9:12AM- Last night, I fell the fuck asleep, haha. I sat in bed (mistake), intent on writing something, and fell asleep, pen in hand. I woke up largely in the same position hours later. It is insanely beautiful out today. Sucks, because I must spend most of my day trapped away in an office. You know, it's funny. When I first started, I was elated to have a job that didn't require moving around in any fashion. Now, I hate sitting still. I look forward to any chance I get to move around, or whatever. So, today, the Signius Project begins. Between phone calls, I'm going to try and write a poem a day, or a cogent artistic musing a day, or something. It's a way to capitalize on all this ridiculous "free" time. Hopefully, it can stand in for any sense of accomplishment or satisfcation that I might wish for whilst at work. Somehow, I'm going to get my ass to Deep Creek this summer. I don't care who with. Even if it's just by myself. (Preferably not, but whatever.) Well, I know Jinah's wanted to go forever, so she'll have to come. That and, I miss the ocean too... We're all supposed to go camping again in August, but I think that would require finding all of our stuff again; given how it was haphazardly scattered through in everyone's trunks, that would take weeks. It'd probably be easier to just rent cheap hotel rooms, as I have in the past. Come to think, we probably should have gone to Point Lookout during swimming season.. Mmm.. I have off this coming weekend! Maybe I can get down to the ocean for a night or two! I know Jin and I were talking about that, except I think everyone's going down on Sunday, which isn't that convenient, time-wise... Eh, I'll figure it out.
11:19AM- People are idiots. And I am not a telemarketer, or an answering machine. Thankfully, I'm not going to have to struggle with that much longer. And I don't care about "capturing phone numbers and mailing addresses" and trying to upsell people on things. My job is to mindlessly enter information for people and pretend to like it. And pretend to be knowledgeable on things that I'd never pay good money for in my whole life. Also, if I were a caller for any one of these companies, I'd be upset at the number of flaming hoops I'd have to jump through to get an answer about anything. If anything, at least I have a short list of doctors, lawyers, and apartment complexes that I wouldn't consider if my life depended on it. After today, only three days left. I hate how fake I sound when I pick up these calls. My phone voice is nothing like my normal voice, sometimes, anyway. Sometimes, I make no effort to sound enthused, or, no effort to mask that I hate what I'm doing. There really is something to be said for caring about what one does.
12:36PM- I do like The Format's new album. It's more energetic overall, I think. Still, it doesn't have a First Single analog, which I still feel bad for caring about, but overall I'd say there are more "skip-to" songs.
12:54PM- I wish being at this cubicle didn't drain all the vitality out of me.
1:07PM- I wish I didn't have to hear the same sob story about the same S.O.B.... that... uhhhh... they broke up because of an AIM prank, designed to trap the guy into saying the wrong thing.
1:28PM- Cigarette. Finally. Praise Jesus.
1:43PM- My mission for today is to punch thousands of tiny pinholes into a piece of paper. Then, I will hang it on my wall or something.
1:50PM- Speaking of hanging things on walls, I need to remove all the pictures from my cubicle, because I'm leaving and my room could certainly use some current photos. But, I know if I take them down now, I'll be bored out of my mind until I finally do leave. Not like I look at them all that often, but they cast an ambient glow over this grey prison.
3:03PM- I got the most amusing call ever. A maintenance man fixed a toilet. Then, he shit in it. He didn't do a great job fixing it. After the flush, his shit exploded upwards and outwards. The woman kept screaming, "There is doo-doo everywhere!" At least eight times.
4:13PM- It is STUPID BALLS HOT out. At least it was in my car, where I had lunch. Something about eating, alone, in an undecorated, windowless break room, with only the hum of bending machines to tickle my ears, well. Kinda makes me unhappy. It's funny. Morale here usually seems fine, but looking at anyone alone in that break room, it just feels like they hate being there.
4:57PM- People are monkeys. I understand it sucks that your AC doesn't work. But I am a hundred miles away. Get a life.
6:52PM- We have been STUPID busy. I don't know why so many people had a Memorial Day deadline to turn on their air conditioners. Retarded.
11:40PM- Turns out my parents turned ours on today, too.
(DB) out.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
what i think when i'm away
...from a keyboard.
7:11AM- It's sad when a pen and paper are more of a backup blog, rather than a blog being a digital backup diary. I wish I had done something useful with myself last night. I stayed in, watched about 20 minutes worth of Monster In Law, listened to the new Format album, and allowed it to take too much sleep from me. And now, I'm at work. I got two hours of sleep, optimistically speaking. Of course, pessimistically speaking, I got about fifteen minutes of sleep, interspersed throughout two hours of tossing and turning, sweating, and finding my pillows way too uncomfortable; even though they're absolutely great, I can't take much solace in their company when I know I have to leave them. Am I talking about goose down pillows, or concubines? Is there much of a difference? I'm going to attempt writing as a form of therapy, if not intellectual stimulation, to keep me awake. Is it bad that I'm almost wishing to get a migraine, so I can have an excuse to go get some sleep?
10:00AM- I just ate a little bit, had some caffeine, and a cigarette. And for about ten minutes, everything will be okay with the world.
10:10AM- I find my mind dwelling on two things. The first being, I can't wait to actually be done here, to finally stop having to live and work in the proverbial shadows, doing jobs that nobody wants to do. I much prefer Apple. I much prefer enjoying my job and being appreciated.
10:32AM- The second thing is, memories that are so vivid I could live in them. I only have a couple of them, two good, one bad. The bad one just happened. The good one was last summer. The other good one.. which I guess I would more accurately call bittersweet, that was in the fall. "And about all the pain, I suppose it was worth it.. You could do it again, but I just don't deserve it..."
11:11AM- I'm afraid of relationships and commitment in general. I'll admit it. I look at where my life is, where I want it to be, and how much I've got on my plate, and I am of the opinion that I've got absolutely nothing to give, at least as far as time and energy go, and that I'm far too picky to find any guy for whom I'd be willing to compromise. As far as my freedom goes, hah. I have no idea what kind of superhero would be required to distract me from my love affair with my own capricious free will.
2:58PM- That poem took entirely too long to write, but it's been pretty busy today. Aside from an hour or two of unconsciousness in the morning, it's flown
(DB) out.
7:11AM- It's sad when a pen and paper are more of a backup blog, rather than a blog being a digital backup diary. I wish I had done something useful with myself last night. I stayed in, watched about 20 minutes worth of Monster In Law, listened to the new Format album, and allowed it to take too much sleep from me. And now, I'm at work. I got two hours of sleep, optimistically speaking. Of course, pessimistically speaking, I got about fifteen minutes of sleep, interspersed throughout two hours of tossing and turning, sweating, and finding my pillows way too uncomfortable; even though they're absolutely great, I can't take much solace in their company when I know I have to leave them. Am I talking about goose down pillows, or concubines? Is there much of a difference? I'm going to attempt writing as a form of therapy, if not intellectual stimulation, to keep me awake. Is it bad that I'm almost wishing to get a migraine, so I can have an excuse to go get some sleep?
10:00AM- I just ate a little bit, had some caffeine, and a cigarette. And for about ten minutes, everything will be okay with the world.
10:10AM- I find my mind dwelling on two things. The first being, I can't wait to actually be done here, to finally stop having to live and work in the proverbial shadows, doing jobs that nobody wants to do. I much prefer Apple. I much prefer enjoying my job and being appreciated.
10:32AM- The second thing is, memories that are so vivid I could live in them. I only have a couple of them, two good, one bad. The bad one just happened. The good one was last summer. The other good one.. which I guess I would more accurately call bittersweet, that was in the fall. "And about all the pain, I suppose it was worth it.. You could do it again, but I just don't deserve it..."
11:11AM- I'm afraid of relationships and commitment in general. I'll admit it. I look at where my life is, where I want it to be, and how much I've got on my plate, and I am of the opinion that I've got absolutely nothing to give, at least as far as time and energy go, and that I'm far too picky to find any guy for whom I'd be willing to compromise. As far as my freedom goes, hah. I have no idea what kind of superhero would be required to distract me from my love affair with my own capricious free will.
2:58PM- That poem took entirely too long to write, but it's been pretty busy today. Aside from an hour or two of unconsciousness in the morning, it's flown
(DB) out.
Monday, May 22, 2006
leave for the city, well, count me out
Bec says The Format's new album isn't as good as Interventions and Lullabies. I was supposed to get it from her tonight, but suddenly, I'm not all that anxious to. Suddenly, I actually think I might wait until it hits stores. Or whatever other avenues might bring it my way. I find it akin to the feeling I had that I didn't want to watch the sequels to The Matrix, because I didn't want to ruin the first one for myself.
I've been reading Devlin's blog lately, and just finished replying to an email he wrote me. Whether or not my readers know, he's in Japan. He's apparently having the time of his life. Having never seen him blogging before, it was strange, but something became clear; whether or not I'm familiar with his writing, the change of scenery's made him happier, or at least, given him something to be excited about. I was just telling him that it seems we're, if on separate sides of the planet, in similar boats; both of us have come upon circumstances that could completely change our futures, at least, how we see them.
I find that exhilarating. In two weeks, school will begin, Signius will be done, and I could be on a completely different road than I was a couple months ago. Or, I could do what I always do, and brilliantly fail.
The difference, this time, is that I don't view failure as an option. It's not like the last couple of times, where my thinking was more to the tune of, "well, if I fail, I'll deal with it and move on." Well, I've tried that one, and it hasn't worked. Plain and simple, I must excel, if I want anything to change. And that's a pretty silly "if," really.
Friday night, I was retarded, and decided to go to a party in honor of yet another friend of mine who's headed off to the military. (I say retarded because I only had about an eight-hour buffer zone between getting out of work and having to be back the next morning.) Granted, he's not as close as certain others, but I think it's served as a distressing reminder that as we age, people are going to leave. A scenario that recently came up in conversation was one where, in five years, some of us are going to come back from college, and find our hometowns empty. Well, not empty, but you know. Everyone we once held dear will be gone. Somewhere else, out of town, even dead, who knows? Besides wishing people the best, there's really nothing else one can do.
And, the other night, when Dave referred to dropping out of school as "pulling a Danny," I feel like a good bit of motivation fell into my lap. I look back, and I see an unglorious past. I look forward, and I see the support structure that cradled me through that past going threadbare. The more I think about making my life happen, the more I realize that I don't need that support structure. I don't need to be in the presence of people whose accomplishments amount to as little as mine; and I don't need to feel intimidated around people working towards a masters or a doctorate.
The mark I leave on this world has nothing to do with how I compare with my peers, and much more to do with what I bring to the table, and how I do it.
(For the purposes of disambiguation, the aforementioned support structure has nothing to do with my friends, and people I otherwise hold close to me. More like the abstract sense of feeling more comfortable in the company of fellow slackers and dropouts. Which is gross, I know, but true.)
Okay, so, it's May. Why is it absolutely butt freezing outside? Aside from the facts that I'm wearing a microfiber shirt, not moving, and smoking, of course.
For the record, this weekend has been monstrously sleep-deprived. So I think I might retire or something along those lines.
(DB) out.
I've been reading Devlin's blog lately, and just finished replying to an email he wrote me. Whether or not my readers know, he's in Japan. He's apparently having the time of his life. Having never seen him blogging before, it was strange, but something became clear; whether or not I'm familiar with his writing, the change of scenery's made him happier, or at least, given him something to be excited about. I was just telling him that it seems we're, if on separate sides of the planet, in similar boats; both of us have come upon circumstances that could completely change our futures, at least, how we see them.
I find that exhilarating. In two weeks, school will begin, Signius will be done, and I could be on a completely different road than I was a couple months ago. Or, I could do what I always do, and brilliantly fail.
The difference, this time, is that I don't view failure as an option. It's not like the last couple of times, where my thinking was more to the tune of, "well, if I fail, I'll deal with it and move on." Well, I've tried that one, and it hasn't worked. Plain and simple, I must excel, if I want anything to change. And that's a pretty silly "if," really.
Friday night, I was retarded, and decided to go to a party in honor of yet another friend of mine who's headed off to the military. (I say retarded because I only had about an eight-hour buffer zone between getting out of work and having to be back the next morning.) Granted, he's not as close as certain others, but I think it's served as a distressing reminder that as we age, people are going to leave. A scenario that recently came up in conversation was one where, in five years, some of us are going to come back from college, and find our hometowns empty. Well, not empty, but you know. Everyone we once held dear will be gone. Somewhere else, out of town, even dead, who knows? Besides wishing people the best, there's really nothing else one can do.
And, the other night, when Dave referred to dropping out of school as "pulling a Danny," I feel like a good bit of motivation fell into my lap. I look back, and I see an unglorious past. I look forward, and I see the support structure that cradled me through that past going threadbare. The more I think about making my life happen, the more I realize that I don't need that support structure. I don't need to be in the presence of people whose accomplishments amount to as little as mine; and I don't need to feel intimidated around people working towards a masters or a doctorate.
The mark I leave on this world has nothing to do with how I compare with my peers, and much more to do with what I bring to the table, and how I do it.
(For the purposes of disambiguation, the aforementioned support structure has nothing to do with my friends, and people I otherwise hold close to me. More like the abstract sense of feeling more comfortable in the company of fellow slackers and dropouts. Which is gross, I know, but true.)
Okay, so, it's May. Why is it absolutely butt freezing outside? Aside from the facts that I'm wearing a microfiber shirt, not moving, and smoking, of course.
For the record, this weekend has been monstrously sleep-deprived. So I think I might retire or something along those lines.
(DB) out.
Friday, May 19, 2006
we are family...
I guess. Now's not the best of times to be asking about the topic.
Today just didn't go right at all. It was that one day off in the 9 on, 1 off cycle that my life has been lately. Fortunately, I haven't got too much longer to be dealing with that. One thing I will say about Signius that I don't particularly care for is their penchant for giving me random days off during the week, then working me straight through every single weekend. I get off tomorrow night at 10:30, then go back in at 7 on Saturday. I'm not a machine, and I'm not a manager. Machines wouldn't care, and managers get paid a good bit more because that comes with the territory.
That and, if your check arrives Thursday night, but you can't pick it up unless you're scheduled to work, and therefore have to wait until Friday (which begins the hell cycle of no free time until pretty much next week), that's straight up bullshit.
So after finding out that little gem, and having a long-winded and unpleasant conversation with my parents, I turned off my phone and went to sleep. It's not too often that I hit a point where I'm about to break, but every now and then, I get in this precious self-defeating mood where I hate myself, I hate everything, and all I want to do is not exist.
Right now, I take solace in being able to look a turkey sandwich in the eye, and tell it without a shadow of a doubt, that resistance is futile.
(note: if the time appears incorrect in this post, it's definitely because i let it sit for about two days before actually hitting publish.)
Today just didn't go right at all. It was that one day off in the 9 on, 1 off cycle that my life has been lately. Fortunately, I haven't got too much longer to be dealing with that. One thing I will say about Signius that I don't particularly care for is their penchant for giving me random days off during the week, then working me straight through every single weekend. I get off tomorrow night at 10:30, then go back in at 7 on Saturday. I'm not a machine, and I'm not a manager. Machines wouldn't care, and managers get paid a good bit more because that comes with the territory.
That and, if your check arrives Thursday night, but you can't pick it up unless you're scheduled to work, and therefore have to wait until Friday (which begins the hell cycle of no free time until pretty much next week), that's straight up bullshit.
So after finding out that little gem, and having a long-winded and unpleasant conversation with my parents, I turned off my phone and went to sleep. It's not too often that I hit a point where I'm about to break, but every now and then, I get in this precious self-defeating mood where I hate myself, I hate everything, and all I want to do is not exist.
Right now, I take solace in being able to look a turkey sandwich in the eye, and tell it without a shadow of a doubt, that resistance is futile.
(note: if the time appears incorrect in this post, it's definitely because i let it sit for about two days before actually hitting publish.)
Saturday, May 13, 2006
i somewhat know where to begin
Sorry about the absence of a post in recent days.
Up until Thursday, I had no reason to neglect my blog. Thursday hit, and I suddenly had all the reason in the world.
Without getting too far into it, because most of my readers probably already know this.. well, okay. I'll try to do it in one sentence. In the course of a day, a spontaneous hernia (I hope) has turned me back towards college, and most likely toward the demise of my new job.
That aside, everything's been fine. My doctor's appointment is Monday, and I suppose that's when crunch time begins. I have to figure some way of taking care of whatever ailment this is before June 5th, because that's when school starts.
I'm hoping the difference between success and failure, this time, will come from the lack of any alternatives. It was either 1) go on the fast track back to school, or 2) rack up thousands of dollars in medical debt. The choice seems clear.
I mentioned in prior posts th... okay, I'll finish this after some bed.
(DB) unusually sleepily out.
Up until Thursday, I had no reason to neglect my blog. Thursday hit, and I suddenly had all the reason in the world.
Without getting too far into it, because most of my readers probably already know this.. well, okay. I'll try to do it in one sentence. In the course of a day, a spontaneous hernia (I hope) has turned me back towards college, and most likely toward the demise of my new job.
That aside, everything's been fine. My doctor's appointment is Monday, and I suppose that's when crunch time begins. I have to figure some way of taking care of whatever ailment this is before June 5th, because that's when school starts.
I'm hoping the difference between success and failure, this time, will come from the lack of any alternatives. It was either 1) go on the fast track back to school, or 2) rack up thousands of dollars in medical debt. The choice seems clear.
I mentioned in prior posts th... okay, I'll finish this after some bed.
(DB) unusually sleepily out.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
entry, part II
I totally meant to finish that entry last night. But I think something happened along the lines of me nearly collapsing at the keyboard.
I was just thinking to myself, what should I listen to while I blog tonight? So I looked through my playlists and realized they were all way too predictable. Thus I've made a playlist entitled "I'm Sick of Predictable Playlists." It's chock full of goodies that I don't listen to all the time, formulated via the ultra-scientific method of scrolling around my library and picking something random from each screen.
But if I had fears of the random pick sucking, I'd definitely pick something a few songs up or down, that sounded a little more promising. Yeah, I'm fickle. But yeah, I designed the experiment myself. So they're my rules to break.
It'd figure, though, I'd go through the trouble to pick out some relatively less traditional blogging music, and have nothing to blog about. Well, maybe something.
So, in writing a story, there are only a finite number of conflicts any given character can run into. I remember only really touching on four in school, even though Wikipedia says there are eight or so. Right now, my conflict is Man vs. Himself.
But to be kind, I'll summarize, as this is just a variation on a theme lately: I need college to get where I need to go in life, but I hate sitting through classes. I'm smart and can accomplish anything I want to, given sufficient incentive. But, my track record is as follows: I mess up every chance that falls in my lap, and the ones I seek out always turn out to be nowhere near as satisfying as I'd hoped. So, through significant fault of my own, plus some genuinely unfortunate outward circumstances, nothing's really worked out the way it was supposed to.
I asked my mom tonight if all people do in life is work towards some promise of an eventual payoff. And that thought scares me more than anything. If I go through with college, get a degree in something, get a job, get a house, get a dog, get married, have kids, then pay for their college? Seems like once people satisfy the demands they once strived to meet, they go looking for bigger prizes and bigger challenges.
I'm wondering, at what point does one stop and take some time to enjoy those hard-earned things? Does such a point exist? And if life truly is all about the endless pursuit of increasingly lofty goals, how the hell can that be satisfying at all?
I personally don't feel like spending every day of my life preparing to have a better one. I'd like to reach a point where I'm done with that, and I can be happy. And I hope my view of American life, and my view of my own life and future, well... I hope they're just overly cynical, and wrong. There's nothing I'd like more than to be told I'm making absolutely no sense at all, and that the drive to improve oneself (or acquire toys, for some people) does really hold some sort of beauty and exhilaration which I haven't yet figured out. Somebody, please, give me some hope!
And on the more short-term end of the spectrum, I wouldn't be opposed to trees genetically engineered to reproduce without pollen. I'd much rather avert my eyes from oaks humping each other than have such a runny nose that I'd sell my soul to be able to sneeze uncontrollably.
And now, for your moment of Zen, thanks to wired.com: uh, wow. and it's like a nightmare.
Goodnight.
(DB) out.
I was just thinking to myself, what should I listen to while I blog tonight? So I looked through my playlists and realized they were all way too predictable. Thus I've made a playlist entitled "I'm Sick of Predictable Playlists." It's chock full of goodies that I don't listen to all the time, formulated via the ultra-scientific method of scrolling around my library and picking something random from each screen.
But if I had fears of the random pick sucking, I'd definitely pick something a few songs up or down, that sounded a little more promising. Yeah, I'm fickle. But yeah, I designed the experiment myself. So they're my rules to break.
It'd figure, though, I'd go through the trouble to pick out some relatively less traditional blogging music, and have nothing to blog about. Well, maybe something.
So, in writing a story, there are only a finite number of conflicts any given character can run into. I remember only really touching on four in school, even though Wikipedia says there are eight or so. Right now, my conflict is Man vs. Himself.
But to be kind, I'll summarize, as this is just a variation on a theme lately: I need college to get where I need to go in life, but I hate sitting through classes. I'm smart and can accomplish anything I want to, given sufficient incentive. But, my track record is as follows: I mess up every chance that falls in my lap, and the ones I seek out always turn out to be nowhere near as satisfying as I'd hoped. So, through significant fault of my own, plus some genuinely unfortunate outward circumstances, nothing's really worked out the way it was supposed to.
I asked my mom tonight if all people do in life is work towards some promise of an eventual payoff. And that thought scares me more than anything. If I go through with college, get a degree in something, get a job, get a house, get a dog, get married, have kids, then pay for their college? Seems like once people satisfy the demands they once strived to meet, they go looking for bigger prizes and bigger challenges.
I'm wondering, at what point does one stop and take some time to enjoy those hard-earned things? Does such a point exist? And if life truly is all about the endless pursuit of increasingly lofty goals, how the hell can that be satisfying at all?
I personally don't feel like spending every day of my life preparing to have a better one. I'd like to reach a point where I'm done with that, and I can be happy. And I hope my view of American life, and my view of my own life and future, well... I hope they're just overly cynical, and wrong. There's nothing I'd like more than to be told I'm making absolutely no sense at all, and that the drive to improve oneself (or acquire toys, for some people) does really hold some sort of beauty and exhilaration which I haven't yet figured out. Somebody, please, give me some hope!
And on the more short-term end of the spectrum, I wouldn't be opposed to trees genetically engineered to reproduce without pollen. I'd much rather avert my eyes from oaks humping each other than have such a runny nose that I'd sell my soul to be able to sneeze uncontrollably.
And now, for your moment of Zen, thanks to wired.com: uh, wow. and it's like a nightmare.
Goodnight.
(DB) out.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
entry, part I
And I'm planning on it in the fall. I'll need to start saving soon. Like, next paycheck. But I really need to be able to go, and sometime in October. I think that's when I wanna do it.
I don't know why I'm so compelled to go. Actually, I do. I just don't know why I'm so compelled to actually believe that I could make it happen. I'd probably need at least $500 or $600 for the trip, and that's a good bit of money. And I suck at saving. But I still want to go.
I find myself unusually short for words tonight, and I don't readily have a good reason for it. Today was spent swimming with Jinah, working, hanging out at Double T with Jinah, Adam, Shelly, and Francis, then coming home and desiring to go to Ireland.
Swimming was nice, though. Jinah and I needed to have some exclusive us-only time, so we sat around like fat kids watching courtroom reality shows, then went swimming. The water was clear, and it was cold, but not numb cold, it was eventually warm cold. We spent about an hour there, and I went to work. Of course we met up later, because our lives are basically a continuum of doing whatever and reconvening to wonder what to do.
I've got something on my mind, but I can't really talk about it without getting too down and dirty, and starting to talk about other people. Whose business is not mine to spread.
(insert break of about a day here)
I don't know why I'm so compelled to go. Actually, I do. I just don't know why I'm so compelled to actually believe that I could make it happen. I'd probably need at least $500 or $600 for the trip, and that's a good bit of money. And I suck at saving. But I still want to go.
I find myself unusually short for words tonight, and I don't readily have a good reason for it. Today was spent swimming with Jinah, working, hanging out at Double T with Jinah, Adam, Shelly, and Francis, then coming home and desiring to go to Ireland.
Swimming was nice, though. Jinah and I needed to have some exclusive us-only time, so we sat around like fat kids watching courtroom reality shows, then went swimming. The water was clear, and it was cold, but not numb cold, it was eventually warm cold. We spent about an hour there, and I went to work. Of course we met up later, because our lives are basically a continuum of doing whatever and reconvening to wonder what to do.
I've got something on my mind, but I can't really talk about it without getting too down and dirty, and starting to talk about other people. Whose business is not mine to spread.
(insert break of about a day here)
Monday, May 01, 2006
we still kill the old way
Every now and then, I'm compelled to listen all the way through Lostprophets' Start Something.
Every time that happens, I think about when I used to hang out with Brian, and how much enjoyment (?) and / or satisfaction we gleaned from doing absolutely nothing. We'd listen to this album, drive around, maybe ponder a fine point or two of life, leave the occasional trail of beer cans on the side of some random road, and ultimately conclude it was time to go home around 3am. Most of the times, it was all pointless. Sometimes, dangerous. Still, I feel like I enjoyed it nonetheless.
As summer starts to stir, I find myself thinking about how different this one is, or at least looks like it will be. Namely, the formerly inseparable old crew. Looking at us now, it seems like the only reasonable cause for us all to be in the same room would be a funeral. I start wondering, how meaningful was my relationship with each of those people? The thought crosses my mind that maybe those relationships weren't all that substantial, if they seemed to dissolve so easily. Did we all spend all our time together, was the group dynamic the only thing we had going for us? Even though a year or two isn't that long, so much water's passed under so many different bridges, and that makes it easy to look back and make blanket statements. Statements which, in turn, make it easy to forget details, and make it easier to deal with that loss of friendship.
Tonight, I caught myself looking back, resting on certain memories with more than a passing glance. Heh... I think I'm not alone in knowing that a part of me will always live in Mike's dad's basement. There were occasional guest stars, but the cast remained the same, usually. There wasn't a one of us who hasn't seen the other laugh, cry, throw up, get naked, fall in love, fall out of love. We all knew each others' various faces, even the ones most of us didn't show other people. Sure, there are tons of people who would describe their senior year of high school / first year of college the same way.
But, I can't think of a single person in that cast to whom I never bared my feelings and pleaded for help, or vice-versa. Whatever happened, everything always worked out okay. No matter how ugly we were on the inside, we still loved each other, and stuck at one anothers' sides. We're talking about the kids who knew me as a neurotic closet-case with a taste for Jack Daniels and demolition DDR, and the habit of saying the wrong thing one time too many. I'm talking about the kid I secretly envied for his occasionally self-destructive inability to give a damn. Or the kid whose boundless generosity often pushed her own concerns to the back burner, leading to problems. Or the kid whose passion for inane, loopy ideas was as often as subtly annoying as it was exhilarating. Or the self-professed asshole who would only publicly drop that facade only for prospective romance, even though closed doors tended to reveal that puppy dog we all knew was there. I could go on too long with these, so I'll take it on faith that you get the point.
I'm pretty sure than anyone who even made it halfway through Psych. 101 could easily name a personality disorder for every single person I just described. And the "misery loves company" adage, at first glance, couldn't fit a group of people better. But it wasn't like that. Two or three of us would go somewhere one day, then a different set would go somewhere else the next day. We didn't need to be all together in one place to have fun, and forge great memories. Get us all in one room though, and we'd all just play off one another.
If you're familiar with the physics behind a nuclear fission reaction, it all makes sense. Pared down to the absolute bare minimum, it goes like this: A fissile fuel atom breaks down and throws out a neutron or two. Which then hits another fuel atom, causing it to fission. Releasing more neutrons. Lather, rinse, repeat. Energy everywhere.
Even if we were in uninspired or otherwise foul moods, sometimes one joke was all it took to get that reaction going.
(As an aside, looking down at iTunes and seeing this makes me feel like at least something about my thoughts tonight was cosmically intended.)
But, to address the question I posed earlier, my relationship with each one of them was perfectly substantial. And the fact that we're all orbiting different planets these days is a lot harder to reconcile than it should be. One never likes losing friends, especially for idiotic reasons. Although, my perspective on things might be different, because I didn't have any blood feuds erupt between myself and anyone else as life started dragging us off to our respective peripheries.
Jinah and I were talking tonight, about how we all know we miss the old times. And I realized, even if we were all in the same place again, doing the same things, it wouldn't be the same. You can only stand on a mountaintop for so long before you eventually have to worry about where dinner's going to come from. Even if we all forgot about the personal differences that have popped up over time, I think those spontaneous nuclear reactions we loved so dearly wouldn't happen so readily anymore.
We thrived on uncertainty. Sunday off was a requisite for partying Saturday night. Even though we could all theoretically be up for work or whatever, it was always more exciting when we were wondering just what the next day would hold. Any given Saturday night could be considered a microcosm of our lives at the time. None of us had "real" jobs. Community college was barely on the horizon, and when it came, it hadn't hit that shit-or-get-off-the-pot point where you're forced to seriously consider your future. When the future could be anything, the present is unquantifiably more exciting.
So even if we were all kicking back with some drinks, and being collectively stomped by one person in Halo 2, we'd all have that worry of where dinner's going to come from lurking around the corner in our minds.
But that's not how things work in the real grown-up world. People don't stop calling their friends because they get jobs. That's only supposed to happen when they have kids.
We all watched each other start to realize just who the people occupying our shoes were. And after that, we all witnessed each other learn to walk. Aside from lousy time management, there's no fantastic reason why we can't still walk together every now and then.
So, after waxing poetic about it, I think I might do something about it.
I don't know why I felt that was appropriate, but I did.
You know, I had other stuff on my mind before I started typing all this. Thankfully, most of it's taken the backseat it's generally more suited for. Except, I'm really disliking my new work schedule. I don't think I like the idea of Sunday and Monday being the new Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Even though Monday makes a good Sunday (everything's open, and it's easier to circumvent my broad, deep hatred of real Sundays), Sunday makes for one shit-bomb blow fest of a Saturday. Real Saturdays don't exist anymore, at least not in my world.
Bedtime.
(DB) out.
Every time that happens, I think about when I used to hang out with Brian, and how much enjoyment (?) and / or satisfaction we gleaned from doing absolutely nothing. We'd listen to this album, drive around, maybe ponder a fine point or two of life, leave the occasional trail of beer cans on the side of some random road, and ultimately conclude it was time to go home around 3am. Most of the times, it was all pointless. Sometimes, dangerous. Still, I feel like I enjoyed it nonetheless.
As summer starts to stir, I find myself thinking about how different this one is, or at least looks like it will be. Namely, the formerly inseparable old crew. Looking at us now, it seems like the only reasonable cause for us all to be in the same room would be a funeral. I start wondering, how meaningful was my relationship with each of those people? The thought crosses my mind that maybe those relationships weren't all that substantial, if they seemed to dissolve so easily. Did we all spend all our time together, was the group dynamic the only thing we had going for us? Even though a year or two isn't that long, so much water's passed under so many different bridges, and that makes it easy to look back and make blanket statements. Statements which, in turn, make it easy to forget details, and make it easier to deal with that loss of friendship.
Tonight, I caught myself looking back, resting on certain memories with more than a passing glance. Heh... I think I'm not alone in knowing that a part of me will always live in Mike's dad's basement. There were occasional guest stars, but the cast remained the same, usually. There wasn't a one of us who hasn't seen the other laugh, cry, throw up, get naked, fall in love, fall out of love. We all knew each others' various faces, even the ones most of us didn't show other people. Sure, there are tons of people who would describe their senior year of high school / first year of college the same way.
But, I can't think of a single person in that cast to whom I never bared my feelings and pleaded for help, or vice-versa. Whatever happened, everything always worked out okay. No matter how ugly we were on the inside, we still loved each other, and stuck at one anothers' sides. We're talking about the kids who knew me as a neurotic closet-case with a taste for Jack Daniels and demolition DDR, and the habit of saying the wrong thing one time too many. I'm talking about the kid I secretly envied for his occasionally self-destructive inability to give a damn. Or the kid whose boundless generosity often pushed her own concerns to the back burner, leading to problems. Or the kid whose passion for inane, loopy ideas was as often as subtly annoying as it was exhilarating. Or the self-professed asshole who would only publicly drop that facade only for prospective romance, even though closed doors tended to reveal that puppy dog we all knew was there. I could go on too long with these, so I'll take it on faith that you get the point.
I'm pretty sure than anyone who even made it halfway through Psych. 101 could easily name a personality disorder for every single person I just described. And the "misery loves company" adage, at first glance, couldn't fit a group of people better. But it wasn't like that. Two or three of us would go somewhere one day, then a different set would go somewhere else the next day. We didn't need to be all together in one place to have fun, and forge great memories. Get us all in one room though, and we'd all just play off one another.
If you're familiar with the physics behind a nuclear fission reaction, it all makes sense. Pared down to the absolute bare minimum, it goes like this: A fissile fuel atom breaks down and throws out a neutron or two. Which then hits another fuel atom, causing it to fission. Releasing more neutrons. Lather, rinse, repeat. Energy everywhere.
Even if we were in uninspired or otherwise foul moods, sometimes one joke was all it took to get that reaction going.
(As an aside, looking down at iTunes and seeing this makes me feel like at least something about my thoughts tonight was cosmically intended.)
But, to address the question I posed earlier, my relationship with each one of them was perfectly substantial. And the fact that we're all orbiting different planets these days is a lot harder to reconcile than it should be. One never likes losing friends, especially for idiotic reasons. Although, my perspective on things might be different, because I didn't have any blood feuds erupt between myself and anyone else as life started dragging us off to our respective peripheries.
Jinah and I were talking tonight, about how we all know we miss the old times. And I realized, even if we were all in the same place again, doing the same things, it wouldn't be the same. You can only stand on a mountaintop for so long before you eventually have to worry about where dinner's going to come from. Even if we all forgot about the personal differences that have popped up over time, I think those spontaneous nuclear reactions we loved so dearly wouldn't happen so readily anymore.
We thrived on uncertainty. Sunday off was a requisite for partying Saturday night. Even though we could all theoretically be up for work or whatever, it was always more exciting when we were wondering just what the next day would hold. Any given Saturday night could be considered a microcosm of our lives at the time. None of us had "real" jobs. Community college was barely on the horizon, and when it came, it hadn't hit that shit-or-get-off-the-pot point where you're forced to seriously consider your future. When the future could be anything, the present is unquantifiably more exciting.
So even if we were all kicking back with some drinks, and being collectively stomped by one person in Halo 2, we'd all have that worry of where dinner's going to come from lurking around the corner in our minds.
But that's not how things work in the real grown-up world. People don't stop calling their friends because they get jobs. That's only supposed to happen when they have kids.
We all watched each other start to realize just who the people occupying our shoes were. And after that, we all witnessed each other learn to walk. Aside from lousy time management, there's no fantastic reason why we can't still walk together every now and then.
So, after waxing poetic about it, I think I might do something about it.
I don't know why I felt that was appropriate, but I did.
You know, I had other stuff on my mind before I started typing all this. Thankfully, most of it's taken the backseat it's generally more suited for. Except, I'm really disliking my new work schedule. I don't think I like the idea of Sunday and Monday being the new Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Even though Monday makes a good Sunday (everything's open, and it's easier to circumvent my broad, deep hatred of real Sundays), Sunday makes for one shit-bomb blow fest of a Saturday. Real Saturdays don't exist anymore, at least not in my world.
Bedtime.
(DB) out.
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