i feel very unmotivated today

That is all.

comment please

Looking at my stats, I can see that there are a number of repeating visitors from Michigan lately, visiting this blog directly (i.e. not stumbling acorss it via some search engine), which makes me wonder if they're people that I know or have known in life. I don't know anything more than that their ISPs are located in Michigan so if I know you, please speak up or something. It's sort of a weird feeling thinking people are looking over my shoulder (read this post for my explanation).

You can comment, you can call, you can write, or whatever. Thanks.

a fork stuck in the road

It really sucks that I think so much, that I can't do a damn thing without thouroughly thinking it through -- analyzing every outcome for every possible course of events in accordance to any situation that might possibly occur. What sucks even more is that life never seems to work according to any of those plotlines that I stay up at night thinking about. It's always a curveball that I'm pitched, always some contingency that I never even thought of, always something that I haven't prepared myself, or my reaction, for. And it sucks.

It's the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

I guess it just goes to show how much of an oddball that I am. I guess it goes to show that I am that much out of tune with the rest of humanity that I just don't have any clue how they work and so have no idea how others will react. For some reason, I keep asking myself "what would I do if..." or "how would I react to this situation..." knowing through experience after experience that no one would respond to any given situation as I would. ...And yet I keep doing it, as if it were suddenly going to change after the billioneth try. ugh.

What sucks not quite so much, but quite a bit nonetheless, is that I then feel some need to vent my idiocies on this blog for the world to read. I feel a need to scream out to the void of the internet with some sort of exhibitionist wet dream that someone out there would here my screams bouncing around the walls of nothingness and maybe, just maybe, answer back -- either in recognition of my pain through their own experiences, or just a friendly "I hear ya" even though they don't know exactly what I'm going through. I never knew that I would have as many people out there that would come back time and time again, willing to listen, and so that is cool. Way cool. "Kewl" even.

But sometimes when I publish my insecurities for all the world to see, that random person that I don't want to show my insecurities sees them too. And that sucks. Sometimes I yell out into that cavern and hear the echo and realize that I'm being a complete tool. That sucks too. And sometimes, years later (it feels weird to me that I have been writing in this thing long enough to say that), I look back at the recordings and think to myself that I am just the hugest ass in the world. And that really sucks.

Anyway, that is what we in the writing world call a "tangent"...sort of like the one in mathematics, but not quite the same. Nothing that I just wrote in the past two paragraphs has anything to do with what this post is really about...not really.

The thing is, I am paralyzed by my assness. When I can't see what's around the corner, I tend to freeze up and make excuses for myself to not go ahead until I'm able to scope it out. When what's around the corner is something new and possibly life-changing, it takes me even longer. Painfully longer. I peak around the corner, looking for something that I recognize, but all that I recognize is that which I am familiar with, and that which I'm familiar with is that which I've experienced, and that which I've experienced is that which is experienced through the lens of my exitence, and the lens of my existence is, as I said, weirdly oddball to the rest of the human race. And so I find myself fucked.

Right now I feel at a turning point in so many aspects of my life. I feel as though I am about to make a life-decision as to how I'll be bringing in paychecks for the next 30-40 years of my life. I don't want to screw up. I don't want to find myself going back to school for the wrong thing, only to put myself into mucho-debt that I'll have to go to school again, get even more into debt, and pay off twice as much. I look too much into that contingency.

As I've written before, there's a girl in my life with whom I am friends, but can't help but think of as the most beautiful, wonderful girl I have ever had the honor, priviledge, and grace of knowing. We are friends and though I would like to see how much more we can be to each other, I don't know how she feels...I go both ways. I am left analyzing the outcomes...frozen in fear by the fact that so many times in my past I have lost friends to feelings. I don't want that.

I am also about to become homeless, primarily because I don't have very many friends. I looked for two months for a roommate and couldn't find one. Not one. Tuesday night I'll be sleeping at my parents, Wednesday too, and as many nights as I can stand it. Sure, I have couches to sleep on in the city (my parents live out in the middle of nowhere) if I need to, but no home. I'm sort of scared, sort of excited about it too I guess, but it seems yet another turning point in my life. For the last two weeks I have gone back and forth about what to do next in terms of living arrangements, and I guess it's going to last another month or two.

Anyway, I've unloaded enough for one day I guess. The library girl has already come by to say that my time is up so I should sign off.

the song in my head

acrobat by u2:

No, nothing makes sense
Nothing seems to fit
I know you'd hit out
If you only knew who to hit
And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in
'cause I need it now

To take the cup
To fill it up
To drink it slow
I can't let you go
I must be an acrobat
To talk like this
And act like that
And you can dream
So dream out loud
And don't let the bastards grind you down

is it so much to ask?

I'm a pretty straight forward guy. I don't hide much...even when I'm not exactly up front about what I'm thinking, others can almost always tell. It's knid of nice on one hand, but rather sucky on the other...because I'm sorta rare in that regard. I can't stand the games that people play, I can't figure other people out...I'm too damn trust-worthy and unskilled in the ways of social interaction (some might even say naive) and I just can't tell when people are trying to entice me into conversation or push me away with a stiff arm. ugh. Combine my ignorance with my suspicious-paranoid streak and I tend to come to generally pessimistic conclusions.

Anyway, if you see me on the street, hang out with me at the bar, or make out with me on my couch, please don't do that...I'm much too easily befuddled.

blah blah blah

I can't believe hat I can't think of anything to write right now. I'm in one of those moods where there's, like, so much to think about, that I can't think about anything. So much to do, that I can't do anything. Blech. I wish I had a computer that worked (as opposed to a Sony VAIO notebook, which suck) because late at night I've been having fantastic thoughts -- the sorts of things that bring clarity, at least until you wake up in the morning -- but they are gone by the time I get to the library to use one or another super-shitty keyboard to post something. *sigh*

blackjack

I had a bicylcing accident yesterday...I was trying to speed uphill through an intersection and so stood up on the peddles to get that little extra umph. I guess I gave it a little too much extra umph, because the pedal bar snapped in half while my leg kept moving...the bar slicing a nice two or three inch long, half-inch deep L-shaped gash in my leg. Blood started pouring down my leg, pooling in my sandals, and dripping all over the sidewalk. It was grand.

Luckily, this was three blocks from my house and downhill, so I was able to hop on my back and let gravity take me home with some pushing with my still good right leg. I was a bloody mess. It was swell. I got home and went to look at it closely and found that it was really pretty bad. I mean, I could see my calf muscle and all once I got some of the blood soaked away. Yeah. So I through a bunch of paper towel on it, wrapped it up tight with scotch tape, then went to see which of the "urgent medical centers" around town was open at 6pm on Friday (the emergency rooms being out of the question since the fee for their use would probably more than double the cost of getting patched up). In any case, I ended up having to drive bloody fifteen minutes out of town just to sit there for another two hours before getting my tetenus shot and finally getting stitched up...21 little buddies in all. Blackjack. Seven stitches are in there deep, holding the muscle or whatever together, and 14 on top, all black and sinister looking. The doctor claimed he was good and that he barely ever left scars, but that no one may be good enough to patch this one up. I told him that it was alright, I needed a new scar anyway...every guy needs a good scar, you know?

Anyway. It sucked.

move along, there's nothing to see here

I feel like posting, but there's nothing really to post about. My lease is up in eleven days now and I still can't find anyone looking for a room or roommate and so I can't even really look for an apartment at all. I'm really looking forward to not living with my fucking asshole shitface roommate that I have right now though. That's sweet. Of course, he's decided that two-thirds of the boxes that I wrangled up the last time we moved (which isn't an easy task, to wrangle boxes, as anyone who's ever moved can attest to) are his and he's not home to ask him to give them back. The fuckface douchebag. Im going to have to go into his room and take them, which would be breaking my rule about not going into other peoples' bedrooms (without explicit permission, of course).

Ugh, it's gonna be sweet to never have to see the guy again (lest I go to his girlfriend's house where he always is and I don't see that happening) but it means that I get to couch surf for awhile. That'll be good for me I think...just for a month, maybe two. Until I can find a roommate or a room, or fanagle a section 8 place for myself and some really pretty decent apartments in town here (The Globe is what I'm thinking of for GR readers). $250 a month for a nice one bedroom, heat included, and a pool in the building. Just as a reward for being a miserable failure in the career world and subsequently dirt poor.

Not much else going on though, nothing at least een worth writing about. Like I said, I just felt like posting.

Well, I gotta go do some stuff before my last (or possibly second to last...if I can't find anything else to do tomorrow night) at the Hade's Basement Bar - not the real name, just more appropriate.

orgy porgy

So I got a gig at a local hoochie bar and I'm going to quit.

Last Wednesday, in my efforts to be un-unemployed, I applied to a couple of bars as a bouncer and/or bartender...and Thursday I got a call from the one that I listed as a skill that I was "6-foot-7 and big" to come in Friday night at 10pm and do my thing. I get there and work and within a matter of a four hour shift (that felt like eight) I decide that this probably isn't something that I want to do long. I mean, it's Friday night and I'm being paid a whole $8.50 an hour to be somewhere I'd avoid like the plague on my off-time and I was supposed to do it Saturday night too which meant that I was effectively throwing away my weekend for approximately $85.00 minus whatever taxes might be taken out.

Anyway, I toughed it out and went back on Saturday to find that my job that night was to watch the dancefloor (as opposed to checking IDs at the front door). Ugh. I suddenly remember why it was that I avoid places like that like the plague.

I gotta say, I have a very strong faith in God. I have been through near-death experiences, tragic events, rejection, and the loss of those nearest me and I can't remember the last time that I felt any sort of hatred or disdain to God and His plan for putting me through that shite. But Saturday night, with a dance floor packed with people bumping, grinding, and dry humping; in a bar full of liar guys saying and doing anything to get laid; in a building full of people ith exactly one thought on their mind...I couldn't help but think that maybe we are all just hairless apes driven by little more than animal desires to procreate and do whatever it takes to do so. I couldn't help but stand there and think that maybe we are just evolutionary fluke with no devine purpose or design, just here to make more of us...like the giraffes and fishes and monkeys. I really questioned whether there was anyone up there looking down at us and, supposing that there were, how long it took for Him to shake His gigantic head in disgust at just how lowly and purely animalistic we can be.

No job is worth a faith crisis.

But everyone that I know and talk to thinks I should stay. Granted, I don't tell them about this issue because, frankly, people think I am just being all philosophy-major thinking too much about things-ish if I did, but they still think that I should stick it out, try to get myself to just one night on the weekend (so I can have one night off), and lve with the fact that I don't really like it at all.

...but what is it worth if it makes me hate humanity more and question my faith? Yeah, I don't like that.

For the record, I know of many people that have become atheists having worked in bars...for reasons that are similar to mine. Alcohol, as a truth serum, has an ability to bring out the basest, primal instincts in man.

so then last night....

...I was hanging out with her and her friend from Britain, watching Lost in Translation. when she makes some comment, I don't know why, about how it's unfair that women have a hormone released during sex that's identical to that released during childbirth that makes women attach themselves to others...and guys don't.

I start laughing. I don't know if it was in or out of my head or a combination thereof but I do remember saying how there are some guys who do get attached to girls, not through hormones, but with thir heart. I really don't think she got that. I really don't think she realizes that not all guys are fucking asswipes that think of girls as little more than temporary sperm banks and are themselves little more than 200 pound semen delivery vehicles. I really don't think she realizes that there are guys out there that think and act with their hearts not with their dicks. I really don't think she realizes that a guy can show affection by putting his heart out on his sleave and saying "here it's yours" bcause every guy that she's ever been with has instead whipped his dick out and said "here, suck it". I think she doesn't realize that there's more to love and romance than for girls to make guys want to fuck them and then "trick" them into sticking around (or wish that there were hormones to do that work for them). I think she dosn't realize that there's physical chemistry, and then there's the sort of emotional and spiritual chemistry that is ultimately what spawns love that lasts lifetimes.

I may be wrong about her, but I think that's true about most girs anyway. Maybe I've been burned so much by being the nice guy, offering the wrong part of my body to girls and having my volunteered heart ripped out of my hands, thrown on the floor and stomped on until it beats no more a coupld few times when instead I should have ripped my pants off and told some girl to fuck me.

It bothers me though because this girl complains that I am not assertive enough when, in fact, I am. I am always there for her, always supportive of her, always trying to make her happy...but it's not "assertive" I guess unless I'm practically raping her in my mind...the sort of stuff that I can't think about doing to the ones that I care about.


----- UPDATE 11/03/2004 ------

This post has become a point of contention between myself and the friend that it is about. I never intended it to be.

It was written out of frustration...frustration for years of girls picking other guys over me, guys who for all I could tell had one thing that I didn't have -- for the purposes of this explanation, we'll call it sexual bravado...the willingess to express himself through his actions rather than just emotions...whether that be a hand on a leg, a kiss on the cheek, an arm around a date, or something more...it's something that I'm just not comfortable with, open physical expression of feelings that I'm uncertain are reciprocated. It's a matter of shyness, yes, but also respect...a fear of putting a girl in an uncomfortable position through unwanton advances or ruining a friendship with lop-sided feelings and creepiness.

It's not just that though. It's a frustration with girls that see me as nothing more than a friend because they just don't seem to be able to even begin to think of me as anything more...a part of me thinking that has something to do with my lack of abilities to express myself physically...something that I can't help but think that girls just...expect. I mean, girls just seem to expect guys to not be able to keep their hands off of them if he likes her, don't they? I ask because maybe I'm wrong. I could very well be wrong...it's something that I'm questioning.

I feel sometimes as though I give and give and give, and care and care and care, and even sometimes love and love and love without it being recognized by girls. I don't feel as though I am at all hiding it, I don't think that I'm being too particularly cryptic in my expressions...but my intentions and feelings and wants just don't seem to transmit across. As it turns out, this was the case in this friendship as she claims to have had no idea how I felt.

It isn't that I think my friend (or 99% of girls for that matter...though I'm sure there are a few) would actually respond positively to a line like "here, suck it." That's ridiculous. It was a crude expression taken off of the idiom of "thinking with his dick" when it comes to horny guys and their misadventures. That's all...it wasn't literal...just a poor expression my my feelings...I hope this clears things up.

three days hate

I just got off a horrible weekend. Friday I had lunch with a friend that, perhaps, I like a little too much, got home, couldn't get a hold of anyone and so all I did was think about her. Too much. I wrote a letter, explaining why I don't do things, why maybe I act the way that I do, and I felt very happy about that. But then it made me think. Too much. I was up until 5 or so in the morning thinking about what an ass I am, about how fucking clueless I can be, about just how many excuses that a guy can make for himself (the answer is a lot), about how fucking retarded I am.

I woke up the next day feeling like shit. I spent the day feeling not much different. I went to see the movie Collateral and while watching it, thought about how it was a good thing I wasn't seeing it with her because she would point out the sad hilarity of the way that Tom Cruise rips Jamie Kennedy a new one because all he does is make excuses, doesn't go after anything, sits by and waits for things to come his way, not willing to lift a finger in the effort to make things happen...

And so I was up until 5 again, thinking. Too much.

On Sunday I went to my Dad's and almost went with her had she not been out so late with a high school friend of hers, and that took my mind off of things. I came home instead of spending the night because she had suggested that maybe we could go out, if she got back from a family dinner of her own on time...she didn't, I went back to thinking. Too much.

I got to sleep by 3 or so because I had thought all the bad thoughts that I could think of. I had run the gamut of the self-hate and self-pity induced by a stupid letter that I had tried to write -- pinning my inabilities and insecurities on someone else intead of me...the rightful bearer of the crown of shit. I was tired.

I wish I could come out on here and say "from now on I am going to take life by the horns" but I've said it enough to know that it's probably not true. All I can hope for is that maybe this time I have disgusted myself enough that I won't ever do it again. Maybe now I will try and do something. I am sick of being a fucking loser and I don't want to feel this way again. It hurts too much.

what my life is worth

I sometimes think about what it would be like to have a family how much things would cost. On top of that, and probably because my mom died while I was young, I wonder what it would cost me to insure my life so that if I died...my wife and kids wouldn't have to worry about money (or, at the very least, a big check could soften the pain of my dying). So I went to Matrix Direct and filled out their form.

I hate doing that because usually when you fill out quotes, it means at least one phone call, if not more. I don't know why they can't just quote you online or through the mail -- well, Matrix Direct does. They called me, just to make sure I was real and thank me for filling out the form, and then sent me the quote through the mail. I never knew it would only be a few bucks a month to insure myself for a couple hundred thousand dollars...especially since I'm a smoker (I am only 27 though). Anyway, I'm not signing up now, but it's good to know that it's there when I decide I need it.

I *heart* straight forward dreams

Usually my dreams are pretty bizzare in a David Lynch movie sort of way and nothing but a narrative with maybe some meaning, but nothing I can really discern (I've tried, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar as Freud would say). Lately though, they've been speaking a lot to me and I'm really liking them. They're still mostly cryptic, but last night was an exception to the rule...

I dreamt that I was in high school as my 27-year-old self along with a female friend (also as her 27-year-old self) and it was Homecoming dance time. I was alone and liking this girl but she was going to the dance with one of our high school aged classmates. While we were sitting in class though, her date just started making out with the boy sitting next to her and she was devestated (for obvious reasons) and I started to consoul her, trying to be the nice guy...wanting there to be more. She, on the other hand, started hitting on other high school boys in the class and I got upset, and confronted her about what she was doing -- being ten years older and these being preppy little high school boys and all...

And then the roofers working on the house next door to me started up the damn air compressor five feet outside my bedroom window and I woke up so I couldn't see how it turned out. *sigh*

Anyway, I don't think I need to pick that apart for any regular readers that know how highly I think of the male riff-raff that make up the general population of twenty-somethings in society (most being none grown up from their high school days)...so I won't.

more search engine fun (again)

On the 24th page of a Yahoo search for "she saw the bulge in her sons pants" you will see that the 540th listing for that search is to my blog. Okay, this is probably annoying that I am always looking at these things, but really raises a lot of questions...like, who on God's green Earth goes through 27 pages of a search looking to get off on something as incestually retarded, sick, and wrong as that? ugh.

hubba hubba

Yahoo's got me pegged as number 37 for a search of them "topless smokey mountains."

Who looks up this stuff? And, more importantly, why am I so damn curious about it?

While I'm asking questions, why is it always the 'o' key at the library that sucks so bad? The 'y' and the 'l' (along with the 'e') are also bad on this paricular keyboard, but it always seems that 'o' is the worst. Why? Oh well. Crap, the 'w' is going on this one too it seems....

the terrorists have won (part 312)

So I go downtown today to the Kerry rally and find out that my "good tickets" that the volunteer coordinator implied were so good were just middle-tier sor of tickets. The way she was so excited about them and the very short list she had to give such tickets to were waaaaaaaay over-rated. Instead of "meeting" him as she said, I would have been one out of a thousand or so in the immediate vacinity in front of the stage. It was just as well I suppose, becaue I didn't even go in.

The gates openned at 11:00 and that's about the time that I got there. The line for the general admission sort of entry was wrapped around a block, snaking two or three times through a parking lot and I was very happy to hear that my "special ticket" put in me another, much shorter, line (unlike my brother who had only the GA ticket). I found my line to be only about a hundred feet long or so and was pretty happy to get at the end of it...but an hour later I had moved twenty or thirty feet and I left.

Security was absurd. I have been to more political rallies than I can even remmber going back to 1992 when I was a sixteen-year-old grunt on the campaign of King George I and have never come across such crazy, over-thetop security. Hell, the security that was up today made the security at the secnd inauguration of Clinton seem like a short pat-down weapons sort ofcheck to a rock concert. More or less, it was like the special treatment that they give every tenth person at the airport performed on every soul walking through. They were thoroughly searching through everyone's stuff, emptying purses and bags, and then having everyone walk through a magnatometer. All this for a presidential candidate...one guy...in some out f the way town that people outside the US (and even many here) have never even heard of. It was assanine.

I mean, don't get me wrong, there needs to be security. But to the extent that it takes thirty seconds or more to check each of the 20,000 people attending a stump speach? No. They had only 10 lines set up that I could see...that's about twenty people a minute, 1200 an hour. Sure, it would have helped if not every woman had to bring her purse and if the younnger people had not had to bring their backpacks (especially when the tickets explicitly said "please limit the items you bring") but that's still retarded. I can remember a Clinton rally in 1996 (or was it 92?) when people just showed up, and got close and personal. I've been to plenty of events with big important people and not had such invasive security present. Hell, at the Bush rally on Friday, people seemed to zoom right through. That was for a sitting president.

Ugh. I hope that this bullshit was the result of the secret service screwing up and not because the Kerry campaign is fucking paranoid, because if it's the latter I really don't think I can support the guy or even vote for him...because one of the main reasons that I hate Bush so is because he is so facist when it comes to "national security"...not so much as Kerry might be about his personal safety it may seem.

dick cheney: major league sweetheart

So a reporter and photographer were to meet with Vice President Dick down in Arizona and, as is necessary for security, vital information (like Social Security, name, date of birth, and all that crap) was provided for the background check. No big whoop, you need to be careful right...and besides, it's the same for everyone.

Unless you got a foriegn sounding name....

President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Star refused to provide the information.

...

Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the president's re-election campaign, said the information was needed for security purposes.

"All the information requested of staff, volunteers and participants for the event has been done so to ensure the safety of all those involved, including the vice president of the United States," he said.

Diaz repeated that answer when asked if it is the practice of the White House to ask for racial information or if the photographer, Mamta Popat, was singled out because of her name. He referred those questions to the U.S. Secret Service, which did not respond to a call from the Star Friday afternoon.

...

Organizer Christine Walton asked for Popat's race in telephone conversations with two other Star editors before she spoke to Hayt. They also refused to provide the information. Walton told Hayt that Popat's race was necessary to allow the Secret Service to distinguish her from someone else who might have the same name.

from the Arizona Daily Star

I can't think of any reason aside from racial profiling of some sort for this to be going on. After all, can't there be blacks or arabs or whites or asians with the name "Nancy Smith" or whatever? Why does this only come to question when the name is unique and "obviously" not "American"? If race is needed to identify, wouldn't it be just as easy to fax over a picture of every reporter that is going to be interviewing the Vice President when they send over eveything else? I mean, this is assanine, race itself isn't even important aside from identity and as far as the logic goes here anyone could say they're anyone. Ugh.

There's only one thing I can think here..."Mamta Popat" sounds like an Middle Eastern name and the adminstration's handlers are so paranoid and so honestly believe that anyone of Middle Eastern descent is suspect that this shit is going on. God Bless America.

this sucks

When I first found out that I was going to get special access tomorrow at the Kerry rally, I was geeked at the prospect of meeting the guy (assuming that this "special access" grants me a place in the line as it has in the other campaigns I have worked on in the past -- but that was before NINE-ELEVEN®). Then I found out that all weekend, Kerry had the whole crew along -- Edwards and his daughters (me finding Alexandra to be rather hot -- here being the photo of her see-through dress which isn't safe for work viewing) and, of course, Ben Afflack.

But now I've found out that Edwards won't be there and I'm scared that good ol' Alexandra (who I guess has a boyfriend...the bastard) and Benny-boy won't be there and I'm sort of disappointed.

For the record, I've been hearing a lot from Afflack lately and I must say that even though so many of his movies are pure shite (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, and all that crap), I find him to be very politically intelligent and astute. Besides the fact that he has accomplished my dream of writing a movie (or book, I would be happy with that) that got him to where he is...which makes him a lower-level hero I suppose.