Just wanted to give you a quick slice of my life. It might help you understand why I say some of the things I do.

Right now it's 3:17p on Tuesday afternoon. By the time I finish typing this it will probably be about a quarter to four. I've been sick so my head feels a little muzzy. I'm thinking slowly and none too clearly. My contacts are not quite right so there are blurry spots scattered around my field of vision. My office is lit with flourescents. It's very very bright in stark, blue way. The transformer in the lights is humming, as is the one in my monitor. It's an insistent buzz that lingers just below the threshold of becoming actively irritating. The air is dry and cool. It would feel good if it were the slightest bit fresh. It's not moving much.

The flicker of the lights is ganging up with the flicker of my monitor to create a nerve-jangling interference pattern.... just barely percepitble.

If you look at my monitor you will see a couple of things. I have three very old- fashioned looking terminal windows open. These are were I do my work. I have a number of browser windows open to various places: the headspace, unamerican.com, and the website I have been working on for TU. I have an IRC window that I glance at periodically. It opens to a channel for members of the Everquest guild I am a member of. No one is talking. My ICQ is idle.

I have things to do. Things that someone, somewhere, considers important. I will do them... I want nothing more than to go take a walk outside. I am not bored, precisely, I am just not engaged. My ICQ just uh-oh'd. It's kristen. She says "Good:)". I have no idea what she's talking about. I'll check the log of the conversation and figure it out here in a moment.

I water my plants. They need it. I try and take care of them but I'm not very organized and frequently fail. They are scraping by but they don't look too healthy.

...

Now, admittedly I have written that in a way that casts it in a decidely negative light. I don't feel particularly sorry for myself. It's not the invitation to a pity party. It is, however, the recognition of a "what am I doing?" moment. It occurred to me that it might be beneficial to actually record the passage of one of these. Just before I typed the paragraphs you just read I paused in what I was doing, observed my surroundings and thought to myself "What am I doing?".

Maybe, in a few moments, I will try and actually answer that question. We shall see.

...

Srini, of unamerican.com fame, has a section of his site devoted to "truths". It's great in his typically enthusiastic way. His "truths" were recorded on an eMate during a trip to europe. He says a lot of interesting things... threatening, frank, honest, touching, interesting things. The man has a VISION and he's doing something about it. I may agree or disagree with the things he says but I can't argue with the fact that he's in motion.

Regardless of my position on what he's said and what he's doing he raises one huge question for me. At what point do you hit the wall and decide to say fuck you, throw out your fears, and do what needs to be done. What is the catalyst? What galvanises you into action? For all the time I have spent thinking similar thoughts I have yet to be able to get over my fears and start acting.

I don't intend to forever be a spectator.

...

Love,
-Loop