Cav's Place

Before talking about the latest reason to mope around and feel like shit, I think I need to give you a little background information. You see, about a month ago I wondered once again whether there was still any way to see who’s on Yahoo! Messenger without logging on, after they removed the status indicators from the profiles when they changed them, a couple of years ago. For all this time, I kept logging on, invisible, often even several times per day, just to check, usually logging off right away after seeing that there was nobody to talk to. But it would appear that the old status indicators still work well enough, if you know what the link is. So I made a little page where I put the people on my list, plus a couple that aren’t on my list, to be able to check without logging on. Of course, this only shows their public status, not whether or not they’re invisible, and it also only works for those who use Yahoo! Messenger, not displaying the status of those who actually use Windows Live Messenger, even though the two are interoperable. (I also found out how to check the public status of someone who uses Windows Live Messenger, but that’s set up differently, not broadcasting any status unless the user specifically enables this, so nobody showed up as being on-line even if they actually were.) Still, it was of some help, so I kept it and keep using it.
Well, this caused me to freeze on the spot last Tuesday, when I saw Andra on. Of course, I couldn’t see her when I logged on as well, since she either set herself as invisible to me or put me on ignore at the start of 2008, at the end of that period during which we talked again, but there she was. Note that I had been using the page for two and a half weeks at that point and hadn’t seen her on before. She was also on that evening, but afterwards I think I only saw her show up as being on-line during the day… In fact, my little page says she’s on right now as well. Not that it helps me in any way since she wouldn’t talk to me and I’m absolutely terrified of what she may have to say if she were to say anything, but there it is. Still makes my guts turn to water every time I see that, and that first time I actually managed to work up the courage to send her a hug… And then I logged off and didn’t log on again for a day and a half. All for no reason, as I said, but that was about all I could work up any courage for.

On an entirely different note, I also met Andreea on Friday, supposedly so she’ll return the A Song of Ice and Fire books that I had given her a pretty long time ago. We walked around for a while, then sat on a bench and talked, so it seemed to go well enough… Or almost, because originally she had said that she’ll need to be somewhere else by 6 PM and I had noticed that a medieval music concert was supposed to start in that same park at 5:30 PM, as part of an event that was taking place there at the time, so was planning to have a look out of curiosity, seeing that the two seemed to fit together so well. But when I asked when was she supposed to leave she said the schedule changed and she’ll only need to be back at 7 PM, and I didn’t get much of a reaction out of her when I awkwardly tried to mention that I was interested to see what that concert was all about, so I just gave up on the thought and sat there with her until she got up to leave at around 6:10 PM.
After I took her to the metro station, I only made my way to the stage at 6:35 PM, when the concert was supposed to have already ended. It hadn’t, lasting for about ten minutes more, but it was enough to let me know that it was a good thing I had missed the rest. It was way too loud for that small space, forcing me to take up a spot in front of an NGO’s tent, sort of just behind the area where spectators should have gathered in front of the stage, and there were only some 70 people or so openly attending, which was still too small of a crowd to lose yourself in, making me feel awfully embarrassed when a song ended and one’d be expected to applaud. I didn’t and felt embarrassed for that as well, and then started to get even slightly scared, but that’s what happens whenever there are people around me, after all…
But let’s leave that behind and move on to the actual issue, which I only spotted when I got back and looked inside the bag, noticing a smaller bag with a sheet of paper and some drugs carefully hidden under the books. Now I could just let that hang like that, but no, I’m talking about the kind of drugs you get from a pharmacy, don’t worry. For a moment I even thought that she somehow put some of her own things in the bag and forgot to take them out before giving it to me, but then I read the note. It started by saying she knows I’ll get upset over it, but that helping a friend is the least she could do with her experience of working in a pharmacy. Then she went on to say that she got me some things for the health issues she remembered me mentioning, explaining exactly how to take or use each of them and then also mentioning how she bought the drugs in question, saying that they cost her a lot less than they normally would so I shouldn’t be worried about her spending money on me.
Well, I don’t think I actually had the first problem she mentioned in years, while the other three are currently at entirely manageable levels, so I’d much rather not even think about them unless or until they’ll once again become really problematic. And she should also know very well that I won’t take drugs unless I really have to. But the more important issues are that she tricked me, hiding this until it was too late for me to throw it in her face along with a few choice words, and gave me something I didn’t specifically ask for or want. (Worse, she gave me something I specifically didn’t want.) She knows exactly what I think of lying, that I see hiding something on purpose as the same as lying, and also that giving me things bought with money that I don’t specifically ask you for is a very good way to really piss me off. After all, knowing this is just why she tricked me into it like this.
Actually thought to throw away the fucking things, but that’d be a waste of resources, so eventually put them aside, just in case I’ll find myself truly needing any of them before they expire. But hopefully that won’t be the case, plus that I may still decide to throw them away anyway, so she most likely just spent money, no matter how little, to really piss me off, which she knew very well would happen. Then she also sent me a few messages, the second saying that we get upset over the stupidest things and the third that she’ll stop sending me anything in that case and I’m welcome to stay lonely. Note that these two messages were only a few hours apart, while it’s not uncommon for me to send her several and wait even more than a week to get a reply… A pity, since we had kept in touch for the past few years, but she wouldn’t be the first person I mostly cut contact with because she gave me something and she knew it, so I’ll consider it to be done on purpose.

As for the old HDD, it always took a few seconds to start, making some really worrying noises in the process. The problem with that is that the default power settings turn off a HDD after it’s unused for 20 minutes, and since I just put in this one to automatically backup everything every morning, nothing else should have been using it, so it kept turning off. However, a lot of things were accessing it anyway, making it turn back on shortly after it was turned off, causing my computer to freeze for a couple of seconds in the process, which was both annoying and likely bad for the HDD as well.
Yes, I turned off indexing and also put all of it on BitDefender‘s exclusions list, but it still did it roughly every 30 minutes, rarely staying off for any significant amount of time. It’d happen if BitDefender tried to update, if I started Internet Explorer or Winamp, if I closed or minimized all active applications to see the desktop… So I put in 120 minutes instead of 20 and now it only happens a couple of times per day, usually when I just get on the computer. That’s strange in itself, since BitDefender accessing it whenever it tries to update would mean that it’s accessed every hour and therefore should never turn off anymore, but I did only notice it do that a couple of times while I wasn’t using the computer myself, so it may not be the update process itself but something related to it taking place while I’m doing something else.

As far as the HDD goes, I’ll say all’s well that ends well, at least so far. And since I didn’t have any more of those freezes either for the past two weeks, it’s looking good. Of course, there were some three weeks between the series of freezes before and now it’s only been two since the last, and I am still being careful to avoid anything that I think may increase the risk whenever possible, so we’ll see how it goes.
That goes for the issue with Andreea as well, I guess. Now I know that she meant well, but she also knew exactly what would happen as a result of this, so I have no intention of extending an olive branch just now. If she’ll let me chew on it for a while and then show the same level of determination that I keep showing whenever I really want to keep talking to someone, we’ll see what happens. But one thing’s for sure: Even if we’ll keep talking, I won’t risk meeting her again anytime soon!
As for Andra… I lose either way. If she’ll ever say anything, I’m too terrified of what it could be. If not… She probably just ignores me, so I’m going crazy over here for nothing, since she probably wouldn’t get anything I’d send her and certainly won’t reply anyway. But it is what it is… Not that you’ll ever read this, but I still love you and always will…