So I’m sitting here at the breakfast bar. I’ve been doing math for about three hours. Actually, I think it’s been a lot longer than that. I got through a section and a half.
I thought I could get further, but I guess it was unrealistic to think I could do 200 problems in one night. Well, come to think of it, I did do around 200 problems tonight. 400 is unrealistic.
Although I do have a very firm grasp on factoring now, I have to do another hundred or so of the SAME EXACT PROBLEMS until I’m done with this section.
They aren’t even increasing in difficulty. The numbers aren’t even larger. It’s just the same old crap. *snore*
I haven’t seen Terry in ages… I think we are just too busy right now to deal with the “us.”
I’m feeling a bit scattered, so I’m listening to The Avalanches…which is music composed from thousands of samples from old movies and songs.
I should be feeling good, I sold my iSight on Craigslist today for $75. It was below market value, but I needed the money.
I actually had a lot of fun this weekend I went to this HorseCow party Christen invited me to. We dressed up like Dresden Dolls characters… I was the Coin Operated Boy and she was the Girl Anachronism. We drank a bottle of wine and banged away at the piano they have there while listening to Dresden Dolls songs.
I’m just in this weird state where I want to call my friends, but I feel like I don’t have anything interesting to say. Nothing is really happening…in an existential sense too.
I was looking for something this weekend, and ended up scanning in a whole bunch of my old papers and photos and mementos. It was really depressing.
Oh, but I did find something I’d been looking for FOREVER!
The worst story ever. Written by one of the people in my creative writing class. It is the ultimate irony that she titled it the same as my favorite novel.
I post it here for everyone to read.
Sorry about all the writing on it, I couldn’t find an original. We were supposed to give the marked up copies back, but there was no point with this one.
I’m not quite sure why, but I feel very creative all of a sudden. Like I want to start painting again. I think it’s the difference between doing a job that I like and doing a job that is pure drudgery.
I’m going to be coming into a lot of money soon… a large paycheck at work for all the web design, and my refund from the college. But strangely, I’m not excited at all. The money is just going to go to pay back my credit card, and that’s about it. I’ve racked my brain for ages, and I can’t think of anything I want. I mean, the things I used one (a larger display from a computer, a better smartphone, etc.) they just aren’t worth enough to me to spend hundreds of dollars on them.
Sure, I’ll get a few shirts…maybe a sweater, but meh.
I was really gung-ho on getting a Blackberry until I realized it had a nearly equivalent processor to the phone I have. So the only advantage would be a two megapixel camera phone instead of a 1.3 megapixel camera phone. Well, that and I wouldn’t be running Windows mobile anymore. I don’t know… I’m going to wait until they offer it on a one-year contract. It’s not like I’m floating in cash.
Today I bought a 20 pound bag of rice… a sort of insurance policy against famine.
I think I’m actually going to do okay in my algebra test tomorrow… which is such a strange thing to say for someone who hasn’t done his homework in like a month.
So I decided on a new nom de plume. I was introducing myself all last night as Jean-Paul. I think it fits better. Nobody knows about the real story of Darius…let alone Jean-Paul Sartre. Meh.
But Jean-Paul has a bit of a more refined air to it. Pretending like you are an actor in your own life is an okay coping strategy, right?
I wish I had a damn camera. I would take such cool shots. Oh well. Charles gave Terry a rather pricy (for my budget) camera because he got a new one. *jealous*.
I want a 3- megapixel cameraphone though. That would be my dream. Eh, it’l be out next year someday.
Is it bad when you get the feeling that the only reason that you talk to certain people is because they are dating your friends?
I seriously racked my brain from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. to think of something to say to Allen, but I had no idea. I could have talked pretentiously about my graphic design as capital-A art but I haven’t reached that level of vanity yet. And I feel like those people have a bit of an anti-technology bias. It’s the influence of the hippie culture.
And last week, I really felt like calling Aaron (Brian’s bf)…but then I was like “Hmm…what would I say…oh…it would be hella awkward.” I always feel that when I call somebody that I’m like begging for attention and the other person is just humoring me and wishing that I would hang up. I don’t know… I usually only feel that way when I miss my friends but I don’t really have anything to talk about.
I’m feeling rather lonely for old friends, so Josh is going to come visit on Monday after I get out of class. We’re going to get dinner and catch up. Gosh…how many years has it been? I don’t even know.
Scanning in all of those old papers, I took English in 2004. And it’s nearly 2008. I just feel like such a failure when I go to the Facebook profiles of all the people that would make fun of me in eighth grade and they are all in universities. Well, not all of them. Just a few. The rest all had kids and are living out terrible lives working at Wal-Mart… which I guess should be the ultimate revenge.
But I don’t really want revenge… I don’t know what I want… to have someone come and pat me on the back and say “yeah, you did it… you escaped Crescent City.” But I’m the only one who knows who cares the most.
But the truth is… I don’t feel like a success yet. It’s been years and I still haven’t graduated community college. Oh well. In Crescent City I used to feel that even though I was trapped in a hellhole, I had a lot of great friends and we would have so much fun. I miss having a large group of people that I know. Right now, that the only people that I really talk to are people I met through Brian or Christen. I really don’t want to talk to anyone I met through Annie… so that leaves me as an island, I guess.
Halfway through the party last night, all of these people showed up that we had all seen around. Sacramento is so small…you see them at events, at the club, at TFO. They are the “in” crowd…the people who live downtown and bike everywhere…and I want to kill myself when I think that I could become one of them.
I dunno, maybe I would like the Downtown-ites. The old baristas at TL were really cool, and I should have gone to that party that the one girl invited me to that day. I always get coffee from that same guy… I wonder what he thinks of me.
I always get really nervous around him, because I can’t tell whether he straight or not. Well, he is like 98% straight but just when I think I’m convinced he’ll do something that is out of character. I guess I get a little nervous around him. Even though he’s not very cute he has a very sexy voice. Hmm.
My life is taking such a turn for the better… and I guess I just wish I could share that with Terry. We keep annoying each other… because we have diametrically opposed viewpoints on a lot of subjects. I guess I have little patience for such things.
He says I have to have a more open mind. I mean… there’s things that I like and things that I don’t like. I’m not going to change my opinions on things just because he says so. I want to try to be more understanding about where he’s coming from… but he says that I make him feel like an idiot.
I use a lot of examples from literature to justify my points, and when I do that he says that I have no opinions of my own, just things that I’ve read.
There’s a difference between reading a novel and being able to regurgitate the contents onto a piece of paper and reading a novel and grasping the philosophical message, measuring against your own moral compass and seeing whether you disagree or agree. The job of authors are to present alternate universes that we can try on at a whim…and if they were written 60 years ago and are still plausible, it’s very compelling.
All of the great dystopian authors have advanced a shred of what our dystopia will end up being. And when I walk around this place, I realize that we are already in a dystopia.
You want the ultimate Blade Runner experience? Go to Country Club Plaza. It is the ultimate bombed out a hellhole of a mall. If I ever make a movie, I’m going to recruit extras right in front of that place. Weirdest looking people ever.
Anyway, I don’t know where I’m going with this other than my rampant nostalgia has to stop.
It’s been what? Four years since I broke up with Andrew, and I still can’t get rid of the pictures of us together. Josh, my old friend that’s coming to visit, I gave all of my mementos to him so that I wouldn’t brood over them. That was in 2005. And he gave them back to me once he moved away.
I need to stop. But I can’t.
I wonder if Drew gives me a second thought? He started a blog, and I can’t stop reading it. At times, I hate him so much for being so pretentious about liking Japanese music. I hate people I brag about how “diverse” their taste in music is. And it fits into a nice little Japan-shaped box. But that look he would give me…it was this penetrating longing…I felt like I was the only person in the world except for him. I shouldn’t have flippantly pushed him into having sex. I should have been patient. But I never am patient.
I want it all, and I want it now.
Such is my curse.
Categories: Ennui
This website-designing has my creative juices going. I decided to make my professional portfolio-ish site on a domain I’d purchased a while ago.
Check it out! (might take a bit to load)
I made the whole thing from scratch in Photoshop. Isn’t that awesome?
As of now, there’s only two pages, but I’ll change that soon enough.
Categories: Ennui
Today was such a roller coaster…felt great, then felt like I wanted to die, great again, then shitty.
I could talk about it, but I’m mad and it’s 1:30 a.m.
I just just go to sleep and write about it tomorrow. I need to stop writing when I’m angry. But then again, that is when I feel my emotions most clearly. Hmm.
The website is coming along well, I showed it to my coworkers today and they loved it. I need about another day’s worth of work on it to be close to being done.
After work I went to True Love and was working on my homework until Annie and Amanda showed up. God damn I hate them. Annie is such a fucking emotional vampire…I felt so wan and shitty after she left.
So I was going to go home, but Christen and I were going to hang out, so I went and visited Terry at work…but we only got to talk for a minute or so.
So I went and drove around until he got off of work…shit. I cannot go into this all starting at 2 a.m.
I’m adjourning until tomorrow *gavel*
Categories: Ennui
I absolutely hated my geology class today. Algebra was kind of cool, and we are doing a lot of review on factoring, which is definitely needed. If we pushed ahead to Chapter 6 right now I think that my brain would explode. It’s not that the problems are more difficult, it’s just that in Chapter 6 questions you are factoring six or seven different expressions and then doing a bunch of other operations with the factored expressions.
So yeah. Today it was a big test in geology and I had no idea that it was happening. I spent the whole time before class talking with Brian on the phone when I should’ve been studying. In the lab portion we had our group test, which was a disaster. There were two idiots and one girl who knew her stuff. She wouldn’t talk though… she would shoot me down completely and everyone would laugh and it turned out the things she most berated me on I was right about. I don’t know. I guess she just pissed me off because she’s just one of those fat lesbians that dresses like a skater boy, and I just don’t feel I can talk to her without mentioning that I find her sickeningly unattractive. “All the Etnies and skater shorts in the world won’t cover up THAT FACE!”
On the bright side, though, I am finally grasping the whole factoring thing. The only reason I was having problems with it was because I missed the first lecture about it, but today’s review filled me in all the spots I didn’t pick up from the book (which says NOTHING about how to do the problems. It should just have the homework sections and nothing else. I swear to God, for the first section of factoring on the example problems it said to write out the problem, “a factor at the expression” and then you’re done.
NOWHERE IN THE TEXT DID IT SAY HOW TO DO THAT. I am going to kill whatever idiots that made that book. Without the amazing lectures by my professor, I would have no idea what’s going on. I really love the way she teaches. In whatever she does, she uses arithmetic to show us how to do algebra problems. I never understood that algebra is just abstracted arithmetic. I mean, I had that idea, but she has shown us in pretty much every type of problem that we are simply doing a certain type of arithmetic, but abstracted, so that I can build on the “arithmetic” schema instead of trying to attach the knowledge to my “weird nonsensical rules on how to manipulate symbols” schema.
But OMG!!!! The web site that I designed for my company the woman I’m working under (I would say with, but I’m doing all the work, she’s telling me what she wants although she has no real power…god my company is weird) loved it. Well, I guess that’s a bit of an overstatement but she said that I was on the right track and that she liked it. I’m hesitant to include a link because of the all-seeing Google tracking inbound links. Actually, it’s not officially on their server, it’s just a demo site and it’s on my server, so I’m the only one that could see the logs. So yeah, the demo is here.
I made this delicious rice and broccoli thing, I’m still in the kitchen like two hours after I ate basking in the cooking. And desperately not wanting to clean up.
I did I tell you about me and Terry’s supercute second monthiversary? I’m poor, so I left a few little things that I knew he wanted in his mailbox and of work we went out to Del Taco for 30 cent taco Tuesday (after snuggling and being all cute and couple-ish). Taco Tuesday is a bit of a disgusting habit, but I guess I could have worse vices (like everyone else in this family). Right next to my laptop on the kitchen table is a pile of books about alcoholism. I think they’re my grandma’s…and I wonder if she’s getting rid of them because John is dead.
So I finally got my scooter serviced, it runs SO much better now. They also said I had a clogged air filter, so I have to go back and have them replace it next week.
Let’s see… what else? I’m really obsessed with that web site. I came across this wonderful little JavaScript snippet that allows the visitors to change the text size. And since we mostly cater to elderly people, all be a welcome improvement. I’m just not quite sure where to put it in the design where it will be both easy to access and unobtrusive. Hmm.
Well, I think I’m going to retire to my room and work on it for a while. I just want to say, I hate those nights where I sign on expecting to talk to people and no one that I want to talk to is online. It’s just depressing.
Christen and I had a lot of fun a few days ago listening to LoveLine on KROQ and IMing…we need to get together soon. It’s so sad when I think of her all alone in heaven.
Categories: Ennui
I.
Fucking.
Love.
New Young Pony Club.
Last.fm has all these music videos from all of my favorite artists…it’s awesome!
I didn’t know Death From Above 1979 had a video for “Black History Month.” It’s my fave song. Oh…it kinda sucked.
But this MSTRKRFT video is fucking disturbing.
Okay, I’m officially lost in Last.fm.
Categories: Ennui
That I am in damn good shape. I’ve been going for a jog nearly every morning these last two weeks, and I just jogged for eight minutes. It doesn’t seem like a long time, but oh my god…it’s the difference between outrunning the zombies and being a human lunch ;)
Categories: Ennui
So I installed Dragon into another virtual machine, it is this super stripped-down version of Windows called Bullet XP. Terry got it for me.
I’m not really sure if it’s faster or not, but whatever, it’s working.
I didn’t do a whole bunch of my homework tonight. I should have. I had all night to do it. I just could not understand this one part of the factoring chapter.
So I’m still three sections behind.
I missed my geology field trip this morning, and I thought that I could somehow make up for that sin by getting caught up in my math class. But no. I’m just a bad student all around. I spent most of the day reading Wicked, a novel Brian lent to me ages ago.
I thought that it would make me feel a little better than wasting the night on the Internet.
It didn’t.
I went in the other room to brush my teeth just to come back to Terry messaging me and then signing off because I didn’t reply. My Internet connection is so unreliable. I get signed on and off all the time.
This week was really surreal. For one, I hung out with Kelly on Thursday. We met at True Love after I got off work, talked about all of our old friends, and drove around. But the startling reality was that we had very little to say to each other. And then it became that horrifying time when I just can’t stop talking because I’m deathly afraid of what will happen once there’s silence. I thought that it would be a good idea to go over to Macy’s and visit Terry at work.
It just got worse. She put on that expression that she puts on when you bring over a friend that she doesn’t approve of. I thought that maybe we could reconnect… watch some movies that… talk about philosophy… but we are such different people now. And I’m not sure in what way I mean that. Maybe it’s because she’s been dating the same guy forever. Maybe it’s that the only person that she hangs out with these days is Lacey. And it’s not just her…I look back on those times and have no idea how we all were friends. Or were all the things that we had in common just interests she stole from Dan? I couldn’t imagine us listening to Pretty Hate Machine again.
I just wish we could be great friends again…but you can’t force it. We had run out of things to say to each other in 40 minutes, and I remember nights where we would fall asleep discussing philosophy. I wish I could have just started yelling at her all the unfair judgments I’ve made about her, maybe she could yell back about how I talk shit and how I can never face her and I sit here and write petty things about other people because I’m too afraid to confront people in real life.
But I am too afraid. How do you start the conversation that might make someone you considered your best friend into the person who will only communicate with you via blasé stares across the Christmas turkey?
The whole thing was just terribly depressing and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even when I was with Terry.
I just feel like such a bad boyfriend. And not like in the Garbage song.
A bad student… a bad everything.
I don’t talk about work a lot… actually, barely ever, but my boss asked me this week about some options. I work at a magazine, and like everyone else in the print industry we are facing complete annihilation. I wanted to hack a website together for them… a new web site, but I don’t have the technical skills necessary to make what they want… which is a 10 or $15,000 web site.
I feel like they desperately need to go into the digital realm. I was reading in a trade publication that 2007 is the first year that companies have spent more on online advertising and print advertising. So I’m torn.
Oddly enough, all I can seem to listen to is the Cardigans today. Gran Turismo is like, the best album ever.
I was listening to this song today and it totally reminded me of A.
I wonder what it’s like
walking by your side
To think before I talk
and to move at the same speed as you walk
I want to have a weight
to keep me in your state
I’m watching from above
I love it but it’s not for me
I feel like I’m paralyzed by feelings for people that I used to know. Not really as much romantically as old friends. Josh keeps asking me to come to San Francisco and see a movie at his theater, but since we’ve been talking for years about the crazy sex we’re going to have once we see each other again, that’s probably not a good idea.
I really miss being friends with him. We were both so nihilistic and we had so much fun in spite of it all. Nihilism is all about fun. I mean, I have friends I can relate to now, but every person you meet you relate to in a different way and you grow to miss all of the old ways that you used to talk to people. The comfortable silences created from months of conversation. I really miss Joe.
Okay, I’ll admit it.
I miss a few things about Crescent City.
I don’t miss a lot about that place, but I do miss the kind of feeling like you are all in this like one small ship on a mission of just surviving through incredible odds. I miss the beach… I miss being able to go out at night and be completely alone.
I miss all the people that I met there: Molly, Josh, Misty, Selena, Joe.
Oh well. There’s no going back. I can never relive the summer of love when I had just moved down here and we were partying downtown all the time and everything was great. Reality set in.
And I guess my life isn’t terrible, but I have this inescapable feeling that I’m falling behind in school and in my life.
I guess it’s because I haven’t gotten my scooter serviced. The only time I have to do it is Saturday and there are always busy. Screw work on Tuesday, I’m going to ditch and have it done. I’m nearly 300 miles over the recommended mileage. Can you believe that I put 5,000 miles on that thing since February?
Weird.
I’ve been thinking about Drew a lot lately… I happen to drive by the Chipotle downtown and was hungry, so I had a burrito. I had avoided Chipotle like the plague because it was where Drew and I would always go to eat. I don’t know why I’m so hung up on this… we only dated for like a little while though we had known each other for like six months. I just don’t know how to get closure about the whole thing. We never saw each other after I went to New York. He just stopped talking to me. And I can’t help but wonder whether he broke up with me preemptively so I didn’t dump him for Terry.
Was he lying the night before I left about wanting to spend more time with me?
I can never tell when people are lying. And I’m terrible at lying myself. Such a handicap.
So last night I hang out with Brian and his boyfriend Aaron. I don’t know whether I’ve written a whole bunch about at them, Aaron goes to school in San Diego and it’s a big deal that they can’t see each other. He was in town, and I was glad I got to see them. They’re a cute couple. And for once, I’m not like “fuck you cute couple!” ‘Cause I’m half of a hella cute couple :)
We went out for coffee at Naked Lounge, and I caught the eye of this guy. I could have sworn I knew who he was. And then it dawned on me. His name was Wayne, and I went on this terrible date with him months ago when Patrick was in town. He had this obnoxious Hispanic friend that I couldn’t stand, but he was just on the border of cute in his photos.
So I was consumed with finding out whether it was him. I sent him a message, and it turned out that, yes, indeed, it really was him. And now I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to talk to him, but mostly because I really hate his “BFF” (the annoying Hispanic guy).
Dating Terry is… surreal. I guess I’m just used to being single, but when I sort of daydream I picture what he’s doing…being at work, and I imagine him thinking about me…and it makes me kind of smile.
I guess his landlord is throwing money at him. $100 to paint the kitchen, he’s having Terry sell all his collectibles and split it 50/50. I don’t know… his financial situation is definitely changing … I feel like all of a sudden he has all this money and now I feel really poor and it’s kind of weird. I guess it’s just something I should get used to. I mean, God knows we both couldn’t have stayed poor for much longer. I was totally out of money.
But I did buy this amazing coat! I’ll have to take some pictures of me in it. It totally makes me feel like Jean-Paul Sartre.
So I’ve been reading that Simone de Beauvoir novel, and it is freaking me out. I mean, it’s semi-autobiographical and she dated Jean-Paul Sartre…it’s just really crazy, the stuff that went on in that circle. I always thought people living loveless, empty lives of despair and debauchery were those that grew up on LA in the 90s, but this novel has proved to the contrary.
Well, it’s one. I should get to sleep. I really need to get up early and bring my scooter in to see if they can do it this morning.
Categories: Ennui
Today has been like a dream.
I guess that would normally mean it’s been good…and I guess it has been good. Woke up in bed with Terry, gave him a ride to work, got to work remarkably early, spent my last five dollars on lunch at Subway.
It’s only Tuesday.
I don’t know how I’m going to survive. Yes, I have food at my house. But it’s raining…it’s been raining all day. I haven’t showered and feel grimy.
Christen met me at True Love after work. I don’t know why I go there. Inertia. We walked to the bank on Capitol and ran into Derek.
It was kinda awkward…he was also going to True Love. I don’t know what to do today. Talked with Christen, and at first I felt really happy and was joking with her about the weird people we know…and then we walked over to Lumens and I just started feeling really fucking depressed. Maybe it’s the weather…I don’t know.
I asked why she didn’t show up at Second Saturday and didn’t call or anything, and I was right. She was over at Allen’s.
I’m not sure what I expected…an apology? I mean, it really wasn’t such a big deal, we did our own thing and hung out with Megan and Steve and the gang, but…I mean, the night before she was talking about how Allen was going to bail on her and do some kind of art performance.
And then she went and did the same thing. I dunno, it’s just one of those “eh, I love you, but god damn you’re unreliable” moments.
Well, Terry and I are getting along better than ever. He’s so damn cute. I’m sort of taking a different tack with the relationship…or maybe it’s just in the bedroom. I’m sort of learning to realize what I want and to do it. It’s kind of awesome. I’m too used to just mindlessly reacting to the mood swings of my exes that this kind of communication never developed.
So I’m in Terry’s house right now. I’m typing this on his MacBook. And like, I don’t have the impulse to snoop. I guess I did want to snoop on Adrian, but I didn’t want to know the reality. I kind of want to look at his porn, but I’m too hungry right now to be horny. I have an apple in my trunk…but I’m too lazy to go down there.
Today just really depressed me. I guess it’s really contagious. Christen says the only thing that keeps her going is thinking about her fantasy apartment…she went to Target to marvel at cute furniture and housewares.
If only I had such an obsession. Well, I guess I do have one.
Zombies.
I spent my entire lunch reading about the T-Virus and its derivatives. You know, I wish I could play Diablo II again. Days like this when I felt like I just wanted to curl up and die, I could be a victorious paladin (or sorceror…that was my favorite), fighting demons and the hordes of undead. But in real life the battles are more complex, and I just wish I could just level up.
I think I need to get off this fucking Internet, eat some food, and start working on my algebra. Class was canceled yesterday, and I need to catch up on my homework.
I need to stop reading about the T-Virus and ebola…I keep feeling like this world isn’t real…that we’re on the brink of some kind of horrible disaster.
Maybe it’s my horrible premonition that one day I won’t have that emergency stockpile of rice…that I’ll be out of everything. I don’t think that’ll happen, but I’ve gotten pretty close. Fuck. I’ll take a shower, then algebra time.
I’m at Terry’s place until he gets off work. I think he’s off at nine, and it’s 8:18. Not much time to do my homework. We need to stop sleeping in and missing class and work. I need to grow up.
It’s just that whenever I’m alone I feel like I’m the last one left.
Categories: Ennui
Just want to say that I hate living with my grandma.
Hate hate hate hate hate.
I feel exiled from all my friends.
Drew lives too close. Brian too far away.
Terry’s a 45 minute ride, and with the Tower Bridge closed, Christen is on the other side of the world.
It’s 2:30 a.m.
I only did three quarters of one section.
Talked to Keith all night.
Listened to music.
Talked to Brian. Mostly about how my house is completely unprepared for a zombie attack. We have a fucking sliding glass door. Whose idea was that?
My house is going to have bulletproof glass.
I hate computers. I can never bring myself to read any more. I don’t have any place that’s my own. Fuck.
I kind of wish my dad would turn off the power to the house so I would get off the computer and do my homework like in high school.
Too bad my computer has a battery now.
What if I never read another novel?
I feel like I’ve become someone the earlier me would hate. Addicted to the Internet. Unable to stop IMing and face the fact that I was alone in this damn house all day. Fuck. My wrists are on fire. I need to sleep.
Well, here’s a video that made me laugh in spite of all this shit.
In The Know: Are America’s Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?
Categories: Ennui