Man, I certainly wasn't in a chipper mood when I wrote that last entry. Since then, I've been a bit happier and more upbeat. Whilst traveling in Boston on Thursday, I took pleasure in seeing so many happy people out in the warm sun. Finally, women are shedding Gore-Tex coats and revealing their arms, shoulders, and legs. I even ran into a friend in Kenmore Square, near Fenway Park, from my days as a political activist. After talking about the good old days, I picked up some Chinese food and headed home.
Right now, as if anyone gives a flaming baboon, I'm enjoying some Dave Brubeck and contemplating an afternoon nap. I'm also happy for my beloved Donna's upcoming move to Oregon. For those who don't know, Donna is my former fiancee and current close friend. I no longer harbor any jealousy, which is a good thing. And because we are still such good friends, she comforts me by telling me that I was better in bed than her current lover. True or not, I'm going to enjoy the compliment and leave it at that.
At some point this week, I exchanged phone numbers with a cute girl that I had just met. Late last night, I was awakened by a telephone call; it was her! I ignored the strange timing of her call, which came in around 2am. She laughed loudly at all my jokes, and seemed to find me charming and intelligent for some reason. She wasn't even upset at all when I fell asleep as she was telling a long story. At 5:47am, we concluded the conversation.
That felt good, as I've been a bit lonely these days. I love my friends, and it raises my spirits when I hear from them. But it's so fantastic to flirt and build oneself up to a new person, isn't it? Sort of like being onstage. Loneliness is the price a person like myself pays for a degree of comfortable segregation. It's bound to happen with my kind of social anxiety and self-loathing.
I'm going to go have a slice of pizza.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Happy Mothers' Day
It's been raining for days here in Boston. My basement is flooded, which is not really bothersome, except to a few Christmas decorations which are stored down there. The great philosopher Travis Bickle once spoke about a desire for the rain to wash us all away. He saw what we are, and wished for the rain to pour down and take us away. Finally, the world would be clean of whatever it is we aspire to be as a species and try to be everyday. In the doing and finally done we are despicable. The rain seems an elegant solution to the problem of our embarrassing existence.
The red brick outside my window doesn't know that we're an embarrassment to it, but I do...we do. So by ending we end the action and the emotional reaction. The water is too dirty to see one's reflection. Doubly effective is the water if it drowns us all dead.
The red brick outside my window doesn't know that we're an embarrassment to it, but I do...we do. So by ending we end the action and the emotional reaction. The water is too dirty to see one's reflection. Doubly effective is the water if it drowns us all dead.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Skyrocket Your Puppets With Realism
The Eiffel Tower was built in 1889, but who cares? I was built in 1972, which is even less important. Either way, both the Eiffel Tower and I are here right now, baby! So you had better reconcile your view of reality with our presence. You need to re-con-cile! I hear children playing outside my window, and a neighbor is laughing. How compelled I feel to emerge from my flat, approach those fuckers, and force them to reconcile. Two times!
What's really been on my mind lately is, "How do I 'skyrocket my puppets with realism?'" This may read like nonsense, which it is. But it doesn't change the fact that I have been asking myself this question off and on for nearly a week. It all begins and ends, like everything else, with television.
About a week ago, I found myself completely unable to sleep. I tried taking 5mg of lorazepam, which is a lot for me, but my mind was still racing. My bedroom has a television, or more accurately, my television has a bedroom. So between 2am and 5am, I flicked from station to station. Who knows what I watched, but I'm sure that each movie and program I watched represented the very best that artists today have to offer. J'accuse!
Eventually, I started to fall asleep, and I made a terrible mistake; I forgot to shut the television off. The volume was low, but I could make out what people were yelling. If it's worth hearing, it's worth being yelled. Hasn't Fox taught you anything? So I drifted away into the gloaming of near-sleep. It was in that suggestive state that I loudly and repeatedly heard someone on the television scream, "Skyrocket your puppets with realism!"
It didn't wake me up, which is the source of the problem. The problem being my having to question what the hell that meant all week long. It kept popping up. I was reading an article about Karma in "The Smithsonian" magazine when suddenly I asked, "How do I 'skyrocket my puppets?'" It happened when I was grouting the tub, feeding my cat "Toulouse," and trying to put my socks on (long story). And, of course, I couldn't help but meditate over the question in bed every night.
This morning, however, I finally reached the end of my journey. What joy! Whilst sitting at my computer in the wee hours, I head someone on television yell something about skyrocketing something. I looked, and written across the screen were the words:
SKYROCKET YOUR PROFITS WITH REAL ESTATE
Absolute magic. I laughed. I cried. I became part of the "info-mercial." I like to think that I learned a lesson about leaving the television on when trying to sleep. But had I not done that, I never would have traveled on this voyage of self-discovery. Perhaps we are all here to answer the question, "How do I skyrocket my puppets with realism?"
Having thought about it for a week, I have my answer. It will go with me to the grave.
What's really been on my mind lately is, "How do I 'skyrocket my puppets with realism?'" This may read like nonsense, which it is. But it doesn't change the fact that I have been asking myself this question off and on for nearly a week. It all begins and ends, like everything else, with television.
About a week ago, I found myself completely unable to sleep. I tried taking 5mg of lorazepam, which is a lot for me, but my mind was still racing. My bedroom has a television, or more accurately, my television has a bedroom. So between 2am and 5am, I flicked from station to station. Who knows what I watched, but I'm sure that each movie and program I watched represented the very best that artists today have to offer. J'accuse!
Eventually, I started to fall asleep, and I made a terrible mistake; I forgot to shut the television off. The volume was low, but I could make out what people were yelling. If it's worth hearing, it's worth being yelled. Hasn't Fox taught you anything? So I drifted away into the gloaming of near-sleep. It was in that suggestive state that I loudly and repeatedly heard someone on the television scream, "Skyrocket your puppets with realism!"
It didn't wake me up, which is the source of the problem. The problem being my having to question what the hell that meant all week long. It kept popping up. I was reading an article about Karma in "The Smithsonian" magazine when suddenly I asked, "How do I 'skyrocket my puppets?'" It happened when I was grouting the tub, feeding my cat "Toulouse," and trying to put my socks on (long story). And, of course, I couldn't help but meditate over the question in bed every night.
This morning, however, I finally reached the end of my journey. What joy! Whilst sitting at my computer in the wee hours, I head someone on television yell something about skyrocketing something. I looked, and written across the screen were the words:
SKYROCKET YOUR PROFITS WITH REAL ESTATE
Absolute magic. I laughed. I cried. I became part of the "info-mercial." I like to think that I learned a lesson about leaving the television on when trying to sleep. But had I not done that, I never would have traveled on this voyage of self-discovery. Perhaps we are all here to answer the question, "How do I skyrocket my puppets with realism?"
Having thought about it for a week, I have my answer. It will go with me to the grave.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Pink Baby, Just In From The Void
If you add the word, "mercilessly" to some banal sentences, it can really spice-up some conversations. For example, "Would you mind mercilessly walking the dog?" Or, "Walgreen's is mercilessly out of 'Peeps'."
A dear friend of mine recently shared some baby pictures with me. They weren't of her baby, but of the infant daughter of a mutual acquaintance. When I saw the pictures of new life I was emotionally and intellectually compelled to thoughtfully consider the creation of new life. After a few minutes, I wrote something back to my friend that summed-up how I felt, "It's challenging to be an existential nihilist when looking at baby pictures like that, but I can report that it is possible."
You have to be a bit of a douce-bag to say something like that, but I wasn't trying to be malicious. From my point of view, it was a lovely thing to say, given how rarely I am challenged in my nihilism. Only something magnificent could give me pause about some of the conclusions I've come to over the years about the meaning of existence.
That said, the absurdity of the whole production was very much on my mind. Life, while devoid of any objective purpose, tenaciously makes new life. Well, there you have it, the only detectable purpose in nature is to make more life. Wet, stinking life.
Unfortunately, if you try to find purpose beyond that biological impulse you are left staring at the abyss. So all that new human life needs a pipe-dream, as O'Neill would have it. It's no wonder that Hollywood and religion do so well. They are selling distraction.
There is no god, of that I'm sure. At least not a god to all of us. We have to invent one that can fit our unique needs. Sometimes it's a woman, or a friend, or an ideal. Anything will do, so long as it keeps you out of your head. Having children is that sort of dream. Perhaps being a parent is a celebration of the illusion that we will never die. We all celebrate that illusion every day, in much of what we do, but breeders really embrace the biological imperitive to procreate as their way to distract themselves. To avoid facing what we are all trying to avoid facing, and that is the knowledge that, in the end, we're destined for nothingness.
It's hard to worry about how clean your toilet bowl is when you have that on your mind.
A dear friend of mine recently shared some baby pictures with me. They weren't of her baby, but of the infant daughter of a mutual acquaintance. When I saw the pictures of new life I was emotionally and intellectually compelled to thoughtfully consider the creation of new life. After a few minutes, I wrote something back to my friend that summed-up how I felt, "It's challenging to be an existential nihilist when looking at baby pictures like that, but I can report that it is possible."
You have to be a bit of a douce-bag to say something like that, but I wasn't trying to be malicious. From my point of view, it was a lovely thing to say, given how rarely I am challenged in my nihilism. Only something magnificent could give me pause about some of the conclusions I've come to over the years about the meaning of existence.
That said, the absurdity of the whole production was very much on my mind. Life, while devoid of any objective purpose, tenaciously makes new life. Well, there you have it, the only detectable purpose in nature is to make more life. Wet, stinking life.
Unfortunately, if you try to find purpose beyond that biological impulse you are left staring at the abyss. So all that new human life needs a pipe-dream, as O'Neill would have it. It's no wonder that Hollywood and religion do so well. They are selling distraction.
There is no god, of that I'm sure. At least not a god to all of us. We have to invent one that can fit our unique needs. Sometimes it's a woman, or a friend, or an ideal. Anything will do, so long as it keeps you out of your head. Having children is that sort of dream. Perhaps being a parent is a celebration of the illusion that we will never die. We all celebrate that illusion every day, in much of what we do, but breeders really embrace the biological imperitive to procreate as their way to distract themselves. To avoid facing what we are all trying to avoid facing, and that is the knowledge that, in the end, we're destined for nothingness.
It's hard to worry about how clean your toilet bowl is when you have that on your mind.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Off The Leash In The Hospital Cafeteria
I've been getting a lot of letters from friends who want to know if I really punched a clerk in the throat, as I stated in my last entry. No, I did not. I'm concerned that so many people would think that I'm capable of such a thing. My history of violence is a very short one, and it doesn't include living things. I even refuse to squash affable spiders that seem determined to perch on me whilst I sleep. Not too long ago, I was woken up by a tickle on my cheek. When I urgently brushed at my face, I discovered a small, white spider. Even though I was alone, I acted like Ghandi as I said something like, "Oh, did you get lost little guy?" and moved the spider onto my jacket across the room.
By all rights, I should have crushed that little fucker. My heart was racing. It really scared the shit out of me. It's one thing to be hanging around the tub. It's quite another to go loitering around my nose and mouth. I couldn't get back to sleep for the rest of the night. Anxiety makes it hard to relax in the best of circumstances. Having trouble going back to sleep after such a discovery isn't indicative of a sleeping disorder, it's a perfectly logical reaction to having a spider walk all over your face on a voyage of discovery.
But I didn't kill it is my point. I'm irritated, anxious, depressed, and immersed in ennui most of the time. Even so, I would never hit someone for that. A payphone was once destroyed, a chair was thrown into an oil painting, swears have been yelled, muffins thrown, and banisters ripped off the wall. I admit to all those acts of violence against objects, but I have the scruples not to smack a person. Certainly not an animal.
Earlier today, I was at Lahey Clinic in Burlington. It was lunchtime, and the cafeteria was very busy. People swirled all around me, and all I wanted to do was buy a $2 bottle of water. As I approached the register, a young woman was walking in front of me and wouldn't get out of my way. She was looking for someone, and was paying no attention to where I was going. I was in the middle of a ferocious panic attack, and felt it in my chest and legs, and I had trouble catching my breath. All the while, this fuck-nut just kept almost bumping into me without paying attention. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and said, "Would you get the fuck out of my fucking way? What the fuck."
That's as violent as I get. Sure, I wanted to jam my finger in her eye, or pour hot coffee down the crack of her ass, or just push her really, really hard into the salad bar. But I didn't. Sure, i wanted to grab her by the tits and bite her nose off and then strangle her. But I didn't.
I'm not that kind of crazy. I have little doubt that my mind doesn't work as it should. If you've read this journal at all, you know that. But there is a wide gulf between G. Gordon Liddy sort of crazy and the kind of "botched and bungled" thing I have going. An ex-girlfriend once said to me, "You're funny and wicked smart, but your mind is off the leash." I took it as a compliment at the time. Now, I'm not so sure.
I "wrote" a song in my head that goes like this: "A plantain's just a strange banana," and it just repeats over and over again. Odd, yes, but fear not good people.
If I keep telling myself that mental illness is fun, I'm hoping that one day it will be. Onward!
By all rights, I should have crushed that little fucker. My heart was racing. It really scared the shit out of me. It's one thing to be hanging around the tub. It's quite another to go loitering around my nose and mouth. I couldn't get back to sleep for the rest of the night. Anxiety makes it hard to relax in the best of circumstances. Having trouble going back to sleep after such a discovery isn't indicative of a sleeping disorder, it's a perfectly logical reaction to having a spider walk all over your face on a voyage of discovery.
But I didn't kill it is my point. I'm irritated, anxious, depressed, and immersed in ennui most of the time. Even so, I would never hit someone for that. A payphone was once destroyed, a chair was thrown into an oil painting, swears have been yelled, muffins thrown, and banisters ripped off the wall. I admit to all those acts of violence against objects, but I have the scruples not to smack a person. Certainly not an animal.
Earlier today, I was at Lahey Clinic in Burlington. It was lunchtime, and the cafeteria was very busy. People swirled all around me, and all I wanted to do was buy a $2 bottle of water. As I approached the register, a young woman was walking in front of me and wouldn't get out of my way. She was looking for someone, and was paying no attention to where I was going. I was in the middle of a ferocious panic attack, and felt it in my chest and legs, and I had trouble catching my breath. All the while, this fuck-nut just kept almost bumping into me without paying attention. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and said, "Would you get the fuck out of my fucking way? What the fuck."
That's as violent as I get. Sure, I wanted to jam my finger in her eye, or pour hot coffee down the crack of her ass, or just push her really, really hard into the salad bar. But I didn't. Sure, i wanted to grab her by the tits and bite her nose off and then strangle her. But I didn't.
I'm not that kind of crazy. I have little doubt that my mind doesn't work as it should. If you've read this journal at all, you know that. But there is a wide gulf between G. Gordon Liddy sort of crazy and the kind of "botched and bungled" thing I have going. An ex-girlfriend once said to me, "You're funny and wicked smart, but your mind is off the leash." I took it as a compliment at the time. Now, I'm not so sure.
I "wrote" a song in my head that goes like this: "A plantain's just a strange banana," and it just repeats over and over again. Odd, yes, but fear not good people.
If I keep telling myself that mental illness is fun, I'm hoping that one day it will be. Onward!
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