I just haven’t had much to write about lately. I guess it’s my birthday tomorrow, so I should at least make an attempt to write something. Today I went to work and it was completely uneventful. Afterwards I went home and did more math. I went up to Brookings for my class, but I was like an hour late (my dad made me wash the dishes), and the teacher wasn’t actually going to be there, so I went over to Fred Meyer and sat in my car in the parking lot, brainstorming about anything I could possibly need. Every time I go up to Brookings I always make the pilgrimage to Fred Meyer, because it’s the closest thing to a real department store. Hell, it’s the only department store for 100 miles. And for the record, Wal-Mart doesn’t count. Anyway, I don’t know why I even mention Wal-Mart. It ruins the reverie of this anecdote. Eventually I decided that I needed a poster frame for my Power Mac G5 poster I got on eBay. No matter what I do with this software, it will not recognize the word G5. It always types “gee five,” no matter how many times I correct it. To tell the truth, it’s incredibly infuriating. I would curse, but it doesn’t recognize that either. It’s like the damn FCC built into my computer. I can only say curse words that can be heard on daytime television. But that’s beside the point. So I fired up my iPod and made my way to the glory that is Fred Meyer.
I noticed immediately that there was something totally different. They finished all the remodeling, and it looks exactly like the stores in Sacramento and New Jersey with all the fake columns and such. It was eerie. I could almost close my eyes and pretend that I was in the delicious suburban Hell of Sacramento, or that I was strolling along the billions of random shopping centers around where my mom lives. They even installed a Starbucks. Weird, huh?
They had some really beautiful poster frames, but they were $15. I’m only getting one if this poster is in beyond mint condition, which the buyer assured me it was. We’ll see. And I couldn’t remember offhanded dimensions of my poster, so dejectedly I started for the electronics section. I browsed the iPod accessories until I got bored (they now have the iPod car charger I bought in Eureka in stock) and walked around the aisles until one thing caught my eye: noise cancelling headphones. I had been browsing the Internet for noise canceling headphones for a while, but I had been very indecisive. Luckily they were having a sale and I picked them up for 40 bucks. They have little microphones on the sides of the earphones that pick up the ambient noise and then invert the sound wave of what is played in your ears so that it turns out perfect sound. It’s not exact, but it cuts down on the background noise of my computer 90% or so. I never noticed how loud the eight or so fans in my computer tower were until I had the noise canceling headphones on for a while and then took them off. Two words: wind tunnel.
The main reason I got them was so that I could listen to my music over the drone of my dad’s diesel engine in his truck when we make the seven-hour trek to Sacramento next week. And I have a feeling that they will perform superbly.
In other news, Molly and I are supposed to have lunch tomorrow. I’m so excited! I guess one of the things that I hate about myself is that it’s very easy for me to get inured to things. For one, I have absolutely no friends in Crescent City that I can relate to. And it doesn’t even bother me anymore. Nobody understands my jokes, no one gets my literary references… the one thing that really pops into my mind was on me, Misty, and Katelyn’s trip to Eureka. I started playing Technologic (the Peaches remix) and was saying how it was like my favorite song ever (not really true, but hey…) and Misty was all “It’s just all tech stuff!” In case you haven’t heard it, lyrics here.
Even though I was driving at the time, I immediately had a flashback to that scene in Ghost World where Seymor and his girlfriend are at a garage sale and the girlfriend goes “oh, you can get that, it’ll go great with your old stuff!” (he collects these incredible antiques). It was the moment when he realized that he would rather be alone than with someone who didn’t understand him. I don’t really have that feeling towards Misty, because it’s not her fault that her tastes aren’t identical to mine, but still… I can’t help but feel like Seymour, knowing that no one will ever understand him. I guess that sort of ridiculous, but I live in a different world than everyone else and in this cesspool of drugs, teen pregnancy, and minimum-wage jobs, nobody can see the beauty I see when I close my eyes. Nobody else in Crescent City spends their free time re-creating every last surface of the Guggenheim from memory just reserve one last bastion of beauty in this disgusting hive. *shudder of revulsion*
Okay, I’m done. I guess I’m just a bad mood tomorrow because it’s my birthday and I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything in my life. I guess I just have to listen to my mom. It took her 40 years to get her math done. So what if it takes me another year. But I feel like Kelly’s just going to move on without me and do all those cool bonding life-changing experiences that I want to do. And then I’ll be all alone. I always play around with visual art because I’m drawn to express something that can’t be expressed in words… and then once I finally do express it, I feel like I’m done. I used to draw a few years ago and one of the very last things I drew was this gigantic cage and this minuscule little figure in the bottom… and that’s just what I was trying to get at. The enormity of everything that isn’t me… all the tribal crap with football and churches, the politics, the games that mean nothing, the fights for nothing, everyone misleading everyone else do so they don’t have to admit that their lives are meaningless, all the lies, all the bullshit, all the drama, I’m just so bored and alone in it. I can’t be like Ben. I’m the person that I am. And I can’t just slip in and out of whatever personality is fashionable at the moment. A lot of the time I’m jealous of the people that can do that. But then again I realize that I have spent so much time alone that I’ve studied the person who I feel that I am and the way that I want to live my life and I don’t think they’ve ever given it a second thought. Not talking to anyone but your coworkers and your mother for months on end does something to you. It hardens you. You have to believe in your philosophy of life for you kill yourself. For Misty, suicide is easy. One drink after another, one party after another, random sex, party, drive drunk, party, more sex…girls, girls, girls. She’s running from something. It’s obvious. It’s the same thing my grandmother’s running from. I would say, but it was told to me in confidence…or drunkenness, I can’t remember. With her it’s all the same.
I just keep alienating my friends one by one because they don’t hold up to my standards. They can just turn off their minds and have fun. I can only do that after I’ve turned it on. For the somnambulists, this is the way they’ll always be. I keep judging, and they keep ignoring me. Maybe someday there will be somebody that I never say bad things about in my blog, but I haven’t met them yet. Except for Molly and Kelly.
So that’s why I’m glad I’ll be seeing two of my favorite people within the span of a week. Woohoo!
I got another of my cool T-shirts I ordered on eBay today. It’s hella cool. I’m going to wear it tomorrow. I mean today. Ah, hour one of my birthday and I’m not exactly happy. I learned from doing the comics page today that I share a birthday with Owen Wilson. Whoa, I just surfed a b-day site and I share a b-day with many more people than that:
Mickey Mouse
William Gilbert (wrote Lord of the Flies, right? I’m too lazy to Google it)
Margaret Atwood
Chloe Sevigny
Kim Wilde
That’s sort of cool. Niels Bohr died on my b-day. That’s also sorta cool.
OMG! On November 18 in the year 1307, William tell shot the apple off of his son’s head. Sweet! In 1776, Hessians captured Fort Lee, NJ. My Aunt lives there. Antarctica was discovered on my birthday as well. Cool. I love the Internet.
I guess what I’m saying is that I feel like I should be happier than I am. I mean, my mom sent me this big box full of presents and I got my cool t-shirt from eBay…I should be enjoying every moment of my life. There was even a brand-new family guy on tonight. It distresses me that I’m becoming a malcontent like my father. Eh, screw that. I did an iPod dance with my new headphones. My dad will never/has never done an iPod dance. The only thing I know about his past was that he did meth and drank a lot. Lame. I wonder if I’m going to take my computer with me to Sacramento. Kelly says she doesn’t have an extra monitor, so I doubt I’ll bring it. Damn I want a laptop! Apple had better come out with those Intel-based PowerBooks in January like Appleinsider says, or I’m going to be pissed.
Well, I guess that’s all to report. More unfulfilled expectations, as usual. But that’s life.
PS: I can’t stop thinking about that movie Pink Flamingoes. It was SOOO funny/disturbing! She actually eats a dog turd at the end! I almost burst out laughing thinking about the part where the house rejects them. “Like only a mother can!” LOL. You simply must watch it. It’s INCREDIBLY disturbing and graphic though. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Categories: Ennui,Leaving Bouville,Nostalgia
