2001-06-04 - 9:19 a.m.
Tiptoeing back into the limelight ...

It's a beautiful morning ... and it's been forever and a day since I last wrote here. I know I swore I was taking it down; but I could no more bring myself to delete it, than I could have brought myself to erase the hard drive of my computer.

Well, that second has been taken care of for me. Phzzzt, kaput; the stories, poems, genealogy research, checkbook records, college homework, Magic card databases, Diablo II saved games waiting hungrily for this fall's expansion, and all of my pre-Diaryland diary, vanished into thin air. Why no backups, you ask? Well, I thought I had backed it up. Turns out I backed up C: drive, the functional, store-the-Windows-files drive, and missed D: drive, the drive I stored all my creative output on.

My first reaction: What?? SHIT!! It can't do this to me!! Aaagh, No, No, all my thoughts and dreams and research wasted .... All the evidence of years of constructive thought ... *copious weeping*

My second reaction: Well. Umm. I did manage to get the latest draft of my latest story, which is 20+ pages, on a disk; I have a copy of the story I'm editing/transcribing for a friend, which is 30+ pages, on the same disk; and I have lots of pre-current-computer written pages with some of the old stories on them, and my "novel". Everything else, save the diary, I can resurrect, painfully, but eventually, from the 'Net and my filing cabinet.

My third reaction, upon reflection, which still seems rather curious to me: Relief! Freedom! I am no longer bound to what I thought of myself on any given day all those years ago! Hah!!

So why am I writing here again? Well, I don't know. Because I still need some output for my thoughts and creative impulses, and my best friend hasn't spoken to me in almost five weeks. Because I can't get a damn thing done writing-wise in my apartment ... there's always cleaning/laundry/dishes/bills to do, and then EverQuest, which has become more a quest to catch up with my brother than an adventure ... and whatever time is left over, I just feel like vegging. For me, vegging translates into a good Regency romance, or scifi novel, or Dick Frances racing tale, and not a vigorous straining of my brain to pour forth elegant prose.

Also, because I think much better of myself now than I did in my olden diary days. I don't want to remember those bad times. I want to remember the GOOD times. This is why I may go back and delete everything before January in this diary, too, and selected entries thereafter ... I dislike myself when I lapse into depression, recrimination, irritation, and any other negative -tion's you can think of. I don't want to remember that. I don't want any one else to remember that. I want the sunshine and bright smiles and the perfume of flowers in my memories.

For anyone who wondered about Antarctic-slash-New-Zealand-Boy: Bah. Humbug. Turns out he's got opportunites in Colorado, Greenland, and Antarctica again that will keep him globe-trotting all year long. *throwing hands in air* I give up on men. At least, this particular specimen of the gender.

As far as my mysterious evil phone call enemy: No further word. It probably was just a random call. GOOD. I take serious umbrage with folks who chat behind others' backs, spread one's personal secrets to other people who hate one, or send dastardly little anonymous messages that wreck one's day.

If you haven't seen Shrek, and you loved fairy tales as a child (or still do), GO SEE IT. I most thoroughly recommend it; it's the funniest spoof I've seen in years, and has a wonderful message all its own. (Go Dreamworks! Leave Disney in the Dust!)

Have I any more to say today? *cudgeling brain cells* Nope, this is good enough for a restart. Hope I'm not offending anyone by doing so. =)

Two Hours Later:(I lied. I always have more to say. Even if it's random.)

Do you have a good aural memory? I have. Play me a song a couple of times, and if I like it, it's embedded in some lost corner of my brain forever, to be replayed in some bored moment when I'm trying to amuse myself enough to actually get some work done. You know those moments: sitting in front of a keyboard, staring blankly at a screen, with your thoughts chasing each other in vicious little circles. Anyway. Music tends to snap me out of them.

It's all in there: the words, the bass, and every other instrument, imprinted in little exultant, perfectly rendered, on-key fragments. Of course, you'd never know it from the results: I am vocally challenged (ask anyone who's ever heard me sing) and I've never had enough musical training to be able to spew it forth on note-paper or through an instrument.

... Well, if I can't amuse anyone else with it, at least I can amuse myself.

*softly humming along with bits of "The Rock" soundtrack*