I can’t make the damn directory search work. Hey, I’m a paid user, what’s up with that?



Oh, I finally wrote up Champs-Élysées and fingerspelling, and I made a deafness metanode. The lesbian metanode I promised the CRT is proving to be a royal pain, so I put up a little notice in my homenode asking for help. I’m also working on a writeup about The Week (my new favorite magazine), and another about living with chronic urticaria - not just what CU is or how it’s treated etc., but living with the motherfucker.

It was a very nice weekend in New York. I am presently on the train heading home, pulling into Baltimore’s Penn Station (one of three on this route - New York and Newark also have Penn Stations). I wrote some personal stuff in my hardbound Hello Kitty journal on the way up, and while I could do the same now I figured I might as well chronicle the weekend for my journal. The trip up was entirely uneventful as always. A young woman sat next to me before we left Washington, and I think she was heading home to New York. In the hopes of drowning out cell phone conversations and mindless chatter I brought my CD player; the entire trip there took me through all of Dido’s No Angel, Poe’s Hello, the as-seen-on-TV Pulse, and part of Red Hot + Lisbon: Onda Sonora. I also read magazines I had brought. The girl beside me had the latest New Yorker and The Economist, and while I really like the New Yorker I had to sit there reading People and Lucky, which I had actually paid my own money for. I admit to taking a guilty pleasure in both - this issue of Lucky had a big section about shoes, and People had a page or two about Wil Wheaton - but I felt silly and ditzy sitting next to this girl. I read so-called highbrow or intellectual magazines too, dammit! But the newsstand I’d visited had a truly anemic
selection, and while they did have the New Yorker, Newsweek, Time (the weekly fiction magazine, as my mother always called it), and USN&WR, I can get all those from my girlfriend’s parents. So I went for People because I knew it had lots of text that could keep me occupied, and Lucky because - well hey, I like shopping and fashion as much as the next person, I just can’t afford stuff and don’t much care about looking trendy myself. So anyway, I made it to New York on time and took the subway over to my friend C’s apartment. He was busily playing Freecell and refused to quit because it would ruin his average. I thought that was a little silly, but I suppose it’s understandable, and besides he’s a really fast player and I was tired so I wasn’t going anywhere right away. When he did finish up we talked for a while and played with his kitty, and then checked the movie schedules. I would have gone to see Storytelling or Birthday Girl, but he didn’t seem interested in much of anything and since it was late we decided not to spend $20 seeing a movie we didn’t really want to see. (I was actually pretty eager to see those two films, and I’m sure if I’d indicated that we could have gone, but because he makes a lot more money than I do it’s almost always his treat, and I didn’t want to insist.) So instead we just went to bed fairly early. Of course that meant I got up early the next morning, too. C would sleep ten hours every night if he could, and often does on the weekends, so when I popped awake at 8:00 I just ate one of his pears and read the Village Voice for a bit. Eventually I went to sleep again too, and finally decided around 11:00 or so that it was definitely time to get up. I extracted from a still-sleeping C the instructions for turning on the computer (there’s a particular sequence and I couldn’t remember it) and went to play around on Luna and Neopets a bit. It wasn’t too long before C called out “oh man, you’re going to make me get up soon!” I pointed out that he could keep sleeping because I was happy to use his computer quietly, and he replied that he’d end up getting up just because I was obviously up. Sure enough, he appeared beside me a few minutes later, and teased me about my silly online games before going to start his bath. (The man bathes every day, but he hasn’t used his shower in a long time; I have no idea why he does this.) After some debate about when we should leave to get to our destination by 2, we finally set off. My preference would have been to take the subway and follow the directions I’d been given, but C knew the landmark we were looking for and insisted that we should walk the whole way. And so we did, and it wasn’t really too bad - plus, I suppose, we saved money and got some exercise. We did make it to the Cube a few minutes early, so we walked further into what I think is called St. Mark’s, checked out a store called Religious Sex (it sounded interesting, but I was disappointed), and went back to the Cube. We stood there for a few minutes, watched some guy take a picture of the Cube’s base, and I kept eyeing one girl trying to decide if she fit the description I’d been given for LadySun. The guy with the camera walked over and sat beside her, and I finally decided to walk around the entire Cube to see if I was right. Sure enough, as I passed them I could see the subway symbols E and 2 pinned to the guy’s backpack, and I knew I had found them.
(to be continued)

So dildo has surpassed /me misses Hermetic as my highest-rated writeup. The latter has had several months to gain its rating and three chings, the former has only been up for about a day and a half and has nine chings now. In addition to this, how to make breasts give milk has the third highest rating of what I’ve written. It’s interesting to see what people like. Of course all this has come from wanting to add “these are my best writeups” to my homenode. I know that’s blatant nodevertising, but I think a lot of my writeups are fluff and yet there are some I’m really proud of that haven’t gotten much notice. I’ll probably introduce that section of my homenode by saying something along the lines of “if you want to read something I have written, these are the good ones.” I don’t know, we’ll see. Mostly I just like making lists.



Tonight we went to the DMV at the mall and I finally got my Virginia driver’s license after having lived here for nearly three years. My picture, of course, looks like a police mugshot, and on top of that my forehead was oily so there’s a nice bright shine there. Great! I’d been worried that I’d need to take the road test (which that branch doesn’t offer, and that’s the only one open after working hours) but all I had to do was the vision test…I didn’t even get a knowledge exam. I’m glad to have my license, it gives me a greater sense of permanency in my relationship with my girlfriend. All of my documents have shown I’ve lived here since September 1998, but now it’s finally on my driver’s license, too.

I realize that these little quizzes are easy to consider silly, but I like to think of them as writing prompts.



what was the last…
thing you ate: I’m chewing gum right now, does that count? The last real food I had was a bit of cottage cheese and fruit, for which I paid $6.06. I hadn’t realized my tray weighed 1.2 pounds, which seems ridiculous because there certainly wasn’t much food on there. Cottage cheese is pretty darn heavy.

thing you drank: The 24-ounce Diet Pepsi I get pretty much every morning.

song you heard: I have Dido in my head again, and I listened to that on the way to work yesterday so that’s probably it. Unfortunately the phone was ringing as I got into the office, so I ripped off my hat and earphones and answered it, and when I was done I turned off the CD player. Suddenly the phone rang again, so I answered it…and didn’t realize until the end of the day that I’d never actually turned off the CD player. So the batteries, of course, were dead, and I didn’t get to listen on the way home.

show you watched: I know we watched the new Buffy last night, but I also know the TV was on after that…yet I have no idea what we watched. I had Voyager on for a bit, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

thing you said: Probably “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number” or something like that. Or maybe I’ve scheduled a conference for a customer since then, in which case it would be “okay, you’re all set” or words to that effect.

person you saw: My coworker T just poked his head in to make sure everything was okay after he came back from getting some coffee, but I can see my coworker M out of the corner of my eye at all times.

person who called you: Other than customers and wrong numbers? My girlfriend! But when I asked what she was doing, she said “crying” and wouldn’t tell me why. She sounded okay, but I could tell she was sad about something…she says she’ll tell me tonight. I suspect it’s going to be her job situation (or lack thereof). I wish she could find a job. I know she’s trying and I know there’s nothing out there…I just wish there were somebody hiring for her specialty.

person you called: The last phone number I dialed was for the conferencing system so I could enter a passcode, but the last person I called was probably my mother last night after the MPT program featuring my college’s president aired. Darn that Joan Coley.

person you hugged: Probably C, actually, a friend I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. He used to live in Delaware and we’d see him several times a year, but a few years back he moved to California and we hadn’t seen him in a long time. He’s on vacation now and was visiting his parents back in Delaware, so he drove down Monday afternoon and stayed over till about 8:00 last night. It was really good to see him.

person you kissed: I kiss my girlfriend goodbye every time she drops me off or picks me up, whether it’s at the bus stop or the Metro or whatever. So she’s the last one, because she dropped me off at the bus stop this morning.
person to ride in your car: I don’t have a car of my own anymore (I guess), but the last time I drove A’s car I don’t think I had any passengers. I can’t remember the last time I drove with passengers - it was probably just me and my girlfriend, though.

told you they loved you: My girlfriend and I say that about a million times a day, and she said it when she called on the phone a little while ago.

movie you watched: 12 Monkeys, with my girlfriend and C on Monday night.

person you gave the finger: I was going to say C again, but it might actually have been my girlfriend while she was making a crack about me for C’s amusement. I’m not sure, really.

person you missed: It’s a strong tie between my girlfriend and my friend C from New York. (Not the same C as the one I’ve been mentioning above, either.) I miss my girlfriend the most right now because I’m at work and she’s at home, but I won’t miss her tonight when I get home - it’s like that every day. The last person I missed who was actually distant would be C from New York.

fin



And hey, this is my own journal, I can nodevertise if I want to. So right now, everybody reading this, go read my writeup about dildos. Why should you read it? Because it fucking rocks, that’s why. That writeup got chinged FIVE times within nine minutes of having been posted, and presently has EIGHT chings and a rep of 48! I totally absolutely rule. It took me a couple of days to do the research (and let me tell you, researching dildos while at work is not an easy task) and a few hours to produce the writeup, and hot damn it’s good, if I do say so myself. I probably wouldn’t be so proud if it didn’t have eight fucking chings, but it does and so it must be great, plus I have gotten lots of awesome /msgs about it. Here are some of those.

atesh says Hehehehehehe. Good job.

Chris-O says re: dildo: 5 chings in 9 minutes. DAMN, woman.

(activecrt) Apatrix says Okay, this is ridiculous. I hit C! when it had none and by the time I got the page back there were five of them. Who said factnoding doesn’t pay?

mblase says re: dildo: waaaay too much info, but good research.

mblase says I meant that in a TMI sort of way. It’s a *good* writeup.

Caliban says Excellent w/u on dildo. I’m surprised no one had written on it yet! Insightful documentation of the history, too. Well done, all around.

m_turner says egads! 6C!s already? (congrats on a very well done node…)

Professor Pi says re: dildo: Whow. Good writeup.

And I have printed the entire node for my girlfriend to read tonight. Wheeeeee!

2001.10.24@17:16 Cool Man Eddie says Yo, the entire node LeVar

Burton was editor cooled. You have a writeup in there; your reward is knowing you’re cooler than liquid nitrogen.

2001.10.24@17:16 Roninspoon says very nice bio on levar burton.

I had worked really hard on that, so I’m delighted it got that kind of recognition, plus a ching and a whole lot of upvotes. Now I know getting cooled doesn’t actually do anything much - no XP, no mark on the writeup (in fact it’s the entire node that’s cooled, but in this case it’s obvious which writeup got the node noticed), no special bonus prize. But Roninspoon could easily have chinged it and been on his way - except that it was good enough for special attention, and that is what I’m so proud of.



I realize most people reading this have no idea what I’m talking about; there’s an article you can read if you’d like to understand cooling, chinging, and related stuff.

I had just clicked C? on someone’s Butterfucker McFloozy writeup and suddenly it was gone. Damn! I thought it was pretty good. So I clicked my trusty back button (well, it isn’t always so trusty, but if you stay away from porn sites you’re safe) and copied it.

Part of an unsuccessful 1997 McDonald’s campaign to “beef up” the McEconomy with an adults-only menu. New, sexier menu items included such stars as the Butterfucker McFloozy, the S&M McFloozy, the OreHo McFloozy, and the Nestle Sucks My Balls And Starves Babies McFloozy (which was eventually dropped from the campaign entirely).



Opposition to the campaign was minimal, as it maintained a very low profile and countered any dissent with proof that these menu items were supporting a good cause. Funds raised from the adult menu were counted as charitable donations, going directly to The Ronald McDonald Whore House.



Their message: McDonald’s loves to see you smile.

My girlfriend will be out of town the weekend of October 12th, and I don’t know whether I should go to the E2 gathering at the Maryland Renaissance Festival or take the last Sea Kayaking I class being offered this year by Atlantic Kayak. They require that you take the class before renting a closed-deck kayak from them, and I’d like to be able to rent from their Piscataway Creek center this fall - it may be the only location south of the Wilson Bridge, though I think there’s a Belle Haven Marina or something on the Virginia side. Then again, that E2 gathering won’t happen every day…so I’m not sure.

It seems people on Everything2 like sex and toilet nodes. My highest-rated writeup is about how to make breasts give milk and today I did a writeup about Turkish toilets which got cooled twice within ten minutes of its having been posted.

Sometimes I really don’t understand E2.



My mother produced an absolutely wonderful writeup - I’m sure it took her a long time - for the Columbia node, and it has gotten a couple of upvotes. A few hours later I spent maybe twenty minutes producing a node about Sanrio Puroland and within maybe fifteen minutes it had been chinged. I am really hoping somebody will find my Union Station writeup soon, I rewrote it completely (my mother really liked it), it’s really great now, and I want it to get chinged so it gets more visibility because I’m proud of it. And yet I don’t dare nodevertise. This morning I spotted how to make breasts give milk in the list of new writeups, and found the writeup interesting but far from complete (and maybe a tiny bit partially just a tad inaccurate). I had done a little bit of research about induced lactation myself a while back, so I whipped up something quickly. Within in an hour it had been chinged and gotten twenty upvotes and no downvotes. Meanwhile, nodes I think are really good go unnoticed.



So like I said…sometimes I just don’t understand that place. I am having lunch today with someone from there, though, in about half an hour.

Oh, I just have to save this. It didn’t stick around long enough for me to see the results of my downvote, but this was an E2 node called “Anal Masturbation.” I’ll spare the author the pain of being named. (Not that it would hurt that much to show up in a livejournal nobody reads.)

OK. I am a 16 year old male. When I started to explore myself in a sexual way (about 3years ago) i was happy. Then i experimented whith rubbing my hand over my anus in the shower. That carried on to puttine the end of a pencil up my arse. Then my finger and now i am onto using a shampoo bottle the size of my fist. It may sound gross and “gay” but it gets me off so what does it even matter. Use the vacum cleaner on your penis. It is THE most MIND BLOWING orgasm i have ever had.

I’m sorry. That was just too funny.