School’s really been a bore lately. I have tried to make myself more available to some of the available opportunities. Somewhere along the way I think I forgot that bureaucracy is a self-imposed prison that’s most frequently bred of ignorance and selfishness. It’s the most unfortunate biproduct of our best intentions. We are so alarmingly shortsighted. All things considered, I’m truly surprised that more of us don’t make the 11 o’clock news.
I think that much of what’s been going on lately in my own privately little corner of mortality is simply serving to remind me of larger, broader, and deeper meanings. It really can’t be helped. I am a Morloch being assimilated into the land of the Eloi. We all are.

A recent development at school promises to change the landscape, or at least it looks like it offers a few new avenues to achieve old goals. I have a small window of opportunity to work with. It’s a time critical matter, and I think I’ve got enough of my ducks in a row to seize the moment. I’ll know more by next week.
I other news, I’ve been doing a lot a photography for my friends in Beat Senseless over the last few months. They’ve got a new CD that they’ll be releasing soon, and it rocks. You can check them out for yourself at http://www.myspace.com/beatsenseless and www.beatsenseless.com.

Sure can’t wait to spend what little money I can get on a 5D. Sure hope it’s worth it.

I’ve spent the first hour and a half of this morning attending to a much-needed house clearing issue: removing nearly 3000 comment spam entries from this web site. Even though I don’t really publicize this web site, it has been under the attack of spammers for a very long time now. MT Blacklist helps to reduce the problem and makes clean up a helluva lot easier, but 3000 comments is lot of spam for one sitting. I know for a fact that I wiped our a couple of valid comments by accident, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. (Sorry.)
Lots of studying and writing to do today. It’s almost over.

Today is every other day. I’m in my head, railing against the usual avalanche of blah, blah, blah. I have failed to convince myself to stop tilting at these windmills. I’d have a better chance to convincing Willy to abandon his efforts to reverse engineer my carpet. I hate the routine; I have to.
Anyway, while you’re here you might as well help yourself to some brownies that were left at the foot of my door yesterday morning by my upstairs neighbors–a high calorie apology for Friday’s 2:00 a.m. intrusion. They’d asked, so I’d offered that I’ve been getting up at the crack of dawn because of school. Drunkboy must have missed that memo. Mr. Gen-Y was not only so drunk that he was banging on the wrong apartment door and rattling my doorknob, but he was actually trying to push his way past me when I answered. I had to push back, and you ever know how that’s going to end, do you? What a fucking hassle. That confrontation ended my struggle with my conscience to go upstairs and actually say something about the noise. “There’s a guy at the door that says he wants to talk to one of the tenants,” the alcoholic-in-training said. “Oh. Just shut the door,” said my particularly anti-social neighbor, sitting on the couch right in front of me while holding a sofa cushion to the side of her head. Hmm, no offense, but fuck you too, sweetie. The brownies are nice, and the sentiment’s sweet, but I’m still keeping the non-emergency number for the police on my speed dial from now on.

I’m wrapping up Week 7 of 11 for Winter Quarter; there are only a few weeks left before finals and then spring break. If fall quarter was about taking a survey of how school life, my activist interests and my career interest could fit together, then I’d say that this quarter has been about building a stronger foundation that supports those interests.
I’ve had ongoing discussions with a few students relating to the civil liberties issues I address with Brown Equals Terrorist. At this moment it looks like we will be forming a club that would help raise awareness of those kinds of issues at school (Shoreline Community College). It would be on ongoing commitment to participate in civil liberties issues, and I’m all for that!
The weather around here has been problematic. It snowed earlier this week, only for a minute. It’s sunny and clear at the moment; people were running around Ballard wearing shorts and T-shirt a weeks ago. Mix these extremes with recurring rain and inaccurate weather reports and you should get a pretty good idea of how my outdoor photography is progressing. I’ve wanted to make a lot more nature photos, but erratic weather conditions and a robust schedule of school commitments have grossly restricted my opportunities. Fortunately, I am addressing this problem even now. I’ve even spent time in the darkroom twice this week.
That’s about all I can share for the moment. I only have about three hours for homework before I have to head for school. I have two photography classes on Thursdays, which means I won’t be home until after dark. I need to make the best use of this time that I can.
Oh, yeah

So, I woke up today with absolutely nothing I had to do. Wow. That’s one helluva’ thing in its own self. I’ve been keeping myself busy by puttering around the house, staying in my head, and gently applying myself to chores that I’ve procrastinated on for months. In fact, I’ve not only started sorting out a quarter’s accumulation of bills and paperwork, I’ve even managed to fix the fan in my master bathroom!
I’m also spending plenty of time thinking about 2005. I really can’t believe it’s so close now. I have so many things that have happened this year that I’ve really lost my place. Beyond the impressive Things To Do list that I’m now chipping away at are all of the accomplishments that deserve recognition–going back to school and meeting so many great people, finally taking photography classes, being delivered from that lonely place at the Ballard Locks, finding wonderful support from loved ones (and meeting so many more caring people), having a argument-free Thanksgiving, etc. I have so many things I want to accomplish but it’s far more important that I’m grateful for the good already received, and I have a lot to be grateful about!
Anyway, that’s where my head is at at the moment, puttering around the house, thinking happy thoughts about absent friends. (Yeah. That was a hint.) All in all, it’s a pretty nice start to my winter break.

Finals week begins on Thursday, but I shouldn’t have to show up at school for anything beyond Monday, for tests, at least. I do have a lot of photography assignments I’m finishing up right now and those might have me back on campus so I can mount them for framing. I’m not really worried about it.
I’m going to an ACLU lecture tonight. I’ll be taking my Nikon D-70 so a can get shots of the event that I can share with my new friends at the ACLU of Washington. I know it sounds a little plain, but I’m looking forward to making this kind of contribution to the ACLU-WA. They’ve been a wonderful resource in a difficult time, and I especially value the contributions the organization is making to protect civil liberties here in the U.S.. They’ve been good friends.
Anyway, I see that my disk is about done so I’m going to go for now. I still have a lot to do before I head out to tonight’s lecture.
Almost over,