December 15, 2008

I wanted to be a child star. My mother signed me up for an acting summer program that I'd go to everyday, which was run by college-aged kids looking for a unique summer job. The program was held at a community centre that regularly functioned as retirement home. It was a windowless brick building with a great big common room. There was nothing in the common room except for a few coat racks on swivel casters and a community kitchen. Behind all the locked doors is where we knew they kept all the dead people.

I was neurotic, then. One time during recess, I remember swearing at these two twins. Swearing was one of my primary methods of expression. My dad swears excessively, even in casual conversation, and I can only imagine acquiring the habit through him. The twins told one of the counsellors about my mortal sin, and I was promptly placed in time out. Quickly growing more and more hysterical, the counsellors' job quickly switched from discipline to consolation. There were voices in my head, and a bomb in my neck. My birthday is this week, and nobody else knows or cares. You never give me the lead roles in these productions, but I am the central actor. Something wrong with everyone but me.

But I was neurotic, then.

I didn't spend much time playing with other kids. Growing up on a computer had a permanent effect on my social psyche. Chat rooms overruled baseball games; watching other people have fun is drab anyway. I would always ask my mom for obscure computer games, that came out several years ago. One time I asked her to buy me The Incredible Machine 2, and she said she would look for it. Failing to find it, she picked me up a plethora of other games in compensation: math games, really basic children's puzzle games.. but I knew exactly what I wanted. She couldn't fool me.

She eventually found it, and presented it to me one day on the way home from my acting program. I was happy that she had finally found it, but I was also exhausted.

Every day I lived ended in exhaustion, in complete mental exhaustion.

Fun with Node Tracker

I posted Rear Echelon Mother Fucker at Mon Dec 15 2008 at 20:18:24

Normally I don't get many votes one way or another at all, unless I post something, but this is the biggest response I've got in quite a while. At Monday, December 15, 2008 at 21:06:03 Node Tracker reports (beside the votes on Rear Echelon Mother Fucker): 

-5 (+10/-15)   -1          0        December 4, 2008
+15 (+18/-3)   -1          0        November 27, 2008
+5 (+8/-3)     -1          0        Wealth of Nations
+11 (+12/-1)   -1          0        bloodless revolution
+9 (+18/-9)    -1          1        November 13, 2008
+7 (+14/-7)    -1          0        The infinite monkeys investment theorem
+9 (+15/-6)    -1          1        Reconciling Property Rights with Conquest
+10 (+16/-6)   -1          0        September 30, 2008
+7 (+11/-4)    -1          0        September 25, 2008
+4 (+5/-1)     -1          0        September 12, 2008
+0 (+8/-8)     -1          0        October 20, 2007
-3 (+13/-16)   -1          0        the miracle of consciousness
+1 (+26/-25)   -1          0        October 16, 2003
+35 (+61/-26)  -1          0        December 10, 2002
-1 (+2/-3)     -1          0        operating profit
+0 (+34/-34)   -1          0        March 30, 2002
+7 (+32/-25)   -1          0        March 10, 2002
+0 (+3/-3)     -1          0        Immortal Lucidity
+0 (+3/-3)     -1          0        Immortal Lucidity: Introduction
-3 (+1/-4)     -1          0        Immortal Lucidity: Baggage
-2 (+2/-4)     -1          0        Immortal Lucidity: Elemental Sheet

21 downvotes in 48 mintues (assuming they started downvoting immediately after my last post) - approximately 2 minutes per downvote. I wonder if I hit a nerve?

Monday, December 15, 2008 at 23:32:27 update:
Looks like someone systematically upvoted 5 of my nodes in response. Thanks, whoever you are =)

Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 18:42:39 update:
I don't want to sound ungrateful, but it seems others have decided to systematically upvote 49 more of my nodes... let's not get carried away here =D

Back when I was a writer, I noticed things. Just small things, things I could write poems about. Like how my yoga teacher yells "Give me your knees" to her girlfriend in the middle of class, and yanks her meat into the correct form, the posture of much work and tribulation. The way she puts a block under my hand in triconasana, even though I protest that I can reach, I can reach, the block will just spoil me, but then it is there and ohhh it is nice.

I used to notice the way an elderly man fingers a pair of acrylic socks in the checkout line. Noticing his bored expression which I mistook for sadness, the sad expression I mistook for anger. I don't know what to do with sadness that borders too close to pity. It cheapens my thoughts.

When I moved bodies in a hospital, I touched skin every day. We were supposed to wear gloves, of course, but sometimes they stand up from the wheelchair too early, and you have to reach an arm out between their arm and chest and maneuver yourself around the chair to their back, and guide them in for a softer landing than linoleum floor. Cross-contamination might be legally more deadly for the hospital, and sure there is a risk of something on my hand that I don't know about, but a broken hip to some of these people is a quicker game-over than HIV, so.

Anyway, it's not like we have a choice. When some anonymous woman is falling, you catch her before you know she's lost her feet. The floors are cold and slippery, and most patients don't wear socks. The hospital johnnies don't cover much, but even what they cover is cold to the touch. Hospitals are cold. I wonder how they notice my hands, hot from moving quickly between floors and wings and wards. I worry that my hands are too hot.

Everything2 to has officially intruded on my life.

Okay, so I knew I was addicted. So what? I could handle it. It wasn’t getting in the way.

Then I was awake this morning, messaging and receiving messages about improving my nodes and watching nodes become deleted.

I should have been doing my Spanish project.

I got 4 hours of sleep, which made me tired and aggravated my already sick body.

I forgot half of my information and my sources in front of the computer, all printed and nicely stapled.

I was the first to present.

I forgot what I wanted to say.
I left out an enormous amount of information.
I lacked sources.
I stuttered badly and forgot my Spanish vocabulary.

I was the first to present.

It’s all over now, but I remain wary of this drug. This, nodegel. What started so good is showing it’s true colors. I must grow or leave in shame. Otherwise I will punch myself.

At least it’s only school. Some here could get fired.

Right now I should be doing Physics homework.

I actually wrote this some time ago, and just now decided to post it here for some reason. I guess I wrote it back in November. I think I've calmed a little since. One would hope.

absolutely drowning in this over thinking passive drifting falling down. crestfallen doubt surging life moving slowly tumbling (stumbling) through this cloud. if this is here then why am i --

folding piling aligning towels - obsessive compulsive conducive restrictive. iron the bed sheets? close the door. lock the eyes. fill the bottle and empty it now. dream of nothing sleep forever wake up drowsy lost. broken (heart?) string. pants are faded worn and worn until there is no life left there. cold steely thought forest paths snow swallowed invisible.

"this is how i live, this is where i start screamin'.."

everything (everything) in its right place. everything. everything in its right place. maybe if the towels are folded and the bed is made and the plants are watered and the turtle is clean and the floor is swept and the paper is straight and the broken light bulb washes out the other side of the room. maybe if i sing and maybe if i make plans i can't keep. maybe i'll be in the right place. maybe tomorrow.

the light has been out for over a week. the light is gone.