Month: February 2004

Looking back at the past pattern, you know the, HAPPY sad HAPPY sad HAPPY sad…., pattern, today I should be sad. But I am not really. We talked for the longest time today. And it wasn’t nearly as strained as it has been for a very long time. It felt quite good actually. I am able to separate need, want, understanding, fantasy. Life isn’t a whole lot more complicated than it has to be. I let mine become that way when emotion blurred the lines between these things. I needed today’s events so much. I am peaceful now. I’d say broken, but a peaceful broken. I am not fantasizing over events that probably wouldn’t have ever happened and letting it eat me knowing I “lost it”.

At some point you have to realize fantasy is all nice and good. But reality is where you live in, and more importantly, there is nothing preventing it from being a whole lot nicer than fantasy. I have fished around with lyrics enough. This just wouldn’t feel right without a dialogue from (easily one of the greatest movies of all time, yes all time, and no, your opinion does not count) High Fidelity. If by some anomaly you haven’t seen it, I pity you.

Rob: I’m tired of the fantasy, because it doesn’t really exist. and there are never really any surprises, and it never really…
Laura: Delivers?
Rob: Delivers. And I’m tired of it. And I’m tired of everything else for that matter. But I don’t ever seem to get tired of you, so….

Exactly. Any other dimension, any other universe, any other point in time, I will do the exact same things I’ve done. None of it was a “waste” of anything. If I “end up like this” then too, so be it. I am happy. I am I. I know exactly how much I need her and on what level I need her. And I know I have her forever on that level.

Starting tomorrow I am going to live real life a little. The small things. Meet people. Take walks. Smell the flowers. The small things. Things I have neglected to do in a very long time. I am getting a hair cut. I am contemplating exercise. I was considering swimming. I am going to compose. I am going to draw. I am going to sing.

I know it sounds as if I want to do a whole lot to prevent myself from spending every moment of my life thinking about her, or how to make her smile, or making something cute for her to giggle about, or worrying about how to help her fight her problems, or worrying about finishing work as soon as I can to maximize my time with her, or … . Then again, maybe I am to some extent. Maybe I need this for retention of sanity. Maybe I need this to actually taste some of the world outside. Not to make her feel any less important than she knows she means to me.

I repeat. I am going to live. I know it will be fun.

I know, my standards are easily met. Weee.. an exceptionally cute ladybird!

Update: I feel a tad guilty. I have to admit some of this has to do with responses to me reporting my rather huge strides at work.
“If this is true I’ll buy you coffee, tea, drinking chocolate, nougat, malt, etc. of your choice.”
It’s times like this when I wished I fancied warm beverages.

Guess who was handed a codebase that was at the time capable of handling ~9 million variables.
Guess who took about a month and scaled that up to over 460 million, while finding problems in the original code, fixing them and sending patches back to really smart people in top places.
Guess who, over the last unhappy week, diverted his attention to this and kicked that up a notch to now handle 2+ billion.
Guess who can now run really really really complicated problems, fast, while snickering at those who cannot.

Guess who is beyond glowing.
Guess who felt he probably did all this to negate being as sad.

Guess who feels guilty it did negate a large portion of it.

Baby’s got blue skies up ahead
But in this I�m a rain cloud
You know she needs a dry kind of love
Oh oh oh, the sweetest thing

I�m losing you
I�m losing you
Ain’t love the sweetest thing

I have done a lot I am not particularly proud of over the past few days. I don’t know what I was thinking or what I hoped to achieve. I’ve been feeling horrid, but I deserve to be this way. I have been doing nothing but causing sadness to the one person I want to see happy more than anything I want in this world. I don’t have the right to do any of this. Right now, I know it would crush me if it were so, but I almost wish I didn’t mean enough to warrant such emotion. At least my stupidity wouldn’t be hurtful.

The more I behave like this, the more I push her away, the more distant she behaves, the more hurt I get, the more I tend to react this way, …

There is almost no line separating ‘fighting to get back what you feel you lost’ and ‘actually losing it while behaving like an insensitive clod fighting to get back what you feel you lost’. I’ve unknowingly crossed it a long time ago.

Saying ‘glass screeching while being scratched does not realize it is hurting the lens cleaner’ does not cut it. I am not glass. I have a brain.

I hate my brain. I hate it.

I fished up. Big time. I feel horrid. My tummy is all quesy. I really am a mean person.

I am not risking croaking here in this state. I chose to do something different elsewhere. I cannot hurt or sadden anyone that way.

Now to go home and toss and turn. I deserve that too. What is wrong with me?

Today was an exceptionally amazing day. Oh my god am I happy. But you do realize it is not going to last don’t you? I mean, I do, so I am going to be exceptionally amazingly happy and that’s that. We take our temporally happy phases seriously.

When we get them that is.

So you run along and have a great day too.

Update: Hmm. So much for that. I just found out my brother broke his phone.

And his leg. Hmm.

I will keep coming back to this at different points of time because screaming into space is strangely therapeutic. If what I say bothers you, don’t read it. Just leave. I need this and you know it.

How much can you let someone’s actions take away from you? I mean, there must be some limit, shouldn’t there? Shouldn’t our happy-peaceful places be sacred and untouchable? When is it that a person opens up those places to be routed too? When was it that I opened up those places to be routed? Where then can you go in your head when you need peace anymore?

In the beginning, it was the small things. At first, I couldn’t see movies in theater any more. Sure, big deal, I could live without that. Then I found out more, and now, I cannot sit down and watch them at home as well. But then again, they were just movies. Not particularly a big portion of my life. It bothered me, but not particularly so. These weren’t related to my happy-places. Their loss was noticed, but not mourned. Hey, I now found stand up comedy. It’s orders of magnitude cooler. Really.

And then things evolved. Things were hitting closer to home. Closer to regions that shouldn’t have been touched. We were now tiptoeing into music. I never realized I was that weak that I needed these things to keep me comforted when there was nothing else to lean on. That my happy places were functions of external stimuli. That I wasn’t self sufficient when it came to retaining my state of peace.

Again, it started of small. Random bands I liked, no loved, but did not need. I can’t stand to listen to them or even think about them anymore. But again, such losses are bearable. And then, it really hits. The only band’s music that has mattered to me. They have the most nonsensical lyrics. They lack talent. They’re stupid, always in trouble and obnoxious. None of that matters. Their “noise” calmed me. I’ve felt that way since I heard bootlegged copies of demo tapes before they had major labels backing them and copies of gigs in pubs. It was their music. Now, with events, I cannot stand some of their stuff. I’ve lost that. Too. They do not calm me when they used to be able to.

How hard is it for someone to see how much things they say and do can affect you? How hard is it for me to see I shouldn’t be affected so easily?

I wonder how she’d be if another woman read me lines from poems by her favorite poets, ones she didn’t read me, and I am affected by it. It didn’t have to mean anything. Just me excitedly describing it to her.

What is it with me huh? I am the most rational guy I know. I am cold, calculated, sane. I am realistic. I am more than realistic, I am pessimistic. Where is there room for the heart? Where is there room for hanging on to threads of hope? Why the hell should the heart have a say when it is all so clear in my head? At what point did it start having a say? Why am I doing this to me? Am I happier hurting me? Do I relish pain? At what point of time did I change?

When did I start listening to what it was saying. All body parts have strict duties. The brain does the thinking, and the heart does what it does best, pump blood around my body. When did I forget that? What is this obsession with things that cannot be realized?

I spoke to her and was so calm. I had accepted eventualities. At first she was “drawn” to him. Now she’s “very drawn” to him. I doubt if it can be called love, but does that matter? My brain tells me “Now hear this, all body and soul, please remember you will always mean a whole lot to her. Her feelings or lack of for other people doesn’t discount what she feels toward you”. At which point I was extremely happy, and peaceful.

I honestly believed I was all fine. I believed we were good again.

And then it hits. A tidal wave of emotion. I hear bits and pieces of news. I hear from her she’s happy with him. I hear how I cannot do that anymore. It’s not always what I hear. It is how I hear it. How excited she is. How excited.. his actions makes her. I know I am not supposed to feel displaced. I know events don’t have to kick feelings to magically higher levels. I know all this. But they can. I cannot bear it now, when she is here to tell me over and over how much more important I am. Or how much more I mean to her. How will I take it when I finally have to face it someday? Listen you, he means more now, get over it.

I know her better than anyone ever can. I know more about her than anyone ever will. All of this works the other way too. We don’t even need to talk at points because it’s redundant. We just know what is in the other’s head. So much of what I hear from her now is she mirroring what I’ve told her over so long. We’ve felt one at points of time. I understand her life issues has me put in second place before I even started the race.

I know so much. I understand so much. I am not “losing” anything. We’re still the closest. I still matter a great deal to her. Why do I have to go through so much pain? How is it that my brain can tell me one thing, and the stupid heart decides it still has a googol unresolved feelings? Can’t it just get no means no? Can’t it realize she didn’t use me until the next best thing showed up? How can I even think that of her?

I wish I were fast enough to resolve this before he showed up. I wish I weren’t so far away.

If I were some romantic, none of this would be a bother. That would be how I saw and felt things. I am not. I am sane and rational.

What is it with rationality these days? What is it with me?

Under most normal circumstances, I would have cracked up every single time I heard the woman say it, but I was having a very hard time trying to laugh.

This is about my trip earlier this week to a performance of the vagina monologues. There are a bunch of reasons I didn’t write about this earlier. The biggest being life. Life is messed up, and I’ve never experienced a bigger creativity (or even just enthusiasm) zapper. I’ve just been feeling sluggish and in general, disinterested. The me I was before I morphed for a little while.

Anyway, braving along.

It all started a little while ago when I was walking past one of these ticket selling places, and I saw the little pamphlet sized poster for this act. You know, the one with the dominatrix leather boot thing, with the words “Vagina Monologues” on it. Hmm.. talking genitalia? I have to admit I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I am quite the connoisseur of the stand up comic, and for the most part assumed it was “just another show”. A good one, but nothing out of the ordinary. On to that later. So there I was, near the ticket stand and lil miss I’m so cute you have to buy a ticket was there too.

How often are you going to get a chance to use the word vagina in a conversation with a perfect stranger, and use that as humour material getting her to giggle without being slapped? Not too often, I just HAD to. Needless to say, I now had tickets to the show. And not just that, somehow the rest of it seems to be a blur, but I was now also watching Artemesia (the tale of a defiant and provocative woman artist in the 1600s!) and Kill Bill (I could describe it, but “blood”, should about cover it).

Yes, being a guy is kinda like trading brains with an imbecile, only worse. Anyway, on to the show.

Firstly, a good portion of the show wasn’t even a monologue. They weren’t even dialogues. There were so many women on stage during so many parts, even multilogues won’t cut it. And firstly (there are two firstlies, a tie) I’ve never been at a place with 2000 people or whatever with a 1:100 ratio of men to women. It was a good weird.

Initially, it felt just weird. For a long time, I didn’t see a guy. And I mean a really long time. I wasn’t being overly stared at, but I didn’t want to be some weirdo roaming around where I shouldn’t have been or some such. In a little bit, after I counted 3 or so more men, I realized I wouldn’t be stoned or however it is this half of the species deal with intruders. It rather quickly dawned on me (actually, a lot later than a normal person, but saying “quickly” makes me feel smart, and I will stick to quickly) that this wasn’t about comedy at all.

This was a front for educating people about (and attempting to end) violence against women and girls. A very very dark and disturbing theme, yet a noble cause. It was, at points of time a little too much for me to handle. I mean, in my world, the one in my head?, none of such evil exists. It took some convincing to get me to actually try to have a little fun and not puke.

Some stuff was actually quite funny. But you never really could laugh laugh, given the undertone screaming gang rapes, date rapes, genital mutilation, incest, brutality, sex trafficking, … and strangely enough … melted faces. I don’t know if it is the war, but somehow there were a lot of references to melted faces when bombs are dropped. Now, I am as compassionate and understanding as the next person, BUT THAT ISN’T SPECIFIC TO WOMEN. There would have been as many, or probably more men and boys who lost their faces to explosives too. Men don’t have magical flame retardant faces or something.

I originally planned to describe the show itself in g(l)ory(ious) detail, but I’ve chosen a different (and yes, obviously easier) approach. I’ve linked to an MP3 [3.24 MB] for a sneak peek, incase you HAVE TO EXPERIENCE THIS NOW. This was one of the relatively “funny” ones. There was this one hilarious bit involving a woman detailing on stage the different stages and sorts of moaning. Basically, she was up on stage for 20 or so minutes moaning.

My favourite? The college girl moan. “Oh Oh Ooooh, I should be studying, Ohhh oh, but I..forgive me.. ooooh”. Finally, a bit where I was laughing without worrying about the ultra serious messages and facts that were being conveyed. And obviously, the other woman, who kept calling it her coochie snorcher. Like who knew? The clitoris has TWICE the nerve ending concentration as the penis, and its sole purpose is to please the woman. Sheesh. Some halves of the species have all the luck.

(Obligatory, yet moot question. I am not equipped to answer it, but that’s never stopped me before.)
If my vagina could talk what would it say?
Umm… “Good god almighty! I can TALK.”?

I don’t know what it is, but the term vagina warrior keeps conjuring up the image of Xena, the warrior princess in my head. On a more serious note, you probably ought to check out their sites and how to help them if you happen to have this random piggy bank in your heart in which you store all those “I must give back so much to the world today” coins. Now is your chance. Make that huge withdrawal.

And yes, I just have to say it again, coooooochie snorcher.
You know you want to too. Go ahead.

Coooochie snorcher.

I made some “me time” a little while ago to just get out and clear my head. It isn’t too much clearer, but I noticed the sunset and now slowly beginning to melt snow seemed happy together, in their little orange world. I took multiple pictures at various points during this period, and I am posting one, for now.

Clickey Clickey.

It wasn’t the “best” picture in the set by a longshot. I just like cool haloey effect caused by manual exposure setting to over a 3^rd of a second.

One of those days again. The feeling of loss with never real gain days. They suck so much.

I’ve been trying stuff to get the picture pages automation enabled. I am leaning on original to do this for me.

It will be themed to match the site, before (if) it becomes the default picture handling thing. It took like 30s to make this gallery of images, as opposed to the hour it would have taken to do by hand. It is worth it, I think.

It’s at: /photos/

Thoughts? Before you hastily say, “it sucks”, it can be themed to be niceish. Like here. (Just make sure you’re seeing the gorilla theme.)

Update: WOAH! THIS IS HUGE. All these, “let’s keep my brain occupied so that I don’t worry about life issues” days are turning out to be:
a) too frequent for comfort
b) insanely productive! (discounting life crushing events of course)
c) the days when you get to enjoy brilliantly conceived uninteresting tech drivel because I don’t know how else to express what else is going on.

In a moment of bravery and things, made a sort of “copy” of this blog and updated that to wordpress. The theme will be reverted to this blue-grey one in time, but the backend will now move to a much newer codebase. Which I am guessing is a lot cooler, functionally.

Check it out here: beta.emphaticallystatic.org/simplicity

Please don’t comment there. Yes, you, you know who you are. The database tables will not be synced in the future when I fully move to that “officially”. Your words of wisdom will be lost. Forever.

Will someone please explain to the retarded weather fairy woman this isn’t the north pole?

But then again, it is really pretty sometimes.

Hmm. This isn’t so bad really. I am more than used to it by now. Maybe I’ll just move into some corner of the uni sometime. It won’t make a difference to anybody, and will be a lot easier on me.

General cluelessness and stupidity warning – IAJAG^*.

I think a woman and a guy can be totally happy together, purely on the basis of him being her lifelong (extremely hard to do, yet you can delude yourself into thinking you can) “do it yourself” improvement project.

And I am not kidding, I really do.

There is obviously this intense need the female has, to improve aspects of her life. It can be something relatively small, like rearranging the furniture over and over again around her nest. But the scary part is, our male friend too can be happily clubbed into one of these aspects. Things can go on quite nicely, she believing he is someday going to step into that cocoon she’s built for him, the phat slug that he is now, and magically come out all pretty and butterflyey.

It’s like, we’ve awakened their inner carpenter. And we’re their friendly neigbourhood hardware store’s “get everything you need in one box” project kits. I mean the workbench, the work material AND the tool chest. (If you’re wondering, yes. I am especially proud I thought of tool chest. And that one word, or is that two? is the only reason this post even exists.)

ALL IN ONE KIT. Now which sane project doer can pass up such a deal?

It’s like, they’re just greedy. They’re the bedrock of society, caretakers of our children, the ones who uphold our values and ensure harmony … . They get to CREATE LIFE and ensure perpetuation of the people, AND YET, there is still a lurking need to create. To make something out of nothing. To make something of their man. Sure, these occasionally lead to these spots of bother and turbulence. I mean, once in a few years you will go through the, “But but, after all I’ve said and shown you, you HAVEN’T CHANGED. NOT ONE BIT”. (At which point, you’re like.. oh..kay, so is she violent because we aren’t better men yet, or she is beating herself up for not being too good at moulding the lump of clay she was handed.) But then again, they’re patient and forgiving. So they happily assume in time things will be different. For all their intelligence and sensitivity, there are some things they just don’t get.

We don’t change. We CAN’T change. We know this. You spend all that time and effort on attempting to improve us, but we’re not budging. Even if we do, we’ll still fake being our stupid selves. Isn’t it obvious why? That was an important component, admit it or not, of the attraction in the first place. If we’re suddenly all improved and mature and sensitive and nice and caring and clean and … where’s the challenge? We’re afraid you’ll happily move along to greener, (or is that less green) grazing grounds, and set about making them green.

We’re devious about this too. We assume they will assume we will change, and be patient. And I mean very patient. Banking on this, we just be who we are. In time, biological clocks and what not, we’re hoping to hear something like “Ok, I give up, I presume this is where your evolution chose to stop”, and accept us for who we are.

But then again, like I started off saying. What do I know? IAJAG^*. We’re the ones who base our needs on extremely strong grounds.

^*IAJAG – I am just a guy.

I listen to people. People know I listen to them. Now this is all fine and good.. usually. There are times, however, when this makes events more complicated than they have to be. For instance, when someone comes up to me with a standard “Hey, how was your day?”, I cannot answer immediately with a standard canned “Decent enough”. I have to look at their eyes and body language and what not and attempt to figure out what it is they’re really trying to say.

a. I am genuinely interested in how your day went. (Seldom the case)
b. I am acknowledging your presence, and this seems like as good a way to do it as any other. (Most probably the case)
c. My day was great, and I am dying to tell someone about it.
d. My day was horrid, and I need you (or any one else) to listen to me.
e. Some other weird special case that’s hard to figure.

It’s obvious it’s mostly one of b-e, and that this isn’t about my day at all. It doesn’t have to be like this, but this isn’t the root cause of my issues. All I’m saying is I should be able to get away with something generic like a “Great. How about you?” and be able to walk off without waiting for an answer. But no, magically the world knows I cannot do this and will stop everything for them. So I have to (within the allowable 3 millisecond response time period), classify their words under a-e, and come up with a suitable tone that matches up with what they’re going to say next. Anything from non chalant, to excited for them, to sympathetic and helpful. It is so complicated.

Either I’ve been talking to a lot more people recently, or I have this huge sign on my head that makes everybody “just know” this, but this is getting to be too frequently recurring an event for comfort. I don’t know what it is. Older people, younger people, PEOPLE I DON’T REALLY KNOW seem to take comfort in the fact that relatively idle ears exist. I don’t particularly mind this, but sometimes it is a bit extreme and I begin to wonder why the hell is it that I’m still there.

I would have been quite fine with it if it stopped there. But no. In a fit of delusional warpedness, people also magically assume I am a lot wiser and possess keener foresight than I actually do. It will thus start of as a general whine, and then I will get asked for input on the most obscure life decisions, behave as a moral compass, you know, general things I do not know and have no basis for making an informed judgement on, but will have to come up with one anyway. What is this about? Is this some weird “We asked wahgnube, he says this. It will work, but more importantly (I think), if it doesn’t, he said so. It’s his fault.” thing I do not get?

Stop. You have a brain. It’s your life. Live it. Screw it up. Just be you. I can listen. Sometimes it even irritates to listen. But I can and will.

I definitely cannot make your decisions.

I’ve been sort of neglecting the web log for the past few days. I don’t know what it is. It’s not that I’ve been that busy. I guess I’ve had my fair share of humour, creativity, general release and whininess, and whatever else I use this medium for, expressed in other forms. I’ve been feeling rather spent, and can’t really put down something I don’t feel like deleting. Like today’s. Arggh.

*One hand holds the other from backspacing while hitting the submit post button.*

For some reason, I remembered the work pages that have been left in limbo for a month or so with nothing really populated. Decided to get the preliminary work for the research pages equation rendering done today. I am happy with the results. Fixed a format for the resumé too. Got the files ready to populate the publications page.

Now all that’s left is to finalize the content for the research pages.

That and to not forget what this split was really about. Sheesh.

Update: The links on the publications page are now live. There are videos and other things if you look carefully enough.