Sinister: Anonymity is difficult

[Caitlin Pigtails]

Music is wonderful.

That's why we're all here, isn't it?  Because music - selected music, 
at least - is wonderful.

I can't listen to music at the moment.  And that sucks.  First, my CD 
player died a death and started refusing to do anything.  It sulks, and 
that's all.  Next, the CD drive in my computer started to do the same.  
At first it was fine with music but sulked at discs of data.  Then, it 
was OK with well-produced tasteful indiepop but turned its nose up at 
anything it thought was a bit avant-garde.  Now, it refuses to do 
anything at all.  Occasionally, it goes *clunk* or *whirr* and makes 
the rest of my computer rather puzzled.  It refuses to do anything 
constructive, other than print log messages like: "ATAPI unrecognised 
command.  ide0 reset success." and so on.

This is all a bit of a problem, because music - as I've probably said 
before - is wonderful.  When I'm at home I have to make do with mp3s.  
These would be fine, but for my computer being rather old.  It can cope 
with them fine, as long as I just sit swinging my head from side to 
side.  If I try to do anything else simultaneously, it isn't happy.  I 
click on a link in my browser window, or try to write a new email, and 
the music breaks up with crackles and fizzes.

"If you want me, bzzzk you knnnnn [pause] ow wh [crackle] ere bzzzzzz I 
am,
I saw your aaa aaarm bzzp crrrk sin a drrrr r r chhhrk eam"

So, I was at work one day.  The Boss says: "We're getting the builders 
in.  There might be some noise."  And they come, the incompetant lot, 
and they *do* make a lot of noise.  "Aha!" thought I.  "I have to have 
something to distract me from the drilling and hammering!" I told The 
Boss.  "I need music!"  So, now, I take a pile of CDs along to the 
office every day.

Music is back again.  Every day, whilst I busy myself with selling 
Scottish tat to idiots and people with no taste, I can listen to 
wonderful tunes and cheer myself up.  When I'm along in the office, I 
can bop along and tap my feet between taps on the keyboard.  I'm in the 
office on my alone a lot, because The Boss likes to go upstairs and 
plan his big break into the TV industry.  I tap my feet, sing along and 
pretend I'm coding.  And it's wonderful.



Sinister meta-discussion is, of course, banned.  Don't Do It, Kids.  If 
you want to discuss anything that you think I'm meta-discussing, do it 
in private.

There are often a lot of meta-discussion things I want to say, but 
don't, because of this ban.  I often want to say "For the gods' sake, 
shut up about politics already," but I hold my tongue.

In any case, I'm never sure of the etiquette on that sort of thing.  If 
someone writes something you don't like, is it OK to write them a 
polite note and say so?  Surely it's just better to try and write about 
The Right Sort Of Thing yourself instead.  And what if they're doing it 
anonymously?  What if they're trying to do it anonymously, but it's 
really easy to work out who it is - do you admit to them that you've 
found out?  Or what if someone who is normally really lovely, who 
writes wonderful things, writes something occasionally that you find 
irritating?  What's the etiquette then?  If it was someone lovely 
trying to write anonymously but failing and being irritating too, I 
hate to think what all the possible permutations would be.  It would be 
far too complicated for me to work out, certainly.  That's probably why 
meta-discussion is frowned on, so we don't all tie our brains into 
knots every week.

(of course, sometimes it's easy.  When someone posts a badly written, 
badly spelled, badly punctuated rant, full of cliquey phrases like "my 
friends, who i'm not going to reveal the name of because it makes me 
sound more popular", then you know they're a twat.  And if you knew 
they were a twat in advance anyway, it's even simpler.)

Incidentally, the builders at work are *so* incompetant that one of 
them nearly managed to make the building fall down yesterday.  
Fortunately, we noticed the cracks appearing in the walls just in 
time.  I'm not going to post the whole long story here, but it's on my 
website if you're really bothered.  
http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/

The etiquette thing is a bit similar to friends in bad relationships, 
now that I think about it.  What do you do when someone lovely, who you 
want to have the bestest of lives, starts going out with someone who is 
an absolute twat?  I mean, what do you *do*?  Do you drop subtle hints 
in the hope that they will notice?  Do you tell them outright in the 
hope that even if they don't talk to you afterwards they might at least 
listen and save themselves a lot of pain?  Or do you just stand back 
and try not to cringe too visibly?  My brain is melting again.

The etiquette on people who plug their website in the middle of 
Sinister posts is obvious, of course.  You give them a good spanking.  
No, please, I *insist* ;-)

In other news, a girl I went to school with has just been sent to 
prison.  She's been sent down for 30 months for heroin dealing.  I 
didn't get on with her especially well - she came from a different 
village to me, anyway - but we shared a few classes and I knew her 
after a fashion.  I remember when she got her naval pierced; it was 
going septic, but she was lifting up her blouse in German class and 
showing it to everybody, incredibly proud.  I think of that, then I 
think of her now, in prison and trying to survive on her methadone 
prescription.

After that, I want to listen to music again.  Music can take my mind 
off of all that.  Music's wonderful.


xx
caitlin



--
http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/

"When life gives us lemons, we just sit there and sulk about it, in the
  corner of the room, in a fetal position."
         - Matthew Henderson, on the Sinister mailing list.
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