Happy New Year. In 45. At This Location Anyways.

Tonight in the store was lonely and black and sucked. G'night cretins. The gate is closed.

The dogs are afraid of the wind that is cold and howling outside. There is something cold and howling inside as well, and the shapes have synchronized and come together and cold and howling seems altogether appropriate for the occasion.

I can't watch the ball drop. For the same reason I can't watch those talking heads blab on about something worthless to pass the time until the new year.

A rotten end to a rotten year.

(Except for the creative output.)

Winter. On The Eve Of The New Year. Almost.

My posts are approaching 200. I am watching the number. But the speed at which it approaches seems to be lessening by half every time I check. Maybe I'll never get there. Like that mathematician in that old joke with the engineer.

But who the hell cares about that shit anyway. This has been a strange winter break. Work and family functions and not really thinking about anything. I awoke one morning and my head was swimming with poetic imagery and dialogue and I rode it out for a while before getting out of bed and starting the day, but that was it. There is not much to dread anymore because I am already in it.

I'm too lazy to start a story. I've been too lazy to write even a paragraph or two. Or to put together a musical piece, or to photograph something that looked worth capturing. But I think about it and I'm not sure if it is laziness or just full-blown motivational decay. And I don't know how much longer I can stand retail. This motivational decay. It is getting dangerous. And I am getting to the end of my sheltered scholastic career.

I was in Mexico for a day and it was something special. Tijuana and Rosarita and the Baja Californian coast and whatnot. Whenever I am in a car with someone down there all I hear about is how unfortunate these people are and how awful and dirty and pathetic everything is. And maybe in terms of technology and health and all the bit...you know...all the modern calculations of a country's aptitude...maybe part of it is true. We took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up 15 minutes deep in Tijuana shanty town and I looked out of the windows and realized how terrible it would be to break down and have to stay there.

Nevertheless there's something gorgeous about that place and I get the sensation every time we pass through. Maybe it is the way they build. Without much planning or prudence or anything like that. They just build all over the hills and all over the various cracks and crevasses and valleys and canyons and they build the most peculiar looking buildings with the most strangest colors and they slap them on top of each other like a bunch of pancakes. You take a look over the coastal hills and they are just covered in all sorts of buildings in various shapes and you just don't see that in the states.

And these small tourist spots just kill me. The strips of stores with everyone selling the same crap and you wonder how in the world they make it. And do they make it? Every day they set up their store, or their tent, their little niche off the side of the road and there are streams of Americans with their cameras and baseball hats marveling at the sites and haggling this cheap shit to even cheaper prices. They'll certainly need those extra dollars they saved to pay the toll to get back to their clean, heated suburban house. I suppose that would be me.

The place fascinates me and there is something going on in the life they live. At least in the places I've seen. The food is killer, and the margaritas a dollar a piece. And they've got condos there overlooking the coast in high rises newly built for dirt cheap. And I think about it. But going back and forth over the border for work would be hell. And I am not conditioned to live like that. I would contract the first disease that knocked and die a miserable death. The comfy suburbanite. But maybe not....

Oh the woes of the reflective thinking...sometimes.

The Noise Blanket

Cover yourself in the grooviness.

Happy 50th At The Alamo

No...christ, I hope we don't go in there. That can't be where the party is. An Ameriwashed Mexican extravaganza of a building dubbed "The Alamo". The irony was barely sinking in as we got closer.

Bad basslines pulsing out into the frigid night. Bad lights inside the makeshift weather curtains. Crowds of people inside, unrecognizable behind the blurred sheets of plastic. Bad dancing. Baaaad.

But we go straight in of course. Well, this is the catered party. A DJ, colored lights, a projector, a dance floor shaped like the hall closet. The works. She went all out. It really was remarkable. Too bad I'm not of the disposition to enjoy these things.

The warmth was already bleeding out of my shaved head and I had the shivers in a perfect room temperature atmosphere. Naturally I went straight for the pitcher of mango margarita or whatever the hell flavor it was. Who cares. And then there were the pitchers of beer. Laid out on the table for any 8 year old to come by and pour a glass. It looked like lemonade. I brought this to my cousin's attention. Good influence.

Getting drunk was necessary to survive. That's just what I did. It helped the shivers a little. But not much.

After a few cups of beer I was lost in my own slow mover thought rotor and for long periods of time I would just stare out of the frosted plastic window at the blurred lights in the parking lot.

Well yes, you are a foxy lady. No no, I am quite interested in you, it is just that I approach a sort of autism at times like these. I'll just continue to watch you out of the corner of my eye. I hope you are a friend of the family. Same gene pool would be a little disconcerting. I'm pretty sure of the former. They tell me this anyway.

I watch them dance. How do they move so lightly? No, they are not movements of grace. But they are movements of a social freedom that I rarely enjoy with 20 people I don't truly know. I try to understand the behavior. I try to envision myself dancing along, singing the karaoke. It seems impossible. What is a human being?

A 2 hour drive past LA to get here. Was it worth it? Don't ask me. It meant something to them at least. And I suppose that makes me feel alright.

Bedtime for me.

Ah...Christ

50 minutes to midnight and I've got a take-home final to do. One of the worst feelings in the world.

Other than impalement or something.

Make that 48 minutes. My eyes are empty black red streaked coal pits.

47 minutes.

Ah...Goddammit

It is 2 o clock in the morning and I'm trying to go back to sleep.

I was woken up from the perfect dream by these wailing primates next door having a party.

In the dream I was hanging with this chick and suddenly a zombie breaks into the house. So I grab the zombie and fling it out the window, and then think, oh shit, it is going to be back. So I run to the closet and get my gun out of a bag. By this time the zombie is in fact back and it has evolved into a velociraptor for some reason or another but I shoot it and it is dead. This is about the time I am woken up by the banshees. And to think, it really could have gotten good. God, god, goddammit.

They still have not quieted down. What in the world could they possibly be so excited about? Well they are all drunk as hell I imagine. And probably having screaming orgies and wild drinking games. I think about heading outside and following the sound and just showing up. I'm sure they wouldn't care.

But then I hear another guy whoop and I realize I could never be a part of that, that I'll never understand those simpler pleasures and I'll never whoop like that and I'll never understand what causes such loud noises. I hate them. Shut up. I have opening shift tomorrow. Shut up.

I start to wonder what I would think if suddenly I heard a series of loud gunshots and wild yells. Would the old human empathy kick in? Would I lie here horrified and call the police? Or would my mind stay cold and cruel as it is now and just lie here and wait until there is finally silence so I could go to sleep. What if they were attacked by velociraptors?

Strange thoughts at this time of night.

Minus

It is times like today when I think about it a little bit and come to realize that it is when my head is empty...when it has nothing in it that I am the most happy.

Read: Sitting in a jacuzzi with a drink. Letting the fuzz set in. Warmth. Alteration.

Sometimes it just takes some chemicals. I never was that religious.

But then...religion can mean many things itself. Oh forget that. Empty. Empty is our goal. For now.




I thought about doing a blog book. Might be interesting. And then...it has already been done. Goddamn you, Overmind.

Originality comes in different flavors. Now...social originality...is all about who gets to it first.

The Rat

He comes in sniffing the air and twitching his nose, his beady eyes passing lazily over the merchandise. Everything about him resembles a rat. Even his voice sounds as a rat's should if it were to suddenly start talking. But wait! He is a rat! He is a bizarre, mutated rat trying to emulate a human being! Even down to the pants and the shoes! The cellphone and cellphone holder! Assimilation!

I've seen him before, and something turns in me when he walks in. I wonder what I did not like about him before. "Myes", he squeaks, "I mwould nlike to try nis gaaaame."

Aha, I remember now. It is not a deal if he does not get to try it. Open a brand new box (which is a no no) and put it in. He might not even buy it. Then we would have to sell it to someone who doesn't care about the condition. Which is not always easy.

He's always asking if this game or that will come with some insignificant, meaningless trinket or other, something like a silly piece of plastic that only tries to symbolize something that is fake itself. His obsession with meaningless, useless articles fascinates me. And I wonder...but ah yes, we must forgive his rodent nature. It is all he knows.

And somewhere...his house...wherein the basement lies a great pile of plastic nothing.

I Feel Like Writing

Well, some things occurred to me during the Great Fire of 2007. Nothing like a little windy inferno to get those ideas flowing again. And seeing all those BMW's and Mercedes driving around...caked in ash and dirt and filth, wondering what the owners were thinking...if they could stand to be dirty. It was a guilty pleasure. It was a guilty pleasure watching the whole town coated in dirt, the trees blowing sideways in the brown haze. It was the Wild West all over again. Back to square one, or two, or whatever square the West was at...at the time. And the smoke smelled a little like anarchy.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't care to hear about all the houses burning down. No one deserves such a thing. Well, pretty much no one. Aghast. Bad thoughts. A sky like that has to put bad thoughts in your head. A constant glowing, smoldering orange sun, distant in the brown haze...it casts a strange orange light. 12 hour sunset. Couldn't tell what time of the day it was...all day. A dream state with the swaying trees and the dirt.

And the fatigue and the labored breathing. The towering black and gray clouds. Plumes. Hell, they made for fantastic sunsets. When the sun did actually set. And this morning's sunrise was excellent. Too bad I was being pushed through a river of bastards in my car. I had but seconds to glimpse what I could have sat and watched for its entire course. Such is an allegory for California life. Modern life, maybe. And today's sky was a blue one, finally.

I haven't felt like writing till now. Even with all these ideas bouncing around weeks ago. Work has a dehumanizing quality to it. It is so automatic and mechanized at this point. Even selling and people interaction is automated now, when you get a routine. Whole spans of hours are gone. I have no idea what I was doing during them. Gone. Never to be recovered. And all I have left is a body ache that tells me I was in fact doing something. But what? For what? And school? The days are going by so fast, and without color and blurred past recognition. Unsettling.

What else is unsettling are the thoughts that come to mind every time someone says to drive carefully. All I can think of is my body twisting itself apart in a head-on collision. And sometimes, if I have more time to stare into space I imagine the funeral. Unsettling, yes. Must stop staring into space so much. Sometimes I forget what I was even thinking about, and in someone else's presence it becomes most awkward.

But what am I doing here with words again anyways? Sure as hell beats writing a paper that I need to write tonight. A paper that's due tomorrow. Along with studying for a midterm that will take me...take me to death...tomorrow. Ah, the funeral. This work I should probably get to.

A Problem

I don't feel like writing anymore.

It's That Time Of Year

Ah, The Vulture is back to settle onto my shoulder...

The Vulture is back to once again whisper into my ear that I can't.

It is the cold, the winter coming. Less and less sunlight. Less energy. It hits those who are susceptible much harder.

Broken Further? Nay

Yes, the computer is fixed. Ah, but the hard drive was torched. There was no saving it from The Drip. But sometimes losing a hard drive is an alright thing if you have everything backed up. Reconfiguring Windows on a new drive is much like shedding an old, worn skin, and donning a brand new shiny one. In the mind anyway. It is temporarily starting a new life, until everything is loaded again and slowly the media libraries rebuild and the old habits resurface and everything is as it should be and the old life catches up with you and that new skin becomes old and worn once again.

That does not mean that nothing changes however. The equilibrium that is routine follows along a path of change, yes! Great alterations or even slight changes in direction cause the equilibrium to fall to pieces until it rights itself once again, but when it rights itself it is in a different place than before, however similar its form is to the form that was. Yes, there is change. And some people go through more change than others. For some it is almost imperceptible, yes, these are the friction against the momentum of the human collective. I, the accelerator, the mover, the driving force at this current age, youth, along with the others, urge change. It takes its origin from the screaming nerves, the mystery of unhappiness, the negative reaction to stimuli, and etc.

All this to say that this quarter feels very different to me. That life is changing and appears in a very different light than before; that 5 years ago I never would have begun to conceive of this state of mind...and there is so much more to do. Greet it with a mixture of fear and excitement.

Like a setting sun already behind the distant hills, the edge of the horizon a glowing white fading softly upward into darker and darker blues and finally a descending dark purple to black. Oh my, the coming night! What creatures come out at this time? But oh, what beautiful, colorful neon lights!

Broken Still, Yet

Back...right. Again. I am on a temp computer. A nice screen really. Don't dig Vista too much though. Same old thing. They fixed a lot of things. Expediated others. But added or kept or extended some very annoying features and ah what can you do. Don't know how long I'll be on this. Doing this. And the damn French audio cds are fucked. Be sure to ask teacher tomorrow, yap.

The writing skills have become emaciated like an unused muscle. Blast, and curses.

I woke up this morning and became sick and went back to bed and rolled over and wished it all away and slept and oh I wish I could do this every morning for the rest of my life. I don't mind the stomach rumblings. As long as it's not terminal.

And tomorrow will be a long day. Like all Mondays and Wednesdays. With the commute to work and the late drives back and the endless contemplation; the twisting black death warning coming from the sky and the luminous white lines on the freeway pulling themselves towards you...and the lapses of thought and the fleeting feelings of unreality and all the things like that. In the night.

I want to roll over and go back to sleep.

Broken; It Has Been Awhile

Yes, yes my computer is broken. How? Maybe it was the soda I spilled on it when the dogs jumped on me. I knew it would happen someday. I hate feeling prophetic at times like this.

It is embarrassing, to have such a thing happen. There is a dehumanizing humiliation to it, I just can't exactly place it...specifically. Yes, broken. Soda broken. Sticky soda broken and gone. And thus the lack of writing. And more.

I've been too busy to think, and I've been too busy to take the time to decide whether that is a good thing or not. I can't tell who I have obligations to and who I have shoved aside and who I have ignored and it is worse than waking with drunk-guilt.

It is all in transit and it is all far too blurry to pick anything out of or survey the overall picture.

I don't know when I'll be back.

Fear of The Daaahk

Driving a decent distance past midnight is much like a dream. There are not a lot of people around and those who are around are just blurs, unrecognizable. Some of them are freaks, some are maniacs, others are people trying to get home. Most of them are driving fast.

There are these large, strange expanses of road that you never knew were there before without the endless snakes of traffic. Everything is transformed. It is strange, and exciting, and you might even feel a bit relieved until you get to a traffic light and there are several people bunched up, waiting, and that old feeling comes back, and then there is a sort of disappointment. Unless you are the type of person who would rather have people around, and you are further sinking into discomfort the longer you are alone. Then maybe you feel the relief.

There are strange construction projects all along the freeway, blocking off certain parts of the freeway with cones and flashing lights, the lights flashing down the vacant road like there is something terribly wrong, but all is quite right. And the paving machines have huge spotlights that form halos of light around the machines and then the halos slip off into darkness and there is nothing beyond.

Sometimes you have to take a detour into strange shady places and get slightly lost. And the places are always shady. But you somehow make it back to the main road with visions of hoodlum shootings and beatings of wanderers just beginning to fade.

It is an uncertain feeling, but vaguely suggestive of something else, something pleasurable.

How Do You Work This Fuckin' Thing

I had a dream this morning that was quite cohesive and sustained, with a story line and everything; the contents of which remain quite clear in my head.

You see, we had this boss army cargo truck lookin' thing, and I guess we wanted to take it to the movies or something cause it had benches in back and you can hang out with your buddies and it was big and cool. It had an open cargo cage that you can drape a canvas over to cover it up.

So we had it all set to go. My mother was scolding me for taking it out cause she thought I couldn't handle it and I told her it was fine so I went to climb into the cab and the steps leading up to the cab were covered in canvas too, which was stupid and unnecessary, but I shrugged and climbed over it anyway.

Inside the actual truck it got off to a start sooner than I had hoped, and then I was wrestling with some very strange pedals and clutches that fit into one another and they were very difficult to work with a foot. I couldn't figure out how to put on the brakes, but I finally found a lever on top of the dashboard that you pull up, which was very strange, but I pulled on it anyway and the truck was too heavy to stop.

Of course there was construction ahead, and it was a very bad place to practice driving a large cargo truck and I remember thinking how it was just my luck that the street was totally torn up in front of me and I couldn't get the damn truck to stop. So I swung the truck off the side of the road and sort of got it crashed and stuck on top of a chain-link fence (don't ask, I don't even know), and then we made off with our brand new red and purple boots. Not sure how we got those.

Funny thing. The events that took place had a form that vaguely resembled my current situation, or the sentiments that are caused by it...or whatever.

But I am pretty sure Hulk Hogan was there somewhere trying to help me with the truck, and he was the one who had red boots. And I am pretty sure that this was a good thing.

Don't Look At Me Like That

You know, it starts hurting too much, to hate more than a certain amount. It's not like I enjoy it.

They just make it way too easy.

Writer's Block Pt. 2

So many private posts again. Nothing that has come to fruition. I have nothing and everything to say. And sometimes I look back at this writing and feel as a man does who has accidentally uttered a terrible joke that sounded funny in his head. I wish for something powerful and wise to say but there is a bank of fog in my head that seems to simultaneously expand and become dense the more I try to think. Why does a man's mind feed on its own thoughts just as an animal feeds on its own young or itself? Surely, a natural process that has purpose beyond what we can understand, but right now that fog bank will not clear from the answer that I am sure is written on a wall just beyond. All ridiculous and I'm just trying to say that I am at another writer's block, and it will not go away, and the crickets are loud tonight and the air is still and I am alright with just sitting here and soon I will sleep.

The sentences are broken and the ideas in transit break up and bunch together like mini traffic jams.

Strange Days

Not a thought in my head that is sticking or solid. It is all slipping past silently under a dull metallic roar like the passing landscape out the window of an afternoon train ride.

It is too hot and heavy to do anything, to think in straight lines.

It has been a long, strange trip of a summer. Like they usually are. Wandering aimless with no goal or end.

Sail With Farts

The ah, immaturity, it is a hard thing to argue, to grasp, because at its most attractive shade it is in a state of making fun of itself, and so the subtlety is not caught by the outside observer, a prude. A prude cannot grasp shades of humor. Shades of wine maybe, but not shades of humor, because of the rigidity of their lifestyle.

I wish my head was clear and I could actually write. The fog is coming in, captain. The fog. Drop the anchor, but the anchor is cut, the anchor is cut captain, we are undone. We are undone and I am sorry.

Sorrysorrysorrysorry sorry sorry sorry. Sorry is a funny word.

Gone

If words gathered contextual meaning specific to an individual's experience, taking their own shapes subjectively like stalactites forming from overhanging mineral drips, then a word for me that has already grown into quite the hanging monolith would be "gone", one of the worst words I can think of; maybe worse than "nothing", of which it implies. Because "nothing" signifies something that has always been there, while "gone" signifies "loss", another heavy-hanger.

And "work" is nothing but a deep nauseous boiling deep in the stomach, and a vague outrage at the shape that general life has taken over the course of human existence.

And maybe the apes had it right by that simple natural ignorance of which lower animals enjoy by default, without all those hanging, craggy words, growing heavier by the day. But maybe they have the memories and those other simpler impulses that may grow heavier in their own way, some of them caused by cages and smoking rifles: us. Maybe nothing has it that much better, maybe, and I don't even know where this is going anymore, except me beating a dead horse that I have beaten in the past.

But I would never beat a dead horse or an alive one in the first place. Goddamn these words and the numerous shades of meaning and this post.

Wake Up With Fear

Sometimes life is like a dish of food that you have to eat that really tastes like shit but there is nothing else available and so you have to just eat it and it sucks.

So that can be quoted. On Brainy Quotes or something. You know. Like...

-Daniel

I mean c'mon. I've seen shittier quotes than that on there. And my quote is fuckin' true.

You Were Always A Paranoid Bastard

"Ok but just assuming, just assuming this whole..."

"Uhuh...whole..."

"Hang on, well you know, how big this Facebook thing is getting. And with everybody on it and networked and these nodes become a thousand seeing eyes that mirror each other exponentially, you see?"

"I don't, but go on, I'm too drunk not to enjoy this."

"And, and I'm linked to this thing, linked as this...this...uh...personal electronic...inner thought geyser, as it were, and anybody out there whom I don't want to see my thoughts, yes, these thoughts are there before them in all their nakedness."

"Oh shit, the thought police."

"No exactly, seriously, the way this internet is expanding, to encompass all aspects of even inner social life...our selves are vanishing faster than we know it. My coworkers, my family, mere acquaintances or people I don't even know, zeroing in on me. And me, I'm giving off the stench of a dying animal, I'm just waiting for them to move in on it and finish me for good."

"You're full of shit. Who's this them?"

"I...ah..."

"You were always-"

"No, don't say it. Not now. You're worried too. I saw that squint. I know that squint."



But they both became silent, and each went to finish his drink, and with the sun already down, it was dark and cooling and they decided to call it a night.

Just Registered For School

Well. I'm all set to fuck.

Yarg Eeee

Last night the light caught on the inside of my glasses lens and I watched it and it became a brilliant star cluster that took the shape of a woman's face and she turned to look and her hair glided with her and I stared deeper into her face and could see long-buried memories that appeared like photos in the fire.

Soon after, with the room dark, I forgot completely where I was and sat up with a start and saw a great shape moving in the darkness which turned out to be the distorted shape of a pillow and a guitar stand.

The thoughts starting coming as through a tunnel and I walked down the tunnel to try to dig further back and saw the past far at the end. Now, walking on the rolling hills under the moon and stars my thoughts continued to reel with no control whatsoever.

The combination of sensations was frightening and joyful at the same time, and so cannot be explained in this current state of mind.

Ehyeah

My Laptop: One of the many portals to the fractured global consciousness.

The O.C.

Is not cracked up to be what they make it out to be.

Sometimes I wonder how nice it would be to crawl into the wall and become nonexistent painlessly.

I Know

I uh, these are connected somehow. Don't remember why. Don't care to try...to figure it out. Just goin' with the old instinct.

My Job

You know, with my disorder, and the environment I work in, and the resulting nerve bomb cocktail, I could only fancy that it is akin to an acrophobiac working the cash register on top of a telephone pole.

Ouch (What Does It Mean)

Oh, this twisting leviathan deep in my chest; to think over the moon and the stars and the dust and what the structures of math tell us and god this tearing that's so foreign in the face of this cold machine and what the hell is life, this duality of calculated mechanism and incomprehensible life force. And this feeling is a thousand years old at least, or more. Fear and pain in animal eyes, it has been with us so long, and where is the origin? Where is the consciousness threshold in which a creature submits to these permeating burdens?

Is there a sadness in the fish as he probes the sides of his tank?

What does sadness feel like to a chemical?

Is there a sadness among the cells when an adjacent cell dies?

I want to know the origin of sadness.

Come back to me.

My Sofa Bed

Many nights I sleep on a couch. Many times I don't even bother to convert it to the bed it is designed to become. Just lay a sheet over the top and off the side and sleep on the couch as you would. Sometimes I do convert it, sometimes on those nights when I've had some to drink and I think maybe I will want to toss and turn in the morning when I have a pounding headache. Those nights when under the influence you have the vague notion that you are winning something profound and then the next day you only feel that hazy guilt that clears up in the afternoon sun. Maybe you feel that the sense of winning was all an illusion and maybe a bit silly, and that the day's reality is heavier and harder to bear than before. But the aggregate pleasure received from the whole thing seems to weigh in at a favorable heft. Perhaps that is why I return to it every so often.

Accompanying this vague notion of winning is this dissolution of the ego into the collective human conscious. I personally feel a part of that mass of humanity that I so loathe during the day and it happens to be a pleasant feeling, like reconciling after a quarrel with a loved one.

I contemplate this and many other things when I lay down on my sofa bed. It almost inevitably happens whenever my head hits the pillow and I gaze up into the mini-lanterns that surround my room. They cast the most intriguing shadows with their little mesh casings all over the wine-red walls and I can't help but fall into the deepest contemplation that usually results in a sort of hazy melancholy, usually due to the persistent resignation from general mankind and its current culture.

I never imagined I'd be writing this much this summer. Which means I have too much to think about this summer and that even my vacations will soon cease to be very therapeutic, probably due to work and the running out of money. And then my thoughts turn sourly to money and the institutions built around it and this whole complicated, cumbersome philosophy of living we have constructed for ourselves. And the thought of tomorrow's work sends a less than subtle shudder through my stomach.

I'm pretty sure I was meant to be incarnated as a cat. To lay around and think, "Ah fuck, there is no what is, it just is." Turned out to be a distressing mistake. Full of conflict. Contradictions. All the like.

Maybe it is time for some more goddamn pictures.

The Fog

We came into the garage and it was full of smoke. We were already altered and so we could not stop laughing, because we thought someone had actually filled the garage with herb smoke to a density where you could not see for more than 4 feet ahead. We wondered: who has the money to purchase so much? Who has the recklessness to take in that much smoke? You would be completely dissociated for the entire night. These thoughts made us laugh even harder.

"Wh...what the fuuu...", we came in laughing, barely able to speak.

"Yeah quick get in we're hotboxing. Get in close the door."

"What the...what the...fhahaha."

"Ok just kidding. We're filling the garage with fog. Look see it's a fog machine."

They showed us the machine and pressed the small attached remote, and the machine sprayed out fog with a hiss. One of them would work the machine every 5 minutes, to assure maximum density and fillage.

We sat on the couch, and turning around, noticed that the only thing you can make out in the garage is the burning fluorescent light that glowed yellow in the distance like a fog light. We could hear the door open and close now and then. Someone coming in and out of the garage, maybe to get drinks. It was impossible to tell who had entered the garage, or if they were even coming and going, and suddenly a dark figure would come out of the fog, a face with a dash of alcohol red.



We would run back and forth in the murk, throwing things out into the void. Water bottles. Lint. Socks. Whatever we could find. Every once in a while we could hear a "Fuck you!" somewhere in the distance.

Despite the strange smell and mustiness experienced with sitting in commercial fog, it felt too surreal. Music was coming from somewhere. Couldn't be sure. Why were we doing this? Who's idea was it? Does it matter? These things came to my mind later, during a reminisce. But it seemed like a good idea and everyone agreed on it and the people who joined were unconditionally overjoyed and all minds moved through the fog without burrs or friction, and that was the point.

I thought of these things when the garage was opened to be aired, and I stood outside watching the smoke rise and plume out; standing in the darkness watching the rectangle of light, and the figures moving in front of it, once again I was alone with my thoughts, and the burrs and friction started to creep back into the head.





Yeah, so what. Presently its the crushing weight of reality, something like finances and responsibilities, those burrs and surfaces of friction.

That's life they say. But there are two exposures here. One of survivalist acceptance and one of a great remorse and despair even, and they are constantly splitting off from each other and pulling towards opposite poles. And it seems like the only thing that pulls them back together is a certain kind of carelessness.

For me anyway.

I'd Jump Too

Summer in Pictures

I'm tired of words. Of making them. I've been doing a lot of reading. And that is enough.

Besides, a picture is always sufficient. Whatever it is, even if the photographer was intending something specific, it can be interpreted a different way and mean just as much to someone else.
I suppose the same is the case with words. But maybe sometimes my words become too internal and abstract and too self-involved and I look at them the next day and want to take them down.

But it is hard to take down a photo. Because it is there. And I am not imposing my bias upon it.

So thus this summer will be in pictures. Because this summer I don't have much of a bias. My voice has quieted to a whisper because I've lost things that once made it steady. But it always comes back. The destruction and construction of life continues in cycles.

And in the meantime I am just here and taking it in. And secretly nursing a hollow that's giving way to a sinkhole.

But it is ok for now.

And I ended up saying more than I intended anyway.

Salvia Divinorum

Your faces split into an unfolding kaleidoscope of colored layers that mixed with a Persian design and multiplied further and it became all I could see. And then a dark feeling of leaving everything overcame me and I imagine it was a little bit like dying. And then I came back.

Ok.

Hey Guy, Lantern Light

I'm sitting on the couch with my shirt off. I'm staring into the midnight blue wall, thinking about nothing at all.

There's a dog on my left growling his attention to the darkened street outside.

There's a dog to my right, his eyes rolling up into his head and his head rolling back on his neck and his tongue slack over his mouth that is a big smile as he's getting scratched.

There's a rhythm in my head that only I can hear and so these words form a song that you won't hear when you read this.

I'm thinking I made a fool of myself again, and I'm thinking the regret and the guilt is a better feeling than that dark misty lapping that I used to feel. That infinite doubt seemingly incurable built into the strongest wall you've ever felt with your fingers.

That I thought I'd never get past, and I didn't even know why. And I have gotten past something, but there's still a ways to go. You can almost see it like a long desert road curving into a heat blur.

It is quiet now. This rhythm is dying but I heard it for a long time and it is a rhythm that the hot liquid puts into you, and it is cheaper than a bottle of Prozac.

What is happening to us?

But don't worry. Questions lead to more questions but some of them do get answered with the help of time.

I watched the gnats hovering in a cloud over the golden-green grass and I realized something fundamental...that life buzzes dense and thick and this head won't matter and you'll all be alright.

Hunger is Not Funny

The boy, coming in from an afternoon swim, found himself famished and weak. He spotted a white plastic bag on the table and he opened it up, revealing a tupperware full of some sort of leftover.

Alright! Fettuccine! So good! He warmed it up in the microwave and sat down and prepared to eat it. He added crushed red pepper and ate it with pieces of bread. It was absolutely delicious.

The pasta completely hit the spot. His spirits were rejuvenated. There was still some left so he proceeded to finish it up.

At that moment, the father came in through the front door, heaved a great sigh, and said to the boy, "Ah hey son, I'm just here to pick up my..." He was stopped mid-sentence when he saw that his son was eating the lunch he forgotten to take to work.

The father fell down onto the couch, his legs failing him, and stared off at something that the boy would never see. The boy watched him, perplexed. His father hadn't finished his sentence, he had no idea what was wrong.

Finally, the father turned to him, his eyes now full of tears. With a look of shattered dignity (he was openly weeping in front of his son; this was supposed to never happen, he was supposed to be a strong figure for his son to believe in), he said to his son, barely able to form the words, "You have no idea how much I was looking forward to that Fettuccine...

I love Fettuccine."

The End of Total Shit, For Now

Yeah done. Done. Done.

And now it is summer, which means not many posts.

Though it's not like there were very many this past week anyway. Nothing meaningful anyway.

Yeah.

On The Verge of The End of Total Shit, For Now

Haaaahaaaaa! Only one more stinkin' final!

Stinkin'...wait...I meant fuckin'.

Theme, Colon, Sentence, Repeat

Soon: The end of this terrible, terrible quarter. The end of the bad slow, and the beginning of the good slow. The heat-shimmering sprawl that is summer.

The Bad Slow: Depression, sluggishness, in the depths of a sinkhole that is physically and mentally impossible to climb out of. An oceanic weight pressing down on one's head who is too tired and too filled with the Truth to fight it.

The Good Slow: Lazy heat dream. A continuous stream of shapeless days of sweet boredom that washes down the acrid taste of college commuter life. Maybe a job. Maybe trips up the PCH. Maybe anything, yet all maybes with the freedom to do or not do. (Sort of)

Queens of the Stone Age: It will be a summer of Queens, no doubt about it brother. And other things.

Drugs and Alcohol: Check yes, rockstar. Maybe first secure job though. Then the checking of the yes.

Farting: I'm sorry. It had to be mentioned at a time like this.

Lingering Melancholy: Yes, always. But it is easier to fight under the sun. Vitamin D, man.

Question: Where are ya, kid?

Ripe Knowledge (For the Picking)

Today I learned that if you build a big goddamn tower that can be seen from miles away wherever you want people to come, they will come there.

Just make sure there's actually something there. Or they wont stay very long. And word will spread.

I mean, people will still probably come to check out your big goddamn tower, but the area won't exactly become a booming cosmopolitan economic beehive, or anthill, or whatever similar construct in nature that connotes business and bustle.

Well, not overnight anyway.

Only More Varied and Complicated

Sometimes when I am very hungry, and very low, and I am sitting in class, and all of my senses are dulled from the waning energy, all of the voices come to me as if they were drifting from a place far away and blurred, or reaching me through a thick plate of glass, and they become shapeless and indistinct, and I realize what they are: animal sounds just like any other.

Just more varied and complicated.

Burning Soft

The sky is trying to reflect itself on the surface of the water but it is night and the water is backlit. The pool is light blue and sits neon under the plum purple sky, which is glowing from the failing light reflecting off of the clouds above.

I sit in the jacuzzi which is glowing an orange of its own, and steaming in the night air. The orange makes it onto the steam and a fading color rises up to reach the purple sky.

It feels like a lot of things in here, near the warmth jets. It feels like a heated crystal cave if I close my eyes and the light gets through the lids. Orange crystal everywhere. Shimmering dark.

I find myself almost asleep and jump with a start back to the buzzing electric purple sky.

In my mind someone is talking to me, no one in particular, a voice with no face, maybe myself:


"Look, the sky is in the jacuzzi."

"No, that's just a reflection."

"But it is there, don't you see it?"

"Come off it. That is just light reflecting the image of the sky back at you."

"I want to climb into it and see if I fall."

"Yeah, be my guest, we'll see what happens."

"I'll fall slowly. Like in a dream."

"Yeah, it'll be like a dream alright. What's the matter with you anyways?"

"I wish you could see the sky."

It doesn't make any sense yet. There's no use pursuing it. Let it flutter off into the distance a while, but keep the end of the rope around the wrist.

After I come to under that sky again, I decide I'd better go in before I drown myself.

There's something about the night and its shadows and the interplay of moonlight and artificial light that completely changes the experience of everything.

Possible Design Flaw

This philosophy class is a sinking ship. I guess the teacher is pissed cause no one goes to class. And everyone is pissed because the class sucks. I think some philosophizing on the subject should take place.

But I don't have the energy for that.

Walking back to my car I took a series of crosswalks that ended up stranding me on the sidewalk for some time, due to the unfortunate timing of the lights and signals. Man fuck that construction across the street. I'm sick of it.

And I did actually get to my car. And then I got stuck behind some slow ass. So I tried to go around but then another slow ass merged in front of me so I got stuck behind a sort of wall of two slow asses and I had to go back to the original slow ass shamed and defeated. And I was stuck behind her for a long time. She was magnetic.

I finally got on the freeway and I thought with elation: by god, I'm free. But no, I got stuck behind a slow ass in the fast lane. And so I tried to go around but got stuck behind another slow ass again, and thus, the same fuckin' thing happened just 5 minutes later, just on a larger scale.

This pattern continued all the way home, to the point where I wondered if I'd actually get home. It was exhausting. You wouldn't believe some of the things people did...in their cars...which can be several tons and considered weapons.

I thought about the pattern that emerged there. And then I thought about some other things. I thought about a wounded rat in a cage being poked with a stick. I thought about an upside-down 5.12-5.14 climb and the rabid, fatigued frustration that comes with the inability to get over a vertical overhang when completely exhausted. But those things were mainly about the exhaustion.

More importantly, I thought about something that resembled the design itself. The design this pattern took on that governed my journey home. I was working on a Sudoku puzzle a little while ago, and found that there was a point where I simply couldn't get anywhere. Later I found that there was an actual flaw in the puzzle: two 7's in the same row, and that the whole time I was straining to complete the puzzle in vain. I wondered if there was a similar flaw in the design in my path home, and that I was unfortunate to have entered into it, and become stuck inside a sort of impossible traffic obstacle, at least until I got to my destination.

But then we are talking about a human design flaw as opposed to a sort of natural or organic one.

I may be mixing the concepts up entirely. It happens.

It happens a lot.

Certainly a better time getting home than the guy I saw with a gas can walking back to his stranded BMW, with a sort of wincing smile, his pride hurt.

I'm tired.

In The Animal Kingdom, Kingdom of Animals Pt. 2

It is a bright sunny day in the suburbs. Birds can be heard chirping and singing in every tree. A couple is standing in their front yard enjoying the sun and watching the birds:

"Look Honey! Look at the birds flying around tweeting! I wonder what's going on up there? Maybe they're playing!"

Up above in the blue skies is a cluster of fluttering birds broken from formation.

There are two birds in particular that are especially animated, an Elder and The Deviant:

"Fuck the Formation! I hate flying with you assholes! I am so gone."

"What treason is this? You watch your mouth now goddammit."

"I'm tired of being the end-point. I don't want it anymore. I hate you all!"

"Why you obtuse...impudent...little shit. The end-point is the most important position in the Formation, it is a great honor!"

"Yeah that's why I hate it! I don't want your fake, lousy honor!"

"I'll, I'll kill you! I'll rip you of your feathers. I'll break your scraggly little neck! You will crash to the ground with that treason!"

"You can kiss my ass. I'm outta here."

They dive down into the greens and browns of the world below at great velocity, locked in a high stakes chase worth their lives and their honor. The Deviant is crying out with glee at the excitement.

"Haha yeaaaaaaa!"

The Elder is infuriated beyond comprehension. His tongue darts like mad out of his twisted beak. His age-frosted eyes are wild and spasmodic. He imagines with perverse pleasure the cracking of the bastard's brittle bones between his mandibles. Oh, how will it all end, this horrible spectacle?

Down below the couple are tiring of what they see as simple bird aerobatics. They will never understand:

"Wow just look at 'em go, Honey-buns. Look at 'em go! I bet they're having fun. It's hot out. Let's go inside and make some orange juice."

The couple's backs are turned when the Elder scores a hit, sending some of the Deviant's torn feathers floating down to the earth below. But the Deviant is far from done. He has yet to unveil his ultimate weapon...

Gray (Tuesday)

The gas needle never quite reaches full. It gets to about 3/4 and it doesn't go much further.

I can't remember anything about this morning, despite the fact that I drove through morning commuter traffic to get to class and sat through an hour and twenty minutes and then drove back.

The only thing I can remember is the gray sky that seemed so low in the morning, and the current break in the clouds and the sun is doing nothing for me right now, when it usually should.

Maybe I vaguely remember being cut-off and tail-gated in the California buzz here and there, and thinking to these people, why even try?

An instance a little while ago comes to mind, where we put up a garage sale sign. And we were standing on the corner to advertise it. And some guy comes up right in front of us and tears our sign down and puts up his. All this work and effort for his little piece of shit garage sale down the street that is so utterly insignificant in the scheme of things.

Needless to say, we tore his sign down. And the one further down the street that lead the way to his piece of shit house.

I better stop writing before this bitterness starts to melt holes in the keyboard.

Constant

It's funny...watching these updated blogs flash by. There's a good amount every minute. Every minute someone is publishing a post, sitting somewhere...their house, their friend's house, a hotel, a motel, an office maybe, all typing and clicking and filling their little text boxes with all their ideas and commentary. There's a constant flow of them. It is hard to comprehend, with this single mind. It is hard to comprehend that there will always be someone typing something at any given minute. But then you toy with the imagination and think about that vast mass of humanity, how much of us there really is, and then it seems pretty possible, for this constant river of information and text noise to surge without cease.

I don't actually explore any of these changing names. Just watching the flickers is enough (oh, there goes a daily xxx movie blog, too late). A vast amount of mirrors, just flickering and sensing and reflecting all of humanity, all out there in the electronic sea, ceaseless.

I think about the individuals and wonder if they have thoughts like embedded trenches into mountains of distraction, and if they can easily tap into that trench and think clearly when they sit down. Of course they can. But I wonder nevertheless. I wonder if when the hurtful thoughts come at them like spears, they can wrap them in plastic and tip them with rubber so that the thought spears do not hurt as much.

I wonder if these mirrors bend the light a little bit, and if the totality of the bended light comes out to what we really are.

I'm one of the mirrors. In just one click I will be part of that ceaseless river of information. And I wonder what role my mirror plays, reflecting the contemplation of the very structure it is a part of. I wonder what sort of role that is.

I'm glad for birds, and the sounds they make. I'm going to go outside and watch the descending sun and listen to the birds and watch the swaying grass and the nodding trees golden green in the light for a while.

Something

He's digging in the can for a piece of trash to chew on. That's his Friday night. And for him it is good. Apart from an old, simplistic anxiety of being separated from mother, or perceived maternal figure anyway, and that passes as soon as it arises in his simple dog mind.

Me, I get to sit in a dimly lit room on the verge of catatonia, trying to figure out what to do between strange, blank gaps in thought. The mind starts to wander of course, in a dark room with nothing to do, no one or nothing to take its attention, and I find myself thinking undesirable things. There seems to be a dividing line somewhere between the happy and unhappy, and when you start to think too much it augments either side that you happen to be on.

I wonder if I should have a drink and forget about it. Or some herb. But that's no longer much of an option without people to enjoy it with. It all comes back to the social core when you are a solitary figure. And I'm burning through these phases like layered elements are burning through their colors, and I wonder which color is left, or if there is another layer under it all, and not simply the end of the kindle.

Each new color seems to be a new solution, a new hope, but it burns itself out and its gone with the others, still there and an option but charred and marred and part of the pool of last resorts. There are some elements that last through the consumption maybe. Love, the hunger for knowledge, the blind wonder in the face of life that never seems to die, the naked instinct to survive that seems innate in all life, to name a few. I suppose these things keep the weary living, and when those fail, extinguishment of course.

But amidst all that I can't help but think of school. Of the work that's due next week, of the school to be attended next month, next year, next two years, and what of a career? And I think about those managers and administrators and vp's and presidents and all the people racing in their shiny cars with their big houses and maybe the part of me that's still civilized (in a modern, material sense) wants that, but even more of me doesn't want it. Because I can't figure out why. Where all this is going. I don't think anybody knows, but most don't have to ask why, and maybe most are wired to somehow understand on a subconscious level, and that's where I fail.

All the media I envelop myself in, all the stories of others, I think part of it is the separation from reality and those anxieties, yeah, but I think another part is to enhance that understanding of why. And then maybe most like to escape the reality, but enrich and encourage what they already understand and don't question in the first place. But still, that's something. I think there's people out there that just aren't sure about it all. I think I know some people like that as a matter of fact and care very much about them and that's something too. There's bindings here and there. That's something.

I'm being very imprecise, very general, I know. It's one of my problems, sure. Flaw, defense mechanism, stylistic pet peeve, call it what you will. But then this isn't an essay either. Writing like this is something. Writing is something. I think I've gotten weary of the whole blog thing, but then I forget just to write for myself and blow off some steam and try to convert this negativity into thoughtful...neutrality at least.

I feel like this is some sort of confession. And then I think, heh, that's not the beginning of it.

Inverted Derobing

On top is a suit that makes the person look like they are naked. Take that off to reveal an underwear suit. Take that off to reveal a pants suit, and then take that off to reveal a pants and a shirt suit, and finally, take that off to reveal an actual business suit...suit.

Writer's Block Pt. 1

I have been sitting here for 20 minutes and I haven't written a thing. Last night I wrote 8 different drafts and saved them to be private, and in a way I didn't get anywhere then either, because I ended up neglecting to study for my midterm and I only started my paper with a sentence or two. It worked out. I did everything in the morning.

But still, here I am trying to drum up something to say, and I'm just spent. Maybe it was all used up in those drafts. Or maybe my mind is being siphoned by a dimension-hopping mega fiend, which would explain the shadow I keep seeing in the inside lens of my glasses, but when I turn to look he's not there. Too fast.

I suppose writing about writer's block offers some sort of stimulation. But nothing useful I don't think.

Maybe all of my thoughts are so feverishly wrapped up together, not a single one can get free at the moment. Like gridlock. I hope.

All I could think of was if I was to write a science fiction piece, and I had to make a new language, it would sound something like a water hose with excess discharge. The aliens would say, "Blarsschhh a blaarssschh a blaaahhchhh golosh golosh sssscchlloooope."

Or something like that.

The Most Joyously Celebrated Fuckin' Asshole Day

In a place where all one can see are car bumpers, there is that instinctual, insatiable hunger for the open road that can bring a man to pursue even the slightest opening, or air pocket in a traffic jam, regardless of whether that new lane is moving any faster, or for that matter, slower, and whether the person behind him will be shat upon or not.

Amidst The Cool Colors, The Cool Night Air Drifting Through The Screen Is Not Enough

There's no sleep to be had at this time on a Friday night in a house like this. They're constantly coming and going, talking and yelling at the top of their voices in the middle of the darkened suburban streets. I am amazed that the police have not been here. Who are these neighbors? Either they all have exceptional tolerance or they are all asleep, those heavy sleepers. Or a combination of both.

Maybe my hearing is just too good. Yeah. Right.

One would wish for earplugs. Block out the sound and drift into a deep sleep until the morrow. These are earplugs that do not exist at this current time. Not at this current time. Too bad.

I like to be at the beach during the after-fade, where the ocean surges always dependable and constant. Somewhere serene elemental. Speaking in abstraction. I imagine the mountains would be a good place too, but I have not been in the mountains since winter. I do miss them. I miss them and the wall of trees that acts as an instrument in its arrangement and the wind plays it and the sound separates me from myself for just a moment. This is good for I do tire of myself and my own thoughts.

Dusk is especially moving when you are standing amidst forest in the mountains. You can see the glowing horizon as it melts from orange to magenta to finally a blued white, broken through the many trees and so it hovers over an endless black where at the border you can make out up-stretched and curling tree fingers reaching for the failing light, swaying and roaring with a music of their own. Elemental. Simplicity.

I can still hear them talking excitedly nearby. I may try for sleep again, but I doubt it will come this easily...in a place like this.

This place may not be the beach or the mountains. But it is good when there is a pleasant breeze and an absence of loud freaks outside.

In The Animal Kingdom, Kingdom of Animals Pt. 1

Up above, in the attic, in the darkness, scratching and sniffing, a rat:

"I hope I can survive the summer in this cool hollow. It is a good break from the scorching sun. There must be food here. I can smell it. Wait, what is this? A root? Oh sweet sweet root, from thee, thy nutrients so sweet in my stomach."

He bites into one of the various wires that span the attic of the house. Through the copper coating. Vital things. Could be the TV. Could be electricity itself. Could be anything.

"Oh, what is this? It tastes of blood. My god, what have I done! I have broken The Pact! This place is but a nightmare."

Down below, in a middle-class American suburban house, built in the 60's:

"We have rats in the attic. I hear them sometimes. Those rats must go. They chew into the wires. We can't have that."

"Alright I'll set traps this weekend."

Up above:

"I should leave this place. Oh, but I must stay here. There is nowhere else to go. I can't stand the heat."

Down below:

"Did you set those rat traps yet? I can hear them moving around. It is creeping me out."

"Yes I did. I wouldn't worry about it."

Up above:

"What is it I smell? Oh! Cheese! I am saved!"

*****************SNAP*****************************

"Ohhhhhhh, I'm in a group hug with...a maaachine"

"I can't feel my ba...anything. I wish I could breathe."

Only darkness now.

Down below:

"Wait! Listen! I think I heard one of the traps go off!"

The Real Top 10 Manliest Video Game Characters Ever List

1. Kratos
2. Kratos
3. Kratos
4. Kratos
5. Kratos
6. Kratos
7. Kratos
8. Kratos
9. Kratos
10. Kratos

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Honestly I was expecting it to be a little bigger.

I thought it might have been wrist mounted when I saw it on the box. But no, it's...more like a...finger mount.

It is still pretty potent though.

Excerpts From a Time Long Past Pt. 4

Today is still Monday. Monday was not so bad. Pissing and moaning is more work than the work itself. But it is a dirty job...and someone must do it. And I have found more writings that I don't ever remember writing. It seems my memory is not as photographic as I wish it was.

• "If I could launch my penis as a projectile, I would sacrifice it and fire it right through your eye." -Man I do not remember this, or whoever the target is for that matter

• He shits on everybody's heads in the same moment he is using the heads for stepping stones to further his own agenda which isn't even that remarkable. -Maybe that guy

• For a Bad Day: Make a list: 1. Fell out of bed 2. Stubbed my toe (all the way to) 10. Died -1,2,3...10 things that went wrong today. That translates to: "Fuck today".
  

• A beetle wanders the lonely gray stretch of my bed, stumbling over fuzz. His wings are broken, he is about to die. What a lonely, tragic end.
  

• Under a huge gray mass; jet-stream; river: To everyone passing me in the merge lane to the right: I hate you all.

• How do they make it sound like a crashing plane, a crashing melodic plane with engines burning a bright pink? The roar of the crash is making a music that is so sweet to my ears, so sweet when it takes me.
  

• Lost in thought driving. So dangerous. I'm not in the car for a minute, the road opens up and for a second I feel free, until I stop at the bottom at a light, and I am in it again. A moment's hesitation at a turn, then, a leap of faith, with cars like blunt, heavy spears, unable to control their own velocity, smash, smash right into me. Smash themselves to smash you, like a volley of bees.
  

Man Blogger's formatting software is like...like...ah man I'm not even gonna go there. It's free anyway.

Joy To The World

Today is Monday. Today is the day a paper is due that I didn't do, a midterm to write that I haven't studied for, and the last day before a due essay that I haven't started.

Cheers.

+1 More Thing

This didn't really fit in , but I think, when I am released out into the deep blue, which carries down into the deep black in soft, yet ominous gradients, I will be swallowed alive by the first hungry fish that is only centimeters bigger than me.

But of course I'll have to stab my way out of his stomach.

Well, Yes, No, Alright Then, Great Thanks

I wrote some stuff and saved it as a draft. You can't regret something that was never there. Unless it could have been there and your well-being depended on it being there.

But that's another story entirely.

This room is slow in the depression heat. The fan helps the heat but the rhythm of the blades does little to create a sense of speed. The squeaks and drones of the fan report at a much slower rate than the actual revolution of the blades and when you gaze at the fan the motion of the blades is blurred into a single gray circle that does little for perception.

And so the presence of the fan only gives a strange metallic rhythm that is as slow as the room feels with a mood like this anyway.

Now the fan is drilling into my head as I am trying to figure out if I am going to do anything about tomorrow's work. Nope. I'm not. Not with a mood like this.

Motion sets the tempo here. A creature isn't alive to the naked eye until it moves. Rate of life proportionate to motion because motion in the passage of time is the life essence, down to the mere vibrations of those particles. Maybe this is what the mind models rate of living on. And so a warm room can feel slow due to mood even though the particles should be going faster.

We are going on the assumption that it is not all an illusion. Or less of a metaphysical assumption really, and more of a presupposition to this piece of rhetoric that I'm spinning up here.

If you can call it rhetoric. Some sort of hybrid monster. If I may.

Cause I'm no place to say whether all this is an illusion or not because the truth is beyond what we can say with language.

I'm no place? I'm not even going to fix that. I'm no place!


But back to the language. The truth is beyond...the language. Probably. Or not. Jeez. Thinking stings sometimes.

I've been tirrred, I've been tirrrred, I've been tiiiiirrrrreed...

For over 4 yeaaaaars.

Slo-mo Time. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

Ca-Huh

It's funny how when somebody is coughing a hell of a lot you sometimes think, man shut up. Sometimes I'm coughing a lot and I think, man, they hate me.

Ca-huh, ca-huh, ca-huh.

Man, shut up.

Unmatched Intensity: Sleep Paralysis And The Haunted Aftermath

I just had one of the most intense sleeping experiences ever. It was cool and it sucked at the same time.

I rode a great lion. It gladly let me on its back. It was trained somehow and it loved to be patted on the head. At one point Piglet was towing the great lion. We were on a pilgrimage to somewhere I can't be sure of. My dad and brother are in the picture I know this, but I'm not sure where.

I got stuck in an old room of mine under thickets of thorns and spiked plants. I couldn't move my head forward it hurt too much. And then the room came alive in a drug frenzy and I realize yes, I had been tagged by a drugged dart. I was fading fast but still functioning. It was a wrangler of some sort, sent to to take me and my companions in by an evil old woman from the past. But the wrangler kept hitting me with darts. I could feel them in me and I keep trying to take them out. No goddammit, I tried to mutter, I will go in peaceably just stop hitting me with darts. They kept coming. The darts. I don't see why I was even darted. I was stuck anyway. I tried to succumb to the drugs so I wouldn't have to worry about the thorned room.

This is when it gets strange. Dicey. I can't be sure of anything now.

The old woman lives by the river. She wants something that we simply can't give. We get away.

A couple now, trying to make make love. But there are sounds. A baby crying. She checks the monitor while she is talking on the phone and sees the shadow of the old woman by the window in the next room. Terrible vibrations at this point. It is much too creepy now to recollect but I must go on. Something from the immediate dream-past is coming in on a draft through the window.

She walks to the corner room by the window where she saw the old woman's shadow. Something dark on her peripheral, she turns and oh god it is the old woman's cat. It hops up on the bed and stares into my eyes. Third person observation melts into first person and I am there now. I replace the woman and I look into the cat's eyes and realize that the cat is her vessel and she will be here any minute now to end us all.

I take the cat by the throat and I squeeze. I aim to throw it through the window. As much as I love cats this one is not natural it must go. But it hisses and I am paralyzed and the hiss masters me and then dogs start to bark and there is a hissing and a barking and a great terror and that is all there is now. I moan.

I awake on my back in bed in sweating terror I am paralyzed. One hand is over my chest and the other...over my groin? I really cannot move, it is incredible. I close my eyes and I see lights so I open them again and wait until the terror passes. They'll be here any minute. Who? This really is the famous sleep paralysis. It happens most to people on their backs. This is one of the explanations for the abduction phenomenon. I can see why.

I turn on the light and I go to write it all down. I doubt I'd forget that soon. But have to be sure. I wonder what happened? Maybe the scratch on my eye is getting irritated during REM? Maybe the alcohol from last night? Maybe both. Maybe not.

It has passed but recollecting it is uncomfortable and there is a lingering ring in my ears and I am thankful for the glowing electronic comfort of the laptop.

I dread going back to sleep.

The Sun Through The Trees Made Me Think Of Life As I Laid On A Bench Looking Up

I woke up in some strange delusion a few mornings ago and wrote down what was going on before it left my mind. With stuff like that...once it is gone...it is gone. All you can remember of that stuff is the feeling it gave you or the light touch of the impression it left.

Well I read over it again and it resembled something someone would write under the influence.

We ended discussion early today because nobody had anything to talk about and there was only about 6 or 7 people in the room anyway. She was trying to keep a discussion going but the room was dead silent in the end. I felt sorry for the TA. The room was almost clear and I was one of the last to leave and she was looking down at her papers when I passed and I did not have to meet her face. It wasn't her fault that there was something wrong with that class. The sun was warm and bright outside and the breeze was cool and just right and the sky was blue and the grass was green but I still felt sorry.

In a crummy old bathroom behind the discussion room I looked in the mirror and for the first time in a while I didn't feel a sense of shame. Maybe I'm getting somewhere. I flushed all the toilets in there with my boot because they were all filled with urine and other things. I guess everyone thinks since its a crappy bathroom they can act like a scumbag. Or maybe it is the type of people that go to that particular bathroom that make it look that way. Or maybe they are consciously trying to conserve water and I'm wrong about it all. Whatever the case, I'm a toilet flusher vigilante. I'm above the toilet law.

I almost tripped myself trying to run for the changing crosswalk light. I didn't make it. I think I hurt my foot.

I got in my car and sighed and was lost in the music as I drove down and out of the parking structure where people were still hunting for spots. Tuesdays and Thursdays are rough. Someone got my spot though. I'm sure they were grateful for a few seconds.

I'm trying to figure out what I'm genuinely good at. For a career. Moderation doesn't usually pay. No one wants to fork out the cash for someone who is just a Renaissance man.

I guess we'll see.

And The Prognosis

Psychadelia can be contagious.

North Now, To Riverside

Descend into the dusk-lit valley that is Riverside. Coming down from the hills, steep grade. 80 and past. Faster. Floating down now. The sun is still leaving. Descend with the sun. The hills are lit with an orange-magenta. This is the time when the colors are soft and bold. The hills are striking with their defined shadows in the purple haze.

In the valley is a glittering river of lights of a thousand stopped cars against a blazing orange sky. The lights are white, which means the locked traffic is going the other direction. Not to worry.

The speed goes all the way. Smooth transitions between lanes. Streamline. Lingering memories of the descent in the setting sun of a time just past. It is these times.

With reverence.

Just South Of UC Irvine, Heading South

This toll road is a winding stream that you can see curve up into the hills blazing white against the green-brown, and you come down a hill doing 80 and the valley opens up and you can see the road curving up into the hills and you can see a massive suburban sprawl in the hills, their westward-facing windows glinting from the late afternoon sun. This is the road that all roads should be like. They can't of course. They can't. But they should. Many speed on the toll road. Not as enforced there. Not as much population. Past the suburban hills is nothing for a while. A good sight in a place like this. And the wind roars against the car because the road is wide open and there is nothing to shield it. And the desolation and the wind and the speed and it feels like...by god it feels like anarchy. However obscure of an association that is.

You do have to pay. So it is not the holy grail road, no.

But there are certain moments here that inspire that feeling, that feeling like...ok...this is good. This is fine. This I don't get to see so often. Or feel. This is alright.

Whatever that fleeting moment is worth.

Goddammit

And so a moment of triumph was not really a moment of triumph at all.

Ehm Ehm

Yes yes yes yes yes.

Mmhmmm.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Yeeeep.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

This little cold bug won't let go. Or whatever it seems to be. Mysterious forces and creatures and such and such and such.

Aha.

No.

Not Like Elmer's (Jeez, Poor Cow)

I was just about to go to bed. Just about to.

It's just, it's just these 5-6 pages of questions every week. Annoying as hell. I usually do the philosophy reading without any nudging or suggesting, because I enjoy it. But having 5 pages of questions to answer makes me not want to read. And I don't. I just find where the question wants me to answer and I answer it. I haven't done the questions yet. They're due tomorrow. Been doing them in the morning. It is a bad habit lately. So I think about what I have to do tomorrow, and I think, fuck class. I'm not even feeling that well right now. So I set my alarm 2 hours forward. I'll just go to discussion and turn those stupid questions in. If I get them done. Jesus. That's healthy.

Well it is healthy in a sense I guess. Used to worry too much. Now not so much. But the academic discipline has literally decayed over the years. It is rotten now. Like a termite infested stair step that collapses under foot, and maybe even scrapes the inside of your leg where it will be annoying because of the sweat and abrasion.

And I get to thinking about the great glue monster. You know, general humanity. It has these goopy tendrils that it slaps on the deviants and it drags them in. It wants everything outside of it to become like it, as it, become it, essentially. Do something, say something, anything odd and outside of normalcy and you are dragged back in to be homogenized. At least in concept. Sociologically speaking. In our heads. I'm not suggesting that this really physically happens. Or something I dunno. But...

But I guess that is nature. That is how it functions. That is part of the structure of humanity itself, and to be any living extension around here you have to acquiesce to the framework of that form of life to exist as such. A small price to pay I guess. But I think I can still grumble about it. And there's always living at the top of some mountain somewhere, subsisting on the environment with beard and all.

I wonder if water ever gets tired of its liquidity, or rocks of their solidity. Is there an atom in there somewhere that is like, "C'mon guys, we should try vibrating a little more sometime, we should move around and do shit", only to find that the other atoms don't do that kind of thing and the lone atom is doomed to stay vibrating with that low activity that he is so tired of?

Ah well, you know how that goes.





It's not like I'm proposing nihilism.




Yeah. Fuck class tomorrow.

Wowzer

200th post.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit.

Well, I'll have to do something special to celebrate.

Ummmm:

Today Was Cock (At Least The Beginning)

He told me something about my hair and my sunglasses. He was holding out his hand, a big smile on his face. Why me? Always me. They always find me. They know I'm patient, somehow, they can sense it. I felt sorry that he had to get my attention by throwing out awkward compliments. At first I thought he was crazy. I felt sorry. I felt sorry that he had to do that, I would have listened to what he had to say anyway. I gave him a little money because I felt sorry about that too. He gave me some literature that I ended up throwing away at the end of the day because for a minute I hated myself and I hated the literature and I hated the author who was critiquing philosophers based on his own narrow religious world view. Maybe I was being narrow myself. It doesn't matter now. I blew it all away with rum. Washed it all down... into headache oceans...disorientating...like falling down a flight of stairs unconscious and waking to what it is, what really is at the bottom of the stairs, and not a bunch of pillows like there was during my childhood.

Childhood. When I was a different creature altogether. You'd think we really do have free will, and it sure feels like we do, but I am such a different person compared to the kid I once was. I wonder what a self is, what an individual is, if it stays whole as one. I used to scream in my sleep and my parents thought I was being murdered. What a heavy thing to hear in the middle of the night (sometimes I do every once in a while). But I don't ever remember any of it. You can't. You can't remember the things you do in sleep. I used to sleep walk all the time. Find myself in strange places.

Where do the dreams come from? Sometimes I feel like I'm just along for the ride and I'm piloting some strange beast that I still don't understand. It is like there is this center of cohesion but under the center where all the workings are is this ancient alien mind. The average man thinks he knows himself, probably because he doesn't really think at all. What freedom that must be. Maybe its just me.

I watched a trail of ants out in the backyard, and noticed that they seem to converge and gravitate to one another when they are passing each other, even if they are on opposite sides and could easily pass without touching. But they seem to like to stop and touch for just a second, and then move on. I don't know if that matters right now or not.

The sun was warm and a bird passed by overhead and that moment was frozen cinematic and I felt like I knew it would happen just that way as it happened. Your color balance will make the world blue if you close your eyes out in the sun for a while.

In class at the end of the day when I was feeling especially cynical I overhead a really great conversation. People were talking about the article we had to read, the correspondence between Freud and Einstein, a correspondence that I thought was very classic and insightful. I vaguely remember what they said:

"So I was trying to read that thing with Freud and Einstein last night."

"Oh yeah, yeah."

"Yeah like...I was like...uhhhhhhhh. Man so boring. They just babbled on. No real points or anything. It just felt pointless."

"Yeah babble is a good word for it."

I guess it was my opinion against theirs. They have a different way of thinking. Or the absence of the mentioned. Their words were insightful as well. Almost as insightful as the correspondence for sure. Very classical. I agree. No point. Lots of babbling. They were very wise in their particularily scathing critique.

They looked like hairless monkeys sitting there exchanging glances and laughing. I thought about feeding them a banana. After maybe beating them with it.

Sometimes I worry about this venom.

Then I try not to care. And then I don't care.

The drunk survives the crash because his body is loose and relaxed.

What? Que?

Many dreams last night. All an indefinite blur. Parking trouble? Ordering strange tropical drinks? Class is done and we are returning our books?

Waking up when it is cold is the hardest. It is a great leap from the inside of the covers with warmth to the cold outside. Thank goodness for hooded robes. Taking a shower sucks. Too hard to turn off that warm water.

I don't wanna go to school.

A Lone Black Cloud Passes Over The Sun

Sometimes I am in that rare mood when I look back over past blog posts of mine and I think about how stupid and pointless it all is. This deconstructive retrospect ( or destructive, both of which would be suitable names for whatever it is) can apply to any other activity or endeavor I have been engaged in. It all depends on what my attention is focused on when the mood hits.

And I must say, I hate that fuckin' mood.

I hate it.

Good thing it is rare.

And it could just as well stay that way. We know what happens to people when that particular mood doesn't get so rare anymore.

Imageshit

eSnips or whatever the hell it is called sucks for photo upload. I think I have to sign in every time I want the photos to appear or something. Bullshit. Photobucket will have to do. Now that I know how to get into my account again, since they took a week or so emailing my password for some reason.

In the meantime: DiRT DiRT DiRT DiRT DiRT

Have A Coctail

"You know she's dying. Cancer. It's gone into her bones."

"Hm."

"Supposedly he took up cigars so that he could get it too and then he wouldn't be left alone."

"Yeah?"

"Sort of beautiful in its own way I guess. They're like one. Terrible way to go though."

"Mm."


There was a long silence as they sat and thought about the image. They were facing the ocean and watching it as it ebbed and flowed on the shore. There was nothing but the roar of the ocean, and the distant calling of a group of seagulls, and they sat, and the silence told them both more than conversing between themselves could ever tell. After a long period, they broke the silence.


"Where do you think we go when we die? What is it like?"

"Probably just nothing."

"I can't imagine that. It is hard to imagine."

"There was nothing before we were born and there will be nothing after we die."

"Maybe we just don't remember. Do you remember before you were born? Do you even remember being a baby?"

"..."


Just then a pack of seagulls drifted overhead, glowing white in the sun. Below them, the ocean surged.

"Just look at the ocean. Look at the seagulls. There's always life. Where do you think they are headed?"

"Probably North. But I don't know enough about seagulls to know for sure."

"But they'll always be back. They always come back."

"..."

"Let's go inside and get drunk. And then come back out and watch the ocean for a little longer. I like the wind and the sun."

She went inside to fix some coctails, closing the slider behind her. The less moisture inside the better. He turned to open the slider and saw the reflection of the ocean before him. Something glinted amidst the water and he turned to see what it was. The sun, he thought. He opened the slider and went inside. Air conditioned stillness. The slider closed and the roar of the ocean died and there was only the soft hum of the inside.

But the roar would be back.

My Name In Chords

D!




A!




Aw goddammit. There's no N.

Nnnnnnnn

Nnnnnnnnaaaaaa

NNNNNONSENSE

Thoughts On Justice And Other Things

So I get hypoglycemic during the afternoons when I don't have lunch. And my stomach starts to cave and contract and whisper dark threats up into my ears, and I remember my therapist saying a long time ago that untreated hypoglycemia may be the cause of many, many crimes and sometimes I can see that she might be right. I mean, as I was walking through the park in the middle of campus I was thinking about all the people I should rob and bludgeon and break open for sustenance.

Well actually I didn't really think about this when I walked through the park, but I thought other things. I thought about sitting in logic and thinking about my fellow students, "Golly, what a bunch of cretins." And how scary I must have looked with burning-coal eyes looking at something that can't possibly exist in the space above.

And then I thought about my Austin crackers. Well, I thought about them because I was eating them at the moment. I bring a pack with me every day because they have peanut butter in the middle of two crackers, like a sandwich. And protein levels out the blood sugar and helps the black thoughts become maybe at least gray (I'm pretty sure a fair amount of people go through this, including my Mom). And no fuckin' Windows I don't want to fuckin' restart my computer fuckin' now or for fuckin' today (I still haven't eaten yet, however it may be more beneficial to get this written in the appropriate state of mind).

Well, anyway, the Austin crackers. See, I was eating this peanut butter chocolate flavor, which is pretty tasty for what it is, and what they do is save on expenses and very cleverly leave out filling for every two sandwiches in each package (I am right about this, I have checked). And this makes me feel gypped. Now I think justice would be had if they were told to fill all the sandwiches with filling so that I could get two more sandwiches of protein, but what if someone out there really liked the crackers by themselves? Wouldn't it be just for them if the crackers were left unfilled? And furthermore, would it be even more just that all the crackers should just come as crackers and nothing else? (I know they could just buy another type of cracker but that doesn't help the argument).

So now I am thinking about the relativity of justice and its relations in terms of current power and control, and then certain universal ideas of justice such as human rights (which is still not completely universal I guess) and how all these moving parts collide and cause friction in the machinery and what a mess it all is.

And then I thought about other things and went to my next class where the teacher was talking about the Pullman strike, and I could swear she kept looking at me and I was growing very paranoid and dark and the whole vibe was very strange.

And all those fuckers out there driving...who's giving these cretins licenses?

The Suggestion (Urgent Now)

"Rest, man. You need to rest. You are sick, and it will not go away. It is all catching up. It will claim you yet."

"Yes I know, I know. It's my goddamn sinuses, and my stomach. My head just feels so sour, and my throat, and my nose, oh. And I try to swallow some of it down and it goes into my stomach and those waves come up and I just can't stand it. It has been like this for at least a week."

"Yes, yes I have seen this many times before. It is a case of the Hell Ass. It is a vicious case in which a cold/flu attaches its vicious tendrils and refuses to let go. They say it feeds on your soul, if it exists. Bed is key. You must lay down. Fluids. Immunity boosters. Rest is key. Power down the machine, close the sails, lock the place up. There must be darkness."

"Hell Ass? Jesus. It is pretty serious then. I suppose you're right. Sleep? Sleep sounds good. But I have to go to school. Oh I can't stand it. I can't even concentrate in this condition, I don't see the point."

"Aha, right. Well you must carry on you know. I prescribe plenty of rejuvenation for sure, if you can prescribe that, or if that just comes from what I prescribe I don't know do you understand?"

"No. I'm going to go get some rest. Thanks. Goodbye."

"Yessirree goodbye sir. Hibernate like a bear does. Hell Ass will not claim you yet."



And so I powered down the machine, and I got into bed, and as I lay I stared vacantly into the room across from me, into the mirror, and I saw my face, and I wondered what a sick man looked like, and when I looked into the mirror, my face didn't look any different. It looked like it always looked. And then a wave of nausea took me and I lied back down and went to sleep.

Working On A Sheer Stone Face On A Scaffold Stretched Over An Immense Darkness

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being a displacement here, for whatever forces I contribute to, for whatever weaknesses, whatever vices I have, I can't confess sins I don't believe in them and I can't...

"What are you mumbling over there? Stop shaking the scaffold, we need to finish the Construct so that they can gaze upon it and be filled with majesty. We cannot fall into the unfinished ruins below or we will be lost. Are you not lost yourself? We are payed well for this job, do not mess it up for me."

He was standing with his arms crossed over one another, a hammer in his right hand. A chilled wind came down from the mountains (you could see them in the distance over the green hills) and cut through us both.

I resumed mumbling to myself, internalizing his threats that were now spewing from his vulgar mouth, feeling the acids rise and submerge my insides. It hurt so much and I hated it.

"I can't work anymore. I don't want any of this. I don't want the construction. I don't want the money. I don't want there to be a Construct (I obscenity in the milk of the Construct. Muck it. Muck. Milk. The unprintable words, the substitutions)".

The Construct is to be a monolith, a testament to everything that stands, to inspire all who look upon it with awe.

My hand comes down from the clouds and plucks the antagonist from the scaffold, and I crush him into a fine paste in my palm and then sprinkle the remains over the unfinished monolith.

I shudder with laughter at the sudden vision, and he looks at me in wide-eyed disbelief, and his expression freezes immortal as I shudder over the scaffold edge and fall free into the immense darkness below, still laughing, almost like a caw now, like a great crow, flapping and cawing and mad with relief and release.

And it is good.

Excerpts From a Time Long Past Pt. 3 (Extrapolated)

• While in a haze: Black and white, glowing skeletal frame, sheen, phosphorous, sheets of soft light on neon black.
  

• The same bug is wandering on a field of endless gray: my bed sheet. What does it look to him? What does it feel like?

• Uneasy. Say that. Just a little.
  

• Sometimes you put a band-aid on a wound and the wound heals but your band-aid is still there and you treat the area with the band-aid like you would treat the wound if it wasn't healed at all, like that band-aid symbolizes what the wound is supposed to be, and has managed to take its place. You still favor the area. Maybe it even still hurts in your head.
  

• On receiving a parking ticket in Newport Beach: We lay down glue all over the coast and wait for the flies to land so that we can suck them for what they have while the water laps, shimmering in the sun and the seagulls glide over the haze above. What we do to ourselves in the face of such beauty, such beauty that should be untouched, but is now covered in our glue.
  

• Coming down: Smashed glass fissures, interrupted memory flow, diverted to other comers of the piece, sullenly awaiting the reflection of another time (thought?).
  

• Go peacefully into the ink night while I roll up into myself and deeper, as the cave opens up into the main chamber.
  

• Gossip: How does it all work, I ask you asking me to ask him what he thinks there you go. This fractured story-telling excludes most of the audience and isolates them into themselves. See how this silences you and sets your mouth at a slope.
  

• On peaks and valleys: Getting high is like jumping into the air. You leave the ground, reality, for a period, and you are above it, and then you come back down. The crash is hitting the ground, feeling that ground, reality, more intensely for a brief second before everything returns to normal, and the ringing nerves in your feet quiet themselves.
  

• Finally, a great quote: "I think it's really important to be environmentally aware. That's why I drive a car made of imaginary magical bricks!" -Some flower chick in Peggle