avoiding zombie self

Again more writing from before computer was working:

I also wrote a huge list of all these things that I am tired of, like not living life, followed by:
So how do I get myself to really change all these things? Apparently, I'm the one that has to change, but I don't even know if people can change that much! "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" I wish I could fix all those things I'm tired of. But I feel like I just don't have the strength.

So after my computer is working again, will I go back to being a zombie? (That is if I'm not one right now.) Depends on how long until I install Quake. . .

I think I'm a horrible storyteller - What makes me think that I could possibly be a writer?

I can force myself not to do things - I'm good at that. There's the original zombie box and now the new interactive model.

A pleasure never known; a curse self imposed. I only doom myself. I try only to run from the stereotypes.

This might not make me a better writer, but I hope it will make me a better person.

what to do?

Well. I ended up installing Quake 3 today. I played it for about an hour and a half.
Something I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

What am I going to do all day? This computer problem keeps me up at night. Stupid Iomega. When I go to work, at least I don't have to think about this problem. It puts me in a better mood. Sure, I'm writing more without the computer, but nothing of any real value. How long can this go on? I I don't fix it tonight, I might just pay the Man $100 to fix it just as long as I don't lose any data or have to use the restore image. If you want to know how long I can survive without a computer - I just need decent enough reading material... I might end up running out of paper and have to get some from work to continue writing. I even started to clean my room, but in that I never get very far. Perhaps the "futility" of it frustrates me. I try to do one type of thing in terms of cleaning my room at a time, but it still seems incredibly difficult.

I want to eat. But what? Something other than all the sweets and white bread. Unfortunately, that's all that's in the house.

Ever feel like the very Fates are maligned against you?

If I were to remove all the games from my computer, would I really be better off? I think I have reached a crtical time. If I behave correctly, success will follow.

computer OK

I finally resurrected my computer. It was a harrowing ordeal, but I finally did it. I tried writing up the story while my computer still didn't work, but I got the details jumbled. I did a lot of other writing as well, but I'll save that for later. In my last post I started on what was going wrong with my computer. I tried a little known tool called driver verifier to try to see if I could find out the cause of the blue screens. It turned out to be a remaining Iomega driver. Apparently, installing an old skool Iomega parallel port ZIP drive to a Windows XP computer is a bad idea. I did do an uninstall, but like most other software manufacturers' uninstalls it was far from thorough. I could only boot in safe mode as the Iomega driver gave me a blue screen at boot. I then did something stupid, I deleted the driver without getting rid of registry entries. After doing that, I couldn't boot at all. I think it was at that time, I did the complete hardware diagnostics that came with my computer which found nothing wrong. I attempted to do a repair using a Windows XP CD. That failed - it said it couldn't find asms while looking in systemroot/device/cdrom0/i386. I knew there was nothing wrong with the CD by the way as I had just opened the envelope it was in for the first time to do the repair. I then tried to do a reinstall over top the current OS - but not before finding a way to get to a command prompt to backup my files to my other hard drive. The reinstall was semi-successful although it said it had trouble copying a file - I told it to retry and it worked, but I was still getting blue screens and applications were crashing randomly. I figured I had only one last resort, which actually at that point could never had worked anyway because if I was getting crashes from a reinstall it was most likely a hardware problem. I burned stuff to disc and copied the rest to my other hard drive. I used the image of the system partition that came with my computer on the hard drive to restore the system. Even after doing that, I still got blue screens. I ended up wiping out all the partitions on the hard drive that came with this computer and starting all over, but this time, the install would say that a file was not copied successfully. I'd tell it to retry and then it would go through, but it would give the same message about the next file. The next time I ran the hardware diagnostic, I found out one of the memory sticks went bad. I don't see where along the lines it went bad or why the repair would have failed. (to all you anti-M$ zealots : this occurrence is an anomaly - I'm not switching OSes because of it. Bah, I can't believe Blogger spell check doesn't think zealots is a word, but it thinks zealot is.)

I wonder how not having a computer to use for those three weeks or so has effected me. More on that later.

depressed

(originally written December 24th)

Damnit, I’m feeling depressed again. I said I would come home this weekend. (tomorrow’s Christmas and Hannukah). But I just don’t feel like doing anything and I’m having trouble deciding if I want to go home now or not. I wonder why I don’t tell my mother these things. Perhaps I feel like she’ll just worry more. Or ask about Dr. Blum or something – who happened to go on vacation so I won’t see him this Tuesday. Do I use depression just as a way to incapacitate myself? Prevent myself from accomplishing anything. Spent most of the day playing Quake. Need to do something else for awhile. I suppose this is as good as anything. On top of everything, there’s something wrong with my computer and I can’t figure out what it is. Firefox crashes intermittently for no apparent reason. Quake does as well but no where near as much. Then, I get these blue screens every couple days or so.

I’m in that whole “nothing to look forward to” state. Nothing to be happy about.

Almost definitely messed up my sleep schedule again. It was OK for a few days this week. I gotta learn to keep to a reasonably regular sleep schedule on weekends as well.

I need to really change my outlook, but I want to solve the long term problem as well. I don’t just want to take medicine that will improve my mood because I’m afraid that will only make me satisfied with where my life is at. I wouldn’t be motivated to change anything. (not that I am now)

I won’t even have more than one meal today because someone has been eating my food without my permission.

Alone I have always been and alone I will remain from now to eternity. I will die shortly before retirement or go insane when my mother dies. I will be forgotten. If none of these come to pass I will live a happy life. My story began as a tragedy and so it shall end.

It just happens to be that eve that is so important in that other religion. Eleven o’ clock.

All I’ve got is a roof over my head and a steady job. I’m out to make sure I don’t get anymore than that.

I’ve got have faith in myself before I can have faith in others. Perhaps I want to rely on myself instead of Mom.

I was born with so many external advantages. But so little to depend on in the inside. I have no sense of self. I know who I was supposed to be, but that isn’t who I am. I don’t know who I am – never really did.

With a little self confidence, all else follows. Agree or disagree?