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Disconnection
Dec. 17th, 2003 02:12 amI'm back on dial-up for the moment, rather than the retina-searing, zippy cable connection. We forgot to pay the bill, you see. Oops. It's becoming fairly obvious to me that my boyfriend and I both sort of suck at the whole "living without supervision" thing, but fortunately we suck in different ways. Usually we modulate each other (joke goes here) but this one slipped both of our minds. It seems funny to say, after a declaration like that, that I think I'm becoming more responsible... but I am.
I've learned to cook, which pleases me. I'm learning that keeping the apartment clean is a very good thing. Now I've learned that if we don't pay for our services, they will be taken away and we'll, for example, end up without heat in the middle of GOD DAMN SUBARCTIC WEATHER and then we'll die encased in ice. This is a remarkable incentive to keep on the ball and I will be sure to mentally refer to it often in future times.
I say that I'm becoming more responsible. Now I turn around and say that actually, I'm not. That was my first thought, anyway, but it's more like I simply don't want to. I've spent the last day immersed heavily in fantasy, the fighting-game fantasy of Guilty Gear XX, with its astounding costume design. The giggly, penguin-filled fantasy of Disgaea, which has awakened a penguin fancier within me. (Not to mention given me the habit of chirping "Dood!" at random in a perky voice. I think my boyfriend will soon throttle me if I continue.)
I've also comfortably wrapped myself up in Neil Stephenson's "The Diamond Age", which I've tried to read once before. Last time I got lost in the story in a bad way, trying to follow plot points and eventually skimming in annoyance over blocks of text looking for the 'point'. This time, though... I think my mood is right for it. I've taken to reading a passage and then letting my eyes close, the better to picture the world as described. I'm finding the book takes well to that, it's easy to just let my mind fill with airships, the thick haze of coal smoke, elaborate neo-Victorian outfits, dreamy images of decaying, decadent lower-class cities seen through the clarity of diamond windows from a viewpoint hugh in the sky, and the elaborate formal constructs and layered meanings one carves out of of language, when it's mainly used for pleasure instead of communication.
It's easy for me to live outside of reality. I'm pretty hermitlike, I always have been. Social experiments in school really left me with no desire to mingle with actual people... something the Internet has changed in me for the better, and that's why I don't believe in all those reports suggesting that somehow interacting with people online is a BAD thing... and, bluntly, I've never really cared to go out much. I'm far more comfortable sealed in a nice cozy room with a novel than anywhere socially. It used to be entirely possible for me to tuck myself away from reality and never need to look twice at it. Lately, though... lately I have to. Otherwise things will fall apart. And I'm finding I like being responsible for myself, I like it even if I'm fumbling through it.
I don't know yet how this makes me feel. This isn't the world I want to live in at all. My ideal world is different in many, many ways. I don't want this life, this reality... but I'm finding that it's a life worth living in spite of that.
In other, random news that I'm compelled to share, the boyfriend and I went out for Chinese a couple of nights ago and got fortune cookies that seem hilariously inappropriate to me. Unfortunate cookies, if you will.
For starters, in spite of having a very nice chinese meal in a semi-formal atmosphere, his fortune cookie was in Spanish. It read: "Ya encontaste lo que estabas buscando solamente abre tua ojos." which I am told means something along the lines of "You will find the solution to your problems if you open your eyes."
Meanwhile, my cookie reads, in large child-friendly letters, "Your love of gardening will take on new meaning in your life!"
As such, I put the question to you: What's the most unfortunate cookie YOU'VE ever received?
I've learned to cook, which pleases me. I'm learning that keeping the apartment clean is a very good thing. Now I've learned that if we don't pay for our services, they will be taken away and we'll, for example, end up without heat in the middle of GOD DAMN SUBARCTIC WEATHER and then we'll die encased in ice. This is a remarkable incentive to keep on the ball and I will be sure to mentally refer to it often in future times.
I say that I'm becoming more responsible. Now I turn around and say that actually, I'm not. That was my first thought, anyway, but it's more like I simply don't want to. I've spent the last day immersed heavily in fantasy, the fighting-game fantasy of Guilty Gear XX, with its astounding costume design. The giggly, penguin-filled fantasy of Disgaea, which has awakened a penguin fancier within me. (Not to mention given me the habit of chirping "Dood!" at random in a perky voice. I think my boyfriend will soon throttle me if I continue.)
I've also comfortably wrapped myself up in Neil Stephenson's "The Diamond Age", which I've tried to read once before. Last time I got lost in the story in a bad way, trying to follow plot points and eventually skimming in annoyance over blocks of text looking for the 'point'. This time, though... I think my mood is right for it. I've taken to reading a passage and then letting my eyes close, the better to picture the world as described. I'm finding the book takes well to that, it's easy to just let my mind fill with airships, the thick haze of coal smoke, elaborate neo-Victorian outfits, dreamy images of decaying, decadent lower-class cities seen through the clarity of diamond windows from a viewpoint hugh in the sky, and the elaborate formal constructs and layered meanings one carves out of of language, when it's mainly used for pleasure instead of communication.
It's easy for me to live outside of reality. I'm pretty hermitlike, I always have been. Social experiments in school really left me with no desire to mingle with actual people... something the Internet has changed in me for the better, and that's why I don't believe in all those reports suggesting that somehow interacting with people online is a BAD thing... and, bluntly, I've never really cared to go out much. I'm far more comfortable sealed in a nice cozy room with a novel than anywhere socially. It used to be entirely possible for me to tuck myself away from reality and never need to look twice at it. Lately, though... lately I have to. Otherwise things will fall apart. And I'm finding I like being responsible for myself, I like it even if I'm fumbling through it.
I don't know yet how this makes me feel. This isn't the world I want to live in at all. My ideal world is different in many, many ways. I don't want this life, this reality... but I'm finding that it's a life worth living in spite of that.
In other, random news that I'm compelled to share, the boyfriend and I went out for Chinese a couple of nights ago and got fortune cookies that seem hilariously inappropriate to me. Unfortunate cookies, if you will.
For starters, in spite of having a very nice chinese meal in a semi-formal atmosphere, his fortune cookie was in Spanish. It read: "Ya encontaste lo que estabas buscando solamente abre tua ojos." which I am told means something along the lines of "You will find the solution to your problems if you open your eyes."
Meanwhile, my cookie reads, in large child-friendly letters, "Your love of gardening will take on new meaning in your life!"
As such, I put the question to you: What's the most unfortunate cookie YOU'VE ever received?
