Complaints

I realize I've been writing too much. Sorry. As soon as I get some burritos in my stomach, I'll fall into a happy stupor. It's very cute.

The point is that I've been putting pictures of myself on Hotornot.com, the site which lets you view and rate pictures of other people.

I've sort of been doing this experiment. See, for the last three months I've used this picture:
The average rating on that son of a bitch was something around 9ish. I felt very pretty.

Then I switch to this picture:

Average rating: 5.4

People have no taste.

I Talk Alot

From a recent email sent to young Elizabeth:

The weather's really good here and stuff. Sunday was stupendous, like, you could have been walking around in a t-shirt or something. But I was inside working, because my boss likes to felate sea-lions. Have you seen any sea-lions in California? Interesting fact: male sea-lions chose their mates by clubbing them over the top of the head and dragging them back to their area of the beach. Isn't that fucked up? I remembered that when I went to see the aquarium on Friday and we were looking at the sea-lions, and all I could think was "hey, asshole, next time try flowers. Then maybe you won't be living in a goddamn plastic cage. Asshole." Except, in my mind I yelled that last "asshole", like the guy from A Fish Called Wanda when he drives on the wrong side of the road in England.

You should come back to A-town. We are all very friendly here, and apparently really enjoy Halloween. I mean seriously, every fucking time I take the train, every goddamn whitey is wearing a costume. It's pretty all right. It's funny though, because it makes the normal black/white, lower/middle class, rides MARTA everyday/only rides to the airport or baseball games gap even more pronounced. A sort of way of shouting to the world "look at me! I have enough money to spend massive amounts of time finding paying for and putting on a costume, just so I can take it off in a few hours!". I mean, it's not like the costume wearers intend to say that, but it seems to exist anyway.

I think I got diverted from why you should come back to Atlanta.

Are you doing that modeling thing the night you come back? Are you wearing a costume on the plane? Want to stay up late and drink hot chocolate on Wednesday? People keep getting better, and I think I have at least 5 on my list of people you should meet. Also, camping?

ATL after Dark

I liked the Decemberists concert, and then wandering around Cabbage town looking for some zombie party, and then some misadventures along Ponce, and then a few beers at the Claremont and people watching. I guess friends and other such are cool, but I'm sometimes reminded that it's possible to actual be more than a friend or fuckbuddy. The concert was one of those things, where you're sort of surrounded by couples enjoying themselves, and it makes it hard for your brain to argue against the whole monogamy thing. I mean, it's not like I've ever had a chance to be polygamous, except in the sense of being interested in a million unattainable girls at once, but that's enough experience for me to think the idea of a steady one on one relationship to be sort of silly.

About monogamy - It could be cool. I'd give it a try. It's just, I tend to be one of those people who need convincing. And I'm not sure what would convince me.

Actually, I guess, if I could find someone who enjoyed a good walk after sex, that would be pretty much fucking ideal. Yeah. I think I might have an unhealthy obsession with walking.

Fucking Cold

Adam and Jeremiah are busy passing to each other. One's got a blunt, the other a cigarette, and then the hierarchy shifts.

Jeremiah sez, in a slur that doesn't become much more noticeable until he's got a few shots down, he sez some bullshit about Celtics and the South and unity or something.

I say, and I use say here because I might have been the second most sober of our three, I say, "the only thing that matters is one man and the thing he's going towards. Any time you got three men together, that's a fucking conspiracy".

We finished the walk around the block and I headed in to write this, and I think Jeremiah's grabbing a patch of floor tonight. His girl and son are both back in Athens, and, like I said earlier, it might be better that way, for now.

The Cold Life

It was very peaceful and miserable, living past the end of the world. Patrick rose in the morning, ignoring the sun's fast rise past the mountains surounding his lake, and woke last night's fire, set within arm's reach of the little leantoo he had built for himself. The fish didn't start biting until a good bit of sun's heat had collected in the little valley, so his breakfast was a sort of tea he made by combining scraps of bark from the sweetest smelling local trees. It was cold for hours, and he had nothing to do but hold his sleeping bag tight around his body and drink steaming hot tea.

Patrick no longer looked forward to fishing in the afternoons, hadn't cared beyond the demands of pure hunger since two weeks ago, when the weather radio went dead. It still picked up static, on the days he felt like combing the channels, but even the automated reporting service had stopped playing. It was as if they had turned off all their little devices before finally dying of whatever took them in the end, a last unconcious reflex, the same way his grandfather had used to wander from room to room of the house, turning off lights and computer monitors and radios and fans. Perhaps the end had reawoken the frugality missing since the last Great Depression.

He thought of his hord in a different sense. It represented a concrete future, a time when he would have enough supplies to leave the little valley, walk the forty miles down the gravel path towards the village South of here, and then the town South of that, and on until he found some place to collect the parts of himself he'd been losing since Lindsey and the kid didn't show up with the big red truck.

It was possible they were still alive, but neither Lindsey nor her son would ever back out of a promise. Keeping promises was built into the two of them, built into Lindsey's son by years in a world where his mother's promise was the only real thing in life. And Lindsey had picked it up somewhere along the way, or been born with it. Patrick had spent two years with her and still wasn't sure where the line lay, what she had been born as, and what she had made her self into through an unusually hard and clear life.

So she must be dead. She wasn't coming, and Patrick would have to make those thirty miles in little pockets of travel, moving only while heat still lay in the valley, leaving enough time to build a fire and shelter before the long winter night.

The second pot was cool enough now, and he drank his little camp cup empty in one gulp.

I am Invincible.

Another one of those nights. Not a great night, but the wind's finally died down, I finished all my work, and the apartment's filled with dirty/clean/uncatalogued laundry.

That means I spent the last hour or so walking around Oglethorpe, thinking about things I'll never be able to carve into paper.

Whatever the fuck's wrong with me's going away. I think I beat it to death with long walks around the neighborhood. Specifically, last night, when I circled my block wearing only a pair of shorts, just to prove that I was better than any goddamn sickness.

In the morning:

Pointless French class (more on this later)
Trying to make Oxford paper fucking brilliant
Meeting with Doc Hyman
Gooood Naturalism class
Frisbee?
And hanging around 'til Thalian society meets at 6, which probably means I'll have to bum another ride home.

Dear Last Piece of Superglue Which is Chemically Bonded to My Face,

Let go.

Sincerely,
Ben

PS: I think I need to go to a few more Halloween parties. I have more costumes to try. Most of them involve glueing stuff to my body. Invite me to your party.

A Report

This was an interesting day. I've gained at least 3 different questions, and several things to look forward to.

French: not so bad. (Though a certain young woman should learn how to pronounce "tres")

Day, afternoon: good. Watched almost every episode of Mission Hill. Money now referred to as "beer tickets".

Day, evening: awkward but good. Several of those present were either tripping or high. I jumped around with sparklers, ate good chicken, and drank enough to quiet the whiskey demons.

Day, night: Broken Social Scene was sold out. We walked around L5P with open containers. I learned more about streets and navigation.

Real night (aka after 11:00): Forgot my passport, couldn't get into Claremont. Hot Chocolate. Almost fought brother. Went to bar in wilderness.

Real night, late-ish (aka whenever we got a table): chips with vinegar equals good. Good beer tastes pretty much like other beer, but costs several times as much, is 10% alcohol. Emory people are silly.

Real night, actually late (aka 1ish): Got home, wrote this, thought.

Cryptic Observations

Guess I haven't really talked much over the last few weeks. I think it's part of that being unnafiliated thing, because part of the desire to be unnafiliated is my belief that most organizations are horrible. And that should really be expanded to include most groups - they're pretty horrible.

And, no offense or anything, but if you spend most of your academic day in the same place, talking with a group of people who also spend most of their day in the same place - you need to do something better with your time.

You might say I'm prejudiced against people who don't move. Or try to move.

I'm sort of searching for likeminded people. I have some sort of innate fear of being satisfied, something about my being content causes discontent, which, as you may see, can grow to be a bit of a problem. I wonder how many people really fit that profile?

I think I'd like to keep moving from place to place and person to person, always leaving when I start to become comfortable.

I really am very happy here. I'm just thinking about that camping trip over Thanksgiving, and that roadtrip somewhere around winter break, and Israel/Cambridge in the the Spring/Summer, and after graduation...

Words Words Words

My phone has this option to use templates for your text messages.

The premade templates:

I am late. I will be there in ...
I'm in a meeting...
I'm busy right now
I will be arriving...
Meeting is cancelled
See you at...
See you in...
Please call
I love you too
Happy birthday
Thank you

Interesting, eh?

Shock and Awe

The date went alright. Horribly, actually, but I'm still alive, so everything's cool.

About two minutes into the thing I started trying to think of a way to make the girl go away. We're at the apartment, and she's babbling, doing a great impression of every other girl who likes Yo La Tengo and The Unicorns in the entire world. And I guess I'm being charming, which is funny, because I can never charm the people I want to charm, only the people I hate.

We had a drink or two, went for two good long walks. The walking part was good. I can't really talk unless I'm walking, and I find most other people can't either.

So she stuck around, and it seemed impolite to just say: "I find you boring, please leave". It is possible that my standards are set way too high, as they require that a girl be completely fucking awesome, and I would guess that only 1 girl in 15 or so comes close to matching that requirement. Really, those are my standards for everything, so I don't think it's unfair to apply them to the world of dating.

And now I need to find some way to get this girl the hell out of my apartment. I could really use a good cup of coffee.

A Phone Call from Last Night

[phone rings]

Ben: Elizabeth!
Elizabeth: Ben!
B: What's n-
E: Were you just having sex?
B: Nope. Why did you think I was with someone?
E: OH. I just had a feeling. Just before I called, I thought to myself "Ben's having sex with someone right now".
B: If I was fucking, I promise I'd take a break to talk to you.
E: Thanks.

[Rest of conversation as usual]

I forgot to bring my copy of Portrait of a Lady home this weekend, which means I probably won't have the book finished in time for class on monday. On the other hand, I'm really enjoying Steinbeck's Cannary Row. Read Of Mice and Men a few weeks ago, and the comparison is interesting. I really like seeing him develop and discard techniques, makes me feel better about my own writing.

Threat.

Do not fuck with me I will use your guts for my Tesla coil. You will be tessellated.

Last Night

I have a plan. It's a really bad. In fact, I can think of at least four reasons for my plan to fail. Good reasons. Compared to almost zero reasons my plan will work. Actually, my plan probably failed three or four weeks ago.

Anyway, I'm going through with the plan, even though I just spent the last half hour between Oglethorpe and the apartment figuring out why the plan won't work.

Also, because I haven't slept more than two hours tonight, and I'm working at noon.

Also pt 2: because I think life is composed of whatever plans we make. So, you know, either make stupid plan, or stay motionless.

A separate thing: parties are really strange. I don't understand how people dance, or how boring people manage to trap me. Last night was alright. I think I was the boring person doing the trapping, which is the way I like it.

What I did Over My Summer Vacation, or, How I Saved the World, didn't Marry a Princess, and Met a Unicorn

I'm sitting up front with the register, about 5 minutes 'till closing, when I see this women walking towards the store through the Exxon parking lot. At this point, I start doing the “fuck off dance”, a bit of juju I'd developed through long hours of wishful thinking. She didn't go away. That goddamn dance has always been useless.

To top off the night, she looks about two steps above homeless on the economic scale, at that special point where you believe in perfect service, but were never taught how to tip. Still preforming the Fuck Off Dance, I tell Dave to stop cleaning – we've got a customer. Actually, I used a great deal of profanity to get this point across, but I'll remove that part, because I appreciate the strain my repeated use of the Fuck Off Dance has put on your sensitive ears.

The Fuck Off Dance? Only the most powerful bit of mental telepathy ever developed in Peoria.

You see, customer's know when you hate them. Even if you've been smiling since they walked in, they can still tell. But mere hate doesn't keep the customers away. You need something special for real and accurate customer deterrence. I rely on repeated mutterence of the words “fuck off”. To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure why I call it a dance. I suppose the Fuck Off Mantra doesn't sound quite so assertive. Anyway, if you've ever been the first or last of a restaurant's customers, you've probably been given a dose of the Fuck Off Dance. Ask your waiter about it.

Which is sort of where I learned about the dance, asking a waiter. See, Dave used to wait tables at this Italian chain in the mall, a few stores down from the place we both worked at that summer. He didn't call it anything like "fuck off dance", but he told me how much he hated "those fucking customers" everytime he was on break, so I got the point.

The bell jingles, the woman walks in, and she's walking that walk you see during the first few minutes of a president's funeral procession, or like those Storm Troopers who always follow Darth Vader, or even the way a cat moves when you've just opened the screen door and it glides towards you with a small furry animal between its' jaws. A messenger, a Woman On a Mission.

Hills

I had probably one of my better Columbus Days today. Not that I can remember the others, but this was pretty good, so it goes up top.

Many things happened, but the most important:

We went to the park and found the tallest hill. Then we lay down in a line so that each persons' outstretched arms held the ankles of the person "above" them. Then, still in a four person long line, we rolled about halfway down the hill before falling apart.

It was pretty great.

Other things - not reading Henry James all weekend, almost walking downtown, almost not smoking, definitivly not not drinking, various games, lots of walking, moderate amounts of writing, realizing I turned an assignment in with no name or other identifying information, no assignments to procastinate except the one I decided not to complete, piggy-back rides, and Real Haircut.

Monies

I have money now. Not much money, but I'll probably have 1300-1500 by Winter break, and twice that plus an extra 300 by the end of Spring semester. My ideas:

1) buy a scooter
+fuel eficient
+don't need to pay insurance
+easy to repair
-can't wear helmet w/ mohawk
-not really useful for trips outside the city

2) Go to Europe in the Spring
+culture
+new people
+possibility of terrible mistakes
+learn better/more French
-probably use all my money for a trip of no more than a month
-might end up robbed after my first night when I try to camp in some random park

3) Keep saving for a rainy day
+money!
-will eventually have same problem I've got now

4) Invest
+more money!
-not readily available money

5) buy a car
+travel
+cross country trip some time
+possible trip to Canada to see Godspeed You Black Emperor
-uses gas
-have to pay insurance
-will probably break at some point
-everyone I've bummed a ride from in the past will want me to chauffeur their asses around
-one more step towards losing my soul

I'm On a Roll

Song Title: There's a Lot of Ways to Write a Song (Your Mother is a Whore)

There's a lot of ways to write a song
Just like there's a lot of ways to make five bucks on a Friday night
You could down a flask of Turkey
Down a flask of Turkey
Take off your shoes
Put on that blond wig
Grab pen and paper
Go down to Peachtree, between the Baptist and Presbyterian churches

...

That's all I've got so far.

A Sometimes Food

Cowboys drink whiskey in the morning. I eat cookie.

Sweet Mother of Mercy

New Song Title: Anything Less Than 'Fucking Brilliant' is an Insult

Do you know how many goddamn books I've read?
[chorus]
I'm an English major, son.
Maybe you should shut your trap while I
[wailing]
let the juices flow.
[/chorus]
I've got a blazer with patches on it.
Been close to Massachussetts
Know how to pronounce Nietszche
Talk with an accent I learned from Inside the Actor's Studio
I think they were interviewing an Australian
Mel Gibson.
[chorus]
I feel infinite!
I'm fucking brilliant!
I'm am~azing!
[chorus]
My sperm flies sideways
Impregnate bitches what don't even live in the same dorm room.
(while I masturbate to Joyce, O'Brian, and Flynn)
Kids pop out wit' Phd's and shit
Cuz they're smart.
Cuz my sperm is smart
[chorus]
I'm on a first name basis with all my teachers
Make fun of freshmen behind their backs
Fuck alumni for grant money
You know, the usual brilliant shit.
[chorus]

Next Song Title: There's Lots of Ways to Write a Song (Your Mother is a Whore)