did it, finally. the modem should arrive middle of next week, then i'll be surfing the net at 3.0 mbps and ditching the dial-up. after hemming and hawing about it for years. a friend told me she'd kick my ass if i asked her about her high-speed connection one more time. she said, the price is low enough so fucking do it!

okay, i did. one wrinkle tho. the connection works on windows 2000 or higher. my desktop has windows me, so i gotta use my laptop, which operates on windows xp until we can upgrade the operating system or get a new desktop. i'm pretty much all thumbs when it comes to tech stuff. anyone know if it is difficult to upgrade the operating system? my desktop is a dell dimension l800r bought about 7 years ago.

in other news, been thinking about mortality, the brevity of life. that one may live in fear, fear of failure for example, till the end. i have a motto, two actually:

life is too
short to be in such a hurry

and

carpefuckingdiem

i got the last one from horace i believe who frequently used it in his odes. anyway, just caught a few minutes of the old 1970s tv show charley's angels. this broadcast was in 1977, nearly 30 years ago. doesn't seem so long to me, even tho i was 9. but if you were in yr 40s back then do the math. you'd be at the end of the line now.

there is never time enough.

but how you spend it is critical. odi et amo, said catullus. i feel the same way too. we try to live it at the first intensity.

we have faith in the poison. we know how to give of ourselves everyday, said rimbe. he meant it. and i do too.

so i pick up a book of poems by one of my favorite love poets and read this poem by thom gunn who also had faith in the poison.

Blues for a New Year, 1997

My dealer left town
(sounds like a song).

Had a date with
a certain man, but
he got pneumonia.
I guess it's off.

Storm after storm
bowls in
off the Pacific.

Pale and sleepy on
his Tenderloin mattress.
He has different-
colored eyes and nothing
about him quite matches.
A challenge.

Oh, it just New
Year's. I'm
not superstitious:
the year may turn out
very rewarding. Anyway
I'm sixty-seven,
and have high blood pressure,
and probably shouldn't
be doing speed at all.

Let's reschedule!

[Boss Cupid; FSG 2000]

i love the chattiness of this text, the humor and no-nonsense clarity. it is like a cold, clear drink of water after a long hike in the desert.