100th post, and a few things i've noticed about this blog...

happy 100th post to me.

hello quiet readers. let us all celebrate the overwhelming cultural contribution of this website together, shall we?

yeah. you can thank me later.

just a few things i've noticed about Written Off, in general.

-- the greatest service i think this blog has provided has been to the anonymous commenters, who come here and post because they think its a good way right some wrong i've done them. i'd just like to say i admire your courage. it is an impressive display of testicular fortitude. you've really put things on the line here, made yourself vulnerable, opened up some issues for debate; i really respect and appreciate that. you dumb fucks. grow a fucking life, and quit trying to be anonymously antagonistic; you fail at both. if you want to dialogue, i'm all for it, even if you think i suck and i think you're a shithead. i'm not here to be the vessel for your catharsis. if you really want to tell me what you think of me, my e-mail address is SweeneyAstray(at)gmail.com. i check it every day. sometimes more than once.

-- most of you assholes who know me and leave anonymous comments are going to willfully misinterpret the sarcasm of the opening lines of this post as arrogance. you=stupid.

-- God, is there even anything else worth writing after that? after all the heaviness, its seems a little schizophrenic to point out that the old post i did in the spring about the Tori Amos cover of Famous Blue Raincoat has drawn the most responses from random web-surfers -- among whom the common consensus seems to be that Cohen is God, and no cover, however well done, can touch the original. ok, we're all entitled to our opinions; some of us are more entitled than others. on Written Off, i am the most entitled. Cohen is often grating to listen to. i'm sorry, its true. with the time signature his songs are set in, fruitflies could live entire lifespans between one beat and the next. and (heading this one off at the pass) maybe i have the attention span of a fruitfly, but even so Cohen's voice is like something you expect to hear out of the Lincoln head on Mt. Rushmore: that is, its like stone. and Tori's cover makes my heart hurt. if you can hear Tori's voice and not wince with pleasure, then you, Anonymous Sirs and Madams, have no heart. and you probably eat soylent green. and soylent green is people. its madeoutofPEpAHL. if all of those arguments fail, the cover will always be more interesting, in a lit theory kind of way. so there.

--anyone notice i haven't written about christmas yet? compared to last year, i am really off my game.

--also, it would be nice to know someone was out there...and not just laughing at my food poisoning (?) episode (FRED).

i have...

...so far to go to become a good writer

...so much to learn



...been comparing myself to other people too much






...not been writing

a poem from the vault

i think this might be my favorite thing i've ever written. which is saying a lot. i wrote it three years or so ago. usually the appreciation i have for my own writing would lose a contest with the shelf life of unrefridgerated milk.


this is a sestina,
unto the moon
--------------------------------


lady moon you are an apple in the vault of the sky
waiving white lily fingers as you pass me by
drawing shrouds of heaven about you as you go
slowly wheeling through the sky, your light like fallen snow
trust me when you ask me and i tell you of my love
there is madness in the roads i roam which most know little of

wake me not from my sleeping madness yet
though i pass the scent of apples by with much regret
i am trusted by the sun to pick a route between the stars
my fingers clenched around my sword and guiding chariot cars
my burning feet are wheels cutting through the nether-sky
my hand before my face shrouds the burning of my eyes

soothe my restless dreaming with your shroud as thin as light
sing and soothe my madness in the midst of desp'rate night
there are none that go before me but a golden fiery wheel
and none so well has led me but my apple through this field
your fingers spread through nighttime, your fingers through my hair
ever on must i trod and trust that you are there.

trust me though you know not why they call me the Half Red
the shroud of night will come and spark a fire in my head
my fingers itch to work upon their each appointed task
what madnesses I’ll meet, I neither know nor want to ask
but do not even offer me an apple 'pon my road
and risk the falling heavens ever if my wheels be slowed

on the rim of heaven, on the Wheel around the Tree
while i trust my Eastern course, and from the West if you can see
beneath the silver apple-light i'm sending kisses out to you
in the beaks of little birds who'll pierce the shroud and sing them through
their song is mad and keening for the veil that stands between us
their winged fingers harping winds for sleepers dreamless

my fingers are ablaze both with fire and with blood
my burning wheels are spinning in the darkness and the mud
my madness is a tunnel that I must lead and be led through
trust that though I may be late I’ll not break tryst with you
fate is wrapped up in a shroud and bound up in the night
and woven on a loom beneath the bloom of apple-light



your silver fingers trace through the stanzas of this ode, chasing tunes of apple trees across my chest, in woad
the tearful night is tearing and has torn in shrouds behind you; let the always wheeling, turning night and burning stars remind you
that my love is like an Axis, like the Tree, your trusted guide, a constant through the madness you can rest your head beside.

de________

i was doing so ok for awhile, you know? what happened...?







funny...
"despondent" has just as many letters as "depression"

...another song for emily

We’ve tried to wash it out with shots lined down the table
Tried to feed it prescriptions until it was dead
To chain smoke it out with Salem green labels
To exorcise it with holy water and daily bread
To medicate the household strife of Cain and Abel

We have been to the end of the rope and found it tied in a noose
In our house you can feel which rooms blood has been shed in
Some days I admit I wonder what’s the use?
And its all I can do not to stick my head in
Or look for something stupid to give me an excuse

(chorus-like part)
And I wonder if I can handle staying...
What does it say when we’ve turned
Chain smoking into praying?
And love is patient, love is kind
But remember the day you came home and
Ah, forget it, nothing, nevermind
Cuz, love, it don’t keep no record of wrongs
And I’m living to learn, learning to love
turning the hangovers into songs

You know I don’t mean to be mean
I don’t mean this to be a dirty laundry airing session
I just wanna have a place to come clean
I just wanna make a love-confession
Even if it requires me to make a scene

(chorus, again)
And I wonder if I can handle staying
What does it say when we’ve turned
Chain smoking into praying?
And love is patient, love is kind
But remember the day you came home and
Ah, forget it, nothing, nevermind
Cuz, love, it don’t keep no record of wrongs
And I’m living to learn, learning to love
turning the hangovers into songs

Sometimes the best parts are what don’t belong
My grandmother once told me that no one is pure
I am not going to live my life trying to prove her wrong
Cuz living with life gets damn close to a cure
and scratches on the vinyl lend their beauty to a song

And God knows we’ve got enough scratches showing
Even He thinks we’re a hell of a bunch
But I’ll be damned if we don’t have what it takes to keep going
Every day is a grind, all our faith rests on a hunch
And sometimes a belief is just as good as knowing...

"boom ba-ba boom ba-ba boom..."

God himself has struck me ill.

more to come on that later, after i rehab a little.

remember that scene in Stand By Me with Lardass at the blueberry pie eating contest? remember how many people there were, just heaving all over the place?

i think i out-puked them all today.

so, so tired.....

how not to be miserable

DO NOT leave home to break any patterns of self destructive behaviour. self-destruction is actually quite pleasurable, if you don't count the hangovers.

DO NOT NOT get into the new school in your new city, like you said you were going to.

DO NOT flake out on your previous two semesters so that new school in question does not think you are some kind of joke of a student.

DO NOT move to a new city and get a job at the Olive Garden. (don't move back to an old city and get a job at the Olive Garden, for that matter. actually, just forget the Olive Garden all together...)

DO NOT get what you think will turn out to be a better job at a really cool restaurant only to put up with incapable douchebags who have no idea what kind of gem has fallen into their undeserving laps. (the gem i am referring to is the Van Dyck...but if you thought i was talking about me, the judges will accept that answer as well. contestants, please remember; your answer must be in the form of a question. circle gets the square. would you like to buy a vowel...?)

DO NOT, under any circumstances, move too far away from your girls friday. or true loves, for that matter.

DO NOT tangle with married girls, unless you have a doctor's note that says you knew her from before...(unless?...or especially if?).

DO NOT live outside of a walking radius of the Pink...EVER. neverever. you will always need somewhere to pick up, somewhere to land, somewhere to dance, somewhere to puke...

DO NOT leave your hairstylist.

DO NOT leave your drinking buddies. or buddettes. they are your best friends. remember the long talks and drunken stumbles home? no...? ah, but you didn't wake up with missing teeth, missing money, or a sore ass. no, you woke up on their couches, lip-chapped, bleary eyed and dry. now that is love, friends.

DO NOT somehow manage to still be a terrible brother/cousin/nephew/son/grandson even when your family lives within five miles of you in any direction.

DO NOT stop writing.

DO NOT walk off your last job two weeks before christmas.

DO NOT think about moving back so soon.

DO NOT crumble under pressure.

DO NOT forget to buy gloves at Target the next time you're there.

DO NOT let anyone fuck you over, unless you are fucking yourself. try not to let you fuck yourself anyway, though.

DO NOT let this list go on for much longer.

the end.

small victory

i'm giving this to emily, if she wants it.
a song.


there is grace in making beauty out of danger
and you're a bad bet, but i've gotta take the wager
i am sitting in the window; i am dangling my feet
and thinking if i did it i could fly above the street

you’re a bet that I’d take a chance on
and the street is a place that we could dance on
even if I lose
if I scuff my wing-tip dancing shoes
it would still be a beautiful thing to glance on

if I fell for you only to crash and burn
i’d keep our ashes on the mantle in an urn
i’d build a private altar to our public scandal
and run my fingers through the votive candles

you are a glow that I want to stand in
a fire I want to stick my hand in
if it blisters
if the fire gives me up in whispers
it would still be a beautiful thing to land in

like it says in the bible, love conquers dying
and I’ll tell you it makes for beautiful flying
regardless of what dangers and how certain
(landin' the leap of faith don’t mean there’s no hurtin).

It’s a thing that I still have plenty o’ doubt of
(and I’m not someone you’d open a window and shout of)
but all doubts lingering
like new and shaky guitar fingering
there’s a danger we could make some beauty out of

love/hate

i look at other people's lives and i hate myself.

i hate that i knew people that i don't know anymore, that they float around with pieces of me in them that they've forgotten.

i know its my fault. i've been a terrible person. perhaps i deserve to be forgotten. perhaps the reason i can't get it together is because i've let all those people go with all of those pieces of me.

i'm such a fucker. i wish that the people i've pushed out of my life, the people i've burned, the people i've crushed......i don't know. i hope they forgive me and never forget me. i'll never forget you. if i've ever loved you, you have a piece of me in you and i have an aching fondess for you.

i am ashamed of myself.

if it helps at all, know that i'm a pretty lonely bastard these days.

"they say that taupe is soothing..."

minor overhauls going on here at written off...none of them writing related, of course.

perhaps the new, green punctuated earthtone look of this site will be inviting enough for me to return to regularly and with wit. unlikely, i know. i'm lacking in the wit department these days, but let's please not mention it; its a sore subject for me.

updates:
quitting the Olive Garden.
starting at local resturaunt/jazz club/brewery the Van Dyck.
this, i anticipate, will be a mixed blessing. i should really try to look at it as a blessing plain and simple, but i'm past the age of expecting only good things. this is an incredibly sad admission for me to make.

beginning to not merely enjoy but relish the new Sorkin fare; Studio 60 is really beginning to take off, and is a show that has the potential to last at least as long as the West Wing did (of which i only count the first four Sorkin-written seasons), and be just as good. i wasn't all that sure about the series after the first few episodes...it was almost too much an ensemble cast show. but Studio 60 is really digging in now, all its parts -- dialogue and story arc and character development -- equally well fashioned. i was worried that it wouldn't be able to live up to the West Wing's legacy, but i am only just realizing that i have that legacy to reference while i only have about five or six episodes of Studio 60 to compare it to, and that's not exactly fair of me. i don't mean to give the impression that i've been disappointed with the new show -- quite the contrary; indeed, every episode gets better than the last, and it started out with a pretty good bang.

haven't made or been taking any of the time i'm needing to write lately....full time at the Olive Garden is crushing my soul, and i'm feeling pretty well stampeded over, and not very much like myself. i am afraid that without luxurious and impractical amounts of free time i will dry up like a potsherd and my creativity will blow away like your Aunt Tilly's cremated remains over a choppy, unforgiving, 42 degree Lake Ontario, under mostly cloudy skies and a chilly northeasterly wind.

the point, though, is to try anyway, and maybe something at least interesting, if not good, will turn up. if the garbage and the gold even out, that is more than a good day. and i'm not even sure how to separate one from the other yet, so just getting anything is a victory for me.

so i've got to start trying again. i'd stopped there, for awhile. i've got to talk myself back into it. so here i am, talking myself back into it.

the vacation in oblivion is over.

maxim

say it truthfully. or say it beautifully. say it both ways if you can.

...by the oxford band, the Radiohead

gets me more every time i hear it.

there will always be something a little romantic about unashamed expressions of unrequited, self-disgracing love...

True Love Waits

i'll drown my beliefs
to have your babies
i'll dress like your niece
and wash your swollen feet

just

don't leave,
don't leave

i'm not living
i'm just killing time
your tiny hands
your crazy kitten smile

just

don't leave...
don't leave

and true love waits
in haunted attics
and true love lives
on lollipops and [chips]

just

don't leave....

don't leave....

don't leave,
don't leave...


what can i really say about this song? i really have only one insight: i read that the last lines of the last verse come from a news story Thom Yorke heard in England, about a nine year old kid who survived on lollipops and potato chips while his parents left him alone during their two week vacation.

its a pathetic story, a pathetic song...
does true love really resign itself to this, just to keep on loving?

in light of recent events...

...i've decided to post this link. i wrote this not quite a year ago. last october cared far better for buffalo's trees than it did this year....anyway, some of the final thoughts of this post came from something i had heard somewhere -- in a radio broadcast of a church sermon, i think -- and the i've carried the thought in my head ever since. even as far as the last post i made on this blog, specifically regarding autumn.

reading this post now almost feels like prophecy. it is a real account of that day, which is about as close to calling it "non-fiction" as i can come. i mean to say that the embellishments are literary, linguistic, rather than narrative.

read it and weep


--p

feeling emotional

i think maybe the reason i want to be a writer so badly is because of how i find my self so affected by what i read.

i've just scrolled through my inbox, and i'm on the verge of tears here. as much as e-mail, and the internet, language in general, and arrangements of electronic signals from my loved ones specifically do not exist in any tangible reality, and though i am sitting quietly here at panera's and everything seems to be what it is every other day, inside i am fallen on my face.

to tell the truth i haven't really deeply missed buffalo since i've left, for whatever reason. i'm not homesick, because where i am now is strangely homelike. i miss specific things like people, friends, family, lovers and loved ones. i miss the towers of the psych ward. i miss bidwell park. i miss the smell of the air.

i got an e-mail from my dad this weekend, which i just now happened to read. several of them, actually. in one of them he sent me this poem:

If You Think

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost,
For out in the world you find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind.

Full many a race is lost,
Ere ever a step is run;
And many a coward fails,
Ere ever his work's begun.
Think big and your deeds will grow,
Think small and you'll fall behind,
Think that you can and you will;
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later, the man who wins,
Is the fellow who thinks he can.

i know: corny, right?
i don't like posting quotes often, or other people's writing. its nothing personal, its just this strange reservation i have. but this, i have to post.
i grew up with this poem; it was something my dad used to quote to me often, in snatches, and i think i remember most of it being in a frame on an office wall or a desk of his. i had forgotten it had ever existed until he sent it to me. maybe its my tendency to edit out bad poetry or bad writing from my memory for fear that it will infect my attempt at high art. i know, i'm a pompous jackass.

i hadn't realized how overwhelmed i've been feeling, Out Here, away from everything i ever new. i hadn't really realized how much self doubt had caught me by the throat lately; how i've been choking under its growing weight, until i read this. yes, its corny. what's cornier is that it almost made me cry.

there have been a lot of self given pep talks on this blog. often i've got to talk my way out of hopelessness. its the only thing that works, words are the only thing that work for me. medication? not really. therapy? only in as much as it includes the use of words. there is nothing worth more to me than a right word in the right place. there is nothing worth more than being able to frame the right thought with the appropriate words.

i've grown up with this poem -- it is so close to me, i'd overlooked it for years. its words are appropriate, and they are in the right place.

it occurs to me now that the determination i've manifested over the past year, the dedication i've been able to pull out of the quicksand of my lazy self has a lot to do with the sentiment of this poem. this isn't a poem about positive thinking. its poses a question: what is inside you? what is it that you know you can do? where can you take yourself? can you carry yourself to where you want to be?

my grip on the belief that i could has been shaken over the past couple of months; can i really write the way i want to? can i write what i want to? every day the world seems to be what it was the day before, and i'm not seeing any changes, i'm not making any changes. i'm not what i really want to be. every day the world seems to be what it was yesterday, the mundane, the daily, the routine rears its head too often into the plans i have for myself.

i know that i can do what i've set out to do. it may takes years. a life's work should consume at least that much. i know what i am, i know what i can do. it just takes the effort of the reach. it is up to me to meet my own capabilities. that may sound like a tautology, but somehow we lose sight of the simplest truths, because they're so simple, because they're right next to us.

if you think you dare not, you don't.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i'll miss fall in buffalo -- i have favourite trees there, favourite places to be when the leaves shed. there are more trees Out Here, but i don't know them as well, and i have no favourite paths to walk yet. there is this sort of exciting sadness about autumn to me. the back cover of summer has finally closed, and is ready to be shelved; no more smell of hot asphalt or lilacs. the year has matured, and perhaps you have too; now the air smells of cultivated wood burning in cultivated fireplaces in the respectable houses of responsible, childless, happy, turtlenecked adults.

i thought one day i might grow up and be one of them; but i'm grown up now, and i don't have anyone to share a fireplace with...and i don't own a turtleneck. i like who i am more or less, but i thought i'd grow up to be different.

i had talked about this, briefly, with Sarah. she'd seen Colleen recently, a friend of ours from Canisius days. one of the few people i knew who'd started out in school for engineering and actually ended up working in the field. Sarah said she was so put together, and i wasn't surprised. Colleen was always a class act.

Sarah said she felt like a girl in front her. Sarah is a girl, though, and thats part of her charm. its a lot of what breaks down the walls i had tried to build against her while we weren't speaking. she has the girlish energy of an ocean surf, the tickling sea-foam eating walls into sand dunes. i resisted as long as my heart felt i had any right to. but erosion always wins.

i let her back in, into my life, and she came back to buffalo, and it was like the old days except better. she still smells like summer.......
......and she is on her way out of my life again...

i got an e-mail from her this weekend: we seem forever backing into and out of each other's lives. we are seasonal. we are here for a too short summer, and spend drawn out schoolyears apart. this is just how it goes. she is like the ocean surf. ebb and flow. tidal. there are other forces of gravity that tend to her, and that she is required by laws of physics to obey. and i am just shifting sand....

this time, i tell myself, is different. i'm not mad. i'm not bitter, anymore. i understand. still, it feels the same. "back in the alcove, back in the attic," i told her..."packing peanuts and bubble wrap."

this is the time of year to put the seasonal items back into storage...wrap up the summer knicknacks, box up the shorts and t-shirts. time to pull out the heavy blankets, clean the flue; time to break out the turtlenecks....

its that time again. the year has matured, and maybe you have too. summer vacation is over; summer vacation is a myth, now. what was the schoolyear is now your workaday life, and it never ends. winter is on its way. summer itself fades out of thought and memory. out of reach.

she's got to take a step in another direction. i understand. and i'm not mad. even if its off a ledge, and away from me. its fall; its time for the leaves to let go of their trees, else they both break under the weight of winter...............
how can i be mad? she is autumn....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...well, why not?

just coming off a dayful of training at New Job, in New City, and undwinding with a little free internet at the only place in town where i know i can get it (that is, good ol' Panera, which i have been describing to everyone i know -- half of whom visit here and will have heard this already -- as the Starbucks of bread).

the sole reason i am making this post is because it gives me reason to sit at this table and ogle the women and young ladies walking in and out of this fine establishment. right now i am eye-flirting with a well dressed blonde in her late thirties/early forties who does not have a wedding ring. i warn you, readers, so that you aren't expecting any substance here.

so, what shall i talk about, as i try to let this woman know, via eye communication, that i am thinking about her naked?

perhaps the first day of training at Corporate Resturaunt Job? i knew it would start at some point, but i hadn't expected it so soon; they managed to fit a backstabbing lesson in just between a training video and a food tasting. ah, jolly good fun. not even a day on the job and already i've discovered someone i am going to refuse to speak to. yes, if there was any doubt, screwing people is par for the course even at this low level of employment at a corporate company.

this lady, for the record, is in rather good shape for her age....i think she is just as much sneaking a peek at me as i am at her...at least, that is what i'm hoping...we are both half-arcing a stare around the bulging tummy of a chubby girl who has no idea she is caught in our crossfire...

maybe i should talk about what New City is like? the truth is i don't really know, as i am living about 20 minutes outside of it, and have thus far only driven down New City's main drag once, and aimlessly at that. the longer my training at New Job takes me, the more i have to stretch my gas money, which means there will be no further drives through New City in the forseeable future. one day i will have a little money, a little time, and enough gas in my tank to find out, but it won't be soon.

...and with that, she is gone, out of my life. i fantasize that she walks back in and gives me her business card, or slaps a tattered Panera's napkin in front of me with her name and number scratched in womanish handwriting upon it...somehow the latter seems sexier, and a little more frightening. yes in my fantasy she is dangerous, and that's just what she does...

i could talk about what it is like living with my grandparents, but what you are imagining at the moment is pretty much what it is like. early to bed, early to rise, etc. i could talk about the adventures i've had finding an apartment with my sisters here, if there were anything at all adventurous about it, but then, that has been mostly what you'd expect as well (and if one of the descriptors that your thinking of about that process happens to be "pain in the ass" then you happen to be right on). i could whine about not having any money, but i've been doing that to everyone since the first day i've gotten here, and frankly i'm a little tired of it. i could complain that my phone has been shut off, and i am only able to receive calls until i pay my bill, or that my car needs a-fixin, or my things in Buffalo need a-retrievin, or that i'm homesick for my friends...

...but it would all just be filler; what i'm really thinking about is how i haven't hung out with any girls in New City that i'm not related to. i've been staring at this woman, waiting to see if she'll come over to talk to me, because, although i know it is against the Rules, yes, i am egotistical enough to believe that through sheer force of eye-contact i should be able to make a woman take the initiative to come to me. However, we've seen how well that works, and we do regret our decision to poke away at this keyboard instead of being a man and approaching her....


...and now we've missed dinner at grampa's.

i was almost going to update today...

....but i decided against it.


i moved.
so i've been busy.
too busy to make an update.
but soon, don't worry; soon...sssshhhh....'s okay....sssshhhh...


-p

postcards from the fridge...

or, fun with magnetic poetry.


sail the bleeding morning from yesterday
let the sad fire of poetry bellow with your secret life
growl like a ghost over a wild ocean;
a son cut from the soft belly of a god,
a daughter of champaigne & flowers
think less of decaying like a prisoner
speak desire
wake up the night
your sacred fever heals you
a window which opens out on to the universe,
a way in to a breeze we will soon explore;
remember,
& learn to breathe

ramblings of a burn-out

well folks, the end of the world is on its way. the turning of the earth will keep it at bay for only another 11 days -- the process of night to day, and day to night is good for keeping the inevitable away for a just a little while longer. it (that is, the inevitable) will always have to travel the distance of "from then," in the future til "now," in the present...and it cannot do so faster than time will allow.

thank God for that.

but also, thank God its coming.

goodbye Buffalo

i would be infinitely more happy if i had some Lime-aid right now. i am going to go pick some up, i think. at Wegmans.

ah, goodbye Wegmans.

goodnight stars, goodnight moon.

goodnight home, goodnight work

goodnight mom, goodnight dad

goodnight dust of this crummy little town.
i shake you off of my feet and trade you for the dust of some other crummy little town.

-p

reason not to have a girlfriend #6

the ones you want are too good for you; the ones you can get aren't worth your time.

Quick Insights (tm)

Fargo = subverted Film Noir

haiku

long i stayed indoors;
i missed the flowers blooming
autumn fell on us.

breaking news!!! [with commentary!!!]

....i hate exclamation points!!! [this, in fact, is true]

anyways, the most important news items first: Heath Ledger, charming aussie (pronounced ozzie) of 10 things i hate about you fame as well as that oscar winning gay cowboy romp has been confirmed in the role of...
no, not Sir Penilis in "a knights tale two: stick it in the tail"....but... [drunk at five in the morning and this is funny. in the hungover light of day it sounds a little meaner and a lot like a bad joke cut from a Dennis Leary tv special.]

that's right, you've already googled it... [read this line with the intonation of near cleverness barely disguising the expectation that you've already gotten bored and looked elsewhere for the answer i was so expertly building suspense to.]

the friggin Joker, for the second instalment of Chris Nolan's (or is it David Goyer's...?) Batman franchise...damn. how d'yall feel about that. "y'all" as in everyone but Girish, who stil hasn't seen Batman Begins yet. c'mon, Girish...what are you waiting for. [i don't know why i say "friggin" here. it's barely appropriate. i'm not angry about anything or trying to sound tough. i am showing off the fact that i know that David Goyer wrote Batman Begins. i will show off more by telling you he wrote all three blade movies, directed the last one, and wrote a bad bad less than "B" movie adaptation of Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. which starred Yasmin Bleath and David Hasselhoff. also, i am yelling at Girish here for what you might think is no good reason. but if you thought that, then you'd be wrong. he should see Batman Begins. i don't think he'll love it, but i want to hear his thoughts.]

also, in case anyone is wondering, i am slightly drunk as i am writing this. so i forget what my other two breaking news items are. one of them might be: NEWS FLASH!!! the SUN will be coming up again, SOON!!! and 4 bags of Lay's potato(e) chips for $4.44 at the A-plus on the corner of Elmwood and Hodge. ["in case anyone is wondering" here just reads as "in case it wasn't utterly obvious yet." its that tendency all drunks have to get to a certain stage of drunkenness where they want you to know how drunk they are. i really did forget what my other news items were at this point, and i don't know why i was talking about the sun except that it really was coming up. in which case it makes that sentance only mildly relevant and certainly not at all funny. oh, and about the chips: not such a great deal, as it turns out. travelling the wrong way, $2.22 worth of them ended up in the toilet this morning.]

oh yeah, and also: Castro had intestinal surgery, leaving his brother Raoul in charge of the charming little Isle of Cuba...[what i should have done here was change "Isle of Cuba" to something like "la Isla de Cuba." it would have been more charming]

if i were Raoul Castro i'd stuff Fidel full of a strictly intravenously absorbed mineral: good ol' lead, sprinkled with a dusting of gunpowder. seriously. somebody should send this guy a copy of the Godfather part II. make a deal with the American underworld, blow Fidel's ever-stubborn brains out, and turn your economy upside down with wonderful American profits. you know you want to, Raoul. come on. you're brother doesn't know what he's doing. he wears fatigues to bed. and that beard. i mean, its gotta be really hot in that thing. that HAS to bake your head a little, right? something upstairs is a bit overly cooked...Raoul, we're not asking you to become the next Puerto Rico or anything...be your own sovreign country for all anyone else cares...be exclusive, a resort island. whatthehellever.....just stop being communist so we can stop sanctioning you and then we can come spend money at your beaches and on your cigars. no, wait...become a free economy but can your cigars somehow maintain an illegal status here in the states? it is more fun to smoke them on American soil when you know you could get thrown in jail. [this is true. but get ready for a weird tangent...] i heard that cops around here can smell the difference between Cubanos and Puerto Rican cigars...true? who knows. [what the hell am i talking about? this is making me laugh] i know i just want to try to outrun the police when they do. i've heard that Cuban nicotine can give you special powers...like swimming 90 miles with only the aid of two planks of cherrywood and a piece of string. (i am fairly sure you need a cape to even attempt this). [ok, rambling again. its not so much funny to read because its funny as its funny to read because falls so drastically short of being funny. although, really, who can say that i'm wrong about Cuba?....that's what i thought. still had enough wits for masterful political insight]

i would like to say hooray for me at this point [see? i am proud that i can be drunk and still have masterful political insight. at this point i am dreaming of landing a staff reporter position at some major, well respected, widely distributed print periodical due to my blog-reporting, newsbreaking skills. newsbreaking is probably an accurate word to describe it, no?]
and then open the can of mel gibson worms that everyone is talking about.

can i just address Mel here, for a moment?
you really should have been able to get away with what people miscontstrued as Anti-semitism in the Passion of the Christ... [read the New Testament, people. Jesus pissed off the Sanhedron and the Pharisees, and they gave him up. Jesus was a Jew. so were the Pharisees. everyone in this story is a Jew, plain and simple. its not a judgement on a particular ethnic group. people have used it that way, but that shouldn't make the story change. i am qualifying here because the internet is rife with people who like to start fights.]
but now you've just buried yourself and bought your headstone. everyone knows that when you're drunk you say things you actually DO mean rather than things you don't really mean...come on, what were you thinking? here's what you should have done: you should've walked around talking about how much you hated Jews first of all. just to everyone. like in line at Starbucks -- i'd like a tall, vanilla, non-Jew latte please. or maybe -- i'll take whatever brewed coffee you have on tap, as long as its not a he-brew...

ok, puns really are less funny than ethnic jokes, aren't they? sorry 'bout that...
[this is true. i like ethnic humor. i watched a lot of stand-up as a kid, and racially based humor always made me uncomfortable. it always felt a little...i don't know. inherently offensive; black on black humor, black on white humor. anyone on anyone. but. screw that shit. if its not mean spirited, and its funny, and people understand that its both of those things, then go for it.]
but really. you should've talked about how much you hated the Jews while you were sober -- AND THEN gotten drunk...AND THEN talked about how much you secretly liked them. like, i don't know...do a press-release about your Jew hatred and then have a few Basil Haydens at the hotel bar and accidentally spill the beans to a reporter that you love Jews, and that you are in LOVE with Jews, and that you are in LOVE with LOVING JEWS. [i actually think this is kind of funny. really, its a good plan. if he didn't want anyone to think he was an anti-semite, he should've ditched that Holocaust documentary he was working on, walked around admitting to it...and then gotten drunk and talked about how much he loved the Jews. i think it would've worked. we'd all believe him then, wouldn't we? also: i love that i was drunk while writing this part. there is a sort of formal appropriateness, pontificating on drunken activity while drunk.]

i like the alcoholism. really, i do. its a great humanizing quality. the anti-Jewism? well, i'm not Jewish, so its not personal, but....still...not so much. nobody likes a hater. [i think is true, too. see what kind of secrets of the universe spill out of you after you've had a few?]

anyway, Gibson -- in vinum est verum. alcohol is the ultimate truth serum, and you admitted it under the influence. [it i imagine to mean his anti-semitism] now we all know how you really feel. its not that you were driving drunk (heh) its that you were talking when you got caught. i really do like you. i think you're extremely talented and a respectable guy...couldn't you have just not been dissing Jews while drunkenly speeding? i wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt...but do you realize how hard you are making it on me?

Braveheart...Conspiracy Theory...Lethal Weapon...(s)...and.....other stuff.
[apparently i am listing off these Mel Gibson movies as his redeeming qualities, as the things i want to point to and say "see? he's not all bad." the rest of the thought really never came through. this "sentance" was just dangling here all by it self when i came back to this post this morning]
anyway. you are giving MSNBC all of this fodder, this station which is nothing more than a power-surf, an attempt to gain power over a band...seriousl thogh..is a ocontext befearpu jt v

[and then it just ends here. weird, eh? the decline of that last sentance is perfect though, isn't it? the arc of it is like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Dave is pulling its circuitry out. i do remember, before i shut down like a de-wired computer, that i was going to launch into a rant about how Tucker Carlson and Keith Oberman are total douchebags. when did sarcasm start passing for newsreporting? not that i'm a newshound by any means but...the whining all starts to sound the same.

at any rate, i wrote this whole post with the fervor of knowing i had several interesting news items in it and that i'd be reporting them in a timely fashion; i was going to post this at six in the morning, but obviously it never got off the ground. six hours later, and this shit's old news. ah well. at least it makes for an interesting read.]

"i spent my life with Superman"

i love Superman. i tried to write this once already. it was not the piece i wanted to write. it grew into some kind of academic defense of the character, and it felt too much like work and not enough like the nostalgia and love i wanted to describe.

it sounds funny, doesn't it? i love a comic book character. go ahead. laugh. there are endless aspects to Superman that i could intellectualize and examine endlessly. perhaps that is for the evil twin of this post to explore. this post, the good post, is for meandering my way through my memories and impressions of the character...how Superman has informed my identity from childhood...

what little boy didn't want to be Superman? that is the only defense i can offer for my childhood obsession; i can find no excuses for its following me into adulthood. i don't know if i remember my first Superman comic book. it may or may not be the one i'm thinking of now. i don't remember too much of it: i couldn't read, but i knew that 'damn' was part of the dialogue. and i remember a panel with a half naked Superwoman, mid costume change. and there was Lex Luthor, and Kryptonite, the works.

i would sit on my dad's knee, and he would read it to me. he used to tell me stories about when he was a kid, and he'd get a quarter for an allowance. 15 cents went to ice cream. the other 10? a Superman comic book. there must have been something in that experience he wanted me to share; i can't think of any other reasons why he should have read me that comic book. from what i remember it was barely appropriate reading for a kid of my age. as i'm writing this now i think i've recalled how it found its way into my hands -- at a hotel, some kind of convention perhaps. people littering my small field of view, moderately distant to my eyes, and now, my memory; my father behind me, hand on my shoulder. one figure stood close, a thick, tall man, suited, in his mid thirties. he looked at me. he peeled a book off the stack in his hands and slapped it into mine: Superman. my heart raced.

now that i think about it, that was a course altering moment in my life. who could tell that for the next twenty years i'd be enfatuated...?

standing even more monumental in my mind, of course, is Superman: the Movie. it came out two years before i was born, and because video rental back then was something you did secrety out of the back room at the local pizza parlor, i think what i saw was a theatrical re-release. Dad's fault, again. if it were up to my Mom, i wouldn't have seen it, i'm sure -- Superman, and Star Wars and the Last Starfighter -- traditional great 80's fare were too much for an impressionable little kid like me. turns out she was right. but thank God for Dad.

Christopher Reeve was Superman. he brought the character to life, and he's burned himself into the mythos. when comic book artists drew Superman, up into the late 90's, they were drawing Christopher Reeve. that 'S' is scorched into my brain, those primary colors. i hate yellow. unless its inside Superman's crest. there, up on the scree, you could see him fly, could see his cape flap behind him. though couldn't remember that it was called 'heat vision,' i was thrilled at what i could only describe at four years old as his 'laser eyes'(what four year old knows what lasers are?). you could see it all in the flesh. you believed a man could fly.

Reeve's set jaw and blue eyes crystallized the screen. that movie is spectacular. even its frustratingly corny moments endear themselves to me. yes, i am fully aware of the tricks that nostalgia plays on one's judgement. even so, the Superman of the movies became Superman for not just me, but everyone who saw it.

now i'm older. and what of Superman? the gloss of my childhood obsession hasn't worn off, but i can see behind it now. what was relevent to me then -- the desire to fly, to run, jump and take off, to burn a whole through the front door -- is not what is relevent to me now, appealing as it still might be.

people say Superman is a boyscout; that he is somehow two dimensional because he is good, because he follows the rules, because he does what is right. and some people argue that it is just his nature. he is naturally good, that thoughts of evil and personal gain don't, for a moment, cross his mind. its not a terrible argument -- he is an alien, and perhaps kryptonian nature measures up a lot better when put next to human nature. this, they argue, is what makes Superman boring, two dimensional. i say it is the boring and two dimensional argument that does that.

the only point of reference i have for this statement is myself, but through my experiences i've come to this conclusion at least: doing good is not easy. holding yourself to a higher standard is not easy. i don't think its any easier for Superman because of some inherent virtue he has over anyone else. its just as hard for him, and the burdens are bigger, and the stakes are higher. not to mention that he could get away with doing as he damn well pleased with impunity. wouldn't the temptation always be there for him, to abuse his powers? no, i don't think he is more virtuous by nature...it is simply by choice, by force of will.

doing 'good' isn't easy. give Superman a little credit.

listen to me...
i talk about him like he's real...
of course what i mean is, give me a little credit for the good decisions i've made....

as i write this now, i'm also fascinated by Clark Kent. Clark Kent didn't grow up as Superman. we think of "Superman" as being Clark Kent's job. it is what Clark Kent 'does': he puts on his suit, goes "Supermanning," and comes home after a hard days work; maybe cracks a beer, watches Conan, drunk dials Lois and goes to bed. its not, though. Clark Kent's job is as a staff reporter for the Daily Planet. he receives a weekly paycheck for what he does in front of a computer screen: writing. Clark Kent is a writer. people don't go into that field on a whim, they don't try it out because, well maybe it might be a neat thing to do. they do it because they're passionate. they dive into that work; they love what they do. Clark Kent writes news stories. he's a journalist. perhaps he has a dream of changing the world as much through his articles as he does by being Superman. mayabe being Superman is something he does because, as one comic book titan once put it "with great power comes great responsibility." perhaps writing is really what Clark loves to do. perhaps he's working on a novel, and he's halfway through the third draft. perhaps his goal this week is to land a face to face interview with the former Israeli Prime Minister, so he can edge out Lois for column inches on the front page of the Daily Planet. perhaps his heroes are Kafka and Joyce. perhaps he just loves words, and lives to fit them together beautifully, intricately, artfully.

maybe Clark sees himself as a writer, and his writing as his main contribution to the world.

of course, what i mean is that i like the idea that maybe Superman thinks of himself as a writer before he even thinks of himself as Superman. it kind of elevates the profession, and the choice i've made with my life...

there is a sort of trinity of identities that Superman contains, or a layering of identities. his public persona is the Superman identity, the Man of Tomorrow, saving the day. in civilian life, he is Clark Kent, mild-mannered, midwestern farmboy. the whole point of the idea of keeping a secret identity is so that Clark Kent can lead a relatively normal life, and protect not only his own privacy but the privacy of those he loves. though it is his public persona, Superman is the secret Clark Kent keeps. but even these two identities, as genuinely as they are a part of his identity, are veneers the character hides behind...somewhere inside, privately, to himself he is Kal-El, the Last Son of Krypton....no one can dispute the normal, wholesome childhood that Superman grew from; raised on a farm by Ma and Pa Kent, he must have had a solid work ethic, he must have been polite and learned from them his mild manners. as an aging couple who couldn't have natural children of their own, they must have showered Clark with all the love they had. its as good a childhood as anyone could hope for. even when Clark starts to show the first symptoms of super powers, its still a background relatively without incident, right? and yet how many years did he spend not knowing where he came from? not knowing anything except that he fell out of the sky and into the lap of Ma Kent? he knew nothing of his natural father and mother. he must have wondered where he'd gotten his icy blue eyes, from whom he'd gotten his jet black hair. to whom did he owe his natural curiosity? from whom did he inherit his inclination toward writing? how long did Clark spend knowing nothing about his heritage? eventually he heard the name "Krypton," learned that Lara and Jor-El were his parents, learned that he had a name he was born with, and it was Kal-El. when he finally had learned something about who he was, was he heartbroken to know that Krypton had been destroyed with everyone, every living soul, and everyone who shared his blood on it? i imagine Superman having a soft spot for Kryptonite; deadly as it is, it is all that is left of a home he will never otherwise see.

Clark knew all of his life he was not human; he was different, special. unique. the questions about his heritage that he sought to answer were bred with the hope that he was not alone, not singular in all the universe. all the answers could only be half a satisfaction, then, when he learned the hard truth; his family was gone, and he would never meet them. Superman in his soul holds up a lost planet, bears the weight of its ghosts, his parents, and the heavy, black holes in his identity that he will never recover; he holds it up to the light of his memory, mournfully. what else can he do? what other respect can he pay? what other way can make his heritage a part of who he is?

they talk about the Superman origin as being the "ultimate immigrant" story. Siegel and Schuster were children of Jewish immigrants; it makes sense. yet they owe the story of Superman's journey to Earth to their heritage in an even deeper way; the Last Son of Krypton floated down the Milky Way in a rocket, the same way Moses floated down the river as a baby, hidden in a reed basket. their parents sent them both away so that they might avoid certain doom. yeah, in a way these are "immigration" stories, if you want to appropriate them that way. but something more personal is going on here; Superman being sent to Earth as a child is the ultimate adoption story, which is something more intimate and more personal.

who does Superman talk to about this part of his life? how do you think it makes Ma and Pa Kent feel, when everything they've given still can't fill in the missing pieces? do you know how strange it is to miss someone you don't even know?

i was a little boy once, and how could i have not wanted to be Superman? it is the right of all little boys. i am grown now, and the only right of grown ups is to face that which is difficult; we save the heat vision, the power of flight for children; we take on the struggles of goodness, of profession, of identity...struggles for which those powers are useless. Superman is who he is, and he's still like the rest of us. his powers, his alien nature haven't afforded him a free pass on the human condition. as a kid i would never have believed i would grow up to be this much like Superman...

generations

Ouranos was the first god of the sky. Cronus was his son; he carried the Great Sicle. there must have been no love between them; Cronus took the sicle and cut his father's penis off. no wonder Cronus feared his own children. he never made a meal of Zeus, though. And when Zeus came to collect his brothers and sisters from Cronus' belly, he did not shame him as Cronus did Ouranus. Zeus, third god of the sky, had gotten it right. benevolence, justice, civility was the lesson of the day. Zeus-pater, youngest of the gods, became father to all. having acted honorably, he received honor, and he would have no one, nothing to fear.

you can read the story in the sky; Ouranus, the wheeling heavens, his phallus the axis on which the earth spins. Cronus' Great Sicle carves a circle through the year, the hands of father time cutting up the night in celestial, patricidal harvest. And finally, Zeus, the brightness of day, covers all...

to the greeks, the third generation was a charmed one. fathers, grandfathers, their business was troubled. they may or may not have obeyed the gods; grandsons could set it to rights. grandsons learn the generational lesson. they carry and correct their family name, the adjusted spirits of their sires, as they bleed out blood feuds, calm the Furies, sate the gods themselves.

three has always been a sacred number in most cultures, but i think the significance comes from a more practical observation. in general, there are only about three generations of a family alive at the same time. grandfathers, looking through the scope of their own sons, look hopefully upon grandsons. grandfathers have made mistakes; fathers are making them. grandsons have their whole life ahead of them. the third generation is hope.

whether or not i ever become a father or grandfather, i am a grandson...i have been one, and i always will be. what gifts have i been given? what flaws? what lessons should i learn? what is my contribution to my family, and what paths should i take our name down?

hello, from the land of scattered thoughts...

so, i've been making more of an effort to do some writing lately, and that feels good. the problem is the riduculous lack of discipline and laughably small dividends: i am barely working or doing anything, so my whole day is generally geared towards writing. which means i can -- and i DO -- wait as long as i want to get started (no surprise here to anyone who really knows me). and i can't seem to eke out more than a couple pages of overly process-conscious writing.

i am trying to work on what i am calling "Vol. 1" of a two volume novel.

its really not coming together just yet, so i have been grinding out pages of experiments -- excercises, more or less, for my faulty mind. there are so many ideas, and i don't know how to weave them together yet. i don't even know where to start.

i recently broke out this past year's writing to look at, hoping for some inspiration. its true, though, when they tell you that success consists less of inspiration than perspiration, so really the best i can hope for is to keep laboring away until i have something. still, i did find some clarity in those older scribblings, a focus of vision that always accompanies the origin of ideas. there is good stuff there, rules to write by, things to remember. the book i am working on in concept deals with the journey of writing as a pathway through life and the self, so reading the written journey of the past year is helpful.

it also makes me realize: i don't write nearly enough.

perspiration IS inspiration...or will lead to it anyway. if you catch enough on a piece of paper, somewhere on that page you'll find something useful. the point is to catch as much as possible.

woodwork

just wrapping up a busy weekend; the little sis is officially married, and a load of family was in town, some of whom i've not seen in a decade (the realization dawning on me that its not just that i'm a terrible son or terrible brother, but that i'm just a terrible relative in general).

all in all it was good fun. its sad to see her grow up, but there's no denying it now: my little sis ain't so little anymore. ce la vie. what is really going to be strange is when Clint and Katie have their first kid...i hope i'm around, i want to be around for that; it will give me the opportunity to start from scratch, and be someone potentially important and hopefully close to some part of his family.

at any rate, i was on the way to my parent's house to get dressed before the wedding, and got a voicemail from my highschool guidance counsellor. it took me a full five minutes to lift my jaw from the floor. apparently she discovered me via this website -- and as i'm writing this i'm only now finding the time to be confused at how she tracked down my cell-phone number.

in my last post i mused? (...complained...) that the only people who read WrittenOff are people i know in real life. its a mixed blessing, really. its nice thing to know that people are interested. on the other hand it makes me want to be less than forthright, and can potentially get me into trouble.

my boss found this site when she searched our work address. now i'm sure more than half the people i work with have at least seen it. good thing i haven't written anything here in the heat of passion about work or....well...its best to stop there.

there is a lot less security to having this site than i originally imagined. its been here for about a year and more people are reading it than i know; people are coming out of the woodwork. for all i know, my parents are reading it. scary.

i didn't think that really more than five people had ever been to or read any part of this site, and now that i know its not true, i've got to be more careful about what i write, and, most of all, who i write about -- it was all well and good when this was a nook of the internet protected by the fact that i never told anyone it existed, but now i've got to be careful. especially with using people's names.

as in Julie Randolph, who was googled by a boyfriend who found her on my "naughty list" (which she isn't actually on, idiot boyfriend of Julie Randolph -- i know i use some complex sentance structuring sometimes, but really...try to follow along here. english is your native language, right?).

as in Heidi (apparently-having-long-dropped-the-Glick-) Kerr, my highschool guidance counsellor who was googled at work by her husband, who, i am embarrassed to know, is now privy to my secret adolescent thoughts on his wife's legs, which, naturally, went no further than highly intellectual and philosophical musings about their aesthetic value, of course. (ahem)

and then there are other people in the silent wings who are dropping notes (hi Cheryl, thanks for reading -- remember when i quasi-stalked you after we broke up? heh, fun times...)...people who i'd thought i'd lost all appeal to, who've moved or moved on...( --not much to say-- ).....all very strange.

i've been struggling for self-sufficience, for self-hood. in a way i've been doing it ever since i was a kid -- disconnecting...pruning away the dried up branches, sealing off the dead ends. it is why i am not as close to my family as i should be. it is why i don't keep in good contact with anyone. my life is full of false starts and missed connections; there are few people who are electric and dear to me, less than a handful.

and where does that leave me? do i know "me" any better now? am i better for dropping all of those lines of missed connections? i don't know.

perhaps there are levels of connecting. perhaps best friends aren't something adults are with each other. perhaps i need to impose less, to expect less, to be happy with the connections i've been offered at their own frequency. it is comforting, and flattering, to know that people desire that from me in some capacity, be it blog-form or some other way...

maybe this blog has opened a door to those connections...maybe it is the door itself.
friends, family...read at your own risk.
i was never satisfied with the "doing lunch" approach to relationships -- relationships walled within a half-hour's time taken out of a day that otherwise had no room. i appreciate politeness, but i abhor formality between those who are supposed to be friends. i want "dinner and drinks" relationships; "crash in the guest room" relationships. "let's take a road trip" relationships.

which do you suppose this blog is?
are we doing lunch here? or is this dinner and drinks?
it was never supposed to be either, honestly. take it where you want it to go, i guess.
i was just trying to write, here.

love, kisses

p

proof that i could use some more Vitamin D

it occurs to me now that i've got a wider readership than i'd previously thought. evidently, people are keeping tabs on me through this blog, all of whom i know in real life. in fact, that is all that my readership consists of, and while i'm glad people take the time out of their day to consider me without feeling the need to be ostentatious or expressive about it (like, say, dropping me a note in the comments section), that is not why this site is here.

that coupled with a decline in the material i've been posting lately makes me wonder: is there any point to keep doing this at all? it was ok when this site was just for me, just practice to keep writing, but to tell you the truth, trying to do this for any external reasons other than that it is what i want to be doing or that i have something i feel the need to organize into words and sentances is crippling.

so i don't know how much longer i'll be doing this. i don't want people coming here just because they know me; i don't want anyone reading this site just to be nice.

i want to post here because i am compelled to do so, at my soul's urge, and i want people to read because they find what i write compelling.

i don't want to write just because i feel like i have to put something new up or the blogger police will come get me.

sorry if that sounds like a big fuck you to some people, but i have no grace under that kind of pressure.

on a related note, someone whom i know and am not on speaking terms with replied (via personal e-mail) to a recent post he or she apparently felt was compelling, and you might look at me and say well isn't that more or less what you wanted? and i'd say certainly there is a sense of achievement when you've moved someone you haven't spoken with in a year to break her silence...except what am i supposed to do with a missal that was written with the expressed purpose not to "re-establish a relationship?" what am i supposed to say? thank you for sharing your thoughts, now let's not dialogue about it? what's the fucking point? why did she write me in the first place?...i mean, aside from telling me that she doesn't want to have a relationship which might include discussing the important points brought up in my post? really...what was the point? to assert her "rightness" or authority? that is game i am sick of playing with people, and especially with her. i don't need you to come down and tell me you know what's what. most people who think they know are either stupid or will change their minds. thank you for condescending for a moment to reassert that you have the answers to all of life's questions; i'd forgotten for a moment why i didn't want to be friends with you.

but wait, there's more. the irony abounds. yes, apparently morality is contigent upon faith, seeking self in God, and most all community, according to my correspondent. and she feels it is important to share struggles, questions, and the journey with others. which is all fine. except we're not trying to re-establish a relationship here, remember? so.....how big of a good goddamn do you think i give? what's the point of "sharing" with me if we are nothing to each other? its called logic, lady, try and use some. especially when you're writing a so-called "reply" to a post the point of which you completely missed and utterly failed to address. its not so much that i mind the medieval scholasticism of your indignant, impregnable moral philosophy, its that.....no, wait, i do mind it.

let us break not the rules any longer.

that said, she raises a point personally relevant to me about the identity of the self and its fullfilment being contingent upon the Divine...only because i have read Kierkegaard's the Sickness Unto Death, and have understood some of it. now there's a guy who could comprehend the Schism of the Self. while i have to say that i think i believe Kierkegaard and my friend Sarah are on the right track as far the role the Divine plays in the fulfillment of the self, i feel that Man must come to an end of the rope of worldliness before he can learn to cry out for the Divine so that he might more fully receive what the Divine is crying out to give him. it is not a climb to heaven, it is a climb through the world -- and it is not to earn what is free for all, it is to be able to grasp and comprehend it.

i know you've been working hard...

...mustering all your thoughts and formulating a reply to my last post, so i'm calling a recess and posting a few links that will hopefully make you laugh. in case you haven't noticed, i've put a few new links up in the "links to visit" area -- one of them is an online comic called Gunnerkrigg Court, which is dark high adventure of the kind i would have loved as a kid and find myself loving even now...definately worth checking out. the other link, from which the following links are drawn, is the website for the Perry Bible Fellowship, which is a comic-strip rather than an actual church, as such. they print two or three weekly in buffalo's alt-newspaper the Beast, and the strips always prove to be creative, if not laugh out loud funny.

here are a few of my favorites:

Bacon Egg
Ballerina Slippers
Goodnight, Full Moon
Book World (the first Perry Bible Fellowship i ever read!)
Astronaut Fall (Josh Wilson would appreciate this)


and there you have it.
use the comment option to express your gratitude for enlightening you in the ways of the Perry Bible Fellowship.

all right, coffee break's over....everyone back on your head.

a new morality (?)

for awhile now, i've been plagued by the idea of what morality is, why it is and where it comes from. all my life i have been raised within the system of what might be called the Judeo-Christian moral tradition, and i certainly mean it no disrespect by questioning or deconstructing it. i don't mean to pick at it simply to get away from it or pull it apart to justify my immoral actions. the reason is this: i have a hard time doing anything just because somebody tells me to. its incredibly stubborn, i know...and it shows a lack of trust -- in God, perhaps, and the basic goodness of a moral code -- and say what you want about my failures in faith, but i have come to realize this: "because i say so" is an unacceptable reason for anyone to do anything, and biblically, it is rarely the reason God ever gives. oh sure, He punctuates with that a lot, but he never fails to prove Himself.

God, as creator of nature, therefore works through a natural process; as designer of a universe held together by laws of physics He must work through those physical laws as well -- i think of them as the work gloves with which the Hand of God moves. the notion that miracles, that signs and wonders can be explained by natural phenomenon therefore is not a problem for me. to many people of faith, it is considered a blow to what they believe, the work of people who are trying to tear down the supernatural and replace it with a mundane, natural explanation. but if God is the creator, and creation is nature, than there is no such thing as "supernatural" -- or, rather, everything in creation is supernatural...and if you ever study biology or astronomy or geology, it really boggles the mind; nature itself verges on the supernatural, and it is almost incredible -- the perfection of the life cycles of plants and animals, or the immensity of outer space, or the fine calibration of the earth we live on. the scientific explanation never detracts from the power and sovreignty of God, it points out just how powerful and sovreign He is. discovering the physical laws that govern natural events, be they everyday occurances or miraculous wonders, simply give us an explanation of what is happening, and aid our appreciation of how and why it did happen.

when it comes to the question of human nature, things become more controversial, more arguable; few can agree on what is 'natural' for humanity, and discovering the normative properties of the race is either used or seen to be used as a way to oppress the non-normal; certainly there is that danger, and whether or not discovering a norm is undesirable because of that danger is another discussion entirely. at any rate, there is little agreement as far as what human nature is, and there is less agreement about what 'natural laws' govern it. morality is an attempt to the answer that question of the natural laws of humanity.

if our system of morality is God-given, from On High and written in stone, there is still much to be discovered about that system. following the moral code is certainly good enough, but for many understanding why is an important part of that act of obedience as well, to say nothing of the need to explain to those individuals who are disinclined to follow certain of those moral tenents why obedience is necessary. a moral system that does not contain an answer to the question "why?" amounts to brainwashing or mind-control -- to finally use the analogy i've been setting up all of this time, it amounts to observing natural phenomenon without having any concept of the physical laws that govern it -- it is mysterious at best, confusing at worst. therefore, if morality is to be taken from On High, it still requires a why; if God is the source of our moral system in a "down from the mountain" fashion, it still must contain reasons for its own formulation, because we know that God does not allow natural phenomenon to stand alone without physical laws just as we know he does not allow a moral system to stand alone without its own reasons for being -- the explanation of which is not to detract from the authority or sovreignty of God, but to demonstrate its fullness.

and yet by the Divine system mankind is a complete moral failure; so much so that we've managed to fail in several different ways. our inability to live up to the Divine Moral Standard is the reason for Christ (who came not to do away with, but to fulfill 'the Law') and his death on the Cross. as a race we have fallen so far from the finish line we've needed even more Divine assistance than we knew to begin with. in other ways, we have surpassed the Judeo-Christian Divine Moral Standard of the Penteteuch, the laws of which were given to a society that existed on the brink of extermination. laws that seem to govern moral practice (complete with appropriate punishment) are in actuality laws concerned with the health and survival of a people. medical and technological advancements seem to make certain pronouncements of the law obsolete. do clean needles sterilize the immorality of getting tatoos? do health codes and disease control cure the meat of unclean animals? do condoms protect against the depravity of promiscuity or homosexual sex? and what about the medical and technological advancements that the Divine Moral System has absolutely nothing to account for -- what moral code do we take into account when considering the dangers of genetic engineering, or cloning? what happens society has outgrown its moral system? or is it hubris, to think we have come so far? is it pride to allow ourselves loopholes around the Divine Moral Code just because we have the technology to create them? to me, it is clear that we need a New Revelation...

that said, and putting other points to be raised aside for the moment, there are those that argue that the entire cause of morality and the need for a moral code is society itself -- that without society, without a community, without any number of gathered individuals, great or few, there would be no need for any moral system. morality is what governs the social commerce between individuals in a community, and arises alongside and just as naturally as communities do themselves. this sounds entirely reasonable; even if you don't have a moral code from the mountain, you are going to have to end up with a system one way or another. in large, organized, secular societies, you have governments and legislation that order what is proper and improper social commerce between neighbors, and on a subgovernmental level a public, communal sense of courtesy or general morality determines the right- or wrongness of less pressing concerns like manners and personal conduct. in fact, one could say there are several strata of morality, or even several moralities -- a morality of society, a morality of the state, and a morality of religion.

this social origin of morality works its way around the objections that arise with the Divine Moral System -- namely that the Social Origin states that morality is a necessary component of society -- it is inherent to social structure, inseperable from it the way the Divine Moral Code seems to be. an explanation of nature and the laws of physics as an analogy for the DMC and its reasonability is a complication not necessary for the Social Origin theory. the Social Origin theory is simply described as occuring naturally alongside society. the mechanics of its origin of course must involve an awareness of what people are prone to do, an awareness of precedents, and here again we could re-raise the concept of human nature and how the perception of it figures into the structure of the moral system. but because society, no matter how restricted, is inherently pluralistic on some level, its moral system can be nothing but basic, and therefore prove only a basic understanding of human nature.

this is the crux of the question that plagues me. is there a morality that exists apart from society, to govern a solitary man? is there a morality that exists apart from the Divine Moral System? a morality that is not just a "because i said so," or is not a system for survival, or is not just a way for us all to get along? what if there is no one to get along with? are there still moral obligations? what about the man who lives in society and is not a 'part' of it? what about the hermit? where there are many men, moral systems must exist. where there is a God, moral systems must exist; they always do. the question for me isn't the hypothetical "what if God doesn't exist and you are the only man left on earth." its more complicated than that. i guess as concisely as i can put it the question is "what is the moral responsibility of the individual?" is there only a moral responsibility when there are people around? is moral responsibility only a matter of duty owed to the Divine, and if so what is the purpose of that for me?

"what is the purpose of it for me" is the important half of that question. its not that i don't believe in a moral responsbility to society or God...but....what is the purpose of it for me? it helps me live better with other people, and i can follow rules that will make God happy, but to some degree those are outer layers, non-individual layers. i am an individual, and the core of me wants to know what is supposed to govern it and why...

what is the purpose of it for me?.......i'm determined to find the answer to this question, because i believe there is one.

your writing update

end of month 1

june, july, and august to go.

a quarter of a short story down.

things are not coming along quickly. this is the part of the writing process where i realize i haven't worked on a project in two weeks. this is the part of the writing process where i don't want to go back to writing; where the bottom drops out, and suddenly i'm thinking this isn't something i can do.

a fog has descended onto my head, and i can't follow a single train of thought. i haven't felt this unfocused in a long time. a blog post even this short is tough to make.

so far: i am pretty unsatisfied with my performance.
so far: i suck at writing.

so far: i haven't figured out how to do this.

Achilles had no friends.

Achilles had no friends; he was the greatest warrior that history -- real or imagined -- has ever known. he killed not only Trojans, with whom he was at war, in the thousands -- but Greeks as well...the guys on his own team, the people of whom he was a leader. the Iliad is a poem about the 'wrath of Achilles;' it was unquenchable, unstoppable...inhuman. Achilles' anger and his sheer lust for glory made him an implacable force on the battlefield. he cut through men like a flaming sword, like a heavenly fire. he was a saint of blood, he was born to kill. by the end of the poem, he has no friends -- he offends his king, alienates his fellow warriors, and his only friend in the story, Patroclus, is slaughtered. he is a brooding, vengeful bastard.

in fact, Achilles is ensconced, encapsulated in the pruned, autumnal garden of his selfish desire -- he has chosen death and glory as the way of his life, and it has isolated him. Bernard Knox, who writes the introduction to the Fagles translation of the Iliad, asserts that it is Achilles' solopsism that grants him godlikeness; his singularity of purpose, his singularity of being, its arrogance, its refusal to join the rest of mankind in a common concession to humanity. Achilles is a man (granted, a demi-god); he is mortal, and lives among mortals, yet throughout the story he makes no connection, cannot join himself in any social bonds with mortal men. he aspires to greatness, to glory and even godhood in some sense, and leaves mankind behind him as something to be stepped over, cut through; until, Knox argues, Priam, king of Troy, comes to supplicate Achilles for the body of his son, Hector. here, Achilles ceases to be a god, ceases to be simply a force of personality, and becomes human........the eloquence and the love of Priam for his son has touched him. Achilles falls into this human reality: he too, has a father; he too, will wound him with his own impending death. he is able to feel something different than his bellicose single-mindedness; Priam anoints him with human compassion.

Achilles is doomed; he does not die at the end of the poem, but we know his life is sealed, bound to the death of Hector (whom he kills, knowing this full well). but he is pulled within the human realm before he dies, joins the race of mortal beings. he too will meet death, like the all the rest; he is as good as human. why not join them in life? according to Knox, the Iliad is the tragedy of Achilles; perhaps he learns too late, but it is never too little to learn how to become a part of this race.

live, from the sunset strip, its studio 60...

nothing makes me want to blog more than Aaron Sorkin news.

so "Studio 60 from the Sunset Strip" isn't really news...or, rather i'm a very untimely reporter...but suddenly i'm all hot and bothered about it.

it all starts with the West Wing; the show that nobody wants to watch until they get irrevocably hooked. its one of those things that happens gradually, but feels like it happens overnight; just ask my ex-girlfriends, my various roommates, or me. the Bravo reruns caught me around the throat, a couple years ago. its important that i specify the Bravo-run of the West Wing and not its network run at the time; after season 4, Sorkin left the show. i never gave it a chance after that. it might not have been all that bad, but how could it ever be as good again? the point is, i've never watched a whole episode that Sorkin didn't write, with the exception of Sunday's series finale. cute episode, by the way. worth the fuss? no, not really. the show was long overdue for cancelling, without Sorkin's pen. but i couldn't resist watching the very last episode of my very favourite, if devolved, television show. good thing i did. the bright spots? the commercials of course, specifically this one -- a thirty second teaser for Sorkin's shiny new Studio 60. the cast looks phenomenal.

can't wait. :)

buttons in funny places

i'm elated; i just found a button on my laptop that turns off the touchpad.

you have to understand; its not that i have meathooks or anything, but on my last laptop, i could barely type because i kept grazing the touchpad....

so if i were typing middle of another line something, randomly
my cursor would jump to the

...and i can't tell you how annoying that is when you think you're writing your opus.

as it turns out, what i was writing then wasn't going to be my great work. but touchpad misshaps are no less annoying now than they were back then, so it is nice, now that i have redefined the role and importance and type of writing in my life, to finally be able to peck at this keyboard without having to wonder where the words will end up.

at any rate, here i am with a new laptop, and a summer off from school -- with new plans for my former opus, new plans for a new opus, and most importantly, germs of ideas for other little pieces along the way. these last i'd like to focus on the most. i've only really written two short stories that i'd ever let anybody read. one needs about a thousand man hours of editing. the other needs less editing and more retouching. they are not bad. if i can fiddle with them a bit, they might even be good. they give me hope that i'll be able to write in the short form successfully. i plan on trying it out; if it works out the way i hope, i may send a few pieces out to run the publishing gauntlet. if the little guys survive, they'll be 'real,' i'll get to say i'm published, and maybe i'll even see some money. it won't be enough to pay rent; i'll be able to buy toothpaste and toilet paper and a nice chicken dinner if i'm lucky. but no Gepetto would ever be so happy.

let's set some goals:
i'm aiming low here, i know, but i'm not going to ask for much more than three short stories this summer. that's really because i only have three ideas, but let's all pretend that its because i'm monumentally gifted and that if i try to write any more than that it will put undue strain on my fragile body, and that because being such a genius is so exhausting i'll have to be bedridden for five months if i manage to pump out more that three literary treasures. let's pretend also that the nap i'm going to have to take after writing this post is for the same reason. everyone got it? good.

so, i have three ideas. one of them is what i like to politely call a reworking of Borges's "the Circular Ruins;" you might impolitely call it a "rip-off," but if we can get together over lunch on this one, i'm sure we'd be able to agree on the backhanded term "inspired by" and walk away satisfied.

one idea is about something called 'the Book of Lost Thoughts,' and it came from me wondering what happens to all of the little lines of poetry and prose i've composed in my head while walking, only to forget them completely upon arrival at whatever my destination.

one idea is about buffalo. the phrase that keeps flickering on the screen of my brain is "buffalo underworld"........its not about organized crime, or gangs, or our lovely, corrupt and useless politicians (ok, i didn't vote, i have no right to complain, yadda yadda).......but because buffalo manages to be a small and incestuous and inbred city; people's secrets get passed around like currency, street gossip is almost always reliable, and everyone's got a reputation for something. the word "sordid" is the best i can think of to describe it. the strange part is people take a certain kind of twisted pride in all that sordid stuff here. i'd venture a guess to say that any city is like that, but i don't live in any city, i live in buffalo. and because i am an absolute retard for mythology, i of course plan to work in some references to the classical (and non-classical) depictions of the Underworld....because....sometimes buffalo feels like...Purgatory or something....Sheol...the abode of the dead...

anyway...a story a month this summer.
i should be able to do that, right?


i'll let you know...

"May the Christian Lord guide my hand..."

"...against your ROman POPEry!"

this has got to be the funniest line ever uttered in a movie. the conviction with which it is delivered makes it funny...and the word "popery." as in "the act of pope-ing."

i am sitting here watching a mediocre movie to watch Daniel Day-Lewis be amazing as Bill the Butcher, and he's the one who gets to shout that line and be admirably repulsive in Gangs of New York; what's more, i'm watching it from the comfort of my own apartment as i type this entry -- fingerwork that would admittedly be put to better use writing all the make-up papers i've got to do before monday. but the point is this: i've just gotten a laptop for my very own. handy in the event that i'd ever want to, you know, be a writer.

which is good news for you. because, now, while instead of just rotting my brain in front of the telie, i can rot my brain AND post to this lovely little site.


which i will start doing. right after i get to watch Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York.
cheers.

reason not to have a girlfriend #6

(today is 1/23/07. this is a retroposted draft i had, lingering around, unpublished. why? it wasn't for any special lack of quality...so, who knows. here it is, restored to my lovely little weblog.)

i am going to make a general statement here, and it won't be pretty:

girls are needy.

ok, before half of you get started, give me a chance to say this: of course not all girls are needy. of course there are exceptions, and no i shouldn't be so enslaved to gender stereotyping, and i don't know what i could possibly be thinking by making such a statement except...

girls are needy.
i'm not saying men aren't needy in equally annoying ways. i'm not saying girls aren't deservedly needy. i'm not saying that anyone wouldn't be needy when you enter into the pact that is a relationship. in fact, that demand on your time and attention is justified when you've made that agreement with someone, when you've taken that step. things in your life change, and necessarily so.

i have always been drawn to women who were strong, independant, even stubborn, i think as a guard against that intense demand upon my time.

and the girls i have been drawn to, they will either have nothing to do with me, or they become every other girl i have ever dated. they become 'girlfriend,' and they lose all their own interests and replace them with me. i turn them to mush, for whatever reason. they lose the distinction of character that drew me to them in the first place.

they begin to latch on to me, to get upset when i spend too long in the computer lab, or want to go out with the boys, or spend time wandering my own thoughts. they get upset when i do things that don't include them, or me thinking about them.

like posting on a weblog.
and there this girl, a girl i am not (yet?) dating for whom i must cut this post short.

and she is not my girlfriend.
she is still just a girl.

and reason not to have a girlfriend #6 is:
girls are needy

stealing greek

feeling the need to ramble a bit today......

let me tell you about two new words i learned this week. they aren't actually new. they're a few thousand years old really. and they aren't english, they're greek. but they are new to me, and i'm excited about them.

word #1: kalon -- abstract beauty, the recognition of beauty without desire, without the need to possess. something like zen-aestheticism, appreciating beauty in and of itself.

i think this is a fascinating idea...mostly because, for me, it is almost incomprehensible. as an artist, the only thing i want to do is capture beauty, or create it, or somehow leave my mark on it. as an artist, i only appreciate beauty in terms of possessing it, in whatever way i can. inspiration is the attempt to acquire beauty, to consume the beautiful so that one may produce the beautiful; sandwiched between that beauty, perhaps one can become beautiful oneself. i don't know. i am not sure that the concept of the kalon is possible, in reality -- i don't know if one can grasp what beauty is apart from grasping after it. but i like entertaining the idea that it is possible, or that as a term it might be able to describe something so magnificently beautiful that the mere existence of it is possession enough. i like that it might be able to describe something transcendantly beautiful, beyond perfection, boiling over with its own ineffable, blindingly endless existence; like God on the top of a mountain.

i have felt some moments where the world and life and its plan were jarred into beauty -- like a re-set bone -- and that beauty had been enough, to know it was there was sufficient for me, and to know that i had a place in it was a comfort. so perhaps i understand the idea of kalon, to a degree. it is a holy beauty, a beauty so sacred that it consumes you, consumes the self...you become a part of it; it is too big to become a part of you.

i concieve of the word kalon, or beauty that is kalonic, as being opposed to beauty that is 'hellenic.' Hellen's was the face that launched a thousand ships. if her beauty had been transcendant, those armies would have turned back, satisfied with the slightest glance at her, and happy to know that somewhere in the world there existed something so beautiful, and for her to be in the world was enough. hellenic beauty inspires lust, desire, war...inspires men to die; kalonic beauty inspires them to live.

word #2 akrasia -- the breakdown of human reason which results in irrational choice...usually due to the contamination by human will.

i didn't know there was a word to describe why i've made most of the decisions i have in life. what it comes down to is that sometimes the reasons for a decision aren't always reasonable; they aren't predictable, they aren't decipherable or very well explicable. and sometimes you choose something just to enact your will, to know that you are still you and you can decide something even when the world seems to spin out of control........eating disorders, anyone? not to mention any number of less obvious manifestations that derive from a similar kind of neuroses...

if you've ever read any of the "reasons not to have a girlfriend" posts, you'll perhaps be somewhat familiar with my personal conflict with the self -- i do and have done things that just don't make sense, a victim of my own compulsions. i have done dangerous things, committed potentially life altering acts, all the while just looking at myself, thinking "what the hell are you doing? you idiot..." everything i do is a choice, because right alongside the reasonable, the sensable, and the safe there shuffles the impulse to do the opposite, the appetite for the edge of self-destruction. and i won't deny that sometimes you've gotta run up to the edge, and walk that line and find out what you're made of...sometimes, you have to know the answer to the question "what if...?"

and sometimes the floor falls out from under you and the wisdom of your decision is apparent to no-one. on the way down, you think "why did i do that," and if the fall is long enough you remember: akrasia. or "a-crazy-a." because, sometimes, we're all a little nuts.

"can't do it max..."

i used to be a good student. i mean, after i was a bad student for awhile, and i barely graduated high school, and flunked out of Canisius College...i took three years off, and then started going to Buff State, and started pulling A's and the occasional B. and then this year happened. last semester i attended so few classes i had an unofficial withdrawal from three of my courses. my grades in the classes i did attend were...not failing, but nowhere near what i'm used to getting.

so this semester i decided that i'm going to bring my grades back up.

and i just can't do it.

granted, i've been sick three times this year with what appears to have been strep, and have had my share of...troubles...with the amherst town courts. and i had move into a new apartment again.

but honestly, if my head had really been in the game, it wouldn't have mattered, and i wouldn't be in the mess that i am now.

as the end of the semester nears, and the missed classes and make-up work pile up, now, more that ever, i am frantically trying to figure out what's missing from my academic focus so i can get it back and at least not throw away another semester.

i used to love school. now i'm afraid i'll be stuck in the same sort of limbo i was using school to avoid -- doing nothing, learning nothing, being nothing.

i can't wait for summer. i've got that itch. i feel guilty. other people can do this. other people take more classes than i am taking, and work full time, and don't sleep, and they can make it happen. why the hell can't i?

i don't understand the lethargy, but i have a few theories:

1. too much fun -- i used to not have friends. now, i have friends. i could not have them, i suppose. but then i wouldn't have any friends. the unrelenting need to have people like me makes me want to hang out instead of do my work. and i have really only ever operated in extremes in this arena. hang out, every chance i get. or hang out with no one, ever.

2. no girlfriend -- usually, when i have a girlfriend, she is my social life. so i don't need or usually have friends of my own when i'm dating someone. i'd like for that to change next time around, but i am just accustomed to the ol' ball and chain. it made being social easy; just find one person you're comfortable with, and hang out with them. and then ignore them when you have to do something. it takes the focus off of being social, and realigns it on the task of the day. that was really easy. i know it sounds horrible. but sometimes i wish i had a girlfriend again, just so i could get some work done.

3. writing -- since i've decided to own the creative factor of my life as its defining feature, i have little patience for anything else. granted, at this stage, i'd probably be bad at writing for 8 hours a day like a real live writer does; i think that's something you've got to work up to. and so i'm not wishing that i had nothing else in my life to do. but it seems that the times i've felt the most creative are always the times when things like school are my biggest obstacle to creativity. and that is a pain in the ass. don't they have programs for people like me? (anyone says "12 step", and i'll kill you...)

4. lack of wellbutrin -- i was on this drug for awhile, when i first started back to school. i don't really remember it making me feel any different. it was supposed to make me feel motivated and, well, less bi-polar, i guess. but the only reason i took it was to keep the people who bugged me about it off of my back. it made other people happy, but i don't remember it making me happy. i was against the idea of taking a drug to fix something i felt like went deeper than a medical issue. i still am. but at this point, i'm willing to try anything. i had stopped taking it, and things kept moving pretty smoothly. i attributed that to fact that my life actually had purpose and direction, i was paving a path of A's and B's towards a certain goal, and that was good for my spirits. my focus is a little hazy, now. maybe its time to give the ol' doc a call...

5. bad health -- they say that health of body affects health of mind. they also say that strep can stay in your system (which it has in mine, evidently) and swirl around your body and go to your HEART. no wonder i felt like i was going to die when i was sick. i don't think it got as bad as infecting other parts of my body...but who knows? maybe it went to my head, and ate away my brain. i do feel like i have a headful of scrambled eggs. at any rate, i have some health issues i need to take care of; strep was one, so i've got one down. i still need to get my wisdom teeth out. and i still need new contacts. i am so gross. i just want to feel better.

there we go, Buff State. top five reasons why i've sucked at school all semester. can't you just...let me float by....for old times sake?