Pseudomammal

Bonnie and Steve were good friends with my parents for as long as I can remember. I played with their kids when we were all tiny. My dad worked with Steve for many years.

Steve died of cancer a few months before the crash that killed julieclipse. He was an extremely kind-hearted, outgoing man with a good sense of humor about himself and the world. A loving father and husband, a generous boss and co-worker, a talented musician. And then he was gone. I missed the funeral because I was too busy with school and life in Portland.

When she could, Bonnie dragged herself back to work. She told me that one day, shortly thereafter, a customer came in just as she was headed out. They did that thing people moving in opposite directions do sometimes — they each tried to get out of the other's way, but by chance they both stepped to the same side. Then to the other. Then back. Finally they both cracked up. A normal moment of polite human absurdity.

Then, still chuckling, Bonnie glanced up. A friend of her and Steve's was out on the sidewalk, looking in through the window of her office, horrified to see the freshly widowed laughing.

She said she felt awful. Like even this momentary, involuntary distraction from her grief was a betrayal.

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I've got a family now. I love them more than I can say. Sometimes, when we're all doing something fun together, I look at Kachi and Rini and catch myself thinking, "I wish Julia could see this." Then I realize how completely absurd that is.

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Also, while I'm being sad, I miss Kif. Tail or no, there was a damn fine cat.

vruba and I made a little game called Khromax. It’s simple and addictive and has pretty moving colors and sounds.

You can play it on that there web site right now. Or, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and are willing to part with the outrageous sum of $0.99, you can play the much niftier multi-touch version on those things.

I did most of the programming  — unfortunately breaking my proud multi-decade streak of never learning any dialect of C — and Vruba did some graphic design. Also, bikko talked us into a few sensible things like version control and not being too terrified of openGL.

That game again is Khromax, on the web or on your phone. Tell your friends to ask for it by name!

julieclipse died three years ago today. Three years. A third of the time she and I were friends. A quarter of the time since I met her. A little more than a tenth of my life. The same all-too-brief amount of time that she and I knew we wanted to be together forever. I can't stop counting.

Everywhere I look, life is short and everything changes. She's missing the future, and it bothers me. She'll never know about Obama. Or iPhones. Or the latest cetacean research. Or promising new kinds of birth control, cures for cancer, or vaccines for HIV. Or this really good book I read last week. When good things happen, I'm deprived of her joy. When confusing things happen, I'm deprived of her opinions. Soon my habit of this yearly posting won't make any sense — not because I'm getting over it, but because no one will read LiveJournal anymore. Her digital ghost has no Twitter or Facebook accounts.

Those previous, infinitely better three years, I skipped a number of fairly important things to spend time with her. At the time I felt a little guilty, but now I'm sure glad I did that.

If you were planning to spend any part of today fretting over some minor hassle, may I humbly suggest you skip it. Go hang out with people who mean something to you instead. It's a far better use of your time.

I live in Portland again.

If you go make yourself a collar at the collar factory — and really, why wouldn’t you? — you’ll find you now get a nifty little illustration of said collar, composited on the fly.

Some day I may get back to using LJ for things other than pimping my latest for-profit project, but, eh.

vruba and I made a thing.

Draftastic is a "collaborative editor". Like a wiki, only lots of people can edit a page at the same time, and you get to see what everyone else is doing.

There's still some polishing to do, and tons of features we want to add, but we've been using it ourselves for months, and figured there was no reason not to share. I think it's pretty neat.

If you want to co-author a screenplay with someone, or write some steamy group fanfic, or especially if you work for a large organization that maintains a lot of documentation or product copy and doesn't bat an eye at paying gobs of money for software, check it out.

And we're off.

I'd keep livejournal up to date on our progress, but I've really got nothing to offer besides one-liners, and there's an optimal medium for those now. So, those of you who want to "follow" the trip can do so on the twitter.

julieclipse died two years ago today. It never gets better. A little easier, but not one bit better.

Be good to the people you love while you can.

Drive less.

Some notable stars of my friends list (though not nearly enough of you) have recently posted to let everyone know to what, in the most shallow sense, they've been up. Since I occasionally like to use this journal for its intended purpose — just to throw off my enemies, mind you — I shall now do the same.

To be sure, stuff still happens to me. I've still got schemes a-plenty, things I'm excited about, and there's still lots of grief and bitter, bitter rage to go around. But those things are news for another post. The tedious minutiae of my day-to-day existence — my own personal rat race — is this:

I have a piece of paper which authorizes me to think about biology in a semi-professional capacity. Half-way to being a real scientist, essentially. For having been allowed to earn this document, I owe some people a great deal of money. To keep the student loan mafia at bay, and to cover the comparatively small costs of living and being sometimes entertained, I get up in the morning, walk to a random coffee shop, position myself carefully so my laptop screen is facing a wall, and make web sites. Web sites where people can buy lovingly hand-crafted collars and matching cuffs with their sweetheart's name on them, or only the finest vibrators, nipple clamps, and floggers, literally by the dozen.

I always wanted to make the world a better place. I'd like to think, in some small, perverted way, I already am.

In case you were wondering, I'm on the Flickr now.

I'll probably use it to post more than stupid cat pictures.

If you're lucky.