This is the controversial entry over which I was threatened with legal action. The person who threatened me accused me (among some words about the nature of my behavior and my future) of making slanderous comments against their company and affiliated web site. Truthfully, I wasn't trying to slander anyone, and indeed, I don't think, legally, that I have. I also think my words were misinterpreted slightly; I was only criticizing the look of the site, not necessarily its content, and I certainly wasn't saying anything about a company about which I know almost nothing.

I feel bad that the person who created that site (it wasn't the same person as who was responsible for the redesign I criticized, by the way) found what I wrote, because they had seemed nice when I met them. I didn't want them to think ill of me, even though I knew I'd probably never encounter them again. It's silly, I know, but it shames me. Plus, it bothers me that they read something that wasn't directed at them (in the sense that this is a personal web journal and not an inflammatory letter or a widely distributed email or a site devoted to ripping on their company/site) and interpreted it as such. But so it goes on the web, especially when you do something as idiotic as link a site you criticize. (Though isn't that what doja.pitas.com did just days before with regards to dorkist?)

I don't know what I would have done if I had been in this person's shoes and had found my entry. I can imagine how they must have felt when they read what I wrote. It's probably similar to how I felt when I read their threatening email: surprised, slightly amused, ultimately stung. I almost surely would have ignored the entry and have felt validated internally for not having hired me. Only if I felt business was threatened would I have contacted myself about this. In the end, a hit is still a hit; those who visit a site might not agree with the one who provided commentary on it.

I apologize for being so verbose, but this incident riled me. It made me think too much about things I don't have time to think about. And I need some release.

In any case, I was simply, as Becca said, "complaining and feeling sorry for myself on my personal webpage." That makes me sound like even more of a loser, but it's the truth.

The person who emailed me about this entry said that if I didn't remove my so-called slanderous comments, they would be forced to contact their attorney's [sic]. So initially, I did. But then I realized that I mentioned no names and that I live in America, the land of the free and the brave. The link is gone now, and I have eliminated any references to gender. I could be talking about anyone.

* * * * * *

Yes, yes, I have been bad about updating. It's not like I've been doing a whole lot. Maybe that's why I haven't updated: no news to tell.

It's getting very frustrating, sending out resumes and never hearing a response.

I visited this site [link deleted] today. It's the newly redone project for the job I wanted but didn't get, the one in which I would have been able to design sites for many area small businesses. My verdict? It's cheesy and of middling quality. I could've done better. On my screen, the graphics don't even line up.

Let me say, though, that as the page was loading, I was starting to fear that it would look impressive and that I would have to admit that the hiring person made the right choice. I would have admitted it, too. And maybe they did make the right choice; I'm banking on the idea that there's a good reason I didn't get what I wanted.

Oh poo, enough about jobs. I'm sorry. It's predominantly what I think about, so it's hard not to write about it.

INTERVIEWER PERSON: So Beth, any good news amidst your frustrating days of being a loser?

ME: Well, my car works again, so I can be happy about that. I drove it around today and it didn't stall or nothin'.

VOLVO: Yes, I quite enjoyed my jaunt about town.

ME: I'm glad, Volvo. While you're here, you mind lending me a few bucks? All this not working has left me kinda broke.

VOLVO: No way, bitch, my money's ain't goin' nowhere.

ME: What am I going to do with you, little V. You really shouldn't speak to a lady using such slang.

INTERVIEWER PERSON: So Beth, are you hungry?

ME: Yeah, a little, IP. Why, are you asking me on a date?

INTERVIEWER PERSON: No, I'm really not attracted to you.

ME: Oh. Well that's good, because I got a man.

INTERVIEWER PERSON: What's your man got to do wit me?

VOLVO: I got a man.

INTERVIEWER PERSON: I'm not tryin'a play dat, see.

ME: Okay, this is getting a little out of control. I'll see you two later.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

Tonight is Steve's fourth party in the Colored Lights series. He's going with a French film theme this time. He has pictures of the girl and guy from Godard's Breathless up in the kitchen. The one of the girl has her holding her hands up to make the number seven. Every time I see it, I think that Steve should have waited for CL7 to use that photo.

But let me give you an idea of how our apt is decorated. I took this picture just before CL3, which was about a month ago, but never used it. It looks crappy because I took it with my cheap polaroid that's held together with a sticker (it was manufactured like this) and which requires the picture-taker to pull the picture out of the camera with a plastic yanking thing. And the photos are really tiny. But enough about the camera; it was still a rad b-day gift from Greg.

You can't get a realistic idea of what the living room looks like from this pic, but you can gather what the walls look like. And the couch, duh. (I covered the couch in those '70s fast food uniform colors, fyi.) The walls aren't really this weird glowing lavendar color; they just look like that here. The image is of Twiggy getting her hair cut. Imagine a whole apartment decorated as such. It was somewhat hellish at first, looking at Twiggy all the time, Twiggy in the living room, Twiggy in the hallway, Twiggy in the kitchen. I've learned to ignore her now, though.

So just imagine the room above bathed in blue light (with fake fireplace and occasional strobe light), a skinny hallway in orange, an old-school bathroom in pink, a one-windowed bedroom in green, and a grimy kitchen utilizing a weird color-changing lamp device. Stick some "cool kids" in the living room dancing to Morrisey, some more people I've never met loitering in the hallway, some guys in the kitchen who don't mingle, me hanging out with the kitchen guys for the most part, and Steve running around trying to make things go smoothly as he gets increasingly drunk. That's Colored Lights.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 PM

It's 3:30 a.m.; I shouldn't be awake. But I woke up to pee and then I drank some watered-down orange kool-aid from last night (the ice had melted) and I started thinking about stuff and now I can't sleep.

I only ate one meal yesterday, but it was a big meal. Greg and I went to Dingbats. The food there is yum. But it's kind of greasy, too. Often greasy and yummy go hand in hand, if the grease factor isn't overwhelming. I ate a tuna melt wrap and it filled me up.

I'm sorry, this is the best I can do for 3:30.

Actually, there was something else I had wanted to say. It's funny when people link my diary for awhile and then stop. It's like they thought I had potential to be cool but never lived up to it. Same with my real site. I guess people would check in with it once in awhile, but then they realized my life is completely tame and I tend to deal with one problem for a long time (such as the current job sitch), making for repetetive reading.

It makes me wonder: what made them like my diary in the first place?

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 04:03 AM

Hey, I plan to write something more later, but check this out: dorkist - specifically the ask beth portion - has been bashed in some cynical webster's pita.

I wonder if this person even read the questions. In any case, I already garnered a hit from it, so I can't complain. I linked to the bad press on my pita as well, in case you're interested.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

Today was interview one of two this week. It didn't go well. It was just really awkward. The guy looked like Martin Short. He seemed a little odd; there was something off about him, but I couldn't tell what it was.

I don't know why it was awkward, though. Possibly because he asked such open-ended questions. Like, "Tell me a little bit about yourself" and "Tell me about your computer skills." The telling him about myself one wasn't so bad, even though an aura of awkwardness was still floating around the room. With the computer skills question, he was looking at my resume as he asked it, so I had to try to make "I'm familiar with all the Office applications and know HTML" sound good somehow. Then he showed me their servers. They have three. I didn't really see what the point was; he even said something about how the actual work wouldn't involve those machines. Perhaps he was just proud of them.

I don't know. I guess I wasn't prepared enough for the interview. They want a work study student, so I think I went there not expecting to get it. And not really even wanting it. This one wasn't very designy.

Post-interview, I was so wrapped up in thinking about how awkward the experience had been that I forgot to fax my application to someone for a data entry position. I don't feel like walking back to the campus area now, though. Tomorrow.

It's extremely nice and spring-like out. It seems like people should be playing baseball. There should just be a baseball game going on somewhere.

Oh yes. There's a new picture on the main page, you may or may not have encountered it because a) you probably don't wait for the pic to load, and b) it's randomly generated, so you have a one in five chance of seeing it. If you wanted, you could just keep reloading the main page, but that would be silly. Anyway, I drew it. I used Flash and then copied it into Photoshop to save it as a jpeg. Flash is neat. I haven't played with it enough to have figured out how to make a movie, but I think I'll grasp it after awhile.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

Tonight is my brother's band's show.

It has been a controversial e-mail subject for the past few days. I'm going, though. I got Greg to agree to give me a ride. The volvo is broken. (I'm just mentioning the volvo for anyone who visited from the members page, since I talk about the volvo there.) I'm also mentioning it, I guess, because Chris (brother) said I didn't want to go anywhere without Greg. More like I didn't want to take the bus at night. Or at all, if I don't have to.

So nyeh nyeh nyeh.

Chris told me not to talk to him for awhile, so I'm not going to.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 04:13 PM

I dyed my hair a new dark sultry red color this morning. I think it's called Natural Dark Auburn. Well, it dyed my skin as well. So I kind of look like batman right now. I was afraid I was going to score an interview today and then not get the job because my dye job looks silly and I look like batman.

I'm getting all weird about jobs. Before I call a place, I'll start thinking about what it would be like to work there, even though I have no idea if I'll even get an interview. I think about what I'll say in the interview, what I'll say on the phone when I call to finegle an interview, what they'll ask me on the phone and in the interview. Aah. Maybe it's cabin fever.

But I called a potential employer today and have an interview on Thursday. I also have an interview tomorrow. By then my hair and skin will look more normal. I'm looking forward to the color fading a bit, actually, because it doesn't really look Natural right now, just Dark. I guess it's the price I have to pay for vanity.

I got my acceptance to the Art Institute today. Now I have to take a lot of tests that I can't afford so I can pass out of all the lame classes. It's okay, though; as Greg was saying today, and as I already knew, even if I don't get a job I like right now, I at least ought to get one after I get out of the Art Institute. But who knows when that will be if I only take two classes per quarter?

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

my day

5 am: woke up from a dream in which I was on the beach in wintertime. Big waves came and tried to wash away my taxes, which had been lying in the sand. I tried to run away from the waves, but they kept hitting me. They were very cold.

7 am: fell back to sleep after eating a piece of cheese. Eating something always helps me fall asleep if I'm awake in the middle of the night. I think it's because the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in to digest the food. The parasympathetic nervous system also takes over during sleepy time. This is one of the only things I remember from Neuroscience classes, and I'm probably remembering it wrong.

10:30 am: woke up again from a dream in which Greg joined up with a job service in which bums wired homes.

11 am: Got out of bed, ate a piece of banana bread, played on internet, looked at my site's pathetic stats.

12:30 pm: Showered.

12:50ish pm: Went back on internet for awhile. Inserted cool JavaScript code that displays a randomly selected image on my site's main page whenever it's reloaded. Looked for interesting images for my main page to display, but came up empty.

2ish pm: Went to Greg's house. He was on the phone with Jeff, a fellow member of the Shotgun Widow. While there, ate leftover half of taco wedgie from pizza place down the block. Read classified ads. Became depressed at lack of interesting job opportunities. Listened to Greg talk on the phone.

3-something pm: Back to my house. More internetting. Changed a section of my dad's company's site to reflect his wishes. Wrote epinion on Glamour magazine.

Now it's now.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 04:25 PM

I'm never gonna get a job I like. Wah.

I am a smart girl. Regardless of how meaningless my degree is, I learn things quickly. Employers should want me. I am good.

So I would feel pathetic to take another $8/hr data entry job. I know I am better than to perform mindless work for eight hours a day. But such a job, I think, is my destiny. The world of today has no use for me except as a quick-fingered typist.

Thus, at present, I suck.

Love,
Beth the Bum

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

Well, I didn't get the job. If you haven't read about the interview, I talk about it in the entry just prior to this. So yes, I am indeed psychic. But really, more just reasonable. I have little experience. The only way I could have gotten a web design job was if I were one of two people going for it, and the other person was a bum.

I was depressed yesterday, but I'm feeling better now. I'm still unemployed, still unexperienced, still, generally, a loser at present, but I'm still gonna try to be a winner.

Hey, visit dorkist, it's more entertaining than this is.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 01:27 PM

Yesterday I interviewed with an apparently up-and-coming teen webzine called Kiwibox. You wouldn't think - or at least, I wouldn't think - that a soon-to-be booming webzine would be situated in a ratty house across from Carnegie Mellon University. But I bet a lot of those multimillion dollar web companies started in a similar fashion.

What Kiwibox is is a zine written by teens. Teens submit stories, and the Kiwibox staff weeds through them and picks out what's workable. Interesting idea, yes. I'm not sure how well it's working as far as quality content goes, but the business is growing, at least according to Lin Something, Editor-in-Chief.

Lin is a tiny Asian man who looked about my age and who appeared non-sequitur in a suit and tie. He let me into the house and told me to watch TV while I waited for him to finish up an interview. The house was typically college - complete with found furniture, liquor bottles on the mantle, Nintendo controllers tangled aside the TV. Oh yeah, there was also the Britney Spears poster: "Lin, Best wishes! Thanks for Everything! - Britney Spears." But for a few minutes before the interview, I felt at home and entertained myself with the latest issue (the Prom issue, ooh!) of Seventeen.

The interview itself was another story. Lin asked me how well I knew teen culture. "Uh, I was a teen girl once," I said. Then he played me a Backstreet Boys song and asked me who it was. "It's N'Sync or one of those groups," I said, unable to hide my distaste. It wasn't just a distaste for the music, but for the way he was quizzing me. He said, "You're close," and then I guessed correctly. "That was the test," he said. Damn, I failed the test.

Other highlights:

-- Lin had a Britney calendar, too.
-- He held up a Teen magazine and said, "We're this, but in web form. But 40 and 50-year old women write Teen magazine. We're different."
-- One of his housemates was in the room surfing the net, occasionally giggling under his breath, during the interview (how professional).
-- "We're trying to develop the culture of the house right now," - Lin. I think he meant, "Kiwibox is a cult."
-- "If you're willing to live, sleep, eat, and breathe Kiwi, then this is right for you," - Lin.

Eh, I guess that's it. He bragged a bit about the success of the site, and he also said he's "worked with chickclick," which I think is a lie, because as far as I can tell, you either are a chickclick affiliate or you aren't, or else you just advertise on them. I've seen no Kiwibox ads on chickclick, and I know they aren't an affiliate. Maybe they tried to become one and got dissed.

I told Lin I would send him URLs of my writing, but it was a fib. I left the house feeling icky. Greg said maybe the whole thing was so cult-like and disturbing because a lot of the staff members are from CMU (Carnegie Mellon), and CMU people are weird.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

I had a job interview today. The man told me I was "in contention" for the job after we spoke. It makes me think of beauty pageants. "These five talented ladies are the remainder of the original fifty-one young women in contention for the title of Miss America. Even if they don't walk home with the crown, they'll have the pride of knowing they made it this far...." Isn't it fifty-one? Don't they include Puerto-Rico?

You know, it really means nothing to be "on national television" anymore. I think when people say, "I was embarassed on national television," they're thinking that the whole world was watching them. But really, only a few million people are watching them, and after the embarassing incident, the viewers will have forgotten what they just watched, most likely. Unless it was something really funny, but even then, they don't know who you are and would never recognize you on the street.

It's still weird to know you're going to be on TV, though. I was interviewed once for the news (I feel like I already wrote about this, if so, oh well), and I got really nervous. That was in fifth grade. I don't even have a copy of the video. I think I'd still get nervous now.

I thought I would be nervous for my interview, but surprisingly, I wasn't. When I got in there, I just felt really confident and calm. And now I'm in contention. But I have a feeling I'm not going to get the job anyway. Something in the back of my brain is saying it won't happen.

Oh well. Check back in a few days if you want to learn the status of my psychic abilities.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 04:30 PM

Happy V-day, guys.

It's been a non-day for me. I quit my temp job (yay). I turned down a couple of other temp assignments and probably annoyed Joyce, the temp lady who seems like a nice person. But her job can't be fun. She's the mediator between the temps and the people who need temps. Her days must all be phone-call whirlwinds. But I suppose she's used to it.

I have a job interview tomorrow. I don't want to talk about it because I don't want to jinx it. It's at a little company where this man made a web site on which numerous small companies can advertise and it's becoming very popular, at least according to him. The man doesn't know anything about HTML, though, and wants a designer. If anyone with an actual background in computers called him, I'm sure the job is theirs. But I still have an interview, and that's something.

I also have an interview on Wednesday to intern at kiwibox.com, a site for teen girls. Again, I don't want to talk about it.

Oh, and my dad's business site is finally up, the one I redid for him. The design is a little odd, I think, but there was so much explanatory text. Making tables just seemed like a good way to deal with it. Believe me, it looks so much better than the way it used to. I'm not patting myself on the back. Before, you couldn't even read the words because of the crazy textile-suggestive backgrounds. Now the words are readable.

Then the landlady brought people to see the apartment while I was lounging around in my underthings. (In my PANTIES, Becca.) Luckily, my bedroom door was closed. I heard her call out 'hello?', then rushed to put pants on and open my door before one middle-aged smokerface and a bunch of college girls saw more of Beth than necessary.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

I'm listening to salon.com's radio station thing right now. I thought their '80s Rewind would be slightly hipper than to play Boy's Club and Debbie Gibson, but obviously it's not or I wouldn't even be mentioning it. I could try "rock dot roll," that might be amusing in a different way. Cream, White Room, that's not so bad. But then we have Queen up next. I think I'll go back to Debbie.

Yeah, my weekend's been really exciting.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 09:07 PM

Greg has been in the bathroom for awhile now. I think he's okay because I heard him sneeze a few minutes ago.

Bland weekend.

I need to stop spending money. I bought a shirt last night at TJ Maxx. $14.99, so not worth it. It even has a hole along one seam. I didn't notice until I went to try it on at home.

Greg has emerged.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 09:24 PM

Ballet lessons did not go according to my fantasy, as of course was expected. It was very suburban and a little depressing. I was the only one there that night. My brain remembers the positions and recognizes the French words. But my body refuses to respond. I kept looking at my hips in the mirror and thinking of the adult ballet lady who used to teach us when Miss Gloria, who was old and isn't alive anymore, couldn't do it. The other lady had kind of big hips. I could write something compellingly descriptive about her hips related to my hips and my memory and childhood and adulthood and whether I'm the same person I was when I was four, but blah blah, I'm obviously not going to.

I think four was the year I didn't take ballet anyway. I did it from age 3 to 10, but I skipped a year in there.

Anyway, I went to ballet, got dizzy when I tried to do spins, could not keep my toe pointed, could not make my legs go in the directions they were supposed to, and now I hurt. I'm going back next week for more of this.

I've been wanting only to listen to Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town lately. It's kind of a sad album. I think part of the reason I like Bruce's old stuff so much is that he's singing about losing youth and the working class and also about summer, and I have a thing for stories about summer. And songs are like stories, you know. Summer is sexier than other times. It's dirtier. I don't know what it is. I don't think things through enough lately.

I'm just glad tomorrow is the end of the work week. Dilemma: Quit temp assignment early? Hate temp assignment.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

I, supertemp of the universe, hate this. I'm temping now. I'm a doctor's secretary. I mean, okay, I have spent a majority of my day on the internet. I have perfected the use of the transfer button when I don't know how to answer someone's question. But I really hate it.

I was thinking this morning about how anyone could possibly want to be a secretary. Or receptionist or anything like that. It's like, there are important people, and then there are the less important people who handle all the crap that the important people are too cool to deal with. Like opening mail. 'I'm a big doctor, I don't have time to open my own mail.' F that. It's Your mail.

It's just degrading to be in this position, and I am not one who feels degraded often. It was somewhat degrading that one time Greg and his dad were working on Greg's car and Greg's dad kept asking me to bring them beer. That was a year ago, and I kind of thought it was funny, anyway. This isn't funny. This is why I need to get a real job that I like. I'm better than this. But I look around and think, aren't all these other secretaries better than this, too?

Maybe they're happy fulfilling their role in the hierarchy. I mean, realistically, secretaries and receptionists are necessary. I'm just not cut out to be one.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 04:49 PM

Yesterday was bad. I'm not fond of being someone's secretary (read my feelings about secretaridom here). Then my car died and got towed back to my apartment. The AAA guy was cool, though. He told me a story about a visit he made to Philadelphia about twenty years ago. He was about my age, he said, and was stuck in the bus station all night because his bus didn't come till the next morning and his buddies had abandoned him. A girl came up to him and asked him if he wanted to get a beer. He agreed. They stayed up most of the night talking, then got a hotel room. Here's where I started thinking, "Man, old men are dirty, I can't believe he's telling me this."

But if you were paying attention last paragraph, you noticed I said he was cool. They got a hotel room, and, according to him, "I went to sleep, she went to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, she was gone. I never did get her name." It was like a movie. I wonder if he's romanticized it at all. I wonder if most people ultimately romanticize their past if they get the chance.

In two hours, I will be balleting like the out of shape ballerina I am. I have this idea about what ballet should be like, my movie idea of ballet, my romanticized idea, I guess I can say, to tie this all in. My romanticized idea isn't very romantic, just very 1975. I imagine a black-and-white scene where women with center-parted hair wear t-shirts with '70s emblazoned with slogans over their leotards. I don't know why. I think it might be because I saw part of a dancing movie in my experimental film class last semester. I didn't see all of it, though, because the film got jammed and I was getting antsy so I walked out.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

Tomorrow I start temping at UPMC, Pitt's insanely huge medical center ring. UPMC branches seem to pop up in even the most destitute of areas around here. I'll be local, though, which is cool. I'll also be in the urology department, hopefully not looking at any bloody urine samples. Hopefully not looking at any urine samples at all.

We'll see. I am not a very medically-oriented girl. These people said "yes" to Beth as their temp because they saw that I had a degree and "figured I was a quick learner." I hope I'm as quick as they want me to be.

I hope I get a real job soon.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

I bought new sneakers last night. Converse RoadSports for women. I'd insert a pic, but not even the Converse web site has one. Not like I looked for a picture anywhere else, but I think the line has been discontinued. That's sad; I like these sneaks. Becca owns a pair, too. Hers are blue, mine are black.

The problem is, I saw a pair of fuzzy green sneakers in Champs Sports last week. They were enticing. The greenness was pleasant and subtle. They were fuzzy. I want them, too. But I have to listen to what Mick says in that Stones song about wanting things.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 04:45 PM

I have, for the past hour or so, been researching online what Webmasters make on average. Nancy's husband wants me to design and master a site for Western PA-area talent. The site sounds somewhat complicated, and I'm not yet sure of all the details, but I think it would take a fair amount of time to create.

Webmasters and web designers make a lot. They average more than $60,000/year and between $50 and $150 an hour. Average Pittsburgh hourly web design salary is $60/hr. Lowest salary I encountered for the field was $37,000/year. This info has been taken from a number of reports linked on a graphic design site linked by Fast Company, a business magazine I discovered last night and have begun an affair with.

I can't charge this much, though. It actually seems ridiculous to me that people in this field make so much. But on the other hand, how low is too low? It's almost like I have to take whatever he'll offer. I want experience, and he can give it to me. But I know that I can give him an attractive, well laid-out, well-organized, hopefully user-friendly site. I also have a degree, if that means anything. My mom seems to think it does. Does it?

If you're a freelance web designer happening upon dorkist, could you write me and let me know your rates? I would appreciate it a fat lot.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

I just went to deposit Steve's monthly expenses check, and when I got home, another check was waiting for me in the mailbox. But it was last week's check, not two weeks' ago's check. Hmm.

While I was out, though, I ran into Linda, my old boss. She had been in an accident, she said. Her eye was red and swollen. Poor Linda. I forgot to introduce Greg, too. Poor Greg. I hate when I'm accidentally rude.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 02:05 PM

Dorkist.com is in effect. I've spent awhile transferring files and making everything work, and for the moment, everything does work. It's still an unfinished site, but it's enough to entertain yourself on for a few minutes, anyway.

In an unrelated area, I keep having dreams where I have to jump down from high places and land safely. Two nights ago, I dreamt that my brother and I were driving home from the shore. We were supposed to follow my parents, but we lost them. My brother was driving my car, even though I had kind of wanted to drive. The road began to get thinner and thinner, and we were soon somehow following this BMX-biker guy on these high, thin, unsteady beams through woods and mountains. I think the car had turned into a two-seat bike at that point. Eventually, the biker disappeared.

So we would get to places where it would be necessary to jump. My brother would first say, "We're gonna die, we're gonna die," and then he would jump, and get up, and look up at me and yell, "We're not gonna die!" He was testing it, and if he were okay, then I could make it, too.

But then we got to a really steep part. (I'm writing this mostly for Chris's (brother's) interest, by the way - I know it's kind of long.) As usual, Chris said, "We're gonna die, we're gonna die!" It was becoming almost a game. But I looked down and saw it was a long way to the bottom of the cliff. He jumped, and his body contorted in such a way as to seem like both of his legs had broken. I was relieved at first when I saw him get up, but then my relief faded. He was very out of breath and looked hurt. His face was bloody. He stuck his hand down the front of his shirt to feel his chest, and it emerged with very dark blood on it. He looked up at me and said, "We're gonna die."

Of course, that's when I woke up.

Then last night, I dreamt that I kept having to jump down onto thin padded arm rests from rafters in a theater while a play was being performed.

Why all these precarious situations? Is it getting-a-job anxiety? I haven't thought about it enough.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 04:38 PM

I'm gonna dash off a real quick dosage as a welcome letter of sorts.

Welcome to dorkist.com! Once I get around to making an about page for it, I might address why I picked dorkist as my domain name. But really, it was mainly just because no one else had, and because I think I might have made it up when I was younger. I don't remember.

So I decided to do away with something else. The site is obviously exactly like something else, aside from the name and the main page. The main page is better now, because it allows for updates. So if I add an ask beth (which I will in the coming days, by the way), I can write, "Hey! There's a new ask beth! Go there."

I haven't temped yet this week, I feel kind of shoddy today, and I can't decide whether to go to ballet lessons tonight. I should, I know that. But it's yucky out, I am blah, and I don't have tights.

Well, anyway, welcome to dorkist. Some day there will be dorkist t-shirts, and if you're nice, you might get one that I messed up on for free.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 PM