Friday, January 31, 2003

Today is happy. It’s not free of troubles, but it’s happy. I slept quite late today and I enjoyed it immensely. I lay in bed after I woke up, doing nothing. Just being. It’s lovely to be able to just be.

I feel as if I’ve been undergoing some inner turmoil this week that I can’t consciously explain. As if there are new forces in me, active somewhere, that I know nothing about. I’ve been feeling so strangely and there’s nothing definable about it except that I’m so incredibly tired all of the time. It’s almost as if my body’s fighting off some infection, but it isn’t. I’m physically fine, even though my chest has felt full of cold air and I’ve had pains near my heart and my brain has ached as if afflicted with acid. While I know there’s nothing physically wrong with me, you couldn’t convince me of it when I have to get up and go out into the cold in the morning.

My mind has been odd as well. It’s working on some other level as if I’m constantly distracted but don’t know why. I find myself writing things that I never intended to write or even knew that I was thinking. Even truly simple English conjugations which give me no trouble whatsoever ordinarily keep showing up obviously wrong on the page. My mind wanders to nowhere. But when I “come to” I’m often following a train of thought that I can’t trace; and the trail fades away as soon as I begin to concentrate on it. Yesterday I was so struck by a wood carving of the Mother of God with her emaciated, dead son that I nearly wept right in the middle of class. A Pieta is supposed to have that effect on a viewer, but it’s never had that effect on me before. It’s not that such things do not affect me; rather instead that they have a subtle, nagging effect rather than an obvious and demonstrable one.

I don’t know if it’s that all the stress I’ve been living with lately has finally taken its toll, or if I’m off my rocker. Or if, perhaps, a certain dreamy trait that used to be a very present part of my personality has just as suddenly reasserted itself as it suddenly removed itself, around the time when I went back to regular high school for my Senior year. There is no doubting that I’ve changed enormously since I was fifteen. But the odd bit about me, is that I was always acutely aware that I was changing. I feel as if I’m in the middle of one of those periods of inner churning now, and that, something is about to happen that, while I will not be able to explain it, will still become a very new and present part of my personality.

Periods of churning are not really always pleasant. While I feel very calm today, I have an only half-conscious fear of changing. I know that change is not always positive, and I know that such knowledge has led me to abort the embryo of change in me before. I do not know whether I have been saved from death or if I have murdered my own salvation because change requires a certain sensory deprivation. Change requires a numbness which allows it to slice through years of prejudice and habit which have hardened as if into ligament and bone. It requires a blindness to conceal how narrow is the path which takes us up, as if as on a mountain side, with the sheer drop off of destruction mere inches from our toes; the path which leads us to where we must make our leap of faith. It requires a certain deafness to keep us from the knowledge of poisonous jeering, and of the howling wind, which, could we know of them, we would never have the courage to ascend at all. Change is terror personified and I am only glad that I cannot know what inner battles rage inside my psyche and soul as I write this. We shall see, very soon, and very subtly, I suspect, which side is allowed to win.

Thursday, January 30, 2003

For someone who enjoys school on the whole as much as I do, I sure do a good job of hating it on an individual day to day basis. I feel I may die if I have to sit through another two-hour boring lecture. And yet, here I am. If I really was going to skip Art, I probably would have done it already. This quarter, as is not atypical for winter quarters, ranks high on my most boring quarter list. Besides, dying, at this point, would be sweet release and I don't deserve that.

No more teachers, no more books...

I have a headache. Thursdays suck.

Only one really funny thing happpened today, and it was probably only really funny in the context of being utterly and completely bored when it took place.

This kid in German said: "Can't you just say 'an' interchangeably with 'zu?'"
The Prof. said: "No...that's...just not right. It sounds awkward in German.'
And Bronson says: "Yeah, they'll kick you out of Deutschland for that sort of thing."

I laughed. A lot. I know it wasn't that funny. But I needed to laugh, so I did. Besides, there are some tone of voice issues that made it a lot funnier than it sounds.

Then in Bio we were charting genotypes. And Bronson asked Mary if he had a widow's peak, and she's all: "No, you're straight." And he started busting and mock wiping his forhead. "Woo! I'm straight. Glad that's finally cleared up."

Yeah, anyway. Bored today. Bored with a headache. I want to go home. There'll be food when I get there. That fact's all that's keeping me going.

Ever notice how people who ordinarily have no desire to adopt a child, and who, in fact, have even made repeated remarks against the practice, are quick to want to adopt any child focused in national headlines? "It's different! That poor boy lost his momma and daddy!" Really? Because, you know, most adoptable children are tight with their folks. Is it just that Americans want fame so badly, that they'll make a lifetime commitment to a living human child for a temporary fame buzz? What does that say about us?

I'm redesigning my website. Actually, I think I'm going to get a new domain and all that. Can't think of a fitting title though. I had a wicked dream the other night, and when I woke up I was set on having something from the dream as a name for my website. Unfortunately, I didn't write it down, so, immediately upon falling back asleep, I forgot it. Now all I have is the annoying memory of knowing I had a name, but that I can't remember it. I'm conjuring up some cool design stuff though. Cooler than what I've got now. Hopefully a bit more colorful too. It's my general habit to go sort of black and gray on everything, but I'm trying to get away from that. In a lot of ways, my frame of mind for design is still stuck on when the internet first started to influence me, which was way back in like '96 or so. We've come a long way since then, and I guess I ought to too.

I'm reading this Biography of Mother Teresa. It's supposedly objective, but most of the criticisms crack me up. There's only one really legitimate criticism, I think, that I've read so far in the whole book. And that's the Missionaries of Charities reuse needles. In a country like India, which probably has nearly so many AIDS cases as the entire continent of Africa, this really isn't the best idea. But the other criticisms are silly. "Why doesn't Mother Teresa give abortions? Why doesn't she hand out artifical contraception? Why does she insist on discipline in her order? Why doesn't she push for the ordination of female priests?" Could it be that Mother Teresa was a good and faithful Catholic, and as such agreed with the Church on such fundamental basic issues as the sanctity of human life and the order of the priesthood? Naw, dude, she just sucked and stuff. Yeah, so she fed, clothed, bathed, and even kissed lepers and other pariahs. She opposes the ordination of women! That nullifies the whole bit right there!

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

It's frustrating to be so incredibly tired that you can hardly move, full in knowledge that, seemingly, every school in the world is closed but yours. My old high school was closed. I can't think of any high school in the county that wasn't closed today. But no, I have to go to college. I have to go and be miserable. I keep telling myself that all I have to do is get through this week, and then there'll be lots of time off. But the fact is, there won't be. There'll be the usual weekend, and then I have to come back. It's miserable. I seriously just want to sleep all of the time. Last weekend, I slept like 11 hours a day, and all I could think about was how much I would have like to have been sleeping more.

I don't know why I'm so down on school right now. I'm usually impatient, but this is something else. It probably doesn't help that I got a C on my Biology exam. Generally, I look at poor grades as something of a challenge. But I can't help this one because it wasn't my fault I did poorly to begin with. I take responsibility for my errors when I make them; but this time, it wasn't my fault. For evidence I posit that, with my C, I'm still ranked third in the class. There's extra credit and all. Assuming I do the extra credit, it'll bring this C to well-over a 100%. But still, there's no evidence that the next exam is going to be better, since it's out of my control how well I do.

On the bright side, I got the only A in my Art History class on that exam. There were massive numbers of B's I guess, so it's not like I blew everybody out of the water. But it's cool to be top of the class.

Dude, there's at least a foot of snow on my car! Damnit. Out to defrost I go.

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

heh, I'm skipping Bio and German today. I don't feel totally comfortable skipping Bio since I think I bombed yesterday's exam. But I also feel like I have cold air in my lungs and in my heart, and I can't think of anything right now, that would be worse than the mile-long trek into class. German will be class as usual, and he already pushed our exam back to next week, so no worries there. I will go to Art tonight to get my exam grade.

Little punk high school types keep getting school cancelled for the weather being below zero. Ridiculous. I never got out of school for cold weather when I was a kid; and I still don't now that I'm in college. And everyone knows that, if anything ever sucked in an adult's life, it should be repeated in their younger generation without mercy. To toughen 'em up, yeah. Anyway, my real concern is that if my friend's high school keeps getting cancelled she'll have to teach on calamity days in the summer, and that'll push our trip back to when it's more expensive to fly. Of course, I was going to be messing with taking my finals early and such, so we could leave early. If she's still having to teach, the bright side of it is that I can take my exams at the normal time.

I'm toying with the idea of having a birthday party this summer. I haven't had one since I was five. The main problem with it though, is that I had been planning to leave for Europe around June 10th, which is my birthday. And besides, the 10th is also smack dab in the middle of finals week. So, the weekend before isn't great because that conflicts with studying or writing papers, which is important if I plan on leaving the continent sometime during the week. And the weekend after is bad because, well, I won't even be here. Maybe two weeks early; but that seems a bit much, having my birthday party clear into the month before my birthday. Especially since it's my 21st, and I won't yet have the legal rights that go along with being 21, if you follow.

::shrugs::

Anyway, I had a wicked nightmare last night. And while I won't share it here, I did write a short story loosely based on it. If you want to read it: The Face.

Monday, January 27, 2003

Oy, I totally whiffed on my exam. And apparently, I wasn't the only one. All four of the kids in my German class who also have Biology messed up their tests badly. It wasn't entirely our fault either. For instance, she told us specifically in class: "This diagram will not be on the exam. I only want you to know the process of the Calvin Cycle from this sheet." First page of the test: "Label this diagram. The process of the Calvin Cycle has already been labelled for you." We were like WTF? It sucked. You know a test is poorly written when every three minutes someone discovers an error and she has to write the corrected question on the board. The worst part is, for someone who's terribly inaccurate herself, she doesn't even curve. At least there are supposedly 25 extra credit points available later.

Anyway, I'm bitter. My Art History grade had better be good tomorrow. This quarter was supposed to be relaxing; I won't have it turning into my worst ever. Deutsch ist gut. Danke Gott für Deutsch!

I need to stop thinking about school. And stop thinking about food. The two are interconnected, and I've had too much of both today. I guess what I really ought to do is lay down and read for a while and try to relax. I didn't have the most relaxing weekend for a menagerie of reasons, and I feel particularly unrested now. I need to have some fun, really. I need to go sledding, and have a snowball fight, and stop swearing so much and working my stomach all up in knots. But I don't see any of that happening. Ahh, well.

I have an exam today I have to go study for in a few minutes.

Truth be told, I'm feeling rather poorly. I keep telling myself to go take an aspirin. But the taking of aspirin is so unpleasant. Often worse than the actual poor feeling itself. But I want to be preventative because I have an exam. And yet I do hate aspirin.

I overanalyze simple things; call it having a Sarah moment.

Yesterday was a strange day. I ended up taking my sister grocery shopping. They let her out of the hospital because they're 99.9% sure she doesn't have Tuberculosis. This is a good thing. But I wonder why they had the original false diagnosis. Probably my sister just heard the word, freaked, and decided she had it; I've seen my mother do the same thing, so it's pretty likely. This isn't entirely unreasonable since it is sort of scary to be quarantined and kept in a special room at the end of the hallway where nobody ever stays or goes. I know the reason they thought she had it was that she's got a hole in her lung, and, whereas pneumonia tends to settle in the bottom of a lung, tuberculosis takes root at the top. My sister has a hole in the top of her lung. Cancer is still a possibility, but I reserve the right to be callously objective about the thing, and demand proof before I get upset, because of the false TB scare. Anyway, she's quitting smoking, which is good. And she's on medication for the time being, and under medical supervision because of the heart thing. So, I'm less worried there until I have reason to become more worried.

I don't want to go to school today. But I really quite have to go study. Maybe I'll skip German and come home early today.

Sunday, January 26, 2003

I woke up this morning with a sense of alienation that I’m having a hard time shaking off.

I grew up very oddly. I had an odd role model. I grew up strong in the belief that, if you want to be great, you have to be different. You don’t go out purposely to be different, but you embrace that which is different inside of you, and you run with it. Normal people herd together, and they find strength in it, sure. But the truly great people, the ones that they tell stories about, years still after they die, those people go it on their own and that’s quite a lot of what makes them great.

Humanity is a strange condition. Science tells us that we are herd animals and religion tells us that it is not good for man to be alone. But man’s impulses do not lead only to the pack mentality. The beginning of morality is an individual man’s stance that what someone else is doing is somehow terribly wrong. The first twinge of civilization is the imposition of the ban; the attempt to cast out the evil one just as we cast out any other thing which is filthy and defiles us. A scientific anomaly is the lone wanderer without his pack; but not an unexplainable one. And religion tells us too, that each man was created to walk a separate and unique path through life and that on the last day each man will be responsible for his own sins. Man knows what it means to be alone, and not everything in him rebels against the fact.

Loneliness has an oddly defensive nature. I lament my solitude; but I do not try to escape it. Loneliness has a way of manifesting at one’s core. As for me, I never touch people, and I do not like to be touched. The touch of another human being is jarring; it’s the spark of the knowledge of the reality of the other. And paradoxically, the knowledge of the divine spark common to all people. It’s like two separated parts of a clasp snapping together; the individual ceases to be and is absorbed into the greater whole. Solitude is incompatible with touch. And though there is something in man which longs to be clasped together with his brethren, there somehow remains amongst those prone to solitude, the sneaking suspicion that men have only ever been brought together for armies, and holocausts, and judgment days, and that, such things are not really desirable. And additionally, that, while a clasp is certainly much more a clasp when set together; a set together clasp is somehow finished and final, whereas when the clasp is broken, there is more yet to be seen and done. Solitude takes comfort in the incomplete because loneliness, in many ways, is the passionate love of having many options.

It strikes me that I’ve chosen something of a solitary path through life. I grew up very alone in many ways. My very early childhood, I don’t remember as lonely; though I do recall a distinct feeling of somehow being other. As in the song I sang as a child as part of a game: “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is not the same.” I always felt as if I could group people into one category and then myself I would leave as its own category. This may have been egocentricism. Perhaps I just thought myself overly unique and failed to understand that I wasn’t so special as to have required my own biological kingdom. But by the time I’d hit regular school age, I was alone in a way which was more than categorical. I was physically alone. I was alone not because I was different from other children; all children are different from one another. Rather instead, I was alone because I clung to my differences and wielded them like a sword to fend off assimilation on all of the points that young children think important to their societies.

Today, I feel as if I am overly aware of the surfaces and lines which define reality as we know it. Though there are days when I am so convinced of the transitory nature of everything, that I’m somewhat surprised a table holds against my knuckle when I knock on it rather than allowing my hand to pass through or somehow be absorbed; today, I’m seeing life in shades of geometry. I have no natural affinity for Euclid; but this morning, at least, I find myself more comfortable with Euclid's proofs than with the mystic's hypnotic stare.

Saturday, January 25, 2003

More crazy developments in the sister department, but I'll hold off sharing until we're sure what's wrong.

In other news, I'm going get a kick ass newsie cap, and make my friends call me Sadie. And Dox will be the person in the fedora, who was formerlly known as April. Dox Flapsy. And that fellow we used to call Mike will be Loki. We're going to dress up for gangster poker night, or as we call "Chillin' wit' the villains" night, and have our pictures taken. We like pretend time. But we're totally wearing the hats even after we're done playing poker. Folks, we fat girls, are bringing back the hat. The skinny will boy will aid. He got lucky being called Loki, on account of, he was almost Zev, Lupo, and Cecil Reynard Dorsal, III.

Good times tonight but about to fall asleep so must go.

Thursday, January 23, 2003

More from My Family's Frigged Up Medical File: My sister Donna's in quarantine, currently, at the hospital, because she's managed to contract tuberculosis. Who gets tuberculosis these days? My other sister just got out of the hospital, because she had kidney stones. Consequently, my mother believes the other day that I might have passed a kidney stone or two, when I was screaming and twinging in horrible, horrible pain. It's not impossible. In any case, I'm left asking, WTF is up with my familial immune system?

But, in completely opposing news, I'm still really happy. I'm feeling pretty good. And it's weekend! Happy, glorious weekend! And, I have new G.K. Chesterton to read! ::squeals::

Just did my Art History exam. Either I'm really fast, or everyone else is really slow. My definitions were good; I'd memorized them, so they ought to be anyway. But somehow it's always sort of spooky to be the first kid out. Perhaps it's the adrenaline, but I think I did quite well. Perhaps the best I've ever done on an Art History exam.

In espionage news: General failure all around. I walked all over heck looking for my friend Nikki, to borrow her book. But for once, she wasn't on campus. Then I went to the book store to look through the text, only to be quickly ushered out because they're "doing inventory." In any case, the books were sealed, so I couldn't have gotten much out of them anyway. So then I manically looked the things up on the internet, and had some decent success; I love broadband. But then I ended up borrowing the book of a kid in class; I lied and said I'd forgotten mine. I don't like to lie, but, meh. Plus, this makes things difficult for the next class. I can't be all "Oh, forgot my book again ::snaps fingers::." Will cross that bridge when I get there.

Anyway, so, still in school now. Have an hour's more Art class to get through before I can go home; though, to be fair, I have what'll probably amount to being an hour long trek through wind and snow before I can even get to my vehicle. But it's Thursday, joyous Thursday, and I can't complain. Sleep, tomorrow!

Quick blog; I'm at school.

Today has sucked sort of. It started out quite nicely. But things went quickly downhill. First, Biology is always pretty boring. Second, I forgot I had a quiz in German, but I think I did okay. Third, in Biology lab, I spilled Phenol red on myself, and then dropped a petri dish, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. And now the time draws nigh for the dreaded Art History exam.

I'm pretty good on my facts, actually. But I need to see a book so that I can remember which slide belongs to what bits of info. I'm thinking about running some espionage over to the bookstore. Just bring my list, look at the pictures and leave. But I feel like a jerk doing that. I thought about buying the book and bringing it back in two days, too, but then I think that would sort of raise suspicions. I had hoped to get the textbook at the library last night, but somebody else had gotten to it first.

Ahh well, time for studying and general espionage. Wish me well, folks.

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

I’ve been generally happy lately.

I’ve noticed that there’s a direct and opposing link between my cynicism and my general happiness. I’ve always considered myself to be something of a cynic. I’ve long claimed that I was a realist and that pessimism was the proper viewpoint because, while an optimist is quite often disappointed, a pessimist is never disappointed and indeed, sometimes he’s pleasantly surprised. Ironically, it was always a bit of an optimistic point to have made.

But lately I’ve been rethinking all of that. I’m not over-fond of psychoanalysis, so I’ll spare you the gory details of it. But I think I’ve always wielded cynicism like a shield. Cynicism kept me from taking risks. That offered protection in a cruel environment, but it also kept me from excelling. There was no point in trying when I could get by without trying and all trying seemed to signify was the bitterness of lonely victory, or the stinging bitterness of lonely defeat.

My mother tells me that I’m naïve; that I don’t understand how evil people really are. But I disagree. It’s easy to see how evil people are. We live in a world where naivety is a rare virtue. In the words of R. Buckminster Fuller, at the start of his Synergetics: The Geometry of Thinking, and therefore totally unrelated to my subject except that it’s the proper turn of phrase, we must “Dare to be naïve.” Naivety is the thing worth battling for; it’s not the standby. Children may be born innocent, but they’ve learned to keep their guard up before they’ve begun to toddle. It’s rather like Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote regarding faith: “Well-adjusted people think that faith is an answer to all human problems. In truth, however, faith is a challenge to all human persons. To have faith is to be in labor."

I’ve found that faith and naivety are every bit as linked as is generally charged by their enemies. But I don’t find the fact so odious as I once thought I did. It’s pessimism I find poisonous; not faith. It’s calculation, and not naivety, which is worthy of suspicion. Metaphysics aren’t nasty, though there’s many a metaphysician who is.

Sometimes when I listen to myself say these things I wonder if it won’t be long until I’m singing Rome sweet home. I wonder if my early atheism had much to do with the unfortunate fact that I was born into an Anglican family. Though I know a great many good man has, and I know at least one good woman who does, I can’t imagine anyone taking Anglicanism all that seriously.

But before I go, my mom cracked me up tonight. Annoyed with my father’s habit of falling asleep in the chair with the television blaring in the background, she gave his chair a good kick and screamed: “When you die, you’ll go to heaven or hell, but you'll be damned if you'll get out of that chair!"

My mom came home in a fit of fury. The people where she works suck. Anyway, it doesn't bode well for my ability to blog, so I'll try to send this off quick.

It's funny, all these things I've been planning are actually sort of coming about. It seems I'll really go to Europe this summer. I can really go to law school, if I like. And I can really teach English abroad somewhere, if that's what I prefer. In fact, I can do both. I know it sounds silly for me to contemplate not only what my options are, but also the fact that I have options. But it sort of amazes me sometimes.

Growing up, I didn't have goals or plans like a lot of the kids around me. My cousin Julie knew from the time she was like five years old that she wanted to be a Math teacher. That attitude always struck me odd as hell; and it still does now. How can anyone decide what they're going to do to their life? Now that I'm being sort of forced to pick something and commit, I'm not any less baffled. But I'm feeling lucky. Considering my general distaste for education, I seem to have accidentally picked up a rather good one. Considering the unnatural shyness that's plagued me my whole life, I seem to be doing a lot of outgoing things.

Well, I'd like to be able to write more, but my mother's asking me literally three times a minute whether or not I'm done, and I think if she asks again, I may pop her in the nose, so I guess I should go.

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Good day so far. I think I aced my Biology quiz. And, I seem to be catching onto the dative case in German abnormally fast. Not only abnormally quickly for me, who being a good English speaker, is approximately as comfortable with cases as I am umlauts, but also abnormally quicker than my classmates. This is good news mainly because it allows me to spend much of the next week slacking, and not studying at all. However, I've got an Art History exam Thursday that I'm starting to worry about. I can remember all the information I'm supposed to remember just fine; but I'm having a hell of a time remembering which information goes with which slide. If I had a book, it would be no trouble. But no, I only have the book for the second half of the quarter. Guess I'll spend some time looking everything up on the internet; but I'll do it at school where they have broadband (bless them).

I think, next year I'll take Spanish. I would still prefer taking French, but I'd have to audit it if I did, and that would be sort of a waste. Plus, with the shifting demographics of America, it's probably better for me to take Spanish. I regret that I paid so very, very little attention to French in high school; and also, that the program I was in there was so silly and futile that it wouldn't have mattered even if I had paid attention and applied myself. Though I show no natural aptitude for the aquisition of languages, I'm rather fond of it anyway. I want to learn Hebrew, and Latin, and Greek.

I'm toying with the idea of teaching English as a foreign language after college. Though this time last year I was pretty set on the law thing, I'm beginning to waver on it now that I'm having to study for the LSAT, and what was once fancy is becoming reality. I feel utterly unprepared for adulthood and I don't look forward to my official entry into the workforce. Only a year and a quarter of college left before graduation; and only the remainder of this year before I have to figure out if I want to go to law school right away or not.

Sorry for not blogging yesterday; miraculously, it totally slipped my mind.

I was having a distracted day. Actually, I don't even remember much of it. I woke up, wrote a story, went to buy food, came home and watched about two hours of television (which, while I have largely put a stopper on my tv watching, is pretty normal for Monday since it's my favorite tv night), did some homework, then went to sleep.

I wonder if it's normal for twenty-year old writers to write stories about middle aged characters. I think the usual tendency is for young people to write about young people, or perhaps, very, very old people; but, during the action sequences, the old people are always having flashbacks and being young. Not me. I'm always off being different.

I was thinking last night of a girl I went to high school with. She went off to college, and so far as I know, no one's heard from her since. I saw her once, at my nephew's graduation, but I didn't stop to talk to her. I don't know why I didn't. I was sort of snobby about it. I think it amused me at the time. I feel bad about it now. I didn't like her much in high school; but I didn't hate her. She never did anything serious to me personally, and I know she had some serious issues going on in her head. It's strange that I make a habit of being nicer to people on a daily basis than I do on special occasions.

Anyway, I wonder what she's doing now. And I wonder if people from my class remember me sometimes, or wonder what I'm doing. I'm surprised how much I think about them; even kids I never spent a lot of time talking to. Mind you, I'm not getting nostalgic. I hated high school, and I think I would cause serious harm to myself and others, if I had to go through all that again. I didn't even attend high school my 11th grade year. I homeschooled to stay away from the bastards. But I still wonder if they're okay; and I hope that they are. I'm surprised all of my grudges from back in the day have largely faded. I thought they'd hang on forever.

In even less pleasant news, I have a Bio Quiz today, and off the top of my head, I couldn't even tell you what we've been studying for the last week. So I guess I better get off of here and give the old notes a look through.

Monday, January 20, 2003

I'm very tired, and very much in pain, and am very much not enjoying myself.

I don't want to go to bed because it means tomorrow will come sooner; and if tomorrow comes quick, then so does the day after, and that means exams again. I should...study. But no. I'm going to sit and sulk, and wallow in terrible shots of pain which keep racking my sides and back every couple of minutes or so. Stench of fever in my mouth.

This morning was so nice. Why does this evening have to suck so much?

I've accomplished almost nothing this weekend, and my prospects for tomorrow look pretty dim in the accomplishing stuff department. Seems my brain has been disconnected somehow. I haven't been able to concentrate long enough to finish anything, though I've started countless jobs. Jobs, which, consequently, having been started, mock me with their incompleteness.

Sunday, January 19, 2003

I’m having a good day today. It snowed some last night, so today I woke up early and went out to play in it with the dogs. Good times, I tell you. Until Isaac lost the ball in a snow drift and we had to quit. But hey, hot chocolate and the warmth of being inside was nice too.

My dad’s out fixing my car. His day was less pleasant. Thanks dad!

I’m hungry.

I’m hoping it snows a lot tonight. Tomorrow, April and I are hoping to go sledding. I have the day off school. Thanks, Dr. King! Civil Rights totally rule and stuff.

Bah, old man couldn’t fix my car. Great; to the mechanics we go, I guess.

But, on the positive side of spending money, I found rather cheap plane tickets to Ireland for when we want to leave this summer. We hadn’t planned on going to Ireland, but I’d really wanted to go. So, if it’s cheaper, I see no reason not to, and it would be awesome. I wonder if we can get to Sligo; my family's from Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo. Sligo is, of course, of William Butler Yeats fame, which is unfortunate since I don't overly like Yeats. But, I guess it's good for their tourism industry, and I suppose distant, distant cousins might profit from that, and good for them!

Saturday, January 18, 2003

So, finally got my laptop and my desktop networked today (thanks Brett!). I think I'm going to scrap my biggerthanbuddha site, and start a new one from scratch. I'm trying to think of a good address. I wanted horrorvacui, but it's already taken. Suggestions would be nice. I want something cooler than my buddha name. Goat girl is not an option :P

My brother and dad are out working on my car. Something's apparently wrong with the EGR valve, whatever the hell that is. It sounds expensive. Expensive is not a sound I like.

However, I have a bad craving for Mexican food. My poor burned mouth isn't loving the suggestion of spicy food. But pain and suffering have never separated me from my dinner. For instance, factually, I'm allergic to almost all meat products, but you'll still see me chomping down hamburgers on a regular basis. The incessant itching - the fact that I've scratched my face and arms until they've bled - this is not enough to stop me. No, no, even in the midst of suffering, there is food, and I wants it. My preciouss...

So last night, we were at McDonald's drivethrough. April's like "Yeah, I'd like the McNugget deal and that'll be all." And McDonald's guy says: "Is that all?" And April's like: ::minute and a half of silence:: "BARBECUE!" and drives around, on account of she thought he said: "Would you like sauce?" Then she gives the guy at the pay window a dollar less than she ought. And then she gets her food, and goes to drive off quickly, but forgets to take the car out of park. So you hear: "Vroooooooooooom" but she doesn't move. It was great. I'm glad it wasn't me driving poorly and messing up the order; for once.

April and I rented Gladiator tonight because we're obsessed with Joaquin Phoenix. I need to study more Roman History. As a History major, I ought to know quite a lot about it. But outside of how Rome affected the development of Christianity, I know almost nothing, formally. But like every observer since the dawn of Rome, I think there's a lot that can be learned from Roman History.

The concept of the gladatorial games is interesting. The people want bread and circus, and there's nothing that's more widely appealing than the spilling of blood. The concept still applies today. People tune in in the millions to shows like Fear Factor to see people expose themselves to danger and filth. We watch Survivor and its mimics to see people metaphorically stab each other in the back. I wonder if someday, we won't be tuning in to see them do it literally.

Gladiator was big on throwing around words like strength and honor. It's hard to see strength and honor in fields of blood. What did all that killing prove? I'm torn over pacifism. I watch a movie like Gladiator, or even Saving Private Ryan, or Blackhawk Down, and all I can think about is how horrible it is that people have to kill one another. At the same time, I don't pretend that, in the right situation, I wouldn't be willing and ready to take a life myself.

Jesus told His followers to turn the other cheek. Was that an unlimited doctrine of peace? What if I saw a man raping my grandmother? Is it lack of faith alone that spurs me to her defense? Ghandi trained his followers so that, even if they were beaten, or saw their wives or other loved ones being ravished, beaten or killed before their very eyes, they would still not raise a hand in defense. I think Ghandi's way was more brave than the alternative; perhaps more noble; but it's far less practical.

I wonder sometimes if Ghandi wasn't successful because he was going up against modern Brits; if Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn't successful because he was going up against modern Americans. It may be ethnocentricism which makes me think that that sort of strategy wouldn't be successful in all times and all places. But the Nazi's wouldn't have cared if every Jew in every concentration camp decided to go on a hunger strike. But then, perhaps, if it weren't just every Jew, but every non-Nazi in Germany, and then the world at large, that decided to act decisively against the likes of Hitler early enough in his reign, perhaps that would have stopped all of the pain and suffering not doing so entailed and without anyone ever having to hurt anyone at all. Fraternity, equality and liberty all without holocaust; without war. But the world didn't rise up to defend the Jews; the world isn't fond of rising up to defeat evil. Even when it's forced to do so, it only does so reluctantly. Apathy is every bit as strong as zealotry, it seems. And perhaps more effective, in the end.

The soldiers in Gladiator claimed that they would do anything for Rome; that they would fight and die if necessary, to defend Rome's honor. I wonder what I would be willing to do for my country. America seems on the edge of war and I wonder how faithful her people are. The American people have always gone to war reluctantly. But until Vietnam, they stood strong without wavering. And in Vietnam, our unity faltered. A war with Iraq is unlikely to be a popular one; even if it's generally tolerated. I wonder if my generation will rise up to sacrifice our fortunes, our opportunity, and our lives, as our grandparents, and our great-grandparents, generations did. Or alternatively, if we'll take up a sword against our own land in the name of peace, like our mothers and fathers.

I don't want to sound anti-pacifist. I believe in peace. I believe in turning the other cheek. I believe in loving my neighbor. But I wonder if loving ones neighbor doesn't mean loving all of ones neighbors. And if that's so, if it isn't sometimes necessary to act, even violently, against one neighbor, for the sake of all of the others. But the end does not justify the means, I know; and one life isn't worth one whit less than a billion lives. And so perhaps it's more glorious to suffer whatever evil may befall the sons of men, in solidarity and moral rectitude, without the evil of violent defense.

Friday, January 17, 2003

I slept so much today. It was awesome. And I'm starting my new website too. Some days are just good.

Well, actually, it's not totally good. My mother went to the doctor today, and I guess she's got something called a ventral hernia. It shouldn't be a big deal. But she needs surgery for it, and that's sort of annoying.

My mom just randomly gave me a dollar. Yay! I love dollars.

April called and wants to something tonight. We couldn't think of anything at the time, and though I think she's been home for an hour, she hasn't called back yet. Dude, hurry up and call, I've got a dollar!

In other news, I love Flannery O'Connor. I was rereading A Temple of the Holy Ghost today, and I still love it. Then I was reading a bit about her life. Some lady wrote her a letter stating that one of her stories "left a bad taste in her mouth." O'Connor sent a letter in response: "You weren't supposed to eat it."

I find it interesting that two of my favorite authors, O'Connor and Thomas Merton, were apparently huge fans of one another's work. I didn't know that until today. I've been reading them both for years though.

Odd it is that I discovered Flannery O'Connor, as devout a Catholic writer as the world's known, through a biography of Anton LaVey, the founder of modern Satanism. I can't remember the connection between the two off hand, but I remember reading that LaVey was somehow connected to a film version of Wise Blood, based on O'Connor's book, and that it was about a fake preacher, and that Flannery O'Connor's writings were described as "grotesque." At the time hatred of religion and the grotesque appealed to me, so I picked up a copy. Of course, I didn't take a hatred of religion away from Wise Blood, or any of the other O'Connor works; and givem what I see in movies and television every day, nothing O'Connor wrote seems all that terribly graphic or grotesque these days.

Woo! Going for food!

Thursday, January 16, 2003

Interesting; this got no play in the US: Abortion May Cause Foetal Pain As Early as 17 Weeks.

And this makes me happy: US Abortion Rate Lowest Since 1974.

What's unfortunate is that it probably has rather a lot to do with the use of the abortion pill. Also, the statistics don't include regular birth control, which are actually abortifacients. I'm sure the birth control use rate hasn't decreased. It's worth noting that the abortion rate among the poor is skyrocketing. Eugenics will always find a way, it seems. Nevertheless, fewer abortions is a good thing.

Plight of Roma (Gypsies) in Europe

A few interesting things in this article. For one, I always feel particularly bad for the Roma since they've suffered so much historically. It's odd to note how openly they're discriminated against even in the most liberal of nations. I also found it interesting that the Brits apparently call what we call Affirmative Action, "Positive Discrimination." Their name's more apt; but still flavored. Regular old Discrimination, or Government Sanctioned Discrimination, would do. Consequently, those are among the palest gypsies I've ever seen; but they are a multi-ethnic ethnicity, so.

Defending the Roma.

In war news, we may see conflict between North and South Korea. I hope China decides to stomp North Korea quick. And US anti-war types are bringing back the Daisy ad. Which won't sway anybody, cause it isn't the bloody cold war anymore. Ahh, and comfortingly enough, they found chemical weapons in Iraq today, which anti-war zealots are already moving to poo poo. Not that I'm big on war with Iraq. I'm really not. But zealots are always pretty silly, you know. "Oh, just a few chemical weapons; don't worry about it. Just because Saddam's already guilty of mass genocide, and now clearly has weapons of mass destruction, it doesn't mean that he'll use 'em. Heck no, you're just a mean old war hawk if any of that worries you!"

At school. I hate Thursdays. Did okay on my German exam. Not great, but okay I think. Biology lab today was hell. I thought, after last week, that it wouldn't be so bad. I was wrong. It's really pretty awful.

I'm not in the library this time, which is a plus. Feel more privacy, even though I know there really isn't any here. Unfortunately, my keyboard is incredibly loud. The other guy in here will have to deal with it. He was talking loudly on his cell phone a minute ago, so his comfort is not my greatest concern at the moment.

My check engine light in the car came on today. It didn't start for me the other day, but when my dad tried it it worked fine. I'd given up worrying about it, but worries are back because it starts rough and the light's on. The last thing I need is a busted car. Guess it's a good thing I decided to do less driving this quarter. Probably, after making the mile long trek to where I parked my vehicle this morning, it won't start. I'll have to walk a mile back to the building to use the pay phone, which I won't have a quarter for, and my parents won't be home to come pick me up. That'd be my luck today.

Anyway, today hasn't been bad per se. Just long. Everything seems to be taking forever, and all I really want is to go home. I'm not exactly impatient, I think. Sometimes I am and that makes things worse, but today time's just passing slow and it's getting annoying. It didn't help that I had to come to school early this morning, which meant waking up earlier this morning; and what didn't help that is that I stayed up late last night on the phone. Ahh, well. I deserve it I suppose.

I wonder if I'm going to do anything fun this weekend. Not enough snow for sledding, and April has to work anyway. Last weekend, I wanted to do nothing, and had everything to do. This weekend, I want to do something, and there's nothing. Figures. I don't have any money anyway, especially if my car's busted. Oh well.

I'm driving the guy in the room with me crazy. He randomly interrupts me: "Hey, you can type my paper for me if you type that fast!" I'm like..."Uhh, sorry." Anyway, I think I'm going to pop over to the library now, because, even though he was talking on his cell phone, he apologized for it. I guess that makes us even, and I can do this as well over there as here.

Peace out, girl scouts.

Didn't study for German exam; Not studying for German exam, it seems.

I burned the holy living hell out of my mouth last weekend. I thought it would have cured by now, giving my super human healing faculties, but no, it's hanging on and getting on my nerves.

I couldn't sleep last night. So, I was thinking about intelligence and humility. It seems I spend a lot of my time acting a lot less intelligent than I really am, just to fit in with folks. And even though I spend so much time that way, people still seem to think that I'm almost snobby smart. That comes off sounding pretty arrogant, I know. But the reality of the situation, I think, is that most people - or at least Americans anyway, since they're all I can really judge - really do their best, from the time they're little kids, to not get too smart. And if they do go out and learn anything, accidentally, they do their best not to show it.

It's strange because it's really not akin to other human traits. Take physical strength, for instance. No one, when they're small thinks to himself, "Oh, better not get too strong, or learn to run too fast, or how to wrestle well; nobody will like me." People who can run fast are praised in society. People who are strong are considered desirable. Every woman wants a strong man to protect her and provide for her and all that. But oddly enough, people who develop their brains are considered highly suspect.

I have two general guesses as for why. The first is, intelligence spends a lot of time telling you not to do the things you feel like doing. We're all familiar with the phrase "my brain said no, but my heart said yes." Intelligence is a bit like religion in this regard. Everybody ascribes to it somewhat, and sure it promises a better life; but, in the meantime, regular folk free to suspend the normal workings of such, to kick back have a beer and visit the old mistress for a while. The second guess is, we live in a culture that's been against deep thought from the start. We like actions, not intentions; we want results, not theories. Idle hands are the devil's workshop, so stop your reflection and get to work, damnit.

As for humility, I remember reading a quote somewhere that went something along the lines of: "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is." Even though they're enough to drive me crazy, the natural differences in human intelligence aren't really so great. In my family, I'm considered rather tall for a girl; but in the greater society 5'4" isn't really so tall. And the differences between someone who, though I don't believe tests can determine intelligence, gets an A on a test and someone who gets a C, aren't really so great when you consider the difference between a mentally handicapped person and your average Mensa member. And because I believe there's infinite knowledge in the world, I can say that, there's absolutely no noticable distinction at all between a mentally handicapped person and a Mensa member, when they're measured against God.

Mom's griping she wants the computer; better get off. See in you a few hours folks.

Wednesday, January 15, 2003


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An excerpt from the new thriller "Where is Billy Idol? We Were Furious!"

"Wir haben in Columbus getroffen. Wir haben nach London geflogen. Wir haben ein Taxi zum Liverpool genommen. Wo hat Billy Idol gewesen?!?!? Wir haben wütend gewesen! Wir haben Billy Idol hören! Aber es ist nicht Billy Idol gewesen. WO IST BILLY IDOL GEWESEN? Wir sind wütend gewesen!"

"We met in Columbus. We flew to London. We took a taxi to Liverpool. Where was Billy Idol? We were furious! We heard Billy Idol! But it was not Billy Idol. Where was Billy Idol? We were furious!"

Keep in mind the English grammar is actually better than the German. This is what I can produce after 11 weeks of German language study? Money well spent, I say!

This quarter, I’m enjoying Wednesdays. Usually I’m not over-fond of them, but this quarter they’re turning out nicely. Last Wednesday and this morning, for instance, I managed to pry myself out of bed only fifteen minutes later than when I ought to wake up, rather than the usual half hour.

Wednesdays are also short days at school since I only have Biology and German, which leaves me free for the day after 1:30. Mondays are technically just as short, but any free time on Monday is usually spent trying to make up for the sleep I didn’t get on Sunday night, so I hardly notice they exist. The only reason I remember Mondays at all, really, is that they’re hell made manifest on Earth, and that sort of thing really burns into your memory.

In less pleasant news, I did something today that was really quite wrong, and ought to make me disappointed in myself. Puzzling, though, I don’t really feel that bad about it. Lately I’ve felt a heightened sense of morality. But counter intuitively, I’ve still behaved worse and felt less guilt over the fact. It may be that I exhausted all of my emotions for the time being, with my lousy start of the week this week. But more likely, this particular bad behavior has just become so habitual for me, that I shrug it off as commonplace. You can become so accustomed to even the most heinous evils that they really don’t have an obvious emotional effect on you. If people can become impervious to murder, you can forget about all of the little evils we do each and every day.

In totally opposing news, I’m happy to report that I’m beginning to feel like I’m striking a bit of moderation in some areas which I’ve struggled with for a while. The television thing is an example of it, though it’s a trend transcending entertainment. But, for instance, while years ago I put the ban on television and didn’t allow myself to watch any at all; and while, a year or so ago I began watching it again with an all-encompassing passion; now I’m just moderating the thing. I don’t worry if it’s on when I’m in the room because someone else is watching it, and I don’t keep myself from watching things which interest me. But I do turn it off when there’s nothing that I specifically want to see. It’s not controlling my schedule now; I no longer think of days in terms of “Well, Monday is Boston Public night, and Wednesday is South Park night, so…uhh, I guess I can see you Thursday, since there’s nothing good on then, anyway.” Why waste time on television? It’s just an elaborate advertising scheme. Heh, I said this to my father the other day, and he said: “Because it’s American!” And he’s right. There can be no more American activity than subjecting ones self to countless hours of commercialism in the name of turning off the brain for relaxation’s sake. “The business of America is business!” you know. Fortunately, I'm no patriot of the new America.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about raising children lately. I’m not quite sure why, since I don’t plan on having any anytime soon. But it’s still on my mind. It’s a different thing imagining children and actually having them, of course. But I think you have to imagine it all first so you can decide what’s really important to you and what you want to pass down. Most parents don’t bother to do this, which is why they end up with confused and highly confusable progeny who see the world as one giant relativistic, largely meaningless experiment, in hedonism. That was my growing up experience, anyway, as child number five of a family who weren’t all that big on thinking anything through ahead of time.

But while I have to say that a lot of my childhood is pretty much unsalvageable, and I wouldn’t want to try to salvage it anyway, there are a few things that I think my parents did right that are worth keeping in mind. My parents weren’t strict, for instance. And that fact probably instilled the only bit of self-sufficiency in me that I have. Other kids worried about getting caught doing something wrong, and I was always worried about my conscience nagging me about it, or my mother looking disappointed. You can’t hurt a rule’s feelings, so why worry about breaking one? And also, my parents were big on raising us all in the country. I didn’t like the fact much when I was little. City kids had parks, and could walk to other kids' houses every day. We were kept in a sort of de facto solitude because of our location. And in retrospect, it was probably a lot better for us. City kids had more friends, but they also had more pressures. Country kids were out in the woods chasing animals; city kids were in the streets worrying about being chased by bestial criminals.

Anyway, it's all just imaginings. I can hardly keep straight what I'm doing next quarter, next year, or after graduation, much less what I'm going to do when I have actual babies.

It strikes me suddenly that a relationship between a mother and her child is probably the world's most beautiful. So much sacrifice and symbiosis and hope and suffering and joy. And our culture does its best to destroy all of that. I think if the modernists had their way, they'd prefer to build factories for the production of infants. And they'd take the mothers away from their homes to work the machines.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Yay! Crashed my laptop! It's running so smoothe now. Much, much quicker. Now if I only had broadband. Angela's getting DSL; Brett's getting a cable modem. But me? No, no, I live even further out in hillbillyville than either of them. Jerks. They suck for having a better locale.

In other news, my dad doesn't have cancer. Yay! He does have mad high cholesterol. I might be worried about that, if he hadn't had mad high cholesterol before I was even born. Besides, possible future heart problems don't get me as riled as present threats of cancer. I'm busy being happy for the time being.

I want to see the weird new Mel Gibson Jesus movie. If you haven't heard about it, I guess what he's doing is making one of, or perhaps the, most graphic depiction(s) of the life and death of Christ, ever recorded in film. It'll be filmed only in Latin and Aramaic; I would assume that, mercifully, there will be no subtitles. It's supposed to be amazingly historically accurate and all that. I'll spare my philosophical musings on the concept. But I really want to see it. I've never been a big fan of Mel Gibson, but this sounds pretty awesome.

There was a great exchange about it on Bill O'Reilly's show tonight. It went something like, but don't quote me here:

Bill: Do you think people will be offended or surprised by the graphic depiction of the violent death of, the man who some people believe, was God?
Mel: I think most people "in the know" about the Jesus story are already aware that he died pretty violently.

I have German exams the next two days in a row. If I were smart and responsible, I'd be studying now. On the bright side, I have to help write a dialogue in German about an imaginary trip my group and I once took. My group is apparently writing ours about the time we went to London, to meet Billy Idol. It was great, we were trying to translate song titles. And the best any of us could do was "Tanzen mit mich...umm...mir!" Which is "Dancing With Myself," sort of. In reality it translates better to: "Dancing With My Me." What do you expect? We've only been studying the language for eleven weeks! Billy Idol's vocabulary wasn't built in a day, you know.

I wanted to get out of bed today just about as much as I wanted to be smashed in the face repeatedly with a splinter-prone wooden baseball bat. Why is breathing so painful when I first wake up? I guess I could have a touch of bronchitis; everyone around me seems to. But the mile long walk to class each day, up hill and through cold air, with my bag with me, doesn't leave me out of breath. I should think with bronchitis that walk would make my chest hurt some anyway; hey, maybe it'll start to. That would be just about right.

Actually, things are looking a bit up again. I'm getting along with my mother for them most part; she's still purposely trying to get on my nerves some, but that's always to be expected. We're not fighting anymore, anyway. My father's getting his stitches out today, and will quite possibly hear his test results. I won't get home from school until 7:30 so I guess I won't hear what they are until then. My persecution complex isn't entirely gone, but it's fading a bit.

I think I have to face a fact that previously I've had difficulty facing. I know that I'm attracted to eccentric people. Normal people are so...boring. It's not that I don't know what average is; it's more that I don't care for it. But eccentric people have a tendency to be people with problems. Be it their own problems, or problems in their family, or whatever else. And because of that, eccentric people tend to be a bit dramatic. My problem is that I'm only attracted to dramatic people; then when they get all dramatic, I get uncomfortable or annoyed. While dramatic people have problems in general, it's my own problem that I surround myself with them and then act surprised when they get dramatic.

Note to Self: Stop trying to fix everything for everyone. It's not your place to solve everyone's problems. It isn't fair for anyone to make such demands of you. Really, it isn't. So stop feeing guilty all of the time.

In book related news, I think I want to read some more about Mother Teresa, and also, St. Maximillian Colby. The latter's a name I've heard for a long time, but I don't know much about him, and I ought to.

It snowed a bit last night. I wish it snowed more in the daytime, and less through the night. I never get snow days, so the only reason I even care about the snow at all, is that I have to scrape it off my car in the morning. I wish we could get a good snow worked up, which would last til weekend, so I could go sledding. Sledding, I love. The boring stories I could tell about sledding!

Monday, January 13, 2003

Today feels a bit better.

I think I got an A on my first Biology quiz. And we had a lab in there today which cut lecture time in half. Nobody finished the lab, so lecture will likely be cut short again tomorrow. I thought I'd hate lab - and I do - but it beats listening to her say the same stuff over and over again four different ways so that all the "learning types" can understand.

I have my first German exam of the quarter Thursday. Ich will studieren nicht aber studieren ich muss. I can see that that's improper word order, but I have no idea how to fix it.

I'm going to burn some cds tonight. I just have to decide on song order. Oddly, deciding song order always takes me forever, even though I know darn well that once it's burned I usually don't care what number any of the songs are. And since my cd player is generally set for random through twelve cds, it really makes no difference where anything is. Nevertheless, these are the things I busy myself with.

The guy I'm obsessed with made a deliberate attempt to speak with me again today. I managed not to walk through any doors which said "Do Not Use This Door," unlike last time he walked me somewhere. I consider this a step in a positive direction.

I'm doing my best to fight off a persection complex tonight. It seems I'm getting attacked from all angles.

I sort of started a fight with my mom tonight. She's been picking at me for weeks, and I blew up. I don't know if I feel badly about it. On the one hand, she deserved it and every nasty thing I said. On the other, even if everything I said was dead on right, I know it wasn't right that I blew up at her. Normal people can explode from time to time; but I can't. I'm not looking for pity; I really can't allow myself to do that. Things get worse if I do. It's my job to clean things up; to build bridges. Getting angry doesn't fix anything for anyone. Telling a crazy woman that she's crazy is the best way to get a broken jaw, not a healed psyche.

I've been working on asserting my independence. Not only have I sucked at it. I've also managed to alienate nearly everyone, become hypersensitive about it, and have started to hate myself all the more. In the end that's my fault, and I can't blame anybody else for it.

I wish I could get away for a while. I keep trying to think about Europe this summer, but that's six damn months away. I know I have to deal with this stuff now, even if I don't want to. I'm giving into my persecution complex. Everyone feel sorry for me; I know that I do.

I've been writing right angry poems lately I hope you all know. And not good ones, either.

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Today has been a horribly annoying day.

I woke up, decided to change the template on this, and messed it up unrecognizably. It's better now, but it's not right yet. And I'm too annoyed to work on it further. Miraculously, when I want to work on this damn thing, haloscan AND sitemeter both go down; and Blogger only decides to post approximately half of my changes.

My mom's sucking today. She's been sucking a lot lately. She accused me of wanting to kill her for her money the other day. This is ridiculous not only because it's stupid as hell to accuse your child of such a thing. But also because she doesn't have any money. And what's worse, considering that, over the past four years, she's been on the edge of death anyway and it would've taken almost no effort to knock her off, and in fact, that I saved her life numerous times over this period, it makes no goddamn sense. But that's life with a bipolar mother for you. Her paranoia doesn't have to make sense; her accusations don't have to have a basis; but even if her only reasoning is that she had a bad dream about you, she's justified in being pissed at you anyway because, miraculously, and in spite of the fact that you had nothing to do with it, it's still all your fault.

Today, she called me a spoiled brat because I didn't want the ceiling fan on because I was cold. Considering that it's 20 degrees outside, that this is an old and drafty house, and that the thermostat's only set to 66 anyway, I think I had every right to prefer the fan off. But no, apparently, the basic biological necessity of warmth is an example of "defiance."

It's not a wonder I have problems with authority when, at twenty years of age, my mother still screaches that I'm "defying" her about room temperature. The best part is that she doesn't even see the irony of the phrase. The Queen herself no longer claims that anyone "defies" her. But mom does. And she's justified so don't question her.

I have issues with my mother. I have so many issues with my mother that I feel guilty complaining about my mother. I wish to hell I had somewhere to go today. Who thought I'd be looking forward to school next week, when I nearly wept at the thought of going back last week?

Feel like posting today, O blog of mine?

Saturday, January 11, 2003

I'm a negative type usually. But today, I can't believe how lucky I am. It's almost mind boggling how lucky I am, especially in regards to things that I should, rightfully, suffer for. I don't want to suffer for my sins. Someday I will, I know. But I hope it's later rather than sooner. The purging will be all the worse for my reticence, I imagine. But today I'm happy to think of my extraordinary luck.

I'm sitting here waiting to get yelled at. It's not an entirely unpleasant feeling; though it is a mostly unpleasant one. It's the waiting that gets me. Once the yelling begins, I'll be fine. I'm arrogant enough to survive any assault. But the waiting is daunting.

Last night I realized that I'm godawful defensive about my friends. Even when they aren't being attacked, I'll jump to defend them. I don't know if it's a good trait or a bad one. I've always been the loyal sort, but I'm not sure I would have been so quick to jump to anyone's defense before; not as a matter of defending my mates anyway. I used to care more about making sure my friend was in the right. Now I just care that they're my friend. I don't think clannishness is a virtue really; but loyalty is, so I'll consider it a good thing for the time being.

My biggest enemy in my battle against watching television is my father. Even though he actually watches precious little television, he insists on having it on at all hours of the day. He likes the background noise aspect of it I think, which is exactly what I'm trying to eliminate. To be fair, he'd probably be nearly as happy reading a book or something, but my mom freaks out every time she catches him reading.

I'm going to play Bingo tonight! With drunken parents that aren't my own! It'll be great!

I think I fixed my blog problems on this computer. I'm not quite sure what the problem was exactly. But I fixed what was making it look funny, and suddenly it seems to be working better. Technically, I see no reason why this should have worked. But it seems to have, so I won't complain.

I had a right lot of fun tonight. For once I managed to meld two friend groups successfully. Usually it backfires, in a fury of flame and general annoyance. But everyone seemed to get along, and that rocked.

I've had so many stressful situations lately, but things have been working out amazingly well. Either I'm learning to cope with stress better, or I'm losing my mind completely. One or the other, and frankly it's the latter that's more likely.

Anyway, I can't stop yawning, so I thought I'd leave you with one of those bizarre moments in life that I love. Angela, April and I were playing Wheel of Fortune. Being 19, 20 and 21 years of age, the likelihood of the following event even occuring in the greater population of young girls our age, is approximately nihl. But, as is always the case with people I love, we're all so damn weird that it had a chance. Anyway, in the game you have to pick characters, and there are about twelve of them to choose from. Three of the characters are young women; there's one little girl. It would seem that we would be mostly likely to pick one of those; or, at least, your average 19, 20, 21 year old would. But, no, instead, I loaded the room, only to be greeted by the fact that all three of us, quite independent of one another, had all selected the Elderly Lady. She had to be at least 80, and all hunched over, and was generally fairly hideous. I was busting, man, it was great.

Friday, January 10, 2003

Why can't the laws of the universe occasionally cease to bind and cut me a little slack? I'm depressed today. After yesterday, which I spent as a triumphant conqueror, I'm surprised I don't feel better. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Anyway, today I'm going to write about cloning, because everyone else is and I'm a follower.

I'm always a little torn over technological advance. It's probably because I was raised on Tolkien, and Huxley's Brave New World. It's pretty odd, in fact, that both my brother and I are pretty into computers when we were really raised to suspect such devices. We're rural kids, and generally slow on the uptake on these things. But oddly enough, I got my first computer way back in 1993 to 1994 or so, and I discovered the internet shortly afterward, and because of my long practice and experience, I'm considered something of an expert amongst my friend group now.

Anyway, I have a tendency, as do most people I think, to suspect technology. When I think of cloning, I think of legions of identical warriors, roaming the Earth, destroying towns and their populations. Clones are brainwashed; they listen only to their master. They hear the voice of master, understand his command, and carry out that command. They have no souls, so they don't care if their actions are right or wrong. They can be destroyed in the hundreds of thousands and who would flinch? They're not real people. They're mindless drones.

But on further reflection, there are some problems with that thought pattern. A clone is basically an artificially induced identical twin of its genetic donor. A clone would gestate and be born through the same process that an ordinary child would. The clone, conceivably, would grow up just as any other child would. Having been around the odd young child or two in my life, I've never known of any youngster that was totally and blindly obedient to the will of their parent. And, just like any identical twin, a cloned child wouldn't really be so identical after all. My eldest sisters are identical twins, and it doesn't take an astute onlooker or listener, to tell them apart. They're not the same at all, just because they share genetic material. When they were very little, they looked quite a lot alike. But even then their mother knew them apart, and their little brother did from his birth, and eventually so did anyone who got to know them. They've never thought exactly alike, or acted exactly alike; they've been independent since the start. Why would I expect a clone to be any different?

As for souls, I can honestly say that I don't know much about them. I have a metaphysical belief which indicates that I have one, and that, if you're reading this, you probably do too. But I don't know exactly when I came to have a soul. Knowing a bit about the process of birth, I do know that identical twins originally share a single egg, which is only separated after conception. I believe that life begins at conception, and that I was fundamentally the same person at conception that I am now, and that if that's true I had a soul right from fertilization. However, I don't believe that my sisters have the same soul, or a split soul; they're both individually accountable for their lives, and that one's sins don't stain the other. So, how is it exactly that my sisters had souls at conception - individual ones even - when they were only one life force at the time? I don't know. I could venture the guess that, supposing souls are metaphysically given, the metaphysical giver ought to know ahead of time what would be, and dispatched a double helping. But that's a little bit of a conjecture. And anyway, regarding clones, I suppose God can give them a soul if He wishes, just as he can dispatch a double helping of soul to any other identical twin. If the process occurs elsewise, I'm unaware of it, and I still maintain that God can give souls to whomever He wishes, and it's only our blind insistence, not any mandate from Him, that He wouldn't give any soul to clones.

A lot of people say that that means I'm all for playing God. And it's true that I am! I play God every day; and so does anybody else who interacts with the world. To play God, at the most base, is to presume to affect the things around you. For instance, say a woman bore a child, and expected God alone to take care of him. She wouldn't touch the child, or feed the child, or clothe him in any way; the child would die. Every mother who's raised a child has essentially played God. They've taken the power of life and death into their own hands, and they've fundamentally changed the outcome by an act of their own will. If I saw a man who laid dying by the side of the road, I could say: "Well, it's up to God to grant life and death" and ignore the entire thing. But scripture requires that I help that man. I would be taking the power of life and death - insofar as is possible for a human being - and I would will a change in the formula by calling an ambulance and giving whatever emergency services I could provide. I see nothing inherently evil about "playing God," and claiming that it's playing God to create clones, in my opinion, doesn't mean that's it necessarily wrong to do so.

The point is that you have to be creating clones for the right reason, and you have to do it in such a way as to ensure that the clone would have a good chance at life. To bring about more humans, is, in my opinion, a lofty goal. To clone organs - and I don't mean human body banks, I mean actual organs in a jar - to be used for the purpose of helping living humans, is a lofty goal. To clone a dead child, so that his mother can replace him, is not a good thing at all. It's child abuse. And the action ought to be condemned as child abuse, and not the inherent evil of cloning. To clone human body banks, who would only exist for the purpose of the transplantation of organs, is patently wrong. But not because it's cloning; rather instead because it's the abuse of a human being.

::screams:: is after five, I must go.

Thursday, January 09, 2003

Writing this at school. Feel paranoid. Probably apt, since they do monitor these things. So much for academic freedom, eh?

"Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you."

Biology lab wasn't so bad today. Sort of fun even really. Lecture is so long. Annoying.

German went quick. Really need to study present perfect tense. Why do they call it present perfect, when it's all about putting things into the past?

Art History next. Decided to stay at school, so I've been reading lots of blogs. Friendlings, you need to blog. It gives me something to do. Also, send me links of fun things to do. I'm incredibly bored. I have no homework; that's a positive point of the current quarter, but I'm bored enough to start copying out grammar charts just for the joy of it. If you've ever worked with German grammar charts, you know how interesting it is. I'm thinking of getting a book or two, and trying to teach myself some French. So much free time without television.

It's funny, I was checking BBC news because I'm so incredibly bored. And I guess there's been a huge long siege in London that I hadn't heard about on any American news stations. I have no idea what it's about. Read a couple of articles, but they never seemed to mention it. Maybe it's self-evident if you live there. hmm, Americans are Eurocentric my foot. We don't even care about Europe, I'll have you know. If Britain counts as Europe anyway. In any case, we care more about Britain than we do any silly continental country.

Tomorrow's going to suck. I don't know what I'm doing yet because I'm an idiot and double scheduled. On the bright side, no matter what I do, I get to sleep in.

heh, I'm the only one typing at these computers, even though there's somebody at every terminal. I guess there's supposed to be "No Word Processing." That makes zero sense to me, but hey, blogging isn't word processing anyway.

heh, oh yeah, before I go. I thought I'd tell you all, I had a fall today. It was lovely. I was walking out to my car, rather on the late-ish side, but in no rush really. And suddenly BAM, there's the ground. I slipped on some "black ice" in the driveway. I hate falling down when no one's around. I almost prefer it when there's somebody there to laugh at you. When you don't see anybody, the suspicion that someone was watching from afar nags. And it's better to have a good laugh about the whole thing, than just pain and a nagging suspicion. Maybe it's just me.

Hurrah, half an hour til class, then two more hours til I can go home! Boy, Thursday afternoon blogs are going to be fun from now on! Look forward to it, kiddies.

Today is my first really long day at school. I'm sort of excited. The first day I always feel more the conqueror than the stoic. I'm debating whether or not I should bother coming home during my 3:30 - 5:30 break. If I drive home, I'll only spend about half an hour here. And it's a waste of gas. But I don't really like hanging around the school all that much. Maybe I'll go to the library and do some ::gasp:: homework.

I feel like nothing can touch me today. An attitude certain to fail when, faced with an actual threat, I descend into my usual nausea, teeth grinding and nervous fits of laughter. But until then, world watch out! We gotta geek with confidence running amuck.

"Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!" I say. Or something equally geeky.

Anyway, off to class.

It's a difficult thing to try and live with ones own decisions. It's a difficult thing to take responsibility for yourself in a world with so many unforseeable and uncontrollable variables. Blink said it best: Well, I guess this is growing up.

When you're little, things are so much more clear cut. The working class values and distinctions I grew up with always seemed right and true. I remember, as a small child, trying to climb a piece of playground equipment clearly designed for kids a fair site older than I was. I failed twice, but the third time I told myself: "I can do anything; I can be anything. Work hard, and anything's possible. I can do this." And I did. I made it up, concentrating oddly enough all the while on Abraham Lincoln teaching himself to write by the fireside, which was a favorite image/story of mine at the time. It seemed that all the doors in the world were open to me.

Life isn't that way. There are real barriers in the world. Working hard isn't enough. The hardest workers in the world do grunt labor. They toil on their farms; they waste away in dead end factories; only by the sweat of his brow does man eat his bread - in any case, that's true of all the men worth knowing. And maybe we deserve that fate because of our sins; I don't know. But hard work does not open every door.

How do we rectify our upbringing with our destiny? How does anyone do it? How are we to rectify tradition with our distaste for stagnation?

When I was very young, I believed the things my parents told me. When I was young still, I rebelled against the things my parents told me, whatever it was they might say. But growing up has meant something different from either path. The lessons of youth were not wasted; I was right to listen to my parents, and I was right to question them too. When you're young, you can't imagine that anyone might know more than you, based purely on the virtue of his age. But when you're older, you shake your head over the follies of youth.

I remember meditating on Jeremiah, who was only an adolescent when God called Him as a prophet, when I was a young teenager. I wanted to have the authority of Jeremiah; I wielded Jeremiah's name like a sword when my age was mocked. While I was conscious at the time, of the fact that Jeremiah's message was ignored by the populace, I considered it apt. Mock my age will you, well, we'll see about that! The lesson I should have paid more attention to was that righteousness has a cost. Nobody likes a know-it-all. Loneliness is the natural accompaniment to wisdom, self-proclaimed or otherwise. Jeremiah the Pariah was every bit as compelling as Jeremiah the Avenged Prophet, and it's a lesson I'm only discovering now.

In totally unrelated news, I'm listening to Norah Jones. She friggin' rocks. I got the cd because of "Don't Know Why" and "Feelin' The Same Way," but there are a lot of other really awesome tracks on there. I'm especially fond of "Seven Years," "Come Away With Me," "Shoot the Moon," and "The Long Day is Over." It's rare that I buy cds anymore, because I don't have the expendable income really. And technically I asked for this one for Christmas. But it's really quite worth the buy.

Wednesday, January 08, 2003

I've had a right pleasant day over all.

A solid seven hours of sleep; simple, non-chemical Biology lab; German as usual; and no ice on the roads.

I can't help suspecting this is the calm before the storm. Though I can't really imagine what storm could be rising.

A certain somebody missed class today. I wonder if he hurt himself in karate; or worse, trying on new underwear. Odd, odd boy.

I'm starving, and it's three hours at least until I get something to eat. This house used to be full of junkfood! What happened?

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

I've been whinging all day about being tired. Now that it's nearing the time I'm supposed to be forcing myself to go to sleep, guess who's wide awake? Bah, it isn't fair. I can't take another day running on four hours of sleep. I think I did that my entire Freshman year in high school, and that's probably why I only remember like twenty minutes of that nine month period. I could take one of my mom's sleeping pills, jack my mind all up, and start talking to "the people" again like I did when Fall Quarter started. But, you know, I think that that just really can't be all that good for me.

Somewhere, between wakefulness and dreams; between stress and the development of another ulcer; I find myself blogging for the fifth time today.

I distrust any endeavor which requires special clothing.

I especially distrust endeavors which require safety equipment.

While I understand the need for a well-rounded education, and while I do appreciate the educational utility inherent in a lab, I do not like that I, as well as the vast majority of all Ohio State students, will spend time mixing and playing with hazardous chemicals, dangerous gasses, and open flames during introductory Biology.

Hey terrorists, quit flying planes into buildings. Just take Bio 101. You can blow up your entire University, and the thousands of people on campus, without the annoying necessity of flight training or other prerequisites!

Perhaps I should write a letter to the President of the University explaining that I'm clumsy and generally disoriented at that time of the morning, and ask to be excused from lab. Of course, if anyone reads this, they'll likely turn me in for encouraging terrorism, or supplying information to terrorists, or otherwise engaging in UnAmerican Activities.

I miss the Nixon years. They gave us gems of folks like Pat Buchanan and Chuck Colson. Who will rise to continue to annoy me, and children much like me, in the next generation? Gordon Robertson? Franklin Graham? Kirk Cameron?

School has made me angry it seems. Reminds me of Saki: "But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school."

Still tired. Should have taken a nap as soon as I got home. But I was too lazy to take my shoes off. I really, quite seriously, have to go to sleep on time tonight.

Can't stop yawning. Can't imagine staying awake through Art History. Much suffering.

On the bright side "the guy I'm obsessed with" walked me to the bookstore today, for no apparent reason other than that he enjoyed my company, which was oddly nice. He told me he had to buy underwear for karate class. I wish I would've questioned this at the time. Now I wonder, was he telling me he wasn't wearing any underwear? That his current pair weren't up to par? That he wanted something with a little more support? Why did he tell me about his underwear? Odd boy.

There's a lot about school I dislike. But there are benefits. I have much more to blog about. I don't know if my blogs are of substantially higher quality, but they are in much greater quanity and perhaps it all evens out.

Anyway, there's this evil blonde cheerleader type in my Biology class, that I made the mistake of sitting sort of near. I mean, I'm three rows away and two desk rows behind, but that's not far enough away it seems because I hear her yammering mindlessly through every class anyway. She's annoying as hell. My friend Mary threatens to beat her down, under her breath, every time, and this happens quite frequently, the blonde girl goes: "You're cute." Half of the time I think she's not talking to anyone; the other half of the time I think she's talking to herself. In any case, it drives me insane; I counted thirteen instances of "You're cute" in our hour long class today. And I hope Mary does beat her up, so I can walk by her bruised and battered body in the hall and say, valley girl style, "You're cute."

But violence is bad, kids, it really is. I'm just grumpy from lack of sleep. Ahh well, off to class! Wish me caffeine pills, and near death experiences, so I have at least a little hope of lucidity.

Positives:

- Feeling more awake since mass ingestion of caffeine.
- Believe I have time to get my Lab book before class.
- Not so much snow on the road as yesterday.

Negatives:

- Having to scrape ice off my car.
- Having to go outside to reach my car to scrape the ice off it.
- Still don't feel like going to class.
- Mass ingestion of caffeine has left me rather queasy feeling.
- Probable ice patches hiding under remaining snow drifts.

I am so incredibly tired. Second day in a row I didn't get much sleep. And yesterday was exhausting anyway. I hope somehow, though it be a hope defying hope itself, that class manages to pass quickly today. I know kids do it, but I just don't feel right skipping the second day. So I have to go. I should be home by two, and I don't need to leave for class again until nearly five, so maybe I can work in a nap. Course, work in a nap and I won't be tired again tonight, thus repeating the process tomorrow.

Plus, I have to go buy my stupid Lab handbook sometime today. I should do it before class; but I don't feel like leaving early, and there's always a chance that if you start standing in line, you might be there for hours and I'd end up missing class anyway. And then, too, if I wait until after class, all I'm going to want to do is get home and take a nap, so I probably won't bother to stop.

Why don't inanimate objects just pop over to me when I ask them to?

Total bill for books this quarter: $77.50. Sadly, that's only one class worth. But on the bright side, I've spent upwards of three hundred sometimes, so $80 doesn't seem so bad.

Monday, January 06, 2003

Tonight I found out that my grandfather has something called Myelodys Plastic Syndrome. In something like 40% of cases, people who have it end up developing leukemia. Those who don't, generally die of bone marrow failure.

I haven't any news on my father's tumor.

My mother didn't feel well tonight. I'm worried she might have caught something. Considering that she's on immuno-suppressant drugs because of her kidney transplant, it's always very very bad if she catches so much as a cold. It's the time of year she usually develops pneumonia. Considering her goddamn lousy lung function, pneumonia is very very bad.

I'm so tired of hospitals. It seems I've spent fucking years in hospitals; completely unable to do anything about what's hurting. People shouldn't have to suffer the way they do. I don't want to live forever, but I can't stand death. I'll die someday, and that's all I'll do for death. I won't cheer on pain and suffering just because someday we all have to die.

It's almost cruel to live in a world with so much hope. There was a time when death was an everpresent part of life. People still prayed for miracles, and visited medicine men; but they had to realize that death was a part of life. Everything was dangerous and there weren't any cures. Our world is different. We think we can live forever because of technological advance. The common cold used to kill in the thousands each year; how many school children do we send to school every day with a cold, expecting full well that they'll recover, and even if they're contagious, it isn't as if a cold is anything serious. We think we can live forever and we can't.

Life is suffering; and yet we all cling to life.

Why?

So, first day of school today.

I've been dreading it more than usual. I'm not sure why. I guess because last quarter ended on such a low note. But today wasn't so bad. Biology looks boring as hell; but tolerable, I guess. I think I've gotten through worse. I'm going to try to convince myself that Biology is really very interesting underneath it all and I just need to apply myself to figure out how. Experience tells me this approach will fail, and fail miserably.

I remember more German than I thought I would. I guess I ought to review the last section we did before class tomorrow when studying begins in earnest. But I'm slacking already, so I won't. I'm not used to being out of class so early in the day. I'm also grabbing for the remote out of pure reflex. I stopped myself. I wonder how I'll do tomorrow when I have to go back in the evening for Art History. That's another boring class. It has interesting moments, but on the whole it's pretty flat. I hope I have a friend or two in there. Friends make Art History fun.

Outside of that, I'm about to go to the library. I don't know if I should get much out. On the one hand, with going back to school and all, I might be rather busy. On the other, since I've put the ban on television, I have quite a bit more free time. I need some suggestions for books. I think I'm going to get some Hesse and Kafka out, because Rory told me to. But I want something else interesting too. Maybe some travel stuff, I don't know. Possibly I'll get cds as well. I could use new sounds. Suggestions much appreciated on that as well.

Sunday, January 05, 2003

I find it amusing that people seem to suspect there's something sinister in my character. I honestly have no idea why they do. I've hardly ever done anything purposely mean to anyone in my life. And yet, I've always been considered highly suspect. I used to chalk it up to my dark clothing and taste for heavy metal music. But I'm not so obviously dark these days; and a lot of the people who seem to think I'm sinister have no idea what sort of music I listen to, anyway.

I guess that's the price of rejecting the majority system. Rebellion, the intellectual sort anyway, isn't any fun at all. It's a deadly serious busines. And it's the furthest thing from enjoyable. It isn't easy to be weird; even the most innocuous unordinary moves are thought to be a danger.

I was told last night that I'm a "curious examiner of human motives." That I refer to people in language which most people reserve for objects. I think I was being accused of objectifying human beings in general. I don't think it's true. While I may bear occasional guilt for underestimating certain folks and reducing them to one or two base motivations and traits, in general I've always been quite good at seeing that people rarely work entirely rationally, or entirely irrationally, and that most things in life are far from absolutely black and white. I'm much more comfortable in the gray areas than most people are.

New Years Resolution Update:

Much success so far on watching less television; and I didn't watch any at all on Friday. It may be more difficult when I'm on my more regular school schedule, and I have a lot of time that I have to spend just waiting around.

Some success on devoting more of my life to philosophy. I've managed to spend more time alone, sure, but I haven't been of a particularly philosophical mind lately. So, I'll say that I've been somewhat successful. My conversations haven't been of a noticably higher quality.

I've been largely successful on the third front. I've been writing quite a lot, with some success. But I haven't managed ten whole minutes of each day for music. But I guess I did play my guitar for half an hour yesterday, and that was sort of like making up for the other days, right? Heh, well, not really. But I still feel generally positive about the thing.

Saturday, January 04, 2003

Blogger locked me out again yesterday. I don't know what's up; I think it has something to do with my other computer. Sorry for being so slow on the posts. It's a technological problem. But I'm working on it.

Yesterday I saw the Two Towers with the family. They all seemed to like it for the most part, which made me happy. And they don't get mad when I complain about overacting or the odd blunders, like Sam's sudden switch of eye color in Gondor. Not to mention the fact that nearly all of the plot changes from the book were really quite stupid ones. I tried not to be a stickler for exact accuracy. But the changes were generally so unjustifiable that it was rather difficult not to feel disgusted. For instance, I wasn't upset that they ended the book early, and Sam and Frodo had yet to face the Shelob; it wasn't a substantive change. I was mildly upset that they changed the Entmoot and why the Ents eventually went to war. I was very upset that Faramir's character was totally changed when he made the wrong decision of what to do with Sam and Frodo.

I'm listening to my mom complain about these evil, so-called human beings she has to deal with. I won't mention what people they are, because I'd prefer the ramifications of my blog never reach past the boundaries of my blog. But in short, she's reminding me that there are mean, nasty people in the world. People who like to make other people miserable; especially people who can't fight back. I hope to never have subordinates under me; the temptation is a corrupting one. I wonder if I can handle children.

My father is an annoying man. Two days ago, he had a very minor surgical procedure on his back. During the time period which was likely painful, as is his custom, he did not complain. As soon as the pain subsided, he started whinging like a whipped puppy. He hasn't shut up yet. It shouldn't hurt him now, but he won't shut up. If it does hurt him at all, I feel bad for rolling my eyes. But I've watched the guy my whole life, and generally, if he's in pain, he won't say so.

Bah, getting yelled at. Will blog again soon; I promise.

Thursday, January 02, 2003

Blogger locked me out of posting yesterday. Kind of them. And I thought they'd deleted my New Years Eve posts too, but guess not.

I had a good time yesterday, for the most part.

I enjoyed the high society of dogs fighting over biscuits and ropes, in the morning. I retain scars on my hands.

I rented the Fellowship of the Rings to watch tonight with the clan. Perhaps I'll reread the Two Towers tonight.

I'm going to the doctor with my father today. I think he's nervous; I'm not entirely sure why. We don't find anything out. And while it's never any fun getting surgery, it's a relatively minor one. Maybe I'm a tad callous about these things because I've seen my mother go in for major surgery after major surgery, and probably three dozen (literally) minor things over the past few years. So precious little impresses me these days. Perhaps if it were me instead of him; I don't know.

Jody came over last night. It was good. We didn't really plan much, but we narrowed some of our options. And that's sort of like planning. I let her borrow my book on Mother Teresa. Funny, a kid raised agnostic like myself, in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, out sowing seeds of the Catholicism I reject. She's already endured countless ramblings about how I love the Pope, and the lives of various saints.

Then Angela, April and I played Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I had fun until my computer started erroring, which coincided with me getting extremely tired. So, I fell asleep rather irritated with the whole thing. Game playing has sucked lately. I'm usually quite happy to play, but lately, I guess I've been impatient. Anything that requires me to pay attention to it at all, had damn well better hurry up. Actually, for the first time in my life lately, and repeatedly too, I've used phrases like "Hurry the hell up!" and "Spit the damn sentence out!" with my father. Fortunately, he finds it amusing.

Actually, my language cracked my whole family up the other day.

April called me on New Years Eve. I said: "Hello!" She blew one of those party favor horns loudly. I said "Jesus!" From all corners of my kitchen came calls of: "Praise the Lord! Jesus is on the phone!" and "Hallelujah, turn your cellular on!" and my personal favorite, "Hey, can you ask Jesus if he'd like to be my co-pilot? I have cheetos."