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My shoulders and back were where the sun most enthusiastically colored my skin, and I've never seen my skin peel like this before. It is not unlike plastic shrink-wrap, in that it is totally inseperable from its contents until the smallest tear is made, at which point great strips can be pulled off. Then again, it also resembles stickers upon a wax paper backing, which are difficult to remove until a corner is worked up from the flat surface.
But I think I'll stick with the shrink-wrap comparison, for just as shrink-wrap tends to enclose bright, shiny merchandise with the shine of the factory still upon it, pinkish-tan patches of brand-new skin are visible where their dead wrappings have been torn away. The analogy is most appropriate except for the matter that I'm tugging at the dead skin not so much to get at what's underneath as to get the extraordinarily disgusting flakes of gray ex-epidermis off me.
Moving on, a paragraph or two are in order concerning the unprecedented death of Trevor's blog. May its archives rest peaceful in the everlasting servers of Blogger Almighty. May no power surge, no errant magnetic field disrupt their quiescence! Amen.
I think, though, that he should've waited until the school year had gotten itself thorougly going. As I mentioned a few days ago, the waning of weird-energy, though galling, can be easily ascribed to the mental laxitude of the summer months. But in any case, Introversion, or whatever he was calling it at the last, shall be missed.
posted on Saturday, July 26, 2003
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Sunburn sucks. The way it doesn't manifest itself at first sucks. The tenderness of the skin sucks. And most of all, the horrible itching sucks. But the beach was still fun. And hey, all that stuff is over with now, except some of that inevitably icky peeling, which I can deal with just fine.
I've also found yet again that William Gibson, or more specifically his work, is awesome. I had something I thought of, relating his prose to free verse, and how Gibson's prose is something that idiots would try to put in free verse, and also a rant about how free verse, while not quite a hulking evil in and of itself, is all too often used as a crutch for people who like it because it allows them to make their paltry thoughts, which would read as idiotic in their proper form of prose, seem profound, and also permits them to flip a lax finger to the benevolent gods of meter and rhyme. That's probably actually most of the rant right there.
But really, I don't have the desire or inspiration for spewing about any of it it at great length. It seems, as I told Hannah, that I only have so much weird-energy (my term for the bastard spawn of inspiration which fuels my communicative impulses), and I feel the need to blog only if I still have some left over from spewing at friends. And recently, I just haven't had that much left over. Perhaps being away from the constant social stimulation of school is causing this dearth, or maybe my brain is rotting.
posted on Thursday, July 24, 2003
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Yeah, I'm still alive, at least as far as I can tell. But there really hasn't been much fit for blogging in the last few days.
I'm off to my grandmother's tomorrow (my mother's mother, which is the one who lives at the beach), so there should be something to write about then. But I've been so awfully lazy the last few days that my brain seems to have taken a vacation.
posted on Saturday, July 19, 2003
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Apparently, I can sleep in again, and with interesting dreams as well. At one point I clearly remembered several, but now, as is the way of such things, I can only remember one. It involved sailing around someplace that I'd definitely never seen before; there are vague hints that we were exploring some other planet, but I can only remember bits and pieces. There were a bunch of people crewing the ship, some of whom I knew and others I'd never seen before, and didn't recognize even in the dream. Our leader was a real jerk; I think there was a mutiny. One thing I know for certain - all of the dreams I've had recently have not been short in terms of dream-time. They've been, like, novels or something.
Waking up from a deep sleep is a most interesting experience at times. Today when I woke up, my reality-awareness came online a few moments before my hearing did, and the result of this was that I noticed I was lying in bed, quite comfortable; and then a second later the click-whir of my not-quite-functional fan (courtesy of Trevor's lack of pillow-heaving skill) became a part of my sensory intake. It was very clearly not present before. That hadn't happened prior to this morning and I found it most amusing. I then went back to sleep for several hours.
I did go to see Finding Nemo several days ago, Friday perhaps, and left the theater happy that Pixar still has some inspiration left in them. Pretty funny movie.
posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2003
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The present state of literary analysis is not so much akin to beating a dead horse as to repeatedly striking the ground while horses graze in a nearby pasture.
You know how sometimes you think of something really great, and you absolutely must tell someone, even if they laugh at you and call you an idiot for it?
Feel free to laugh and call me an idiot.
Oh yeah, I actually finished Slaughterhouse-Five today. Perhaps I'm dead and just haven't noticed yet. Like in The Sixth Sense! Which, by the way, is a great movie.
posted on Friday, July 11, 2003
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One more thing. I'm reading Slaughterhouse-Five right now, at Trevor's recommendation, and it's a very odd little book. That's not to imply that I don't like it; it's the funniest book I've read in a while. But there's absolutely nothing to forcefully draw me back to it - the only way I make any progress in the book at all is when I see it lying around and pick it up on a whim. I'll probably die before I even get halfway through the thing. So it goes.
posted on Thursday, July 10, 2003
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"If you could go anywhere right now
Where would you go
And would you miss me when you get there
There's no place that I would rather be
Please don't let me
Go falling from the sky
This fasten-seat-belt sign just needs to go out
If only you could be
Right here by my side
Home wouldn't seem so far from here"
- Takeoffs and Landings, The Ataris
I feel like that a lot when I'm on trips somewhere. Actually, I've felt like that on every single trip I've taken in the last, oh, two years or so. Maybe this is actually a perfectly normal way to feel, and my family is just extraordinarily bad company on vacation.
Or maybe I need to learn to deal with being incommunicado with friends for relatively short lengths of time.
Or, perhaps, I need to go on vacations with friends. Yay for third guesses! I like that one best.
posted on Thursday, July 10, 2003
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Yesterday was the last day of sailing class, and a storm blew in while everyone was out on the water. The instructor said it was okay, keep sailing. So I kept sailing, and things were okay - the wind was a little strong, but not strong enough to do much besides make me go nice and fast.
Things became a little less okay when the wind starting picking up. The instructor signaled for everybody to sail back to shore, but the people farther out (including me) couldn't see him. By the time he got to us in the motorboat, the wind was getting quite gusty.
With the arrival of a very large, strong gust of wind, it was evident that things were no longer okay. I didn't have time to turn into the wind, so I let out the mainsheet, just let the rope go entirely. For a second or two, it looked like things would once again be okay. Then my situation was clarified - the speed with which the unleashed sail swung out was unsettling, but even more unsettling was when it suddenly jerked to a halt. I was out of rope, and there was nothing to be done for it. The Sunfish resumed its leeward lean; I checked to make sure I didn't have my feet caught in the hiking strap and leaped clear just as the boat crashed over.
As I came back above water, I looked around and saw one boat still upright out of the half-dozen people who hadn't made it back to the beach before the gust. The water was quite warm. If you know what it's like to jump into a pool and feel the slight shock of the cold water, it was like that - except that I was surprised by the warmth of the water.
I was in the process of righting my boat - stupid centerboard wouldn't stay in - but the instructor picked me up in the moterboat first. After the wind died down, he took me back out to my boat, and I righted it and sailed back. It made that day quite a bit more interesting than the others. Probably good that I capsized once, at least.
posted on Thursday, July 10, 2003
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I took a sailing class last year at Lake Crabtree, but I'm taking the same class again this year because I forgot quite a lot relating to rigging the sail and suchlike. It spans three days, and today was the second day. It all came back to me rather quickly, and I'm hoping there's something I'll be taught that I really didn't know about before so I'll have something to do besides tack and jive through figure-eights.
Anyway, sailing is great, as long as there's plenty of wind. I don't get stuck in irons anymore, and I haven't tipped over at all this year or last - although I did get close a few times today when I was going for maximum speed.
Trevor came over Sunday night, and there was more Soldat humiliation, and much talking, and watching of Terminator 2, which was a heartily decent movie. My dad and I had watched the first Terminator movie a few nights before, and it really wasn't that great - bad acting, cheesy special effects (even for the '80s), and sex scenes extensive enough that they could be called little else but porno. But the sequel was much better - I think I'll be going to see the... trequel soon.
I need to see some friends sometime soon. Summer's already past the halfway mark, and this has instilled a sense of urgency in me, albeit a lazy one.
posted on Tuesday, July 08, 2003
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Back from camping, armed with several things I considered during the trip and decided should be blogged.
One such thing is the remarkable degree to which rain livens up a natural scene. Maybe it creates a lot more contrast by darkening the ground and brightening the leaves with droplets, or something. However such an effect is established, it cannot be denied by any reasonable person that the interval directly after a rainstorm but before the rain dries off is one of the best times to be outside, especially if it's not too hot.
I also thought about the phrase "Don't prolong the inevitable," (don't remember why I was doing that) and came to the conclusion that it's bull. Death is inevitable; living is prolonging it. But I'm not going to suicide just because I'll die someday. However, my amended version, "Don't prolong what's near at hand" definitely has some merit.
In other news, I came to the decision that my subconscious is not, in fact, out to get me. It's like some blonde secretary who, while entirely benign, often gets dictations hopelessly screwed up and has a hard time finding information she's filed away. But occasionally, she gets it exactly right. The subconscious has a way of poking through a slew of input and bringing the subtly important things to the forefront. Sometimes. When that happens, it is, to quote Gabe of Penny Arcade, "like God smiling at you." But most of the time, my subconscious is frantically struggling with huge stacks of paper, yanking file cabinets open, golden hair in a mess, typing madly away with frequent pauses in which the backspace key is thoroughly mashed.
I also had a angsty rant planned about how sometimes it seems that love is just a vague and circumspect way of satisfying animal impulses, but I don't feel like writing about that anymore.
I still thought that was worth mentioning, though, if only to give myself a chance to use the phrase "vague and circumspect."
Go stare at somebody else!
posted on Saturday, July 05, 2003
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Okay, so actually we're not leaving to go camping until tomorrow (which is Thursday, but it's after midnight on Wednesday night right now), as a result of what edgewalkers call "adverse weather conditions."
What this means is that we're not getting back until Saturday, and I'll be away for the Fourth, meaning I'll miss whatever the gang has decided on for the occupation of that evening. I try not to bitch and whine too much on here, but I'm pissed off, albeit in a dull thumping manner rather than a flaming one. Camping is fun, but only with people with whom I can enjoy myself. Camping with friends would be a blast, absolutely kickass, and I'd do that in a second, given the chance. Come to think of it, I'll have to consider that one...
As I should happen to use the word "consider," may I also point out its rather odd derivations. When I first contemplated the look and feel of the syllables, a certain Latin word was immediately brought to mind - sidus, sideris, meaning "star." With the common prefix "con," the simplest literal meaning for such a verb would be something along the lines of "stars togetherify." The more sensible and less Latinized bits of my brain commented that such a meaning was utterly stupid for a word meaning "to think about."
Well, as it turned out, the "stars togetherify" thing was dead on. The literal meaning of "consider" is basically "to look at constellations in order to foresee future events." Those poor saps in Spanish and French don't have a chance.
But anyway, camping with family ain't much fun, and it's definitely not worth missing a Fourth of July party for.
posted on Thursday, July 03, 2003
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So my parents have decided that since we're paying for the airfare for my brother as well as the rest of his family, we're not going to DC and are instead going camping tomorrow. That's very okay with me. A cooler climate is more than enough to make camping preferable, but I didn't want to go to DC anyway...
There was more I wanted to write, about love and such random topics, but it's time for dinner now. Perhaps later.
posted on Tuesday, July 01, 2003
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