March 27, 2004

I was forced to talk to her, today, about what we had gone through. She denied that she had broken my heart, and I denied that I had cried. She could tell we were both lying.

I spent the rest of the day navel gazing, which I do an awful lot, and praying that she was doing the same, until I got home around 3:30. Then I slept until around 8:00.

After we splintered, that unwillingly became a ritual for me, sleeping for hours in the afternoon. I hate it. I sleep all day, and it keeps me up all night.

Before we splintered, I slept beautifully and feverishly. She made up all my dreams. She was my dream girl, as clichéd as it is.

She still is.

I have deep seeded psychological issues.

The history of my life is more like a pamphlet on how not to do stuff. I have never achieved greatness in anything I have done; the closest to greatness I have come is in my soccer career, but I never received proper coaching, and despite being described by many as a prodigy of the sport, I never blossomed into what I could have become, and quit the sport when I could have finally had a chance to reach my potential.

Maybe that is my problem. I lack the abilities to reach the next stage of development in the human psyche. Does it require abilities? Does growing up require skill? I have no skills. None that I know of. All my life I have never really DONE anything. I have never developed hobbies for longer than a month. I cannot decide what I want to do with my life.

I guess I could place some blame on growing up with ADHD in the age when prescribing Ritalin to kids was considered trendy. I guess it was third grade when I was formally diagnosed. Medication never helped much. I was on a new pill every 6 months or so because the medication stopped being effective and I needed something stronger. This is probably what led to my current state of mind. Right when I got onto a pill it was great! I could concentrate! I could grow!

But then WHAM! It stopped working. Things went back to the way they were, and I couldn't focus on anything again until the new pills kicked in. This was the way things were for me. I couldn't do anything about it. Everything was out of my control. I was even living in my older sister's shadow. Little Ms. Perfect. That was discouraging, because I couldn't keep up with her no matter how hard I tried. (Hell, she could read books by herself almost as soon as she could talk. How am I supposed to keep up with that??)

It was in middle school that I started noticing that I could avoid minor projects, a homework here and there, warm-ups, etc. and still get good grades. I could abuse the system and the system would accept it because I was smart. With my fluxuations in medicated efficiency, the abuse was fully justified. "Why didn't you do your homework?" my mother would ask. "Well I sat down to try it, but I ended up doing something else. My medicine must be wearing off again," I would reply, fully confident that that was what happened anyway.

This self-destructive trend of mine continued into High School, where it deepened into more of a psychological issue. By senior year, I was only doing enough to get into the college of my choice. Barely. I got into college with no scholarships, in a major that had the lowest minimum GPA requirement, and lost whatever little motivation to do things I had left.

So now I sit here. Back in my dorm from Spring Break. Back early because I have two midterms due once classes start up again. Back early to do work.

But I can't.

I have no motivation to lift a finger in such a way that would lead to productivity. One of my midterms is to do an outline. I have the organizational skills of a goldfish. The outline cannot be completed. The other midterm is a film analysis. Oh goodie! I get to watch a movie for a midterm! Well. I don't see it as such. I see it as work, and therefore it will not be completed. The movie is Red River, a John Wayne classic directed by the great Howard Hawks. I enjoyed the film so much when I watched it in class that I bought it the very next day. Despite this, I cannot bring myself to watch the film. I have no motivation to do so.

So I lack motivation. I have a crippling inability to become motivated. And I believe this problem to be psychological in nature. Medicine helps me concentrate, but does not help me get motivated.

I just needed to get it out. Now I have to do something about it. But, even for that... I'm not motivated enough to do anything.

Lying in bed, somewhere between being asleep and awake, my mind drifted to this place called E2. What's it like, why is it there? How much information is stored on its servers - I hope someone will be kind enough to tell me. It's fascinating, mind blowing really, who could've imagined it, even just a few decades ago. And, what goes on behind the scenes - do little people scurry about reading, writing, digesting and voting, being kind, being rude, making friends and enemies?

And to bigger things, to the net itself. How many lives are poured out into its virtual pages? All those blogs, journals, diaries. So much information, factual and fictional, stored in a code that is beyond the comprehension of my poor brain. The pictures, the photos, the films, the stories, so much of life, both the beautiful and ugly.

So do I start today? Do I contrubute my few thoughts to the morass that is out there? What the hell, it will be smaller than the tiniest drop in the hugest ocean. It will make an insignificant change to the zillions of bits stored 'out there'. Someone has to do it, and the millions who already do do not fear cluttering up the -- what's the word, there should be one, something huge like stratosphere or hyperspace -- hmm, I ramble...

So here goes nothing, the first miniscule drop of these thoughts put to an electronic page, in a near infinite universe of ... what?

warning: stoned ramblings

Something occured to me as I was struggling with an insatiable hunger and a shear laziness of not wanting to get up from my computer to satisfy it.

I was trying to imagine the most apt way to satisfy such an enormous need for food... good food. This is one of those girthy, meaty hungers, not some hunger satisfied by sweet and pleasant foods... definitely no fruits or vegetables needed. I need meat. The normal meat selection will not do this time. Cow and Chicken have suffered enough torment, and pork too, if only to make Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers or the morning sausage links. You've got a few other meat options, such as Lamb and Venison, but they are not so popularly excepted.

Back to the point, something to satisfy this hunger. As I sifted through thoughts of all of the large appetizing meats I've come across in my day, only one thing popped into my mind... ok, two. One being a big ass roasted turkey leg. But the other, much greater answer being.... one of those gigungus rib-looking things that knocked over Fred Flintstone's foot car in the intro to The Flintstones. Someone suggested it was brontosaurus ribs, and it seemed right. I recall freddie puttin away some brontosaurus burgers on a few episodes, so it isn't hard to believe he favored their ribs, too. Fred Flintstone was an eater, lets face it. He, himself, was going to eat that brontosaurus rack 'o ribs, while Wilma and Betty threw up in the bathroom so that they could wear their size 0 dresses. Barney would just laugh at Fred the glutton, and try not to think about things too much, because he may just snap. The beer helped. But I'm getting away from myself, sorry.

Then I got to thinking, if the prehistoric age was anything like the people of today, they probably had specific tastes when it came to meat. If everyone liked to eat Dinosaur, then it's eventually curtains for them. You'd think they could hold their own, but they were actually very peaceful creatures. If they werent, they'd have killed the first guy to try to turn em into a record player or a dino-crane.

Since the technology was basicly fire and the wheel, with the occasional elephant vacuum cleaner, or the cloths pin bird, it would be impossible to mass produce that kind of dino meat to meet the demand of the public. Eventually , they had to know that well would run dry. They didn't preserve species back then. There was no WWF. Only the strong survive! So basicly we're lookin at genocide for the sake of the biggest, tastiest meat rack.

I think I've lost my appetite.
I'm gonna go write an apology to
all those cows and chickens mothers.

Kyoto, Japan
from the foreign female perspective
Day : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

We were up at an insane hour once again, packed, and were on the train to Tokyo Station in order to catch our Nozomi Shinkansen to Kyoto. We all passed out for the two and a half hours it took to get there.

We dropped off our luggage at J-Hoppers, a surprisingly cool place, grabbed a few maps, and set off to see the city. We walked back to the station, mailed a few postcards, looked at the terribly outdated Kyoto Tower, the boys got McDonalds, then we set off for 三十三間堂 on foot.

This place was absolutely amazing. For 600 yen, you are granted access to a huge hall that houses endless lines of flawlessly arranged golden Buddha statues, 1000 in all, 500 on either side of a massively impressive Buddha in the center of the hall. There are also 28 Kamakura-period guardian wooden statues displayed in front of the golden Buddhas, and all of them are claimed to be National Treasures.

We spent about an hour walking past the awe-inspiring collection, wandered around the grounds a bit, hit up the gift shop, and moved on to the Kyoto National Museum, which Aaron insisted we peruse a bit because it was a free admission Saturday (he’s Dutch and proud of it). The Museum was severely lacking when compared to the Tokyo version, so we did a quick run-through, during which Kyle found a middle-aged woman who would not stop grinning and looking over her shoulder at him and Aaron.

From the Museum we continued walking for ages, following the tour set up in Aaron’s Frommer's Japan Guidebook. We finally arrived at Kiyomizudera, paid the entrance fee, and were chased around by a man we fondly called Captain Tanaka for about twenty minutes until the place closed.

The walk continued, and we found ourselves walking through little shopping streets and picking up souvenirs. Aaron and Kyle bought matching wristbands despite their better judgment. Kyle got white, Aaron got black, but each displays the kanji 忍, which is the first character in the compound 忍者 (ninja, as in the Turtles).

We then fell upon a huge statue called Ryouzen Kannon honoring world peace, which we could honor for the price of 300 yen.

We finally made it through Maruyama Kouen and found the Gion night life district, but instead of geisha we only found a sign proclaiming “HOMO.”

After walking more than 5 miles (maybe 10?) I insisted we take the bus back to the hotel. We got quite lost and couldn’t figure out where we were on the map, so I asked a kindly rickshaw runner man how to get back to the Kyoto JR Station. He very nicely told us to hop on the next 206 bus, which went where we were trying to go, and that was that.

We stopped by the convenience store on the way back and picked up some snacks, then read in bed until we were sleepy enough to call it a night. I think most of us managed to sleep soundly until the plastic bag symphony began the following morning, complete with zipper interludes and door-slamming solos.

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Day : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6