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.