Unsolicited Advice

I don't miss Windows at all. This computer used to get bitchy around two dozen Chrome tabs, plus the office software/large document combo of your choice. We're currently at four Chromium windows, one of which has pinned tabs that never unload from RAM, one of which has about forty-seven iStock preview windows in it, and one of which is running Google Play Music that uses Flash and has a memory leak with the throughput of a firehose; GIMP with several large print-quality files open; Audacity with multiple instances of an MP3 I'm chopping up; and an assortment of miscellaneous LeafPad documents and file manager folders and terminal windows. Some of the improvement is obviously because of the SSD. All operating systems use what's called a "cache file" to expand upon the physical RAM installed. It's just a big chunk of disk that they use the same way I use all the untitled LeafPad documents, as a buffer to hold things it thinks it'll need soon but not ...

I remember predicting when we moved into this place that I'd spend my bad days sitting in bed, staring out the window at Dorchester Bay. Right now I'm staring at where the bay would be, were it not for the intervening fog, but otherwise my guess seems to have been rather accurate. My left hip hurts. I'm not sure if it's something in the joint or in my lower back that's objecting, but it's doing so vociferously. It has the same peculiar electric quality as the moment you bash your funny bone, or bite down on tinfoil with a metal filling. It's not the dull throbbing red ache or the sharp stab of having actually injured myself; it's the pointless pain of a nerve that is holding a grudge over something, possibly something imaginary, and doesn't want to let go. It started before Arisia, but I had a show to do, so I ignored it until I noticed it was starting to make my gait go funny on stairs. Funny thing about neuropathic pain; even if it didn't b...

One of the weirdest things I've run into in the past year is Brian Molko. He seems, at some basic algorithmic level, to work a lot like I do. This is a startling thing to realize. I'm not dumb enough to think I'm the very specialest snowflake, unique in human history, but I am aware that most people don't work like I do. I know this because if they did, the world would be much better adapted to me. Most of the people who do work like I do go to some trouble to keep it under wraps. As irritating as it is to deal with some of this shit all by myself, involving other people just makes it more complicated. The main problem is that there is just too much stuff in the world, and sometimes it comes at me too fast, too bright, and right in the fucking face. Most people who want to help think that help involves interacting with me, which is exactly the opposite of what I need in that situation. So covering and deflecting is a survival tactic that both preserves my important re...