A friend pointed this out, but I'm an idiot, so perhaps you would like to help us figure out what these silly net geeks are up to.

A puzzle

Another piece

I'd like to know

Once again, it's moving day!

I always feel a little phony ending sentences with exclamation marks, because I know in my heart of hearts that it's rather difficult for anyone to really share in my excitement over something vaguely explained and in all probabilities occurring in the life of someone you don't actually know -- and harder still for me to satisfactorily describe such events for you. Be that as it may, the above sentence did indeed require one. Today is the day that Broken officially moves into our new house -- you see, although we moved at the end of May, Broken's many possessions remained in Bayshore, where she lives with her mother and her sister. The arrangement had been made for her to move in on June 20 (that being today), and how Broken's mother managed to find movers who didn't seem to mind at all the fact that they were moving desks, bookcases, a king-sized bed and thirty or fourty large boxes up three flights of stairs (and then one more flight to Broken's bedroom) in thirty degree weather I'll never know. Perhaps they're cyborgs, and this is just what they do in the daytime when they're not battling plucky superheroes or plotting the enslavement of the peoples of earth. I mean, a cyborg's gotta eat. I don't know. In any case, since our move, she has been flitting back and forth between her house and our house, hanging out, helping greatly, and spending her time going insane with stress.

Today, though, it all becomes worthwhile. Broken is at this very moment packing the last straggling pieces of her belongings, staring ruefully at the ceiling-high stacks of boxes, and fretting impatiently until two o'clock this afternoon, which is when the burly and sweaty men arrive. Meanwhile, I emptied her room of the last boxes I had to unpack, and all the empty ones put there when we were setting up my bedroom. I expect I shall shortly be doing some vacuuming (all this before breakfast, even if it is twelve-thirty in the afternoon) for the upstairs, because both our bedrooms (not to mention the carpet in the hallway... damn goths) need it desperately. I don't know where pennies come from exactly -- leastwise, where they come from that allows them to sneak through solid walls, open windows, squeegee punks and the human race at large just to get in here -- but there are an astonishing number of them on my floor, which baffles me given how meticulous I am about legal tender (read: "cheap"), and messes in general. Oh, I suppose I shouldn't just vacuum them up, but I do wish our government would get around to doing away with useless things like pennies, and just give us all smartcards and let the cashless society begin. Sigh.

In a fit of neat freaking I vacuumed the entire house this afternoon, mostly because I was utterly fed up with having icky carpets, but it didn't hurt that Broken's mother was planning to drop by when Broken brought her computer here and have a look at our new home. I think it shall be very necessary to organize regimented cleaning days here -- perhaps every other week or something. No matter how much you clean up after yourself, messes still accumulate, and after awhile a beautiful house like ours can get pretty icky. Not as bad as H'Tog. It's never as bad as H'Tog. Never again. But five people and two cats can indeed leave a distinct impression upon a house, so I think that's just the way it shall have to be. Kincaid pointed out that "duties" will probably need to be handed out, since some people are doing more work than others, although I asked him not to name culprits. He did say that Broken and I did most of the work here, to which I replied that I simply wasn't keeping track... because if I did make such notes of things, I'd probably get rather annoyed. Still, people do make a general attempt to tidy up after themselves, which is just a beautiful thing in roommates. At the wedding a few weeks ago (read back just a bit), my friend Jason Correlli (his nom de plume when he engages in mischief) was describing the apartment belonging to one of our high school cronies, and how it was quite plainly disastrous. It was an apartment full of men, and there was filth everywhere. The garbage hadn't been taken out for weeks, there were clothes covering the entire floor, everywhere, empty pizza boxes were the rule, and one could only imagine what the bathroom was like. In comparison, a little cat hair on the carpets doesn't seem half bad. Not that I appreciated vacuuming it up.

I think my only true complaint so far is that the world still isn't a very pleasant place to live in. On Tuesday, Broken was at a poetry reading (the last BARD reading, a series which had continued for over twenty years) that night while I remained in my room and unpacked. And she ended up having a splendid evening, too. She met some friends, and hung out with a certain rakish poet for whom she's been an obsessive fan for years, and enjoyed the sets. Unfortunately, on the way home, humanity intervened in what was to otherwise be a perfectly pleasant evening. When she was about halfway home, and just getting into the Market, two men approached her. The tall, dominant one, started going on with that sort of awful male dialogue of "Hey, baby, where are you going? What are you doing? What's going on?" over and over again. And Broken just tried to ignore them. She wasn't sure what they wanted -- perhaps he was merely trying to pick her up (she has this problem with Mediterranean men, being Egyptian) -- but it didn't seem prudent to inquire. She did the smart thing, though, which was to keep to extremely well-lit streets all that time, and she was surprised that she was still accosted. Still, she walked on, and quickly discovered afterwards that the two people were following her. They were walking fast enough to just keep up with her, and it just didn't bode well. She feels bashful about it now, but she actually found herself being picky about which restaurant she went into for help, but ultimately ducked into a nice but not too quiet cafe. There she was given sympathy and use of a telephone, with which she called me and asked me to come pick her up. But the two guys who had been following her came to the cafe, and just stopped outside. They stopped at the big picture window and stayed there, staring in at her, and staring in at her, and muttering something she couldn't hear. After a time, they left, and I showed up, sick with worry and furious with the world. I comforted her as best I could (I'm imposing enough to keep the riffraff away, but cuddly enough to make anybody feel safe in my arms), and took her home, keeping an eye out all the way for anybody who might look like the people she described. And perhaps someone was simply trying to pick her up in some strange, creepy way, but I can't be sure, and knowing it's over doesn't help me relax at all. She isn't going to be wandering out alone at night as often, that's for sure, but that doesn't comfort me either. See, it shouldn't be necessary at all. They should just castrate people who do things like that, and let the gene pool sort it out.

Granted, that's my solution for most problems. If I commanded the genes that got handed out, most of them would be mine. The only way to do something right is to do it yourself, after all.

But the other night, for I digress, I was lying in bed, hardly able to keep my eyes open, and thinking uncontrollably, as often happens when I'm trying to relax, about unpleasant things. I recently bought some gigantic, fluffy pillows (and turquoise pillowcases) to complement my flatter, less substantial ones, and I have so many sheets and blankets that usually I just heap it all into a big, snug nest and curl up with everything like some kind of large, happy rodent. But I couldn't stop myself from thinking about the past, and Lilith. And initially it stung... regret and loneliness will do that... but I thought, almost dream-like, of the day I told her I loved her. The day that we sat on a giant hill on Bank Street, walking aimlessly as was our custom, and I firmed up my resolve, held her hand and confessed it. And I remember the look in her eyes. I thought of the time we were, again wandering, on Sparks street, and instead of doing anything particularly cool or exciting, we sat on a bench and held each other for, I don't know, maybe half an hour. Locked in the world's longest hug. And in spite of the fact that such happy memories usually sting like poison, I suddenly, instead, felt quite warm, and happy. As if our troubles had never happened. As if I were actually there. I felt good about our friendship, and even more resolved to keep it a force of happiness for us both. And it was then that I, sweetly, fell asleep.

And here I am now.

Oh hey. If you haven't seen it already, take a look at this.

Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.

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