hello friends

I had no idea this was online. Maybe the Baen people only put it up recently.

A Logic Named Joe (click "Next" if you want to skip the bio) -- sci-fi story by one "Murray Leinster", about the Internet. Written in 1946. I have touted this story, and this author, before, but now no hunting down of dead trees is required.

First bit: It was on the third day of August that Joe come off the assembly line, and on the fifth Laurine come into town, an' that afternoon I saved civilization. That's what I figure, anyhow.

I don't think I've read any of the other stories in that collection besides The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator (which involves an unusually amiable kangaroo named Arthur), so this is just hardcore awesome all around.



(If anyone wants a more personal update, just go back and read the last few ones I did. Nothing really much changes -- I am trapped in a nightmare that doesn't end, where I am mocked by having lots of other things act like they might finally start to go right, while the one thing I wanted most dearly is now forever out of my reach. And my last words in this life to the man I loved so much that it hurt are still "eight pixels is not that much".

Reading things online is much more exciting.)

No wonder it's so damn cold in here; it's only two degrees outside. (-16.66 Celsius)

Pity I'm an idiot who lost her brand-new ski gloves somewhere in the apartment and can't find them to save her life. They would really come in handy when I have to go out in the single-digit weather to wait up to 20 minutes for a bus to come. I guess I'll just have to choose between the gloves that are too small, the gloves with fingers cut out, or the gloves made of a single layer of Polartec which the wind cuts through like it wasn't even there. WOO

Lesson learned, kids. When someone gives you a brand-new pair of gloves, FUCKING REMEMBER WHERE YOU PUT THEM. Otherwise the person's hard-earned money will be WASTED and you'll wind up losing your hands to frostbite because you are STUPID.

I dreamed of Chris last night. We were just watching TV on the couch together, just as normal and cozy as you please, and just like we will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER get to do. And then for some reason we were moving boxes in a warehouse near where the MythBusters cast was doing some stuff, and I was trying to convince Chris that he needed to put on a warmer coat.

And then I had to wake up shivering and alone, shortly before learning that I am likely to lose some fingers today.

Sometimes I honestly wonder if it's my job to be shat on by life so that it can balance out for other people to be happy. Except there would be a tiny sliver of comfort and dignity in that, which means that it can't possibly be. It's just that things like contentment and hope are Not For Me, Ever.

Now to watch a movie or read a book or something, and do my best to lose myself in an imaginary world so as to try to escape the real one.

This one is going to be the hardest to write because it requires me to feel.

First of all, mecha. The results of one of his medical tests came back and said that, basically, the thing that was wrong with him for so long is now all better. We pretty much know what it was, why it was getting worse over time, though not why it started in the first place. He is still weakened and illish, but he is officially recovering.

Pity we don't get to be gallbladderless buddies, but then, at least he gets to avoid surgery this way.

I'm feeling relatively on top of school, at least so far. Of course, that may just be because as of yet I have had little in the way of assignments and no tests. The test that I expect to be awful is coming up Wednesday, and I guess then there will be either a shaky sense of "okay that is not so bad", or tears and terror. The professor told us that the usual score on his tests tends to be in the 60s, and that he curves "some but not that much". This is potentially worrying depending on whether he's talking about the mode or the mean. All I can really do for now is slog through the horrifically dry textbook and do my best to memorize the couple of hundred definitions of very similar-sounding terms, many of which are actually circular (such as the definition of "information system" starting out as "an information system that[...]").

Huh. That's lovely, that class's website has apparently decided that I am not allowed to log in anymore. Well, that's okay, there certainly haven't been enough things going wrong in my life lately. Let's have some more! Big problems, small problems, it doesn't matter, apparently, as long as I'm suffering.

Which of course leads into the part ( that is whiny enough to need a cut in case you want to skip it )

Hooray, I managed to get to my counseling appointment today. It wasn't entirely useful, though, I came away from it feeling worse rather than better. She noted that it seemed like I was fighting her on the discussing of things, and I was, but mainly because fighting her is also fighting against digging too deep and hitting a vein of pure depressionanium ore. I cried some, though, which I couldn't bring myself to do last week. So that's something I guess. I am so used to trying to not attract too much attention in public -- no saying what I really think in case people think it is stupid; no showing too much emotion because it is embarrassing; etc -- that it is all but impossible to be open in front of some stranger. Even if that is the whole point of visiting her.

I'm going in again next Monday. Hopefully as I go along I will be able to actually say more of what I'm feeling rather than automatically stopping myself short all the time.

After the appointment I had an hour to get to class, so I walked slowly towards Wylie Hall till I remembered that it was Tuesday which meant that actually my class was in the Geology building. My feet are a tiny bit blistered now, but the walk wasn't bad. Even if I did keep almost crying during it, and then during class. Then I had to wait for the bus twice, because the first one that came by was too full for everyone to get on; then I finally came home, ate dinner, and so on. And that's about it.

I'm so tired of the "why me?" factor. All my life it's been "why do I have to be poor," "why do I have to be so shy and lonely," "why do I have to live in (pick one depending on time period: a house so infested with roaches that they will even give calculators a try; a decrepit trailer that literally smells like shit; an apartment where I can't safely go outside by myself; and so on)," "why do I have to be such a miserable person," and on and on. And now since I obviously have not yet had my share of troubles there's a whole new extra-fun "why me" to add to the list. Why did I have to lose Chris? Why couldn't random pointless death at a young age have happened to someone else? I don't necessarily feel great about wanting to foist off sorrow on some hapless stranger, but god fucking dammit why did it have to be Chris. Why did all my hopes and plans and dreams and joy have to go up in smoke, on the very day that my life finally seemed to be getting back on track after TWO FUCKING YEARS spent DOING NOTHING? Lines of thought like "at least he didn't suffer" only get me so far, because then my brain pipes up with "hey while we're talking hypotheticals WHY DID HE HAVE TO DIE AT ALL?" And as much as I want to believe that somehow it is the world's biggest misunderstanding or whatever, I know that it's pointless, because it's true, he's dead, and that's it, the end. Thanks for playing, Jenny, you lose. We do however have a lovely parting gift for you, of potententially more than a half-century of empty pointlessness.

And yet as much as I don't want to live without him (and I really, really do not want to live in a Chrisless world), I still have no urge to off myself. I don't know why. Maybe I just hate myself so much that I figure I'd be letting myself off the hook too easy by putting myself out of all this misery.

WOO I AM THE WORLD'S BIGGEST WHINER. On the less-emo side, that flap of skin on my hand continues to be cheerfully welded back with the rest of the flesh. It's certainly still tender and red, but there is no longer a sharp dividing line to show which bit was wigglin' around in mid-air about 12 hours ago. Ph33r my healing factor, yo.

My day, more or less chronologically.

This morning the neighbors awoke me by slamming kitchen drawers open and shut, as they often do. Their kitchen is on the other side of an all-too-thin wall from my bedroom, you see. And they really seem to hate those drawers. So they woke me up, and I drifted off into more broken sleep, and then at some point looked at my alarm clock and it was almost 6 AM. So they were probably slamming those drawers at closer to 5. Thanks, guys. I hate you and wish you would move out and be replaced by a family of narcoleptic mimes.

I kept almost breaking into tears during my first class, which is obviously not an acceptable turn of events. While walking to the bus stop and waiting for the bus I kept wondering whether I should try a walk-in counseling session or whether I should try to hold out for the appointment I made for next Friday; finally the bus decided for me, by being one of the "limited" ones that only go to the library and then make everyone get off. The health center is just across both the streets from the library. So off I went, across the streets and up to the fourth floor, and managed to get in with a counselor after a minimal wait.

Since it was just a walk-in we didn't really have the time to go very in-depth (though I still managed to go overtime, but eh). Still, I talked some to a person and left feeling better, so that's something. I also canceled the appointment with the other person, and scheduled another oen with the woman I saw today, on Monday. I don't know how long I'll keep seeing her, but I guess "as long as it helps" is a good rubrick for now.

When I asked, she said that the very vague cut-off line between "still standard grieving" and "gone on into just plain depression" is about a year. It's also a total garbage number, because everybody is different, but. It is fucking terrifying feeling like this and having no idea when you might expect it to start getting better. It is a little easier having a number in front of you. A year. It is something solid. I can work with that.

After checking out of the health center I came home, had barely enough time to get a shower and grab some food, and had to go back to campus again. Sat and wrote a cheesy little C# program in lab, waited way too long for the bus to show up, came home again. Sat at the computer and talked to silly people for a while, including introducing someone to the wonders of Silent Garfield; also secured dinner for myself. Dinner was stuffing and canned green beans, which was the closest thing I had to fresh greens which is what I am desperately craving right now. Only the beans A) tasted like metal and B) crunched in a manner similar to getting a bit of bone in with your shredded/ground meat product. Um. Yeah, down the disposal with that, then. Canned green beans are not supposed to crunch. They just aren't. Fresh ones, sure, with that veggie-type crunch. But not canned ones and not like this. Yick.

I should go to bed right about now, but instead I am typing a post while listening to the gangsta rap portion of the GTA:SA soundtrack. I really can't go without listening to music because it helps keep my brain busy, but at the same time like 90% of my music collection is currently depressing in some way (genuinely depressing songs and/or songs of lost love; songs of non-lost love; bands I learned of through Chris; bands I enjoyed the music of with Chris; bands whose music I at any point associated with Chris in some way; &c). Radio Los Santos, though, is for some reason "safe" as it were. So is the Silence Of The Lambs musical, but that's only about 20 minutes long so it gets real old real fast if you leave it going.

EXCITEMENT ABOUNDS.

Today I went to campus an hour early, and stopped in at the Eigenmann bookstore for the "course packet" I need for tomorrow's class. They didn't have it. Then I walked to the library and sat there reading (Guards! Guards!; I am giving Pratchett another try) until Guy With The Cheap Textbook arrived. I gave him a picture of Jackson and five pictures of Washington; he gave me a heavy lump of mainly paper. Good deal.

Then I had about ten minutes to get halfway across campus, uphill much of the way (because this is IU; no matter WHAT way you're going, much of it is uphill), to the class that the textbook was for. On the way, I managed to fall, half on the sidewalk and half in the mud. Skinned my knee, though I didn't realize that till I got home and got changed; I was more concerned at the time with A) how long it took to get up and going again, and B) the fact that I hadn't worn those pants but two hours and already they needed to be washed. I did make it to class, though. Hooray.

Then I went through the student union on the way back to the bus stop, and checked the bookstore there while I was at it. No course packet. That's okay. I only have TWO ASSIGNMENTS DUE TODAY BASED ON IT, that's all. Thanks, instructor! Good job of not making enough copies! Sadly, you did not succeed in making me get two big fat 0s, as I went ahead and did the assignments anyway. All it actually took was memory from previous classes (ha ha, I already KNOW how to convert binary to decimal!) windows calc (which of these values is bigger? I believe I will click buttons on the screen and find out!) and Google (prefix encoding, eh? let's see what this webpage says about that!). This will of course not do as a permanent solution, and I plan to ask her what the fuck she's smoking when I'm in there tomorrow morning. I halfway expect to get the song and dance about how if I wanted access to necessary learning materials, I should've gotten to the bookstore earlier, thus depriving someone ELSE of necessary learning materials. Apparently college is a giant game of musical chairs I guess? Pardon me, but my government handout money is NOT paying for Shroedinger's Textbook¹, no matter what you might think. So neener.

This installment of Dinosaur Comics is so awesome that I saved a copy to add to my collection of things that I might print out and put on a wall someday. I used to have a wall of comics back in California. I should do that again here. I don't technically read Dinosaur Comics except I kind of do now because I have started reading Chris's friends list in addition to my own. There are things there that I had no idea he would be that interested in. It is kind of scary and sadmaking that that is so.

On the missing-Chris front I am basically just going on. Most of the time I feel like I'm phoning in existence, and just about all of the time I see little to no point. I just keep slogging ahead, hoping that someday things will not suck, because that is all I have ever done. I think I posted a similar thing a while ago, but it's still true. I just feel kind of empty and dead inside a lot, and I don't cry so much anymore, but I do spend a lot of time lying in bed staring at the ceiling unable to sleep or to feel anything but lost. I don't know if this means I'm getting better or worse.

And that is the obligatory Full, Long, Very Boring Update Thing. Tomorrow I will have to be gone from 8:30AM till 11:30ish, and 3PM till potentially after 9. Thursdays. Hope I get the hang of Thursdays this semester.

Yep.


1. See, because it might or might not be available to me -- I won't know till I hit the bookstore, thus collapsing the waveform.

Holy Zod I think that is the first time I have EVER made a Shroedinger's X joke where I was actually using the term halfway correctly. MAKE A NOTE OF IT.

I actually care enough to change the userpic on the entry for once. Look, a cute vole. When I was making this userpic I remember thinking that Chris would like it. You know what? I bet he would. Voles are just that awesome. And cute.

From AIM a little while ago:
[01:48:52] The Jennybork: YOU
[01:48:54] The Jennybork: ENTERTAIN ME
[01:49:00] [16-year-old e-friend]: ALRIGHT
[01:49:03] [16-year-old e-friend]: -strips-
[01:49:12] [16-year-old e-friend]: HOW IS THAT?
[01:49:15] The Jennybork: Um. I think you just made me a criminal.

My brain is getting slowly used to the idea that my time with Chris is a thing of the past, that "never again" really DOES mean "no, seriously, NEVER EVER AGAIN". It is kind of terrifying. I guess it's necessary so I can heal and get on with my life and whatever else, but it's still kind of terrifying. Jenny, comfortably in a relationship and lookin' forward to gettin' married someday, is gone. Now there is only Zuuluh er I mean Jenny who is livin' the single life and not enjoying it at all. Also Zuul NO DAMMIT NO ZUUL AND I AM STILL NOT THE GATEKEEPER¹

I thought Valentine's day was stupid and pointless last year, and the year before, and the year before, and so on. This year I am probably going to be extra-emo about its stupidness to boot, because I am all alone and so on. Blarg. It is probably a good sign that I am terribly annoyed by all the emo. It means I am not entirely soaking in it anymore.

On Saturday I will be falling off the Internet for a while. Someone will be coming down here to get me and take me back up to Indy, either to mechamom's or mechasister's. I don't know how long I'll be gone; certainly at least until the 2nd of January, and maybe not for a few days after that. I'll have my cell so I can make phoneposts if I need to, though, and those of you that know the number, if for some reason you feel that you cannot go a second longer without getting my unique perspective on life, feel free to call.

Sean, you can't have the number. I'm just sayin' before you ask. So don't bother. MAYBE IF YOU WERE NOT SUCH A JERK THINGS WOULD BE DIFFERENT; FEEL FREE TO TAKE THAT TRIP TO HELL NOW

I finally updated my comics link list after like two months of not getting around to it. Although I'm pretty sure that I left something off, even if I can't remember what it was. All of those comics are good, and deserve your eyeballs.

I had chicken barbecue pizza for dinner tonight. I ordered it online and then like an hour and twenty minutes later Mad Mushroom FINALLY called and said that they had just gotten the fax in, but I told them I still wanted it, 'cause I did. When I eventually got it, I ate half of it all at once. Pizza tastes even more delicious when you've been starvin' for three hours! Especially when it is just about the best chicken barbecue pizza you can get in all of Bloomington, a town well-known for its multifarious pizzarias.

Whipped out We Love Katamari today, and managed to finally get past Bright on the firefly stage. Good stuff. I am debating whether to give GTA:SA another try; I'm currently stuck on three different mission strands, but even if I can't pass any missions, I can still run around San Andreas stealin' cars, cappin' fools, and pimpin' hos. Technology betters all our lives!

That's about it, I think.

1. Mainly referring to the three-parter linked here. Man, what is it with me and weird little pagey thingies involving mythical evilish creatures.²
2. See, 'cause I also did this in August 2004.

I like cheese.

Looks like that desperate emergency trip up to Indy wasn't quite so desperate after all, but we still hung out with mechafamily a bit just in case. I'm back home now, at least for now, while mecha is still being cared for back up there -- I basically had to come home because up there I had nothing to do but worry about mecha and think endlessly on how alone I am now that the man I love has died without my last words to him being anything even the least bit meaningful. Needless to say my mood has not been terribly good over most of the last two days.

Now, laundry and stuff. Delicious time-passing activities, allowing me to not be completely subsumed by grief. Yes please.

I wish I could stop crying.

I wish a whole lot of things, actually, but that seems the simplest one.

This isn't fair.