July 26, 2000 — Dancing onto bridges

Once the full force of actually having slept last night kicked in shortly after lunch, I felt much better. It was one of those days when I just had bursts of energy and brief moments when I really wanted to smile but stifled it because I felt guilty for being more or less happy for no reason.

The random topic for today's journal entry was stolen from a Saves The Day song that I've been listening to a lot, and is sort of an inside joke for me as I made an absolute ass of myself while crossing a bridge on rollerblades today. There was a bike coming the other way and I had to stop but I hadn't seen the bike until it was too late and was going too fast which prevented me from "T" braking with my right skate, so I did a sort of modified figure skating stop, 360'd twice, and ran into a wall. But I didn't fall down or hurt myself or run into anyone else, so beyond looking incompotent, it was for the best. And yet I still don't like the idea of brakes on rollerblades...

But yeah. Work was alright; I got a lot of new software installed on my computer and have it setup so I'll be all ready to do the Bran Van 3000 site once the time comes. And I'm all set for my big presentation tomorrow at the publications meeting. I was cutting and pasting and photocopying together handouts. It's going to be such a high school seminar. I should wear my poor-person outfit from my seminar on poverty. They probably wouldn't even notice...

On July 24, only eight people visited the site. And about five of them were probably me, so I consider this a bad sign. Inexplicably, the following day almost 50 people visited. My audience is so random. I need to promote better. Once everything's finished, that is.

Speaking of which, I was thinking of ways I could do neat features and get other people to do work for them as well, so I want to get in touch with Dave Williams and ask if I can use one of his short stories that I'm hearing so much about. I'm going to put a couple of my short stories up too. But they won't just be straight, boring text files. The way I've designed the pages for my short story, it turns into a puzzle that you have to solve in order for the story to make sense. It should be fun.

I think doing journals were everyday is making me too honest. I just don't really... lie... anymore. I've reached the point where nothing in my life seems as though it needs to be all that private and it feels kind of odd. The only caveat being that I want to wait until I'm at least in university before my parents find out, as it would be awkward still living here and having them know and read about their lives online.

My sister invited Nathan over to watch the video of me being Bob-For-A-Day. She told him the reason I don't talk to people lies in my believing that I'm too good for them, and that I'm a bitch (as she put it) to everyone without exception. I'm not sure if that's really completely accurate; I don't think I'm too good for anyone, I just feel awkward around people and generally begin to suspect that they're too good for me. But it's the same end result, I suppose, so it doesn't much matter.

In conclusion, I'm reading "A Prayer For Owen Meany," sort of on the recommendation of Andrew (in that he read it for his OAC ISU, making its existence known to me), and am very much enjoying it. Quite perversely, it makes me wish that the bus ride to Richmond were longer, as that's the only time during the day in which I find the excuse to read.