October 3, 2002

when i first met her she spoke mostly of death. her own, again and again - as if the repetition would make it come faster. she would stare at me with wide angel blue eyes. they screamed, piercing. she was like watching a fly trapped in too many water droplets gathered along a winter windowsill. perhaps this is how i developed the irrational behaviour of fly search and rescue in the winter - mass slaughter in the summer.

she was perhaps the oddest person i'd ever known. i had never been in the company of someone who seemed so content with the idea of fading away. this is how i learned just how far a pair of steel toed boots into the ribs because the dishes were not clean enough because the tv will always be too loud can push a person. she is how i learned to feel like this. too much. no one, i remember thinking, should ever want to die before they are even sixteen years old. i learned to hate him, the fiery passion they talk about in trashy romance novels - only, this was anger. i was so furious with him for simply being alive.

i do not think that either of us were given a choice. i loved her until i nearly forgot myself. i am quite sure there are pieces i will never find again.

loving someone like her is one of the most self-destructive things anyone can do. i was thinking today, with the sky overcast and the air so indecisive, that i needed a little clarity. more than once i've been questioned as to how i could love someone like that, still, with all the things she has done - and this is why. this is my clarity: i can't stop. there is something about a person who still manages to love, after it ends. i do not know how she could see past his fists and his boots and those words - she refused to hate him.

it is just that she will never understand how much she means to me. it is just like loving a wall because it is too late and she can't believe now that there is anyone who could feel this much for her. i am sad, for stretches - days weeks, knowing that this much of me is simply one way, dead end. this feeling will never find its place. wondering how often this will repeat itself during the course of my life.

please, do not ever do this to anyone. it does not matter how angry or tortured you are - no one deserves to be kicked or beaten or made to feel as if the one man in their life who should love them unconditionally, does not care at all.

there is nothing that feels more empty than this. not one thing.

Well, I'm fairly new to E2, and as such, I'm completely addicted. Unfortunately I find myself in a particularly bad place--I have ran out of things to node.

I tried the "Node Your Homework" concept, but that only lasted me 16 writeups. A mere sixteen! For three years work of homework, I would've expected more. I guess that's how little I've done in high school that's of any quality at all. I tried a writeup about my car, which I think came out pretty good, although not nearly as factual as my homework writeups. Now, I'm stuck.

What happened today in my life? Well, my brother continues to insult my car (and anything car-related such as the windows, air conditioning, and the music I play, as well as the stereo it is played on). I'd like to see how much better he can do with half the money (which is how much he has to spend).

A little piece of advice for those who recently learned to drive and now have their own car: never, ever, drive your parents anywhere. Now that they've taught you to drive and left you on your own, they're going to be incredibly critical of your driving. To the point that my mom was bracing herself, hand on the dashboard, should I hit the car 30 feet in front of me. Apparently she maintains a distance such that you can't read the license plate on the car in front of her... even when that car slows down for a right turn.

School was good today. I managed not to fall asleep during most of my classes, unlike yesterday. I think my History teacher appreciated it.

First period: math teacher is sick, /me plays Uncle Worm.

Second period: Theory of Knowledge. Teacher is tired of class discussion... we watch Rushmore.

Third period: Psychology. Discussion of Dr. Stephen Pinker and his work's effect on linguistics (with a sidenote about Noam Chomsky). Interestingness-dial set to "Boring".

Fourth period: English. Presentations about how bad Africa is. Well, actually about "Problems facing Africa today". Quite depressing. I had to present; I probably should've wrote something about it.

Lunch. We sat outside, while it rained. Here in Arizona we don't get much, so we like to enjoy it. Steve brought a new friend to our table. He's from Florida, I think. I get the idea that he hates all of us with a passion. He's too cool for us, I can tell. I hate cool.

Sixth period: Government. My only non-IB class (as in, with the "regular" students). Long story short, we had a work day in the library, so I began my Mazda MX-6 node on Everything2, with a site about Alexander Hamilton ready to pop up in case the teacher walked by.

Seventh period: History. Yeah, makes sense that I constantly fall asleep in the last period of the day. Today I didn't. Carl looked like he was struggling though. More discussion of the Bolshevik Russian Revolution (that's the second one, folks, not the one the overthrew the Czar.)

Well, that's my day. Hope you've all enjoyed it. I just had to share. If you don't like this, or thought it was a waste of time reading it, please just ignore it. It isn't meant to enlighten, or to be insightful, or entertaining. It's just meant to waste your time, and mine. God, I love wasting time. Hard work may pay off later, but procrastination pays off now.

A couple of weeks ago I surfed a lot through several political URL's. For sure one of these(www.counterpunch.org/leupp0912.html) was mostly responsible for my mind to suffer deep pathological changes resulting in awful nightmares. Fortunately I have forgotten the most part of my last dream, but what follows is a persisting memory that recurrently tortures my brain. My psychotherapist eventually advised me to share such an experience in order to correct -as soon as possible- the abnormal way through which my thoughts are coming.

The topic consists of a presidential address televised from the Bush ranch.

"My fellow Americans.
"Y'all know I'm a straight-shooter. I'm from Texas, where, you know, we speak frankly 'cause that's how we're raised in Texas, as 100 percent Americans who know how to shoot straight. You know, 'there is no capitalism without conscience, and no wealth without character.' And tonight I want to say even more to you, the American people. There's no conscious capitalism with character without oil, and more and more of our oil imports are, in fact, coming from abroad.

"Now, I'm told Iraq has 20 percent of the world's oil. We get 8 percent of our oil from Iraq the even under UN sanctions. Now just you imagine. If we take over, liberate, whatever you wanna call it, Iraq and have all that oil to ourselves, we wouldn't need what I've just the other day called 'our eternal friendship' with Saudi Arabia anymore. We'd have all that oil, and we're already gonna build pipelines from the Casablanca Sea to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Ocean. Just imagine what the whiners in Europe will say, when we tell 'em: 'You want oil? Start playin' ball. Don't mess with Texas.'

"So that's the first reason for war. But that's not all. Good is with us. God is the Good, and I've made it very clear, that God will not let Saddam Hussein acquire weapons of mass destruction that can be used by a new Hitler against our friends and allies.

"Finally, as I've said many times, you're either for us or against us, and y'know almost every one of our allies and neutrals don't accept my doctrine -my statement-about the "Axis of Evil." That's just 'cause they don't want us in charge of Iraq and Iran ,just to tear down those nuclear power plants of mass destruction. And so tonight, I call on our brave young men and women to prepare to just roll into those Ay-rab parts of the world. Now, the American people may be asking "Why? Why roll those folks?" Because we need to give them our values, our American values---because I know the American people are a good people---while our European friends I am in consultation with during my phone calls pay for the state-building, peace-keeping, whatever you wanna call it.

"So to summarize this speech, address, whatever you wanna call it: Oil. America, leader of the world. It's about freedom. They hate our freedoms. September 11, 2001 awakened our consciousness without character, and bein' from Texas, I know what that means. That's why we must have what I like to call 'regime change' in Iran, or Iraq, whatever you wanna call it. This must not stand!

"God bless the American people."

That's all. I am very grateful for your patience. Happily, moreover, my favourite neurosurgeon has scheduled a minimally invasive psychosurgical procedure to be performed upon my frontal lobes in order to complete the treatment and thus definitely reconduct such politically incorrect ideas.
Many thanks for your time again.

Yesterday I drove by the high school and saw an old neighbor of mine (Shaun) walking on the road in front of it. I knew him when he was in high school, when he was a big shot with a nice new truck, lots of girlfriends, money, popularity and a bright future. He also smoked alot of weed. Yesterday (about 5 years later) he was walking to work at the local lumber mill. He was walking because the old car that he had been driving had broken down or because he got another drunk driving ticket. He now lives with his mom again. He has two children by different women, neither of whom he sees much. He still smokes alot of weed, and probably won't have his job long. They do random drug tests at the mill. It made me very very sad seeing him like that. He had chosen to walk on the road in front of the high school instead of on the sidewalk. I wondered about his choice. I wondered if he remembered those days when he seemed to have everything going his way. I wonder if he's embarassed at what he's become now. I wonder what he thinks his future might hold, or if he thinks of it at all.

I remember a conversation Shaun and I had about four years ago. I was pruning my roses in my yard and Shaun had just gotten busted for the first time for weed. I'm not sure how, but somehow Shaun had found out that I'm in recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism, and he came over to talk to me about options for him to get off crank and weed. He was really scared. He knew that he was smart and good looking and creative and that he could lose it all. He truly wanted to quit. We discussed options, and the bottom line to all of them was that it would be really hard for Shaun to do it by himself. I felt strongly that Shaun would need support and advice and help to kick and stay off drugs. He wanted to do it by himself. He tried...he tried really hard. It didn't work.

I drove up to Gold Beach to be there while a friend's son went to court. He's 18 and got a blow job from a 13 year old girl. He's being charged with Sodomy 2, which is a class B Felony and carries a mandatory sentence in Oregon of 6 years and 3 months. He was drunk and so was she. Three other guys were in court that day. One was accused of passing off counterfeit bills. He was drunk when he made and spent them. He's one of the best carpenters in town. One young man was charged with probation violation for passing a bad check to a towing company. He wrecked his car and needed to get it out of the ditch before any police officers came along. He was drunk when he did it. One guy...I'm not even sure what he was charged with. Basically he had been in and out of jail on various petty thefts, drunk driving tickets, driving while suspended tickets, and assaults for a long time. He used the excuse that he was always drunk when he did those things.

This isn't a lecture. I'm not preaching or trying to convince anyone of the evils of drugs and alcohol. I'm just sad because statistics show that only one out of ten people who try to quit drinking will do so successfully. I haven't drank or used drugs for over 13 years, so I'm counting myself as the one success. That means (statistically) that Shaun and Gordo and the sad 13 year old girl who gave blow jobs to all comers at a party and all those sad men in court will never get their lives together, because when they drink they do stupid stuff. Why have I made it (so far) and they didn't (yet)?

What can I do?

Tomorrow, Hurricane Lili will come to Cincinnati, much as Isidore came last week. That translates into about twenty-four hours of rain—a good thing, since, of late, we have been in drought conditions here in the Queen of Cities.

A thousand miles away, in the state I grew up in, Lili hit shore as a Category 3 Hurricane. In fact, until yesterday, it looked as though it would hit my Lake Charles, old home town. So, this week was mildy nervous for me, but, so far, has proven to be not quite as big a thing.

My Mom was up here anyway to attend a Celtic festival that my wife and I were dancing in. She managed to bypass Isidore, and it really wasn’t until Monday that it seemed as though Lili would be a threat to Lake Charles. She spent a lot of time on her cell phone, coordinating some of the preparations (boarding the windows, what to put in the car, etc.). She even suggested my sister and her kids fly up here. I mused about applying for a grant as a refuge center.

My father and brother-in-law were thinking they’d wait out the storm. My sisters seemed to be wiser on that count, but, by Tuesday night, they really didn’t seem to have a plan.

Yesterday morning, my Mom left Cincy, heading to look at furniture in North Carolina—driving away from the storm. She dropped me at my office on her way out of town, and I came and went about my business. At one point, I hit CNN, and saw that they were evacuating the parish south of the one containing Lake Charles. Schools were closed. It didn’t look good.

Finally, about seven in the evening, my sister calls me from her cell—they were heading to Houston, about three hours to the west. Most predictions showed that they would be OK there, so I breathed a sigh of relief. The house might get seriously messed up, but it can be replaced. My loved ones were out of harm’s way.

Lili hit the Louisiana coast this morning just as I was getting to work, east of Lake Charles. The city still got hit, but they were in the north-west quadrant of the storm—if you have to be in a hurricane, that is the better location. I’ve had voicemail from both parents indicating they are OK. Tomorrow, Cincinnati gets a slow, soaking rain, and all it means is that I have to take the bus.

So, someone is shooting people here in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. This is the sort of thing I normally laugh about apathetically, if it goes on somewhere else. I'm kind of a sick weirdo like that, you know. My first reaction to this one, too, was disinterested laughter, but only now is it starting to freak me out a little.

Evidently the first shooting took place Wednesday night, about a thousand feet from here, in the parking lot of the grocery store I walk to sometimes. Most of the rest of them happened this morning, around the time I was walking up the hill to the Glenmont Metro station, on my way to work.

On my way home I had to take a pedestrian field trip to the music store in Wheaton, to obtain a Line6 POD as a going-away present for my departing boss, an avid guitar player. Some of my co-workers, who had chipped in for the gift and were reading the same news reports, said things like "Aren't you afraid of getting shot, walking around up there where all those people got killed?" and so forth. Well... what am I going to do? Stay at my desk until they find the culprit? Uh-oh, there goes a nondescript white van, let's all run for cover? Yeah.

Anyway, I got my POD and got home, free from any bullet-induced additional holes in my body, and not thinking much more of it. Then I turned on the TV, and kept watching CNN despite my professed disinterest in the whole thing, and it was a while before I figured out why: It reminds me of the time I had to hear about the death of my friend Amy, by seeing a TV news report on a local woman dying of hyperthermia and finding out afterward that yes, they were talking about her, all right. Furthermore, I'm seeing all the same place names as I did then. Aspen Hill. Rockville. Silver Spring. It's not a coincidence that this is only the second daylog I've written, and the first one was about that.

I'm driving to work tomorrow instead of walking to the train, I think. But I was planning to do that anyway... honest.

So it's my birthday and I am 25. I have birthday issues and as such it seemed to me that actually telling people it was my birthday as opposed to being silent and scrunched up in a little ball (which is still very appealing, especially if it's a flannel ball) would be a good thing for me to do. There's the whole "good lord, get over it" value.

It doesn't have anything to do with age. It has to do with people doing/not doing stuff for me. I think that's as specific as I can get right now.

I've been living here for four years, such that people know it's my birthday for real now. I didn't tell anyone in my grad program or anything for a good two years. Or at least I didn't tell them what day it was anytime near that actual day, such that no one would remember it on or around it. I always want to just be alone and deal with it on my birthday. And it would have been so rude not to want to do things or let people do things, so had anyone planned anything I would have tried valiantly to get through it. But it would also have been exponentially harder for me to deal with birthday if anyone made a fuss on or around the actual day. So I didn't tell anyone except my really, really close friends, and not even some of them.

Then three weeks into October someone would say wasn't it your birthday? When? And I would say yes and they would say why didn't you tell us! We would have done something! And this happened enough over the last four years that people for real know what day it is now, and are fairly aware that I'm not going to mention it, and seem to realize that I don't want to do anything on or for my birthday. I mean I'm sure I have talked about not wanting to do anything by this point. So that's good to an extent.

And I've even been talking about it like a regular thing a little this year. I mean it's been mostly when tipsy, but not entirely. Last night we were joking about it with various people while totally sober. That was a good thing. I wouldn't have been able to do that without considerable agitation even last year. So that is why I'm writing this now, too.

And today is ok, and right now I feel calm, and we're going to go have dinner somewhere in a calm and calming fashion, and that will be good. No presents yet, so we'll see how I do with that.

I don't know if I want to put this up or not.

Addendum: note that it is the fourth when I actually put it up.