Tonight, this journal has taken a turn for the better.

On the advice of Steve, the 18-year-old part-timer at work who is much smarter than I am and almost certainly has several dead bodies in the trunk of his car, I decided to get Netscape Composer tonight. For those of you who don't know, Composer is a program that seeks to better your life by
a) making web pages a snap to create,
b) not costing you any money, and
c) irritating Bill Gates a lot.

I had been ignoring Steve for a while, partly out of fear but mostly because I have 100 programs on my computer that "make web pages a snap to create", and they are all in folders named "Migraine 1," "Migraine2," etc. Writing journals is a piece of cake; making them into HTML code is complete drudgery. Nevertheless, I decided to take Steve's word for it and hunt down Composer.

I learned a lot about Composer in the hour it took me to find it on the web, despite the fact that it is made by Netscape, the people who make it possible for me to browse the bloody web in the first place. I learned that, apparently, Composer was discovered by English knights when they were retaking the Holy Land during the Middle Ages. They brought it back to Europe with them for safe keeping, where it promptly disappeared without a trace for ages, to be seen again only by Indiana Jones and his father, Sean Connery.

If that makes no sense to you, I apologize. It is very late. What I'm trying to say is, this damn program was the hardest thing I've ever had to track down. It took me all night. When I did find it, I discovered that I could only get it by downloading all my internet software all over again, which over the phone takes about 73 years. Still, it was free, so I sat and waited for it.

It was well worth it, even as tired as I am from waiting for it. This program makes web page design, which is usually like mowing the yard with safety scissors, into a process as easy as writing a term paper. I am elated. I proposed marriage to my computer about ten minutes ago. (It hasn't accepted yet, but I'm optimistic.) So, basically, I have absolutely no excuse to avoid writing these pages any more. Lucky you.

Random thoughts:

• I was just thinking this morning of a time when my dad's friend e-mailed him a copy of my web page. (Thankfully, this was pre-journal.) He came home from work with a printout of it and went over it with me, saying, "This is a good demonstration of your technical skill... but you're looking for a job. All of these irreverent things you have written here, and this picture of you... it's just not very professional. You should take all this stuff off and put up a copy of your resume." I don't know what made me think of that, but it still amuses me months later.
• After I wrote that bit about my girlfriend's mom, I remembered a time when I was working for SLU over the summer and she was living with her parents. They would not allow her to visit me on campus, despite the fact that she lived all year long in the very same building I was staying in at the time, despite the fact that she drove down those very same streets all year long, because the neighborhood was not safe. She was not to drive there at night. It was acceptable, however, if I drove to her house, brought her to SLU myself, drove her back to her house at the end of the evening, and then drove alone through the same dangerous neighborhood. This was perfectly okay; that was "the way things had to be," for her own good. I asked my girlfriend about my own good, since apparently me risking my life in this same supposed death-run was not a worry. When my girlfriend asked her mom the same question, her mom said, "Well, that's not my concern." Ever since, I have carried a mental Post-It reading, "Note to self: parents do not care if I die." I guess the computer fiasco shows progress; apparently, now her parents don't care if she dies either.
• I have some thoughts on my trip to LA two weeks ago, but I haven't organized them yet. Perhaps in a future entry. For now, I must sleep.

I hate to spring this on anybody all sudden-like, but it's my birthday this Sunday.

I know what everyone is thinking: How can I, on three days' notice, find an appropriate way to show Jim what a pivotal role he has played in my life while simultaneously spending a great deal of money, perhaps money that I would otherwise spend on electricity or groceries? Believe me, I know how you feel. I often spend my grocery money on gifts for myself. A truly gracious birthday boy would have put this warning out much sooner. If only web editing wasn't such a pain in the @$$.

The fact is, I find that I don't much want people doing things for my birthday. Buying stuff, sure, but nobody does the buying thing anymore. My friends are all working their way through poverty. But when birthdays come around, people always want to turn your mortality into a party. I find that particularly ironic considering that parties, to me, are a form of death. I completely understood how Greg felt last month when we ambushed him. Hmm hm hmmm, just a quiet evening talking with your friend, SURPRISE! You're the center of attention! Everyone in the room is looking at you! They're all here to hang out with you, but there are so many of them you'll never get to talk to them all! You like friends? DROWN IN FRIENDS!!! MUHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

A perfect celebration to me is a nice, quiet night of conversation and gluttony. No noise, no serious public extroversion, a night that will not involve strippers or vomit in any way. On my 21st (which is, of course, a milestone because the state no longer legally requires you to exercise good judgment), I went out for some fajitas with three of my nearest and dearest, followed by some ice cream. That's it. Me, three people, and food. Nobody shouted loud enough to annoy the other diners, no one had the waiters come up and do that clappy song thing, and nobody had to be carried home.

See, parties and celebrations always involve an elaborate plan. One or more of your friends has to sit down and orchestrate times and places and guest lists and shopping lists and parade routes and float construction, and before you know it everybody you know is gathering in a room somewhere just to please you, just to see the look on your face.

Have you ever seen the look on my face? I only have two or three. I can never do my part at my birthday parties. I can never make the face they all want to see, the "Oh my God, is this all for me? You guys are the greatest!" face. I don't have that face. The best I can do is a "Hey, cake!" face. So usually, people leave a celebration of my birth saying, "Do you think he liked it? I don't think he liked it. I don't think he likes us. Do you think he's mad at us?..." I can't handle that kind of pressure.

Of course, my dearest friends have always known that about me, so they occasionally throw me birthday celebrations just to watch me squirm. I think I'm starting to remember why I never tell people when my birthday is.

I have a pet peeve... actually, I have a peeve menagerie, but I have one peeve strictly birthday-related. I've been thinking about it ever since I saw it at Greg's party. (No, not the Jell-O shots.) At every birthday celebration I have attended for anyone since I was in college, there's always been somebody at the party who does not know the birthday boy/girl at all. It doesn't matter if it's a quiet dinner or a huge bash. There's always the guest of honor, his/her closest friends, and like two people who've never met him/her before in their lives. That really gets on my nerves. I've even been that guy once or twice, and even then it's irritating. I mean, it's my birthday, I want to reflect on another year of my life in the company of those who are dear to me, and then there's this schmuck at the end of the table just kinda nodding. It's different if it's somebody's date; that's a case of "you're important to me, and he's important to you, therefore A=C." But somebody always invites a stranger. Why is that?

I bet it has something to do with "fun." Every time I don't understand something, someone always invokes "fun." I think I hate fun.

Do I sound any older yet?

I thought I would be okay this year. I didn't really tell anybody about the old b-day, and since 23 isn't a particularly interesting number, it looked like I was going to get through the weekend without unexpectedly walking into a room full of shouting people. As I learned today, though, my girlfriend has gone ahead and told everyone for me! How splendid! And they're having a bash for me, except my girlfriend's not free at night, and Greg is on a retreat, and Nicole is also busy, but Joe might come, and Chris has an appellate brief to write, and Karen has work, so we all have to go to brunch on Sunday morning.... If anything is better than a party, it's a party that has to be squeezed into a brunch.

I know all of this because, although my girlfriend wants very badly to give me a bash, she doesn't have enough information. So she called me today, and started asking questions like, "What's Olivia's last name? What's Chris's e-mail address? Do you have his phone number?..." and then not telling me why she wanted to know these things. Before long, I found myself co-planning a party that was being squeezed into a brunch.

And I just love my girlfriend so much. She just wants to give me a good day. She senses how morbid I get around birthday time, and she wants to alleviate that. But she sometimes forgets that I'm not her. Taking me to a public place at a table for 12 where everyone will be staring at me and clinking glasses and singing loudly while families at the adjoining tables are trying to have a peaceful Sunday brunch is not, on the whole, an effective way to cheer me up. And I have to gently remind her, "Hon, Chris and Nicole hate each other...and Olivia and Karen are prone to violence if left in a room together... remember?" And she replies, "Oh, crap. Well, I already invited both of 'em! We'll have to make sure they don't sit together! La dee da dee!", leaving me to think, "Oh, God, mortal enemies are being forced to stare at each other over a plate of eggs, and it's all because of me!"

After a while, I broke down and asked for a guest list, only to find that my fellow brunchers would consist of ten of my good friends, possibly two of their dates, and a person I have spoken to once in my life. She's just friends with some of the other people who'll be there, and they thought it might be cool to have her along, seeing as my birthday is so significant to her and all.

I mean, she seemed like a nice person that one time I talked to her, but... do you ever have a day where you want to go to Kinko's and make up 100 pamphlets called "Since You Still Don't Get It: Who I Am", and it would have lists and summaries of all the things about you that you thought were obvious, such as "hates to be the center of attention" or "doesn't want Timmy playing with his Star Wars figures" or "wants to mail out his own resumes" or "doesn't like strangers at events of great personal significance", and you'd go and pass it out to everyone you know? Ever have days like that? I have weeks like that. I think I'm having one right now.

You know what the worst part is? When I actually go to this brunch, I am going to have a wonderful time. I am going to eat good food, and I'm going to see people I haven't been with in a long time, and we are going to laugh and jabber and watch Karen wrestle Olivia, and it will be great. Which means that I'm sitting here getting all worked up over nothing, in true Jim style. And which also means that people will probably read this and take it as a sign of ingratitude. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love all my friends, and I love the great lengths they go to to make me squirm. I consider myself the luckiest man alive. At least, I will once I get my pamphlets back from Kinko's.

Very tired. It's been a hectic weekend, what with the birthday and all. But, for a limited time only, you lucky folks who check in regularly get a treat. Allow me to show off one of my better gifts:
 
 
 

What my computer sees	God and Man, by Jim Ski
SIX BUCKS??? FOR A MOVIE?!?!

It's quite the nifty little gadget. I'm tempted to make frequent use of it here, as if typing my life online isn't vanity enough. Tomorrow's the girlfriend's only day off this week, so I won't be making an entry till at least Tuesday. Until then, dear readers, enjoy the snapshots.