December 26th, 1997

Voicing concerns

Talked to Ride Forever on the phone last night, and it wasn't bad. I was a bit afraid that it wouldn't be the same with voice, but it pretty much was. It's harder to express and stuff like that audibly, for some reason (might just be me, though), but we ended up talking for several hours about pretty much everything from pets to metaphysical questions, which was a very enjoyable way to spend the night. I haven't had a phone conversation like that in a good while, and I really liked doing so again. Of course I slept all day, but I didn't really miss anything anyway, since the sun hasn't been out in a week or two, so there's not much difference between day and night now.

While I slept, though, the Evil Plumbing from Hell showed its nastier sides to my brothers, and we're now unable to shower. Even turning on the damn thing causes the floor of the bathroom to cover with evil-smelling gunk. I hope this'll get fixed pretty soon, or the whole place (and us) will smell about the same as that floor. :(

My ongoing study of cyber-feelings has now reached the area of friendships, where I've discovered two kinds that surface on the net. Either you find someone whom you like a lot from the first instant, talk to for hours and hours every day, mail ten times a day and so on, only to suddenly lose interest and forget the person in question. Then there's the one that builds up slowly, you might not even like the person the first time you meet, but you slowly grow on each other, and before you realize it you're friends (this happens faster than in real life, of course, as does everything in cyberspace, except downloading, which has its own timescale. It involves a calendar rather than a clock). This kind of friendship goes on until the end of time, as far as I can tell, or maybe only for your natural lifetime (haven't quite figured out what happens after death yet, for obvious reasons :). I've had (and I'm having) both, and both are real good. I guess this is all just a parallel to real life, but it never ceases to amaze me how _fast_ these things happen in cyberspace, and how fast they disappear.