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Music:

"Legends can be now and forever
teaching us to love for goodness sake's

Legends can be now and forever
loved by the sun...."

-"Legend" theme song

"Give me life, Give me pain, Give me myself again....
Give me life, Give me pain, Give me myself again...."

Tori Amos, "Little Earthquakes"

Prose:

If you wanted a peek into my psyche, here it is. If you didn't, you should probably stop now before I slowly drive you insane with my ramblings, and all the words and thoughts I collect around me.

Quotes, stolen shamelessly from friends and the occasional random stranger:

"...a cross between Puck and an amazon."
"HEY YOU! YOU SUCK!"
"...Love you till it hurts (& leaves ring marks [Ed: from my teeth on your neck])..."
"...sucks with too many teeth."
"I torture data professionally."
"...kinkier than Whoopie Goldberg's pubic hair."
"I break things for money."
"You have to dance like nobody is watching, and love like it will never hurt."
"Remember all ye that existence is pure joy,
that sorrows are as shadows, they pass, and are gone;
but there is that which remains..."

Horoscopes I like very much, courtesy of Rob Brezny :

While vacationing in Maui, I've been inspired to study the native language. And now you're going to be the lucky recipient of the world's first-ever horoscope in Hawaiian. Here goes. E 'auhe'e 'oe mai ka hana kamali'i, na puhenehene, a me na waili'ula. E ho'i 'oukou i kou 'o'ili. E 'anapu a 'aka 'oe ma he anoano. Malaila 'oe e malama malu 'ia aku ai. (English translation: "Run away from childish work, guessing games, and mirages. You must return to your heart. Dance and laugh in a sacred place. There you will be cared for secretly.")

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22) This will be an excellent week for collecting ah-ha!'s, Libra. Why do I think that? Because the astrological omens say that you're primed to drop your fixed ideas about how everything works; that you're far more likely than usual to welcome surprises as good things rather than inconveniences. Of course it won't hurt for you to aid and abet the work of the cosmic forces in your behalf. That's why I suggest you repeat the following affirmation 10 times a day for the next 10 days: "I love to have my hair raised, my mind boggled, my awe struck, my flabber gasted, and my dogmas blown away."

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22) For your birthday I would love to give you an emerald green parachute, ruby slippers, a canoe covered with jewels, five bouquets of tiger lilies and one of organic broccoli, a donkey clown piņata full of crickets, a protective gargoyle lifted from the Chartres Cathedral, one of Jimi Hendrix's holy finger bones, a strawberry chocolate cake baked in the shape of a question mark, a DNA map drawn up by the Human Genome Project, fistfuls of sparklers, a bottle of holy water from the River Jordan, photos of lightning on a giant poster, a refrigerator magnet cast in the likeness of the Dalai Lama, a digitally remastered CD of the Big Bang, and the key of life accidentally placed inside a Crackerjax box.

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22) Your secret name is Squeeze. The colors of your soul are diamond-hatched and marbled blue. The garage sale item you most resemble is an old but beautiful and sonorous accordion with a broken key. The celebrity with whom you temporarily have an odd resonance is Thomas Jefferson's slave and mistress Sally Hemmings. Your holiest pain these days comes from your ability to sense other people's cracked notions about you. Your special time of day is the moment just before the mist evaporates. The shape of your life is oval with soft dark sparks. And the flavor which identifies you most is grapefruit smeared with honey.

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22) Here is the only slightly ironic epigram that sums up a good portion of my philosophy of life: "You can have anything you want if you'll just ask for it in an unselfish tone of voice." The trick to pulling this off, of course, is to locate the power spot in the magic zone of the earthly paradise where your deepest wish for yourself coincides with the greatest gift you have to give other people. Humble service and triumphant pleasure can and should occur simultaneously.

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22) Clip and save this preview of your fate in the coming years, Libra. Year 2000: You got a problem with being sexy and inscrutable? Hope not. Ready or not, you'll be less nice and more dangerous than usual in the coming months. 2001: Off you go on the madcap pilgrimage of your life. In the back of your mind, always be thinking of how you can turn your adventures there into wealth-builders. 2002: Choose carefully what summit you want to be standing on by summer. 2003: Reinvent work or let work reinvent you. 2004: Summon your wildest integrity and most disciplined chutzpah as you finish up every long-term life cycle. 2005: You'll either have a baby or be reborn yourself.

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22) I dreamed you were a teenage shepherd leading a mass pilgrimage. Hundreds of people with tears of joy streaming down their faces were following you as you trekked over rolling hills through the countryside. In your pocket was a letter you had been given by an angel to deliver to the queen. You also carried a golden staff surmounted by a white flag bearing an image of a red rose. Violet butterflies swarmed above your head. The air smelled of jasmine. And you were singing a song whose chorus went like this: I will fight for the things that I love / with a heart full of fiercest delight / Joy and peace are my holiest duties / Joy and peace are my God-given rights.

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 22) By 2005, you'll be enrolled in a new School of Life, beginning a fresh course of study that will delight the innocent, open-hearted kid in you. But much of 2004 will be like taking a long final exam based on material you've studied forever. On some days the test questions may bore you into a stupor, while on other days they may electrify you into a state of red alert. Here's a clue that could help you keep those extreme states to a minimum in the coming months, as well as ensure that you'll ace the exam: Leave your normal routine and get away from it all as often as is practical. While you wander in the great unknown, you're likely to attract the exact experiences you'll need to solve the toughest riddles.

3-20-98: Yesterday I made some astonishing discoveries, which should have been self evident a long time ago. They're here... On Love...

5-6-98: I've added a page of quotes I got in the mail today, courtesy of that wonderful woman Mae West. They're here... Mae West...

9-9-1999: Illiad: okay, herewith I maketh a edict to passeth: Ariyana gets to be the Concubine in Motorcycle Leathers.

6-15-2001: I'm going to graduate. I've filed all the papers, the test scores from my third try at the test have come, they're good, and all is ready to go. BS in Biochem/Mol Bio and BA in Comp Sci Summer 2001.
I took graduating out of my .plan. It's done. What to do next? It's been... well, by and large my entire life that I haven't had some sort of schooling that was my long term goal. First it was making it to junior high, then surviving high school, then college, and here I stand, looking for what to do next.
In all honesty, I really don't know. Marriage and a family aren't really on the list of things to do. I've always had a loosely knit family of friends, blood relatives, and the like. I've never wanted for anything more. Yet I'm involved with someone who has markedly different ideas about what life should be like, and they most definitely include a marriage and kid(s). I still have no idea how that will work itself out, though it seems that some day it will become a dealbreaker, as it were.
It's not that I have anything against getting married, it's just not for *me*.
So that leaves working on my career, which I've never really stopped doing, and deciding what to do with the rest of my life. Not too bad of a challenge, I must say. Graduate school is likely a long way off (Can't afford it), and so I suppose I work and settle in to not having to take classes all of the time. At least I have a steady job.
For now, I go on to ponder the what if's of life.

7-1-2001: I know what my next goal is, though I'm not at a place where I can actively pursue it yet. I want to go back to practicing aikido, and earn my next rank, and, eventually, my shodan.

11-5-2001: Ari can't sleep, and cooks up a tasty breakfast. Deciding to document her experiments for all creation, she begins Ari's Experimental Recipes, recipes for the healthy girl who still wants a warm, home cooked meal that is both healthy and tasty.

4-21-2002: Ari gets to sail with a World Class Sailor, Mike Montague, at the Santa Cruz Kick Off Regatta. Mike (with a little help from Ari, no, really, a *little* help only) wins 1st place in Hobie Cat 16 A class. Photo of Mike and Ari crossing the finish line here: Kickoff 2002 Finish, Race 7

10-1-2002: Happy Birthday to me. I hope 26 is better than 25 was.

10-29-2002: Today I vest my first shares in the privately held company called Panasas, Inc. Happy 1 year anniversary to me!

2-3-2003: For a long, long time now, it seems...
well, my heart has felt as though it were a broken piece of clockwork, unused and crusted with oily gunk and dust and age, the way the underbody of a car's engine gets with miles and miles of driving applied to it.
Today, for the first time in what seems like forever, though I know it has only been at most a year or two, I have scraped away, effortlessly, it seems, most of the gunk. I find beneath it, a glowing prism, reflecting all the colors of my life.
I feel like I can fly. I'm holding back the nicest sorts of tears, and I want to shout from the rooftops that I've found I can love *myself* again.
My thanks go out to all my friends, loved ones, my precious support network.
I couldn't have done it without you. Never forget that.

3-21-2003: Ari signs papers for Redline Networks. On Monday I'll resign from Panasas, where I have learned and grown more than I could ever have expected. I'm an entirely different person than I was the last time I changed jobs, and it almost startles me to see the differences. Was I really that person? Of course I was. But sometimes, sometimes it is hard to remember that, and harder still to appreciate it for what it is worth.
I've enjoyed my time at Panasas, I think that it is a company moving in the right direction, poised to take the market by storm. If Panasas can continue on as it has, it will be a force to be reckoned with, and I will be happy to be a shareholder. I'll miss the friends I made there, since I know that while I will manage to keep in touch with some, others will slip away. If you're reading this, and you're one of them, use the link at the bottom of this page to email me. I'll be happy to respond.

5-29-2003: Here's a toast to the life if Krystal Brady, who died May 23, 2003, riding the silver FZR1 that she loved so much. May the roads be smooth and fast and free of stupid cagers, may the DJ's always play the music you want to hear, and I'm sorry, Krystal, that I knew you only as a club-friend. Only now that you are gone do I realize how much we had in common.

6-21-2003: Ari and Daniel handfast, at noon, in Bachman Park, in Los Gatos. We are promised for a year and a day. The "and maybe more" is implicit at this time, but we will deal with that when this year and a day comes to a close. If this works, then, then we'll make some other decisions.

8-24-2003: Ari and Daniel bring home ze keetons! More and photos on that later. Suffice it to say, keetons are fun, playful, snuggly, and just too durned cyoote for words.

Poetry:

Hamlet's Dilemma, as spoken by a cat

To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,

Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell.

To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt.

To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household's petty plagues,
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten?

Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scratches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?

Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.

--Henry Beard