Tony’s Journal

Yeah, I’m still here. Doing okay. Cynthia seems okay too; her phone is hooked up now, internet coming soon, cable less soon. Y’all should call her. Any of our motley crew who wish to call her should telephone her, and I’ve got tha digits if you need them.

Many a man would face his gun, many a man would fall. . .

Just singing along.

I guess I never pointed out that my pictures from last weekend’s football game are up. Of note is the nice panorama I got.

Work now features 94% less stress than it did for the two weeks ending this past Tuesday. Now it’s a bunch of little tasks that are no problem for the terrifying tech support juggernaut juggernerd they call Tony.

Guess what? I’m going to redo my website again! Didn’t I redesign it last month? No. What are you talking about? “Ad nauseum” is hardly strong enough language to describe this. Let’s see, off the top of my head, I can think of 2 on my www4 space, then the one on plutonyum.com with the scary eyes, then the one that is still up but not the front page, then the one where everything was in a vertical column, then the current one. And soon a new one. The reason I’m redoing it right now is because the date & weather don’t line up right on the left side. I’d have to change the text to “wee” or something, but hell, might as well redo the whole works.

I also have to renew my domain name by Nov 3. Don’t want it to get snatched up by, who knows, a porn site. What a sad porn site that would be. “Ha ha! We shall capitalize on the misspelling of a rare radioactive element and profit because. . . . oh hell! We’ll just profit!”

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She’s Gone
Daryl Hall & John Oates

Everybody’s high on consolation
Everybody’s trying to tell me what is right for me
I need a drink and a quick decision
Now it’s up to me, ooh what will be

Chorus:
She’s Gone Oh I, Oh I’d
Better learn how to face it
She’s Gone Oh I, Oh I’d
Pay the devil to replace her
She’s Gone – what went wrong?

Up in the morning look in the mirror
I’m worn as her tooth brush hanging in the stand
my face ain’t looking any younger
now I can see love’s taken her toll on me

She’s Gone…

Think I’ll spend eternity in the city
let the carbon and monoxide choke my thoughts away
and pretty bodies help dissolve the memories
but they can never be what she was to me

She’s Gone…

Hall and Oates: wuss rock at its finest. I guess people felt this way in the late 70s as well.

Yup. She’s gone as of tomorrow morning. I won’t see her again before she leaves. I guess the song isn’t quite a perfect fit. She didn’t dump me, she’s just going away. But “I’d better learn how to face it” is damn right. Right now, Billy is taking care of me, and I have more than a little Captain Morgan in me. Until tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be too busy to be destroyed. Beyond that, who knows. But damn, she even left her toothbrush here, just like in the song.

<sigh>

I’ll learn how to face it. I’d prefer not to have to, but such is life. It could be a damned lot worse. I could never have had her here with me to begin with. Looking at it that way, I have it pretty good.

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It seems like the more that goes on, the less I write in this.

For now, everything feels disjointed, it feels like things are moving so fast and so slow and so well and so poorly, and my friends are around but they’re gone. I don’t know. I’m not broken. I am confused and exhausted and I want to carpe all these diems, but goddamn, I can’t seem to, and the number between “August” and “2002″ keeps going up and up, many times each day it seems. And I have the feeling that at once, this rising action will suddenly all

stop

and then I will have a new set of happiness and problems. I don’t get it. I don’t know what is going to happen. This feeling is new and strange, not necessarily good nor bad, but I think I’d be more comfortable if you and you and you were still in school and we still went to Harris Teeter and bought coconuts in the middle of the night and we went to football games and the State Fair and had a familiar back-to-school experience.

Unlikely. The people on campus are new and young and different and make me, the young one, feel so old. Ever taught a class of freshmen? Ever had a guy come into your office and continually call you “Mr. Baumann?” Billy pointed it out today — we don’t know the people walking around campus. We go outside of Page Hall and see no one recognizable. I know far more faculty than undergrad students now.

I’m getting to be a young old-timer. And I’m only 21.

This song lyric below appeals to me. It is kind of silly, but it conveys what I’m feeling — we’re still here, we’re still around, we still talk to each other, but we are or will be separated by great distances and it feels like there is unfinished business. When are Rosemary and John getting back from their trip to Maryland? I wonder if Cynthia will enjoy her little trip to Ohio. Justin will be back from VT in a few days, and we’ll play basketball and go to the Bo, right?

“Funny — I’ve been there
And you’ve been here
And we ain’t had no time to drink that beer. . .”
                America, Sandman

Sigh. One day I will realize that I should grow up and move on. I haven’t realized it yet.

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Woo! I’m in class! Not my class though, just HON 296M: Spanish for Engineers. It’s one of our laptops this semester, and this is the first meeting. It seems like it’s going to be a really fun class. Dr. Kennedy is telling everyone in espanol about how futbol is much better than futbol americano, which is horrible.

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Ha! Regarding NCSU’s easy basketball scheduling (statefans.com):

“One of the more legitimate criticisms that resonates from media talking-heads and many Wolfpack fans alike, have been those levied at Sendek’s philosophy of non-conference scheduling over the last six years. Compared to State’s ACC brethren during the last six years the Wolfpack has feasted on more cupcakes than the congregation of the First Baptist Church at their most recent Homecoming picnic.”

It’s funny because it’s true.

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I need new personal checks, and these have caught my eye. . .

Croikey!

Work today = hectic. Let’s just say I played the “Benny Hill” tv theme many times today to pace myself. Worked to the frantic beat. Last day before classes start, y’now.

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This is too good not to mention (though admittedly the weddings I had to go to this summer were not as bad as I feared they’d be):

Wedding Enjoyed By No One But Bride

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A momentary lull in the work.

I’m 2 years late, but this song is still the heat. I don’t even like Jay-Z so much, but this sample is nice. I walked around whistling it like an idiot for an hour in Target last night, holding a pillow and a toothbrush.

We be. . . Big Pimpin, brushing dem teethz
We be. . . Big Pimpin, pillowz on our B-E-D’s

Stress level at work is at its highest level since the Big Work Flood of August 2001. Mad work.

Home life is good, though, scent of decay notwithstanding. Actually, it just smells like a lot of air fresheners now. Mandy has bombarded the affected area with carpet-powder and at least two air fresheners. Add to that the aroma of my ultra-soapy quite-girly Bath & Body Works air freshener blasting forth from my room, and our upstairs smells not too bad.

Oh yeah, I said home life was good. What I meant by that was that I am seeing Cynthia a lot. We went to the Bo last night. We are going to the Sweet Tomatoes tonight. Ate with Billymander, Melsinator, and in the company of the non-eating J.M. Lloyd last night; eating tonight with many of the same characters. Add Amy McGregor O’ the Clan McGregor, and Christine 16, and I think that makes our jolly bunch. Tomorrow night: Athens Drive HS reunion, plus a couple other assorted goons such as myself. Chris too. Note to Chris: start practicing the “remember that guy? that time? at that party? oh my god he took that thing and did that thing with it! oh my god” banter. You’ll need it.

Ah yes. The other news of the day. Dayo got into Duke! Congratulations to him. They are “offering him half.” I did not ask what that means, but I assume it is half tuition. It’s good news because he’ll be up here at law school, right down the road in Durham. Durham is the kind of place. . . uh, if we want to see him, he will come to visit us. But anyway, he noted that the most important aspect of his acceptance is — well, I’ll let him say it:

Mr A Banwo: yeah man, can’t believe it
Mr A Banwo: thanks
plutonyum80: that’ll be cool, you’ll be up here
Mr A Banwo: yep, still be able to attend the themed parties

And you can’t beat that with a bat.

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Damn it.

I am not coming to work tomorrow because I am helping Cynthia move to Ohio. That will feel somewhat like helping someone stab me in the eye with a fork.

Since I will not be at work tomorrow, I have to finish up the application CD this morning. It is giving me problems.

I was supposed to go to the DMV with Mandy this morning, but I decided I had to work instead in order to finsih the above hassle, so I left her a note on my door which she did not see. She waited for me and I made her late. Damn that too.

We are leaving for Ohio at 6 am tomorrow and will get back Sunday evening — just in time to go back to work.

Okay, enough whining.

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OH-ee OH-ee OH

Bastard court! I don’t want to go to SC! No one does!

Oh, plutonium with an “i.” Never mind.

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