Goodbye. I put up with YaST because it was a little faster this time, though still slower than Synaptic. I put up with no CLI to install software because…okay, because I’m lazy and couldn’t be arsed to install something else. Now, for no good reason, you fucked up my keyboard so badly I can’t even type my goddamned password, or at least I couldn’t until I connected an external board. Your little chameleon is cute, but…yeah, fuck you. You’re gone. I might be lazy and wait another week for the final release of Intrepid, or I might get pissed off and put the beta on tomorrow (I think it’s frozen anyway), but either way, you’re not staying. You suck big, fat, hairy donkey balls.

Okay, I feel better, but what a fuckup. Everything was fine the last time I used it, then, when I booted tonight, it just suddenly decided to randomly replace characters, two of which were kind of critical to typing my password. Yeah…sort of need that (goddamned stupid keyring…fuck you, too). Oh well; it’s not like I mind having to use an external keyboard until I boot openSUSE…I’ll survive.

Interesting day I’ve had. Started out with that dumbass “tech”, which wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind, but after that, I decided to look through some of B.’s photos. A long (long!) time ago, I’d asked him whether he would take some photos for me, just of random stuff he’d see every day. He said okay, but I knew he didn’t understand what I was asking; to him, a photograph must be “art” of some sort, so I knew what he’d want to do…roam around the city, taking photos from artistic angles, and of suitably artistic subjects. Precisely what I did not want him to do. Anyway, in his typical fashion, he either forgot, or didn’t get around to it, and since he hadn’t understood what I wanted, I didn’t bother to mention it again.

I suppose it was a couple of months ago I’d been talking to him one afternoon, and he said he wanted to ask me a question. I knew something was wrong because he always just asks whatever he wants to know; he never says, “I want to ask you a question”. I know the tone of voice that went with it; it’s the one you use when you’re slightly pissed off, but controlling it until you get the explanation, just in case it’s a good one. I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong (WTF could I have done?) so I said, “Sure–fire away!” He practically demanded to know why there were comments from me on practically every one of L.’s photos, yet I hadn’t been to look at his in quite some time. My immediate reaction was to think, “Oh, let’s see…how ’bout…it’s none of your fucking business”, but I’ve known the man long enough to have experienced his occasionally talking to me like I’m one of his daughters, plus I’m used to Dad being a bit gruff like that just because it’s his way, so I put the hackles down and simply told him the reason. I said that I enjoy visiting L.’s stream because it’s not so much “art, intended to impress viewers” as it is “a slice of my life”, and that is not only interesting to me, but I appreciate that he’s willing to share that. I know myself that putting up random photos for people to look at is easy–I do it all the time, and I’m a pretty goddamned private person–but putting up bits of your own life, things in your own home…that’s not so easy. That’s why I don’t….if I do, they’re for friends-only, and I’m fussy about my friends. Anyway, when I explained, B. seemed mostly mollified, though I did promise to go and look through his stream (and I did). Still, I’d made a point even though I hadn’t meant to do more than make him stop sulking.

H. and L. have taken some photos for me. H. took snapshots around her home, and the park where she takes her dog, and a couple of her son, and BFU, and her critters…just “stuff”. L. took a bunch for me when they went to a harvest festival, and more again for Hallowe’en when they’d gone to some sort of farm market (I think that’s what it was). I loved it, and of course, I mentioned to B. that they’d done it, and how pleased I was, and that it was great fun to see. I guess I know how to get him motivated now…tell him someone else has done something well, then just sit back and wait for the competitive nature to do its stuff. 😆 This time, he understood what I wanted, and although I can see a bit of the “photographer’s eye” in the images he’s sent, he really gets what I want…to see what I would see if I were there. Not what an artist would see, what I would see. The first bunch were shot along the path just going to the grocery store for fresh spaghetti (heh), and the second was just going for a walk. I don’t know where we’re going next, but it’s great fun, and quite interesting, because he explains the route he took, and what particular buildings are (unless it’s obvious), and since he’s done that, I can look at the aerial shots on Eniro and get an overall view. In some cases, I can even see where he was standing when he shot the photo, which is pretty goddamned cool.

Anyway, I was looking through B’s photos this morning when L. sent me a “hi there” on MSN. He usually doesn’t–I’m the one who can’t STFU long enough to give him some peace–so I kind of wondered what was up. We chatted for a short while about a bird he’d been looking after and had returned, then as a BTW, he said he’d discovered a way I could access music from Swedish iTunes. I said, “Huh?” wondering what the hell brought that up, since I didn’t think I’d ever mentioned that to him. I hadn’t, but what I had done was shown him a couple of things (one post and a photo, I think) that were here in my bitch blog. He already knew the blog existed because I’d mentioned it before, but since he’d never asked where it was or what was in it, I was surprised he’d bothered to read any of it. At first, I was a little weirded out because I write this stuff as it comes, not with any readers in mind (hi to both of you, though!), and I was a little embarrassed because I all too often curse like a sailor when I’m writing about things that piss me off (of which there are plenty…heh), which is quite rude. It wasn’t that it bothered me–I don’t think I could come up with anything bad to say about him if I tried, so there wasn’t anything here I wouldn’t want him to read–but he did catch me off guard because he’d always seemed utterly uninterested. Bless his heart; he also apologised for…dissing Linux so often. He does, or at least he did, often make fun of me, once telling me that I use Linux because I can’t afford a Mac (almost true, though), and rarely missing an opportunity to make some smartass comment. I guess it had bothered me a little (okay, yeah, it did), but I just chalked it up to his sarcastic nature, decided I was being hypersensitive, and let it go.

Always full of surprises, that one; he doesn’t miss much, doesn’t forget much, and has an absolutely remarkable capacity for empathy. If you ask most people what “empathy” means, you’re likely to get some who’ll confuse it with sympathy (it isn’t), and some who’ll just give you a blank look. The majority will probably know what it means, but knowing, “the ability to put oneself in another person’s place, thereby understanding that person’s emotions or ideas” doesn’t necessarily mean you can do it. I know–Christ knows I’ve tried over the years to teach people “Just turn it around–imagine you are in my position”. Most can’t do it, or at least not very well; they can’t get far enough beyond themselves to truly understand someone else’s point of view…but L. can. He not only can; it’s a fundamental aspect of his personality, so he doesn’t even have to really try. He just understands. Even here in my bitch blog, I’d never mentioned anything about the things he’d said, but I didn’t need to; he read some of my rants, and simply turned it around, substituting something that matters to him for my operating system. I know it’s only an OS, and it shouldn’t matter, but that’s not the point. The point is that he knew it did, and felt badly for having done it, even though I hadn’t complained, or indeed said anything much about it. People like that are rare, and I think men even more so. Maybe that sounds unfair, but I think it’s true. I guess that makes him a treasure, but I already knew that anyway. I wasn’t going to bother him tonight, but then I decided to use my laptop for MSN because I can move it to different light (B. complained about the colour when I’m at my desk, but he wasn’t pushy, so I co-operated), and asked L. to tell me whether the colour was okay. I literally meant to ask him that and nothing more, but as it often happens, he stayed up too late, and I was talking to him when I was supposed to be cooking (I know, I know–faint–but I really did, because P wanted a pasta dish that he doesn’t know how to make, since I invented it and I don’t measure ingredients).

I decided that even if he did catch me off guard, and I did feel a bit odd for a while, I’m just going to write the same way I have always. If my fans (hehe) read it, that’s okay. If L. reads it, that’s okay. Why not–I’m always telling him, “Creepy man…get out of my head” because he knows what I’m thinking anyway, so he probably already knows what I wrote. Heh. If no one reads it, that’s okay, too. The point is that in order to write something, I have to sort it out in my mind, and that’s all I really need to accomplish. Okay, that and a scathing (cursing) rant or two, but even those do help me calm down and think straight instead of letting my temper get the best of me. Yep, making the world a safer place for home electronics and furniture, one temper flare at a time! 🙂

Oh, yeah, and although it’s quite depressing to think that my little arthropod friends are nearly all gone, there is one good thing about cooler weather. Pink bear feet! 😀

I was gonna proofread this, but fuck it–I’m tired and I’m going to bed. Maybe I’ll read it in the morning…maybe not. Hee!