if only they were albinos… this site is a requisite visit if you love me (you do love me, don’t you?). you too can play with interactive flash giraffes! i’m in love! this is even better than that damn bubble shooter game! [thanks zannah]

“I didn’t want to talk to you tonight,” she muttered.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, “then why did you answer the phone? I know you have call display. You knew it was me. Why didn’t you just let it ring?”
“Since when have you known me to do anything logical? It was you on the phone, Mark. How could I not answer?”
Mark sighed carefully, he didn’t need her to hear his frustration. It would only make this harder than it already was. “Anyway… This can wait until tomorrow, Shan. You should go to bed or something. I know you haven’t been sleeping properly. You’re never yourself when you’re overtired.” His voice betrayed his deep concern for Shannon’s well-being. Even he was surprised at the amount of emotion he heard.
“I… can’t sleep,” Shannon mumbled into the receiver. It sounded like she was holding it between her chin and shoulder. Mark heard what sounded like a newspaper being folded or a pile of loose papers falling from desk-height. “Shit. Hold on.”
She dropped the phone with a loud clunk which made Mark wince uncomfortably. He could hear her swearing as she cleaned up whatever it was which had fallen. Eventually, she picked up the receiver again. Sounding slightly annoyed, she asked, “why did you call, Mark?”
That’s just like her, he thought, asking the tough questions straight out. Fuck pussy-footing around; she had chutzpah, and he loved her for it.
“I just wanted to talk,” he shrugged even though he knew she couldn’t see it. “We haven’t in a while.” Mark suddenly felt stupid for phoning her so late, especially on a work night. It was selfish of him, but he had been lying in bed and the urge to hear her voice was overwhelming. He had the phone in his hand and was dialing her number before he even realized it.
“Yeah,” she said, the weariness replacing the flash of anger he’d heard in her voice. “It has been a while. Talk to me while I get ready for bed? Not that I’ll sleep.”
This is not how it was supposed to go down, he thought frantically. How can I talk her to sleep when I want her to be excited and happy for me? Even though I know she won’t. How can I even consider telling her when I know what I have to tell her will probably push her off the edge she’s been on for the last few months? How can I tell her when…
“Of course,” he replied in an almost-whisper, his voice soft like velvet. “What do you want me to talk about?” This is how it had started, and this is how it would end… tonight.
Voices on the phone. Pictures via email. Christmas presents, birthday gifts, and care packages. They’d known each other for years, but they’d never met in person. It had just never worked out that way. It never would, not now.
He’d never said he loved her, even though it was plain to them both he did. He never said he missed her when they didn’t talk for extended periods. He never let anything slip which might convey even the smallest part of her importance in his life. If he said it all now, she’d know it was over. That she would never hear from him again. It would be so easy to just say “I love you” and have it done with.
“Shannon,” Mark breathed into the phone, “I love you.”

so, yeah. i managed not to have a nap last night. i’m rather proud of that accomplishment. i was hunkered down under the über-blankie, reading harry potter and i could feel my head starting to droop. i forced myself to get up, do dishes and some leftover laundry and ended up icq-ing karl while listening to the exotic dancer kick ass on weakest link.
i have a union meeting to go to tonight. whee. at least i get chinese food out of the deal, and i think julie’s paying. i’m not looking forward to the audit i have to perform sometime in the next few weeks. remind me not to volunteer to be a trustee next year.
i keep thinking i should rent memento and go see ghost world, but i’ll be on the island this weekend for my mom’s birthday so i should hold off so we can see them together.
hrm. i just met our new human resources assistant. tyler would be in love. she has a surprisingly vice-like handshake for such a tiny girl.

dave? are you there, dave?

help!

i’m bored and the new temp is freaky.

andrea! your domain registration has expired. that’s where your page went. you better go re-register it before someone steals it.

i had such a bad night last night. it is entirely my fault, though, so i shouldn’t complain too much. you’d think i’d learn not to have a four hour nap in the afternoon, right? you’d think i’d know how it fucks up my sleep, wouldn’t you? i know it’s a bad idea. i think “i shouldn’t be doing this” as my eyes get heavier and heavier. then, when i invariably wake up, i think “i better get up now”, but all i end up doing is rolling over and falling back asleep.
as a consequence, i didn’t get to sleep until about one a.m. this morning. then, just to compound my reckless sleep habits, when my alarm went off at six this morning, i got up, plugged in my flat iron and then went back to bed for half an hour. talk about risky business! i was so tempted just to be late to work. then i realized that having taken friday off work, it probably wouldn’t be looked upon too favourably being late after a three-day weekend.
*sigh* i want a month off.

i’m a horrible, forgetful girl. then again, i have the excuse of preoccupation with technical issues which made me forget last week’s thursday morning mpeg. so, you get two this week (as long as i don’t forget again this thursday).
“Hello” by Lionel Ritchie
it’s funny, i’d forgotten all about this song until it recently popped up in a wireless communication commercial. i downloaded it and listened to it for about an hour on repeat. it has a lot of meaning for anyone who has ever developed any kind of meaningful relationship online. it speaks of the distance and longing. it makes me cry.

today, i did something i haven’t done in a very long time. i was outside, in the fresh air, amongst trees and shrubs… painting a fence. painting! a fence!! it was great. the four of us outside in the sun and our painting clothes, gabbing back and forth while we stained their new cedar fence. maybe i’m odd (shuddup), but i just had a blast out there. i actually wish i had arrived earlier so as to have had more of a part in the completion of the project. it makes me almost want a yard to look after and beautify. then i remember that i hate yard work when it’s thrust upon me and i’m glad i live in an apartment.
in other news, i won $12 playing cards tonight and we went to my favourite chinese restaurant for dinner. i love saturdays!

jason over at fivefoot6 has put together an incredible archive of blogs from the twenty-four hours surrounding tuesday’s events. go; read the stories and thoughts others in our online community had share.
and that, my friends, is the last time i will mention it.

while fetching my first cup of coffee this morning, i realized:
– i went to sleep in a pair of blue flannel boxers.
– i woke up in a pair of white cotton underwear.
what do you think?

do me a favour, will you? if you’re reading this and the address bar of your browser says “http://www.fubsy.net/blog/” (with or without the www’s), please leave me a comment. i’m starting to get a little pissed that my nameservers still haven’t been updated. i know some of you are getting to the new server fine, while i, the person who pays the damn bill, is stuck at the old host and having to click through. thanks in advance, i appreciate it.

new york was never a place i wanted to visit. i know, i think i’m in the minority on that one. it just always seemed too big, noisy, dirty, and crime-riddled. it was all about the yellow cabs, muggings and rich women in outfits which cost more than my monthly income. i’d watch hill street blues or felicity and think “this is enough of new york for me, thanks”. i was happy going to boston or chicago, but new york city was never on my list.
last year, while researching airfare for my annual excursion to massachusetts, i discovered that i could fly via nyc and save a lot of money in the process. well, being poor and cheap, this appealed. i put upon the goodwill of my only friend in the city and he generously assented to be my host, guide and guardian during my brief to’s and from’s through JFK airport.
once i’d booked the flight and confirmed arrangements in and out of new york is when i started looking forward to the chance to see what nyc was really like. i have to admit, i didn’t see a lot (how much can you see from a cab, plane window or the express bus out of mid-town?), but what i did experience will last me for the rest of my life.
no, i didn’t tour the world trade center, it wasn’t even a consideration. the one landmark i did want to see was the chrysler building, there’s something about that art deco spire the touches my heart, but i didn’t manage to accomplish that. so, why am i writing this? because i needed to express to you the memory i just recalled while reading more accounts of the destruction in new york. i hadn’t even realized it until a moment ago, but i’ve seen those towers. coming across the bridge from queens into the heart of mid-town, in the back of that scary yellow cab whose safety-screen was so scratched up i couldn’t look straight ahead, the only way i could look was at the skyline of manhattan. i saw my chrysler building, i saw the empire states building, and i saw the twin towers of the world trade center.
maybe that is why, if i let my guard down for even a moment, i start to cry when i see yet another picture or read yet another account of the tragedy or its aftermath. maybe i left part of myself in new york, or i took a piece of new york with me when i left. a friend once told me that when you read a book you leave a part of your soul in it. i think it’s the same with every place you go and every one you meet. no matter the length or depth of contact, you’re indelibly tied to everything you touch.
i’ve touched new york and new york has touched me. that is why my heart breaks with each special report or breaking news item. yet, i’d have it no other way. my apathy used to frighten me. death and destruction rarely phased me. i’d shake my head and mutter some polite phrase of consolation then go on about my petty self-concerns. i hate that it’s taken loss of life and property of this magnitute to get me to finally feel something, but i’m grateful that i do.
this has no point, no insightful moral for you to ponder. this is me, on a thursday morning, letting all my thoughts slip out my fingers onto this screen you’re reading. thoughts about the first and last time i saw what is no more. thoughts about what it takes to finally care about my fellow man. thoughts about how, still, i cannot be angry about this attack, only sad and very, very scared.
that being said, i believe it’s time to stop the dwelling. my life hasn’t stopped, it’s just become quieter, as if it’s been wrapped in layers of cotton batting. my bad hair day doesn’t matter so much this week, but it will soon. it has to or i’ll go mad. i won’t forget, i can’t ever forget, but i need to think of other things now. getting the oil changed in my car or what i’m going to cook for dinner. the day-to-day minutiae of life in the west. treasuring the freedoms we have which allow such minor things to become so important to our peace of mind.
if i prayed, i’d be praying for calm heads and rational justice. just as all americans aren’t like timothy mcveigh, all islams aren’t like bin laden. we have to remember that and ensure that no more innocent people die. there are more than enough bodies in the smoldering rubble at this moment, don’t you think?

every time i write with green ink, i think of you.

in my (futile) effort to go on with a normal life, i will commence to bitch that it’s been almost 48 hours since changing nameserver info with my domain registrar and i’m still being directed to my old site when pointing to fubsy.net. yeah, i know it can take up to 72 hours to propegate. i’m just frustrated that some people are obviously getting there using it while i, the owner, can’t. grr.
one more thing, thank goodness for my friends. i wouldn’t have survived yesterday without them.

all day, the only thing i wanted to do was leave work and come home. to be safe under my über-blankie while i watched the world as i knew it fall apart in the wake of the terror rippling across north america and the rest of the world. i was useless at the office. it took every effort to hold back tears with each new picture i viewed of the devastation. i thought if i was home, in front of my television, the up-to-the-minute information would allay my anxiety.
when i did finally get home, i was not soothed. i was not eased. i was more anxious than i had been, even as i heard the first reports over the crackling am radio station. i couldn’t sit and watch, i had to keep moving. then i realized what it was. i didn’t want to be alone. i had to be with people who would understand my horror and share my fears. i spent the evening with my friends; and, although i’ll never be as peaceful as i was before i heard the first report or saw the first image of the world trade center tower collapsing, i am more calm.
i am still distraught. i am still shocked and horrified and disappointed in humankind. yet, i know that i will be able to go on, as we all will. as we all must. we, as the whole of every nation on our planet, must go to bed tonight and get up tomorrow morning and go on with our lives. not like nothing happened, although the temptation to ignore the tragedy and pretend thousands of lives were not lost is strong; but, we must go on knowing that we can overcome the atrocities. that we will save those we can and rebuild to make our world stronger and safer and more peaceful.
i wish that we all share that hope in our fellow man and the terrible urge for retribution will be tempered by a stonger desire to ensure nothing like this will ever happen again.

the world has just changed. you can feel it.
i’m terrified of what will happen next.

i can’t even begin to explain the shock, horror and fear i’m feeling right now. i’m primarily worried for the people i know who live in new york; but, beyond that, i’m… i’m trying not to cry. i can’t even get decent information because every fucking news website in the west is hanging. i feel hollow.

okay, i’ve just switched over the name servers at dotster, so i’m hoping that within the next couple days the rest of the world will be pointing at the right server to get the proper iteration of fubsy.net. don’t fret if things don’t change for the next while, there’s enough change going on backstage to make up for it!