Challenges
Today's been a bit mixed. I got up much later than I wanted, about 4pm, planning to go to Graham's a bit later. I had assumed that Mum would take me over in the evening, but when the time came she'd gone out with Connor somewhere, just should teach me not to assume things. Anyway, so the meeting didn't happen today, but hopefully we'll have it tomorrow instead.
When Mum did come back, she told me she'd talked to Dad about what they were going to do whilst Shanna was here. She'd said that they could go up to Oxford for a few days and leave us here, but Dad's apparently decided that he won't leave us here alone. The reason is supposedly that he feels responsibility to Shanna's parents to be 'looking after' us, and I can't argue against that point unless I'm explicitly told that they don't mind us being left alone. That didn't seem too likely... so I haven't brought it up with him today. He's not going to win either way though. I mean, obviously it's his house and if he doesn't want to leave it that's his choice, but he's not staying because he doesn't want to go he's staying because we would like him to go, and that annoys me. If his point is to stop us being alone though, he's going to fail, and I will point that out; if he is going to stay here all the time, we'll just go somewhere else. I'll pay for a hotel if I have to - I'd do it just to make a point, even though I can't afford it.
Which I shouldn't do; it means that it's become more about winning than it is about Shanna and me, and that always happens. I did the same fucking thing two years ago, and I'm doing it again. But it is important; if I get beaten once, I can be beaten again. I have to show that I won't be stopped, that I'm not under anybody's control, I don't care who they are. That matters a lot to me... I just shouldn't let it take over.
It didn't promise to be a good evening, so I decided to watch The Wall. I'd planned to watch it the night before, but had already listened to most of the album, so elected to finish that instead. Connor came up to bed half an hour before the end, and I thought I'd have to pause it and leave for a while, but as I did he asked me to leave it on, so I happily obliged and he watched the end with me. I don't think he really had a clue what it was about, but I got to see it uninterrupted (minus a few questions), so no complaints.
As usual though, it did it's thing. I've seen it about five times now, but every time I understand something new, or in a slightly different way. And it gets me emotionally too - something no other film has ever managed to do, but that one always does. It's a very strange, disturbing story, but for me at least, very powerful. I suppose it all depends what you see in it, and what you can associate with.
I went downstairs to let Connor go to sleep, and deliberately avoided communicating with anybody, not even a millisecond of eye contact. At about midnight, I went to make myself some tea and go back upstairs. There I somehow managed to poison myself with the drink I love the most. I'd left my cup somewhere upstairs, but not being bothered to go up and get it, I got another one from the shelf. My other cups haven't been used for a long time, and the one I chose was pretty dusty and didn't seem that clean on the inside, but I washed it as best I could and it looked alright afterwards. As soon as I'd made the tea though, I could see the scum floating around on top. Throw it away? Nope, I just skimmed the crap off the top as much as I could, and put a little extra sugar in to cover it up. It tasted bad as I started drinking it, and only got worse. It was only when I'd finished that it really got to me though... I started to feel quite sick, and a headache and slight disorientation came from nowhere. I don't know what the hell was wrong with it, but that was one very very bad cup of tea.
So by this point, you won't be too surprised that I wasn't feeling very good. Had a bad day, messed up my mind a bit, and then tried to make myself sick. I was almost feeling a little sorry for Shanna when she came on, knowing what I would probably be like to talk to. Somehow though, there was just no problem. Don't know what it was she did exactly, but tonight was one of the best we've had in quite a while, and by the end I was feeling pretty good. Rather unoptimistically, I asked her if she'd ask her parents about letting us be left alone at home, and she said that they already knew it would happen and wouldn't mind it. Surprising... but if I can actually get them to state it's okay, then it destroys the 'responsibility' argument immidiately. She said she'd explicitly ask for me, and tell me what they say tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be positive.
I still am feeling quite good, although slightly tired. Planning on travelling to Graham's earlyish tomorrow, where we can do a bit of work in between the other things of the day. Live8 is starting in a fairly small number of hours, and although I'm sure it's something I'll obtain on DVD sometime, I'd like to see as much of it as I can.
I tried to get some more music today too, but was thwarted by the hard disk on ToeSmudge-Biach. I knew it wasn't that big, but now it's completely full. It was never intended for me to put music on, fair enough, but there was no pointing in letting all that space go to waste; web pages were hardly going to fill it up quickly. Anyway, I'll have to do something about it. I first though of just moving some of the less-played songs elsewhere, but before that, I've found something else to try. I'm re-encoding all of the files to be variable bit-rate between 64 and 320 Kb/s. Hopefull that should mean that the larger files get cut down quite a lot without any noticeable quality loss. It's quite a slow operation, but I've got Cyril working on it now - I'll leave him on overnight and see how much gets done. I estimated it should save around 3GB once finished, which isn't that much really, but anything helps. Some of the files will actually get bigger after processing, but the net change should definately be in favour of space-saving.
Which reminds me of something else to mention: PlusNet, our ISP, has been offering it's customers free upgrades. We've been changed from 512Kbps to just under 2Mbps; almost four times faster, without paying any extra. Most appreciated.
Err... yep, I think that's all. I still haven't quite recovered from that tea yet... I don't feel quite so sick anymore but there's still a kind of 'memory' of the taste, and it's horrible. Hopefully it'll go away soon. It's somehow become 4:30am even though I'm sure it was only 2:30 a few minutes ago. The sun is rising, but I will retire. Goodnight.
When Mum did come back, she told me she'd talked to Dad about what they were going to do whilst Shanna was here. She'd said that they could go up to Oxford for a few days and leave us here, but Dad's apparently decided that he won't leave us here alone. The reason is supposedly that he feels responsibility to Shanna's parents to be 'looking after' us, and I can't argue against that point unless I'm explicitly told that they don't mind us being left alone. That didn't seem too likely... so I haven't brought it up with him today. He's not going to win either way though. I mean, obviously it's his house and if he doesn't want to leave it that's his choice, but he's not staying because he doesn't want to go he's staying because we would like him to go, and that annoys me. If his point is to stop us being alone though, he's going to fail, and I will point that out; if he is going to stay here all the time, we'll just go somewhere else. I'll pay for a hotel if I have to - I'd do it just to make a point, even though I can't afford it.
Which I shouldn't do; it means that it's become more about winning than it is about Shanna and me, and that always happens. I did the same fucking thing two years ago, and I'm doing it again. But it is important; if I get beaten once, I can be beaten again. I have to show that I won't be stopped, that I'm not under anybody's control, I don't care who they are. That matters a lot to me... I just shouldn't let it take over.
It didn't promise to be a good evening, so I decided to watch The Wall. I'd planned to watch it the night before, but had already listened to most of the album, so elected to finish that instead. Connor came up to bed half an hour before the end, and I thought I'd have to pause it and leave for a while, but as I did he asked me to leave it on, so I happily obliged and he watched the end with me. I don't think he really had a clue what it was about, but I got to see it uninterrupted (minus a few questions), so no complaints.
As usual though, it did it's thing. I've seen it about five times now, but every time I understand something new, or in a slightly different way. And it gets me emotionally too - something no other film has ever managed to do, but that one always does. It's a very strange, disturbing story, but for me at least, very powerful. I suppose it all depends what you see in it, and what you can associate with.
I went downstairs to let Connor go to sleep, and deliberately avoided communicating with anybody, not even a millisecond of eye contact. At about midnight, I went to make myself some tea and go back upstairs. There I somehow managed to poison myself with the drink I love the most. I'd left my cup somewhere upstairs, but not being bothered to go up and get it, I got another one from the shelf. My other cups haven't been used for a long time, and the one I chose was pretty dusty and didn't seem that clean on the inside, but I washed it as best I could and it looked alright afterwards. As soon as I'd made the tea though, I could see the scum floating around on top. Throw it away? Nope, I just skimmed the crap off the top as much as I could, and put a little extra sugar in to cover it up. It tasted bad as I started drinking it, and only got worse. It was only when I'd finished that it really got to me though... I started to feel quite sick, and a headache and slight disorientation came from nowhere. I don't know what the hell was wrong with it, but that was one very very bad cup of tea.
So by this point, you won't be too surprised that I wasn't feeling very good. Had a bad day, messed up my mind a bit, and then tried to make myself sick. I was almost feeling a little sorry for Shanna when she came on, knowing what I would probably be like to talk to. Somehow though, there was just no problem. Don't know what it was she did exactly, but tonight was one of the best we've had in quite a while, and by the end I was feeling pretty good. Rather unoptimistically, I asked her if she'd ask her parents about letting us be left alone at home, and she said that they already knew it would happen and wouldn't mind it. Surprising... but if I can actually get them to state it's okay, then it destroys the 'responsibility' argument immidiately. She said she'd explicitly ask for me, and tell me what they say tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be positive.
I still am feeling quite good, although slightly tired. Planning on travelling to Graham's earlyish tomorrow, where we can do a bit of work in between the other things of the day. Live8 is starting in a fairly small number of hours, and although I'm sure it's something I'll obtain on DVD sometime, I'd like to see as much of it as I can.
I tried to get some more music today too, but was thwarted by the hard disk on ToeSmudge-Biach. I knew it wasn't that big, but now it's completely full. It was never intended for me to put music on, fair enough, but there was no pointing in letting all that space go to waste; web pages were hardly going to fill it up quickly. Anyway, I'll have to do something about it. I first though of just moving some of the less-played songs elsewhere, but before that, I've found something else to try. I'm re-encoding all of the files to be variable bit-rate between 64 and 320 Kb/s. Hopefull that should mean that the larger files get cut down quite a lot without any noticeable quality loss. It's quite a slow operation, but I've got Cyril working on it now - I'll leave him on overnight and see how much gets done. I estimated it should save around 3GB once finished, which isn't that much really, but anything helps. Some of the files will actually get bigger after processing, but the net change should definately be in favour of space-saving.
Which reminds me of something else to mention: PlusNet, our ISP, has been offering it's customers free upgrades. We've been changed from 512Kbps to just under 2Mbps; almost four times faster, without paying any extra. Most appreciated.
Err... yep, I think that's all. I still haven't quite recovered from that tea yet... I don't feel quite so sick anymore but there's still a kind of 'memory' of the taste, and it's horrible. Hopefully it'll go away soon. It's somehow become 4:30am even though I'm sure it was only 2:30 a few minutes ago. The sun is rising, but I will retire. Goodnight.