This little episode didn't do much to dispel my lingering unease that the Internet really is comprised largely of people lacking fully-developed social coping mechanisms.
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he alarm went off this morning as usual for a Saturday and I headed off to work. But guess what? The schedule had changed. What I'd thought was a temporary schedule anomaly was in fact permanent, and I'd have come in to work at 5pm. So I hung out for a few hours anyway, taking advantage of the greater bandwidth of the T1 to do the web surfing I would have been doing at home anyway (that is, if I wasn't still sleeping, which I probably would have been).
The online journal scene occasionally makes for some fascinating reading, especially when certain of its members are extremely pissed-off. I really wanted to go look at the site that Maggy referred to (it supposedly still had "((water))" left intact between the title tags). So I asked around on diary-l (the online journal mailing list), but mostly all I got in response was incoherent insults from a guy named Zach. In among his insults, he denied the existence of web cliques and went on to tell me that he didn't think I was a very nice person and that he wouldn't want to "hang with" me. Of course, at that very instant my little heart broke right in two. Later that day Zach withdrew from diary-l entirely. He had been, up until that instant, by far the single most frequent poster to that list. This little episode didn't do much to dispel my lingering unease that the Internet is comprised largely of people lacking fully-developed social coping mechanisms.
Back at Kappa Mutha Fucka, I installed some whiz-bang software and continued as I had at Comet. Destiny seemed to hurl me relentlessly towards an unremarkable evening.
I went into the bathroom and, from both ends, spewed substances the likes of which haven't been seen (or otherwise experienced) since the days of Job.
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I suddenly started feeling these incredible pains in my lower intestine. It felt like an angry warthog was trapped in there, chewing his way out. I guess my bad web karma was finally catching up to me. I went into the bathroom and, from both ends, spewed substances the likes of which haven't been seen (or otherwise experienced) since the days of Job. After perhaps an hour of that, I return, pallid and feverish to my room and lay down, wondering if I'd make it through the day. No one was around and I felt terribly isolated. Periodically I'd muster enough strength to check my email. I fired off a missive to my mother telling her how terrible I felt, and then crawled back into bed.
s I lay in delirium, I dreamed of Melissa, the former girlfriend of Adam, the singer/guitarist for the now-defunct Curious Digit. The setting was back in high school, and Melissa had a locker right next to mine. Not only was she the most beautiful girl in my entire school, but she was also the most intelligent and popular. And she wasn't making popularity easy on herself either; she was an über alterna-chick, with far more piercings in far more places than even Meghan Huddleston has in reality. (Does Melissa even have pierced ears? I forget...) Remember, this was back in the mid-80s, when piercing your ear more than once was a radical thing for even a girl to do.
In her anti-cool campaign of coolness, she was trying to seduce the absolute dregs of the high school social scene.
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I wanted to ask her out, like on a date or something, but this wasn't going to be easy. Not that she had a boyfriend (she was even too cool for that). The problem was that she would pay me no mind. I'd ask her a question and she'd look right through me at the nerdiest guy in school, and maybe even wink at him, and never respond to me at all. I think we'd exchanged maybe a dozen words during the course of all of our classes. Words like "here" as I passed back a stack of exams. You see, I was a loser, but I wasn't enough of a loser for her. In her anti-cool campaign of coolness, she was trying to seduce the absolute dregs of the high school social scene. And I wasn't the only one frustrated by this; the football team's quarterback was famous for allegedly detailing improper acts he wished to perform with her (and settling for the most air-headed of the cheerleading squad). There's something repulsively titillating about the term "cheerleading squad"; it makes me think of that part of a girl's panties that supports a feminine hygiene product. Cheerleaders have served one role in my life, and one role only: they've always made for good objects of my rape fantasies. I simply can't imagine them doing much other than bouncing around either on the field or in bed. And the only sex I can picture them having is rape. I think (to an extent) rape is the role for which they were actually invented. Don't blame me, I voted for Bush I didn't invent this society.
hen I awoke, I saw my mother standing there. She'd brought a big pot of chicken noodle soup all the way from Staunton. It wasn't as though I could eat any though. I managed to find the strength to call down to Comet to alert them of my condition, and the fact that, for the first time ever, I'd be missing work due to illness. Then I returned to bed. I don't know for how long my mother hung around after that; I wasn't being a particularly entertaining host after all.