myloseralterego's Blog

I wrote an XML schema definition file today.  The upside is that the Java development suite generated a bunch of files based on my schema that will can be bound to an XML document.  I probably managed to save myself quite a bit of work, not that I had much choice -- Java doesn't really provide readily understandable tools for parsing an XML document of an undefined format.  Anyway, now I've just got to figure out how to generate an XML file from within the C# configuration program while enforcing the schema. 

I'm ready to test the Java end of the project.  I've got the data packaged for it and . . . I don't want to think about it.  I want to take today off.  But I wanted to have this finished by the end of the weekend.  Life is stressful these days.  Maybe I should make today a half day, find some way to fritter away the morning and start work after lunch.  It seems like the only time I take to unwind anymore is when I sleep. 

Java Servlets.  I never had to do any serious web programming before about 13 months ago.  Like an idiot, before then, I used Microsoft's ASP.NET technology, which is wonderful from a development perspective.  Microsoft puts out a great suite of tools.  The integration of their database server and programming languages is unlike anything else out there I'm aware of.  But take a look at web hosting prices someday when you've got nothing better to do.  ASP.NET hosting is much more expensive, especially if you need a lot of Microsoft SQL Server database space.  PHP is an alternative I hate.  It's doesn't even seem like real programming.  Java Servlets, though, look amazing.  They do everything you could want them to do.  Java's a legitimate programming langauge.  It's low-level enough that you can put together complex applications, actual applications, not just forms where you can submit stuff.  I don't want to ramble about programming.  I'm just saying these things have got to be the tool of choice for serious web development.

Granted, I'm not using a very high-end laptop, but I'm three hours into the installation.  I'm bored.  The installation process is clearly running in the background so I can work on other things, but I don't have anything else to do.  I don't even have anything to write about.  I feel a little bit like trying to write something like a poem.  Maybe I'll make some coffee and give it a shot.

The adamantine amalgam of base, atavistic yearning,
Bestial lust lubricated by vanity and slyly inserted into my conscious mind,
Demands naturalization, residency there.
And I who deny it on a whim that would regale the world with tales
Of selfless acts well intentioned, a whim I despise even as I cling to it
And, in doing so, repudiate longings forsook for a Spartan cell.

The truth amuses me, that I am ignorant amuses me. 
Preferring to remain so for today at least, I clothe my desires
In fashionable costumes:
The staid gentleman, the inhibited virgin, the leprous whore. 
And these words playing the role of ringmaster as my mind imagines
It can control the beasts within each.

I tire of reveling in love, of aggrandizing a banal cliché
Better that I cry out for nepenthe or a sorrowful guardian
For my soul’s delight in its own irredeemably corrupt
Fascination with the austere holiness of ideas 
Resplendent with beauty and truth and worshipped
With a decadence abhorrent to conscience and decorum.
Anyway, they know no material counterpart.

All the lies I have embroidered into the veil I wear in mourning
That deceives my better judgment with misperceptions
I blame on hope.  Hope, that glowing jewel that whispers such sweet lies.
Hope!  Dead for a ducat!  Dead!
 

The last line is mostly plagiarized.  I prefer to think of it as an allusion.  The hard drive is making more noise.  Maybe the installation will start moving at full speed again soon.

I'm waiting for Visual Studio 2008 to install on a laptop.  I think it's spending a lot of time right now modifying the files it installed to run on a 32-bit operating system.  For those of you who ever wonder, 32 bits is the size of a "word" in a 32 bit operating system.  I can't state this with absolute certainty, but I believe it's the size of how much information each register in the processor can hold.  I know it's the size of a pointer.  A pointer points to an address in physical memory.  This conversion operation is taking some time, about an hour now.  I've been talking to my dad through most of it.  He's going in for heart surgery today and, even thought it's nothing major and he's coming home tonight, I wanted to spend the morning with him.  I'll probably write more this afternoon once I get some work done.

Today isn't going to be fun.  I'm not even sure it'll be productive.  I decided to quit taking Ritalin to make working easier.  I was developing quite a habit.  Odds are good I'll have to lower one of the other pills in a few days, once I get used to not having any Ritalin.  The fact that I could take so much Ritalin without getting at least a little crazy is a strong indicator I'm overmedicated.  My brain probably won't work quite right today.  I'm going to try to work, but I'm not optimistic that I'll be able to make much progress.  I should be mostly back to normal by Thursday, at the latest.  I'm surprised by how lonely my life is.  No, I don't want to do that, start complaining.  I should just get to work.  Hopefully, I can work.  Today's going to drag by slowly if I can't.

Four hours of sleep today.  I'm just not able to work right now.  It's not really a feeling of exhaustion.  It feels more that some key neurotransmitter is missing.  My mind's just blank.  I'll probably be back asleep in three or four hours and then awake in another eight.  I'm starting to wish I had bought that digital converter box for my television after all -- I haven't turned the TV on at home since I watched the 2008 election results come in.  Tonight would be a good night to lie on the couch and stare blankly at the television.  The sad truth is that, instead, I'll probably drink coffee until I get anxious and then sit and stare off into space with my leg waggling . . . It's good to know I have my evening planned out.

I got bored last night and got back on that site for younger men looking for older women.  My sexuality certainly isn't defined by that, but I am attracted to older women more often than most men probably are and, moreover, there's an emotional component to the dynamic I find when I'm talking to an older woman sometimes that I'd like to explore in a romantic relationship.  I'm not sure what I'd find, but the idea appeals to me a great deal.  And, since I am often attracted to older women, I'll probably have the opportunity to explore this emotional fantasy at some point in the next few years.  It's a sexual fantasy too, if I'm to be completely honest.  I don't have a real strong sense of myself these days -- my self-confidence is low, I'm getting better with being assertive, but it's still a problem -- and, though I might just be making excuses to myself, I like the idea of not being judged for falling into what's, on the whole, an emotionally submissive set of roles with a strong, intelligent woman.  I guess I also like the idea of maybe becoming important to someone without having to assume emotional responsibility for her.  And the idea of a relationship with an older woman is non-threatening somehow, almost as though it'd be an environment in which both of us could experience gratification with fewer expecatations for what the relationship should be or might turn into.  I'm probably just rationalizing my desire to have this emotional dynamic that I want so badly, even though I can't really guess at it's form.  Oh, well.  They're called "fantasies" for a reason.  It's not something I can pursue in the near-term future, regardless. 

I'm planning on getting a part-time job when the medicine changes stop.  I've been changing the dose of something once or twice a week for three weeks now and there are a lot of days when I have trouble functioning or sleep very poorly.  I care some about the nature of the job.  Mainly, I just want more social exposure and some extra money while I finish up my programming projects.  There's not much else to say.  I guess the only good way to look at it is that I should put myself out there in the world and see what opportunities arise. 

I don't know why I have this strange desire to belabor/dissect the older woman fantasy.  It's a pleasant thought toy and nothing more at the moment, I suppose.  Maybe I just want to become comfortable with it so I don't feel prohibited from pursuing  it when an opportunity arises.  I will say that it's not like a shoe fetish in that . . . what I mean is that, for me, the members of the opposite sex that jump out at me are older than I am nearly as often as they are younger than I am.  I'm not really referring to physical beauty though, obviously, for a woman quite a bit older than me, I'd want her to be quite attractive.  I mean that gut reaction you get with a member of the opposite sex that tells you a relationship would be well worth pursuing. 

One of the questions I hate answering is, "What's your type?"  I've come up with an intentionally borderline obnoxious answer: "Mid-to-late thirties, fake blond hair, nice body, looks like she used to be a bit of a party girl."  This isn't disingenuous.  It's just that you don't see a whole lot of women who fit that description.  The truth is, I don't have a fixed "type."  As a general rule, I'm only attracted to white women and Asian women, and also only to women who weigh less than I do.  I've droned on long enough . . .

I've been doing nothing for an hour now.  I need to get back to work or go to sleep or play a computer game or something.  I wish I had someone to talk to -- I feel some strange need to explain myself coupled with a sense of guilt that tells me that I'm not caught up in a misunderstanding and . . . I know that I'm not guilty of anything but having feelings and desires of an almost human nature.  Still, I'm ashamed.  I've been nothing but honest but . . . I don't know where the guilt comes from.  My brain isn't working right this late at night.  I think I feel guilty because I'm lonely, horny, and really starved for attention.  I just want someone to be nice to me, even though I don't know that I deserve it.  Look, I could write about my feelings of inadequacy and sham eall night.  That won't get me anywhere.  I can't find what I"m looking for and it bothers me . . . I guess I'll settle for escapism in work.  You can't possibly understand my sense of loss.  I want to forget for a little while.  I guess there's no shame in using work as a distraction from unhapiness.  I didn't plan or intend for . . . does it matter?  I feel like I've betrayed myself somehow.  Everything that's wrong right now -- I just don't want to think about it any longer.  I don't want to think about my own atavism or selfish heart.  I should finish my cup of coffee and get to work.  I don't understand why I expect that my instincts be alturistic and my desires never capricious.  It's an unrealistic standard.  There's no sense in getting angry at the corner I've backed myself into.  At least I'm not spouting profanities and nastiness.  I know I'm being vague.  I don't want to share why I'm unhappy with and disappointed in myself.  All it comes down to is an entirley human sense of lust for circumstances to be different, for gratification, not sexual gratification, not specifically.  I just want to fill the holes in my life.  I don't have either the strength of character or level of composure that I wish I could call upon whenever I need to shore up the facade that keeps my emotional needs and desire to feed and nurture my sense of self-worth well hidden.  I just want the same dumb stuff that most people want and a lot of people have, only I don't dare hope for it because it's well beyond my reach at present.  I could have just written that my life is unsatisfying and listed the reasons.  I want someone to desire me, physically.  I want to do something that I'm proud of.  I want someone who makes me feel good about myself, not by fawning over me, but by making me behave in a way that I'm happy with.  I want a phone call.  I want a few thousand dollars in the bank.  I'm sick of feeling undeserving and inferior, like I'm not ready to make more of an effort or expose myself to opportunities to find these things. 

It looks like the 32 bit version of the Unicode Text Format is the best way to store the data in the file that's written by the Microsoft C# application and read by the Sun Java Application.  The Sun documentation mentions that Java implements variants of the 8 bit version of UTF.  I suspect it stores text in standard UTF-16, but I can't be sure.  Microsoft makes no effort to help anyone convert text to a format that can be read by Java, but then Java makes no effort to do the converse.  Microsoft does allow for more options when it comes to converting text though.  You can even choose if you want the bytes of the Unicode characters to be big-endian or little-endian.  These days, programming is full of acronyms.  "Big-endian" and "little-endian" go back decades, for those of you who are wondering at the Swift allusion.  Anyway, I should get back to work.

Nothing like a nice, long, babbling blog entry to burn off all my energy before I start work.  Actually, I don't have much to say.  I spent Friday night with my step-brother.  He's 13 and I brought him over to my condo and we stayed up all night, playing games on the computer.  Please, no comments on my social life.  I feel worried for some reason.  I wish I could make an effort to be clever or funny, but my heart's just not in it.  There aren't many sources of happiness in my life these days -- I enjoy work as much as I do anything else. 

I hate myself.  Almost on principle alone.  It's not really my experience that other people hate me, but I often tend to suspect they just haven't been given a proper chance.  It's starting to bother me.  When I was growing up, my mom was the sort of mother who told me how special and wonderful I was on a weekly if not a daily basis.  I wasn't stupid though, and I didn't believe her.  My dad was kind, but emotionally distant.  The combination of their personalities left me at something of a loss of how to modulate my sense of self-worth.  It's not something I do well, and for the last several years, most of the time, the needle has been pegged at the negative end of the spectrum.  I expect people not to like me, even though that isn't my experience with the world.  What's more, I tend to be skeptical of displays of actual feelings of friendship.  It's not that I get paranoid or feel that the other person has an ulterior motive.  It's just that there's so much about me that I'm not okay with, I don't trust my instincts when someone seems genuinely interested in being friends.  I can extrapolate that to this blog and the ninety hits I got in 24 hours and write about how I think it's some sort of hoax or the efforts of someone I would find distateful just because, "Who would display that kind of interest in me?"  I'll let it drop.  Whoever did that certainly doesn't want to hear any of the specific scenarios I suspect and I doubt I'll sell her on sharing my sense of my own worthlessness.  There's what I want to belive and what my brain will allow me to lend credence to, and the two are pretty dissimiliar.  I don't even know why I do what I do at least half the time.  How am I supposed to guess at another person's motives?

Nothing like a nice, long, babbling blog entry to burn off all my energy before I start work.  Actually, I don't have much to say.  I spent Friday night with my step-brother.  He's 13 and I brought him over to my condo and we stayed up all night, playing games on the computer.  Please, no comments on my social life.  I feel worried for some reason.  I wish I could make an effort to be clever or funny, but my heart's just not in it.  There aren't many sources of happiness in my life these days -- I enjoy work as much as I do anything else. 

I hate myself.  Almost on principle alone.  It's not really my experience that other people hate me, but I often tend to suspect they just haven't been given a proper chance.  It's starting to bother me.  When I was growing up, my mom was the sort of mother who told me how special and wonderful I was on a weekly if not a daily basis.  I wasn't stupid though, and I didn't believe her.  My dad was kind, but emotionally distant.  The combination of their personalities left me at something of a loss of how to modulate my sense of self-worth.  It's not something I do well, and for the last several years, most of the time, the needle has been pegged at the negative end of the spectrum.  I expect people not to like me, even though that isn't my experience with the world.  What's more, I tend to be skeptical of displays of actual feelings of friendship.  It's not that I get paranoid or feel that the other person has an ulterior motive.  It's just that there's so much about me that I'm not okay with, I don't trust my instincts when someone seems genuinely interested in being friends.  I can extrapolate that to this blog and the ninety hits I got in 24 hours and write about how I think it's some sort of hoax or the efforts of someone I would find distateful just because, "Who would display that kind of interest in me?"  I'll let it drop.  Whoever did that certainly doesn't want to hear any of the specific scenarios I suspect and I doubt I'll sell her on sharing my sense of my own worthlessness.  There's what I want to belive and what my brain will allow me to lend credence to, and the two are pretty dissimiliar.  I don't even know why I do what I do at least half the time.  How am I supposed to guess at another person's motives?

After 13 hours of sleep, I'm anxious this morning and can't quite figure it out.  Maybe it'll fade over the next hour.  I just picked up the ADD medicine from the drug store and am waiting for it to take hold.  Straterra.  It actually helps some with anxiety.  I was a little irresponsible when my psychiatrist gave me the go-ahead to raise it from 40 to 60mg.  All I had were 40mg capsules, so I started taking two a day until I got around to getting the 60mg prescription filled.  I raised another drug by a milligram to help me sleep while the ADD medicine built up in my system and cut that drug back down last night.  So I don't really know what's causing the anxiety.  I just know that I'll feel better tomorrow if not later today.  I was hoping to work this afternoon, but unless my nervous system calms down, that probably won't happen. 

I'm starting to feel a little clausterphobic here because of all the attention my blog has been getting the past two days.  Ninety hits in 36 hours feels . . . excessive.  I'm glad that some of you find it entertaining at times, but I worry that maybe one or two of you find it a little too entertaining.  It's disheartening.  That's really the best word for it.  I mean, here I am, feeling alone if not lonely and it doesn't do a lot for me to think that someone's tweaking over my blog.  I'm not suggesting that your doing it for my benefit, just that I feel isolated enough as it is and the idea that someone somewhere out there in the world is obsessing over this but doesn't want to let me know who she is leaves me with kind of a cold, nervous feeling.  I guess it doesn't matter what I want, but I don't really understand what you want either.  Well, maybe I have some idea of what you want, but I don't understand what you hope will happen.  That's for certain.