Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain

I'm having one of those days where you get up so late that you never get out of your pajamas. Under the magical spell of lorazepam, I got some serious sleep last night. It felt real good, and I took so many that I managed to stifle any dreams or nightmares. Outstanding. Now I'm enjoying a rainstorm as it strips the leaves off the maple tree in the courtyard outside my bedroom window. A good day, so far, and I almost don't care that a close friend seems to be ignoring my calls. Almost.

Just a little update from the world beyond the House of Four Cats. The last shipment of AK-103 Kalashnikovs left Russia for Venezuela earlier this week. That completes a shipment of 100,000 of those rifles, along with an unknown amoung of ammunition (unknown to me). In addition to that, 2 of the 24 Russian Sukhoi warplanes that Venezuela ordered are to be delivered by November 30. The company behind the sale is Rosoboronexport, and I don't know a thing about them. I do know that Venezuela is keeping her promise to bolster her defenses and develop a stronger relationship with those countries willing to sell various and sundry armaments.

So that's the update. I have opinions, but who cares.

I could use a shower, and perhaps a little World of Warcraft. Enjoy your Sunday, everyone.

Fish Sticks and Babbling

For two nights I went sleepless, and to maintain function I kept flinging pills into my mouth. What a scene...what a fucking wreck. A diet of coffee and Diet Coke, along with the occassional "Cup o' Noodles," sustained me. What I really needed, however, was sleep. And not to recharge the proverbial batteries for another day, but to get the hell away from myself for a few blissful hours (provided there are no nightmares). But it was not to be, and on that third day I collapsed at the top of the stairs near my bedroom. I'm told that I had a seizure that went on for several minutes, after which I lie unconscious. Finally, I awoke, babbling incoherently to my father. At least he thinks I was babbling. I know what I was saying; "I love you...I'm sorry," over and over again. I also mentioned my love of Donna, Clare and Kent, and even said "goodbye" to Amanda. Although I'm pretty sure she could care less. I said other things, too, but nobody anywhere knows what they were. After almost an hour, I crawled to my bed and then into it. Two days later, the only reminders of the incident are countless aches and pains, all of the sort one would expect from falling unconscious and face-first. If I were five steps farther along I would have fallen that way down the stairs. Gravity being what it is, that would have sucked.

Last night I had to go to a public hearing about the housing unit in which I live. People asked the stupidest questions, and I couldn't wait to ask my question so I could get the fuck out of there. It was near the end of the hearing when I got my answer, pulled on my coat, and fled into the night. I didn't even pause to take in the atmosphere of the public school cafeteria. This was an elementary school, not a high or even middle school. I do have fond memories of being that young, and even of school at that age. So I didn't mind squeezing into the cafeteria table/seat combination beneath the American flag and sucking in the aroma of fish sticks and chalk. People like to blame school for crushing their spirit, ala "Life in Hell," but I think it has more to do with our growing awareness as we get older that we're nothing special. And it's not school that tells us this, but the entire fucking universe and everything in it.

High School, on the other hand, is like a full-time job that you're not free to quit and that doesn't pay anything. Along the line you learn new things, like how many different ways a person can be called, "fat" and that a nice car alone can get you laid.

But I digress. I'm a lonely son of a bitch these days, but I haven't the fortitude to challenge isolation or kill myself. I read an awful lot, which is supposed to be good for you.

Tate's Chicken Knickers

Enjoy some of Sarah Lucas' artwork. I'd love to meet her someday. I can't imagine what I'd say, though. I'm fond of her and her art.

Be sure to get out and vote against a Republican tomorrow.

D

A Hefty Price For Google And Toilet Paper

It's not easy for a human being to poke about in the world today and not lose something of his or her self as a result. It's like trying to stick your hand in a combine without drawing back a bloody stump. That's a simile. And I honestly can't say that I have anything better than a vague notion of what a "combine" looks like, or what it does. It has something to do with agriculture, and my simile would have been a lot better if I used a piece of industrial machinery to represent the modern world. I'm drawing a blank, though. Ours is a "post-modern" economy that doesn't manufacture anything remotely useful to anyone. It's considered tres gauche among the world's post-industrial economies to grow a banana or manufacture a television set.

What a world. With a rigid global economy and a consumer culture that offers countless "choices" but no alternatives, we are all set upon a path that we pretty much have to follow if you don't want to sleep in a refrigerator box, or eat muffin stumps at the homeless shelter. Freedom is a lie. You can always try to fly off a skyscaper if you don't like your limited options, so there is that, anyway. Like it or lump it. Most people decide to lump it, but they find solace in knowing that time will eventually do what they lack the courage to do themselves; which is to end it. Mercy!

Basically, what I'm saying is that people did not evolve to function well in the reality that we've created to replace nature. Not that nature isn't an unholy bitch, but I suspect that the ennui and detached isolation that most people feel today was rare, say, 500 years ago. People were too worried about their nose falling off, or trying to turn turds into gold, or picking fleas out of their crevices. In an environment like that, the complaint, "I'm depressed" would not stir people to sympathy. More likely, people would say, "No shit, we're all depressed...have you seen my nose?"

But enlightment and prosperity didn't have to come with the cost of our humanity, whatever that is. Every few months, someone releases a study that basically says that workers could be 847% more "productive" if they didn't waste precious time scratching their asses. They sometimes put a dollar amount on the "wasted" time, as in, "Corporations lost $300 billion last year due to lost productivity caused by employee defecation. A study is currently underway to assess the practicality of colostomy bags for all employees." How can you possibly keep your mind healthy in such a universe? And I refuse to believe that we have to accept such nonsense as the price we have to pay for a progressing civilization. And accepting a globalized, capitalist world with all of it's associated insane and fucked-up personal and institutional relationships comes at the hefty price of our contented sanity.

No More Blog

I'm fond of writing. The drawer next to me is full of stories, poems and simple ideas. Well, perhaps not "full." And this silly little blog certainly provides more than evidence of my predilection for scribbling. I prefer that to typing, although I must admit that I don't do it very often, only for letters.

Regardless of all that, the time has come for me to put an end to this silly little blog. It serves no purpose, amuses no one, and falsely provides me with an albeit modest feeling of creative accomplishment. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, as we all need our illusions. But it is wrong for me to subject people, many of whom are friends, to these unfunny, boring tirades. What I'm posting here isn't even good enough to distract from most other blogs!

I've been a fool for so long, thinking that I'm funny and interesting when in reality I'm just a pitiful loner who needs to reconcile his hopes of what he could have been with what he really is, and always will be; a mentally-ill loner with nothing to offer. There is nothing wrong with being that, unless you think you are something else, something better than that.

If I'm going to get though life, I have to shut down as much as I can and focus on being a good friend, brother and son. Whatever ego I have needs to be crushed and eradicated so that I may reconcile with myself, as I wrote before. I'm a small man, but I need to become smaller. My microscopic presence must not be felt or seen, except by those very few who really want to. My odds of living another 10 or 20 years are best if that is the case. It just hurts too much when people talk about how much they enjoy this blog. Or when they say I should write a novel or something. I know that I'm stupid and strange, and that people like to keep me at a distance because I talk about myself too much.

Eventually, I need to find fulfillment in life in very, very simple things. In being alone, taking care of my cats, getting out for a walk on occasion, listening to music, and trying to be there for my friends. It's time to stop playing "writer" and using things like this blog to make myself out to be a person of any consequence whatsoever.

That's about it. Bye.