On The Road

I am writing to you from a hotel in Sandy, Utah, just outside of Salt Lake City. It is cold here, but not as cold as I thought it would be. I am hoping it snows and does not rain tomorrow, since there is a snowboard trip planned for Snowbird, Utah, and yes, there is a storm-a-brewin high above.

I have been writing alot while on the trip, in a small leather-bound notebook made of cellulose taken from Venice algae (so it says). Maybe I will transfer some of the writings to this blog when it is all over, when I have something coherent to say about what I experienced. Right now it is all intangible feelings and nostalgia; I've been on this trip before.

I can say one thing: the sprawling landscape of Utah is much more beautiful in the winter when it lays under a white blanket of snow, with the red rocks glaring through the speckles of snow that couldn't cover all of the jagged faces of the canyons and the mountains.

Today's sunset was more ominous than pretty, which wasn't really a bad thing. It had a character of its own. It looked like a huge, frozen explosion in the sky, with the thick, black stretched clouds trying to smother it into submission. Some of the light would catch the melted snow on the ground, and at the right angles, the road would blaze yellow just for a second. It looked great against the whites and the greys and the blacks, and the dark blues of the mountains in the distance. And then those clouds finally smothered that great frozen flame, and the land was cast in a sort of luminous darkness, with the small scattered towns giving off the twinkling yellow lights that spotted the hillsides, as they slept so silently under that blanket of glowing blue snow.

I wrote feverishly in that failing light, which broke some vessels in my right eye, flooding it with bright red twisting worms.

I should probably sleep now. Tomorrow I snowboard, and hopefully not tumble and die, and then we head further North.

Oh, The Festivities

Happy Holidays.

It is that time of year.

And me? Well, I'll just be disappearing into the North for a little while.

Sure

We are surviving, that's right, surviving these fluctuations.

BFWTF

From last night.




The strangest thing has happened. I have been woken up by Rodney the Dog in a strange fit of shaking or stretching. What possessed him to awake at 11:40 PM? Still stranger, I went to bed at 10 PM, maybe later, which means less than 2 hours of sleep, but I feel fully rested. The eeriness of this occurrence has given rise to mild paranoia and creeping suspense. Have I been hijacked by an ancient race of Brain Miner Slugs? There could be one operating right now, using my body as his vehicle to gleeful Earth-bound operations. I am half expecting Mr. Grey to walk through the door at any moment, or a great pulse of light to pour through the window, accompanied by a dull hum. Rodney the Dog sensed something perhaps. I never felt clearer in body and mind than at this moment, which inversely has caused nothing but confusion and disbelief. I had to glance at my cell phone several times. The time was not registering in my head. I considered having a drink of water and going out to the computer to start a blog entry in this frigid night, but that would leave me too exposed; the perfect place to be nabbed. Ethel the Cat has stirred as well, and she gazes through the blinds of the only window in the room at this moment. What does she see in the darkness? I let her out of my room to go explore what she wishes. But Rodney stays. What now? How will I get back to bed in this state of mind? It seems impossible, but when I do lay down I feel exceedingly relaxed, like I should be going to sleep anyway. The battery is low on this laptop, a feeble, termperamental battery that grows incredibly hot when charged, like it is ready to melt into some sort of combustible acid soup. The glow of this screen is the only light in the room, a ghostly light that may inadvertently atrract Them. I imagine I should let the room back into darkness and get back to sleep. Or maybe they are waiting for me to hit the pillow so they can launch their cosmic kidnapping. Who is They goddammit! It is growing colder in this room and I must get back under the covers. I must try to go back to sleep. I considered staying awake all night, but what would I do? If boredom seizes me so easily during the day, how in the world would I survive this unpopulated night? There is nothing out there. I could play videogames or watch TV or read. None of these options sound too appealing at the moment. Neither does ingesting some sort of strange substance to dillate time and maybe force out the Brain Miner Slug from its comfortable cockpit. The TV just shifted its weight. I hate that. It made my stomach drop. She snores very loudly. My arms are cold. So are my fingers. Everything else is fine. This is Brain Miner Slug 2,345 signing out.

Vaguely Hellish

I'm not even entirely sure here. I can't quite remember what happened last night. I know I was drifting in and out of sleep. I was delirious. I had ideas. I was trying to work something out that had nothing to do with anything. There was large dogs lurking in and out of the dark, or lurking outside, or there was something else outside, I just can't remember. What kinds of dreams were they? What happened? Who was in them? What was I doing? Why does the recollection trigger a dull twisting in the stomach? Why do I feel like I am being hunted?

The sky has a low grey ceiling today. The crows circle in swarms, searching for perches on the power lines. Random raindrops are hitting the windows, thickening the water wall that obscures.

And I just can't figure out if last night was strange, troubling, a living hell, or all of the above.

Incohesiveness in One Realm, Perfection in The Other

Some more experimental writing from...yesterday.


Stoned. What first? Outside Jacuzzi, oh god I felt like I was flying. I could make my inanimate body dance like I was controlling a puppet. Dunked into a shark cage, a little intense, came up, back to the outside. The cool air had sensations of its own. Back down under, this time the cage is gone. This is to fight sharks. I gouge eyes, but behind me! Great blasts of jet, a shark trying to eat the back of my head. Fuck you shark, I'm out. Back to the surface.

Atoms vibrate in an infinitesimal sphere. Mind is like electricity that pulses it has a physics of its own. Music is the same, because it is sound, the clashing of atoms at the molecular level sending some other sort of particle or packet of energy in our direction. It recycles throughout, a sphere gradients...horizantal and vertical combined together with all things converging in and all things diverging out simultaneously, this is life, infinite. Time is circular. Time only exists conceptually. It is the moving of things outward maybe. And inward. Maybe I have fallen outward where thoughts can be grabbed out of the air. Perfect lucidity. Moments of clarity. Best high in a while.

The spider saga. Saw it fall off of a cliff. Senses sharp as hell, can hear the pulsing jets in the water, the water pushing against more water, parting, dispersing. Birds are jumping from twig to twig, making crashes that reach me across space. Finish the saga. It was meant to be. The sun coming through the fence. Essay writing. My arch foe, or one of them, the spider, falling into the ocean. Oh spider, you look black widow-y, like you might multiply and destroy. But no! I let him free, despite my fears. He crashed into the leaves. He is fine. I saved him. With a net.

It was a heavy train of thought, and I dropped it. That is ok, I am getting hungry. A white plane soaring overheard. Paper airplane pilots. Flying the same direction every time I look up. The triple elevens. This is a major convergence point. Now back to the experience. Gravity. Same idea. Ah, groovy.

Wii. Wii on weed. Wiid.

BIS: Boob Scene Investigation. Sleazy. Sleeze.

Ahhhhhhh. Introspection. Guilt. Crash down.

Everything is ok.

Not So Subtle Satire

Hey GUYS! Should I download Kryll or Van Der Graaf first?! I don't fuckin' know! Because I don't have a fuckin' mind!

Help me guys! Help me get a fuckin' mind! Decide for me! I want to be a tool!

I am a jackass!

Shortie

I'm writing this while I have to go to the bathroom, so in effect, this post will not be very long.


END.

Fire Leaves Superimposed On A Homogenous Suburban Backdrop

There is a place in the kitchen where the angle is just right, and standing inside you can see through the window and over the back wall, and right between a light-post and a steep hill of ivy stands a tree with the brightest, reddest, orange leaves you have seen in this city or the next. When the orange glow of the setting sun hits those leaves, they glow like hundreds of young embers, and the tree looks like its on fire. You might be standing in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do with yourself, when out of the corner of your eye you see this brilliant dash of red-orange, and you wonder what in the world that could be, with a color like that. You walk out into the backyard, and there it is, beyond the wall, standing in the middle of dull browns and greys, and maybe some greens here and there, with some muddy blue overhead, unless the sky is especially clear that day, or a darkening purple-orange, if you are lucky.

And then maybe you start hearing the voices of children, or the brief, dull roar of passing cars, or the buzzing of a passing plane, high above, a bright dot of white floating across the sky. You might even smell something that reminds you of this exact moment, in the exact circumstances at some obscure time you cannot recall. This smell might be a fire in the chimney, or a steak on a grill, or even just the air itself. You'll probably feel a very soft breeze, barely detectable but just the right temperature to accentuate the moment. You might start feeling that old feeling, that old feeling that you could not begin to describe with just one of the senses, or all five of them combined, or any kind of semantic memory you can think of. It is just there, and you can feel it, like feeling that groove in your shoe that has been there for ages.

And in this trip to god-knows-where that is taking place right in your backyard, you might forget yourself, and forget that you have been chased into a cave of the roughest walls, of the darkest shadows, a cave that you could have never foreseen 5, 6 years ago, a cave with seemingly no escape, except right out the top, for just a second, with unexplainable moments like this.

Not quite humane, yet not quite primal.

Update---Old Remedies: Not Nice!

Well I guess I spoke too soon. The night before was nice sure, but when I went to sleep with that whiskey still in my system I had bizarre unnerving dreams that made me wake with anxiety.

Swimming in oceans at night, looking for glowing fish? Watching out for sharks? Cities made of sharp angled glass? Feeling unwelcome in places I'll never see?

And what about the hallucinations? The man on my chair? The shadows moving past the window, the anxiety of it all?

And I had to wake up in a feverish delusion again. Aha, always something to go wrong with me. Yaaaap.

Old Remedies: Nice

I think I know why people believe that drinking whiskey, and then sweating the cold out works.

Because having enough whiskey makes you feel great anyway! And you don't feel anything, not to mention some stupid cold!

But it comes back eventually, that's the problem. The cold that is. Not the feelings of niceness.

I'm kidding anyways. I'm not actually sure if sweating helps get rid of a cold. Maybe. Sometimes when a cold is coming on and I work with weights or something, the cold seems to magically go away. Maybe that's the immune system flaring up. Gawd I don't know. Now I'm just starting to throw stuff out there, hope it sticks...and such.

I hope I don't wake up to a train wreck tomorrow. I've got mahtherfahkin finals goin' on here.

Like Cell Growth

It is sort of hard work editing this rough draft that I have of my short story here. I have to weigh out all of these critiques and see which ones carry the most...weight, which isn't easy, because then there is that blurry line between writing for yourself and then writing for others. Maybe you want people to be able to understand what you are trying to say, so that you can communicate the right message, and plot, and emotion. Then, at the same time, you have this sort of artistic vision, which is how this entire story goes down in your head. This is the creative outlet. If this is lost, all is lost, and then you are just writing trash. The line is blurry, yes, because it is so hard to decide how to achieve this perfect balance between universality and creative peak. Maybe it is impossible to achieve the perfect balance. Maybe you have to sacrifice some vision, or overlook a certain group of people that you don't care about (which is my favorite part to shave off, haha). And then maybe sometimes you are making terrible mistakes that you cannot see at first, but then people point them out, and at first you are hurt and mad, but then you want to thank them, or something. Whatever the case, it sucks, and it takes some thinking. There are 17 different opinions on my story, and most of them contradict each other to some extent. So what to agree with?

I guess it is your decision in the end. It is your story.

The whole process sort of mirrors societal adaptation, and then to zoom even farther, or closer, depending on your outlook, cell growth. You know, you put a cell somewhere, saaay, on a larger body of cells, like skin, and what does that cell turn into and form? A skin cell. Life! Mirrors and adaptations. You could say society is an organism of sorts. And then zoom out some more, and say everything is an organism. Then you ask, what is an organism anyway? What about individualism? Is it an illusion? Is it exclusive to humans? How deep does this go? And then I say, this discussion has gotten out of hand and I am becoming too abstract. We were talking about a friggin' rough draft. Shit.

Buuuuuullsheeeyit. But no! Stick to the plan, man! What to do? What to say? What to write? A short story! Ahhhhh, I lost it. I was onto something.

Cell growth man, cell growth.

Disappointment is Heavy Like Lead

I guess they are cutting the funding to the intermediate creative writing classes. Maybe even the poetry. I go to a scientific school concerned only with math and science, it is no wonder that they fail to see the importance of fictional writing. Yet I can't help but feel more than disappointed and alienated (more so than I already do). Writing was the one thing I cared about this quarter. At least they still have the advanced writing classes, but it is a little harder to get into, and I missed the boat for next quarter because I was too busy looking for the intermediate classes.

But that seems to be a common trend anyway lately. In this interval of time our society seems to be placing a much higher importance on the math and science fields. This could be seen in the higher salaries and public opinions and so and so. Don't get me wrong, I dig the products of these fields, and highly respect the people pursuing them, but this is not my field, and so it causes me to become at odds with the overall construct. I tell people that I am interested in philosophy and that maybe I'd like to be a writer, and they scratch their heads and ask me why I'm not interested in business or science or something more practical. Practical in this sense means something that makes more money, I think. And if people out there choose science or business because they really love it, then power to them. I know how they feel. But if what you love might not make you that much money, or gaurantee that much security, well hell, you'll just have to set your priorities. My priority is to be happy, not so much to be rich. I would think I would pursue my priority then.

You see, this aspect should be common sense, but people really haven't figured out how it works, because they don't know how to be in someone else's shoes. I think you should never tell someone that they shouldn't be what they want to be, because they have probably given it very much thought and thought about it very carefully. They probably care very deeply for this decision, and thus it is going to be a very, very soft and tender spot. If it is the wrong field for them, let them figure it out on their own. Give them a little dignity.

Miscellaneous Thoughts and Observations

Perhaps music is really a mathematic extension of our emotions themselves. An almost tangible, yet concrete stream of pure emotive dynamics. Why does such imagery stay so universal and ring so true with so many people when they listen to this music? Is the imagery created for the music? Or is the imagery created by the music, as a harmonic, emotional, mathematical output? Ok so maybe all of that is too much of a mouthful. Maybe even some of those words were misused or misinterpreted or etc. But I am still interested in what music really is. We know so little about metaphysical properties, probably because it is all speculation and we can't really prove any of it yet.

"Wow, you are quite lucid for a stoner."
"Jeez! You goddamn mentalist!"
"Mentalist? What?"
"You are prejudiced against people who have different mental approaches."
"I have never heard of that."
"Well I fuckin' made it up. But that is what you are. In fact we are all mentalist to every mental approach that isn't ours by nature. But you can decide whether you want to be aggressive about it or not. In effect, this makes you an asshole."
"Well sheesh, all I said was you were lucid for a stoner."
"Yes, and that had some very condescending implications didn't it?"
"Well, now I am angry, and yes, you are just a goddamn stoner."
"And I was angry 5 minutes ago. Time is up."

Sharing the shower with a community of ants provides ample time to study their behavior. When the water flows (which is sticky and ensnaring, since the water molecules are proportionately larger in relation to the ants' bodies) the ants climb instinctively for higher ground. Somewhere in that little exoskeletal head of theirs, they know very well that great danger and possibly death await them in the depths below, or in other words, that gaping black and silver hole that is the drain. And you know, the sheer size of the surfaces that they climb could be thousands of feet if we converted it to ant-size. They cover such immense ground in such a short time.

I don't know what a spider wants with an ant. Maybe it is like a man resorting to eating a rat when he is starving. There is nothing better out there and at least the little rat provides some sustenance, which is better than nothing. It is better than starving.

The wind was sharp and cold like a chilled knife today. It sliced right through me, right through anyone else. A hoodie is soft and porous. Easy to cut with wind.

Gun shots are like loud, terrifying, barking punches; they are extensions of the knife and fist. Offense.

What if I had no fear, no remorse, no pain, only anger? Anger that has grown to such a gargantuan scale that it has completely eclipsed all other emotions. If someone pointed a gun at me, I would be yelling and scolding them for making me irritated. They would keep me in a maximum security prison and I would think everyone who ever did anything terrible was far below me, even those who had committed the worst atrocities. I would be the greatest monster the world has ever seen. I would kill not for pleasure, not for excitement, not for necessity, but because of the mere fact that anyone living other than me is an insult and a threat to my very being. I would be the greatest perversion of time and space. I would be a supervillain.

They say keeping things to yourself that could be told to others is considered lying. I consider it preserving my sanity and social belonging, if there is anything left of the two.

END.

You and the Environment

I love this time of year. The cold does something to me, it unlocks memories deep down that I had forgotten all about, or never knew they existed, and I feel them all over again. Good memories. It is the cold, and the smell of the cold. It is the smell of moisture and burning fires in fire places. And there are the great billowy clouds of many shades. The greys, the blacks, the whites, all towering high above, landscapes in their own right. It is also the time of year when the darkness comes. But we won't talk about that.

Is there a time of year that unlocks your memories? Do you step outside and feel something against your skin? And smell something that brings back everything in startling detail? Yeah, probably. Probably.

The cold makes me think of the vast and the profound, while the warmth makes me think of the closeness and the lazy affection.

But they are not just thoughts. They are whole states of being, inexplainable with the human tongue, or the human alphabet. Or anything else apart from a direct stream of consciouness. Because being does not come in twos, or threes, but only one. Each being is one. And that one has a world only they can live in.

What if we could share it? What kind of contrapition would that take? Would you really want to share with someone else? Would you want to think with them? As them?

Peaks and Lows

I couldn't take my eyes off of the ring of light that surrounded your head, where the overflowing light from the approaching cars poured over and through your translucent stray strands of hair to flood my eyes. It was the first truly cold night of Autumn, and it was already getting to the end of November. The air was thick with moisture, and all the passing streetlights diffused into the sky to make the darkened horizon glow with artificial light. I rested my head on the cold glass, and felt the vibrating roar of the hungry tide just outside. I closed my eyes and was greeted by that familiar burnt green lightning on black velvet. Bright images fading from the retina.

I was lost inside myself again. But this time the poles were reversed. It was only an hour ago when my body had buckled yet again under the evergrowing weight of my own hopelessness, a now natural and regular interval in thought. But after this low was an incredible peak, an almost instantaneous reversal of such rareity that I was taken aback. I was lost in reverence for everything around me; there was complete admiration in me for the passing cities, darkened and asleep under the cold drizzle of the November night. Shimmering shavings of beautiful noise surged all round my head. This vessel was drifting in an endless lightstream, homebound.

I realized how badly I wanted to achieve permanent reverence, or what the ancient Greeks called ataraxia: complete tranquility, ease of mind, and unfailing happiness. Philosophers like Aristotle believed ataraxia to be the highest good, the peak of individual achievement. This is the highest natural high possible, as pleasurable as a chemical high, but lasting for the rest of your life. Maybe that is perfection, and maybe that is an impossibility. This could be so, but at least there will be those highest peaks, however rare they actualize, to enjoy and to savor, and to re-energize and relieve, until that next drop into the darkest depths.

Perhaps an abstract form of loneliness, be it as it will.

The Infamous Rant Pt. 3

I have a short little thing to say about AMG. The All Music Guide. I guess its not much of a rant. But I guess it qualifies.

AMG used to be cool, man. I used to agree with alot of the reviews and be all happy with them and stuff. They still have good networking and reference I guess. But they have changed! I think assholes have infiltrated their ranks, and added their little mainstream opinions to everything. Ratings have been changed, and now crap is getting praised to the stars and gold is being thrown to the wolves. This is my opinion of course. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm not. Should I care about little stars? No. But it is the principle! It is the commodification of music! Bad music is spreading and conquering! And the critics are reflecting this! You know, it is more a commodification of the entire framework. AMG is alot more popular now, I think, so they are going to want to reflect what the public wants, to enjoy a high user rating. You got to look to the underdogs to tell the truth. The truuuuuth!

Now, I have alot of pull around here. Don't be surprised if starting tomorrow at 5 sharp, AMG starts firing people left and right. People know me.

Running Low

Try to write everyday they say. But I wonder if it is possible to use up all of your creative juice. I wonder if saving it all up and then just letting it burst out when you feel like it is something to try. Perhaps it is even preferrable. But then if learning to write is like working out a muscle, then maybe writing everyday is good for you. Ah well. I'm lazy.

I have two quotes to share. Two random quotes that I picked up from things. I really like them. I hope you do too.

"The thing I find most disturbing about dolls is they refuse to take responsibility for the fires they start."

-Emile from Amped 3

And


"A critic is someone who comes onto the battlefield after the battle is over and shoots the wounded."

- ??? This was in Lamott's enjoyable book on writing. She didn't have the source.

I sold someone a pen today in philosophy. For a dollar. I am now a dollar richer. I will sign autographs tomorrow at noon. But I will only do so much. I get tired.

Announcement

This is................MY 100th POST.

To commemorate 100 posts (or 99) of introspective nightmares and obscure attempts at satirizing pop culture and our world view, and maybe just plain lazy attempts at fillers that I think could pass for something somewhat useful, I would like to say the following:

GOD-DAAAAAAMMIT!

That is all.

Gidday

I woke up from a nap this afternoon to find myself in an elaborate delusion in which I had three identities, and somehow these identities could not cross each other at any given point in their paths, and so had to remain parallel to each other and somehow wind up at the end of some time warp or I don't know, shit. It took me half an hour to wake up, and when I got up to get a snack I felt like a different person in that I was having different thoughts than I usually do, or there was an absence of other thoughts. Man, I still can't put my finger on it. This afternoon was weird.

Do you ever wake up with your mind reeling with strange logical (or illogical) nonsense? Maybe you can't move, but can only think alien things that you have no idea about? I've heard of sleep paralysis and such, but I don't know if this is the same thing. Usually you can't remember any of it. It's like a spilling over of the subconscious or something. Man! I don't know.

Question Mark

I wrote a rant about the talk about a reinstated draft here in the US, but it came across as way more fiery and political than I had originally planned. Besides, I think we all feel pretty much the same way about the connotations of the term "draft", as used in a political sense. Surely it does not suggest a sweet longing, or a profound yearning or any other such sentiments...of any sort. Redundant. I think we can leave it at that. Maybe it is forgiveable that my rant was so fiery and political. Fiery I can be, but political...maybe not. Besides, I'm only 20 years old and I still don't know shit about shit. Right?

On a lighter note...there is a feast on the horizon. One of mashed potatoes and turkey and gravy. Yes! Thanksgiving! There was a funny quote in this book I'm reading from Anne Lamott. It is concerning disallusionment and it involves a little boy learning about Thanksgiving in school, with all the settlers and natives and everything, and becoming very excited with the whole story and all. And then there is an older boy who has learned a little more on the matter, and this older boy wonders if the younger boy knows about the blankets infected with small pox. So maybe not all of us know the whole story, or maybe we do and choose not to acknowledge it. Maybe it is easier to acknowledge those cute little paper cut-outs of pilgrims and indians in a healthy relationship; not one of deceit and trickery and disease. Well, I guess that wasn't much of a lighter note. But Thanksgiving still kicks ass, because you get to eat alot of good food, and rather shamelessly. So I hope everyone who celebrates enjoys theirs.

I mean, maybe I should feel a little guilt in celebrating this holiday. But alot of holidays are like that. That's history. Its not always pretty. When does it come to the point when you become the catcher in the rye?

Great now I'm stuck between a rock of insensitive bastard and a hard place of heart-bleeding.

The Infamous Rant Pt. 2

You know, I try not to look at forums, because they infuriate me so, but sometimes I just can't look away, like looking at some grotesque abberration that has the irrisistable magnetism of a work of art. Everywhere you look, it doesn't matter how specific the interest (since you'd think a specific interest would bring people together), there's people fighting, arguing over the most goddamn petty things you can think of. Sure, people are always arguing everywhere, completely certain that their opinion is the last true thing on Earth, but the real bozos come right out of the woodwork when it comes to the internet. Never have I seen so much arguing, so much disagreement...so much...discord. What kind of self-righteous moron does it take to stir that much shit up? I probably shouldn't even be complaining about this sort of thing, since its completely beyond my scope of understanding. I'd probably be an idiot in there.



Me, uhhhh, CharlieHorse666
Hey guys, stop arguing, you don't need to, really.

And then, Mr. Peepers
Hey shut up, CharlieHorse666. Hey, that's actually a stupid name.

DelgadoFatBeard
No its not Mr. Peepers, your name is even wrse.

Mr. Peepers
Hey DelgadoFatBeard, you can't even spell, so don't argue with me.

AtomicBlackShadow
Spelling doesn't matter, its the argument we are focused on.

miercoles
No atomic, spelling does matter. DelgadoFatBeard, you can't spell, and CharlieHorse666 is a dumb name.

craxxxY----GaMeRxxxxX
HEY MIERCOLES, YOU'RE FART. AND I BET YOUR MOM IS RETARD AND YOU TOO.

CharlieHorse666
I thought we were talking about Star Wars.



There has got to be more opinions on the internet than dust particles in the universe. And everyone will fight to the bitter end to see theirs on top. Well then fight to the bitter end you primates! And when the dust clears, I will walk among your fallen corpses! And every once in a while I will crush a brittle, yellow skull with my boot heel!

This statement marks the end of another profound, incredibly utilitarian rant.

More on Critters and Life

They continue their assault of the attic quarters. They remain quiet during the day, but sometimes I can hear them scuttle back and forth, their little claws scraping the thin surface above. How did they get in there? Up the trees? Across to the roof maybe? In through the cracks? What is it to be a rat? What is pleasure? What is pain? What is his end in life? To reach the promised roof? To sack it and loot its many edible treasures?

I fear the scrapes and shuffles sure, but what I fear even more than that is the snap of a trap, and the thudding of a struggling body. And then silence. Yes, there are traps set up there. Right above my room. Beautiful.

Humans can't co-exist with rats. There is too much destruction. But I hate to know anything is dying right now. Maybe that's partly why I don't watch the news. Or maybe its why I leave spiders to their own devices, even when they give me the creeps, or why I let the ants go about their business in those little ordered lines of theirs, or why I save bees and beetles and flys from drowning in our pool. Why the insects? The creatures no one cares about? The creatures we naturally loathe...for some reason? Perhaps my shell is still a few degrees too soft. And what will happen when something else that is truly important to me dies? What then? I try not to think about it.

I finally got around to cleaning the dust off of my ceiling-fan blades. Have you seen those things? The older ones? That dust just piles up on there; the blades grab it right out of the air and it just sticks. I kept looking up and seeing that dust, and I kept doing nothing about it...

Willaaaaard!

Every morning around 5 am I wake up with that terrible sensation of having to go to the bathroom, but not wanting to get out of bed; what's more, I can hear the relentless scratching of rats above...in the attic. I just lay there, listening, horrified that one of them will eventually nibble through the ceiling and crumble through and land on my face.

Or maybe I will be laying there in the darkness, and I'll hear the pitter patter of one across the carpet. And the sound gets closer, closer, closer, until I can feel the sheets of my bed being pulled by the rat clawing his way to the top.

Maybe they are nibbling away at the infrastructure. At the electrical cords or the phone lines or the internet cables (though I doubt the latter two would be wired up there, but just pretend for suspense). Maybe they are planning on severing all communication and light, so that they can finally sack the house and live out their wildest ratty dreams.

Finally, I get up and go to the bathroom, and then try to go to sleep. I try to forget about the scratching above.




P.S. (While on the subject of critters)

What's worse than sharing the shower with a spider? (I don't have the heart to kill the suckers) How about sharing the shower with two spiders, both one on top of the other, in a clump, like they are having sex or something? I mean, what is weirder than spider sex? Honestly.

Raw Data

While under the influence of Purple K, or in other words, a type of pure medical marijuana, I tried to write a few things down. Well, it was pretty difficult, because I was thinking in photographs, instead of film. Don't ask me how I arrived at that metaphor, because the imagery is so goddamn abstract that I would never be able to explain. So anyways, here is what I wrote. Unedited. Don't expect any semantics or anything to make sense for that matter. Why even bother? Man I don't know!





Remember Flag Donut Shape Truck.
Fear Pyramid Scavenger Perforations.
Oh yea. I cannot process this area of transit Black Shape Mirror most trust must sky shimmer heat like a gear shore rise you are me dog.
Funny Ray Fight split two fold bird door.
Cannot burn dome perfect light scatter. Phantom shift burn vibrate hiss water heat good feeling so great Aroc of reflex shaking earth drum monkey on the board.
Senses like wave wave fragments in aperture fade mist Tower like an engine of warmth swim bridge slow fast neck wear Explosion wall pierce running time missing black primal echoes speed up here we go.
Rollercoaster grid ooooooh.
Eyes suffocating chain mail stars frosty poke I can feel my everything cavernous raybound dreams to feel like you mean what you corn funny all one nothing sorry evil reproduce into not existant feel too good to be alive with weight falling loop periods back light bolt of free electrons into roots of branch death wall hit into this way bomb too

At this point, I got to the end of the paper, but I had to keep writing, so I started to write off to the side on the margin, and continued with the following:

much wrong side paranoid points of beams to be suffocating possessed now into vast space lake craze limbur into my arms grizzled smell of doctor visits in exploto carts recurring back into my head through the rine through all operating onion levels never know my clarity here is small into and out of doors and chimneys sky fire popped up in atmosphere close to the eagles dark surges read fail red stream sea foam with rich lifts dappled holes you can't read this alive ooooh No worry again.

As I copied down these words, I recreated specific moments in the experience that I thought were gone forever, these lost moments like designs in the sand smoothed over by harsh winds. Maybe it was a collection of words that brought back an entire image or structure that was supposed to be so temporary. Some of these experiences smooth over and pile up and sometimes you can remember the most distinct of moments, and then the rest goes piling on top of each other to be locked away or shot to pieces. Much like conscious memory I guess. I don't know how this works. I wish I did. I wish science was this far, unrestrained by taboo.

It is the abnormalies that teach us so much more about ourselves than any conceivable normality.

Waking this Morning

When you wake up a little too early, and you dose in and out of the morning, sometimes you can experience the most incredible, vibrant, fantastic dreams.

I tell you, the colors are still intact. So are the thoughts and feelings, and the people too. I think Captain Jack Sparrow was there.

The first scene was in Africa. Maybe the Congo. A paramilitary general executed an innocent woman with a huge revolver. I stood and watched. They turned the children to face the walls so that they could not watch. Where is this broadcasting from?

These same paramilitary forces are in transit. They have gathered on a swinging white bridge that is suspended from a crane on the largest cargo ship I have ever seen. Someone is firing on the paramilitaries. Not me, they are right next to me though, I do not know who they are. The paramilitaries are being shot and falling off this bridge, sprawled out and plunging toward the glowing turqoise ocean below. There is also a sunbleached village far below, right on the coast. When I watch them fall, I wonder what it is like to fall that far and die. Maybe it is like a dream. You accept your fate in the weightless silence and then all becomes black. Or are they dead before they fall? From the bullets?

I am on the swinging bridge now, hanging from the top. I didn't question how I got there, only that the view below was breathtaking. I could see the glowing white of the village below, and then the bright turqoise waters of a tropical ocean. I was not aware of the danger I was in.

I was in the sea now, below the bridge and next to the ship, in the harbor. There were great waves, people were diving in these waves. They're crazy. I didn't feel as if I was in any danger.

I awoke not puzzled, but refreshed. Then I wonder about quantum theory.

Ice Breaker

Such seriousness! Such tension! I know the cure for such things:


Dee da dee da doo dah dah dah deedley dum a doo a dee a dee a doop.


Yes! Step forward! Embrace life with open arms!

Imagine

There was a full moon last night, and I couldn't help but think of werewolves. And then when I thought of werewolves, I decided to look them up. I read some things.

One of the first accounts of a werewolf was in the Medieval period. It was of a man who supposedly prowled the forests, mutilating animals, then humans...women and children included. When they finally got their hands on him, they strapped him to a torture wheel, tore off his skin with hot pockers, amputated his arms and legs, and finally decapitated him.

They call it Lycanthropy. Supposedly there are still cases of it today, those being clinical cases. Science says it can be a combination of many things, namely Psychosis with any sort of acute hallucinations and much more. This is just off the top of my head of course. The actual explanation is much more comprehensive. There are types of hallucinations in which a person actually feels like parts of their body are transforming, and due to their beliefs, make this out to be a werewolf transformation. Some report demonic visions (again, beliefs) and actually start to behave as they would believe a werewolf would behave. And all this is as real to the person as their own hands and feet. Could you imagine the terror? The pure madness of living such an ordeal?

I am very afraid of any kind of Psychosis. The word itself carries a most unbearable connotation when I mouth it on my lips, and think of it in my head. In other words, I fear the living hell that would be existing in a nightmare that cannot be escaped, that carries with it all of the bodily pains and fears of living in consciousness. I say, the mind is an incredible force that when turned against itself can bring more destruction to the victim than any bad dream. It is your own personal black hole. Inescapable.

The problem with me is that when I read history, especially such grisly history as this, I cannot help but place myself directly in the reading and begin to live it as far as my imagination goes, and it sometimes proves unsettling.

I mean, what is going on out there anyway?

Beware

The full-moon is up. The werewolves are out.

The City of Sharp Angles

This dream is still very vivid in my head. The colors, the sights, the recreation of an entire city of sharp angles. Sidewalks that extended into the sky as obtuse triangles. A central skyscraper of dizzying height, a greenish brown color. The city is by the ocean, a perfect blue ocean that is the horizon.

We went to the skyscraper to get a view of the city. After the lobby was a strange zigzagging catwalk that led up to the elevator floor. We were dripping wet for some reason. The guard wouldnt let us past. In fact, he threw a friend over the catwalk rail, who landed on his head. I was terrified that he was killed, and in me was born a burning animosity for this guard, this unjust monster. The friend was spitting teeth and blood, in between vomiting. But at least he was alive. We were in a lobby that was plastered with obscene pictures. Someone offered to get back inside the skyscraper and kill the guard. The guard was assassinated. We walked out to the streets, the vast streets. I had to keep taking in the sights. I lost my friends, they crossed the street and disappeared into the city. Strange angles everywhere. The streets, the sidewalk.

I ascended one of the great slabs of sidewalk that was an obtuse triangle that rose into the sky. From there I could see a market place, and the perfect blue ocean. My friends were somewhere out there.

I awoke feeling like I was living another life. I had been there before. Several times.

The Infamous Rant Pt. 1

There's been this trend lately of videogames not being available at the major-chain stores until the day after the release date. I think this is absurd, and it relegates the gamer to the position of a 2nd-rate consumer. Music and movies are almost always out on the date specified. Why are release dates important? Well, when you follow any sort of media format closely, and you become excited when a certain piece of media is coming out, you want to go out and buy it on that day. You want to know that when you take valuable time out of your day to go purchase that beloved work, the work itself will be there so that you can give your money to the producer and receive the product. It is never fun ambling off the freeway in rush hour traffic, and then shuffling down the aisles in a funk of dread (since the release date of a video game is an uncertain one) only to find that the game is not in fact there, and to have a smartass ask you why you didn't know games come out a day after the release date. I think that would make the release date completely arbitrary. Why not push the release date back one more day? So that the game arrives on the date specified so that it is there when you go to buy it! Novel idea! And I think this is already in practice, but games are treated in that half-assed way so that either the game comes out on the release date or the day after. Who cares? It gets there right? So I am arguing over something that is far over my head, something that cannot be helped. Because there are schedules and there are trucks and planes and there are time tables and there are things that are going on behind the scenes that I could never fully appreciate. That is usually how a rant functions anyway. This is not an academic essay, goddammit. So why am I complaining about this shit in the first place? Why not just wait a few days after the game comes out to avoid being disheartened? Because that sucks!

This all relates to the failure of society to treat gamers seriously. Moral issues are struck down with censorship, a regressive censorship that is more harsh than any other form of media why? Because we are still in an age where gamers are supposed to be kids! But! But! We are seeing a transition here. More and more and more people are playing games. Now what happens when we get alot of people playing games? We get the better chance of gamer intellectuals, and game designers who are intellectuals, and thus the maturity of a growing media format. Everything starts as a gimmick and then matures into a higher form of art and intellectualism. This is when society treats the issues seriously. So again, am I just talking about something that is already happening and cannot be controlled? Yes! Useless rant! I am just frustrated! And complaining about things that are beyond my scope! It feels good! Like taking weight off of a burden! Yes! Rants are fun! Rants are useless! But rants are OK!

Fuckin' FIN.

Archifetterodollar

I was too tired to write anything Sunday night. Thus the edit me. You could fill in what you want!


I just finished my first (or second, or third I guess) major short story. It is alright I guess. Feedback will improve it soon. I'm all tired and writed-out.





I'm too tired tonight to write anything too. Except...


BAAAALLS! HAHAHHAHAH!

Edit Me

Edit Me

Edit Me

Edit Me

Edit Me

Edit Me

Edit Me

Edit Me

The River Lights

Travelling in a pocket of darkness, trying to outrun the white lights, yet trying to catch up with the red ones. Alone in the pocket, a single vessel, seperated from the pack. Some would say this is a point of vulnerability.

A dark object darts past me, headed for the beaded wall of red lights ahead. A highway patrol. I toy with the possibility that I could go after it. A bold seal chasing after a cruising shark on a dangerous whim of curiosity in the flowing river of lights, metal, and glass. No. Impossible for anyone sane, or anyone who wants to get home in one piece.

And once again, I wonder.

Who is going to follow someone home tonight? Who is going to shoot them in the head for cutting them off, or showing any kind of perceived disrespect?

What violence. What incredible impulses. What has broken in these human beings to cause them to kill?

What are those last seconds like, as the maniac lifts the barrel of a loaded weapon?

A great shudder passes over me.

Mercy Me The Fragments And Pieces

I had a dream that they made me take a poison and kill myself. Like Socrates. It scared the sleep out of me.

I had a dream that I died and went somewhere else, into another dream maybe of different hues and feelings. Slower, slower.

I had a dream that they tried to inject me with something that would make my brain melt and as I felt it happen I fought it and killed the man with the syringe.

A preoccupation with death it seems. At the moment I am terrified of it, due to its utterly foreign and alien nature. We don't hear stories of what happens on the other side. We don't come back when we head all the way over to the other side. We don't come back to tell the stories.

Going to a place you have never been before is a little frightening....for me anyway. What about going to a place that no one has ever been before? No one still alive. What about leaving your body? Your mind?

I can't tell you what I feel right now. I can't tell you what I do not know myself.

And now I am laying on the ground. Blood is glistening shiny strawberry red on the asphault. It is running into the drains. Don't dump, goes straight to the ocean. Taste the copper in my mouth. Lift my head....to try to see. Kicked. There goes two or three teeth.

Mouthing the words. A fish gasping for air. Air in the water.

Fuck. Losing touch? With what? How do they do it? Live without thinking? How do they do it?

A nervousness so great, so feverish; the tremors. Oh, the tremors.

To Ask To Soften To Crack

I'm walking behind an uptight businessman-looking kid today. I try to think like him. I try to understand why he takes the sidewalk instead of cutting through the grass: the straightest, shortest way across. This and other things. And I begin to understand, and then I am thrown into a contemplation.


When you try to think like someone, when you try to genuinely put yourself in those shoes, what if you succeed? What if you enter their mental space with yours, and think like them for even just a second? And what would it mean?

Would it displace their own mind for just a second or two? Where would it be? Wandering off in another space maybe?

Are you who you claim to be? Within this ever-changing place?

The question mark crashes down on my head with a ferocious loud corruption.

And the room that houses error is cavernous.


P.S. Haha maaan, this just reminded me of Being John Malkovitch. That movie asks very similar questions.

Land Bound Coral Reefs

This day provided undeniable proof that the human shark does in fact exist.

Just visit an overcrowded UCI parking structure at 11:30 in the afternoon, and you will see them hovering everywhich way you look.

Just try not to get bit.

Seasonal Poison

Yeah the lights begin to fade
And the music dies
And while the speed of time begins to subside,
I fall through my bedroom floor.

Meditations on Various Peculiarities Pt. 1

California freeways:

The second fastest lane - This is the speeding lane. You speed at least 10 mph over the speed limit to keep your ass clear. This also doubles as a passing lane when someone is slugging it in the fast lane.

The fastest lane -------- This is the mega-speeding lane. You need to maintain at least 20 mph over the speed limit (this is at the minimum) to keep your ass clear. Usually this is not enough, as the bloodthirsty speed junkies are hitching to your bumper at breakneck speeds. How do they get away with this?

May I comment on the rising rage of being tailgated when you yourself are speeding? You feel obligated to cater to these maniacs and break the law in doing so. I gave that up.

What is causing these people to go apeshit?


Dogs and fetishes:

Dog 1: Dog 1 has a belly fetish. There is an almost pathological obsession with being scratched on the belly. Sure it feels good, but how far can we go?

Dog 2: Dog 2 has multiple fetishes. Licking of the face, and this is an addiction...the second fetish is of the yelling type. She likes to bark while dry humping other dogs. My god.

Dog 3: Water fetish and tile fetish are the deviations slapped on this one. Water everywhere. All the time. Laying on the tiles! Laying on the tiles! Take it easy man!

Dog 4: A living fetish. Likes to just sit there and fetish it up. Monstrosity.


And so we come to the conclusion: labeling a dog's fetish is a joke, and should not be taken seriously. This should also be true for human beings. Different people like different things.


I conclude for now.

Listlessly Restlessly Livid in a Plastic Cube

They've got my voodoo doll locked up somewhere. Some dark dingy warehouse with the light knifing through the dirt caked windows like banana lava lazer beams. Hell, even the God of the Sun wants a look inside but can't pierce the filth. Just making little funny patterns everywhere and casting light on ominous tools and tables and flooding the assailants in complete darkness. The dust is floating in cyclones in the beams of light. The place is full of it. A draft and the cyclones change direction, lighter than feather, graceful, fluid, an oil and water mixture.

They've got a hefty chunk of lead on the doll's chest. Best to keep me in short breaths,weak, in a lingering state of creeping panic. Not quite there. They've got the head in a miniature washing machine, built just for the occasion, all juiced up and everything, running on a 9 volt. Best to keep me off balance and spiraling in my skin. One of the doll's feet is knee deep in a tiny makeshift grave, the other delicately placed in a tiny bucket of warm water to keep the sensation of a hopeful but unfailing desperation running in cycles. Cycles like the washing machine and the trails of floating dust, its all spinning and graceful natural life.

Tricks? No. Just a bunch of excuses. Confabulation. Left brain cover-up nonsense. There's no voodoo doll of course, though I wish there were, so I could crash through the warehouse wall in my turqoise 95 Nissan Altima and take care of the evil tangible assailants with a few well-filled molotav coctails or something. You know, free my doll. Take the spell off, cause I know voodoo magic. Destroy the doll's remains. Get out of there. Feel so much better! What a weight that has been lifted off my chest! My head is so clear and lucid! I can walk just fine. It would be so simple.

We've been through this so many times. I've been through this so many times. In washing machine cycles. In dust particle cyclones. Here we go again.

Blogger has a glitch that gets stuck on the italics.

So I will finish promptly. There we go, fixed. Fixable....you see?

I think I just need to get back to school again. I think I just need direction again. I think that's what I need. Enough dilly-dallying. Leasure is so great for a while, and then it just kind of sinks into a general pseudo-insanity. For the restless anyway.

How nice it will be to grow old and to retire and to look back and be satisfied.

Yes! I am ready!


Piece.

Big Places Far Away

The mansion (maybe it was more of a compound) was built on a sort of floating foundation that sat right off the coast of Antarctica. The puzzling thing was that there were some green mountains in the distance, and the air had that thick, pleasant Carribbean quality to it. Everything was white, white as snow, even the air; there was a thin haze creeping around the compound, yet visibility was incredible and extended all the way to the out-of-place green mountains in the distance. Perhaps the haze was a result of the glaring white glow that surrounded us. The whole scene was just strange, as the compound just floated there in the arctic waters (which were clear as crystal and had a white mountainous ocean floor not far below). Strange creatures were jumping out of the water all around us, spraying the liquid crystal mist across our faces. Chilly on the face maybe, but I couldn't quite grasp how it felt.

This was a tropical winter wonderland, whatever that meant. I was still trying to decide what I was doing here.

How could I describe a place that I have never been to before that is so strange and unreal, yet so familiar? There were environmental contradictions everywhere, and they blended together to form a place that felt so right. So secure.

I was in the waters now. My body was bracing for the piercing cold, but the waters were a strange luke warm, almost neutral, like I wasn't in them at all.

There were creatures everywhere along the ocean floor. Some were like fish, some like mammals. Many of them had fur and spines and bright yellow eyes. One of them darted past me (a jet black monster of spikes) and in that moment I sensed a flick of intimidation. There were bad signals down here now, bad vibes. Was there danger here? Was there danger above? No, only a nervousness. A rising nervousness maybe? On the verge of panic? Where was this place? How did I get here?

After that, nothing. Nothing at all. There's a place out there, recurring.

The Sound of Heat

The summer is winding down now. Yes, it will still be hot for quite some time...until October, and maybe further, given the latest trends in climate, but summer as a mindset, as a way of living, is winding down.

It has been like waking up from a long, vivid, cohesive dream.

There are still gaps, still trouble in recollecting the entirety. What was I doing here? What did I say? What has happened to my mind?

The places I've been, the people I've seen...it seems like an eternity has passed. As I said before, the heat slows us down. And time is only of the senses. I've been through several warps actually, and I think they have twisted my mind in ways it has not been twisted before.

And it feels fresh and unnerving at the same time.

This dream meant something. A metamorphisis maybe. Or maybe it didn't mean anything. Maybe it was another timeless summer to be remembered in the later years.

There were dreams within the dreams. Equally unnerving, equally fresh.

There was so much to say, yet so little to write. Pieces locked away forever.

The real question is where to go from here? What to do? The world has become a complicated place. But in a way, it is the same. I can't yet grasp why. In maturity.

I'm more than ready for the cold.

Illusions

Being as how the past is so prophetic, would it be such a stretch to call it the future as well?

But that conclusion has already been arrived at and suggested. Hard to wrap around.

And if you take enough hits you go down. That's how cancer takes hold anyway.

Post-Cathartic, A Few Minutes Past

Phew.

Neon Chords Right?

I am the fortune teller who is always wrong. I am the reluctant participant. I am the broken-hearted observer. I am something sappy that wants to be cute? Hahaha. I am something else? I am a believer. I am a believer in nothing. I am the sore. I am the emptiness. I am just playing right?

Just words? Just communicated ideas? Just symbols? Just representations?

I am a fart. I just farted.

I breathe in and I am real. I breathe out and I am extinction.

You could scratch something that doesn't itch. It's not impossible.

We are so arrogant. Soon it's animals who come to resemble us.

How do you live in this muck? Someone should ask me. I wouldn't have an answer.

Weird is insane to some. Embarrassing. They are embarrassed. Embarrassed someone might make a scene.

Am I untying the knots with this ramble? Or just tying up new ones? Letting the poison out? Letting more in? Questions without answers? Answers without certainty?

Well I certainly feel better. Do you?

Tilting the Shard to See Behind You

Have you ever gotten the feeling that you are seeing yourself from another person's eyes? And that person is not even present?

Have you ever seen yourself from eyes that are not your own?

Sometimes

Sometimes the things you are watching on a show or a movie manage to climb out of the screen and stand there glowing on the living room floor.

These things are loud and scary like thunder or a rolling tank.

It's not much to be surprised about though, since media is really just an extension of the reality we perceive.

With Every Breath

And my mind took on the properties of a sponge: a starving, dehydrated sponge, and so I sucked in as much information as I could possibly hold and I held it all in until I started to crack and burst at the points of stress, and I became completely hydrated and bloated. Finally, a night's sleep should release the weight and have it rush back into the space it came from. And I should be free to take in more...later on.

This rhythmic catch and release of masses of information is almost pleasurable to the senses.

And I realize once again that this life is worth living.

Excite Me

There is a storm coming tomorrow my friends.

Zombies will walk the earth. Malls will never be safe again.

And it will be good. And fun.

Collector's Mug

For those wondering: In recent events, my face has been horrifically disfugured and made to resemble a white void with what looks like text that reads: "This image or video has been moved or deleted". In an odd turn of events, some have reported that the trademark "Photobucket" text can also be seen somewhere in the wreckage.

I am considering plastic surgery, and no longer look down on the practice.

Subtle Fear Cascade

I'm in the elevator now. Huge exposure. Just bars and grills. I think its a construction site. Very dark. The elevator is moving up; its been moving up for what seems like hours. There's girders and crossbars everywhere. All steel. Its cold up here. The elevator is making a metallic drone, screeching and spilling roaring metal all around me. The elevator stops. I can hear nothing. The silence is deafening. I am very high up, at the very top. There is a chilled wind howling through the place. The howling wind, yes, howling and moaning as it streams through the openings of the tower. The sky is purple, slightly aglow with failing light. I walk to one end and look over the edge. Lights very far below. Base lights. The light washes out into a sort of circle around the base of the tower, and after the edge of the circle is complete darkness. But now the tower is lurching. The metal is bending and moaning under the strain. My perch is tipping, and now I am falling. I am falling slowly and quietly, and I crash into the ocean.

Unconscious now. Outside of an outpost. An outpost in the snow. Night has fallen. The snow is falling as well, trying to catch up with the night. The wolves are coming. I can hear them close now. I am running for the entrance; I am running to the floodlights of the outer wall. They're very close. They are almost upon the wall. I am closing the front gate. There are sets of locks that I am locking with a key. Its almost closed. We are almost safe. The wolves are going to get in.

Unnghhhh

Well there's just this wellspring of words and feelings swirling around in there, but I'm just too lazy to tap into it.

This summer heat slows us down a bit.

I'm ok with that.

Alright

Farewell my friends. I leave on yet another journey.

I'll awake before the sun. Gonna catch a plane.

Yaaaap. Keep my couch and chair warm, or if you don't want to break into my house, keep something warm that I will soon be around or sitting on.

Don't let the hobo spiders get ya.

Also, don't let Lex Luthor(er?) grow crystals near your houses, or anywhere on Earth for that matter. Nothing good comes of it. Crystals are nice, but they break shit up and ruin everything they grow on. It really sucks. You could make a new proverb or phrase or whatever out of that: Every crystal has its break everything apart and ruin everything...thing.

Aside:


And I live in a silence. Always a silence. Forgive me for my deep dark silence. I would like to think there is a bubble or two billowing towards the surface, containing floods of my innermost thoughts (so tightly kept) so that when they get to the surface they would burst and release those shackled words that have not seen the world thus far. This is one of my many hopes. I've learned such a patient pacience. Hope don't fail.

Still afraid to live. Carry on, a clear head would be beneficial for travels.

Toodles.

And I'll be baaaack.

Intermission

I am back from a long treck across vast lands flat and not flat.

Hobo spiders are real. I found this out last week. They're supposed to be like Brown Recluses or something, but black and shit.

My god. Another Brown Recluse-type thing. Now the world is twice as dangerous as I originally thought.

Mutant Dicks Explode! (That's one of the emails that was waiting for me when I got home. Fascinating.)

And to think, I am to leave once again. So weary I am.

With Weight and Bouyancy

Yes. It has been a long time. At least it feels that way. I have traveled to far away lands and experienced entirely different worlds where time stretches and strings like the strongest taffy.

We entered the humidity like light enters water and like the light we slowed and bent. We waited to shoot back out into the air at a slightly different angle and return to the previous speed.

I wrote on leaflets of Marriot note paper throughout the entire trip with the idea that I would copy those words down, those words that made up the thoughts and feelings that I was having during the trip. I was thinking of making it episodic and the whole deal. But now I am looking at these leaflets and I am thinking I do not have the energy to copy (or at the moment anyway, maybe this can be a future ordeal). And to think, just as my homesickness begins to subside I go right back out to a place I have trouble calling my own.

I am very tired. This trip was a stunningly refined double-edged sword, a perfectly symmetrical work of art with two very opposite faces. One edge--this edge is of extreme sharpness--is a gushing esctatic sort of self-transcendence; in other words it was of a self-growth and reprogramming of such epic proportions in such a short amount of time that I can actually smile genuinely when I look back over it (and not feel the dull aching in my stomach accompanied with the feelings of inadequacy). Like the effect of speed on ADD, I succumbed to a darkness, a darkness that showed me a light that I have never seen before. The other edge of this sword--this edge is equally sharp--is of a sprawling and oceanic depression that I have only felt long ago when I was lost in cold space.

Now the side of the sword I choose to cut with will depend on me. I was given the tools. I can build this town. I can also destroy it (and usually faster than construction).

On one side I can think of the front of the ship, and the endless perfect blue water reflecting the pink-orange light of a dignified sea sunset. Then the other side shows a great smoke stack spewing out that jet black sludge all over the endless blue. Choices, choices.

I just returned from a Carribbean paradise and a tropical hell, depending on who you talk to. Yeah, and staying put on the point of a double-edged blade is a difficult and short-lived affair.

That ship was a great metal cocoon. Something happened when I was in there. But I haven't made the metamorphosis complete. Not yet. Growing pains.

Electric Rotary Tools and the Like

I am dreaming a dream. A strange dream that is mundane and simple, and the dream is about my daily life and the things that rest in my immediate consciousness even. It is strangely familiar and not like a dream at all. That is what makes it so strange. I can see people's faces in very clear detail, and I am shy in this dream. I am bound by my earthly limitations. And then I hear a shrieking drilling sound, and I think, "What in the world?" And as I think this, I am waking up, and the shrieking drill follows me into the waking world. I am dizzy and disoriented as I wake up. I feel like I am falling and flipping over in my bed. But I am laying on my back, and someone is next door operating a shrieking drill, most likely doing work on their house. The shrieking drill was for a brief moment a clear and definite bridge between my subconscious and conscious. It was between both states, and remained constant as I passed from one to the other. How interesting this was! It wasn't the drill that followed me to my waking state. I was following the drill to my waking state. Wasn't it a little early to be blasting that thing all over the place? Waking me from my strange mundane dreams? But the clock says 10. That is not so early. I am up. I am still tired, and aching, but I am up. This is life, this drifting between dreaming and awake, and the only thing that remains is that drill.



As far as I can tell, competition and merit are two very seperate concepts, or they should be. They are two concepts that this society have gotten all too confused. But I'm sure there is some great mechanism at work that I cannot see, which further accounts for my bitterness in the matter.

You'd think the beach would improve my foul mood. Nah. The beach held shades of grey and brown, and not shades of yellow and blue like it should. The color palette was not the most desirable. There was a general dirty feces theme going on with the place. No, that is too harsh. It was a nice day, but the atmosphere was colored darkly with my projections. The heat only helped to swell the festering depression. Maybe it was the low blood sugar a-talkin. It is amazing what body chemistry can do, or, not so amazing. Alot of our mental states are based on body chemistry I guess. Or not? I'm too tired for this.

But what I want to know is why is our nation on Prozac? Where did this depression come from? This sweeping mental disease? Or was depression always there, and now that Prozac is out, everyone is leaping to get a prescription? Or is it a geniune plague. Maybe it is a plague that illustrates the initial signs of a decaying civilization. Maybe it is coming from within. Maybe it is nothing at all. There's no way to tell without it being speculation...at this point.

I also think that...no...its much too hot in here, and I am much too tired. I think I will be done for now.

It Will Pass

I've got the fear.

Loose Bolts on the Highway

I didn't trust him. With his black Acura swaying to and fro. The man was unstable. White hair, balding, pretty old probably. I'm no anti-old proponent, but you know how they drive. He put on his blinker to get into my lane. But I was too close, I couldn't brake for the sake of the tailgating nut behind me, so I sped up. To my great stupefaction, and utmost wonderment, he cramped down and bolted over, and I was forced to brake. You car behind me will have to make do with what you got, sorry bub. "You maniac!" I thought, and then vocalised. But it was over. He was in front of me and I was still alive. There's no reason spitting and howling over this, I suppose. I passed him up, and dismissed him as just being old. But no! Just 2 miles down I fall behind a woman in a beige Honda! She is chugging along at the most ponderous speeds! She has the reflexes of a TV cabinet! She stops miles before she needs to stop! No! No! No! I pass her up and all is well. But wait! Up ahead! A stop! And lo and behold, she is right next to me, and right behind her...the old man in the black Honda! Both of my arch nemeses, right before my eyes! What were the chances?! I saw two coffins, one black and one beige, idling just next to me! Could I get past ? Could I leave them behind to be forever forgotten in this stuffy suburb? The cars lurch forward on the green; I am gaining ground! Just a little further! And yes, I speed past and change lanes, just one car ahead of the double menace! And I am home, left to paradoxically shiver in the smoldering heat of my car, and I am left to contemplate the intactness of my life.

It is a jungle out there. And the predators come unannounced.

And now, and now...a few more papers and a few more tests, and this year is over. This year.

My my.

Ahhhh Maaaaan

I don't wannnnaaaaa...I saaaay I don't wannnnaaaaaa.....

Go to school go to school go to school go to school...

Go to school school school school school school!

I say I don't wanna!

Ahhh ahhh aahhhh aahhhhh ahhh! Sunbuuuurn deluxe!

Bad tastes in the mouth left ovvvveeeeerrrr!

Oh oh oh oh oh...I still have to write this journaaaaaal! And this introoooo!

What a drag drag drag drag, drag drag drag drag.

Bollocks.

Wake Me When It Has Begun

I've been having these strange naps here and there. I fall into this deep and dark sleep for just 15 minutes or so. You'd think that would not be enough time to hit the slower wavelengths, but it is I guess. And when I awake, I am incredibly disorientated, and am more tired than I have ever felt before. It feels like intoxication.

And then there are the thoughts.

Maybe it is the subconscious still trying to wrap up its dealings. Maybe I awoke and caught it with its pants down. These thoughts are still lingering, thoughts that I can't understand or remember later on. Maybe I have something going on, like a sickness of some sort. Or maybe its completely normal. I don't know.

Goddamn cats are dickin' around in the bushes. I can hear 'em. I think they are cats. No peace since last week. We got a flyer for a lost cat in the mail. I hate lost pet flyers. They break my heart.

I wrote some stuff and then just ended up backspacing it. I don't even know what I want to write tonight.

Get a grip, ride it out.

Maybe that lost cat will turn up.





How does a man learn to hate himself? What kind of strange computing machines did they supply us with? What damage a brain can do when turned against itself.

Glock with Drum Mag

I drifted in and out of sleep almost the entirety of the afternoon, hating anything that made noise when I was in that delirious transition between periods of sleep. I was disappointed to hear other people arrive at the house, and I don't quite know why. It had nothing to do with the person, it was the fact that they were there, and that I wanted to be alone. Still, not sure why, amidst the delirium. The dreams were many and strange.

And then later tonight I looked in the mirror, and I couldn't figure out what I was looking at. I can't even remember what I saw.

I keep getting mail from this politician. If they hate their opposition so much, why don't they just have them assassinated?

Hate is a strong word. Merely an exaggeration.

There were nerds next to me in class and I think they were playing Marble Blast on their laptop. I wanted to talk to them and find out if they were gamers. They probably were. I always liked nerds.

If Her Skull Was Red, My Skull Was Blue

"Your Skull is Red", one of the better Team Sleep songs. Hopefully they flesh that project out. There's some real latent beauty in there. Unfortunately, half of the cd or more grows a little tiresome. Supposedly Chino did a duet with Patton in a song called "Koolaid" that I really want to get my hands on. Or something to that effect.

Someone keeps sending me paper after paper telling me to vote for this certain someone to be put into California office. I have my absentee ballot that I'm gonna send in and all that. Rockin', man. Part of me wants to not vote for her because of all the annoying shit that has come in the mail. But then another part of me thinks: "Well, they surely went through alot of effort to get me to vote, and maybe I should just humor them by voting for her." I mean, she sounds qualified and everything. Gosh, what a monumental conundrum. What if she is the next Hitler? And I vote for her to be nice? It has happened before. What if instead of benefiting the taxpayers, she wipes out an entire race of Starbucks frequenting, young pseudo-intellectual, poem toting hipsters in the world's greatest genocide yet? Well I don't know why she would do that, but it is possible. What if she hates their very souls, their very essence and purpose for being on this earth? I can't possibly know these things! Oh, the pitfalls of voting!

If your skull is red, well that's just fine, but if your poop is red...

Oh alright, alright! That was terrible, I know. I'm sorry.

What if someone voted with poop? How disgusting and repulsive would that be to the administrators? What kind of bizarre, terrible message would that communicate?

Life with its endless questions. Surely when we run out of questions we will run out of reasons to sustain.

My Life as an Activist

Moot.

I do not act.

I think, and maybe criticize.

The action is for the pragmatists. Direct action.

Maybe I should be ashamed of my inactivity.

Or maybe not, since criticizing can be an action in itself, another form of action.

That is where the idealists come in. Indirect action.

My life as an idealist, a thinker:

Not Moot.

Nothing Compared to Good: Bad. But Alas.

Today was another one of those ghost days. The polar opposite of taking a stroll through a ghost town. The place I walked through was vibrant, full of life. People crowded the walkways everywhere I looked, all with different colors and expressions and presences and auras. These were rivers of many colors wavering and ebbing and flowing, spilling all over everywhere I could see, dappling the lush green parks and trickling over sidewalks. Life was everywhere. But I...I was the ghost. I was not there. I could not feel anything that I saw, or heard. Relativity would have that nothing rated better than bad, but I was comparing it to good. That nothing was rated bad. And thus it became bad itself as a result.

Ah but then I was lost into the starbursts of electronic shoegaze. And my head slowed, and my body slowed to keep in pace with my head, and the world slowed to a crawl to meet my perception of myself. It was like a great miracle drug. All of the effects of an imagined psychadelia without the bodily risks.

Music and art. The great saviors. Wings and feathers and blinding white light.

I understand many of my sentences are fragments. It is how the thoughts occur. So I should like to disregard rules.

Nooooooo!

Snow peas will brighten my day, so they say. I can argue for just the opposite. Indeed, McDonalds, indeed.

I often stare into space when I am deep in thought, which is most of the time. It gets me into trouble. We are in class, group project. She is across from me. I am thinking. I am staring into the void beyond her. She sees my gaze and follows it around her shoulder. I focus onto what she is looking at. The teacher is bending over! Nooooooooo! Oh the impression! Oh the misunderstanding! Oh the unpleasantry! It gets me into trouble.

But you will never know me, girlie...just as the public pervert classmate. What does it matter?

"Oh yeah, that's that one pervert." It's almost entertaining to imagine.

As the population grows, we grow too comfortable of each other's presence. No more turn signals. There are people that just drift around now. They drift from lane to lane and go as they please, with no warning. This is when conformity proves useful...to keep us from crashing. What happens if semi-trucks stop using their turn signals? What then? Shall we just be smooshed off of the road? Into the weeds? And I have seen certain trucks do this! Not semi-trucks, but large enough! Like Uhaul-sized trucks! Maniacs!

I still have to brush my teeth. And floss. No one likes flossing. Or brushing their teeth. No one flosses either. I'm just trying to prevent this one cavity that the dentist warned me about. There are people that get all of their teeth removed and have implants put in. It sounds strange at first, but the concept grows ever more attractive the more I think about it. All you have to do is keep them clean. No rotting. But there has to be a catch.

I'll fire a snow pea out of a blowgun right up your ass, McDonalds. Now there's a thought!

I feel so playfully hostile. Don't take my empty threats seriously.

I am but an old man in a young man's body.

Mistakes of Audio

Jesus, sometimes his snoring sounds like the savage bellowing of a bloodthirsty junkie gunman just beyond my door.

We Are Creatures of Information

This internet offers a sort of viewing window on the outside world.

Running on beta waves is creating that feeling of lying on the ocean floor, just watching.

I could watch people in the world, these past acquaitances, and they have long departed for other corners of the country and branched off onto their own paths, to embark on that journey that we all take. But I can watch them, however 2d the experience is, and I can watch their current life unfold for as far as they tell the truth on that glorious web blog.

Just watching on the ocean floor, sedate, and there is no reason to call out to them. Some of them are on their marry way. Some of them are no less ignorant than when I knew them and that can be ok. Some of them are sad. This makes me somewhat sad as well, but I still have no desire to call out to them.

There is one thing for sure. The more people I look up and observe how their surface life is going, the more empty I feel inside. I can't tell what is causing this. People are supposed to act as mirrors to show you who your true self is. I think I operate differently than this, and that is where the emptiness comes from.

We know ourselves in relation to the people around us. Without evil there could be no good, and etc. Maybe that is why we are such creatures of information. Each of us is a node and all of us as nodes are in constant communication, reinforcing small little connections that build into networks, that eventually build into a cohesive consciousness. That's what I make from the current reading anyway.

In the past, I have a been a person of art and emotion, and now in the present I am more of a person of logic and rationality, though I have not lost the artistic aesthetic. Logic is comfortable, but it is turning out to be so boring. I am hoping that I move back in the art/emotion direction in the future, and maybe establish an equilibrium between the two extremes.

Moderation! Moderation!

Science cannot tell us all truths for there is too much we do not know. And in the end it is all a metaphor for something bigger, and beyond understanding.

Art cannot be leaned on too heavily in the search for the meaning of life, for blind faith leaves too much to the dice.

Moderation! Moderation!

I have been too preachy lately. Too full of philosophical words that should be in a book to be read. Just a phase.

There is a lot of philosophy going in at the moment, and what goes in must come out eventually.

Pardon.

Swelling Down, Spirits Up

I often wonder if it matters what I think. The insignificance of me alone is almost enough to answer that question, but it is more complicated. I suppose I am important as a small cog is important to a machine in that it keeps the machine functioning on a more broader level. I wonder if it would matter if I was suddenly gone tomorrow. Would it create unseen ripples that permeate to every corner of the globe? This I cannot say. And leaving is not like taking the cog out because your death is supposed to happen at that time, and thus the event of dying itself is a cog of its own. Nevertheless, I wonder. What is this machine for?

The subjectivity of existing is more vibrant and incredible than any experience of being a cog can be anyway. It is what keeps us going. So it does not matter whether you are insignificant or not. It matters that you are. I am. It is amazing isn't it?

As I sat writing my paper for...writing...I saw these brilliant green flashes in my room. There was like three of them, one after the other. Following that was a very loud thrashing sound that came from somewhere behind my house. At this point, I can say that the events are very unrelated, but at the moment, I was almost sure it was some sort of ghost that was breaking into my house. Yes, the ghost was breaking a window, as it needed to get into the house. It was flashing in its task. But after recent events, I am pretty sure the light was some of my bulbs burning out. I can't be sure. I hope that was what that was. And then the thrashing was coming from a neighbors house somewhere. It continued into the night accompanied with muffled conversations, maybe being shouted. Now, I am not sure if that was domestic violence. I sure hope it was not, because I let it slide. Someone is over there thrashing some shit around. Gosh if it really was domestic and I was sure it was domestic, I would go over there and add to the thrashing. Thrash their ass. Well, whoever was doing the abusing. I wouldn't join in with the abuser. Gosh how sick. You know what I'm saying?

But anyways. The swelling is almost gone. Still minor bleeding. Stitches haven't dissolved yet. My mouth still hurts. I'm still on vicodin. But it is sure as hell better than Saturday and Sunday.

The spirits are up. I have another Hunter book to read. I still play Oblivion. I'm listening to Bark Psychosis and Black Flag, they are contrasting greatly. I have a book to find this weekend. For school. Let's hope I find it.

The spirits are up.


For now.

Still Tired

And so I have just about emerged from one of the most miserable periods of a few days that I have experienced so far.

Ah Man, Torrente De La Cazana De Fruita De Hot

Yeah well you know. It's a dry heat.

Oblivion is in the bag. Yeah I just beat it. 200 hundred or so game hours later. Yeah I really do mean like, 200 thousand hours, with those two hundreds compounding each other by multiplicity or something. And I'm gonna play it more. Why am I even mentioning this? I don't know. It just seems like a life milestone or something you know man? You're born, you learn to walk, you learn to speak, you learn to read and write, you graduate elementary school, you graduate junior high (no scratch that, junior high sucks), you get your driver's license, you graduate high school, and then you beat mother fugging Oblivion, B! What is next? I don't know if I can top that. I just don't know. Maybe if I go back in time using only my mind...no wait, we already do that...according to some people. But maybe it is just complicated data retrieval. Don't take the magic out of life, sit! I meant to say shit, but sit came out, so thus it came to be. You know, I didn't really think while writing that paragraph, no this one, not that. This one that is still this paragraph. Jeez man. Look what happens when you make a mistake and don't bother to cover it up. Or many mistakes. I made alot of mistakes in this paragraph. There are syntactical mistakes, and conceptual mistakes, and grammar mistakes, and whatever else man. I don't care.

I'm scared of the world. Really, I don't want to go out there. Big business makes me sad. Money makes me sad. Cruelty makes me sad. Greed makes me kinda sad cause I've been kinda greedy before and it feels kinda good. But it is bad. It makes me sad. Exploitation makes me sad. Social expectations make me sad; some of these more specific and demanding expectations, Jesus, let them go. Aggressive malignant ignorance makes me sad. There's so much in this country right now. Power makes me sad. Oh there is so much that makes me sad. This stuff carries a weight of its own. Slows down the movements.

But then there are the things that make me happy. Maybe these things have enough bouyancy to counter this weight. Maybe it is enough for an equilibrium, and maybe it will wax and wane in either direction depending on the context and that is ok. You know, I like good movies. I like good music. I like good games. I like the underdog. I like friends. I like family. I like sunsets. I like good people. Good depends on who you are talking to, but when good is good, it works out. I like sweets, you know? And I like other shit. Maybe there is more to like than there is stuff that makes me sad, and that is important.

That is really important.

Let The Truth Be Revealed To Yee!

Now from this point in time, I would be happy to tell you that Etymology and solid proof are two very good things.

I was one of the many who bought into the whole F.U.C.K. and S.H.I.T. stories that were circulating the internet a few years ago. I mean, they sounded reasonable! Right? They started as acronyms and became curse words yes?

NO! They did not!

And heeeere is the truth! Just type in one of those words. They are both among my favorites. Ass is fun too. Oh and there's always Snopes. Just be sure to remember that Ganendorf killed Snopes.

But the change of the story does not change my point! The point remains! These words just happened to form out of incidents of usage and common language, and started to become offensive and taboo to the majority of society! So do not be afraid of what society calls taboo! Think for yourself!

But to remain a part of society we must obey society's rules of course. So what does this information do for you? Noooothing!

Well there is always the attempt to change society...slowly...and carefully...

This Is For You

Whoever You Are.

I Hear Things From There

Up in the ceiling, I hear things. Moans of the dead? Groans of the dying? Sad warbling words of those who will never be?

Or are they just motorcycle engines seeping in through the windows and drifting across the rafters, distorted by the bends and disruptions of physical continuity?

I may never know. Or I will know very soon. Or too late.

The sickening twist of heart and stomach soon follows.

Candy, and Candy, and More Candy!

I got alot of candy for Easter. You know, I feel kinda bad for riding this wave of materialism in exploiting Easter as a commercial holiday. But well, I'm still kind of agnostic. I mean, I just don't know. Like...I think that maybe...no. Religion is touchy. So touchy I'm not going to touch this with a forty foot pole. And well, I have been doing easter egg hunts for my entire life. I can't stop now! And candy is so great and beneficial to the taste buds!

Ah the jellybeans are so wonderfully fruity! And the peanut butter eggs just melt in your mouth! And whatever else is in there I'm not really sure; all i know is that I just eat them! I don't care!

So maybe great writing comes from a three dimensional understanding of the world that you have to live to acquire. But I haven't seen much! More than most, but not much! And maybe great writing comes from the incredible power and experience of love...but I do not know love! Romantic love, that is. Maybe I know others very well. And then maybe great writing comes from great sadness...a sadness that I may know, but have only touched on, as I have never lived in outright poverty or under the hand of an abusive tyrant, or I have never experienced the unreal loss of a lover or child. That sadness, ah, how deep it goes. That is a cold, cold iceberg that I know only the tip of. So what the hell do I write about? But there are these things in my head that beg for release...and I should let them out for fear of great stress...or worse! Great madness! I have seen the introductions and the thresholds of great madness, and it is that experience that drives me away from the darkest depths of that stuff.

Oh, what are these mysteries that elude us?

Years ago I was under the impression that I could get through life without coming into conflict with anyone. If I could keep to myself then maybe I could avoid confrontation all together! But it was doomed to fail because life which is so vivid and fantastic has a costly admission. Taking up space is the price you have to pay to walk in this place. I take up space, and therefore I will always be in someone's way. It is you or them. You must fight to survive! That is how organisms have survived in these hostile conditions for so long.

And what a perfect design all this matter follows.

Perfect is now. How incredible is it to be sitting here using your eyes and smelling and touching and hearing and tasting and breathing and thinking! It is inconceivable. And to think, you can lose your admission and never see this place again. That is what makes death so terrifying. And behold...the power is in our very hands to determine the admission of someone else! What an injustice. What if they don't deserve to be here anymore...but who can decide such a thing?

END!

Utility of Obscenity

Ow! FUCK!


See? Don't you feel much better now?



An evil emperor should say this someday: "I built this empire from scratch! And now I'm going to take it back down to..."

Ah, nevermind.

Extensions, images of a construction crane

I'm going to be in Las Vegas this weekend. Maybe I can engage in a little fear and loathing or something.

I've only been in there once as a child. The other times I have witnessed the architecture from afar behind a cool sheet of glass, moving. But I can't help but feel that I have been there many times before, doing many things. It has to be the imagination I suppose. That or I'm not who I say I am to myself. But that possibility is not a good one.

There are always cranes constructing in that place. Always cranes...extending and building and enhancing and whatever else they do; skeletal monsters doing just the opposite of what it is they should be doing. They look as if they should be destroying the place. On the contrary, they are building. Or is it destruction after all? Interesting.

They say the universe is expanding, which is hardly fair since we haven't really been out there yet. But maybe we have a long way to go. Maybe we will get out there and dominate...just like we have dominated this place. But will the universe expand at a greater rate than we can explore? Is that our infinity? If this universe is expanding is it finite? Where does it come from? Or could it just be that everything around us is just spreading out within the infinity? I think there was research showing the former though. Woah woah! Too many questions in too little time! But that is how it always is.

Maybe there is a little world of our own expanding in our heads. With our mythology and science fiction and tales. Maybe these people and creatures are living right now...kept alive by our collective consciousness. Maybe it's us! Shit!

Welcome to the Twilight Zone...but thanks, I'm gonna sleep on that one.

What was that, Shitbird?

Well I didn't know what else to call the post.

Just picture like some big guy in armor with a sword the size of a cruiseliner. And some little guy tells him that his Mom has a funny chin. And he says the "Shitbird" line in response to the little guy's comment. He is standing with his back to the little guy, because the little guy said it to him behind his back and he thought he was quiet enough about it. And the big guy turns around with a clink and a clank. Maaaan, I could only imagine what would happen next. That would be the scenario I would think of anyway. I couldn't even describe it without confusing myself. Too late to fix it now.

It has been raining off and on tonight. And we watched the original Fog. Which is funny. Well maybe rain and fog are two different weather conditions, but at the moment it seems more than appropriate. The movie is such an incredible showcase of atmosphere. And the remake? We try to pretend there isn't one.

School tomorrow. It has been a week. I am just getting used to this school-less schedule, and now it comes crashing down around me once again.

And there comes that morning drive. It is the time that everyone is emerging from the safety of their homes and going to work. Everyone is cold and reluctant and trying to peer through the sheets of moisture that cover all of the car windows. It is a moving community on those waking streets. We are united in our reluctant trips to where it is we must go. At the same time we are arch enemies. Everyone. Every man for himself. We are all fighting for first place in the race to get where we do not want to go. Another of those many paradoxes. But you stretch out the time scale a little bit, and realize it isn't such a paradox. It is our gain in fact, to be first in this race. At least, that is what we believe. Us humans aren't so confusing on a large-scale timeline.

And maybe some of us want to go where we are going. Maybe some of us want to go where we are going deep inside, but show just the opposite on the outside. And then the rest of us show that we want to go where we are going on the outside, but deep inside we cannot stand the thought of another day, another hour, another minute doing what it is we are doing.

And we all mix together and travel together, with only our hopes and beliefs to sustain us.

And what will happen when we run out of our hopes and beliefs?