January 15, 2004

It seems that the extended outage caused by November's server move has had an unexpected effect...

From time to time, I use Google's "Advanced Search" feature to comb E2 for common typos and misspellings, which I then submit to the author and/or the editors for correcting. When I tried to do just this yesterday with "aquit", Google stared blankly back at me...

What is this "everything2.com" of which you speak, Gord?

Nonplussed, I tried a few other common misspellings: "definate", "monkies", etc... nuffin'.

Your search - thier site:everything2.com - did not match any documents.

Five months ago, that common error showed up in 134 nodes, and I hadn't yet begun the process of alerting the authorities to their presence. This meant two things:

1. The content editors had scoured the nodegel for every instance of the typos I mentioned in my August daylog and wiped them out with due diligence.

-OR-
2. Google forgot they were there.

The second hypothesis being the easier to test, I plugged a few common words and phrases into the search engine:

Your search - jessicapierce site:everything2.com - did not match any documents.
Your search - "mr. t" site:everything2.com - did not match any documents.

Even a search for "monkey" yielded only six results, and as Segnbora-t's "Monkey Tile Box" clearly shows, E2 has a fascination with monkey nodes.

The only conclusion I could come to was that Google crawled the indexed E2 pages during the outage, found them down and removed them from its index. Tens -- perhaps hundreds -- of thousands E2 nodes used to be indexed (across at least four domains), but this number has been reduced to a fraction of that ("Searched pages from everything2.com for "everything2". Results 1 - 10 of about 9,930", even many of these lead to dead links and none of them have cached copies). Checks with other leading search engines have given similar results.

So what does this mean? It means that fewer users will stumble across E2 during the course of research and Web surfing. But what can we do? Two things, really: Submit E2 URLS to Google and other search engines for (re-)indexing and link to E2 nodes from other Web pages. If you have a blog, link to a node you wrote. If you participate in online forums, find ways to link nodes there, too. Eventually, we'll correct Google's temporary amnesia.

Follow-up: arieh pointed out that the site's robots.txt file currently prohibits Web spiders from crawling E2. This would prevent Google from reindexing the site if it found the pages down. I hope this changes soon.

I was at the hospital again, this time to try out a new support sock. The nurse who does the trying out and teaching about support socks was hot. Long blond hair, sweet smile and a manner careful to please and not offend. It took almost an hour to measure my leg and try out various socks.

She also explained that the sock was to improve circulation and help the blown out blood valves in the deep vein function somewhat. Deep vein thrombosis breaks some valves completely and damages others.

The long corridor in the middle of the hospital bothers me somehow, makes me feel out in the open more than being outside. It is wide and high, and over 200 meters long. I kind of imagine a wind developing in it, blowing people aside, slamming doors and so on. I like it, but I don't like it, but I do...

I spent the morning lying in bed and thinking about boys.

It's been six months since he broke up with me. Three months since I've come to view that as a good thing.
I don't miss him anymore; when he writes to me, it's a painful, drawn-out process. He always wants to know what I'm up to. What I'm doing. If I've found a replacement for him yet. I think it's the last that really concerns him. He may not want me anymore, but he doesn't like the thought of me being happy with anyone else. I... just want him to let go.

As I laid there, I wrapped my arms around a pillow. I laid there, wishing someone would wrap me in their arms.

It's been almost nine months since I shared a bed with anyone. I may not miss him, but I miss the feeling of being held in someone's arms as we both drift off to sleep. I miss the soft noises he makes, the constant struggles we have for the blanket-- the warmth of him against my back. I miss the comfort that comes with knowing he is there.

I laid there, wishing someone would touch me again.

Since he left me, I've been alone. He was my first and only kiss... first and only everything, to be painfully honest. I remember the feel of his hands on me, his lips pressed against mine. The thrill of knowing someone wanted me kept me coming back, even when the pull of his body palled.

He used me. But I used him just as much.

In the months that have passed, I've tried to move on... without much success. (Of course, this only helps confirm my belief that I have either the appearance or personality of one of the Great Old Ones. Meh.) I met another boy. Double meh.

My ex tells me that he wants to see me again and catch up on what we've missed.
He's offered to feed me steak for my birthday. Booze. And of course, sex.

The question stands: do I need human contact that badly?
The answer...

I don't know.

I am growing more disheartened with the Democratic presidential primary as each day wears on. The media is clearly complicit in its support of President Bush -- when Howard Dean was the frontrunner, they ran a relentless campaign of negative reporting to knock him down. Wesley Clark started to the rise, and they turned against him, as well (though not quite as badly as they turned on Dean). Rather then let the Democratic voters pick their candidates in the primaries and caucuses about to begin across the country, the media is attacking its strongest candidates, crippling their ability to defeat Bush in the fall.

I am afraid that we are going to end up with one of the establishment Democrats -- John Kerry or Dick Gephardt -- who were on board with much of the President’s program prior to the election and who do not offer a clear alternative to the President’s policies (Gephardt’s quixotic health plan not withstanding). All that’s needed is a strong finish for either of them in Iowa (which is virtually pre-determined at this point) for the media to declare the “Dean insurgency” over, basically calling the rest of the race in their favor before it even hits most of the other states. You don’t need to be a prognosticator to know that this is the storyline the media desperately wants to play out.

I feel very strongly that Howard Dean presents the clearest, most responsible alternative to the President. He’s accused of flip-flops on a daily basis, but the media has largely forgotten how Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards all flip-flopped on the war, on tax cuts, on “No Child Left Behind,” on all the programs the White House has rammed through the congress. His position is actually quite consistent, but his establishment enemies and their media buddies have done a great job of drumming up old quotes to use against him.

I look at a Gephardt-Bush match-up and I see shades of Dole-Clinton in 1996. Gephardt as an aging relic, a nasty curmudgeon whose rants of the President’s “miserable failure” while a positive President easily trumps his negativity. Kerry-Bush would go along the same lines of Dukakis-Bush or Mondale-Reagan -- Kerry is such an uninspiring public speaker, his rhetoric so vague and academic that Bush will again rise as a sort of “everyman” and trump him with his charisma and folksy charm. Dean has suffered countless McGovern comparisons from his foes and the press, but on the stump he is an electrifying speaker -- I’ve seen him twice now, and both times I was blown away by his deft use of plain English. And the rage people accuse him of isn’t there -- people confuse passion with rage, emotion with fury.

I’m at the point now that I can only accept one of three candidates -- Dean, Edwards or Clark. The others have so sickened me with their negative tactics that I just can’t support them. I am not an “anyone but Bush” Democrat -- I do not believe that all of these guys can win, and I honestly feel that Dick Gephardt, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have no business leading the Democratic party, much less running for President. This does not mean that I won’t vote for one of the other candidates in the fall -- just as I grudgingly voted for Al Gore in 2000, I will probably cast a vote for one of the other candidates if they are the nominee. But I will not send them money, campaign for them, or see them speak on the stump -- and I think it’s safe to say that I will probably tune out the election entirely.

This is turning out to be a crappy day.

I got up late, found six inches of snow, the boy's school is closed and the girl's daycare will open three hours late. I rearrange our schedules for the day and head to work. But first the hummock of snow left by the damned plow has to be shovelled out of the way and both cars cleared off.

So I detect early on that this is one of the worst road-days that I've hit in over 340,000 miles of driving all over North America. Amazing really, for so little snow. OK, no problem, I'm late but I'll slow down. I have to.

On Sourland Mountain, where I live -- just down the road from where the Lindbergh baby was abducted, the roads were poorly plowed and left with no salt. The townships have created miles of ice rink. As I'm heading into a curve -- much too quickly (maybe 30?), the car ignores my feeble pawing at the wheel and rockets four feet up a snow-covered stone and earth palisade. I figured I wouldn't be hurt. I never really got scared. But the oncoming car did. I see the driver clearly through our two windows wearing a face of terror. She stomps on the brake (dumb, dumb, dumb) and slides sideways as I come right back down the embankement in front of her, across her lane, right back into mine and continue on as if nothing had happened. At this point I'm thinking that fortune is smiling on me and I'm not so pissed about being late.

That's when I hit the icy-ice and then the ditch. I'm normally better than this.

Fuck! After half an hour of mucking and pushing, my car is back on the road and my khakis are dirty and wet to the knee. And I'm an hour late. My meeting has already started and I'm not there. Did I mention that I live on Sourland Mountain? This is basically the spot in New Jersey that is the most remote place possible and still within a short commute to Princeton. And there's spotty cell reception. Right here, there is none. I can't call work.

So I drive on.

Having to stop for idiots failing to come up the mountain aside, I get to work an hour and a half late. And pissed. The guard at the front gate doesn't want to let me in because of the snow. Eventually he lets me tell him where I work and I procede.

And none of the folks in my meeting are coming to work today. Not a one of them. Except for dumb old me.

This is turning out to be a crappy day.

Sorry for the rant

I have been looking through my node history trying to figure out what other projects I need to finish and noticed that I have noded a lot of George W. Bush's speeches. I herby covenant to make sure whoever wins the presidential election to cover their speechs and node them as often I have noded the current president. I will try to not let my bias and views come into play while I node these, however it is hard to do. Even if the winner of the election this year is someone I disagree with politically, I will node thier speeches to further this site being everything that it can.

Okay, here's the longer version, for those of you who have been asking "where the fuck have YOU been, grundoon?"


Whull, let's see, where to start.

Last spring, oh, long about march, my office got a letter, (in Friday's mail) that there would be layoffs, "no sooner than May 30th". O swell. I got, shall we say, a wee bit stressed, since not only am I the sole breadwinner of the household, but my house was partially provided by my job, and would instantly become unaffordable (or expensable, as my nephew would say) if I were to be laid off.

Once they got around to it (and that's a whole story in itself) the trust managed to lay off about 45 of us, one of which was me. Not good. Poor economy, expensive house, challenging housemate, all added up the one now much more severly stressed-out grundy. Among other questions that arose, one important one was how many afternoons can I spend in bed, after jobhunting all morning, without being concerned about depression? Several, I hope.

I starting looking in Seattle (nearer to the imp's dad and family) Portland (lotsa great noders, and also one of my best friends) and San Fran, Davis, Sacramento, and all points in between, including such cool places as Ashland, Oregon, and skipping over the shitholes, like, say, Fresno.

(Shoulda taken the Clemson, job, jetfro, but then, I'd have to live in, well...Clemson. )

FINALLY after about mebbe six weeks of searching, which I know sounds like a short time but seemed bloody long at the time, I got several offers. At the same time. One where I liked the job and people better, one where I liked the location a lot better. Oakland vs. Davis, not too hard a choice unless you're fond of urban mayhem.

Sooo, I stayed in the city. Commuted to Oakland. Drive the imp to kindergarten (SF does not have a useful bus system, at least not of the school bus type.) Get on a bus. Go to downtown. Get on Bart. In the morning the whole trip didn't take longer than an hour and a half, unless there was problems with Bart. And no, driving would not have been faster. Besides, the people watching on SF buses is a riot.....

Then I got the day-late and dollar short phone call, for an interview in Sacramento. Which I did, empolyment types telling us that we should ALWAYS interview, even if we don't want the job, since it's good practice. Kind of along the same lines as it's great to bang your head against the wall, etc.

As I drove to Sac, running the damn air conditioner so I wouldn't sweat in the monkey suit, I kept thinking, WHY am I doing this? I already HAVE a job. Why am I DOING this?

BUT. I liked the office, I liked the interviewer, I liked the idea of being out of the city, I liked the salary.....So. I quit the job in Oakland. I moved. To Davis. At the beginning of December. I started at the new place January 5. (Can you say a month's vacation? Wheee!!!) I negotiated for extra time off, so I can go to Ontario next summer, not for a week or ten days, but for a MONTH. Idafu, if you still want to have your writing workshop, now's the time.

So that's the long version. If want to message me, start within E2 - I don't have much time for junk mail, but I will respond eventually. If you messaged me in the last 4 months? Try again, I deleted all my messages. All 1500 or so - now I have 5.

LESBIANS, MONKEYS, SOY.

That is all.

I never meant to care so much. Attachment was never part of the plan.

Plan? What plan?

You'd think a separation of work and leisure would be easy. You'd think people are carefully divided into their pre-assigned, socially acceptable groups. You'd think that everyone was meant to be happy if they'd quit struggling. I never had a chance to think.

Would you have anyway if you did?

I know you never meant to hurt me… nor I to you. The distance put between us is half of the pressure. We knew we'd part, everyone does. It's a simple fact of life. It's not like we went into with expectations of infinite time or even a pinch of that. We never had any expectations past that last day. Missing you wasn't in the manual.

Like it would have made a difference if they warned you…

I'm beyond ecstatic for your place in life. I share your successes and joys. I want you to be happy, why wouldn't I? Your place, your friends, and your life: I simply wasn't part of that. The blueprint wasn't designed to hold me. Or us.

If you wanted to fit a mold you wouldn't have started this journey in the first place.

---

I saw you tonight… again. I got the expected head nod. I know your achievements. I keep track more than you know. Makes me feel like I'm breaking some code and not in the fun way. I wonder where you go afterwards, what you did before, what you'll do tomorrow… an endless flood, mulling over your life. I don't expect you to do the same. When you left you never glanced back. You shouldn't. Your life doesn't include me. You pass by me in life and only notice me when I stop by. I just never grasped the magnitude your small passing would have in the scheme of my life. I never anticipated attachment. The handbook never covered this.

---

I'm just not sure what to do now.
Quit.
I'm not sure what's the right thing is to do now.
I told you: Quit.
I'm not sure what the appropriate thing is to do now.
They told you: Quit.
I'm not sure what's the best thing is to do now.
You told you: Never Quit.

I'm not leaving. You know I can never do that. I'll be around. I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere. You know that. Everyone knows that. It's just that… it's just… painful. You must realize something, something you can't realize: Attachment wasn't part of the plan.