Comfy couch - check
Squishy pillow - check
Soft blanket - check
Blinds filtering light just right - check
Windows open just enough to let in breeze - check
Remote control conveniently located near right hand - check
DVD player loaded up with disc one of the new "Dr. Who" series - check
Thankful thoughts for loaner of said series - check
Cat ready to jump up as soon as I get settled in - check
Lazy, indulgent, restful Saturday - CHECK
<contented sigh>
Okay, enough soul-baring and wallowing in the past...back to current events, blurbs about movies, and entries about things that really only matter to the writer and maybe to the people directly involved.
We apologize for the interruption.
Another glimpse into "Stacey's Psyche"...this is from the 2001 series. Ooooo, imagery...this one is based on the concept that if you don't know pain, you can't appreciate love as fully, much in the same way that you need to have ugliness to truly know beauty; otherwise, it becomes mundane and you lose sight of the qualities that make it so special. The flip side is that if you cut yourself off from the world to avoid being hurt, you also isolate yourself from the things that might bring you joy. You have to risk in order to achieve.
Actually, looking back at some of these, I think I was trying to talk myself into being more positive, trying to convince myself that there was light at the end of the tunnel. I desperately needed to know that it was all going to be worth it, and that I would get through it okay.
I eventually did. It wasn't easy, or quick, but I did.
...pollution...
i wish i may, i wish i might
i wish i had the strength to fight
i want to kick, i want to scream
i want to wake from this dread dream
the air is foul, the land is spoiled
the mountains toppled, the water soiled
such is the state of my inner world
no flags to fly, the banners furled
slowly i heal, bend to the task
raze to the ground, remove the mask
admit the pain, embrace the change
allow the hurt, find the range
emotions high, emotions low
now is the time to let them flow
by feeling the pain, it dulls the ache
feeds the strength, new steps to take
cleanse the land, the inner soul
slowly climbing towards the goal
of peace and joy, contentment found
center myself on stronger ground
build from the hurts, learn from the fear
embrace the now, shed the tear
must see beneath to appreciate above
the deeper the pain, the deeper the love
--010116sg
Another in the "Stacey's Psyche 2000" series. I like the minimalist theme to this one...even now, I am happy with the picture it paints, the progression, and the hope that is hinted at.
...paths...
black slack
track wrack
bleak sleek
meek speak
more chore
sore explore
fight right
sight light
--001012sg
Okay, this is one of those poems I mentioned in my last post...so skip it. Seriously. Move on, nothing to see here, move along. This post is strictly for me, to archive and put the bits into the ether so I can find them later.
Seriously, dude...you've been warned.
..two for the price of one...
continual clash
heart head
old enemies
strong friendsone needs
and gives
and aches
and breaksone thinks
and plans
explains
understandsmixed messages
lost connections
conflicting goals
one soul--001107sg
I just rediscovered a collection of things I'd written during a dark, hard, strange time of my life. They were driven by a need for catharsis; by getting some of the feelings out, it helped compartmentalize them, make them a little less immediate and give me a little more distance from them, which helped me work through them. Some of them were extremely melodramatic and over the top [okay, many of them], but I still like some of them. Something about the flow of the words, the rhythm, the beat appeals to me, even after all this time.
One of my favorites is this two-line bit from a longer outpouring; it has a rhythm and a beat that I still love today:
"haunted, taunted, tortured by
ghosts of trusting past"
I miss writing. I miss playing with words, trying to find the right rhythm or rhyme or feeling or method of expression. I used to write a lot, just for me...it's funny to go back through some of them now and see what I like and what makes me cringe, and to see what I would change and tweak and shuffle and update. Stacey's psyche, remixed and updated. The revised edition, new and improved.
But then I just let go and let the words stand as a testament to where I was at the time. Good, bad, melodramatic, injured, scarred, surviving, rebuilding...all me, all part of who I am today. And I'm pretty okay with who I am...
Okay, so "Live Free or Die Hard" wasn't exactly the mostest amazingest bestest incrediblest movie ever made. But it was fun, and definitely a thrill ride. There were some 'oh, puh-lease' moments, but in general, it delivered. Fun, fluffy, good escapism...McClane's still got it, and "Mac" [of the Apple Mac/PC commercials] is a surprisingly good actor. Who knew??
Just got back from an hour long walk...it's a beautiful night, temperature is perfect, flowers are fragrant. Wandered about, through the park, along the streets. Stopped by the swim center to peek inside and check out the hours. Walked through the garden at the Unitarian Universalist church down the street, zoned out a bit at their rock labyrinth [not quite meditating, but not just standing...sort of 'disconnecting' for a while, letting my brain go its own way for a few cycles]. Nice to let it all go for a bit...
Home now, winding down. Got the trash gathered and taken out, so I feel like I've done something productive. Dr. Who is waiting on the VCR, cats are settling down, and a strawberry margarita is calling my name. Contented sigh...
Made a big decision today. Priorities, life, family, the future, sanity, fulfillment, satisfaction, growth, paths I'm on and paths I want to take...all those figured into it and more. It's funny how you take so long to build up to something, then *boi-oi-oing* you suddenly act on it. Seems impulsive, but it's not really...it's the culmination of hours/days/weeks/months of foreground and background pondering, pluses and minuses adding up, tally marks going into columns, pros being weighed against cons, yeah-buts and what-ifs. 
Then one day the last piece falls into place, like that final x-shaped bit of yellow plastic that dropped into the blue and red ball when you were a kid...and tah-dah, you have leapt.
Geronimo!!!
Why in the world do I remember that the combination to the lock I used in high school was 15-31-21??
Radio station Live105 turns into KGAY for the weekend and plays excellent mixes and mashups. Sweet.
Weekends just aren't long enough, especially when you've had a good one. Spent Friday night resting and getting my voice back [finally]. Saturday I spent some good time with Rod, blissing out on Kioku sushi [mmm, Nero and Godzilla rolls...], seeing the new Fantastic Four movie [it was bad, but in a fun and entertaining way], spending hours talking and catching up. A very good, very relaxing time...
Today was the Pride Parade...this year's theme was "Pride, Not Prejudice". And like always, the underlying theme is acceptance. Who you are, who you love, how you are built...doesn't matter. Be you. Be proud. Be strong.
The parade was as fun as ever. George Takei was hanging out on the Google float, which made me very happy [I'm such a dork]. Naked guys on bikes. Lots of bouncy breasts. Leather. Smiles. Beads. The woman next to me who also came from a small midwestern town, and shared my love of the acceptance and joy that the parade and San Francisco embody. Feathers. Faeries. Dykes. Bikes. Mikes. Bikes. Bears. Abs, butts, boobs. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Families. Friends. Support. Love. Acceptance. Fierce, fierce pride.
Fun.
I thought the squeaky voice and scratchy throat were just because of over-enthusiastic warbling of 80s songs at the show Friday night...I thought they were hanging on a bit longer than they should, but figured it would clear up like any 'post-concert' throat. No such luck, darn it...it got really bad on the way home yesterday, and now a raw throat, slight fever, and little-to-no voice are keeping me home today.
Doh.
[Took me three tries to squeak out a voicemail greeting saying I was out of the office...sounds like someone is torturing a frickin' mouse. :^P ]
This weekend was a weird mix. I found out that my Aunt Pearl [Mom's sister] died Friday afternoon. She'd been in bad shape, so it was one of those "it's a release and a relief" situations, but it still hits you in the heart. I wasn't as close to Pearl as I might be to some other relatives, and for a while I felt a bit guilty about not feeling more devastated...but as I talked with my mom a bit more, I accepted that it was very normal to have varying degrees of grief.
After that phone call, I met up with Susy, Susan, and Lucinda to see "Tainted Love" [80s cover band]...poor Susan was pretty sick and couldn't go, so we tried to have extra fun for her. It was a blast, but very warm and sweaty in the club...turned out to be a very good thing Susan didn't go since she wasn't feeling well. Took me a while to get into the spirit of it, but the timing was good, and I was able to lose myself in the goofy 80s music for a while.
Saturday was a really good day...Katie invited me to the Campbell Highland Games where her boyfriend's rugby team was playing. Hung with her and her friends, met some really cool people, wandered the festival, and ended up at a pub with both rugby teams and the groupies [of which I was one]. Had an excellent time with Alicia, Ben, Lunchbox, and the gang. One of the best parts was singing Monty Python's "Penis Song" with Lunchbox, alternating lines and harmonizing on the final verse. A good time was had by all... :^)
Sunday was Father's Day, and I had a very good phone call with Dad...it ended up being nearly *four* hours long, which surprised us both when we looked at the time. Wouldn't have traded it for the world...
So the weekend ended up being about friends, old and new, and family, here and gone...and appreciating them all.
The Wachowski brothers are doing a live-action Speed Racer movie.
I...I just don't know what to say...
Katie and I came up with this one on a particularly hectic day:
"It sucks to be you.
It sucks to be me dealing with you."
Rails, that is. Yup, another Passion Party with the gals [as part of Susan's "Going Away Tour 2007"], then chilling on the deck before heading on to the Brass Rail.
The party was fun. Tanicia, the consultant, was just as cool, patient, and fun as last time, and she tailored this party to the crowd now that she knew what we liked and what our tolerance level was. A few cryptic highlights: the "dental mirror" [the 'magic Q-tip' of this party...most of us bought one], Pablo [Pedro's gay younger brother], the deck of cards, naming the fifth type of orgasm, meeting Gigi's glow-in-the-dark friend. After the party, I got to spend some time talking with Susan's daughter Kimberly. We had a really good conversation, and I really enjoyed it...I asked Susan to give her my email address so we can keep in touch if she wants.
After everyone put in their orders and a few folks left, the rest of us relaxed on the deck and shared a really good can of Diet Pepsi; once that was gone, we climbed in the car and drove the whopping mile or so down the road to The Brass Rail [you've gotta love that Susy lives within walking distance of a strip club...and frequents it].
The evening started out slowly...the women weren't really paying attention to us, and our favorite dancer wasn't working. But the DJ was a lot of fun, and he kept us entertained...then a little while in, things picked up when he played 'Baby Got Back' [we picked it, he played it]. Our waitress started dancing to it at our table, and then another dancer [Manhattan] came over and starting dancing with her...and we had a front row seat for the show, and the attention of most of the place was on our little corner [many dollar bills were handed over for that one]. It was a good mix of dancers towards closing: good personalities, lots of smiles, lots of fun. We were laughing and joking with the waitress and the DJ, drinking Midori daquiris [dangerously tasty], and slowly going through our piles of dollar bills. Then closing time neared, and we headed out before everyone hit the parking lot...another fun evening at the "bikini bar" with a cool group of friends.
On the way home, I made an indulgent drive through McDonald's for french fries and light lemonade. There's something inherently cool and hedonistic about getting drive-through junk food at 2:30am...
Now to crawl into bed and hopefully sleep into the afternoon...that would make this a pretty darned perfect start to the weekend.
Yay! As I was tearing my hair out with the infected machine yesterday, I posted the issue and what I'd done so far to the spywareinfo forums [http://www.spywareinfo.com] to see if anyone had any ideas. Then when I made progress and actually tamed the evil beastie, I posted the steps I'd taken, in case the info might help someone caught in a similar trap.
Well, this morning I woke up to find a reply telling me that someone else had the same issue, and used my post to help them get their machine back. Happy!
Folks, this is what I love about IT: the community, the sharing of knowledge, the gazillions of different ways people approach things, always learning something new. The net [teh intraweb] is great for that communication and sharing...a communal mind, people posting, asking for help, receiving it, beating on problems, and commiserating if they can't be solved. And it feels really good to know that I was able to help someone else out, after all the times I've been the one needing help. And *man* it feels good to be doing some IT support work for a change...
<whistles a happy tune>
There's a reason they call it 'malware'. I'm still at work, and likely to be here for a while yet. A user machine got infected with a nasty bit of malware [a few 'easy' ones to clean, and an evil variant of the CoolWebSearch beast, if that means anything to you]. None of the usual suspects worked...this thing is *evil*, and survives reboots and safe mode, and kills off any processes that might harm it [like most of the normally useful antimalware apps]. And not just the apps themselves...it killed Windows Explorer windows that I was simply using to browse to the program directory, along with web browser windows that were trying to load some common online scanning tools.
I think I've got it, though [she says, taunting the silicon gods]. Some sleuthing tracked down a couple DLLs that weren't right; more detective work in the registry led me to some keys that shouldn't be there. Delete those, then boot with an NTFS boot CD to access the drive from a command prompt, delete the DLLs and a few suspicious directories. Reboot into safe mode, and now I was able to run some of the anti-malware tools [finally!]. Used them to clean up a few more traces, then fully patch the OS, quickly install an anti-malware app to complement the antivirus software.
Now I'm doing the final cleanup [resetting System Restore, hiding system files again, deleting temp files, defragging]. Once that's all done, I lock the machine up for safety and head on home.
Here's hoping the beastie stays dead...
Uh oh...I've got the sparkly null spot in my field of vision that tells me I have a "Vegas Migraine" coming on. The sparkly spot expands slowly over 20-30 minutes, eventually blocking about a third of my field of vision...then once it has hit its max size, the migraine pain hits.
At least I get advance warning and a cool light show...now to shut down, get everything packed up, and book it home before the blind spot makes it too risky to drive. Whoooshhh!!!!!
