Eruption Pending

Once again, I may use some "swear" words here. You've been warned.


I came to realize: as far as my own life goes, the present sucks, and the future holds all the promise of Lindsay Lohan claiming to enter rehab. So, that leaves....the past.

High school, naturally. A time and place where I felt at home. Loved. I wasn't all that actively social at the time, something they attribute to Asperger's Syndrome (also their chosen explanation for why I feel like my home planet has much longer days and years than this one), but, by golly, I was kind, smart (then), full of friendly vibes and jokes. Nary an unkind word was said to me.

In the past.....I don't know how long.....weeks? months?, I've seen two or three familiar faces for about a minute at a time, maybe longer if we're on the bus. (People at my old job at the text conversion office, it's nothing personal; I dig you, but I haven't been feeling like I've been meant to be there. Only today did I finally convert a document after who knows how long.) The rest of the time, as I think I mentioned here earlier this semester, I've been feeling like a spectre in a sea of unfamiliar, basically indistinguishable faces bathing in cell phones and headphones. I especially feel it when I get out on the quad and jam on my acoustic. Headphones and cell phones. People may physically be there, but they might as well not be. It's like the old iPod commercials. Completely black shadows of people in headphones. No actual people. Just shadows.

I got no drive and no recognizable future. I already dropped one class this semester for a failure to get along with the professor (first time that's been the reason). I've wanted to leave academia altogether for a few years now, but then I won't have my text conversion job, because I have to be a student to work there for some reason. I've been all over Craigslist and other classifieds outlets, but nothing's appealed to me. I'm cat-less and dessert-less, though I haven't been that hungry the past few days anyhow, my traditional sense of humor seems to be largely slipped away, and, some hours ago as I lay kind of three-quarters asleep, my mother.....my proudly white suburban American mother, making it clear that she, too, has more or less hit a breaking point, proclaimed as loudly as possible that she hates me. (Talking to my father: "I HATE HIM, AND I HATE YOU!!")

So, that's the bag I'm in. I'm willing, but I'm having trouble finding my ability. I keep having ideas for songs and then never get around to fully writing them. I equate success with happiness and consider them independent of social class or anything like that. Either way, I am not successful right now.

I'm just kind of here. I'm around. Around, in a square hole. Or sticking awkwardly out of it, because I don't fit. And so I'm here. I'm here. I am here. I....am.....



GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! I'M SO ALONE! WHERE IS EVERYBODY? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME? AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHH.......


*collapses in a heap of incoherence*

My Wholly Bizarre and Incredible Excuse For Today

Usually, when I'm here, I dream about a variation of my aunt's house, and when I'm at my aunt's, I dream about a variation of here. So when I dreamt of here when I was here and then woke up here, I got confused and went back to sleep, expecting to wake up at my aunt's.

I'm as #@&%ed up as the day is short.

New Presidency, New Semester, New Supermarket, Same Cheshire

Right. Let's see if I can remember everything I wanted to write about yesterday, or I guess it was now the day before yesterday. Zarquon, I went to bed at midnight and, except for a brief bathroom break, didn't get up until ten at night or something like that. This was the day after I saw, among other sights, a sleep psychologist. I would, I think, have gotten up a little earlier, but American Idol was on in the other room, so I had to bury my head particularly deep under the sheets and the other pillow.

Good starting point, I think: Since maybe November, I've been on Prozac, or at least the generic thereof. Before I started that, I had been on (the generic of) Abilify. At that point, I was going nowhere in life and feeling rather depressed. Now I'm still going nowhere in life, but at least I'm content. And making the occasional joke or six. Two out of three ain't bad.....sadly, it's the other one that's causing my folks to be none of those. And that's the basic setup here. How it will relate to anything else in this entry, I don't know; of course, I've yet to write most of it.......

It's a New Semester!

I did it! I don't know how, but I did it! I got up around six thirty in the morning! On the first day of class! I was actually able to get to my nine thirty class! And I'll quite probably be easily able to make it to that class again today, seeing as I only got up a little while ago, and it's about five now. Rejoice!

Anyway, the teacher of this class seems like she'll be much more helpful than the guy who was in charge when I started the class last semester. And it looks like the requirement this time around is merely two short stories and a revision, rather than three short stories and a revision. I'm still not entirely confident, but I feel a little better. I feel a certain instinctive impulse to blur the line between straight fiction and tripped-out sort of post-modern poetry. I wonder if I'll really be able to get away with this kind of artsy inclination.........I suppose I can ask.......Or I suppose I can just be my radical self and recognize my own genius while being horribly misunderstood and generally held in contempt........

(I'm the most humble person in the world! YES!)

(I've posted that joke before, haven't I?)

After class, I went around to a couple of places searching for a PC with internet. Either all of the supposedly trans-platform computers in the English Building lab have been set to the dreaded Macintosh, or I merely dreamt that whole thing, and there is still hope that the whole university isn't just some anti-Cheshire conspiracy. PCs may not be the greatest thing on this planet, but, in my own experience, they're much better than Macs. I've never really gotten along well with Macs for some reason. Maybe if I can use Remote Desktop on a Mac to access this PC on which I am now, I might get into them more. I highly question whether or not this will be possible. Ever.

It's a New Presidency!

Anyway, I went to the Union to watch the Inauguration. Nice, crowded Courtyard Café, full of people applauding when the time is right, and occasionally giggling for reasons which aren't likely to become apparent anytime soon. The broadcast was shown on some kind of projector, projecting onto the screen at the "front" of the café. It was also shown on the usual televisions that hang from the ceiling in various places around the café. It was one of these that I saw. I heard the audio from the big projection, and I saw the video on the television. They were horribly out of sync; the video must have been a full fifteen seconds ahead of the audio. What were they, on different channels or something?

Nevertheless, I got there I think more or less in time to catch the swearing in of Joe Biden. I think it was after that that Aretha did a bit of singing. (Her glory days are behind her.....) It was then beyond noon, Eastern time, and, according to the voice-over, Biden was president for a few minutes, seeing as he had been sworn in before noon, and then Dubya's term expired. Of course, I heard or read later, I forget which, that the elected Obama should have become president at noon, so I don't know.......anyway, the crowd I was with burst into applause when they heard about Biden being the president. They then did a bit of chuckling during Obama's swearing-in, which was notoriously bungled by both Obama and Chief Justice Roberts (mainly Roberts, I understand). (From what I've read, Obama took the oath again today, just to be sure. I assume they got it right this time.) Obama's inauguration speech, which followed, didn't really feature anything particularly special, but it did draw applause at a few junctures. And that's about all I stuck around for; all in all, I don't feel the inauguration itself was anything special, but everyone seems to insist that it's historic. It is, I feel, still too soon to judge the man; coming into the presidency, my reasoning was that all we knew is that he's a good talker. I think he made a good impression on his first full day, though......I think........

I did vote for him......if only because he knows how to talk.......

.....And possibly because he's simply more, I don't know, likable than McCain.

Anyway, all my best to the man. And good luck...........

It's (Going to Be) a New Cheshire!

At my one o'clock (Central time) appointment, we determined that, this Friday, I'm going to have my "wisdom" teeth out.

(I'm sorry......I couldn't find the right emoticon for this.)

It's a New World Order!

(I do have an emoticon for this one, though: )

I don't go shopping very often these days......I mostly leave the shopping to my mother. This time, though, I accompanied her; there wasn't much point going home between two appointments at the clinic on the other side of town. I had seen this "self checkout" thing before at that store, but the last time I was there, there were only two or three of them. This time there were.....well, I didn't count them exactly, but I'm tempted to say seven or eight of them. And only two or three regular checkout counters with actual employees were open.

Does anyone else see what's happening here? Someone, somewhere, is trying to abolish all kinds of human contact in favor of aggravation-inducing machines that are less likely to accept your wrinkled cash and are probably buggy. It's a way to rob people of job opportunities, and it's a blatant attempt to promote a robotic, characterless society where people are nothing but numbers on credit cards. I, for one, will sooner starve than live in a world where the only way to get processed food is to be processed yourself.

Or I can go in late at night, eat some food right there in the store, and walk right out.

(As you may have guessed, I do not have a credit card. Nor do I have plans to get one.)

Some day.......I picture a small group of real people leading a long, dark revolution against the plastic people. Phone companies......credit card companies......you name it, they're goin' DOWN. These are our own creations. We created them. If they make us unhappy, we can just as well destroy them. I saw in a comic strip once, there is a distinction between the pursuit of happiness and the actual attainment of happiness. I would be delighted to see that officially changed.....nevermind the pursuit.....simply "happiness" will suffice, thank you very much.

****

It looks like I'm starting to meander a bit; I take that as a sure sign that I've done enough writing for now.

See ya later

My circadian rhythms were written by Neil Peart.

Adams' Theory, No. 49

Far out. Been up for some twenty-eight hours now. I have a theory that the more tired I am, the trippier my writing is. Just a theory.

You ever sit at the front of an otherwise empty bus (except the driver....) and just gaze around the rest of the bus.....? After a short while, does it look like a toy model or something....? All those seats and support bars? Does it seem like something you could easily pick up with two fingers and a thumb and run back and forth on a track making RUUMMM—RUUUMMMM noises?

Finished the semester today. Yay! Nine down, TBD to go.......

Just a theory.

Someone suggested to me today that Vitamin D may be helpful in regulating circadian rhythms. Hmm....eh....it's worth a shot, I suppose. I doubt I'll be able to afford a two-hundred dollar light box. I wonder if that prescription has an expiration date......

Zappa for the holidays.....Zappa for the holidays......

All this buzz about the Obamas' new puppy......Why a puppy? Why not a kitten? Is someone allergic? It seems you only ever see cats in the media nowadays being made fun of in stupid Internet "viral" videos......

WHEN YOUR ECONOMY HAS COMPLETED ITS COLLAPSE, YOU'LL BE WASTING AWAY IN THE REMAINS OF THE STREETS, AND THE CATS WILL RULE THE WORLD! YOU WILL SUBMIT TO THEIR EVERY WHIM OR SUFFER AT THE PAWS OF THEIR NEW TECHNO-CLAWS, WHICH THEY GOT TO REPLACE THE CLAWS THAT WERE SO BRUTALLY TAKEN FROM THEM SO LONG AGO..........

Just a theory.

Speaking of Claus, can anyone tell it's December? Christmas has been advertising since at least early August. ("Putting up that real Christmas tree can send you straight to the dugout." —some artificial tree company advertising during a Cubs game) I wonder how the future's historians will interpret our culture...... "They worshipped* a god called 'Santa Claus,' and they believed that they would achieve eternal salvation if they regularly sacrificed small bits of paper to the high priests, which were also called 'corporations'........"

Yeah. Jesus would totally approve of this.

I think if I ever wrote a holiday-flavored song, I would call it "Visions of Sugar Plums." Or maybe replace "sugar plums" with some slang term for a drug that resembles "sugar plums." Yeah. It would be a meandering pseudo-prog-rock-type-thing with some psychedelic tendencies. And it would have anti-romantic lyrics that border on jarring. Just the thing. I get sick of traditional holiday music pretty darn quickly.

Just a theory.

The United States of America. Yes. Just the thing. As soon as I can dig out my turntable from underneath all these papers and who-knows-whats....what is this, a measuring tape?....good grief...., I'm going to play this record. It's been far too long since I've heard it.

I've been taking a class on modernist poetry. Now I'm having nightmares where my words are all utterly obscure references. Thank Zarquon they're only nightmares........

Just a theory.

Far out. Been up for some twenty-nine hours now. I have a theory that the more tired I am, the more random and meandering any blog posts I make are likely to be.

Hope I did well on that final. It was a take-home......

Back on the other side of dinner and/or a good nocturnal anomaly's sleep........

Zappa for the holidays.....Zappa for the holidays......



Just a theory.


*I prefer to spell it that way. So there.

First day of classes for the semester. As soon as I stepped out the door, I could feel it—autumn. Though the equinox is still just under a month away, the musty aura of another semester already permeates the air and repels the hapless student.

Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was out early in the (cooler) morning, at which time I'm never awake in the summer. Yeah, that might be it.

Thought

(And also a song by the Motions)

Let me know what you think of this thought.

I have often wondered what life would be like in the complete and utter absence of time-keeping devices. No clocks.....no calendars. The reason is, it seems our entire lives are governed by deadlines. We are all expected to have everything done by a certain day at a certain time, and to be entering different main phases of life at certain years of age. It seems to me that all of this makes for a cold, rushed and unfriendly culture.



(Thanks to my Anthropology 175 professor for this cartoon by Tom Cheney. I wish Blogger would show the whole image...)

So, what would happen without clocks and calendars? Would there, maybe, be a more relaxed atmosphere? With no rigid deadlines, would we be willing to let ourselves and each other take our time....make sure we get it right?

Or would total chaos and pandemonium ensue? What do you think?

Perhaps sometime in the future, when all humans, all clocks/calendars, and all, well, everything, are controlled by one central computer which then crashes, we'll find out......... (We're nearly there now, I think.)


Here's a song sent to me by a friend from It's PSYCH. It's a folk-style tune (parts of which sound very similar to Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's All Right) by the Motions, and it's called "Take Your Time." Cheers, Alex!

I just wonder, babe, why they can't slow down...........

Wow....

I actually managed to get up this morning. Weird, man.