new dawn

Christmas break just started, I'm in bed awake late at night as usual and I thought I'd write a bit.

I'm rereading some of my thoughts from earlier-- sometimes I know how to articulate what I think. That's encouraging. My English professor commented to me that some of the best writing can come late at night because we might be closer to the unconscious... I think he might be right.

Anyway- I'm full of that rejuvenated feeling you get when you scrape through a semester of hard work and emerge on the other side, relatively unharmed. I'd like to get a fresh start this next semester and see if I can't finally learn from my mistakes and excesses.

I want to meet people.
I want to create a new me- no, I want to perfect the old me.
I want to write more.
I want to start exercising, build some muscle.

It dawned on me recently that I am not my body, my representation. I am Ryan, and I exist within that form. The form is mine to change as I will. Putting everything in perspective has filled me with a new optimism.

I feel capable, but also restless again. If I can get some things done over break that I've been meaning to do I think the restlessness will go away. When you're on the road to self-fulfillment, you don't get the restless feeling as much.

My mind is surprisingly empty right now, close to a sleepy nirvana state. This is good for meditation but not writing. I'll say a few more things and get some much needed rest.

The advanced fiction writing class I'll be taking this semester has me excited because I can feel myself taking the steps I need to fashion myself into something great, to harness my talents. I will write, even when it's difficult and when I don't enjoy it because I know that's what I can do, what I'm able to do. I want to load syllables into the cannon and fire them out, build worlds with words, brick by brick. Although I haven't read much of his work, I stand in awe of writers like Cormac McCarthy.

That is a man who looks at the english lexicon, and truly selects words to place on a page. He isn't writing as much as he is building something. His style is uniquely his own, his vocabulary has a spirit and an ethos, it evokes an entire internal universe unparalleled by other writers I've come across. The feeling as a reader that you get when you know the writer is twisting the material within his hands is a good one to have. I want to be the giver of that feeling rather than the receiver. The same feeling came across me when I downloaded Raekwon's new album, and compared the written lyrics to his delivery.

No words were off limits. The writing actually came alive in the delivery- images flashed before my eyes and created something that was much more than what he had started with. I look forward to doing this in the future.

new year

As always I've been neglecting this, but I started trying to write the other day and was interrupted when Jeff came back... so I guess now is as good a time as any.

I told Kayley to start writing as an outlet (theres a name that hasn't even been mentioned in this yet), and seeing how quickly she took it and with what dedication, it's made me want to push myself a little more to start being a better "writer." Not in terms of quality necessarily, just with more frequency.

I've only got about four minutes before the movie screening starts which I'm bound to fall asleep in so I'll have to come back to this later tonight at the library. Just had to get something down on paper for the new school year.

recirculation, hopeful re-ignition

Just finished writing an essay related to Greek American influence and sent it to my grandparents. I was pretty pleased with it because it was semi-focused as opposed to a huge broad attack on every facet of Grecian influence, which would have been impossible to write about. I feel a little guilty hearing people call it "brilliant" or even "good" because most of the stuff isn't very original, pretty much pop-media philosophy lifted directly from the tail end of Media 101, but oh well. Anyway-

Gram's comments made me consider logging a few more entries into this, since she talked more about disciplining a natural talent to hone it into something really great.
Actually thinking about it now there's probably nobody better to take advice from on something like that than her, her talent at painting seems so organic now that I take it for granted. But I've heard countless times that her talent is a result of prodigious, diligent practice and years of lessons on top of the natural "spark". Her advice made me just now feel a semblance of the perennial 'spark' that I just mentioned so I figured I better seize the moment.

I think part of the reason I hate writing in this so much is that my stream of consciousness sounds so much better without a stenographer. Looking back on what I've got so far is like an ironed out perversion of my thoughts, a really selective organization of a handful of things that darted in and out of my mind. But reading it back feels slow and cumbersome. Maybe I just can't write with enough fluidity or focus yet to capture them before they change. I guess as I write - literally now- I can feel my mental voice become more and more aligned with the one here. So it's close enough I guess, except that I can edit my internal monologue, a pro and a con.

Just to reiterate, tonight's talk with my grandparents has touched a small part of the spark I've been looking for a lot in my life lately. So it's like I'm a trout being re-released into the stream of writing so to speak, hence the title. I'm finding that I like my blog posts more and more in terms of titles as I read them back. I usually just pick a word or two to sum up the feeling of the moment I'm writing in and usually my writing below conforms to meet my original premise. It might be kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy but its great to see it come together after.

I'm writing while I listen to music which I haven't been doing since Jake and I have been watching so much True Blood during the night hours. I think he likes spending the time with me a lot right now since he's grounded, plus it gives us something to share. We've always been really close but recently also completely different. So it's a good way to close the distance.

But its not just any music like usual, its Third Eye Blind's new cd Ursa Major. Third Eye Blind's debut has been so loved to death by me that it's better and easier to just think of it as a part of my personality rather than just an external collection of songs. I can't decide how I feel about this new one, its probably too early to pass judgment on it but I might as well anyway. I love a few of the songs but it's also really disappointing.

And it's strange to react with so much disgust to a band I love so much, because I feel like I'm turning the blade on myself. When Stephen Jenkins does the semi-rap delivery and misses the tone that he's nailed before, I feel like someone should just put him out of his misery. Or in 'Don't Believe a Word' when he drops the couplet talking about 'Brother, Brother' I want to avert my ears in shame. I really fill with a strong hate for some reason since it's such a low point in what could have otherwise been a great song. It hurts because I know he has it in him to create another CD like ones I love from my childhood but he continually fails to live up to the first. Blue grows on me more and more too, but nothing will ever match that watermark, I fear. That's part of the weird experience of loving something too much- fear of disappointment.

Either way, it's a rebirth for them as a band since the CD is at the top of the iTunes charts- they're getting a second life now which I guess I can only be happy and hopeful about. It sucks to see things you love and put stock in dissolve and disappear though. They still make fantastic songs that I love like "Second Born" or "Why Can't You Be" but by moving away from the album template they're losing focus. There's no point in fighting the tide though, the album is going to die (if its not dead already) and the only thing to do is hope someone masters the new mode well enough to capture as much meaning as the old one did. I'm filled with a nihilism since the attitude today is that nothing new can ever exist or be better than anything that already exists, but I guess I can hold out a futile hope. I'm deluding myself but I guess they call that faith.

I don't know what brings out the feeling of emptiness in people but maybe it is keeping a journal and constantly writing. It's like the existentialists talking about alienation and horror- when you keep staring at a blank page and you run out of ideas you just start disemboweling yourself and it all starts to unravel. You don't know what you want to do with your life, you're unhappy with the direction it's going but at the same time you feel powerless to change it- and at the same time you know its completely your responsibility that it's not changing.
Weird looking back on my writings from before too because occasionally the tone changes to one of bright inspiration, full of that lifespark I've mentioned several times here. Somebody said scars have the power of reminding us that the past was real, and that's exactly how I feel when I read them. They're scars of happiness and meaning that seems to currently be eluding me. And following a pattern in these posts, I'm scared that when I get to school again and start writing in this I won't be able to escape this restlessness. In short, I can't wait to get out of this fucking house and go to school, but in long, I don't want to go to school and find the same things I always find.

Maybe you can only find fulfillment in retrospect, maybe nostalgia is the antidote to the super saturated reality post-modernists talk about. When I look back on the past and I live through my joys and mistakes again, I find comfort but also a huge sadness. I wish that the feeling was something you could bottle and keep with you and gradually use up when you need it. Because when you hit the lows the highs are so distant and alien that it feels like they can't come again.

I only have memories of ease and carelessness, and I can't remember them that well. It's been something like 4 years. That's about all I've got tonight.

debunking God - a new theology

Now that entries have fallen to a rate of about one per month I guess each one has to be far more profound than the last. Since that's the case, tonight's discussion will be about God and the Bible and Christianity and all that good stuff.

Few things in this world are as divisive as Christianity and all the topics and issues falling under its blanket. Sure, Christianity is based on some principals that sound great: the 10 commandments generally make sense except for a few ones which are specific to the religion itself (ie, sabbath day holy, no Gods before me). On the other hand, once you delve into the Bible as a tenet of Christianity we enter a whole new realm of chaos where God is a walking contradiction. If God walked, that is.

So to start from the top, lets think of issues surrounding the Bible as a text. Obviously, there are lots of things happening in the Bible that simply can't happen in our world today, ruled by physics and other natural laws. So, the issue of interpretation rises to the surface immediately. Do we look at the Bible literally or do we look at it figuratively? Then comes the sub-issue: what if we look at it both ways? Which way do we choose for which passages?

Well lets start in Genesis. We open up the book and we get to the creation story. God makes the world and our tale is flowing linearly, when suddenly we rewind and there's a second creation story. Now, unless we want to open the door to all kinds of trans-dimensional, alternate reality, world-outside-of-time explanations for this, we need to pick a lens to read this through.

A literal reading is pretty much ruled out unless we open the door as I said before to all those crazy possibilities. So, I guess we're going figurative; this way we can accept both stories and boil them down to a small kernel of creativity that we can hold onto as we keep reading. Keep in mind though, we're officially starting to read the Bible off of the figurative foot, so to speak.

Most of the beginning plays out in a very rhetoric-heavy, open-to-figurative-analysis type fashion. But then we get to a couple biggies where many Christians take their view and revert it to a literal reading.

This switch comes about basically only for human sexuality and the bevy of issues under that umbrella. That, and any attempt to break away from a binary morality, and a monotheistic theology.

At this point, I think it's time to make a hit-list of points and questions that serious Christians need to evaluate and come to terms with before they call themselves Christians:

1. The Bible was written by a group of men in a civilization that barely bears resemblance to our own. What does this say about the 'Word of God' contained within it? How much of what is written was subjectively shaped and changed, if it did in fact come from God?

2. Everyone thinks of God automatically as an old wise man sitting on a cloud. Those who resist this idea are just being playful usually- this is probably because old wise men are by and large the protagonists in the Bible. When in the Bible it says that God fashioned us in His own image, did that come from God or from a person who wanted to be like God while writing? Most people would agree that people are nothing like God, so how can we be in his image?

3. Is everything God creates perfect? If so, what does perfection mean here? If it means that it fits into a plan, we come to question 4...

4. Does God in fact have an ultimate plan? If God has a plan, how do we have any way of perceiving what his intentions are? Obviously, we can't because no human could ever understand God's intentions. So, what does this mean for the circular logic saying that we shouldn't do things because "God wouldn't want them." For example, there are two ways of looking at a transsexual moral issue in the Biblical concept which are both equally viable by the underlying logic at least. In terms of the transsexuality itself, let's just assume we're ignoring the sexual mores written into the Bible. So, the two ways are as follows:

-Everything God creates is perfect. As a corollary, He doesn't want us to change his creation. God would rule that transsexuals should stay in their bodies and deal with their challenges because that is God's plan for us.
-Everything God creates is perfect in the sense that it fits into an ultimate plan. However, we play a part in this plan- the things we do on Earth are part of God's plan. This involves overcoming obstacles and solving problems. God would want a person to be strong and brave enough to overcome the issue by having a sex change operation.

I could go on with the list, but the point is becoming clear I think. God's will can literally be used to justify anything from an abstract point of view. Most Christians would agree that God's will is ultimate and above everything else- this is essentially saying that a force of nature that we know nothing about is the most important thing in the world. How can we make good decisions based on that?

On the other hand, most people will also accept that emotions and spirituality do exist in the world, and we are more than a sum of chemical reactions. So, we need to come up with a realistic conception of God if we are expected to evolve.

Science can explain a lot, sure, but it operates within a fixed set of rules. These rules exist and are observable, but they aren't creatable. They came from somewhere, or they were always there. Rational people will agree that these are the two options. Obviously there's no way to logically jump to one of these decisions, so it takes a leap of faith at this point. Let's go with the idea that there is a creator, and let's define what it is.

Let's use some of God's qualities from the Bible to come up with a more realistic picture of what God is. So boiling it way down, God is:
-omniscient
-omnipotent
-loving, caring, accepting, etc.

Ignoring the parts where God acts like a human, lets focus on these qualities. Omniscience means that God knows everything. What does everything consist of? I'd say this means everything material, chronological, and spiritual or emotional. No person or singularity can do that, so we have to rule out an individual conception. Moving on.

Omnipotence means that he has an incredible amount of power, power to shape or change anything. Obviously as an extension of the first, that means God can manipulate any of the above qualities which he has knowledge of.

Finally, He's loving and caring and infinitely forgiving. So, we're beginning to get a picture here of consciousness, albeit a utopian-leaning one.

So lets put it all together. God is individual since he's conscious but he's collective because of his omnipresence. So he's simultaneously not an individual and an individual. Excluding the last quality on our list, we do know of some things which closely resemble the first two qualities: forces of nature. Gravity "knows" every event pertaining to it at any moment. It's everywhere, and it operates both individually and collectively. It also has an ultimate set of rules it follows, similar to our hypothesized God.

Spinning these together, God is both a force of nature and an individual. When we look at a single human body, we see some strong similarities. A human being is made of trillions of small interconnecting parts- these are individual. When we think about human beings we think of them as individual despite this - this is collective. All of our functions and behaviors are ostensibly governed by rules - this is a sort of mini-omniscience.

When we boil it down, it makes more sense to think of humanity as the God of the Bible rather than as a single man. If together we make up God, then we can indeed all be perfect no matter what we do, because the only rule involved with being a part of God is simply that we can't stop being a part of God. Like a single cell, an individual has no omniscience or power on its own. Together, humanity approachs a kind of omnipotence similar to that described in the Bible (remember, we started reading the Bible on the figurative foot, so stay with me).

We need to get rid of our archaic images of God and start looking for God where it makes sense to look for him: everywhere and nowhere. The Bible is either trying to justify humanity as God as a collective delusion, or through it's search for supreme sovereignty it has unknowingly unearthed a more truthful representation of God. Many questions remained unanswered, but it can't hurt to take the discussion in a different direction.

exodus

I've been exiled to the lounge because Phil and Lauren are breaking up right now in our room, or at least I would assume as much. This is probably going to have profound effects on our social life although I'm not sure how right now. I'm not even sure they'll actually break up or if this is just a preemptive strike so to speak, because realistically break-up is inevitable in the long run. I give Lauren enough credit not to stick around if she feels unwanted.

In other news I've been feeling unmotivated and down lately, again. I don't know what it is that causes it, must be hormonal swings. I had an idea that had me feeling upbeat and excited for a few days that I would start an online media umbrella organization under which politics and entertainment and everything societal could be discussed online. I kept thinking about the party system and how deceptive it is, and that a real political alternative deserves to be voiced. Sort of a fine tuning of my rant about Rolling Stone getting lazy a few weeks ago. But lately the more I think about it it just seems futile. Hopefully by giving these thoughts words I'm not solidifying them or making them concrete.

I'm still optimistic about living in / being around Ann Arbor much more next year since it really feels like home. Bloomington feels very alien even though I was really excited to come here. I've gotten used to campus and all the different paths to take between classes, but it still lacks familiarity and I feel like a tourist.

stirrings

I need to take this in a new direction if I want to keep it alive since I don't think the details of my life have enough energy to keep a daily writing regimen fueled. Either that or I don't have the motivation to milk the juice out of my daily life to fuel it. Tonight is one of those weird nights where I'm seized by a bigger idea or wider purpose and I feel compelled to capture it.

I definitely can't sleep. That's partly because I slept until almost 2:00 pm today. Currently in Maine with my grandparents and it's been unusually uneventful considering how jam-packed with activities weeks with my grandparents usually are up here. Went to trivia at a bar with Andrew and got second place, small place with a hodge-podge of working class looking guys and upper class older folk. Regardless, I can't stop thinking about this idea.

Next year is going to mark my return to Ann Arbor regardless of my acceptance at the University of Michigan, although I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for that. I decided that I don't want to go to State because that would be a compromise. I never wanted to go to State in the first place, and I don't want to be a martyr just because I have a bad financial situation. So, if I work like a slave and go to WCC next year so be it, I will be in and around Ann Arbor most of the time.

Ann Arbor is a young town that is really alive with energy, political energy in a way that few towns are in America right now. In the 60s, San Fransisco was a cultural hub but I sense that Ann Arbor might be a new one for this generation. Everything is becoming more and more liberal, there's a store that sells hallucinogenic drugs (albeit legal ones), and streetside protests aren't a thing of the past. If ever there was a subcultural hippie renaissance, it would be in Ann Arbor.

In the context of this cultural frame of mind, I was listening to music and thinking about how important it was in the 60s, as well as how important it was to me. Jake and I's ex-step brother Eric broke his iPod and it was like his life had ended. Some might call that materialism, but they miss the point- Eric needs the music, not the device. I could completely relate. Then I began thinking about what music means today, in this generation.

In the 60s Rolling Stone was started, one of the most influential magazines ever. I have a subscription today, and when I started reading it I was mostly just fascinated by the language the writers employed, and the wide array of musical recommendations it presented. Recently I've began to read Rolling Stone with a more discerning eye, and I'm extremely disheartened by the direction that the magazine is going.

Rolling Stone still employs writers with an uncanny knack for language and twists of phrase, but Rolling Stone as an entity is a bloated, unfocused and often lazy beast. Few issues are examined or clearly presented for readers. Riding on the receding foam of the political wave the magazine created in it's heyday, its writers and editors hide behind a far-left position without doing any real deconstruction of information for its readers. And they've been fellating Barack Obama's administration with every page not dedicated to music.

On the surface, I'm optimistic about Obama, but Rolling Stone's complete acceptance of his word at face value is thoughtless, at best. The government decides to nationalize banks and pours billions upon billions of tax dollars into the economic machine. Following suit, Rolling Stone brings in an army of liberal economists who make incredibly incendiary claims: "Adam Smith's invisible hand is invisible simply because it isn't there."

That's an extremely powerful statement. Rather than explore the implications of it, the writers mention that the economist in question won a Nobel Prize and neatly wrap the subject up. The opinion is handed to the readers on a silver platter. This kind of political discourse is completely killing real ideas and discussions, and keeps herding mindless American citizens into their partisan pens. I, for one, would like to see some evidence to back up some of these claims.

Everyday I become more and more of a conspiracy theorist. Obama is young, charismatic, and intelligent. He's relatable and he's a shrewd politician, but he's still a politician. McCain and Obama are both in government, and both made sacrifices to get where they got. Obama got farther, so chances are he made even more.

People forget about Obama's complete lack of effort to crank back government phone-tapping legislation. More examples are out there but the point is this: Obama is no longer a man, he is part of a political machine. This machine has trappings and machinations that existed before Obama, which he has inherited. Obama now serves hundreds of men behind a curtain, and many of these men are wealthy.

The more I turn the thought over in my mind, the more the need for a real cultural watchdog seems to arise. Somebody with drive needs to take to the streets, find kids who are disillusioned and interested in music, culture, and the world that they stand to inherit one day. Start spreading the word to the people again, go back to old forms of true patriotism.

Young generations aren't supposed to file silently into the future, placidly accepting government growth and privacy invasion that would make George Orwell turn over in his grave. We should be resisting the PATRIOT Act with every bone in our bodies. We should be profoundly disturbed by the notion that the government thinks that implanting microchips in people's arms to keep track of them at all times is a good idea.

Images keep flashing through my mind of a few kids in a cheap car, blasting loud music through the intersections in Ann Arbor, throwing handfuls of purple fliers out the windows. Passersby stop with interest and read the leaflets being dropped. They announce that a new publication will be taking sharp interest in music and politics again, a serious look at the forces behind our world that are shaping it outside of our control.

Nothing has changed since the 1960s except that the youth is better equipped than ever to spread their points of view and implement change. What has changed is that we are numb and indifferent to the world, and that is something that has to change from within. All it takes is one spark to start a fire, and more and more I sense that this spark might be on the horizon. Since nobody else is taking the step forward, more and more I wonder if I should try to ignite something myself.

unnecessary mistruths

I've been neglecting this lately but tonight I do feel fairly compelled to write another entry. Tonight was a typical college drinking night, and on the walk home things got philosophical as they often do when alcohol is involved. Phil, Lauren, and I were all discussing the moral aspects of homosexuality. Phil stood behind the bible and I felt pretty divided.

It got me thinking about Gnosticism, and whose hands the world is truly in. The Bible has certain aspects in it that are poignant, but by and large my opinion is that the bible was a document written by a bunch of old, unsophisticated white men who were intolerant of most things accepted today as social norms. The bible (and Phil's argument) was that homosexuals were an aberrant mutation of the human standard, and that being attracted to members of the same sex was a complete choice. I disagree.

There is no choice involved in my attraction to women, and to suggest that people deviating from the norm do have a choice is ridiculous. Attraction and love isn't a choice, it's an emotion that overcomes people. Phil tried to claim that murder wasn't pre-disposed, murder was a choice the same as homosexuality was. This is incorrect. Serial killers have been found to have genetic and environmental similarities meaning that the choice is not entirely free.

This string of thought got me thinking about evil in the world, and the biggest, most fundamental question about morality I had even as a child. If God was in control of everthing, why did he create a system of morality at all? All the system does is evaluate which followers of his are worthy enough to join him in heaven, which seems ridiculous to me.

In a contrary viewpoint, I don't think God released his system of morality as a list of 10 doctrines set in stone. God is a reasonable, empathetic being which means that he understands people. I disbelieve that the concept of Satan has any power over the human race, since what could defy the will of God? If God wanted everyone to be in heaven with him, it would be so. I'm pretty sure God does want this, which has forced me to revise my religious thoughts.

I believe in a God or creator, but I won't limit him or her to a gender or simple role in a preestablished religions like Christianity or Islam. God is so much more than that. God is both existant everywhere and nowhere, since I think we are God's tools and appendages. We can easily find God in ourselves if we try.

I don't accept that a document riddled with loopholes, prejudice and hatred is an infallible, holy text. I do believe that myths and legends have emotional and moral weight, which means that most religions do have something to bring to the table. The fact of the matter is that nobody can know what lies after death, and pretending to have faith and be sure in a code of morality is absurd.

I believe the ideas that I've stated, that God exists both everywhere and nowhere as a singular creation, and that morality is a much more grey idea than any holy text states. I hope to educate people about this, but it's difficult to shake old systems of control. For a while, I thought the bible was a necessary evil to keep people in line, but now I realize that its completely unnecessary.

neglectful tendencies

I really don't have the commitment to stay on top of a journal everyday of the week. The fact that I even remember it after neglecting it really says something about my personality- at least I'm improving. It's like my daydreams of getting into fantastic shape. These are dreams that are so crystalline and perfect in my mind but never make the synaptic jump to reality. One of these days I say, one of these days.

My last thesis that the days that aren't recorded aren't worth remembering might need to be amended, since a lot has happened since I last recorded anything here. I guess it's not necessarily things that I'd like to remember but they were at least noteworthy.

To begin with, my dad's Colorado story arc is coming to a close and he's moving back to Michigan. He's there now and somehow still living somewhere even though he's locked out of his house as far as I know. He was a little crushed after the attorney general of Michigan extradicted him back here and put him in jail for about 4-5 days. I think it was a semi-positive thing for him, but at this point I've come to terms with the idea that the old Chris no longer exists. This new father is not the same guy I grew up with at all. I don't relate to him, but I can still learn certain things from him. The strangest thing about the whole process is that I can't convince my mom that he's not on drugs because of his strange way of thinking, but rather that he's simply done a complete change.

In other news, the one time mistake I made with Rachel when we were drunk has come back to bite me somehow now as Rachel and Joel got back together. Rachel and I's friendship is essentially being held hostage until I call and apologize to Joel for breaking man-code and allegedly coveting after his girlfriend. It's such a messy situation. Joel thinks I have feelings for Rachel, and it's complex because at one point in time I may have had a puppy crush on her. I have no sexual-emotional feelings for her, but in complete honesty she has a very sexy quality about her that I can't help but be attracted to on some level. I don't find Rachel very physically attractive herself, but something about her is very alluring.

That being said, I completely regret doing anything physical with Rachel when I was drunk and wanted to kill myself the next morning. Obviously I'm only going to explain that last part to Joel. I've already called him 3-4 times without him answering, and he feels like its not his duty to call me back. So until I deal with this, it's going to continue to hang over my head for weeks. On top of all that, school work is crunching up now since midterms are officially here. One down so far, but the hardest ones are still ahead of me, and one is on Friday.

In addition to this, things with Chris have been ridiculous lately as well. Never have I been flaked on so many times in a row. A few weeks ago, he buys us alcohol only to come back later the same night and buy half of it back from us, during Phil's birthday celebration no less. Then, we plan to go Michigan State and he cancels the night before without telling me officially. Then the next weekend rolls around, and he makes plans that prevent us from going to Ann Arbor to visit. Chris has completely changed since I've been at college and all I feel is our friendship getting weaker. There's something about school and ambition that's given him an elitism that I never knew in him before. Frustration abounds here since he's one of my oldest and best friends, but I'm getting sick of being dragged around.

Soon I should be hearing back from instate colleges and I can leave this chapter of my life behind. Despite my general poor mood most of the time around here, I've been surprisingly upbeat lately. Nothing has been happening to brag about, but I feel there might be a light at the end of the tunnel for me. I'm trying to loosen control on things that aren't within my direct grasp and try to focus only on what's in front of me. I've also been doing quite well in school, which also makes me feel great.

Finally, I'll be going to Maine for spring break in just over a week or so. I'm really excited to touchdown again and have some real connection with family before I ascend back up into the stratosphere by myself. There really are few people I can turn to right now, and it seems like every time I turn around another connection is being cut away from me. Through all of this, I have really started to appreciate my friendship with Phil a lot more. The manic energy we have is still there and neither of us has changed in a way that prevents that. I'm going to miss being comfortable with a friend when I leave and go back to Michigan, but maybe it's better that I learn something about how to interact with people. When you can't branch out and build connections with other people, it's best to take time to perfect yourself before trying again. That's been on my mind a lot lately, and hopefully will be put into more active practice soon.

relapse

Longest string of neglect on this bad boy yet but I guess I finally have something worthy enough to record. I was thinking about what neglecting to write in a journal one has promised oneself to keep when I was on the bus to class the other day. It essentially means that the days that you don't write in it are so filled with banality and triviality that they aren't worth remembering. In fact, they're worth purposefully obscuring and forgetting. But enough thinking about that, because today is worth remembering.

It's worth mentioning that the econ exam that I crammed for went well and I ended up getting and A- on it. I'll take that any day considering the exam only had 25 questions, missing two is fine in my book. And today, out of the blue, both Romelie and Monisha decided it would be a good idea to try and hang out with me.

I don't understand what it is about me or my persona or whatever that makes other people have epiphanies on the same day causing them to try and reach out to me. It seems to always happen that I'll go on a streak of not having any human contact whatsoever before arriving at a crescendo where everyone wants to spend some time with me. It's a strange phenomenon, but oh well.

Time with Romelie was surprisingly refreshing, and I finally sampled the sandwiches of the Bistro, something I've wanted to do for a very long time. I don't think I'm completely crazy when I say that Romelie may have had some feelings for me at some point. If not now, at least during the brief period that we talked all the time at the beginning of the year. After I asked her about her boyfriend a bit at dinner, I ended up telling her my story about the near hook up with Anitha several weeks ago, putting some humor into it. She replied by telling me a story about a guy who she made out with only weeks ago, when her and her boyfriend have been together for months at least.

Was she trying to tell me something? I was surprised that she would be so cavalier about telling me about things she did with guys other than her boyfriend. Life confusing I suppose, but I really liked having a friend here and I think there was a good connection there. I came back and considered cruising some porn sites to kill time before I went to bed, but decided that I really didn't have a desire. The stuff on the internet really can't beat the thrill of relating with women in person, and the girls are never as beautiful and enticing as real life is. Once the illusion has been broken, there's really no appeal anymore I guess. At least tonight there's not.

Got sick again, feeling pretty under the weather but I'm excited that Jake will be coming down tomorrow. Hopefully I can rest up enough tonight so that I can go hard with him and Chris tomorrow for his birthday. I'm also dreading dinner a little bit because I'm not sure Chris' dad knows about my transferring. He'll probably try to throw some money at me after dinner if the conversation comes up, at which point I don't know what I'll do. My life is usually full of these kind of ridiculous entanglements. We'll just have to see what happens I guess. Still crossing my fingers and praying that I get into Michigan. Also looking forward to spring break up in Maine, a great idea that my mom had, of all people.

I'm glad I have one parent who is in my corner, even if I can't relate to her on some levels. Family is extremely important, but it's hard to still feel those connections after you have something as earth shattering as a divorce. I still feel those connections with my dad's side, and that's something to really be cherished I think. I feel selfish for not sharing the same kind of feelings with my mom's side, but even God preferred Abel I guess the saying goes. Today was noteworthy, and I hope my days continue to be so.

perseverence

Nothing on my mind tonight except the big one: econ exam tomorrow. After staying up for hours and hours, I think I have a grasp on economics. Hopefully it won't leave me in what's left of the night, I'm going to need to sleep now to cut my losses and give my brain some rest. Tomorrow I will continue to review, and I'm half confident that I'll dominate this bad boy.

In other ongoing news, still itching to hear back from Michigan, but only if the results are positive for me. I think I may call my mom and have her ask Dennis to pull some strings for me. Best to cross that bridge when I come to it; one battle per day is all I can limit myself to.

tired, stressed

Michigan is getting close enough to taste and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get in. I had a great conversation with Vu today at the expense of studying seriously for my Econ exam tomorrow. I guess Peter Olson might call that my opportunity cost- HILARIOUS.

Reading about auteur theory for film class, something I educated myself about a long time ago and a theory I hold close to my own heart. Everything here feels so recycled lately and my heart is just rushing at the possibility of release or a way out of here. The thrill is gone now, and I need to resituate myself.

I know there's a higher power up there, call it God or whatever you want to. What I don't know is how much influence he or she has on my life directly, but I'm willing that power with every fiber of my spiritual being to open some doors for me. Every part of my life is vibrating pretty violently right now and I need things to clamp down into place, at least some number of them.

I used to be such an old hand and picking up starting over but I lost the skill. I'm not so sure I want to keep doing that anymore. I've got friends at Michigan, a wide network of people who I like and have truly grown to care about. All of those people have friends who I'm sure I'd be able to make friends with. I've been there and done that when it comes to scrapping years of relationships and starting over clean. I was finally in a groove in high school and it was time to move again. Maybe if I can get back in that groove I can find myself again.

I'm not supposed to get my hopes up, but I am. I'm hoping with everything in me that something or somebody can feel how bad I want this. I'm rehashing but that's the pattern of my life it seems- everything is a rehash to some degree or another anyway.

sedation

I've noticed that when your mind is under the influence of drugs, it's hard to think about the big picture. All I can do is think about the here and now. I'll start by saying I went out to a party with Scott tonight.

On the way there we talked a bit about Indiana, school, and life in general. I never thought I'd have as much in common with someone so different from me. We got to the party and started drinking some extremely flat beer. Max from our floor came up to us and told us there was a better mix we should be drinking: Kool Aid and Xanax. I had a few cups and now I'm feeling appropriately bludgeoned down by the synergy of the alcohol and pharmaceuticals.

I left Scott at the party because I wasn't feeling the scene. I find that whenever I approach the edge of the social cliff with drugs and or alcohol I end up retreating. One solution is more drugs/ alcohol, but I don't think all the psychoactive chemicals in the world could take me out of my own mind. What I really need is some therapy.

More and more I'm beginning to question whether the partying scene is for me. After a while I start to see my self-laceration more clearly; I've been theorizing about self-laceration lately. It's a pretty natural human action, but I think it's a way of coping with the dark corner of ourselves that we can see plainly in the dark but never in the light of day. I can drown my fears with booze or whatever else, but nothing can mask the deep roots that create the need to drown them.

I'm moving in a slow-motion train of consciousness right now where I can't remember what I've written before, but the underlying theme is staying with me. I'm sleepy now, so I'll stop this soon. I'm listening to Radiohead right now, and it's absolutely transcendent.

More and more I'm beginning to feel as though transferring into Michigan is my only hope for redemption. I want to be surrounded by real things, real people and smart people with ideas. Here everyone is cold and distant and more often than not I feel alone. I feel warm and sleepy right now but these things never last.

I want to meet girls, sure, but I want to do it on my own terms, not in a fleeting moment of heightened awareness (or lowered, depending on the drug). I would like to be able to walk up to women I found attractive and engage them in conversation. I know I have something worth giving, but then again I don't find anything in myself worth liking. There are people at Michigan who love and care about me though, and maybe having some real human relationships would do me good.

There's not much worse than feeling like you're fading out. I feel like that's something I've been doing since I emerged from the womb.

dead horses

It's Friday night and I should be doing something but instead I'm sitting up late again. My feelings haven't changed too much and I feel weird chronicling my every waking moment and thought even though I guess one of these days something interesting is bound to happen to me. The law of averages would say so at least.

Finally saw "The Wrestler" today. I'm not sure what to make of it so far which is an open-minded way of saying I was a little disappointed. I think depression comes from dullness and lackluster experience. So I'm not depressed yet officially but it's definitely in the mail. This is an ongoing process- I'm tracing my feelings back in my mind and I'm starting to see the cyclical pattern going on here.

The movie didn't offer much in the way of a ray of light at the end. Rourke's character was condemned by Aronofsky as fuck up with no hope of redemption, and so he decides to go out in a blaze of glory by returning to the ring for one more match where he's doomed to have a heart attack. At the end he does what he wanted to do, but only because he can't survive in the real world, so in essence his whole life is compromised.

Lately when I look back at who I was as a kid I like myself a lot more than I do now. Somewhere along the line I lost myself. Now I feel like I'm just holding the steering wheel while I wait for the real driver to get situated and take the wheel again. It's like I'm occupying my body in place of an essence or spirit that has other things to do and needs me to take care of its body while it's gone. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe that's where depression comes from- you realize that you do have a purpose, but it's not an important one. I guess we're supposed to create our own purpose, but I can't think of anything that's worth doing lately.

aliens at night

Night is a strange time because I feel like I belong in it while still staying alienated from everyone else who's asleep already. My enthusiasm has completely dampened from just yesterday; I tried to bring up screenplays to Chris today in a text but he didn't catch my drift and I didn't feel like pushing it at the time because I confronted myself with all the logistic issues.

My body doesn't feel good lately. My eating routine has become horrendous, a pound of reheated hot pockets a day and maybe a bagel, maybe some other junk food all eaten at strange times throughout the day. Right now drinking more pop, probably forming kidney stones in me as we speak.

I'm at the crest of the hill right now but I'm not enjoying the sights from the top; it's like I've been on this ride for as long as I can remember and I want to explore the rest of the park. The sun is hiding behind clouds now, but I can tell it's about to set anyway since the night has twilight about it. I'm weary of what I know, and I need a change.

It's weird that every story about alien abduction happens at night- or rather, I guess it's weird that I've never thought about it in such explicit terms before. Night is an alienating time, I need to do something. After everything that's already happened though, how does anyone start to do anything anymore?

surge of enthusiasm

I can't believe I watched a four hour documentary about Kevin Smith today, and was actually fairly entertained by it. The more I think about my misgivings about the future, the more I become inspired by indie filmmakers. Smith made a movie for 28,000 by maxing out a bunch of credit cards.

Men like this got into filmmaking because they wanted to sit around behind a camera with their friends. I for one have never been happier or more excited than when I was sitting around with my friends in our houses, shooting short movies and having crappy special gore effects and terrible story lines.

I think this could be real. I have an interest in English, definitely- a pronounced interest even, but I think I really might have a passion for filmmaking. It's frustrating and time-consuming, and it's against my anti-social nature, but I think it's a passion that needs to be reawakened. Right now I'm just rocking in my excitement.

weariness, renewed

I'm exhausted- I probably shouldn't keep staying up so late to write these. The blogger clock is way off too, because its 3:14 in the morning right now even though it will say I posted at 11 or something.

I've been batting around the idea of calling Chris and asking him if he wants to help me work on a screenplay, make a real effort at it this time. He would never admit it but I made Chris love movies the way he does, and I think there could be good creative synergy there. We used to just go out with a camera and wing it. We're used to writing our screenplays visually, shoot a shot, figure it out as we go and edit it up later but I'd like to take a stab at doing it right.

But I'm also weary. The weight of such a task is pretty daunting and who knows if he'd even want to do it, or if we could get it started. That's half the battle- plus who knows when he'll be around. I'll probably think it over for another day, while I keep thinking about a way to make some cash.

My best thoughts come at night right before I drift into unconsciousness. It's a shame that I sleep on the top bunk because it makes it hard to jot things down up there, plus I'd wake Phil up if I turned a light on. I've been good about consistency here so that has to count for something, maybe I can channel my waking and drifting thoughts if I adjust my sleep schedule. Maybe I should start drinking coffee like it's methadone in the mornings, bet that would help get my brain flowing.

What my mind needs now is some rest, but my spirit needs some kind of release. My body also needs rest. Lastly, my head needs a haircut and I need to get to sleep to amount some motivation.

wish fulfillment, woes

What do you do when you don't want to do anything? Is it every teenager's natural inclination to sit on their ass and waste away? That's what it's all about lately, all I'm good for is for writing good enough for assignment and dreaming big, but my dreams are like the rainbows you see when light hits an oil spill.

I'm frustrated. I started trying to write a screenplay the other day to start to develop a knack for it, but these first few steps have been pretty shaky. The thing I'm most passionate about is movies, nothing else in my life can hold a candle to that. I have encyclopedic knowledge of them so maybe that's a good sign of what I should do with my future.

I like writing too, but I've never been a "writer." How can I compare to even the artistic kids from my high school who've been stitching chapbooks together since they were in diapers? I sometimes wish my parents beat me as a child, or held a gun to my head and classically conditioned me to be talented at things.

There's nothing more terrifying than a completely blank canvas and no creative restrictions. It's worse when you don't put anything on the canvas and then someone starts taking brushes and colors away.

I'm 18 and I have my whole life ahead of me, but I feel like I'm 35 and still living with my parents or something. There are no women in my life nor any strong possibilities on the horizon. I have no desire to pursue or hone my abilities to pick up women, or to do much else with my life.

It's important to note that I'm not depressed- this is me revving my wheels in the mud and not getting anywhere, sinking deeper. It's like walking slowly into a brick wall over and over everyday- there's no pain there, I just can't get around this wall.

The first scene of this screenplay I was trying to write wrote itself, but it's ripped completely from my memory. Plus I reread it, and it sucks. It doesn't sound like a movie, it sounds like real life which I discovered today isn't even that interesting. Life becomes interesting when it's filtered through a lens- that's why storytelling works, its through a mental lens.

I can't caricature my life, but I need to. And I'm bad at writing about things that I don't know, and all I know is what I've lived, so I'm at an impasse here.

I'm looking at my classes and trying to peek into my future. I'm trying to stare down my fucked-up family life and poor social skills. I'm staring into the abyss, as Nietzsche once said. My circumstances have changed, and I'm currently experiencing an upturn of expectation. In literature this is called irony, but I can't see the humor.

Not all kids my age feel aimless and ambitionless, so why do I? Does everybody go through this aimless, Dustin-Hoffman-in-the-Graduate philosophical wandering or is it just me? Am I a pessimist, a cynic? Do I need therapy or just a kick in the ass? I have no idea.

end of the line; human drama

I didn't keep to my system as expected and dropped the ball for a couple days but it's time to put my two cents in again.

Today all the financial issues came to a head and I stopped avoiding asking my dad about college payments- as expected no help was received. He seems to forget that he promised to put me through school. But, somehow he liquidated an 80 grand fund that had been put away for me so we wouldn't be at such a juncture- such is life.

Somehow though the verbal sparring with dad was quite a relief. I'm not sad or mad that he peddled away practically a million dollar fortune, and I'm focused on what I need to do now. I think it's time I started take my writing to the next level, because if I plan on spending money and having free time I'll need more than just a 9-to-5 grind where I make nothing an hour and piss my whole summer away.

As for next year, at this point I'm not even sure I'll be able to afford Michigan or State, regardless where I get in. I'll still fill out the FAFSA and do as many Fastweb essay scholarship contests as I can, so hopefully I can get a Big Ten education rather than waste away at WCC for God knows how long until I can save enough money up to transfer. I'm staying pretty positive though, and hopefully I can use this to beat some ambition into myself.

I've got my back against the wall right now, but in the past I've always performed best under the greatest amounts of stress. I only really become aggressive when I have a reason to be, so hopefully my brain can serve me well enough to start brainstorming some ways to make some cash. I'm going to get a Big Ten education and save enough money to do graduate school. Hopefully I'm going to look back at this as a turning point rather than a downhill spiral. Time will tell, but right now I want to hit the ground running.

bending the rules

hey guys. I know I skipped yesterday and that's not ok.... hopefully today's post can make up for it. I don't understand when the fixation switched abruptly from language to hooking up with girls. If this is the case, I don't have much to show for my first semester. Scott is knocking at the door, but I'm ignoring him now. It was brief, and I don't think he truly wanted to dance with anyone at the table. Rather, he wanted to get some physical action.

myth and man

This gets easier as I go. It's better to keep track of my ideas with sleep as an opportunity cost, I've decided. I already wrote a good amount today, but why quit now?

The first time I watched Citizen Kane I was quite underwhelmed by it. Sure, I recognized the technical mastery- some of the camera work and editing is staggering, even by today's standards. On the whole though, the reason that the rise and fall of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane should be so resonant was completely lost on me.

Rewatching it now for class I feel like the veil has been pulled back. I can see now what Orson Welles was trying to show his audience, and I know that Citizen Kane is bound to become one of my favorite films of all time as I get older.

Kane has everything material a man could hope for on this earth- he spends and tightens his grip around his world, controlling his reality and lining up his opportunities. As he gets older, he realizes that his world is slipping away from him regardless of the things he was given- the irony is that Welles lets us see this earlier than Kane realizes it. When he leaves Mrs. Kane's boarding house, Charles Kane has already reached the spiritual peak of his life, and the rest is the hurtling downward motion of the rollercoaster.

Kane is put on a pedestal because of his wealth, but the movie shows that wealth affects personality and not much more. At the end of the day, Kane loses as much as anyone else- maybe even more.

Welles was asking all the right questions here- how can we measure a man? What makes a life valuable? As Kane says himself in the movie as to whether he can see the greatness within himself, "I think I made the best of my circumstances."

Maybe that's what it is to be human. All we really know is uncertainty. When we look through the dusty photographs in our mind and examine all the dirty faces of fellow classmates, were we filled with curiosity and wonder about the future? The little boy who pushed the cutest girl in class over for attention could grow up to be a rapist or a politician, the girl could grow up to be a submissive housewife or a radical feminist.

Potential is always there for good or worse, and every second is pregnant with near-misses and half-grasped opportunities. What should we seize and what should we let drift away? Kane did all he could to change his life, but at some point his life began to steer itself independent of his control. So what role does fate play in our lives?

Every man's goal is to carve his icon into the blank slate of life. When a man dies, he hopes to careen out and leave a bleeding scar in the fabric of his reality, a wound that will stretch for generations and years. If we succeed in doing so, what then? When we make decisions, we step up to within an inch of Fate, interlock fingers and try not to get pushed over backwards. In the end, who wins?

We measure meaning by ourselves and by our consciousness by and large. If we are too afraid to sit alone with our decisions, then we live for or against the abstract idea of God that we don't understand- we retreat to our guilt and fear and await judgment or salvation. A God may very well exist, but few people have ever unfolded all the trappings that come with the notion of an omniscient God.

Without mincing too many more words, the ultimate question about life is whether or not the mythic quality in men's lives is man made or God made? Are we guiding our myths or is someone else pulling the strings? I don't know the answer, but I think there's compelling evidence for both sides.

tall orders

Today was uneventful except it marked another safe passage to Foster Gresham to get the much coveted chicken and potato burrito from Taco Johns with Chris. In other news, we are soon placing an order of a ridiculous amount of alcohol to be delivered into our dorm room. It's probably around 3 gallons of various liquors all combined.

While I was walking out to class today I was thinking about writing a lot, but now most of those thoughts are gone from my mind. There's something about the cracked asphalt in the parking lot behind the crosstown shopping center that gets my marbles rolling. I'm always staring down at the sidewalk which has been perpetually covered with snowmelt lately and I usually come up with ideas. Hard to write on the go so my best thoughts usually float past me.

The transfer process is almost done but I keep putting off the final steps. I have to send a letter to Michigan explaining my dropping German and I have to pay the credit card payment for State. Can't ask mom because she's broke and I can't ask dad because he'll drag me around for a week before he'll give it to me. I guess that's not entirely true; if I asked, he'd give me his number but I'd have to listen to him talk more about New World Order fantasies and about applying to schools in Colorado. Plus then there would be the misplaced guilt I'd feel at asking him for money.

In short I filed an application for my own credit card today with frequent flyer miles on it so maybe that will get here fast enough that I can pay for it on my own. I remember something from earlier now though.

It was about writing, life, and the name of this blog. When I was naming this I had the image of a guy dressed like I've been dressed in the dorm lately: dark, baggy sweats, a white undershirt that's been worn several times too many, unkempt hair, and red eyes from not being a morning person. This person would go into your typical American diner somewhere- maybe from being up all night- and would sit down and order a coffee.

He would go sit down in a booth by the window where the blinds are down, and hold a cup of black coffee in a chipped white mug in between his cold hands. The sun would slowly rise bleeding pink and orange through the blinds, and this nondescript midwestern diner would look like something out of old California- an outpost marking the farthest discovered point in the West, the beyond being unknown.

The man has come to write, and his coffee is the jet fuel he needs to do it. He's not a morning person and he's burdened by lack of ambition, past demons, whatever else. As people file in, the diner looks more and more like a sanctuary. There is only the present for this man, and the future looks bright regardless of how bleak the outside is.

To me, the empty shell of a man writing in the diner early in the morning is a universal symbol. Some of the best artists of our generation have risen through the ranks this way, by filing into coffeeshops in the morning and cranking words out, even when they didn't want to.

I always wondered about universal symbols. There are certain things in western culture that have immutable meanings. If a guy comes up to a fork in the road, it means he's at a pivotal moment in his life: it represents decision, fate, time, whatever. Does a fork in the road mean the same thing in Mongolia? I don't know the answer to that but I would imagine it probably does. Who knows.

Besides the point. Robert Frost has already milked the forked road for all it's available meaning, but I still love the themes he had his fingers tangled in there. So, my warm little coffeeshop with a hungover bum writing in it will fill in for this old image. It could have been more original, or more fresh, but nevermind- I think Starbucks might be the face of our generation.

firsts

This will be the first blog entry I've ever seriously written. We all had a Xanga back in middle school, but I never took mine too seriously. I hope to take this seriously- I'd like this to be a noble experiment of sorts, to see if I can stay disciplined enough to keep going.

All the best writers write everyday, right?
I think they do, so I'm going to try to follow hesitantly in their footsteps.

Here I am reading a chapter on form in film and right now I'm trying to use my title here to dictate my content to me. "Firsts."

There's the obvious one. Recently was the first time I made any kind of sexual progress with a girl at Indiana. She's Indian, typical features but sharper than average. Still got the button nose and the soft complexion. Looks innocent enough but after enough alcohol I guess any girl will jump a complete stranger. Sadly the night ended with some pretty heavy alcoholic distortion and some trademark self-pitying philosophy.

This is going to be a good log of my memory too, I can already tell.

We went to a party off campus in a neighborhood designed for student housing. Basically, we invited ourselves to some kid's surprise birthday party who wasn't even there when we got there. So I walk in the door with a full bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 inside me and artificial fruit on my breath, with a couple girls from the floor above us. One was Danielle, a girl I went to high school with and was in my youth group- we weren't great friends in high school but great acquaintances I'd say. We shared some decent conversation in classes we had in common, couldn't ask for much more than that in high school.

The other girl was Kristina, Danielle's friend and briefly my friend during welcome week. She was now just another acquaintance. She'd been drinking pretty mildly, as had Danielle, much to my disappointment. We were all standing in the corner by the bar, away from the action of the party and I tried to strike up some conversation with Danielle while waiting for my roommate and his girlfriend to arrive. Danielle was always a good sport, a quality that I always admired in the meek-mannered. Some people hold their convictions like cold shiny diamonds, reflective and unbreakable. Danielle's diamonds were more like cooling carbon; they had a certain form, but you could still make some light impressions on them.

After some banter he showed up and upon walking in the door I noticed his distaste while he was sipping from the red plastic party cups. Anxious to get him on my level I asked him about getting drunk tonight. He said that he wished he could find some hard liquor so I was on the task. I bounced past people all warm and fuzzy and found the owner of the apartment. He showed me the freezer and pulled out the opal blue Skyy Vodka bottle. It was cold and heavy in my hands, bold with white typeface. Perfect- quite an improvement from Khamchatka or other plastic-bottled liquors. My roommate and his girlfriend all partook while I poured generously into their plastic cups, raising the bottle to my lips for what my intoxicated brain could guess was about an ounce of alcohol. This is where the blur begins.

I sink into the couch and start talking to the girl next to me. This I gathered after the fact, the next morning, since I don't remember any conversation taking place. What I do remember is her laughing and stretching her head out, planting a filthy kiss on my face. There was a kind of mild surprise in me before I quickly focused all my remaining attention on this girl.

The rest of the night plays out like a distorted silent movie in my head. The girl puts her arms around my neck, kisses me some more, asks me if I want to smoke hookah to which I reply that I would be thrilled to. I briefly affirm my decisions for the night with my roommate, who looks almost as excited for me as I feel. He says that she's cute with a boyish excitement in his eyes. There is some talk of me going home with her. Some hookah is smoked. The girl then tries to tell me something remorseful but with as much tenderness as she can. Then there is me leaving with my roommate and hopping in a car, not in a great mood.

I get on my soapbox in the car and project my anger onto my roommate. I tell him about realities and social boundaries, and I say that his choice affects the reality, my reality. Why not choose the better reality for me and let me go home with this girl? He obviously doesn't let me get through to him or choose correctly, so I open the door and start walking back. After a few minutes they talk me down and back into the car. Back in the dorm, I wander the hallways in frustration and I punch the concrete wall as hard as I can with my left hand. Even through the booze I can tell that it hurts, a lot.

In the morning I'll wonder how it's not broken, but for now I go across the hall where my floormates are throwing a small party. I sit in a cheap desk chair by one of their beds and talk to a girl named Shannon for a while about my problems. She thinks I'm drunk and oblivious so she doesn't pretend to care about my problems very much at all. I end up in my RA's room talking to him about the same problems, problems he really cares about but similarly can't decipher. Eventually I head back to the room in defeat.

The next day my friend fills in the pieces. Of course he wasn't holding me back from hooking up with a cute girl but protecting me from getting my ass kicked at a party, probably by another guy in a mental state similar to mine. Another night gone, I scratch my head at him and feel a vague wave of shame and jealousy.

So I diverted from the form here but I think it grew together with the content and did it's own thing. This is about me getting to know myself and whoever else finds this getting to know the real me so we'll see how it goes. I'll get better at this as we go along here.