Sunday, 29 August 1999:

Lazy Day at Home

I didn't feel like doing much today, so I didn't. Better yet, the heat wave of the past week seems to have ended, so it was nice and comfy in my apartment.

Had a nice lazy morning in bed listening to Car Talk on NPR. The cats enjoy having me around, too. I think they're not quite used to being back on a schedule where I feed them once a day - in the evening - rather than twice. As soon as they realize I'm awake, they start checking me out. Newton curls up on me or next to me, and usually tries to lick the hell out of me. Jefferson comes by every so often to get petted, and otherwise prowls the apartment; I'm not quite sure what he does.

(The cats also bothered me for dinner all day. I finally broke down and gave them a rare saucer of milk, which they loved and which seemed to sate them until I did feed them.)

I did a bundle of laundry (seems like there's no end to the laundry I have to do, sometimes), and spent much of the afternoon reading Warren Ellis' StormWatch comics (or most of 'em; I'm still missing four issues). They're quite good; StormWatch is a United Nations organization of super-heroes, who operate from a space station and have fairly broad powers where superhumans are concerned. There are 'only' a few hundred superhumans on Earth, and there's an international agreement not to deliberately create more.

The United States plays the heavy in many of these stories (Tony Isabella wasn't too wild about this, but given the mandate of StormWatch and the real-world attitude of the US towards the UN, it's not absurd), as they object to the way StormWatch handles things and want to create their own superhumans. Ellis' stories tend to involve high stakes (biological warfare, superhumans who want to change the way the world works, parallel universes, etc.). The characterization can be erratic, in large part because of the number of characters, though a few shine through, notable Ellis' creation Jenny Sparks, who eventually forms The Authority (the sequel to the StormWatch series). The art ranges from good to excellent. It's not a masterpiece, but it is a lot of fun.

This evening I talked on the phone with fellow journaller Rebekah Robertson. Rebekah and I have been corresponding for quite a while, and I guess I was even the one to inspire her to start her own journal. We've only talked once before and that was, geez, last winter I think. Before I moved out here.

Rebekah agrees with what I reported Tracy told me recently, that I could title my journal "Games I've Played Lately". She says I never talk about my cats anymore, and that when I was in Madison I'd describe going for bike rides and was generally more introspective. Which I guess is true. Something to think about.

It's peculiar that I still feel a little strange saying that I've been talking with people I only know on-line on the phone. After all, I have a long history of meeting good people through the Internet: I met a guy named Dougal when I was at Tulane through my brief fling with MUDs. I met a number of friends in Madison - including John, who eventually recruited me to Apple - through rec.arts.startrek. I met Ceej on USENET many years ago, and Keith Woolner through the Red Sox Mailing List.

I suspect I feel peculiar about it because meeting people - especially people of the other gender - through the net has taken quite a beating in the media, as has just the very notion of having part of one's social life on-line. But, as Richard Feynman's wife once said, "What do you care what other people thing?"

Which I'm sure is an attitude Rebekah would share.


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