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.