o/` Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over o/`
I recieved an email a couple months ago from a woman in need of help from her abusive boyfriend (she got my email off my website, story here: Journal Entry About It (under all the mplayer stuff). Anyway, I emailed her a few days ago to see how she was doing… apparently she couldn’t get completely away, but since the cops had showed up at her house one day after one of his outbursts (he broke a window…) and from what she said, the state has the ability to press charges against him in this for domestic abuse (even though his anger was directed at an object instead of her, it was clear he was angry at her from witness statements). So I guess she’s still with him, she gave a statement, but is afaid to do much else… luckily if things turn out right he could get up to a year in prison for what he’s done to her. Currently they are still living together, she realizes she needs to leave, but wants to keep the peace until his court date. It’s sad that she is still there, but it’s apparent from the tone of her email tha she has every intention of leaving. I lived with my ex for a while after things were over, I know how difficult it is to leave.
Maybe I’ve addressed this before… but so many people ask, how can someone stay in an abusive (emotional/verbal or physical) relationship? It tends to happen to people who are either emotionally weak, or have something serious to lose if they end the relationship. In my case, and the one of this woman, we seem to be both fairly emotionally weak. It is *very* easy to bring us down to a point where we think we deserve or “cant do any better” than the abuse inflicted upon us. In my case I made a mistake early in the relationship, and my ex used that as an excuse to vent all his anger at me, call me names, and break things. I was at such a low point finally, that I’d even make excuses for him, and rationalize staying. And in all honesty, would I have stayed with him if I hadnt found out that Myk had an interest in me? (Myk and I had been friends for a few years, and I had always been attracted to him) Probably. Maybe someday I would have broken the pattern of abuse and reconciliation, but it would have taken years, I would have wasted the “best years of my life” with someone who continually hurt me.
Enough of that. It’s raining out, I like rain.
I felt better yesterday after going to bed for a little bit. I think maybe this sickness in the early morning (shh, I know what you are thinking, it’s not THAT) is linked to my allergies, it happened a few nights last year around this time too. *Shrugs* I can’t really think of any other explaination. Still, I was feeling fine when my friend Nita called and said she was in the area and asked if I wanted to do anything. She ended up coming over and we spent a bunch of time just talking… it was really nice %) Mmmm real life, hehehe.
Before Nita came over the day was going pretty crappy, even after I started feeling better. First I *completely* forgot that someone was coming by to replace our smoke detector battery and replace our airfilter n stuff, so I was still in my pajamas when he came, luckily he let me get dressed real quick before I let him in *ugh* … then I think I restarted both my irssi sessions something like 3 times accidentally, just doing stupid stupid things… It wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t feel like an idiot in front of all those “real life people” we chat with on freenode (well, I dont chat there much ’cause I’m so shy…). It’s amazing how I can have a screen + irssi session up for six months, and then multiple times in one day accidentally kill it, ugh. I didn’t really get anything acomplished yesterday, in fact… I honestly don’t know *what* I did yesterday before Nita came over, hmmm… just random useless things I guess %)
A friend of mine from #Deep13 (who dropped into #13thHour after I suggested it) got a copy of Redhat 9 from a LUG and wanted to install it on his co
mputer. Well, he has a really slow computer, 233 mhz I think he said, and just a little graphics card, 64 mb of ram. Well, linux should run on this, even graphics if he runs something like twm. Well, I gave him *very* good details as to how to install the system, gave him a bunch of pointers, and assured him that “linux is not windows” … he even spent a couple days reading up linux stuff, so I can only assume he knew all the risks and difficulties going in! Well, yesterday, a little before noon, he logged off irc to attempt the install. He hasnt been back. Eeek! I can’t help feeling a little guilty if things arent working out, but if he did things properly he should be able to just take out the linux harddrive and boot up on the untouched windows one… unless he overwrote hda1 during the install instead of hdb1. And then it’s really not my fault! I am just hoping he comes out of this whole linux adventure with his interest in linux intact %) If something bad happened he might be so frustrated that he gives up.
Speaking of keeping interest intact… he went to his first LUG on monday night. Now Linux Users Groups can have elitest members who want to be assholes and never even look in the direction of a newbie, but there are always friendly people around to help you out if you require help. I even suggested to him that he ask a few people at the lug for assistance (I also told him about install-fests, where he might get linux installed for him). So he went to the local LUG, which happened to be the Penn State LUG, since he goes to that school. Well, just with a quick glance at the website you know something is odd… Nominations? Elections? President, V. President, Treasurer, and Secretary of a LUG? Now I’m all for organization in a LUG, I understand how frustrating it is when a LUG lacks organization, but this sort of obvious attention to this sort of grade schoolesque “LUG Politics” is enough to turn anyone off the group. Now I am sure these “elections” are not all bad, many LUGs might have them… but it was obvious from my friend’s description of this LUG was it’s basically a bunch of CS majors, who decided it would be ‘leet’ to get a lug together. He said that not only did he feel ignored, but he was grossly unwelcomed by these people, and that’s really sad. I tried to convince him that not all LUGs are like this, but he seems turned off to the whole idea now %( Stupid mean linux users.
Ah linux… oh, I finally submitted a chix profile to LinuxChix.org I am now one of the chix! http://www.linuxchix.org/content/chix/ekrumbach … I guess I waited til now to submit because I wanted to get a feel for the group. And my frustration a few days ago with the irc chat was basically just me being too sensitive. Myk had to reboot the webserver (where my chat clients reside) and I just didn’t rejoin the chat server because I wasnt really ready to go back *shrugs* I rejoined yesterday and it turned out to be ok %) Besides, their lists go down quite often, and it’s nice to be in IRC to see what the status of those is.
I really want to get to work on that birthdaybot today… ugh, I’m just not in the mood. I guess I’ll go take a shower and try to get myself to wake up a bit more, that’ll help %) *wanders off*

