| So tell me, how much of you disappears when I turn the lights off? |
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[22 Nov 2007|12:15am] |
So far, so good.
I've been home since Saturday with my dad, his fiancée, her daughter, and my brother. I guess it's been relaxing? I don't really know how to frame it. As always it's fantastic to see my family, and to be with them. However, there's a tension in the air here that never quite goes away- especially since my family's currently going through some tough financial times, what with Michigan's economy sucking huge balls right now. It's a weird situation to be in, and ultimately I'm not sure if this break from school is really a break at all, more of a limbo of sorts in between the time I'm at Tech and the time I'm not at Tech.
The real sticking points here are my brother, and my dad. I love both dearly, and they give me reason to be here no matter what. Hell, even the daughter is okay to be around- she's intelligent and it's been enriching to watch her grow into what she is today. It's whenever his significant other enters the picture that the tension mounts to a level that I can't stand. I realize no one is perfect, but sometimes... Eh. It's strange, being unable to muster up the ire I once had towards her. Those feelings have washed away, replaced by a simple concern to see my brother grow up without being psychotic, and a hope that in the future I'll be able to deal with her on my terms, in my household.
Perhaps it's the prozac. Since I've began using it I've noticed that I seem to be far more in the moment, less morbidly introspective. I don't move about feeling like I'm a part of some strange detached world, like there's a layer of frost over everything. There's a motivation- a deliberateness to my actions that leaves me ready to keep going when once before it left me further drained, bored, and aloof.
I've essentially botched two classes, but I'm pretty sure that next semester will be my last and I'll have finally graduated. Time will tell, I suppose.
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[11 Nov 2007|02:07am] |
It took a little time, but with some digging on the internet after a bout of motivation I figured out how to fully modify every single last icon that I didn't know how to change.
Fuck yes.
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[06 Nov 2007|01:26am] |
For the first time in what feels like ages, I'm sleepy before 3am. If this is a sign of things to come, I can fully accept this.
Week one of life on prozac has passed. Aside from sleeping better, being generally more drowsy during odd times (I attribute this to hopping back into a diurnal cycle), having a stuffy nose, and feeling odd at times, I'm not sure if the effects of it are going on. I figure I have another few weeks to go before it affects me in earnest. Ironic, to at one point be revolted at the subject of taking pills to be happy yet taking them to be happy. I suppose one will adapt to do anything under the right circumstances.
I only hope all ends well. I tire of being stuck where I am, and how I am.
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[10 Oct 2007|05:23am] |
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The One AM Radio- Under Thunder and Gale (A Black and Blue Sky by Daedelus) |
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Everyone, seemingly, was in a horrible mood today.
Perhaps it's the rain. It's been raining here for the past two weeks, at least every other day. It's ranged from grey and cold to oppressively humid, and morale could be down due to that. Perhaps it's the fact that the torrent of exams that people have to go through are just now ceasing; I know for a fact that my last exam for this period is on Thursday, and even still I've had a lot of work to do. Perhaps it's the food, the pressing feeling of expectation, or a million other minute things. It works into a furious pace, a frothing at the mind, a uneasiness much like the one that comes after drinking too much coffee. And past this point, it never goes away for some of them. Whatever time was mashed out over the summer to give them calm to this point has been flushed out of their system, like a six-week-heroin-sweat-out slumber party.
Needless to say, people around me are getting edgy. That makes me edgy. I can almost feel the tension as I move amongst friends and strangers; a latent static hanging in the air, tiring. Instead of tiring, I find myself ducking classes and staying up late. As always the night seems to focus me, calm me. Perhaps it's just what I tell myself so I don't get all retarded mid-stride and break apart.
I've been considering going into counseling to see if taking mood-altering medications would make sense. While I feel fine (Fantastic, eve) most times... When I hit bottom, I hit bottom. Last winter was testament of that. I refuse to see that happen again now that I've gotten myself back into place, back into gear. Perhaps this Thursday I'll set up an appointment.
It's silent now except for the dull thrum of the computer, and the rain outside. Occasional cars pass by doing goodness knows what at this hour of the morning. I think it's due time for this box, this slow moving beast what moves towards Bethlehem, to instead take a nap.
I'd go and sit in the rain, but it's too cold, and too late to do so without ending up sick for a week. Alas.
"Let the wind blow this furious thing inside/ to spring forth some life"
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[10 Sep 2007|03:31pm] |
Insofar as they bear witness to an early culture, we might rather admire these primitives for whom the eagerness to be human and the horror of nature have such force. We look down on them from our sanitary installations, and we give ourselves the impression of an unassailable purity. We are quick to overlook an immense rubbish heap, the grossness and refuse of our slums, our "lower parts"; quick to forget the disgust with being human, which increased from the contact with a civilization so meticulous that it often seems sick.
-- Georges Bataille's The Accursed Share, Volume 2
I thought it was a good quote, so I threw that one out there so as not to forget it.
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[02 Sep 2007|03:01am] |
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Cinemechanica- Bruckenheimer |
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"Get your fix now/ Get your fix now/ Inaction/ Reaction"
For the past few days, I've been going crazy.
In a series of decidedly unfortunate events, I haven't been able to procure a loan for this semester- and yet, here I set in a dorm room, frantically searching for a means to keep myself here. A means, ultimately, to finish what I began. A year left, and roughly $17,000 is required to keep me going, in books, and relatively comfortable until everything is said and done.
I have until Wednesday. I haven't felt this tense and alive in ages. I have, since situating myself, been more social, active, and probably more focused on what matters than I have been on anything else to date. It's amazing what one does when they know- not think, know- their life could potentially collapse upon itself with incredible alacrity. It's a weird sort of empowerment. A feeling of self one gets from knowing one has nothing to lose, on a vastly lesser scale. A certain tingling of the spine, a tenseness of wits and a voracity to stimuli. It's as though life itself smashed itself forcefully into high gear.
I can't really describe the full range of what I am feeling, and it's frustrating me. I guess this will suffice.
Since when did everything hold so much wonder?
"You got your fix now/ Bet you this now/ Distraction/ Inaction"
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[16 Aug 2007|01:07am] |
"We fear death too much. Our fear of death has lead to a masive assault on it. We still crave after virtually any life-prolonging technology that we might conceivably be able to produce. We still too often feel morally impelled to prolong life- virtually any form of life- as long as possible. As if the best death is the one that can be put off the longest.
We do not even ask about meaning in death, so busy are we with trying to postpone it. But we will not conquer death by one day developing a technology so magnificent that no one will have to die. Nor can we conquer death by postponing it ever longer. We can conquer death only by finding meaning in it".
-- John Hardwig, "Do We Have a Duty to Die?"
Interesting stuff. I wanted to post it, so as to not forget it.
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[28 Jul 2007|02:53am] |
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Efterklang- Antitech |
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Today...
I felt the waves of lake superior push me around.
I unabashedly hit on a girl.
I rocked the fuck out in the tender space between my ears.
I defended mere ghosts against a court of pure cynicism and detachment successfully.
I, if only for a moment, felt completely at peace with everything around me.
... Today was fantastic. I hope this keeps up.
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[03 Jul 2007|12:28pm] |
Today, I changed my color scheme, journal title, and fudged around with my user info. Amazing, I know.
I also found out my grades for the previous track.
Business law: B
Economics: A/B
Obviously I do a lot better when I'm not being a goddamned emopotamus. This semester has an ethics course and more economics in store.
Can't wait.
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[24 Jun 2007|11:17pm] |
The past few weeks, I've...
* Travelled roughly 2,000 miles.
* Watched my grandmother get buried.
* Saw my family- distant and otherwise.
* Went crazy and sleep-deprived (This is obviously normal for me).
* Went to a gay pride festival in support of two of my friends.
* Saw a parade
* Saw the Mall of America- it really is fucking huge.
* Picked up a new game (Valkyrie Profile 2).
* Got hit on by a cute gas station attendant.
That's essentially it. It's been peaceful overall, and left me in a general state of contentment.
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[04 Jun 2007|10:27pm] |
This post in memory to my great grandmother who died today.
Lola, I'll miss you- but I'll never forget what you were to me.
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[01 Jun 2007|09:58pm] |
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Today is a good day.
I woke up, took a shower, hurried about to get a few things done, playtested the tabletop role-playing game I've been working on and off on for the past few years, enjoyed the weather a bit, played some Odin Sphere, and I have a raid to attend on WoW here in a bit. The music has been good, and I haven't even had to use my AK. Etc.
Fantastic.
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[29 May 2007|10:06am] |
You know, it's odd. Occasionally, I get these odd bouts of morning sickness- except, you know, where I'm a guy. I wake up, feel the urge to vomit, can't move all that fast without triggering the reflex, and pretty much from there the rest of my day goes to shit. I suppose once I get the money I'll go to a doctor and ask for their opinion on it, but until then I'm stuck with it.
Last summer, I seemed to get a lot of them. I wonder why.
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[10 Apr 2007|03:03am] |
So, a list of things done (As opposed to do) this weekend:
* Traveled roughly 1100 miles
* Got into a car accident
* Almost got my nose broken
* Got someone else's blood on me
* Slept in a different place each night
* Smashed into the tip of a lesbian drama iceburg
* Saw Type O Negative live in Detroit
* Hung out with a bunch of friends from WMTU
* Rocked the fuck out
I'm definitely out of my funk, now.
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[02 Apr 2007|03:12am] |
This semester broke me.
I don't really know how or where it began, but it obviously did. It started when I couldn't sleep, then couldn't *not* sleep. It ended a few weeks after I decided to give up on everything I could, step back, and go into counseling.
From this mess, I've been rendered low and weak. Or maybe I wasn't so much rendered to that state as I dove deep enough into those dark places in my person to see that. Either way, it doesn't matter too much- what matters is that I see, and know, and understand.
This weakness, this lowness, however, isn't weak and low. Coming up from this darkness, this bitter and lonely place, I feel strangely content and renewed. People spend their lives trying to reach, like some Icarian zealot, lives and goals they weren't meant for. As a sagely anthropomorphic ursine once said, "A fish can't whistle, and neither can I". I've come to know what I can handle in terms of obligations (Both mentally and physically), and thank goodness it was in a space that is relatively safe. My only hope is that I use what I've come to know appropriately.
At the very least, I feel more relaxed in general.
"And the street corners are gnashing together like the gears inside the head of some omniscient engineer"
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[09 Jan 2007|07:10am] |
I'm back in Houghton, and currently up way too fucking late. Everything is holding a sense of wonder to me again, which I of course blame for my being awake. Everything feels simple, effortless. Things don't so much get done as they happen. And I'm running out of ways to say what I feel- it's like what's going on is at once too complex and too simple for me to pin down. I'll leave it at incredible, I guess.
"I discard/ All feelings/ The stars/ Scar my ceiling"
Last night, a person I talk to told me that when I talk to them, that they sometimes want to feel offended from it but can't come up with a good reason as to why they should. Thinking about it, that seems a lot like people in general- we want something to push us around, so we can push back. A driving need to be needed, necessary feels all too like the norm... And to me, it's sad. It's why we need to lose ten more pounds, or drive a faster car. Why we need to make a certain amount, or listen to specific artists. We need to differentiate ourselves from everyone else, and in that we become another set of statistics. It's a situation as old as I am, at the very least.
It just seems like after all that time, people would start to see their ascent to greatness is more of an escalator ride than anything.
"Ain't no man with strength in my hands/ I'm just like you/ Another pawn in place"
I have another friend who has issues with relationships- she's in love with a man who is emotionally unavailable. They broke up several months back, but she still loves him. Meanwhile he still loves her, but is seeing another woman- when my friend hooked up with another guy, the aforementioned one proceeded to get rather jealous. These sort of situations have never made sense to me, I must confess; if you love someone, shouldn't you let them go if that's how they want to do things? And if you love someone, shouldn't you be fine with that person growing and moving on? What is love in this situation aside from a word to denote exclusivity? Is that situation really love, or a fixation? And does it matter what we call it, provided they're fine with the situation?
A sort of gentle cruelty always seems to be at play between people, perhaps this is no different. To love, one must hurt.
"I'm never right/ I'm never right, I hope."
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[03 Jan 2007|05:37pm] |
Ah, Christmas break. It's been relaxing; I no longer feel the maddening roughness of minimal sleep, and time with family has centered me again. It's amazing, to just be able to wander back and be replenished. And while this has begun to happen everywhere I go (In a painstakingly slow manner, however...), I wonder if it'll ever lose that sort of level of nifty that it possesses.
... In any case, I've lost my point. Though, for the sake of record keeping, I ended up getting a 3.125 this semester on top of doing my stuff at the station I volunteer for. Woohoo, motherfuckers.
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[15 Dec 2006|06:15am] |
Last night, I had a rather crazy dream.
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It began with me living the life of a peasant, in some small kingdom in some random country- I helped my family with day to day stuff, but as time went on I grew discontent with what went on around me. So discontent, in fact, that I attempted to find a way out of it. To become something more. And so, I left home to do just that. I searched the world, and made my way through crazy means until I eventually found a book detailing the journeys of a man who seemed to be in my exact set of mind, and detailed a power to move beyond the world he once knew. I followed the book's clues to find... Myself.
My own corpse laid at the site the book detailed, along with a stone where the heart of the remains should have been. Grabbing it, I realized immediately what I had gained and who I was- I was the incarnation of a being that was capable of shifting dimensions at will, and further could sense the general structure of each so as to fine-tune my hopping. The world become more vibrant, a surrealists take on infinity.
Naturally, I sought to use the power to get more powerful. My first stop was a dimension in which technology had progressed to a state of magical fluidity. While there, I drew on their knowledge to create myself an item that, basically, gave me the powers of superman (Plus being unable to age) without the drawbacks. It was bonded to me, and with it I skipped across dimensions randomly, languidly exploring and connecting with people on my way through.
Eventually, I met a woman while walking through the streets of a dimension that was a lot like 1920's Urban America. Her dark hair was held up always, and she had a softness to her that few people possess outside of their closest relationships. Despite seeing millions of people in hundreds of subjective forms of reality, she tapped something within me that was deep and unmistakable. I grew, in time, to know her and her place in the world- she seemed ever content to be with me, not knowing of who or what I did. It was peaceful for a time.
For reasons I didn't understand at the time, she was to attend a great ceremony in her honor that would be held on a beach by the ocean. She didn't speak much of it, but seemed happy over the event- I attended with her and sat among great people from across their nation. Once an initial speech was over, she rose from the table and walked to the ocean- she was no more than fifty feet away. The waves lapped at her sandaled feet, and the wind blew her dress about. Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, an octopus of immense size erupted from the shoreline and consumed her. Utterly shocked by this, I was to learn rather quickly from the beast's speech that it was a worthy sacrifice, and it would not destroy their city this year.
I reacted in the only manner I knew how- I decimated the creature with a ferocity previously unknown to me, and razed the ceremony with gouts of flame. With burning hated, I scoured the land for all beasts of a terrible sort and removed them from their stations. Nothing escaped my grasp.
And yet, it did little to quell the feelings I had. Surely, in some other dimension, there was another such as her. With that, I began to seek her again, with the desperate hope that she could be with me again somehow.
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And that's about where I woke up.
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[13 Dec 2006|08:35am] |
Another night involving the wrong side of the dawn for scholastic purposes. It's like it's becoming a habit, or something.
"When I'm dead, I'll rest"
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[07 Dec 2006|07:05am] |
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"Today" was another day of me pushing my own limits of how long I could stay awake and focused. It turns out around hour 37 I start hallucinating visually as well as on a tacit level. It's strange.
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