A Story About Babies

A story idea I had while reading Zack's latest. I'm never sure, with these things, whether my purpose comes across correctly. This story shouldn't have a point.

I trudged through a world the color and consistency of wet newspaper. Chin tucked against my chest, one hand wiping weightless snow from my eyes, the other buried deep in my left jacket pocket. Tree branches danced above me, an occasional load of snow fell, and a liberated, newly light branch flew in the air above me. I only felt the cold, sterile disappointment of this dead snow, melting down the back of my collar. Morning and warmth seemed distant.

Later

I walked back. The snow had stopped falling hours ago; my sharply defined winter shadow revealed a bright sun which would never warm me. I walked quickly down the slight hill, eyes forward and unseeing. Ahead, a spill of washed out red sunk into the snow which pooled before me. I reached the mark, looked around, but could find no owner for the curled potential which almost seemed to swim in its own blood. Squinting, I see ten possible shadowy outlined fingers.

Closer

They call it a fetus. I know the word, but can claim no knowledge of this tiny monster at my feet. Two steps, and I have passed it; in five minutes, I am over the hill, and thinking of home.

Holy Shit I Am So Excited I Could Start A Headbutting Contest With A Billy Goat Or Perhaps Grizzly Bear And Win!

Faux-Hawk has a blog!

[ghostmap.blogspot.com]

I will chainsaw it to sidebar as soon as I muster up the energy to code wrastle.

Haute Couture (sp?)

The concert was cool. There were shenanigans, and I may need to break Zack's kneecaps some time in the future. Perfected new pick up technique, in my mind at least. It is hilarious.

My favorite thing of the night - 2 indie guys standing a foot or two apart, both wearing those retarded jackets, with hair in front of eyes cut, slightly used bell bottomy jeans, converses (it is converse, right?), and identical rolypoly indie girlfriends.

My brain was laughing so hard, I almost couldn't hear the music.

It's hilarious how certain trends begin as individuals trying to promote something unique about themselves (even if that unique quality is clothing), and end as faceless peoples buying mass produced knock-offs. I hear the same thing happened with the hippy scene back in the 60's.

Stolen Words

This is the last paragraph of Jorge Luis Borges' short story, The Lottery in Babylon. It is awesome.

The Company, with godlike modesty, shuns all publicity. Its agents of course, are secret; the orders it constantly (perhaps continually) imparts are no different from those spread wholesale by impostors. Besides - who will boast of being a mere imposter? The drunken man who blurts out an absurd command, the sleeping man who suddenly awakes and turns and chokes to death the woman sleeping at his side - are they not, perhaps, implementing one of the Company's secret decisions? That silent functioning, like God's, inspires all manner of conjectures. One scurrilously suggests that the Company ceased to exist hundreds of years ago, and that the sacred disorder of our lives is purely hereditary, traditional; another believes that the Company is eternal, and teaches that it shall endure until the last night, when the last god shall annihilate the earth. Yet another declares that the Company is omnipotent, but affects only small things: the cry of a bird, the shades of rust and dust, the half dreams that come at dawn. Another, whispered by masked heresiarchs, says that the Company never existed, and never will. Another, no less despicable argues that it makes no difference whether one affirms or denies the reality of the shadowy corporation, because Babylon is nothing but an infinite game of chance.

Sky and Castle

A heavily edited and possibly improved version of an older story. Advice appreciated.

A blue sky, streaked with broad swaths of aquamarine, as if a painter's watery brush had strayed, blending the spheres of sea and air. A pale gray dot floats within this cloudless sky, an improbable apparition. The dot is solidly defined, but distant, it hangs upon the skyline like an unasked question.

Features leap into distinction as I move closer, and my eyes dance over parapets, crenelations, sharp towers, and a central keep. I remember my life, remember my father, remember

“Parapets?” My feet swung beneath my grandfather's old tall chair; fingers pryed and searched the chair's painted back. The test was tomorrow, Monday; my young hands spelt their anxiety on the ancient chair.

“P-A-R-A-P-E-T-S” He speaks slowly, distinctly, the same way we speak on the phone, now.

“Uh...” I stall, of course. I can tell he knows I'm stuck, now, but I didn't realize it all those years ago. “It's like, something in a castle...” That's what we were studying - what I was studying.

He doesn't smile, but his eyes are suddenly larger, and I feel small, like I'm about to watch an actor preform. His arms bow, index finger extend, and he's suddenly a monkey, hands raised, pointing at his underarms. He's started to laugh now, and I laugh too, watching him hop around the ground.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and now I can identify the castle's features as it moves closer.

Bird droppings speckle the castle's numberless roofs. The dark shingled roofs seem somehow older, greyer and more weathered than the stone which supports them. The stone itself is painted with moss, thickest on the ground, thinner as the towers and walls rise. I find weak spots in the north tower roof, spots along the wall where water has leaked through the roof and given rise to independent colonies of moss.

I don't need to see the roof from inside the tower to identify the problem. It's common in buildings from that time period, a major problem for the societies which restore old English estates and castles. My father and I discussed the flaw when I was still studying architecture, when we had something in common besides a love for bad jokes and worse food, and we never agreed. It was a disagreement we cherished, one which led to boisterous laughter and complaints about new techniques and textbooks.

He built mainly residential then, and the work had become a part of the household, since he started working out of an unused upstairs room. He liked skylights, clever corners, french doors, and open winding staircases. Now, I look for these features as I pass through houses, and can only completely approve when each is present.

The castle must have been built in a different time. The castle sits on a ball of mud and rock, like a strange and inturned growth, slumbering as it hangs in the sky.

My feet touch the ground with that weightless one small step quality I never feel in life. It is hard to tell the difference between earth and stone. The ground has been broken into itself by hundreds of feet, hundreds of years, and nothing soft remains.

There is only a few feet of cold naked ground between the edge and castle. One step, an outstretched arm, and I stand rooted between earth and stone walls. My fingers pry the wide cracks between immense blocks, and I reach higher, look higher, and see

The blue above me, gray castle walls my horizon, and the distant ocean reflects a quiet sun. I should feel vertigo at this point, and I concentrate, probing with perverse curiosity for that slow and deliberate full pendulum swing as a weight travels around my stomach and my ears rebel while eyes water and tears betray my body's struggle with the impossible sight. This is a dream. I feel nothing.

More Rainy Day Links

Dance
IT Crowd creator's blog
TurboTanks!

People to Remember

http://thediableros.tv/music.html

Philogystic Misogynist

I am hunting my cat. This is what I do on rainy Saturday nights.

Soon I will activate.

To do:

Shower
Wear clothers
Be Awesome

Reread this.

I Speak to the Hills + Goblins!

I have been omega creative today. I blame lack of sleep + caffeine + goblins.

Holy shit brain I will wrestle you until you fucking shut down stop thinking things you son of a bitch I promise I will sedate you with booze and violence but not now that is for the future my pretty.

Koalas

Koalas will kill you.

No Coffee, No Booze Day '06 went well. Except now I want both coffee and booze. Booze to help me sleep, plus fill me with healthy whiskey metabolites, coffee to help me stay awake tomorrow.

Note to Any Relatives: I don't really drink either liquid as much as the above paragraph indicates.

Also, I'm thinking of celebrating on Wednesday. We should gather an intimate crowd, and drink until we can't feel feelings any more. For an event of the epic drunkenness I imagine, we're going to need a few supplies:

1) Twister game
2) Cards
3) Aspirin
4) Gatorade
5) Soft drinks
6) A firm "Nudity = Bad" policy
7) Massive amounts of spirits
8) A room that can be safely trashed

Feel free to comment/grab me in the halls with suggestions.

Now, I sleep + read book by funny foreign man.

Read Borges

I like turning off the portable hard drive. It makes a desperate gear-like back of the throat catching sound before dying, and instead of feeling sorry for it, I just feel awesome.

I shot it the evil eye just now, it has been defeated and I will make its hard plastic shell into a hat.

Warning: I will not be drinking coffee tomorrow. If I seem out of sorts, it's because I'm fighting the power. Also, no other caffeine. Also, no booze.

Holy shit, tomorrow is going to suck. It's like I'm abandoning everything that is good and true in life. Now I know how the hard drive feels.

How to Eat Sushi

Linked from YouTube

An Attempt at Dialogue

A blue sky, streaked with broad swaths of aquamarine, as if a painter's watery brush had strayed, blending the spheres of sea and air. A pale gray dot floats within this cloudless sky, an improbable apparition. The dot is solidly defined, but distant, it hangs upon the skyline like an unasked question.

Features leap into distinction as I move closer, and my eyes dance over parapets, crenelations, sharp towers. I remember my life, remember my father, remember

"Parapets?"

"P-A-R-A-P-E-T-S" He speaks slowly, distinctly, the same way we speak on the phone.

"Uh..."” I stall, of course. I know he knows I'm stuck, now, but I didn't realize it all those years ago. "“It's like, something in a castle..."” That's what we were studying.

He doesn't smile, but his eyes are suddenly larger, and I feel small, like I'm about to watch an actor preform. His arms bow, index finger extend, and he's suddenly a monkey, hands raised, pointing at his underarms. He's started to laugh now, and I laugh too, watching him hop, feet slapping the carpet as he bounces.

Dancing Time!

This is my "I just finished my paper" dance. There's other pictures, but they're too damn dorky for mortal eyes.



This is when my brother decided to show me how it's done:




Yes, that is a robe. Yes, he did steal it from me.

Almost Done

I'm about done with the paper, and basically out of my fucking mind.

Thanks, caffeine.

Paper Due in 15 Hours

I've been writing a lot. Not the good kind of writing - the kind you do when you have a six page paper due the next day and you didn't start it until 3pm on Sunday, and then you goofed off until 5pm, and even then you only wrote 2 pages in 4 hours.

So that's going well.

It's times like this that I really envy the coke heads. I used to go out with this girl who partook semi-regularly, and she'd just speed through papers, once she got a bit of coke in her brain. I'd end up burning out about 2am, and the girl would show up back at the apartment at 8am, having finished 2 different papers, both longer than the one paper I was assigned.

I probably won't be in class tomorrow, maybe not at the thing tomorrow night either.

Tocqueville info

Complete online version of Democracy in America

(not really what I mean by "goof off")
((not my confession))

Camera + Hair

Weekend News

Apparently, my cousins read this blog. Who knew?

I got a mohawk. If you ask why, be prepaired to hear a long list of reasons. I have four, and I'm trying to figure out a good fifth reason.

And, I need to complete a 6 page paper by 5:00 on Monday. If you need me, I'll be in the computer lab.

Still Needs Stuff

There's a stupid sort of brute excitement which infects men of a certain age. I felt it that night, carrying a bottle in my left hand, while my right steadied the bag against my side. We walked through tough grass which reached our knees at times; occasionally a bramble would take hold of the old bag, tumbling it in my grasp. The high grass lent an additional excitement to the night, as if the two of us were fighting against an enemy, united, as is impossible in peace.

We had created this enemy for ourselves, earlier. The moon may have been high then, but neither of us saw it. We were standing in the kitchen of my apartment. I had put on shoes when I heard him on the stairs, and he had not removed his shoes to step inside. I wonder if the tile beneath our feet reflected our eager faces as we spoke, and I wonder if the kitchen windows were clear. All I remember was the plan, the excitement, and the quickness with which he agreed to my plan. It was uncharacteristic, perhaps unrealistic, but we wanted danger. We let ourselves create danger that night, in the kitchen, while the moon may have watched.

He had been trained for this madness. Watching him as we loaded the bag, sheltered by the porch roof, I could almost see a strained readiness in his movements. He carefully folded the blanket around the red and chipped plastic gas can, shoulder tight and controlled, fingers mad and trembling. These crazed fingers will one day hover, poised over triggers, radar targeting devices, fix bayonets, load magazines, enter targeting data, confirm launch codes.

I felt betrayed by the park that night. I expected the gates to be locked, breathless moments spent crouched in shadow as guards walked by, silent curses as bottles shattered beneath a misplaced boot. Instead, we walked along deserted trails, beneath the old iron bridge, passing sleeping bundles into the still undeveloped park, using the kudzu encrusted railway and vivid lights of the distant road as our guides. I had been here once before, and I remembered the eerie museum-like quality of the place. Then, abandoned concrete shapes formed pits and outcroppings in the sun, simple sculptures, worshiped by congregations composed of tough grass and occasional rebellious teenagers. Now, the pale concrete beams blocked the far off lights, creating pools of nothing where only darkness fell. We found a long concrete bowl, dry and dark behind a misplaced wall. We slipped silently into the dark pool, happy to find the danger which the park refused to provide.

Notes from the Subway

Women on cell (not in order): I mean, he could at least call; just two words - I'm alive; You see it all the time on the news - black male found dead, mid 20's; yeah I mean he has to value his life; It's been 5 or 6 months.

"whispering pain"

I had dinner with Halley, her boyfriend, and Leah tonight. It was fun, we grilled various meats. Boyfriend apparently knows a good deal about breaking and entering, seems psyched about rooftop thing.

Leah is a rollercoaster of weird. In a good way. I hope. Or else she may be planning to sew my skin into a hat.

Ran home from Arts Center barefoot. Quite excellent. Apparently, I run faster barefoot than in these fucking flat soled clown shoes.

I should practice guitar, then sleep. Things to look forward to: New Orleans, morning, Zack not dying of consumption, Mexico, the band, finishing this story, French, Russian, listening to music before bed, sleep, clean sheets, activating cat.

Reasons to think about dating:

- Excuse to clean room
- Kind of like a hobby
- Late night walks
- the usual
- Rejection = hilarious
- DoL
- Chance to test condom size theory

Reasons to avoid dating like the plague:

- Boring womenfolk
- Less reading
- Less writing
- Less money
- Extra person to feed
- Gotta figure out excuses for not saying "I love you"
- Boring breakup awkwardness

Takes 38 minutes to reach apartment from Oglethorpe station.

Concerts

The Electric Six, She Wants Revenge, Rock Kills Kids

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Elefant, Morning After Girls

Peelander-Z, Bling the Children Back Home, Zombie Army

Silver Jews

Animal Collective, Storsveit Nix Noltes

Information Wants To Be Free

I was going to write something about differences between men and women, but it wasn't really making sense.

The basics:

Women tend to avoid revealing problems, even when it is evident that a problem exists. I'm not sure why. I imagine a poker player holding her cards close to her chest so spectators can't look over her shoulder, without realizing that the cards themselves are transparent.

For some reason, this only applies to problems related to emotion and thought. I remember speaking with a girl one night, and hearing numerous details about her life, like child abuse and an abortion while she was still a teen. She never really spoke about how she felt, she just described the events, as if she assumed that I would be able to understand how these events effected her.

I don't know about you, but I'm not that psychic.

Men however, seem eager to speak about emotions, but tend to avoid revealing traumatic events.

I'm not sure why this is, but it seems to run contrary to the normal stereotype.


I was thinking about this because I realize that many of my friends have hilariously complicated secret lives. And I've learned a billion little secrets today.

Is this tell Ben your secret day?

I hope so.

PS: On campus late tonight, we should go for a walk.

Can't Sleep the Clowns Will Eat Me...

So, you've all had trouble getting to sleep at some point, right? You're lying there, and sleep almost seems like a trick you forgot, as if you suddenly found you couldn't swim or ride a bike or even walk. You remember the basic motions of sleep, getting into bed, turning off lights, closing eyes, and finally lying motionless.

But, it's as if a barrier prevents your consciousness from actually moving between the state of life and sleep.



This may be where our experiences differ, because I generally have two possible responses at this point:

I either quietly panic, and end up lying in bed thinking of the number zero with my eyes closed, or just say fuck it, and start wandering until I get sleepy. I managed to get all the way around Piedmont Park and wander as far as City Hall East using this method once.

Zack knows how the shit goes down.

We Need Structure, Damnit

There's a stupid sort of brute excitement which infects men of a certain age. I felt it that night, carrying a bottle in my left hand, while my right steadied the bag against my side. We walked through tough grass which reached our knees at times, and, occasionally, a bramble would take hold of the old bag, tumbling it in my grasp. The high grass lent an additional excitement to the night, as if the two of us were fighting against an enemy, united, as is impossible in peace.

We had created this enemy for ourselves, earlier. The moon may have been high then, but neither of us saw it. We were standing in the kitchen of my apartment. I had put on shoes when I heard him on the stairs, and he had not removed his shoes to step inside. I wonder if the tile beneath our feet reflected our eager faces as we spoke, and I wonder if the kitchen windows were clear. All I remember was the plan, the excitement, and the quickness with which he agreed to my plan. It was uncharacteristic, perhaps unrealistic, but we wanted danger. We let ourselves create danger that night, in the kitchen, while the moon may have watched.

I'd like to write more, but I'm having trouble thinking of something as cool as these first two paragraphs.

My rough outline.

1) Description of walking through the grass, just before we reach the dry drainage ditch

2) Description of our first meeting that night

3) Description of buying booze, maybe driving, dark streets

4) transition between driving and walking, some sort of musing on fundamental differences

5) from there, more detailed descriptions of the history between myself and Chris, perhaps using his name, a catalogue of injuries inflicted

6) from under the bridge to the dog park. Did we see a homeless guy sleeping under there?

7) old and new piedmont, maybe more Chris vs Ben

8) skip the grass, straight to the pit

9) the fire, the light, smoke, what we burned

10) some sort of ending, I've got no fucking idea, endings are for suckers

Also, in that first sentence, is it better to use "men", "boys", "males", or something else? He was 20, I was 21.

Detective Story

Feeling... pensive?

I think I'll be cocooning for a bit, doing a lot of reading and writing.

From last night:

Daniel opened his eyes.
"Hello?"
There was no answer.

Groaning, Daniel lifted his head and surveyed the bed. First problem -– the bed was a desk. Second problem -– the bottle next to his outstretched hand was empty. He dragged his arm out of the whiskey pooled near the edge of his desk, and managed to prop himself up.

It was dark, so he'd at least managed to pull the blinds before passing out. His ashtray, normally piled high with whatever brand cigarette he was smoking that week, had been emptied. Looking across the office, he could make out a disturbing sense of order among the piles of Manila folders and binders which normally littered the floor of the office.

The next great American novel, starring a psychic detective who drinks to block out the voices.

A Personality Profile

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Told You

Graft

I always suspected...

This Is Fucking Amazing

Ok. You've seen The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, right? You get the basic gist?

We could do something much like Munchausen, in that we tell stories which may or may not be fictional. We shall sit in a circle, and pontificate.

We might need a bottle or two of wine, some fine cheeses, and aromatic devices.

Holy shit this is a brilliant idea.

1.368

As I walked to the High earlier tonight, I thought about shoes.

I'm comfortable in shoes between size 12-1/2 and size 13. If forced, I can stand a 12. Tonight, I went to Homecoming wearing size 11 shoes. After about 20 minutes, I realized that I couldn't effectively move in those shoes, so I walked back home and changed into my normal clown shoes.

The average men's shoe size today is 9-1/2 (based on data available in 2002). Compared to the average shoe, I imagine my shoes as the pads which water bugs use to skate over the surface of water. My weight is distributed over such a wide area that I cannot break water's surface tension.

Blah Blah Blah

I remember spending two hours sitting with my bro' on Monday night, listening to him as he came down from some mediocre acid.

I'm not sure exactly how he felt then, but I have a feeling my current mental state may be similar to his on Monday.

It's just one of those talking moods, you know?

That's one of the only disadvantages in my current situation. Normally, I avoid spending huge amounts of time with other people. But now, I just want to talk my brains out.

I'll hang up clothes instead.

Henry Dobbins was a good man, and a superb soldier, but sophistication was not his strong suit.

I realize I'm posting a lot. Shouldn't allowances be made for inebriated state plus desire to hide evidence?

I'm not sure what that last sentence meant.

I'm going for a walk, and I may be aiming for foods. Remind me to tell you about various laws broken in last two days. Feel a little bit punk rock, a little bit country.

Behold the Power of Booze:

I'm about to type some random thoughts. They are affected by something between level 3 and level 4 drunkenness (scale of 1-5, over 5 being blackout level). Isn't it strange how people band together for set events, like homecoming, but their behavior in these events deviates from the norm? I wonder what percentage of people choose to deviate from norm, and what percentage use outside influences like booze and various drugs to set themselves in a mental state which allows deviation? Do you feel like that sometimes? Like you are conciously changing your brain patterns in order to participate in something? The change can be artificially based, or simpily some sort of "psyching up". I mean, my basic understanding of other people is based on my observations; namely, the most powerful motivational forces within peoples are lonlyness, understanding of the impermenant nature of pretty much fucking everything, and some shit that I haven't really decided on which is probably based on some sort of peer pressure type thing. I dunno, peer pressure is a bit of a sketchy term - there must be some originating force which makes us succeptable to peer pressure. I guess it could be loneliness. But isn't loneliness also a taught mind set? If only we lived in Roussaueoue's universe. Did you read that part in Roussaueouaues's paper where he used the physical features of animals to back up some argument? I thought it was hilarious how they had added a footnote which baldly stated the falsity of his claim. It's hard to respect a person who doesn't really do their basic research, but I think there' s validity to some of Rouseashead's ideas. I guess they could broadly be interpreted as some sort of argument against straight humanism, or at least conventional definitions of humanism. I dunno, I've always been a fan of Sagan, if he says something is cool, I'm generally down with it. [You may have realized by this point that my writings here don't follow a particular logic. I would suggest an embrace of this fact, and perhaps the creation of a drinking game based on mispellings. It actually works pretty well, because the mispellings should decrease as I move towards sobriety.] Anyway, I sometimes get the idea that our actions are based on a meme/group perception, rather than actual logic. Then I worry about the general aplicability of logic. I mean, you've read about chaos theory, right? That shit is fucking bonkers! It is sending my soft liberal arts edjucated brain for a loop! Is the absence of contrations a good thing or a bad thing? One minute, I've gotta call a guy about food. I may be at the majestic. Shit. My plan didn't work. Now I will starve to death. I'm gonna make some foods, and hopefully that will equal relative sobriety plus ending of long random message. I guess I didn't really reach my main point, but you'll probably get their, assuming I tossed ahead a rational breadcrumb path.

My Feet Hurt

I've gotta go to that thing.

Read this while I'm gone.

If you finish that, try the Lent Sausage Scandal.

Or some math.


Fancy Suit, Activate!

I Have Links!

Not sure whether to keep up the previous two posts. I was pretty fucking out of it when they were written, and I'm not so much more aware now. For example, I made up this bit of doggeral as I walked from Oglethorpe to the pants sto':

I walk through a greyscale world, my path bound by frozen steel giants held in anticipation as they reach for an unseen paradice.

Some links:

12 percent of the U.S. population considers mental diseases to be a lifestyle choice.

Imaginary escort rating service.

Evolutionary Psychology.

Good night moon.

Pants!

My brother has called 4 times in the last 13 hours. Each time, he has informed me that there are people at home.

Does he realize that I do not live at home?


In other news: I just took a nice relaxing hobo shower, and now I'm off to the mall. I shall obtain dress pants.

Pray for me.

Mangy

Currently feeling slightly damp and pleasingly hobo-ish.

I ended up sleeping in Hearst, which was fine. I suppose I could have borrowed someone's couch, but I didn't want to impose, and I think the booze was making me feel a bit antisocial.

The two plays were pretty cool, I preferred the first one. I'd describe why, but I'm not sure how usefully my thoughts would be at this point.

I'm feeling slightly stoopid. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but I bet some bastard will tell me it's part of a liberal arts education.

On Deceit

If you're going to lie, make sure that your lie is unverifieable. For example, telling someone that you tried to call them about going to dinner but they didn't answer is a bad lie because records exist which contradict your statement. If you want to lie about something like that, it would be better to tell a more subtle lie which either complements your friend or makes logical sense based on your friends predilections.

If you were telling me a lie, you might say, "I was going to call, but I thought you mentioned [random girl] coming over, and figured you wouldn't want to do anything involving clothes". This lie is very useful because it complements my "sexual prowess", while displaying the liar as a sensitive friend. You might also say, "I was going to call, but we weren't going to be eating until midnight, and I know you like to get to bed early on Tuesdays and Thursdays." Again, this lie is one which seems plausible given my habits, and has the additional benefit of making the liar seem sensitive, when the opposite may in fact be true.

Based on the example above, it may seem like lying is pretty difficult because the liar must have a great deal of knowledge about their "mark". While it is true that you should know the target of a lie well, knowledge and preparation becomes less important when you lie to people who don't know you as well. While a friend may catch you in a lie because the lie contradicts what they know of your schedule or predilections, a stranger will often accept lies at their face values. Strangers are even more susceptible to lies which complement them because your complements do not have to be based in the reality of what you know. For example, while you might not complement a Muslim friend on winning a pig eating contest, this lie could be explained to a Muslim stranger as simply a slip-up based on not knowing their religion. In the end, you can just make random shit up, and as long as it's phrased like a complement, strangers will be happy and not worry about the truth of a statement.

Yeah, I Know, It Burns My Eyes Too

Working on a new design.

How do you like it, oh faceless masses?

I Can't Spell Irresponsible

I suppose it would be irresponsible to spend all of this money on booze.

Of course, spending it on food's just as irresponsible.

I mean, whatever I buy, I'm just going to consume eventually.

And thirty dollars of booze lasts longer than a like value of food, right?

Or maybe I shall buy a hat.

A bowler of some sort. Yes.

Then it will be doubly ironic if some eleven foot tall scraggly mother-fucker severs my head from my neck and uses my brain box as a bowling ball.

I bet the bowler will look curiously dainty as he removes the hat from my lifeless body and carefully places it on his overgrown chia pet of a head.

Redrum

My body is slowly turning red.

Cockles of My Heart

Awww...

The Cat is so cute. It was gnawing on my foot, and then it freaked out when it couldn't defeat me, and ran off into the bathroom. I thought the battle was won, but then it charged out and pounced at me, and I kind of dodged, and it smacked its head into the couch arm.

(I was sitting in front of the couch)

Now the Cat is sitting under the bed, sending hate signals at the couch.

I probably shouldn't have laughed when Cat was beaten by an inanimate object.

Content Later

School was awesome today. In the morning I harnessed the powers of coffee to make myself cheerful and chipmunklike. I hadn't had any coffee since Sunday, so that shit put me in fucking high gear.

I think at points that I was thinking like a billion times faster than anyone else in the room, and talking maybe twice as fast as they thought, so I would ask a question and then guess what they were about to say and then say it, thereby answering the question, and then move on to saying something else while non-caffeine powered persons were still trying to get words out of their pitiful sleep deprived brains.

I meant to ask a certain girl out, and had spent the whole week planning and stuff (the whole week being Monday and Tuesday), but then that certain girl scampered under mysterious conditions. Now I wonder if Certain Girl is functional, and am glad I didn't ask her out before she left, because I'm pretty sure she would have said something like, "buh, ok?" and then I wouldn't be sure if she meant yes she'd go out, or yes she was delirious.

I'm enjoying this process of developing a crush, it's been months since I was really interested in another Oglethorpian, and now I'd like to see how the whole thing pans out. Good or bad, it should be interesting, plus, don't I get xp for this shit?

I will increase my cooking skill so I don't have to spend another weekend surviving on Graham crackers and whiskey.

The rest of the day was cool too. They fed me mildly tasty things for lunch, and then I went to Hearst and read Kundera (I'm not writing the whole title, fuck that guy and fuck his long as title) which amuses me generally though I think the book could be about 100 pages shorter without detracting from its central point. Reading in the sun made me sleepy, and the professor was mysteriously absent, so I went to sleep for a bit until Zack tried to sneak up on me right before Creative Writing.

And even Creative Writing was good, though these fucking bastards kept talking before class started, and all I could hear was "mah mah mah pretentiousness pretentiousness mah starbucks mah mah youth mah stupidity". I am going to mount a flamethrower by my grave, and it will burn those who disturb my peace by talking about shit.

I'm not saying talking is bad, but I think that a speaker has a responsibility to be interesting and original, unless he's insulting Zack's mom. I mean seriously, sometimes I think people say shit just to fill some sort of void.

And no, you sarcastic bastard, this writing doesn't count as me saying shit to fill a void. It fills a useful purpose, and is given more leeway because it is awesome.

Oh, so anyway - Creative Writing was cool because I read stuff and didn't talk, then wrote stuff and didn't talk. I think the story will come out well.

Then I went home and slept some more and read and didn't call the dentist and wrote something else and looked guiltily at my guitar and didn't do laundry. So now I must eat beans and read more.

I wonder if Certain Girl has access to these writings. I kind of hope not. If Certain Girl does have access, and has read this, try to act surprised when I ask you out on Friday.

Oh! Actually, you could send me some kind of secret message, and we could both pretend that we knew nothing about the internets on Friday. That would be hilarious.

Also, Zack, I may post something later which indicates that you lied to me. It's not that I dislike lies, I just hate bad lies. It's sloppy thinking, and I find it personally insulting that anyone would assume I have a greater level of stupidity than actually exists.

Really, if you're dealing with me, just assume that I'm probably right, am very sneaky, and am very cunning. Also, don't question my knowledge of basic fucking geometry. I'm not saying I'm a genius, but I do try to make use of the grey goo which occupies the space between my ears.

Kids, With Their Loud Music and Internets

And that's the other thing - why don't you people ever sleep?

But What About Punk Rock?

I traded names with a man in the diner. After we paid the scribbled bill, I left for the washroom past a row of dead pay phones, while the man left through the front. I could already see that he had gained my slight limp as he struggled past the cashier.

I picked up the ringing payphone.

My wife was dead.

A very short story from a week or so ago, with a few touch-ups.

If you'll excuse me, I must eat my breakfast of coffee and hotdogs.

Face!

You plan ahead, and are interested in beauty, design, outward appearance, and symmetry.
You are a person who thinks before acting, intelligent and thorough.
You are diplomatic, objective, and live in the present.
You are not very reserved, impatient, self-confident and fond of action.
You enjoy life in your own way and do not depend on the opinions of others.

-

I suppose that's accurate.

Just Call Me Mr. Pants

I'll be at homecoming this weekend, complete with an awesome suit.

I don't want to brag or anything, but I look awesome in this suit. I'm like a fusion of elegance and panther-like grace.

Anyway, I'll be available to sign autographs and stuff. I should be sneaking into the dance an hour or so after it starts.

Picture availabe soon.

The High Fidelity Drinking Game

Note: this game is fucking dangerous if played with real booze, like whiskey straight. It might be best to use either mixed drinks or even sips of beer, unless you really hate your liver.

requirements:

One copy of High Fidelity (movie works best)
A shit-ton of booze
A heroic constitution

Rules:

1) When the main character references a list, or a position on a list, take a drink.

END

Teachers

An interesting comparison.

McFarland

vs

Brightman

I think I'll take another McFarland class next semester, if he's not on sabbatical.

Son of a Bitch

My posts and comments keep disappearing and reappearing.

I'm very confused.

I Roll to Disbelieve

I just read the Doctrine of the Two Swords. It's interesting, but I think it's more of a rational for governments to hold power than a useful idea. Pay special attention to the second half if you read it.

Rugs

I have a dull aching pain in the back alleys of my brain. The type of pain that is just below a headache, as if something was trapped back there and looking for attention in the same way that a cat whines at a door when it's raining. I imagine my eyes rotating in their sockets - the bright and perhaps self-aware focus of my pupils rolling until they gaze into the recesses of my brain as if from a great height. A light shines through these windows from outside and they send beams wandering through my fog enshrouded brainpan.

If you were standing between these two animate searchlights, also peering into my brain, you might be astonished to perceive a bright and changing maze unfolding below you. You might compare the complexities of this maze to the first time you saw a Persian rug unrolled and then gazed and then followed the mythical animals and complex threads and realised that though the carpet has boundries it's creator has none.

Something I'm working on.

The Cure.

It is raining.

Fuck classes.

Hot chocolate time.

oh yes

ben is clipping his toenails. i am hacking into his blog. heehee. oops.

i aint no goddamn son of a bitch
the misfits fucking rawk!


oh yeahs

Heh heh... Yardstick

Fuck writing. I will play my guitar and crysturbate.

Do you know what it's like to fall in love with an idea?

It was mid-September when I first sat on the Hyatt's roof. A typical Atlanta September night, a balmy sort of breeze that was especially evident as we watched the city sprawl and stretch around our group. I would describe the night as perfect now, as I sit here typing in my cold apartment, but it was really typical for early fall in Atlanta, and I didn't give the weather much additional thought.
The really interesting thing about that night was the city. I think that night was the first time I thought of a city as a living being or perhaps an idea.

I'm trying to avoid watching this sad pile of guitar picks sitting next to my keyboard. Don't judge me too harshly, I'm not insensitive,

Do you know how fucking frustrating this is? I've been starting and stopping for the last half hour, and all I've written is the crap above.

The problem with knowing I'm awesome, is that I expect all my work to be awesome, and then I get annoyed when it's sub-par.

Fuck. Maybe I'll just write a story about masturbation, or doing coke off a zombie-hooker's ass.

If I hand you a story that begins, "so I was measuring my self today with a laser measuring device (I can't reach far enough to use a ruler, and I didn't have a yardstick available), and I noticed that the zombie whore in the corner was looking really sexy...", Do Not Read It. Reading that story will lead to madness, and possibly jealousy.