I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Although I dislike him, the increased distance doesn't really make much difference in terms of accidental encounters. I have only had one accidental encounter with him since 1988. That was at the Columbus Circle mall last year. I saw him, but he didn't see me. We only meet during mandatory family gatherings which happen 4 or 5 times a year. My mother has been visiting my brother once a week since his first daughter was born 2 years ago. I'm not sure if he is relocating to get away from her. I'm also not sure if the loneliness from not visiting him weekly will result in her bothering me.

The technician found a break in the wiring outside my home. I had suspected this a long time ago, because my connection often failed during storms. I tried reporting this before, but nothing was done because the service always resumed before they could complete their remote tests. Both my upload and download speeds are now double what they had been before the service failed.

I haven't been checking OKC because my internet hasn't been working properly. I got an email today about some unfamiliar user checking me out. That user is not at all interesting to me, but I saw someone else on my visitor's list. It's someone who I dated several years ago. She is now married but she visited my profile on Valentine's Day after not having interacted with me in any way for nearly 3 years. This might mean nothing, but my overthinking has been triggered.

My Verizon DSL connection was unusually slow yesterday afternoon. It gradually got worse and started disconnecting after a few seconds. By 9pm, it was completely unable to connect. Unlike previous failures, this one seemed more pervasive. My neighbor's Verizon Fios was also unusually slow and seemed to completely stop functioning several times a minute. This morning, my Verizon cell phone also lost internet for several hours.

When I called technical support, there was a pre-recorded message about an outage in Astoria. I am not in Astoria, but I'm close enough that it could be a related problem. I decided to stay on the line to verify if it was related or not. After a few minutes of waiting, I heard this:

Due to technical difficulties, your call cannot be processed. Please hang up and try again.

My DSL service is still not restored and my neighbor's connection is still abnormally slow.

The school where I teach weekend classes has an open house event today. I have missed most of the previous open house events due to scheduling conflicts. The last time I attended one, the program director was surprised that I was there. I am available to go today, and they will pay me a decent amount of money for sitting for a half hour, but I really don't want to go. Also, I may be too late if I try to go. My estimated arrival time is their planned finishing time.

I watched a homeless man on the train talk to himself. He seemed to be arguing with himself about which side of the train would be best for starting. I assumed he was referring to which side to address his begging. This suspicion was verified when he started begging on only one side of the train.

Since he seemed to be genuinely in need, and I had plenty of groceries, I decided to give him something. I thought that the box of Ezekiel cereal would be the best choice, because it doesn't require any cooking or refrigeration. He was hesitant to accept the box of cereal because he thought it had already been opened. I was holding it at the top, which is empty and easily crushed. After I changed my grip and reshaped the box to show him that it was a new unopened box, he gladly accepted it.

After he finished begging on both sides of the train, he sat down and spent several minutes opening the package of cereal. I watched him eat two handfuls. After that, he repackaged the cereal and came back to me to inform me that he didn't like the cereal. He offered to give it back to me, but I did not accept it. He said he would throw it away if I did not take it back. I agreed to that. At the next stop, he tossed it onto the platform and returned to his seat.