Do you remember the internet before it became a global billboard. I do. I remember the first ad I saw. It was for Cdnow. And I knew that was it. The end.

I am tired of having useless products pushed at me everywhere I look. The tele, radio, park benches, sides of buildings, buses, trains, clothing, even the back of the car I PAID for. Why should I be a driving advert for a car dealership. Hey, if they want that, they should be paying me.

Pretty soon those marketing freaks are going to find a way to beam ads directly into our heads. We will dream of the newest, greatest, fastest, best useless crap ever! All built with a 18 month life expectancy, so we can buy even more stuff even sooner.

Sure can't wait.

06:07 on July 23, 2000

The food of gods! (In 7 easy steps)

Step One
Purchase one package Sapporo Ichiban with fried bean curd, a box of frozen snow peapods, fresh carrots and spinach.

Step Two
Rush home because you are starting to drool.

Step Three
Grab a saucepan. Any saucepan.

Step Four
Boil 2.5 cups H2O.

Step Five
Add a generous portion of snow peapods, carrots and spinach.

Step Six
Add noodles and spice pack.

Step Seven
Pour into an oversized bowl and top with bean curd squares.

Don't forget the chopsticks!

Caution!
Contents may be hot.
Allow to cool before eating.

05:07 on July 18, 2000

Last night was about nightmares. Seemed everytime I managed to calm myself enough to fall back asleep, another one surfaced. Worse than the last.

I feel really drained today. I'm in a grog. Everything is fuzzy and distant. Even the keyboard feels different. Like I am typing through jello.

One of the nightmares caused me to yell in my sleep. I woke to Daniel shaking me. But in my sleep, the gentle shakes were violent punches. A man had managed to break into my apartment. He was someone I knew, in my dreamworld. I was startled by his attack. I tried to fight back, but I was tangled in a web. I couldn't free myself, even uttering the words, "You can do anything here....dissolve the bonds." had no effect.

I have a great deal of control over my dreams, I do as I please. It's truly wonderful. Like ripples that play across tall grass on a warm spring day. Flowing. Tranquil.

But the nightmares, I am helpless to them. I have no power.

And they haunt me nearly every night.

Some have been with me since the beginning. Repeated over and over. I know the story. I know what will happen next. I tell my dreamself to go another direction or use another tactic. But I always fail and am left helpless.

A particular one has been with me since I was three. I recorded it over a year ago, hoping it would weaken in the telling. But still it comes. As often as ever.

They came again last night. The invisible ones. To gobble me up. To devour me and leave me lost.

I felt their presence long before I heard them scurry across the ceiling.

They never show themselves, but I know every detail of these deformed, hideous beasts. On spider legs, dripping with stagnant ooze. Bodies covered with barbed bristles. Mouths gaping, teeth like needles. Warty, rotting tongues.

They snatch me from my sleep and pin me to the ceiling. They claw at me. Shred, tear, rip. Their teeth pierce my flesh. I feel my hand burning in it's mouth, being torn on it's callous tongue.

Then just as swiftly, they leave. The spell broken, I fall back to the floor.

Yes, the spell is broken. And I wake.

02:07 on July 17, 2000

I feel exceptionally surly. I have little optimism. About anything. Sometimes, all the outside, too many people, doing so many stupid things, having too many kids, breaking everything good and nice....well it gets to me.

Sometimes, I just wish they would all go away.

Isn't there anywhere a semi-intelligent, quiet kind of girl can go to just sit and enjoy the world, without some idiot coming along and messing it up with their pack of screaming brats throwing whatever they are finished with on the ground.

Use a trash can for god's sake!

And stop breeding! Isn't 6,000,000,000 people enough?

04:07 on July 14, 2000

What an amazing day. Everything is beautiful and quiet. I'm listening to Hum and working on my new site design. It's all starting to emerge.

......"and all the dreams details perfected in the colored sky...."

I think Green to Me is my favorite song on this CD. For the moment anyway.

Last night I played around with the new beta of Moho. It's too much fun! And now you can import .ai files. Now, who doesn't love that?

It's a wonderful day. I couldn't be more content.

Hmm, on second thought, the only thing that would make it better is if someone would get home from Flash Training. Soon. He will be here soon.

"Ah love, could thou and I with fate conspire,
to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire.
Would we not shatter it to bits
and remold it closer to the hearts desire?"

- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

04:07 on July 14, 2000

"Are you coming back for me.
I'm so tired I can't see."

I hate when the cd I want to hear is 384 miles away. Die Kreuzen - Cement. Track 9: Deep Space. I really could use a little of that right now.

05:07 on July 13, 2000

Because you wanted to know. Here are some things that I like.

Bands
David Bowie
Juno Reactor
Hooverphonic
Hum

Movies
Chungking Express
2001
The Trial
Dr. Strangelove

Directors
Hayao Miyazaki - Studio Ghibli
Wong Kar Wai
Yuen Woo Ping

Recent Books
Cobweb
Vurt
Pollen
Pixel Juice
Neverwhere
A Brief History of Time
Obasan

Restaurants
The Chicago Diner (Chicago)
Gill's (Milwaukee)
A Dong (Des Moines)
Lee's Vietnamese (Ames)

Activities
Biking, hiking, camping, ect
Computer graphics, modeling, tinkering
Lucid dreaming
Reading

Could Live Without
Inconsiderate people
Bad smells, like garbage, sewer, tuna helper
T.V.

Words
plethora
trousers
xylem
quotidian
pontificate

Colors
#808080
#666633
#1E3A49

Sites
LiteStep.net
Nausicaa.net
Veggies Unite!
Whip the Donkey's Ass
ThreeOh
The Burning Itch
Placing
99Secrets
Kia.net
Martial Artist's Guide: Hong Kong Films

07:07 on July 10, 2000

I came back to Chicago to find my Neema dead. My sweetest little grey dwarf hammy. Gone away.

What a sad day it is.

She used to sit on my shoulder and nest in my hair while I worked at my computer. Just Friday night she cozied up in my blanket and slept while I watched the tele. I tucked the blanket right up over her ears, just the way she likes it.

I will miss her hammy ways.

11:07 on July 9, 2000

I went to Milwaukee to visit my cousin Mary last night. Reindeer games and all! We went to buy a fishing pole (it had to be a pink Zebco 220, nothing else would do) for a trip she is going on. Then we stopped by a friend of her's house for a little bit.

Around 2 am, as we were returning to her house, we found a dog with no collar running in the street. We thought he was her neighbor's, but it turned out he wasn't. We walked around the neighborhood to see if anyone was looking for him. No one was.

So he stayed the night.

Today we called the Humane Society and they directed us to Animal Control, but they are not open today. It looks like he will be staying another night.

So who's dog are you?

02:07 on July 9, 2000

He said, "I like living with you".

I just smiled.

Because I didn't realize that we were.

11:07 on July 2, 2000

Today we went to the Chicago Diner for lunch. I know with a name like that you immmediately think burger, fries, hotdogs, ect. Ah, but how wrong you are!

This place is 100% vegetarian. Not a scrap of animal on the menu. And the food is amazing. Everytime we eat there I am amazed by the flavors. I recommend the Philly Cheese "Steak" Sandwich. They make the seitan "steak" right there, and my god! It's beyond real. So incredible.

After lunch we walked around for a while, going nowhere in particular. It was raining and that was nice. Took the edge off the heat for a while.

We headed over to a natural food store to check out the selection. Pretty good. Not as good as Outpost in Milwaukee, but they had all the staples. Good enough.

Then it was time for Jamba Juice. I had a Peach something or other. Tasty! Not too sweet either. Did I mention it was really tasty? So is the Mango Go-Go.

After our completely yuppie fruit smoothies, we headed over to the Diversey brown line stop. Once there, we realized it's Sunday. The brown line doesn't run south of Belmont on Sundays. So we hop on a red line heading north, which will take us to Belmont where we can transfer to the brown line.

But we were in for another treat. Since Taste of Chicago is going on this weekend, the brown line is all crazy, going south into the loop and heading north as an express. Not normal at all.

We had no choice but to get on the already over packed Express. Western was the first stop, which is farther from home than the stop we normally get off at. What a frustating mess. We had to walk a ton farther to get home.

It was getting really hot again, and muggy from all the rain. There were all kinds of microbursts of stench going on too. Some of the sewer variety, a few the garbage type. Either way, no good! No good at all!

But now I am home and showered and all is well. Time to cozy up and watch a movie! What fortune!

07:07 on July 2, 2000