December 15–17, 2001 — Wide-eyed and on the lookout

Saturday disappeared without a trace.

Waking in the afternoon, I wrote a journal for the previous three days, and then I read The Fellowship of the Ring until 1:00 am.

I think food may have been involved at some point.

And then I went to sleep.

Sunday was only a little better.

I started by making a list. Mostly of gifts that I needed to buy and of things (other than buying presents) that I needed to do before I returned to Ottawa on Tuesday morning.

Before I really got started on any of the items on my list, Jeff came over with two Dolemite videos and a Rudy Ray Moore live video. We only made it through the first Dolemite movie. Apparently there’s a remake in the works. And thank goodness for that.

Still mourning the death of Creeper the heroin addict, we watched a bit of Nathan’s Braid video, which, we’ve all agreed, is considerably better than he gives it credit for.

After Jeff left, I started killing time to avoid accomplishing much of anything on my list of things to do. I spent a few hours validating the HTML on every page of this site with w3.org, one page at a time. Most of the pages gave warnings about character encoding being missing (which was a valid warning, as I’d never bothered to add character encoding), but I think I’ve fixed them all now. The CSS validates now, too.

Just nod your head and smile and that’ll be enough for me; I don’t need you to pretend that you care.

I eventually started working on things that actually needed to be done. I installed a news script for R-Kade that would run alongside his forum so that people could use the same accounts to post replies to his news items and to talk on the forum. I also got in touch with Matt B. regarding his site — I want to use a more powerful script than the one powering r-kade.com, so we need to get some things sorted out on his server.

Anyway, all the wheels that needed to be turning before I left had started to turn and that was enough for me.

I read another chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring and then went to sleep, my alarm set for 11:00 am.

I wasn’t excited for Monday to come. I had all my Christmas shopping still to do.

My alarm goes off every five minutes when I press the snooze button. I only remember hitting snooze twice, but I woke up at 11:25 am. The alarm clock was lying in between my arms on the bed with me, and it would have almost been a cute moment if the clock weren’t bringing me in and out of delirium every five minutes. I’m surprised that I didn’t throw it across the room when it went off one of the first three times.

I left for downtown as soon as I could. I had made a list of things to buy, and I didn’t think it would take too long.

Six hours later, I had two gifts. I hate Christmas.

The most frustrating of all was the generic gift that I’m to bring to the Christmas party tomorrow night; I’m bad enough shopping for people when I know who they are.

I eventually mostly finished. I found everything that I didn’t think I’d be able to find in Ottawa, anyway.

I was in an unbelievably foul mood when I arrived home. I was exhausted from seven hours of walking and of public transit, and I needed something to eat.

I put french fries and a fake chicken cutlet in the oven. While that was cooking, I made frozen fruit punch. The cardboard container that the frozen juice was in had been filled to the very top and, for one reason or another, hadn’t frozen. It burst when I tried to open it, spilling across the floor and onto the bottom of my pants. I swore rather loudly. I thought I was the only one home, but then I heard the fellow upstairs turn on his microwave. I’ll let him draw his own conclusions as to what I was swearing about, I think. I doubt he guessed it was fruit punch.

In any case, no regrets.

After finishing my food, I called home. I didn’t even want to go home anymore. I just wanted to cower in my room and to pretend that Christmas wasn’t happening.

My mom kept asking me what was wrong. I eventually went on a rant or two. It had been a long day.

I lay down for awhile, and then I wrapped my shitty, but vaguely generic, present for the Christmas dinner. It will be the gift that everyone hopes they don’t get. And well they should...

Then I started packing. I put on my Seven DVD and folded clothes.

We’re leaving on the 9:30 am bus. It’s almost 5:30 am now. No use in sleeping until I’m on the bus, as I see it.

If they have Combos at the bus station again, I’m having those for lunch.

So yes. I won’t be on the webcam again until next week, but I should still be able to post journal entries. I hope everyone’s holidays go well, in either case.

Four more hours and I’ll be asleep and on my way back to Ottawa...