October 9, 2001 5 p.m.

Last night I went over to LoneStar's house last night to pick up a check for some money he owed me. I had to call him on it. Not balancing your checking account for four months can have been horrible for your finances. I was almost $200 in the hole by the time I got around to making a date with MS Money last Saturday night. I ended up having to ask for a loan from Mom and also getting my $100 from LoneStar. Obviously, sending $600 a month just to Chase Bank has its consequences for your savings account. I am still predicting having most everything paid off next month. I really can't believe it.
My plan after becoming (non-student loan) debt free involves saving money for the highly recommended by financial planners "rainy day fun." I call it the moving to New York/buying a house/starting a satisfying career/safety net fund. I have a feeling that it will be much harder to save for this, than it was to pay off all those cards.
Cutting out trips to Target might be one good trick. I find it difficult to walk out of Middle Class America's beloved discount house without spending at least $30 a trip. Go in for shampoo and some underwear, come out with that plus some Pepperidge Farm gold fish, a new Mossimo shirt, and a new combination lock (since I've lost many others). I have no problem consuming. I was raised to do it. LoneStar can and revels in spending no money. While I like the idea of being debt free, I'm not sure if I'm ready to eat ham sandwiches for a week.
I talked with LoneStar last night about how I thought that Shiraz and Hooch were hanging out with the new crew. He hadn't had any of these feelings. This helped ease my paranoia, but he also has a new girlfriend occupying his few non-working moments.
I also commented on how I didn't like the name "Office of Homeland Security." How I find it Orwellian, etc. How I feared that our civil rights and what America stood for might be compromised. Instead of just noting my point, I received a twenty minute lecture on how we should do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't happen again. How nitpicking about a name wasn't going to solve any problems. How we needed to integrate government agencies, etc.
While I could see his point, I don't appreciate getting a lecture or being squelched for saying how I feel. Actually, all I wanted to do was say "Fuck off!" I think what happened was horrible. But compromising our Constitution isn't going to bring 5,000 people back to life. It isn't going to bring back a quarter of Manhattan's office space. It isn't going to save the economy. It isn't going to do much but help the terrorists chip away at an important part of what America is. I think that maybe LoneStar thinks this is going to be some sort of Persian Gulf style episode. If we hermetically seal the United States to the outside world and blow Afghanistan to kingdom-come, that it will all stop.
Also, on a much shallower level. I am tired of being LoneStar's shadow. I am tired of having my personal opinions squelched because he has memorized the same newspaper article that I read better and is quicker to the punch to remember them.
God I think I really need to get a grip, but a lot of my friendships have been coming to a head lately. I haven't been trying to change my relationships. I've just been on auto-pilot trying to cope with all the other crap that's been bothering me.
RedStripe sent me an e-mail today about seeing a movie. It would probably do me well to go. But I should also just stay home and work on my story for class—I'm not done.
Maybe I can avoid being a perfectionist tonight and enjoy myself a little.

October 8, 2001 2 p.m.
Me and my big mouth
I wonder if some days I go to far here at work. Normally, I'm a fairly agreeable guy. Sometimes people from other departments really irritate me and I'm not so good at hiding my irritation. This is usually when other people do not value my time or skills all that much. I then react with overdone arrogance. Example today:
Sales Dude: Hey, Bryan. How's that translation coming?
B: It's kind of going slowly. I'm not familiar with all the terms. I'm not really a translator…
SD: Well you can always just throw it into Babelfish like I do. That works just fine for me.
B: [Laughs a little too hardly]. I hope you're not serious.
SD: Well, I'm glad you find that amusing…
[Pregnant pause].
Change of subject.
Yes, I'm being the snotty intellectual that gets all bent out of shape over using an em-dash (--) instead on an en-dash. At least that's how it makes me feel.

Just for the record, here is the result that you get when you use Babelfish to translate something:
For the avoidance of errors it is advisable to take over the key terms enumerating types from the variable file with the help of the copying function.
Here is what I come up with, though not super eloquent either:
To avoid errors, borrow the key commands of the number type from the variable file using the copy function.

The original German for those who don't trust me:
Zur Vermeidung von Fehlern empfiehlt es sich, die Schlüsselbegriffe des Aufzähltypen aus der Variablen-Datei mit Hilfe der Kopierfunktion zu übernehmen.
Big deal, I know.
Enough about work. This weekend went decently. I went to a party on Friday for a birthday party—one of the guys from the kickball crew. I saw S and RC there (fellow webloggers). We all smoked cigarettes and talked. I went with what should be called the Core Friend Crew of M, J, D, and D's entourage of hipster dudes. Lately, I've been getting the impression that D's Entourage of Hipster Dudes is replacing M and I in this group of friends. Phone calls don't get returned. Mentions of breakfast plans slip out. Mentions of Sunday nights at Lovejoy's slip out. They talk about how they all met each other earlier for happy hours at Trudy's. M and I used to go to these happy hours (or at least M did). I'm not exactly sure why I'm being deleted. Of course our original link is also gone. MJ and NA broke up [I guess I'm going to have to come up with aliases for all these people…] thus our link is gone.
Maybe I'm not making enough of an effort. But I'm getting discouraged not having my phone calls returned and having plans made while I'm there, but not being invited. Why not just say "Hey, can I come along?" That seems to put people in an uncomfortable situation. I already feel insecure enough as it is. I don't want to be the tag-along. I desire to be the popular center of attention. The phone ringing off the hook. People lamenting my very departure.
This all makes me kind of sad. It makes me feel disposable. It makes me feel like I can't foster any lasting relationships with friends. When I was in the Geography Club at UT in noticed the same thing happening. The group of people that I started hanging out with had suspiciously no friends. Everyone had been involved in a serious relationship and must have canned their friends in the process. Still, the friendships never felt very genuine and when I was ditched (or stopped getting called) I didn't feel so good.
I realize that life changes, people move on and move. But this transience drives me crazy. Also, I realize that I am being cast off. Their group is still in tact. They have been friends for years. Maybe I'm being hyper-sensitive about all of this. Yeah, I am. I don't like having my feelings hurt. I also don't like letting myself feel this way.
I'm going to stop droning on.
Peace.