Irregular listener, return caller. What's everyone been doing for the past 6 years or so?

waiting for you to return.

ahhh, finally. now we can get to work. the minutes have been approved. new business. for what reason does the gentlelady from new mexico rise?

p.s., i neglected to mention on another thread that i also met margret. she is exponentially cooler than i am. and almost as cool as agatha.

Well, my xp box crashed. So no computer gaming for me, unless I want to play on my old 128 MB win2k box. Which, it must be said, I do not. And I am tired and I am lonely and I am sad and I am wondering what I want to be when I grow up and I have a feral cat and her 5 rambunctious kittens locked in my office with me and I hunger for human contact. That is all.

shit. and i just tossed out all my pc100 ram. i had like 2 gigs of the shit. but i'm a laptop boy now.

I neglected to mention that I have been using workaholism and computer gaming as a way of leaving my life unexamined for a while now. Then I examined it and I am overwhelmed by how much I don't like it. Which isn't the same as not liking me: I still like me very much. I feel like I just woke up from a long nap, and now I'm disoriented and scared. So I have a job interview on Tuesday, and we'll see how that goes in the big "life changes" catgory. I keep thinking that the problem is that I'm just too fucking far from the ocean; I've seized the ocean as a talisman with the power to restore balance and beauty in living for me. I was in LA this week for work, and we drove out to Santa Monica. I got out of the car only for long enough to go stand on the beach in my high heels and business wear - and it actually did make me feel better. The smile started in my toes and blew the back of my head off. I wonder what kind of transcendant joy might be mine if I could let the water lap around my ankles, surge past my waist, break over my head and pull away with water running from my hair into my mouth and my eyes?

whoa, i still have a certified 256 mb stick and a suspected 256 mb stick. might be 128, might be 512. where should i send it?

wb, margret.

Lemme know if you didn't get my email; yahoo just did a fucked up thing at me.

didn't get it. yahoo sucks. wish there were a better portal.

meh, i'll use gmail. it don't suck.

But NM is groovy. Maybe you just need a change of scenery? Or just a touch of humidity.

NM can eat me raw. Oh, sure, it's fucking beautiful. Big fucking deal. I want the following things that are unobtainable in New Mexico: (1) really good chinese food (2) an economy You are right that I need a change of scenery. I'm planning a vacation to Maryland, complete with trip to the Ocean. I may even buy a swim suit instead of just walking into the ocean in my clothes, as I had planned.

Margret, I'm a librarian now! You need to move out to the West coast, so you can be a workaholic near the ocean.

Cool! Thinking about it, but the areas of the west coast I like don't seem to have a dearth (am I spelling this correctly?) of techie people, and I don't think my resume is good enough to compete in a real job market.

Margret,my hero !!! Welcome back!

I hate emoticons or I'd smiley here. Not that I don't use them, I do. I'm totally weak and bow to the peer pressure of the emoticon exchange. I am glad to be back and glad the place is pretty much as I left it - meaning, essentially, not tons of new people to be all "who's this Margret think she is, anyway, and why did she feel compelled to tell me to fuck the french?" Oh, it doesn't belong on this thread - but I bought the new Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs CD and it totally rules my school. Could I get a rollcall of who's still here, who's on hiatus as I was, and anyone new I should be aware of? One of you is the cruise director, right?

sem's still here but I'm not

Last six years in a nutshell: -moved to columbus, ohio -fell in love -got engaged (getting married exactly one year from today) So glad to see you back, Margret!

I should probably add, since this is a roll call, that we lost two sorabjites in the last six years: Fetidbeaver, and in the last week, Petrock. RIP to both.

Sem: that's PHENOMENAL news. Congrats! How are you finding Columbus?

changed my sorabjiname (was pez, just began posting around six years ago). moved to the big city (a paltry 20 miles from my parents' home). started a dance team that's been going for two years and appeared in venus magazine. currently in the process of quitting the job i've held for six years. i prefer the older two yyy releases to this one. it doesn't seem as energetic.

Present. Married, with two cats.

I've been gone,I guess about a couple of years.I just came back about a month or so ago.And like you,was pleased to find the Sorabjifold still here. I let annoying,repetative posters make me loose interest in comming here.I'd pop in now and then,see the same "can't control my posting finger" drivel,and not come back. About a month ago,I made myself a promise,to check the board,at least every day or two.So far,I've been pretty good about checking in. The census was down when I first came back,but an international call to Sorabjites must have gone out,as several seem to be popping up now. I think Mark may be using his Sorabji mind control on us. Welcome back. And Agatha is right.The coast of the Pacific Northwest is some of the most breathtaking scenery I've had the good fortune of visualizing.Its a downright treat to the senses.

Margret! Yay! Past 6 years? Umm: 1. Graduated from Bryn Mawr College 2. Lived in the DC Metro area and worked for...let's just say a famous online research database used by college students and law offices, for 3.5 years 3. Quit after the job began to eat my soul and was unemployed (well, I did some temping, but I choose to forget that) for 8 months 4. Have spent the last two years in southeastern Montana volunteering as a teacher's aide in an elementary school, working with Native children. 5. Will move to Boston to start library school in August/September.

Swine and cyst have been gone for sometime,same with crimsom and pug.Patrick is still around but hasn't posted much,he has a beautiful little girl and an ex wife that I think is giving him grief with visitation,he'd be disapointed to know you were in his neck of the woods and he missed you.

The last 6 years, well I've smoked about 43800 cigarettes (and amazingly enough -- I've never had a broken or malformed cigarette -- Philip Morris must run a mean quality control), I've taken about 2190 dumps, I finished my master's degree at UOP Online, got a new job, got married, bought a house, got a new dog and 2 new cats, and that's about it.

You left out the fish Dougie.

Shit, that's right J. I've caught countless fish in the past 6 years, mostly saltwater, but also had some nice trout in the mix too.

hi Margret, i'm here too.

Hey Margret! Erm, present, three cats, life is more or less the same. Only with better food.

i have graduated, master in architecture moved to california [as *you* should do] lived with nate stuff and things lost my mind became a gardener for a year put it back together [yay, zoloft!] fell in love [and sex] recently got a job that i super-love ...i think this was mostly for everyone else as i don't expect margret to care what i've been doing...

I'm over here, once in a while. Got back from Florida last week. Instead of "Norm's son" I am now "The owner from New York" whenever I make an appearance at what used to be my dad's building. I cleaned out his old apartment once and for all. While hauling out a mass of his clothes (stack of shirts and pants) it felt for a second like I was hauling out the damn body. I decided not to look again at the stains on the porch (I understand they are now gone), but I found a box of bullets in the kitchen cabinet. I asked a neighbor to do something with them and he said "They're gone." I went out to Florida National Cemetery to see his grave, and it was nice. Nice to see, for me at least, because I believe the spirit rises up forever after the vessel fails. Or gives up. I spent today sorting through boxes of his old junk. Now I have all kinds of corny electronics gadgets and pictures from the 1930s of him and his twin brother. As I was hauling out the stuff I heard my cell phone ring, and I wondered who the hell that could be. I just wanted to tell you all that it was Martin (Blindswine) and that it was really good to hear from him right then. I am getting a passport soon, so i can FLEE NEW YORK. It is over 4 years since I had a job. I had a catscan a few weeks ago to look at a cyst in my kidney. It was nothing. Another cyst in my liver is also most likely just fatty blobules, or whatever they call them. I may be going blind. An opthalmologist tells me I have early signs of macular degeneration, which is rare among the non-elderly but I have the symptoms and the doctor says I have the physical signs of tiny retinal holes. Everything has seemed to have a white cast about it for a few years now, but it's hard to tell where things are real and where I am just mining for symptoms. Now I am gorging on fish and Lutein supplements like it matters, because those things are supposed to help halt the degeneration. Blindness would suit me, as I consider myself invisible already. Before my eye exam I happened to read Borges talking about his impending blindness. He confirmed what I had long suspected: blindness is not dark. In his case it came as waves of red and pulsating veins, where the only darkness comes with sleep. My blindness would be white. Bright, with patterns forming in my eyelids the way clouds in the sky metamorphose into angels and politicians before the eyes of the willfully distracted. My mother is dying and refusing medical attention. She was Baker Acted out of her home last month, an invocation that at first offended me but I now see that had they not taken her against her will she would have lain there and died. She speaks with the lingo of suicide but never quite threatens it. It was she who, after my father did his dance, comforted me with the knowledge that suicide among the elderly is far more common than you might think. In my father's case it was obvious what he chose, but in many cases it's open to interpretation as to why what happened happened. It gets into your psyche, though. It has wormed its way into mine. My father, several years ago, recounted how about 40% of our family tree on his side died from suicide or alcohol. It gets into your mind that you have historical back-up should you get sick of this life. I am going to get my car (parked at a friend's house upstate) and maybe drive it up to Maine or Vermont in the next couple of weeks. I want to see the Dada exhibit at MoMA first. I love my XM Radio. I practice a lot of Scriabin and Godowsky these days. Daily I eat, shit, curse, masturbate, drink, smoke pot, fornicate with the devil, read the Bible, listen to cajun/gospel/bluegrass, and I shower at least once. It is pouring rain here tonight and I am listening to the old Fleetwood Mac jazz records.

well ..., i suggest you go and get a good look at as much as you can while you can. my last eye exam, i was told that i have an abnormal growth of blood vessels very near my fovea. the optometrist was surprised when i told him i never noticed anything. since then, i have noticed a very small spot, just below and right of center of my left eye vision. i'd compare it to a bad pixel on a lcd screen, except that it's not really even that noticable and that it moves when i try futilely to look at it directly. it depends on what i'm looking at. i really only notice it when i'm staring at a wall or something that is made up of one color or large areas of one color. i fully expect to either tip over suddenly or take matters into my own hands. i can't imagine enduring a long, degenerative end to my life. i expect to be a comparatively poor, old guy. which is fine as long as i'm not plagued with maladies. ..., your mom seems cool. i enjoyed the scrabble ass-kickings she delivered. she deserves whatever peace she can find.

I have a "spot" in my vision too, but it's from when a friend of mine was screwing around with a laser pointer and got me in the eye. I ususally don't even notice it anymore. Take dave.'s advice. See what you want to see now. Or steal somebody's eyes and have them transplanted.

I would hate for you to lose your vision, Mark. You've got such a remarkable eye. Your pictures continue to take my breath away at times. In other news, I love how I first hear that Dave's got a blind spot on sorabji. That's just rich. I think I'm going deaf, for the record.

ain't no big deal, agatha. unless my eyeball fills up with blood vessels. which may or may not happen. they weren't there before. . .

I'm going to fret about it anyhow, if it's all the same to you.

A friend of mine is going to need corneal transplants, and I keep telling him he needs to be on the lookout for a pair that he likes. An organ donor card can't be hard to forge. I'm at risk for some sort of eyeball badness since I'm so nearsighted. My eyeballs are very large, and consequently, my retina is stretched quite thin. Maybe it's in my head, but sometimes things seem grainy. Where will your escape from New York lead you?

my left retina's torn. i'm on a floaterwatch, every once in a while i see a few more than usual and i think i'm going blind. then it goes back to normal and everything is chaos again.

macular degeneration was pronounced back in 1987 when I gav up booze. told me I had the eyes of a guy forty years older than I was. Still not blind yet. still floaters. Mac degen caused in my case from congenital diabetes and 20 years of hard drinking. It is the same as it was in 1987, and since I gave up glasses some three years ago, I see better and when I need to, I use cheaters from Walgreens. Floaters caused from birth waste not being wiped from my eyes... and I thought for years it was all the dope I did. do whatever you must do to not go blind. darkness sucks. what is this "not working in four years?" where do I sign up? and margaret, not that you would care, I am still here, the 86 year old gorrilla living in a log house in the woods like I was six years ago, reading you guys every week when I crank up the squirrels' tails. and writing when they get diahrreah. they get tired of the meth induced internet frenzy. so i guess everything in normal in the great midwaste. it's just a stop between east coast and new mexico, really. I hope to be working with some of the casinos there by the end of the year. welcome back, margaret; don't let the bastards get you down, MT. Hey, where's my script?

i knew an old couple who both had macular degeneration (insert really tasteless joke here)..i always wondered what caused it since they both had it...something in the water? something they both ate or didn't eat? not sure..they couldn't see much straight ahead but could see pretty good in their peripheral

Margret,hi,its v,from Lithuania/Russia/Poland,take your pick,on line for 2 or 3 years,and I got here the hard way,MAZELTOV!!!TAVARICH!!!,,,most will tell you I have a 666 stamp on my head,not true,its on my ass!

...stuff you missed,v ALLMOST met Antigone,missed by 2 miles in London,plus,another of jacks gay vids, http://piv.pivpiv.dk/ the guy with the rock hard ass is me.

...come to think of it,dont click on that last posting,my personal bodyguard took it over as as the ultimate deterrent some while back,and it may well give you a virus.

seeing if this works.. if it doesn't, then this is a long echo. spambots, in case anyone was wondering, were circling again, and getting too close. i stopped with the Lutein. it was making my eyeballs feel inflated and weird. i also quit taking a multivitamin. i'm back to steak and beer, which has always served me well. i heard on the radio about something called Lucentin (?), which is supposed to be a miracle cure for macular degeneration. but at $2000 per daily dose i guess i'll be out of luck if this really is my condition. the opthalmologist kind of offended me. she seemed to relish a little too much the drama of announcing "you do NOT want this to happen" and then she seemed miffed when i did not react in whatever appropriate way she had in mind. i would not have told her this but i don't think blindness would stop me from doing much, and it might even be a good thing if it could let me focus my mind on the basics of thinking. i need to do more of that. and the world of ugly women would open up to me once and for all. i should have put "job" in quotes. going to try and post this to see if it works...

and search will be back soon.

blind pianists are almost cliché. boring, even. of course, i hope your eyes get their shit together and keep working properly. good luck, .... and thanks for managing all of this shit so that we losers can all blab at each other and embarass ourselves on a daily basis.

where would be with without you. healing energies to your eyes. doctors can be pricks. i've had a couple of them gleefully predict my imminent death. these days i just say "promises, promises".

thanks mark.

also, not complaining at all, just fyi: there are some message boards that aren't taking posts, rather going to the black text on white background page.

Thank you Mark. I was in the city all weekend, unable to check in on the boards, or even lurk, and I felt oddly off balance. The first thing I did when I got home at 3:42 am on Monday was to check the boards, and a strange sinking feeling came through me when they weren't accessible. I had a good time on Treasure Island, though.

funny, i was in southern humboldt all weekend.

you are a fair and righteous king, Mark ;)

I come around from time to time when i need to. They say there's nothing wrong with my eyes except i feel like i can't see all the time. Not staring at a computer would help, I think, but what am I doing now? Way things are going, eventually everybody will have gone to library school. There are no ugly women. But if there were, you would be God's gift to them, Mark. I am afraid I will not be able to summon the whatever to end things if needed. I will think about it and procrastinate and hang on and hang on.... perhaps I am already doing that? But life is not too bad right now.

Mark, did you get my emails?

Nelly: the whatever will find you. Believe me when I say I wasn't actually looking to make big changes in any aspect of my life. Circumstance has a way of grabbing you by the clitoris and twisting - I think for people with DSM level addictions it's called a moment of clarity, but being the sucker I am for religious metaphor I like to think of it as epiphany. The field of your mental vision shrinks, like you're about to pass out, until there's only the realization that you're not happy and any amount of uncertainty and difficulty is preferable to feeling like you're living your own life in a hazmat suit. I have to say I feel fucking great. I am sad a lot, but it's a good kind of sadness - respectful and wistful and with no trace of the bile of regret. So, you know, if you're fence-sitting something big - don't worry, if it's big enough a resolution will find you. I think the hardest part is maybe realizing that you don't actually like the person you've been trying to be for years, and having to rethink what it is about YOU that you want to develop. I thought I knew, and maybe it was the right stuff to focus on until it wasn't. But it isn't the right stuff anymore, and now I get to have the fun of figuring out what ELSE I might like to be when I grow up. Responsible adult is great, but it isn't everything I thought it was going to be. Now I have to figure out what else I can supplement it with from my bag of tricks that makes it feel less like a prison and more like a home.

Oh, and hey heather? You were on my radar, and I do in fact care. It's raining. Our rainy season is FUCKED UP. Here's the story - we have monsoons which typically last about an hour in the heat of the afternoon - usually. This week it has rained every day, and not all monsoon-y. Like, rain. Like from places where there is rain. Right now I'm loving the shit out of New Mexico.

*some strange sort of glee*

Cz - I think so. Did you get mine?

Margret,V is a cool guy from Lithuania,took me 3 or 4 years to blend in,but I did.,sort of.,I dont get as many insults as I used to.