The day before yesterday, there was hair all over the floor.

The rubber band that was holding the locks in a well-formed tail had snapped under it's own isometric power, at a spot where ther must have been a nick, a fault in the strength of the band. It spilled all over the shelf, down the wall, and to the floor.

I tried for several hours to assemble the tail again, with no success.

The remains of the long, silky memento of my youth finally ended up in the garbage. A small broom and the vacuum cleaner removed the rest of it from the floor and the kitchen counter where I failed to repair it. Some overlooked hair which had fallen onto the range burned and stank when I cooked lunch.

Apr 29 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

on the radio: National Public Radio program commemorating the 25th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam.

my condition: worn out, but happy that I go a lot of housecleaning done.

Apr 24 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

audio environment: no music - just background noise; the computer's fan, the ever-present quiet mechanical sound of unknown origin, cars passing on the street outside, Destiny shifting in bed.

my condition: pleased to have finished a good book: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester.

Apr 24 2000 0 comments

There's a gnawing disgust in my gut.

In images, references, and stories, if there's a single parent and a daughter, that parent is always the mother.

If an adult male is seen with a little girl, there's a certain negativity to it; he is seen as distant, or unrelated, or disconnected. Or, it's used in a "fish out of water" sense, as the years of Full House and My Two Dads reruns have shown us.

The idea of the single father with a daughter is not a common image in our society, and I'm not sure if that makes it more difficult for me, or more special in it's uniqueness. I can understand why minorities become so emotional over the lack of representation in the media; as a minority by lifestyle, I lack of positive representation of single fatherhood to justify me to society at large.

Apr 20 2000 0 comments

Nothing builds my self-confidence more than catching a lovely woman dropping hints that she likes me.

Apr 20 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

in CD player: nine inch nails the fragile

my condition: got a good night sleep, tomorrow is a holiday, my pictures are ready at WalMart, and I get to leave work early to go to the dentist. Not a bad day so far!

Apr 20 2000 0 comments

4/20/00 girly boy

I was checking my logs for this journal site. There were the expected ones, hits sent by webrings and my own webpage, but one strange link was present. I clicked on it, and found that someone has submitted this site to a web index. Not only was it a web index, but an index augmented by opinions of the various listings. The one and only comment regarding these insights to my life is rather indifferent. The one significant point was the fact that the writer missed a very important thing -- the writer has used the pronoun "her" in reference to me.

It's probably just a slip of the tongue, automatic identification with the things I said assumed I was the same gender as her, or assumption that I'm a woman since most online-diarists seem to be female. Continue reading…

Apr 17 2000 0 comments

When you blow bubbles from a 3rd story balcony, they don't just fall to the ground or stick to a wall and pop, leaving a oily film on everything. They tumble over the railing and whip around in the wind, eventually being dragged around the corner of the building or up over the roof.

Apr 15 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

on the radio: The Thistle and the Shamrock on NPR

my condition: melting over the women with Irish accents on the radio

Apr 14 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

On the radio: MPR's The Morning Show

My condition: sick of cold weather -- freezing sleet stinks.

Apr 14 2000 0 comments

Three tiny sparrows were keeping out of the snow by hanging out on my balcony. They were picking on each other, pushing, flapping their wings at one another, and so forth.

I wasn't interested in rough-housing on my balcony, so I went over to the patio door and knocked on it, saying loudly, "HEY!"

The birds stopped, turned and looked at me defiantly for a few seconds, and went back to their carousing.

Tough birds in my neighborhood.

Apr 11 2000 0 comments

"Who's that singing on the baydio?"

"Nobody is singing; it's just music. I think that's a clarinet."

[long pause]

"No, I think it's fairies singing."

Apr 10 2000 0 comments

"No, don't say 'I think so'. I hate when people just say 'I think so.' Either you know or you don't and you'll find out."

*laughter* "OK, I'll try."

"Derek, my computer gives me this error...can you fix it for me?"

"I think so."

Apr 10 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

in CD player: Lost Highway soundtrack

my condition: tired. I've had trouble sleeping the past few nights, with no obvious reason why.

Apr 9 2000 0 comments

4/9/00 the art of creation

Everyone is all hot-to-trot about how amazing the WWW is, how creative it allows you to be, how original everything is and the amazing outlet that it offers to everyone and everybody.

Well, you know what? It's not that great. The WWW is a publishing medium -- it's not interactive, it's not malleable or changeable. The Powers that Be try as they might to add on hacked patches to HTML and call them DHTML, XML, VRML, etc., in the hopes that they can give people the flexibility to be more creative.

What it ends up being is text on a page -- static & unchangeable. Sure, things can be updated regularly, but newspapers are updated daily, magazines are updated monthly, & the phone book is updated yearly. Items on the internet may be able to update more regularly, but it's still the same system.

User interaction is the difference. Go to any major website -- how much is created entirely by the users who frequent the site? Continue reading…

Apr 7 2000 0 comments

Like most days, I stepped into the elevator.

Like most days, I noticed a single noseprint disrupting the smooth surface of the mirrored elevator wall.

Apr 7 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

On radio: Fresh Air on NPR

my condition: disappointed that my scanner sucks so much.

Apr 3 2000 0 comments

Daily Condition:

in CD player: Aphex Twin I care only because you do (or something like that)

my condition: tired, cranky, want to go home.