i am just one big mound of sleepy today, is what i am. it’s all chilly and rainy out and sitting in this freezing office is, quite frankly, just about the last place i’d like to be. although i suppose it’s better than being on hoth, the frigid ice planet. but just barely. i mean, it’s cold enough down here that i’m going to be slicing open my tauntaun any minute now.

gah. xmas is now what, two weeks away? i still have to do shopping for everyone, once i get paid on thursday. my family swears up and down that we aren’t doing the exchange of gifts this year, but they’ve been saying that for years now. i wish they’d just tell me what the fuck they want so i could buy it instead of having to guess because they’re in some kind of gift-giving-related denial. on a slightly different note, i still have no idea what to get jim. he says not to bother, but really. of course i’m going to bother, especially as i’ve been informed that my gift has already been purchased. the trouble with him is that he pretty much just buys what he wants, and if there’s something he wants and hasn’t bought it’s probably because its price is over four digits. but no worries! i will use my leet ninja-like observation skillz and figure something out.

when spencer moved out of the apartment in july and i took over the rent, i was really into the living-by-myself thing. i liked being able to sleep, eat, clean etc. according to my needs alone. i really liked supporting myself completely - paying the rent and all the bills on my own. i never had to deal with other people’s schedules, like i did when i was living with chrissy and two other girls at nyu. there was none of the bickering over whose turn it was to do the dishes, whose leftover chinese was rotting in the fridge, who had loud friends over when someone else was trying to study for finals. it was divine. for the past month or so, though, i’ve been sharing my apartment with jim. for all the joys of living alone, i don’t really miss it. i thought i would. i’ve always been big on privacy, for example. but living with jim is a very, very different thing from living with three other randomly assigned roommates, or even living with spencer while i looked for another place. we’re living together for no other reason than because we want to. there’s no logistical necessity driving this - he could go back to his place any time he wants to, and indeed he does once in a while. and the perks of living alone are, i think, topped by the perks of living with jim. i like just having him around. i like being able to take a break from whatever project i’m working on and wander into the other room to be with him for a bit. i like coming home and finding him napping on my bed, or cooking, or playing crazy taxi or something. i like letting him know what time i’ll be home. and i think maybe my favorite part is having him to sleep next to. our schedules are very different, meaning we don’t always go to sleep at the same time, but it’s just delicious to wake up when he comes to bed, or curl up next to him if he’s already asleep. i don’t really feel like i’ve given up any of the independence i struggled so hard to gain, it’s just that now i have someone to share it with.

plus, he’s a sexy bitch. bonus!

quote of the day: <derPapst> I helped a 73 y/o woman change a flat today on the way to work and in return she gave me sweet, sweet, wrinkly lovin’.

komputer! maschina! panzermensch! and stuff. spooky was the cause of much internal office furor yesterday: overcome with jealousy at my possession of spooky in relation to his own distinct lack of spooky, chris [spencer's co-admin] took it upon himself to kidnap and molest my favorite squeak toy. chris has since lost not only temporary custody of spooky but indeed all visitation rights he might have obtained. spooky will require years of therapy to overcome the emotional scarring - pray for him.

you know, i almost hope i sleep through my alarm these days, because then it means that jim has to come and wake me up, and that’s quite possibly the best way to wake up that i can think of. it puts me in a good mood for the rest of the morning, even if he can be extraordinarily annoying in order to get me out of bed. at least he’s cutely annoying.

things are progressing on my redesign of the penny arcade site slowly, but it’s a good slow - like the unhurried tease of a stripper. or, erm, something. i uploaded a test page for tycho’s perusal last night and he seems pleased - there’s a few things i’m changing, but other than that, it’s onward and upward. plus his server runs freeBSD, which is delicious - i’ve rarely had a chance to get down and dirty with this particularly spicy blend of bsd before, and i’m enjoying it immensely.

heh. after writing that paragraph, i was reading tycho’s newspost for today - he talks a bit about the redesign, too.

anyway, smoke more crack. except you, kate - you’ve had enough.

so i’ve been working on redesigning penny arcade. it’s great - tycho and gabe are very cool to work with, and i’m getting that rush that comes with working on a really cool site. here’s a snippet from #penny-arcade last night:

<CWTycho> emma here is redesigning pa
<DngrsDrrn> cool
<emma> w00t w00t
<CWTycho> she’s got some fucking skizills, too
/- DngrsDrrn/#penny-arcade ph34rs emma
<emma> heh
<CWTycho> as w3ll you should!
<toral> I hear she puts together a mad pr0n site
<emma> haha
<emma> yes. my pr0n skillz are considerable.
<toral> is that the secret?
<CWTycho> toral:  as soon as I saw "Cum Drunk Psycho Sluts Dot Com", I knew that she was the right designer
<emma> it’s true

but so: yay. i’m having a lot of fun with this. i’m exhausted from working so much, but it’s just like being sore from dancing or something like that - it’s a good exhausted.

ok. i noticed the other day that the bag i carry around with me, to work or whatever [as opposed to the lunchboxes i carry to clubs] is getting pretty frigging heavy, so i decided to dump everything out and see what’s actually in it. keep in mind this is a fairly small bag - it’s a black canvas shoulder bag that i got at a military surplus store years ago. it’s covered in pins and whatnot. its contents:

• a discman, which contains vnv nation: empires
• a pair of black velvet gloves
• a little notebook with this shiny black metal cover. i use it to write down people’s numbers and email addresses, or if i think of something on the train that i need to remember.
• the vi editor pocket reference, which has a bunch of flyers stuck between pages and such
• the perl 5 pocket reference, a relatively new addition to my bag. jim gave it to me a few weeks ago. it contains several polaroids of him, a check from my dad to cover the domain i’m registering for him, and a couple of extra metrocards for when the one i carry in my wallet runs out.
• a variety of pens, including some too cute ones with vampires and frankensteins on them that i bought at halloween last year. and a sharpie. always carry a sharpie.
• a body shop hairbrush that’s so old they don’t make it anymore. this is soon to be replaced.
• a skeleton-shaped pez dispenser. alas, no pez is contained within.
• a pair of black sunglasses
• a half-empty pack of djarum black cloves & a black lighter
• a bunch of matchbooks from various clubs and restaurants. there’s some from mother here, which tells you how often this bag gets cleaned out.
• tin of penguin mints
• a foundation compact [it's urban decay's apparition, the only foundation i've found that's as pale as i am]
• urban decay lip gunk in graffiti and twisted
• an unlabeled dark grey eyeshadow
• dark grey eyedust
• body shop’s tea tree blemish stick
• blue raspberry chapstick
• oil of olay black eyeliner
• tweezers
• a black leather wallet, containing my massachusetts id [still have to get around to getting a new york one], nyu id, harvard id, new york public library card, metrocard, debit/atm card, ticket stubs from the haujobb/vac show and the vnv/apop show, some receipts with unidentified phone numbers written on the back, and about forty bucks in cash.
• black change purse [covered in sequins, it's so cute!], containing: my house keys, a bunch of change, a bunch of saftey pins, some subway tokens, and an email address
• a can of go-go frenzy
• several bobby pins and some loose change

good god. i need to clean that motherfucker out.

so yesterday’s where-the-the-hell-is-spencer-with-my-haujobb/vac-ticket saga turned out to have a happy ending - spenz0r showed up around four or five and presented me with my ticket. woo.

after work, spencer and i went to penn to meet up with derek and jim and a friend of derek’s who i don’t know. we actually ran into jim on thirty fourth as we were walking from herald square to penn, and then spotted derek [whose hella cool hair is noticeable from a mile away]. we all headed over to limelight, which i’m just going to mention again [i think i first enthused over it after the vnv show] is a really, really cool venue. here’s a couple of links, though i can’t find any photos to do it justice:

• planetnightlife.com’s review
• citysearch’s review
• an outdated page with a little blurb about limelight [note about this one: they mention the bank, a beloved goth/industrial club that closed about a year and a half ago. oh the memories!]

in any case, it’s a very impressive space. the building is a huge converted church, full of little winding stairways and balconies and whatnot. zenwarp is a decent weekly event held there, though it’s upstairs in the [equally cool] giger room as opposed to the main room, which is taken over by a normal party. i’ll take my digi with me the next time i go, maybe.

haujobb were excellent, by the way. they played some of the stuff i’m more familiar with, but also some new material which i really liked. the velvet acid christ guy, on the other hand, is a big dork and i was completely unimpressed with the vac performance.

jim and i took the train home, so we didn’t get back till after three. needless to say, i didn’t get a whole hell of a lot of sleep last night. i’m reeeeeeally looking forward to going to bed tonight, and i hope i manage to do so at something resembling a reasonable hour. although, given the amount of work i have to get done here today, it’s not looking terribly likely. blah.

tuesday, 5 december 2000 | 3:23 pm est

yeah, so i’m supposed to go see haujobb/vac tonight, but it’s three thirty now and spencer has yet to show up at work. spencer has my ticket. no spencer, no ticket, no show. not good. i’m going to go over there and break down his door if he doesn’t show up soon.

i’ve been working myself silly lately, hence the sporadic updates. i know, i know - i say that a lot. my sleep/work schedules are all fucked up right now - by that i mean that i’m not sleeping, but i am working. it’s starting to catch up with me, a little. it’s nice having jim around, though. he made me soup last night - never underestimate the power of soup on tired, grouchy webchix. seriously. in fact, i could do with soup and a nap right about now.

the most-frequently-bitched-about topic of mail arriving in my inbox lately has been [in various permutations]: “WHY THE HELL HAVEN’T YOU PUT UP ANY MORE PICS, BITCH!” so here you are:

extra special bonus: here’s a screenshot i took the other night.

other stuff [and this is going to be the unedited output of my overcaffeinated and under-rested mind]: last weekend marked a month that i’ve been with jim. it’s gone by really quickly - it feels like it was just halloween, and it’s now rapidly approaching xmas. my apartment is in a new and different state of disarray, but it’s a vastly improved disarray from its former catastrophic mess. jim’s been incredibly helpful about helping me get my act together, domesticity-wise, and i’m not sure i show my appreciation enough. i do appreciate it - i’m just sort of baffled, still, that he has any desire to go out of his way for me i feel very, very lucky to have him in my life. i certainly didn’t expect it, but i’m not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.