it's just another one of his jedi mind tricks.

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dateline: oZworld

11 september 1996 10:18 p.m.

Sanity Held Hostage: Day Two Last night I nearly burnt down my apartment. Okay, not really. My dinner was the only casualty. Spaghetti with tomato and mushroom sauce (a la Prego) was the menu. I grabbed The Magic Red Jar and a package of spaghetti noodles and put them on the back of the stove. My apartment doesn't have a counter (let alone a real kitchen), so I always just throw everything I'm working with there while I'm cooking. I pulled out (and dusted off) my nifty Visions pot, filled it with Genuine Draft Waikiki tapwater, put it on the front burner and turned the knob to "HI." The knob for the rear burner, that is. So, I'm stretching out, trying to keep from falling asleep... and my smoke detector completely fails to go off. When I'm zoning, I often stare at it; stuck contentedly to the ceiling with its cover hanging open, a tiny black piece of plastic dangling from a wire like a tongue as if to say, "Gee, a nine-volt battery would taste really great right now!" The minute I smelled something burning -- before I even opened my eyes -- I knew what I'd done. I'd done it before. Several times. I leapt up, turned off the stove, and watched in fascination as the noodle package slowly melted away in writhing, wrinkled waves of plastic. About half the noodles were charred, the thick of them sporting a perfect half-circle branding of black. My unrealized pot of water was sitting there watching the whole thing. I could feel it smirking at me. Defeated, I walked to the "Handi Pantry" to buy a prepackaged roll of musubi and a liter of Coke. It suddenly started pouring while I was there, so I just looked at the covers on the rack of magazines 'til the deluge stopped. While I was waiting, I observed a pack of four uniformed police officers sweep through and just about clean out the little donut counter at the front of the store. I spilled some of the Coke after I got home, and my floor's still sticky. There seems to be a small "oZspotting" faction on campus, which is neat... but a little eerie. They're friendly and funny gang o' guys. They read this diary, and e-mail all the time. But -- and they understand this -- I'm not one for meeting people I come across online in "real life." I've got my horror stories (as lots of people do these days, I guess), and for a while now I've sworn off those generally awkward encounters. So now it's just a little game; they write to say they think they saw me here or there, and ask if they really did. So far I'm pretty sure they haven't, but it isn't a big campus. Thank god girls who look like me are, as one said, "a dime a dozen." I guess I wasn't expecting very many "locals" to find my web-page. My online existence originally spent in USENET -- discussion forums where I'm just as likely to argue with a Baptist in Finland as I am a Mariah Carey fan in Arizona -- most of my friends and penpals are at least 2,704 miles away. Turns out my URL was posted to a local USENET group, though, so now there are a lot of new people sending e-mail... not to mention a fair share of date and marriage proposals. They want to talk about local restaurants, volleyball, specific professors and the like. I'm so accustomed to having to start replies with, "No, I don't wear a grass skirt to a class in a hut on the beach," it feels a little strange to suddenly begin discussing Marriott's chicken katsu (which I ate today) with someone. It almost feels like the borders of my web-universe just moved a little closer. For the most part, weekdays are rarely worthy of much reflection. School and work, over and over again... Everyone in my Hawaiian class is floundering, so the instructor's pulling back and I think I'm starting to catch on. I'm convinced that he's still giving out far too much homework for a four-credit, intro level language course. I certainly don't remember covering so much, so fast and so deep, when I took Japanese as a Freshman. Pehea `oe? How are you? Maika`i au. I am well. E malama pono. Take care. `O `oe pu! You too! I'm listening to my latest Girl Angst Set, just lounging around and wallowing in a bout of restlessness. The six discs shuffling away in my trusty stereo are: Poe's "Hello," Melissa Etheridge's "Yes I Am," Tracy Bonham's "The Burden of Being Upright," Alanis Morrisette's "Jagged Little Pill" (of course), No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" and Tori Amos' "Boys for Pele." Actually, Amos and Etheridge don't fit my mood at the moment, but I don't think I can yet stomach the last Cranberries disc right now (the sound is right, but the lyrics are awful). I definitely need more music -- its an addiction I gladly indulge. I almost got the Garbage album, mostly because of a magazine article by Shirley Manson, the lead singer, where she lists -- among several other personal commandments -- "thou shalt worship my bodily fluids." Only heard one song, though, over and over on VH-1, so I'm not sure if they're really any good. (Anyone have any suggestions on other artists that would fit this flavor? I get paid on Friday and I desperately need to soothe my soul by wasting money.) The Poe disc is my latest purchase... some songs venture a little close to pop, but I like it. She's like a more mod (and less grating) version of Sheryl Crow. The lyrics in the title track have a cyberpunk theme: "I can't see your face But you left a trace on a data backroad That I almost erased Not even God takes this long to get back So get back 'Cause I hit a fork in the road I lost my way home I'm cut off from our main line Like a disconnected modem..." Radio Free Hawai`i has been playing two songs off the "Trainspotting" soundtrack, and I could've guessed which ones would've been voted into high rotation. "Lust for Life" by Iggy Pop and "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed. The Big Mele is this Saturday... after all the gushing I've done about it, I still don't have my tickets. This week I've been so pooped, I keep thinking I'm just going to spend the weekend sleeping.