longwave in an
electrical storm...
Your enthusiasms rub off on me, you know that?
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Oct 7 00:24:41 1997]--
From: This is returning. This is glory. (steph)
Subject: Evening
Go see Volcano. It's a traditionally silly disaster movie, and has lots and
lots of lava.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Oct 7 00:29:14 1997]--
From: This is rejuvenation. This is glory. (steph)
Subject: And...
...take a friend. Try to leave with all your posessions.
Oh well. My memory isn't what it used to be.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Oct 7 08:10:19 1997]--
From: This is rejuvenation. This is glory. (steph)
Subject: Morning
The late night wasn't wonderful for my wakefulness this morning, I think.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Oct 7 22:51:40 1997]--
From: This is rejuvenation. This is glory. (steph)
Subject: Now
Early night, for a change. It'll be good for me.
Still got a lot to do, though. Letters to write, people to phone.
Distressing lack of email.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Nov 17 11:24:46 1997]--
From: This is me. Lost in the fog. (steph)
Subject: Oh wonderful.
The restore of the Mono data has deleted possibly the most important (to me)
chunk of this diary.
What a day. What a life.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Nov 18 11:59:27 1997]--
From: This is me. Lost in the fog. (steph)
Subject: *grin*
THere is, it would appear, some justice in the world. And I am happy at this
moment in time simply because someone else is.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Nov 19 17:01:44 1997]--
From: This is me. So much is to come. (steph)
Subject: Colds
It looks like I've got one, or at least a shadow of one; I felt dead all
yesterday afternoon and last night, but apart from a sore throat and a slight
case of the sniffles I've been reasonably OK today.
Monday evening was fun; I went to the Calling at the Q club, which wasn't
nearly as far out of town as I'd thought, so I might go again at some point in
the future. It was good to be there, see some people I'd not seen for a while,
enjoy myself. Cheering.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Nov 19 17:04:40 1997]--
From: This is me. So much is to come. (steph)
Subject: Eye into Mixed Wax
Have you now finally found what you wanted? I hope so. And it was good to see
you again, not least because from the outside there's more than one side to
every story.
Be ever.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Nov 19 17:12:39 1997]--
From: This is me. So much is to come. (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
I may find myself needing another pseudonym or several here, but not yet. I
don't know when or if it'll be useful or necessary but it'll be fun finding
out. I don't know how long I can stay in this state where life feels more of an
adventure than a chore, an open field rather than a prison, but I might as well
enjoy it while I can.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Nov 21 17:18:57 1997]--
From: This is me. So much is to come. (steph)
Subject: *sniffle*
I felt half-dead this morning, so I've taken the day off work. I'm glad I did,
because if anything I now feel worse than I did when I got up.
Still, I've had some rest, and I do at least have the rest of the weekend toget
better.
Meanwhile, people are being indecipherable again. And I've taken to being
cryptic and mysterious at other people, which is a trait in me that I both
delight in and dislike.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Nov 22 17:29:55 1997]--
From: This is me. (tandem inueni) (steph)
Subject: Saturday evening
It looks like the Exciting Things To Do that I had vaguely hoped for this
evening aren't materialising, so I shall in all probability be alone here at
home. Question is, what shall I _do_?
I mean, I could go for a walk, but it's really cold outside and that'd do my
health no good at all. I could read a book, which might not be so bad an
idea... I could wander down to the Grafton Centre and see a completely random
film... I could (try to) learn C (again), hack squid a bit so that it
understands VMS ftp listings (it _really_ bugs me that it doesn't)...
Who can tell? Maybe some delightful young thing will appear and whisk me off to
a world of excitement heretofore unknown to Owen's Saturday night. Then again,
maybe not.
Cocoa, anyone?
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Nov 22 17:31:26 1997]--
From: This is me. (tandem inueni) (steph)
Subject: Hmm
Something beginning with L? Or possibly M? Or would that be too obvious?
*grin* (To hell with not being cryptic!)
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Nov 22 22:39:34 1997]--
From: This is me. (tandem inueni) (steph)
Subject: Saturday night
So I ended up compiling XEmacs. So I'm sad. So sue me.
Somewhere along the way I have lost my profundity in this diary. It's certainly
true, I think, thats the diaries of happy people are less interesting than
those of unhappy people but it's hard to see that when you're happy. Harder to
think about what to do about it. (Not that I have any doubt whatsoever that
I'll be angsting away with the rest of them in a week or so...)
database.c:32: db.h: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [database.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/alif/osd1000/src/xemacs-20.2.orig/src'
make: *** [src] Error 2
Dang and blast it.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Nov 22 22:42:59 1997]--
From: This is me. (tandem inueni) (steph)
Subject: Well, I'm going to go and get that cocoa...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Nov 25 00:44:19 1997]--
From: This is me. (tandem inueni) (steph)
Subject: We are all mirrors
And once you realise that, you only need to watch the reflections to
decipher what's underneath.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Nov 25 00:50:07 1997]--
From: This is me. (tandem inueni) (steph)
Subject: Now
A pleasant evening with a different circle of people, but it can only be
adistraction for so long. There are some things that need to be sorted out.
It's all very well that there's an X, Y, and Z, but X', Y', and Z' aren't going
to go away, so clearly I need a V and a W as well. I think arranging to be so
very distracted is no bad thing.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Nov 25 09:12:43 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Hmm
Two entirely different types of distraction in that last edit...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Nov 25 23:56:09 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Now
I have to be made to step back and look for a moment. The important words there
are `have to'; this isn't something I do very easily on my own. Sure, there are
ways I've taught myself that give me more of an outside perspective, but I'm
still more wrapped up in my own little world.
So someone points out something, and I come to realise how many people I've
got to know of late. Irrespective of the status of some of them in the
alphabettispaghettiogram that is my emotional life, I'd call them friends and
I'm glad of it.
But it's definitely time for another introduction:
Louise - you remind me of someone else, and when I think of why, it doesn't
surprise me at all.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Nov 25 23:57:08 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: And...
...the threats around here aren't up to much :-).
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Nov 26 16:43:42 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: *grumble*
What I really didn't want today was a stomach bug.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Nov 27 11:27:42 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Now
Back at work today, and with a strange directionless feeling; I simply don't
know what to do now I've made it back here. Yes, there are things on the to-do
list, but I can't really motivate myself to do anything about them. I suppose
it's a lingering symptom of being ill. Not that it really mattters much,
because I _am_ paid just for being here and answering people's questions as
they come along.
Dammit, I want to be _healthy_ for a change!
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Nov 27 11:28:54 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Curses
I appear to have become addicted; I downloaded the game and an interpreter for
it last night and I'm now trying to work out how to get into the cupboard...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Nov 27 17:02:36 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Thoughts
All the signs outside are that they're preparing to dig up the road and carve
another lane's worth out of the grassy woody bit just behind Laser-Scan. I've
seen the plans, so I'm already sure it'll mean some of the trees will go. No,
it's not a great crime, really; they're only thirty or so years old, nothing
that can't be replaced. The point is that they can't be replaced immediately
and my life will seem that little bit less green when they go.
And for what? As far as I can tell, another lane for the traffic to get stuck
in, and a more dangerous journey to and from work for those of us who walk or
cycle to the Science Park every day.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Nov 28 12:37:49 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: *yawn*
Why am I always so _tired_ these days? And why do I keep waking up at a quarter
to nine, resulting in me being late for work?
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Nov 28 17:14:47 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Now
This is better, more solid, more true than any dream, and all the sweeter for
the joy that came with the dream.
Yes it's gratuitous plagiarism, but...
Friends - nothing else matters much.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Nov 30 01:43:45 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Evening
Pleasant, but...
Have you ever had an evening where you've always felt on the edge, on the
margins of things? Where you've never had something to say in the gaps, nothing
to contribute to the conversations?
And...
Believe me.
And...
You moved to ask how I was, as if all were well in the world. Entirely
sincerely. I had not expected this, and know not at all how to react.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Nov 30 11:39:36 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Now
What to do today? Where to go? How to break out of the mould _today_?
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 1 10:55:40 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: And so it went...
Wandering around the Grafton Centre feeling sorry for myself in the early
afternoon, I bumped into David, Rebecca and friends later, and ended up at his
place a little later. A game of Family Business later I was feeling a little
better (*smile*) and so when the opportunity arose to scan a picture of me that
actually looks a bit like reality I snapped it up.
We saw Rebecca and David's other friends off, bimbled over to GreenEnd,
trundled into town, found a Clare, lost a David, found a Ben (at this point I
go all entusiastic about the ridiculous amounts of _stuff_ in his office), also
a Gareth and a Simon, found Gardies (probably the easiest bit of the whole
evening), retrieved David, went to Simon's, dithered, dithered some more,
dithered again, and then some of us went to see a silly film called Nothing To
Lose.
All in all a fun ole day.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Dec 2 02:06:10 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Evening
Calling. Bounce. Now half-dead.
(Also apparently with no main clauses.)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Dec 2 16:57:52 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Work
I had my three-month review today. That's what they give you when you've been
with the company for three months. Except that I've been here for almost eleven
months and I'll have my _annual_ review in four weeks. I think my boss'll
appreciate the joys of cut-and-paste for that as much as I will.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Dec 3 00:25:17 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: What do I want?
Long term, I mean. I can't really answer it when it's my career I'm thinking
about, and it's no different when I'm thinking about my social and personal
life. There're plenty of short term goals I am sure of - staying happy's the
foremost of these - but there are at least as many that wash back and forth
like the tide.
For the moment I'm going with that flow, and enjoying it. As for what happens
next, well, who can tell? Perhaps life's a bit like a good book and what I
really want is to find out what happens over the page...
I've also worked out precisely what my New Year's Resolution for 1998 is going
to be. You know, dear reader, that I would tell you if I could.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Dec 3 15:17:56 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Hmm, the things people say...
> Owen, if you were female and beautiful I would be tempted to give you a
> big kiss!
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 4 00:23:23 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Well, users _should_ be grateful :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 5 00:21:42 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens (steph)
Subject: Is
I've been trying to add to this diary for much of the past day, because I feel
like I ought to have something to say. There isn't really much, though. Just
recognising old patterns of behaviour, and slipping into them as easily as I
always have.
A moment to describe a symbol, more important perhaps than I made it sound.
That's all it takes to pull strings in me.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 5 14:42:44 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Is
You thought to say you were going. Thank you.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 5 17:38:22 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Etched in stone
It would be well to remember when one makes diary entries here that there is
practically no way of knowing who will read them or who has read them, and that
once they have been read the information is in the public domain. Once the cat
is out of the bag, it will not go in again; to put it another way, words here
are not written in sand. They are etched in stone.
I will respect the request made of me to avoid discussing certain matters that
have been made public in this way _in_public_, because I have a duty to respect
the wishes of friends if I can. There is nothing that binds me to this except
for that, however, and there is no wrong, not even (I believe) by Monochrome's
conditions of use, in discussing what has been made public in this way.
Every word that is typed here is an expression of a choice. If you value your
privacy, choose silence instead.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Dec 6 00:01:31 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: But...
...you came up with a _much_ better solution :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 7 11:00:57 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject:
Just a chameleon walking on a mirror...
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 7 18:52:22 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Is
I have been wearing this blindfold for too long, because I have been afraid to
see, and these chains because I have been afraid to act. That is no revelation;
I've always known it.
It needs to change.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 8 00:37:03 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Plot threads
If you consider life as a dramatic production (Babylon 5, say), it becomes
obvious that there are particular plot threads that run over a large period of
time, sometimes very much in the forefront of things but at other times barely
noticeable at all. When these things are lurking off to one side as other more
important things happen, the scriptwriter inserts a small scene, just to
illustrate that things continue, and that not everything is resolved.
My life often seems precisely like this; I just wish, as someone else said last
night, I had better scriptwriters.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 8 00:40:40 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Now
Tired, after a fun weekend, with a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning to
sort out a number of things, some of which I should have asked about a couple
of years ago.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 8 12:21:43 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: And finally...
...after a morning of waking up _far_ too late, getting to the doctors only
just in time (and then finding that he was running 20 minutes behind schedule),
and standing around waiting for a bus to turn up (Cambus - it's faster by
foot), I'm at work.
And I now have another collection of remedies that may or may not work wonders
for my miscellaneous ailments.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 8 20:19:47 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Back at work
...but not for work purposes, which is nice.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 8 21:01:56 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Now
Hm. Hm hm hm. Tum ti tum ti tum. *twiddles thumbs* What to do?
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 8 23:44:54 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Argh
There was an entry here but it got eaten. Ah well. It would all be better said
when I'm back at home with the space to think about what I'm writing and how
I'm writing it anyway.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Dec 9 15:53:11 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Now
I am letting the old me come back, amn't I? All the fears, all the worries...
It's a tide I need to stop, but I'm damned if I can work out how.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Dec 10 01:05:20 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Later
Windows '98 appears to be as stable as a Bauhaus fishcake. And you thought '95
was bad...
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Dec 10 18:52:24 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Eek
This is worrying. I remember a friend being here, and me being on the stairs
talking to him, but I don't clearly remember him arriving or leaving, and I'm
none too clear on what was said while he was here either.
That's what sleeping after work does for your brain, that is...
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 11 08:16:20 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: 8am starts
I'm glad they're rare in this job; the only reason I've got one today is to
wait for a DEC engineer (I still like `digit' from the Jargon file) to come and
peer inside one of our servers and pronounce on the state of the SCSI bus. It's
strange coming into work that early when barely anyone else is around, and that
strange feeling is probably the best compensation for the time.
Of course, there is a slight snag. What with getting to bed at 2:45am and
waking up at 7:30am, I haven't had a lot of sleep... I think yesterday evening
with its stock of ginger, conversation, punnery, and Mao (of which, perhaps,
more later) was worth it, though!
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 11 08:49:20 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: And another 8am start tomorrow.
The DEC engineer failed to show. So I've agreed to be here tomorrow morning at
8am as well. You mug, Owen, you complete and utter mug.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 11 09:25:11 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Woo
I'm one today, in Mono terms. I even got a little message from interact wishing
me a happy birthday.
This makes me younger than a certain someone. However, I also appear to have
almost twice the time on. Maybe I should cut down on this mono lark...?
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 11 16:51:03 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Is
I think all I need is sleep, and that all this is just tiredness.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 11 17:34:14 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Now
A candle burns to my left, and PM burbles on the radio behind me. That's all
there is.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 12 15:09:42 1997]--
From: Uncountable chickens ()()() (steph)
Subject: Is
It's been a good week, I think. Inasmuch as the pessimist in me can be
persuaded that he was wrong, he has been, and that was just the start of the
week.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 12 20:01:37 1997]--
From: ()()() The Not Very Good Interval Spod (steph)
Subject: Hmm
Well, I'm going to go watch last night's B5. Anyone wants me, there's always
the phone...
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 12 20:57:00 1997]--
From: ()()() The Not Very Good Interval Spod (steph)
Subject: Dream
Last night, I dreamed. There's not much to say, really. It was either a tragic
beginning or a tragic ending; that is all I can tell. As for which? That, as
they say, is a matter of perspective.
Watch me fly, Veryllia, watch me fly.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Dec 13 01:37:01 1997]--
From: ()()() The Not Very Good Interval Spod (steph)
Subject: Even more hmm
A couple of conversations earlier this evening remind me of something I already
know: that the perceptions of others are always illuminating. Without knowledge
of what others see and think, it isn't easy to know whether what you think is
based on privileged or public information; similarly this can be a useful way
of gauging how _you_ appear to others, if you can eke the information out of
people.
This is why it is vitally important to play the gossip game. If there is
information about other people that you have, there is then at least some
interesting information about you for the world to find out (namely what you
know). In finding out (or not finding out) this information, other people seem
to relax their guard a bit and let you know what they see when they look at
you.
The gossip game is a game of mirrors. And as I've said before, we are all
mirrors.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Dec 13 19:32:19 1997]--
From: ()()() The Not Very Good Interval Spod (steph)
Subject: Now
There is, perhaps, something of a deception in the entry two above.
*ponders an edit*
No, stet.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 14 04:59:39 1997]--
From: ()()() The Not Very Good Interval Spod (steph)
Subject: Katherine
I have to say, you made things a little awkward for me this evening, although I
know it wasn't intentional.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 14 18:36:33 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Sunday
A lazy Sunday is entirely understandable after last night, where I made it back
home at about 2:00am and then stayed awake partying (and then just chatting)
until about 5. I still managed to get up for the Archers in the morning,
though, and then went back to bed for an entirely fruitful afternoon's sleep.
I am feeling well-disposed towards the world at the moment, even towards bits
of it I've not got on with so well these past few months. It is probably true
to say that general happiness lessens specific hurts. It may even heal them,
with time.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 14 19:44:24 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: I never thought...
I'd be saying thank god for NFS. For some reason, though, it appears to have
been the only sensible way to transfer a file from my Linux box to my VMS
system, ftp having decided helpfully to truncate the files on arrival.
Not that all is yet glorious. The mail system is _still_ broken, and now the
tape drive is being strange at me. Perhaps it needs its heads cleaning, or
something?
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 14 22:39:47 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Hmm
Maybe I need to do something about the record lengths?
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 15 02:03:13 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Aha
SassenfrassenRMSsassenfrassen :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 15 11:37:18 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Kit
I think I may have to join the Computer Preservation Society; work have just
given me an antique Amstrad PC1512... :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 15 14:21:12 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: *grin*
I degaussed LNR this lunctime. She was most surprised.
---------------------------------------------------[Mon Dec 15 17:30:21 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Christmas Shopping
In a word, argh. How do I buy a present for my brother, whom I haven't seen, or
had any contact with, since last Christmas? Quite what I get for my parents is
still a mystery to me, but I'm reasonably confident I'll find something.
And then there are the strange it-leaped-into-my-arms(mind) presents that
friends, acquaintances, possibly even people I've never met might get. In a
way, these are the best of all.
Only two days of work left this year :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Dec 16 02:17:04 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Lapses into Remembrance
It was December 16, and the story of 1997 was nearly told. It had been a year
of great changes, of sadness and joy, of revelations and reinventions. I had
sustained myself with love and friendship, and learned how to lose those same;
I learned the value and the danger of hope.
The last days would turn out to be...
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Dec 16 10:29:25 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: ...of course I don't know what comes next.
Writing about events of the recent past from a hypothetical point far in the
future in this Babylon 5-like style gives me a strange feeling of calm. You
have to suppose that you are a great space of years away from the present and
imagine seeing a larger picture, stripped of details that will mean nothing in
a year, five years, or twenty. The gentle reminder that `now' can be as
nothing is greatly calming; the equal and opposite of that, that the events of
the present are shaping the course of the rest of our lives, brings as great a
sense of awe.
---------------------------------------------------[Tue Dec 16 16:17:26 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: `The last days would turn out to be...'
And I thought nothing would happen, to be honest. I wish I'd been right.
I'll let you tell your own story if you want to. *Hugs*
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Dec 17 01:14:30 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Urrm.
The Grand Plan hasn't exactly worked, has it? I'm entirely prepared to believe
that closer examination of motives and actions is a good thing, but also that
it might not be.
Very soon now we will know what the last year has been for, if anything.
In a way, I'm kind of looking forward to it.
---------------------------------------------------[Wed Dec 17 16:52:51 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Make me smile
I ought to give people some sort of thanks for the little ways in which they
make me smile, make me happy. Perhaps just smiling back is thanks enough, but
if I can make them smile as well, then so much the better.
Thank you Alison :-)
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 18 03:09:39 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Is
Well, that's work over for the year, and very nearly life around Cambridge for
the year too. So what do I do? Er, `celebrate', by staying up late and geeking.
Urrm.
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 18 13:55:37 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Is
Right. Now I really have to go and get Christmas cards and presents sorted out,
or else. Anyone sees me around here or IRL, give me a kick, will you? (Unless
I'm obviously burdened with lots of bags and stuff, of course.)
---------------------------------------------------[Thu Dec 18 17:25:40 1997]--
From: ()()() I woke up and dreamed last night (steph)
Subject: Oh, my ears and whiskers...
Decisions, decisions, I've got to make decisions, I don't know what to do with
my day. Shall I spend it in happiness? Or go and play in the hay?
(And what the _hell_ do I buy for my brother?)
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 19 01:49:01 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: Was
Somewhere in the land of L-------, there is a tower. With three storeys, it has
a spiral staircase leading from the entrance hall up and round to the top of
the tower.
On each floor of the tower, there is a room in the centre on one side of the
stairs and three rooms looking out to the world on the other: a bedroom, a
dining room, and a study. This last is set out such that it might best be
described as a war room. The central room on each floor, however, is
unfurnished except for a great many church candles.
At the top of the tower is a spire, whose bells (reputedly magical, and there
is no disputing that they have no bellropes) ring only rarely. They call
travellers to L-------.
The bells ring out this moon.
---------------------------------------------------[Fri Dec 19 01:53:29 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: Eggs
In conversation, it appears that I have neglected to point out to the world in
general what the ()()() in my nameline is all about.
They are eggs. Chickens which I cannot count, by virtue of them not having
hatched. Not technically uncountable, I know, but I'm no mathematician; they're
certainly ineffable :-).
Also, the number after two is `more than two'.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Dec 20 03:44:47 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: Argh
It matters to me that I've upset you. I wish I hadn't, and I wish I'd noticed
that I was doing something that would.
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Dec 20 16:11:57 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: Today
There's only so much time you can spend wandering around town looking aimlessly
at things until you decide to buy something. The snag is that there's a
tendency to accidentally buy things for yourself, rather than the people you
were intending to buy presents for. The result? I now own a copy of Tacitus
Histories, and a decent Latin dictionary and grammar to go with it.
It must seem very very dreary to some people. *shrugs* It takes me back a bit,
and if it makes my Latin a bit less rusty that's no bad thing.
On the minus side, #include <xmaspresentpanic.h>
---------------------------------------------------[Sat Dec 20 16:31:19 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: Day One Hundred and Thirty One
In the reckoning of this diary it is now the one hundred and thirty first day.
On the first day I was asked what had begun, and I could not say, but felt a
sense of gloom. On this day, perhaps someone will ask again what I am counting
from or to. I'll answer that I simply don't know. Perhaps all it is is a
reminder of the passage of time, a reminder to take note of where I was then
and where I am now.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 21 03:00:07 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: Merry Christmas!
If I haven't yet had or taken the opportunity to wish you a good holiday,
consider it done now. I'm going home tomorrow morning, and will probably be
back in Cambridge on the 29th or so. I'll see some of you at or before the New
Year, but if I don't, have a Happy New, and see in 1998 with a smile.
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 21 03:09:23 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: Full Circle
i) Careff
`I'll go back,' he said, pausing. `But only because of my love for the Kingdom.
It scarcely matters who rules it, now.'
ii) Something's Shining
[ extract: Stornoway, 24th November 1995 (II) ]
The light has ousted the dark;
The laughs have wiped away the tears.
Something's shining.
I find it hard to see beyond
The dark cloud's
Silver lining.
iii) Reflection
Owen, who are you now?
iv) The Tower
And still, insistent, the bell tolls. Do you hear it?
---------------------------------------------------[Sun Dec 21 03:10:34 1997]--
From: ()()() Cpl. Usplus reporting for duty (steph)
Subject: v) Endings and Beginnings
E N D O F P A R T O N E