After a while it just becomes so difficult to keep writing. There are so many things to say, but there’s only one way to do it, it seems. Only one way that is truly communicative. If you talk to someone in person, they rush you, or you rush yourself to control the emotions that cross over their face, in waves and wrinkles. That’s not cool. Writing’s the only way I can communicate. Other ways I screw up, because I’m too cautious of saying the wrong things. Does that make me manipulative? I think it does. Hah. My Western Traditions teacher keeps talking about how women are manipulative with the use of language. I guess that makes sense. But don’t all people do that, regardless of gender identity?

I’ve tried manipulating my words before. That usually fails, poorly. It still doesn’t have the intended effect. You try impressing people with your ability to use phrases you think they’d like to hear. But they never seem to appreciate the work my mind puts in with smiles or laughs, or even careful consideration. People communicate so much through their body language, little idiosyncrasies in their behavior, words they use, words they avoid. I don’t think anyone notices that. It’s like watching the world with coke bottle glasses, or trying to catch butterflies with ungrasping hands. Do I pay attention? Not all the time. But I could tell you more about people than most. Maybe that’s because I don’t talk all the time. Maybe it’s because I’m devious and manipulative. I don’t know if my writing conveys what I want it to, but usually, most of the time, I don’t have to watch it being received by an audience.

I type. Someone eventually reads it. The end.

I wish everything in life was that easy. And no Microsoft word 2007, I will not end the previous sentence with a question mark. You’re silly.

Tomorrow it will be freezing. My sickness will be consuming (I’m actually sick, that isn’t a metaphor). I will walk slowly through my day, noticing things about people. Things that I’ll probably never get to use. Damn. I wish I had a friend I could simultaneously observe without being thought weird. People are interesting. It would suck if I never got to know any of them.

I’ve just listened to Fresh Feeling by Eels (that’s weird… it should be the eels) six times. It’s a relatively slow song, but the tone keeps upwelling, so it sounds positive, and upbeat. I love songs like that. They feel sad, but they’re more bittersweet. That’s as sad as I can get. If I listen to really depressing stuff, the kind of music college students like to put on the radio, then I’ll really lose myself.

I’m a college student. That’s weird. I still think of myself as a kid most of the time. It’s sad when I briefly think about driving home to my house with my little sister who will tell me how her day was, and a mom who will make me tuna noodle casserole whenever I ask for it, and a dad with a funny accent, who everyone thinks is cool, though I secretly think differently. When you’re a little strange, it’s good to know that there are people who will accept you for being weird, if only because they made you that way. But I live a twelve hour drive away. What an Odyssey that would be.

For some reason when I described my family, I started to cry. The diluted salt is now dancing and vaporizing on my lips. It’s really a shame you can’t go back. Because when you’re in the present, you really don’t think much. You do. You’re always doing. Why can’t things stop so you can stop? Why can’t you just enjoy being alive for a while, fully come to understand the essence of everything that kind of hangs out with you when you’re not paying attention. I try to tell myself: I am everything. I don’t know why that consoles me, but it does. Somewhere there are people who love me (and show that love with tuna noodle casserole). And if I am everything, that love poured into the everything, is with me too.

Jesus. Don’t listen to alt-rock. It’ll make you tear up and write poorly. You have to separate yourself from emotions to be able to write them. Crying doesn’t help typing. Crying doesn’t help anything. But it feels good.

Nobody said it was easy.

BEGIN STREAM_CONSCIOUSNESS

I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by work. Or maybe that's a fleeting feeling because it's getting close to my bedtime and I don't want to go to sleep.

Bedtimes? I'm 19. This is sad.

And I still weigh a lot. I'm not happy about that. People react poorly when I voice my concern about being fat/overweight. I'm just worried that I'm actually overweight. I'm diabetic. I need to be as thin as possible. When the complications start, that's going to be a blessing.

But whatever. I just ate a salad and two slices of pizza. I can't tell if I'm a messy eater or if the grease on my face was self-manufactured. My face hurts. Sometimes it's probably best to just say no. I need to take a shower. But it's so close to my bedtime! I don't have any idea what to wear, because it'll be a Monday. I kinda just want to wear what I'm wearing now. Nobody said it was easy. Century whatevers are fun. I wish we could do them more.

Drew sent me some towels. I saw his handwritten name. I thought about crying. I miss that kid. It's worse that he's so far away. I don't think I'll ever see him again. Plans fall through. It's sad when you find someone you admire. And then they leave. It's hard enough to actually respect people, especially people your own age.

But then they leave. Blah. I'm not trying to sound depressing. But I do need to write more. Sob. I'll just keep writing. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you write, who you write about, when you write, or how you do it (poorly). Sometimes all that matters is that you're doing it. And also the length. Come on! One page single space. Probably not going to get there, she thought to herself, and instantly wrote. Wow. This is weird she thought. Wow! should have had an exclamation point the first time around. White, background, filler, blinding, so bright. Eyes open not closing. Wasn't that a horrible romance movie? And not a romantic comedy... a romance drama? AH! Scary. Eyes wide shut. That's lame. If I wanted to be cool, I'd make a better movie and just give it one name: eyeswideshut. Try reading that. It feels better. It also feels like your eyes are closing. That they're simply absorbing information.

Tangents are fun. Especially when they're not calculus related. I needed a shower. I needed to scrub my face. My face hurt. Don't drink too much. But drink something. Coffee or wine, antioxidants are pretty awesome.

Don't drinnk too much. I liked eating the pizza. But now I'm thirsty. Still, don't drink too much.

I think I'm a better writer than you. That's what I'd tell her. I think I'm a better writer than her. She uses horrible cliched tones. I speak from the gut (stephen colbert). I feel things. I'm not scared what people say about those feelings. God made me, and these feelings, right? Or at least that's what I can make you believe. You're religious. I'm... in between. I'm in between, seemingly, everything. I'm in between myself. I'm in between other people. I re-animate between lines that seem impassable. Regardless, I'm a moderate. A moderate of everything. Ever. I think maybe that's because I have two distinct personalities. Two distinct talking personalities. It's important to distinguish. That's what makes me a good writer, I'd tell her. Because I'm fearless and because I judge myself. I don't care how others judge me, because I can just assume I will be much harder on myself. But that's a cliche. What I meant to say was this: I'm so in it that I know it. I know the right. It therefore becomes simple for me to write, because I know how to make it sound. How it will be read. I can hear readers breathing and I know how to make them hold that breath.

And when they hear what you write, they expunge--they stop--they cough cough, they shudder.

But there's no time for bragging. That's not the way. It's much better to just be better. Probably.

END STREAM_CONSCIOUSNESS

Awesome_Tech_ology

I'm bored. I'm that kind of bored from being too tired to be excited… about anything. Also, judging from that last sentence, bored to the point of ignoring basic grammar rules and coherency. Yea. I'm bored. And I'm tired. Wanna fight about it?

Small point to bring up. Technology can make you feel awesome sometimes. As in, when something new works for you, don't you feel like you're one step closer to jet-packing on a regular basis, or actually owning a house that does everything from you (a la the Jetsons)? However, when it doesn't work, does it not feel like your jet pack just exploded, and you're dead, and being dead, functionally* helpless? My zune software didn't work for months at home. I wanted to strike down my computer, toss it off a ledge, watch it shatter into a thousand pieces. Everything was wrong with it. It became less helpful, more useless, sitting in my room with no purpose. But last night it decided to work again! Same with my new Firefox Mozilla software. I wanted to cry. Everything seemed so much more… essential, beautiful, etcetera, since I had been living in absence of it for so long. (I tried to spell absence absense and the computer automatically fixed it. Microsoft 2007 is making me a worse speller!) The pitfalls of technology are many. But that's progress. At least we don't have to make children mine coal anymore.

 

*That clarifier really quite* unnecessary.

*Just like that one.

Memes and Time

My dad and I were attempting to write a book about the myths and pitfalls of Identity this summer, and during that time I did some independent research on memes.

There is a widespread and common action that can illustrate what memes are and how they work. Ever find it interesting to ponder why all clocks can magically be set to the same minute? Different hours, perhaps, in different parts of the world, but there is a universal time that is literally believed by everyone to be correct. Is it really 3:53 PM right now? Or is it 3:52? Or maybe it's even 2:54 back home. Regardless, time is a rather arbitrary constraint, but without it, life as we know it would cease to function. Memes are rather the same way. They are arbitrary (because many memes are closely related to language, which on the whole was made up rather haphazardly) but without them, we wouldn't function with the same coherence that we do today.

Let's say someone goes out and buys a new watch. It's not set to the correct time, but remains useless at some choice interval off the real time. The person can't live with some made up time, so instead, determinedly, asks a friend for the time. The friend consults their numbers, and replies, hopefully correctly. The owner of the new watch trusts their friend and programs their new watch to have a new time. This was a very simple exchange of useful, helpful knowledge, as long as time remains important. If time was in no way important to your ways of living, if you never had to worry about being on time, this would have been a random interchange, unlikely to change your life much. But nevertheless, you've acquired knowledge that may help you live your life better.

Let's pretend that a long time ago, there was a tribe somewhere that lived in an area prone to flooding. In fact, every time it rained heavily, their lands would flood, and many people would die unless they were given enough foresight into the matter, giving them enough times to flee to higher ground. One person discovers the secret to predicting heavy rain, having lived his entire life in observance of the weather of the area. Let's say that he then tells his son that: Whenever the sun sets on only orange clouds, there will be a flood in the days to come. The son has now acquired very important information. If he uses this information, he will be able to live a more complete, less troublesome existence. This idea that: Whenever the sun sets on only orange clouds, there will be a flood in the days to come, is a meme. In some situations, it may make no sense, in some situations it may cause more harm then good, but in this specific area, it is very vital.

Likewise, memes can undergo modulation during transmission from person to person, mind to mind. Why does most of the world set their clocks to a 24-hour system, while clocks in the United States reset at one every 12 hours? Because it was more advantageous, or more easier understood that way in the new area. Sometimes things are manipulated consciously. Take for example the saying, "That's so cool," versus "That's so fright." Both things mean the same thing, but they use different words to convey the identity of the person using them. In the case of the latter, it is used to demonstrate a particular difference between the person and most everything else.

TBC

Diabetic Angst

Being diabetic is hard. But I would never tell people that when they ask me general questions that belie the small amount of worry they feel over the matter, and I don't want them to feel anymore than they should. It's a painful affliction, partly because it's as mentally taxing with its presence as it is physically, ripping out kidneys and eyes and gangrene limbs via a surgeon's scalpel and skilled, tired hands. What's most important, however, is to not think of the future, and the vitality lost from my body to the disease. Much better to think about the now, concentrating on keeping the sugar in my blood as unconcentrated and subdued as possible. Who would have guessed that the sugar in Coca-Cola that makes kids around the world giggle and laugh, euphoric in summertime heat waves with their soda confections, that sugar which brings smiles to humanity's refined palate, that simple sugar, which through photosynthesis has given humanity's home planet life, that sugar, that very sugar. Who could have guessed that it would be the chemical that would most threaten my very existence. Mine, but not mine alone. Though most of the time it seems that way, as people shove it down their gaping maws, it disguised as a benign kitchen staple--an ear of corn, a glass of orange juice, that citrus killer. And I watch helplessly. Either eat it of die. Eat it, to be condemned to a life without the sensory pleasures of touch and sight when hands and eyes are removed from me. But eat I must, for a slow death is better than a death that removes life from me so early in my youth. Life no longer holds as many simple pleasures as it used to, as if this disease super saturated the threads of my happiness. The jolly jingle of an ice cream truck makes me wary of the needles bursting with insulin into my flesh to neutralize the sugar of a dolled up freeze pop. A birthday cake is a trap, with hidden carbs folded into the seams between frosting and pastry. Even an nonthreatening apple, that which is recommended by doctors and dentists alike, that which with every bite I could be terrifically satisfied by the thick crush of molars mashing apple meat, has its menacing surprises in the form of a glucose level spike. So yes, as hard as it may be to wake up to a world without sound, or have all the world's colors taken from your sight, that is how hard it is to be diabetic. It's the realization that everything you need for survival and want for added luxury, is killing you, but slowly, so the entire battle into death can be witnessed by a guilty consciousness that blames only itself for that extra slice of birthday cake, those days when it valued fun over the bland metering of blood sugar, and never fully understanding the predicament, the gravity of it until, down a leg to stand on, and perfect 20/20 vision, the everything becomes understood. This is a disease, not a temporary affliction. This is not the flu that makes you shake and shiver. It's the disease that sends its sufferers to an early wake, sans liver. One can only pray in God and man to find a cure before you must watch your life in slow motion, attached to a dialysis machine, waiting a kidney transplant from someone more fortunate than you, someone who has died already.

A Quiet Wedding

People were condemning faster than they should of, so fast it was apparent to me that they were denying themselves the privilege of reason. It scared me, to see everyone so absolutely furious at someone they had loved just a few hours before.

The wedding was a grand disappointment. Few things could have ruined it. Only one thing could have caused this level of distress that was surrounding her. Everyone who wasn't on a cell phone, texting or calling someone to speak loudly, the momentum of the story they were slowly unraveling forcing the volume of their voices to raise to the almost unbearable. I leaned against the faux granite countertop of ______'s kitchen. We had all come here, originally to find out where she had gone, hoping that her destination would be the apartment building. But it wasn't. She was gone. And for her sake, she should probably stay away for a while. _____ and ____ seemed furious. Even Justin, who I suspected should be happy seemed upset, as if because he hadn't foreseen it it was troublesome good news.

KNAPPA

I've seen this lamp, in very different locations, three times within the last two weeks. I think it's following me... or rather... God's trying to tell me something. I know that I'm conjecturing quite a bit, but why not? When things happen in three's, you know something's up.

Regardless, cute lamp. 24.99 from Ikea. Makes me wish I was an electrician and knew how to install ceiling lamps.

The Enlightenment League

I can figure things out. I can figure out why I'm so angry right now. But that doesn't help. I couldn't think of anything to say that would make sense. Things should make sense when you say them, right? My face flushed and I started to cry. It was as if a monsoon had just claimed my face as its own, and I couldn't control it. The worst part is, I knew, no matter what I said, Justin wouldn't understand. But I needed him to be able to, because he was the only person with me at that moment. And that moment was everything. Yet everything was being lost. It was slipping away, with my concentration.
I tried thinking about the stop-starting of my breathing. I tried thinking about the placidity of ducks as they float on lakes and other small bodies of water. My last resort, always, I thought about my seventeenth birthday party when I realized how wonderful it is to be surrounded by a family you love. Nothing. Nothing would stick and nothing would completely go away. "Sorry," I got out. He must have found it amusing to watch me cry because the next thing he said had such a pleasant, otherworldly quality to it. I couldn't actually sense concern, just curiousity. "It's not your fault. But I can't believe you're crying over this. What's really wrong?"
I tried to look at him for a few seconds, to shoot him some kind of glance, angry or confused or displeased even, but it didn't quite work because I could hardly see out of my eyes. What was really wrong? Why did I feel this way? I could figure it out, I just needed time. I stopped crying after a few seconds, and I started breathing normally, very calm. Then I knew. It was a thought that I could change in to words that I could finally tell him.
"I know--" I looked at him really hard, because I did know everything, so much more than he did, "it all. I know everything, but I'm not happy." I could feel years of discipline slipping away. It felt like blasphemy to say, but the feeling was just so unadultered. He knew it too, that it was wrong for me to say. He rotated a bit on the window sill. "I know everything and I'm still scared. I'm still alone. I have no one to save me, no back up plans. This is it," I threw my arms out. My right hand hit a wall. I laughed, but it was angry. And now my damn inconceivable hand hurt. "And I'm just," the crying started again. The word scared was all I could think about--that and the vast void of nothingness that I was scared about.
"Scared is a perfectly legitimate feeling. I got scared, too." I laughed. Justin didn't have normal human emotions. "But you just have to realize, that if you want to be happy, that's all. You need to stop thinking so much. You need to just focus on being happy."
"You don't understand," I wanted to hit him for deconstructing my fears and finding such a simple solution. "I understand perfectly well. You got to realize that no matter what you do, what you think, absolutely none of it matters. But if you're happy, at least you'll have that."
We sat for a long time. The wedding was tomorrow. I didn't want to have to wear my stupid bridesmaid dress. I didn't want to have to smile while Jessica got married. I had thought all of this would make me happier. I had thought a lot of things. But I guess I shouldn't have thought anything at all. I wanted to run away, someplace new, where experiences don't trigger thoughts. Where things just are. I knew Justin didn't want to be here either. "What makes you happy? Jessica's going to get--"
"Love, too, is just a state of mind that you can crawl out of," he waved my concern aside.
"How do you have so much control over everything?" I had fallen apart so easily. He was quiet for a long time. He rubbed his hands together. "I have nothing, so I don't care when it gets taken. I realize that everything is nothing, so I can't care when things don't go right. I believe in nothing, so nothing can contradict with the way I see the world."
It sounded like his own personal mantra. "How long have you thought that?""Since I was sixteen.""I guess I have a long way to go," I was rubbing my eyes now. I wouldn't let myself cry again. Hopefully.
"It won't be so bad. If you ever need anything, just ask me. I've been through it all." I never would have thought of him as a thoughtful person. I told him so. "I used to think a lot. When I was sixteen, that's all I did. Some days I wouldn't eat, I'd think so hard. But I've gotten my thinking over with now, and I just am. More like a robot, reacting instinctively to his environment. That's probably why you don't think I'm intelligent, because I never have much time for self-reflection." I thought he was doing a better job at being enlightened then I was. I didn't tell him that, though. I just let myself sit in the near darkness.
"You have to be thinking about something now," I said because it was quiet and it was dark, and nothing was happening, and he was still conscious.
"I'm thinking that I should either walk you home or walk you to a bar to buy you a drink. I think the second. Because if you drink enough, you'll stop thinking, and maybe you'll be happier."
I laughed. "Sure, but only if you're paying."
"Money is also nothing, so I wouldn't mind."
"Stop saying that word, it--," I couldn't say it, "it freaks me out."
"Well, why don't you nothing stand up and nothing walk with me to a nothing bar so I can buy you nothing beer."
"I'll stand up, if only to hit you." I did.
"See? Very instinctual. It's a better way to live. Even though that did hurt."

Will/Testament I 2008

As I casually watch iCarly, sitting in a modern office chair in an empty hotel room, thinking pensively about the hours I might spend after getting my severely impacted wisdom teeth removed at the young age of eighteen in a few days, two thoughts come to distract me from the task at hand. First, I am only wearing underwear. It is a bit odd, the whole laptop + underwear combination. Not very professional. But then, who really has the courage to, day after day, look the part of a professional these days? Now ask yourself, who at eighteen doesn’t love being alone and in underwear? The second thought, perhaps a bit more morose: I will be undergoing actual surgery, with anesthesia and the whole works. And with that comes a chance of death. Maybe one is not more likely to die from analgesia than swimming off the coast of California in Great White territory, or from driving to work everyday, but the chances stand at 1 in 350,000, and who can say that I won’t be that one? The “human error” that we wrote off as the last explanation for screwed lab results in chemistry could actually kill me Monday morning, in some third floor medical office in Northbrook.

Actually, I must confess, I don’t buy into the hypothesis that sharks will actually eat you. Sorry to divulge, but sharks are really awesome creatures, and we shouldn’t condemn them to be fear mongering creatures in our minds. But let me clarify with some real facts: It is over twenty times more likely that I will die Monday morning from a malfunction with unconsciousness being pumped into my face via mask than my entire lifetime risk of getting eaten by a shark. So don’t eat sharks.

Regardless, why would panic be mildly panging against the walls of my mind, I have no idea. Except I have every idea, so I’m going to start listing them in the driest fashion imaginable by myself. I would call it a Will of sorts, but I own very little of actual value. Perhaps a testament, of everything I’ve managed to gather together in eighteen years of being alive. First, unlike most people out in the world, I have decided to come to the decision that there are no second chances. You won’t be reawakened; your consciousness won’t persist into a second life, an after life, or for long after your brain stops beating. This is not an atheistic sentiment. It is simply being rational. And as such, I might also wish to point out that religion is pointless.

Well, not pointless. It’s rather like a crutch. It has evolutionary benefits, for keeping people optimistic. But nowadays, when plagues can be explained, religions are becoming increasingly vestigial. For me, it was quite excruciating to do away with the crutch, even though I had never really leaned upon it, and had grown up fairly unaware of the whole thing. I looked to God as the all-powerful being that everyone else looked to, for morals or lessons, or something. Which was fine, I suppose, and necessary, but I had my parents for that. When I finally reached a point where I couldn’t imagine the crutch anymore, couldn’t hold it under my arm because no amount of persuasion could get me to see it, I fell, and I fell hard. A year of intoxicating, otherworldly depression came upon me, and I attempted everything, even attempting Buddhism, a sort of step down from religion, while still giving me, hopefully, some guidance so I wouldn’t feel dejected and alone. But alone I remained. Only through working with small children, oddly enough, did I learn that life is for living, that it can be joyous if you let it, and it had not been given to me for distracted, frantic thoughts about death. Small children are vivacious, and they are engaged with discovering everything around them. They have imaginations that blend what lies in front of them; they don’t stick their heads into the clouds to search for the heavens, because they have discovered heaven on earth. It is the everything that is everything of earth. Every sense your mind can incorporate, all five, or more, or less, that is what heaven can be.

What finally made me push religion completely aside, allowed me to stand for the first time and look out at the world from a higher, more understanding plane? The solution to my salvation lied in the religious themselves. They are happier than I will ever be. They have an extra edge when rationalizing, looking to the God(s), as it were, in times when they should find themselves alone with no where to turn. But they are not saints, they are not nice, they are hardly what I would want my children to aspire to be. They are not good people. They will hurt and cheat others out of life, anything to let them remain happy and content in a trap which humanity has built and thrived in for millennia. Their competition among each other is irrelevant yet bloody. You call this God you have never seen by a different name, and the rules you fervently attempt to stick to at all times of your life are slightly more or less odd than your fellows, yet constitutes such a large difference that they must die? Or be converted? All for salvation? Which you have no evidence exists?

iCarly is back on, so I must continue this later.

Too

I'm too hot to go to sleep.
Too angry to think unless horizontal.
Too tired to promise I won't be angry tomorrow.
Too hot to even think about it.

Writing Books

Huzzah! I have crossed the word threshold with my novel. It was a long and arduous journey, but somehow, I buckled down and got things done*.

Now I begin concentrating on writing a book with my dad about culture and identity. It should be exciting. I never realized how little thought people put into their own identity and the identity of others, how people just take other people for granted, so hopefully this book will become an amazing and necessary project.

*Oh they got done alright, in a really unprofessional, daresay sloppy fashion.

life's some of that crazy shit

the synthesis of events, recorded and later recalled, a mixture of all the sensory inputs i can feed my brain, rise and fall as any great story should. except this one seems to be never-ending.