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First plan for this afternoon was to go watch some musical, 1776, in Movies & History Club. Today it became apparent that I wouldn't be able to get a ride back (facts were arranged contrary to that beforehand) from the Armadillo Grill in the evening. So much for Elena's earnest attempts and triumphant success at persuading me to go (I wasn't so keen on the movie).
Second plan came up in fourth period when Amy asked me if I wanted to go see SWAT after school. I couldn't think of any inhibiting factors and said I'd try to be there. Ilona, the silent one, was going to be there as well, which would probably have proved interesting considering that I know absolutely zero about her, besides that she takes Latin and is rather quiet.
Anyway, I remembered after school that today was Grandma's birthday, and that we were going out to dinner on the early side, so I had to cancel that too. I'm heading off to dinner soon...
posted on Friday, August 29, 2003
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"He could only remember that gradually and naturally he knew that he was and had been walking along a country lane with an easy and conversational companion... They were walking like old friends, and were in the middle of a conversation about some triviality. But Syme could only feel an unnatural buoyancy in his body and a crystal simplicity in his mind that seemed to be superior to everything that he said or did. He felt he was in possession of some impossible good news, which made every other thing a triviality, but an adorable triviality. Dawn was breaking over everything in colours at once clear and timid; as if Nature made a first attempt at yellow and a first attempt at rose. A breeze blew so clean and sweet that one could not think that it blew from the sky; it blew rather through some hole in the sky. Syme felt a simple surprise when he saw rising all round him on both sides of the road the red, irregular buildings of Saffron Park. He had no idea that he had walked so near to London. He walked by instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl."
- The Man Who was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton
I just finished reading that book for maybe the third time (the quote is from the very end), and... well, I don't feel rash calling it the best book I've ever read. At first thought, it seems ironic that the reason I read the book was that there were various passages of it scattered throughout the world of Deus Ex; but the more I think about it, the more the two seem to go hand in hand. If I were ever to talk to one of the designers of that game, the first question I'd ask would be how much influence The Man Who was Thursday, thematically, had on the game. (One obvious and perhaps crass example that comes to mind is the bit of the game where J.C. Denton is given a code to type into a seeming broken telephone in a secluded booth, and the elevator twists around and descends into an NSF hideout. It seems very similar to Syme's descent into the anarchists' lair.) The sheer attitudes of the game, the blending of the mundane and the colossal, the thoughts that flow through one's mind as one stares up into the pre-dawn sky of Hong Kong... that game was a work of genius. It had its lackluster bits, without a doubt; some parts where it was all shooting and sneaking. But taken as a whole, it was unforgettable.
And as for the book... hilarious, profound, fantastic, compelling - containing all the best things about literature, and happily devoid of the ideological, point-pushing crap with which curriculum designers are apparently smitten.
The complete online text of The Man Who was Thursday can be found here; extensive information about and textual content from Deus Ex is located here.
posted on Thursday, August 28, 2003
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Today was more or less wasted. Sleep, games, melancholy CG art, meals. I should've called someone, found someone to hang out with, anything. That was what, last night, I told myself I'd do. I forgot until just about now.
Church tomorrow, great. Sundays go so much better when they're not started off with church, even if the time is spent sleeping.
But hey, I can beat that guy Apex in Soldat deathmatch now, and he used to routinely kick my ass. That's worth something.
posted on Saturday, August 23, 2003
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"And you're, you're not here
And I can't stop pretending
That you're forever mine
And I
I can't dream anymore, since you left
I miss you singing me to sleep
I can't wake anymore in your arms
I miss you singing me to sleep...
'Cheer up,' my friends all say
And I can't stop pretending
That you're forever mine
'You're better alone anyway'..."
- Dressed to Kill, New Found Glory
"How many times I've tried
It's simple to you, so simple to lie
How many times I've tried
Blatant mistakes of your design...
Have I waited too long
Have I found that someone
Have I waited too long
To see you
I've had so many chances
Turned my back and I ran away
I've had so many chances
To see you..."
- Hit or Miss, New Found Glory
"What do I have to do
To get through all of this?
I'm writing it down
Just leave me here
And tell me to my face
What you think about
Can we figure out
What happened to our happy ending anyway
How you feel about
Leaving me here
With a lot more left to say..."
- Sucker, New Found Glory
I'm continually astonished to find how much I still like New Found Glory after, what, four years? Needless to say, I've been listening to their self-titled album recently.
posted on Friday, August 22, 2003
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Junior year is supposed to be a bitch, especially with a half-AP-or-more-esque course load, but thus far it seems easy, startlingly easy, frighteningly easy. Easy to the point that I actually have, at the very least, several free hours to sleep or mess around or hang out. In terms of actual homework... I think I might even have less than last year. Computer Science is easy; AP English is easy (although the teacher's horrid - it's like having Ms. Paul all over again; the two even have very similar voice and manner); Latin III is a little tough but fun and not time-consuming; AP Physics B is easy and I like it a lot anyway; AP US History is a little dull, with a lot of reading, but not difficult (yet); Calculus AB is easy thus far, even if Wajima isn't the best teacher.
It's now a Friday, as it was on the post preceding this, but the time elapsed does not really seem to have been a whole week. Time isn't flowing at all normally; it's definitely been more than two weeks since school started, and less than a week since last Friday...
Right now I'm in Computer Science, first period, and Rini is beside me with a fever so high her face is flushed and her hands are shaking. Erica and I actually had to walk her to class. I'm more than a little worried...
posted on Friday, August 22, 2003
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Weird-energy, as it has been recently verified (observe below), is most readily acquired through being imbalanced just so from lack of sleep.
posted on Friday, August 15, 2003
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As a result of an as-yet-unaccounted-for passage of time, today was First Friday (capitalized because it's quite the big occasion at our school), and we had sort of thought it would be fun to do something after the manifold festivities. So I made fun of SLA for a while (this involved chewing on bits of their forms), talked to people, had some kind of pizza and some kind of soda, and eventually got in Elena's car because, so it was said, we were Going Somewhere. Somewhere, it was said, after the application of instruments of torture, consisted of a movie at Mission Valley Cinema. Elena's sister would've been stuck at Halifax if we'd left her, so we had to take her along. There were very few parties in favor of this idea, but since Elena's parents were included in this small gathering, its execution tended toward mandatory.
Anyway, it was a cool trip there - Elena's route took us through some really strikingly beautiful parts of Raleigh, places the residential requirements of which include A) having gotten there when it was a bit cheaper, or B) wads of cash, big ones. Some good pop-punk, some snappy accelerations, and the way girls' hair blows in the wind composed the kind of ride where you can just feel stress evaporating.
This turned out to be even better than I thought at the time, because things started getting troublesome around then. First, Mission Valley was only showing five movies, and they were all crap; so we went over to Blue Ridge. There more than five movies were being shown, but most of those were crap too, and the ones that weren't were being shown at extraordinarily inconvenient times. For us, that is.
Thus it came to pass that the eyes of those gathered there were opened, and the people cried out in anger and wept bitter tears at their plight; for their options had been dashed to pieces, as waves dash the fragile driftwood against the cliff; and their plans had come to naught. But the gods do not destroy without purpose, and it was explained to the people that Fate frowns upon those who do not make pilgrimages to triangle.citysearch.com and behold the prophecies graven there.
In our case, Fate didn't so much frown as snarl at us, and ranting and stern words were exchanged. We eventually decided that a movie was more or less out for the day, and went to a coffee shop to hang out, and later, a restaurant. These turned out to be pretty good choices, and people chilled, calmed down, began to have a good time. In the restaurant, though, I began to feel worn a bit thin when Sam and Trevor began hurling cups of ice water at each other, and eventually went outside and sat at a table there to get away from the fluorescents and what struck as idiocy at the time. I felt more tired than cranky just then.
Diana came out after a couple minutes, asked me if I was okay. I said yes, like almost anyone would unless feeling totally awful, which I wasn't. I guess I had been a little cranky, though, because after we talked for a while I realized I was feeling better, leading to the obvious conclusion that I'd been feeling worse beforehand. So we talked for a really long time; she did a lot of the talking, naturally, but I like to listen and she likes to talk and that works pretty well.
Elena came out towards and joined the conversation, and we actually talked until Hannah's dad got there, at which point it was time to go. Trevor and I both hitched a ride home, and a brief conversation on ABC stores, more specifically their absence in Kentucky, led me to make some comment on moonshining in Kentucky. This in turn led to some stories on Mr. Hoersting's part, about how he'd worked for a liquor store and delivered booze from the Kentucky side of Cincinnati to the Ohio side. Great stuff (the stories, I mean).
On a less chronical and more introspective tack, I've begun thinking lately that I should probably be a bit less possessive. It's a tough reality for a single guy (with no definite prospects) to realize, not only that one cannot have every pretty girl who passes through his gaze, but also that unless one is a very specific variety of rapscallion, one female is the limit. With such a reality in mind, I should probably try to get used to the idea that all the girls I know who are currently single will someday have boyfriends, and that most, if not all, of those boyfriends will not be me. Not too disheartening a concept in most cases, but there's a particular instance in which that reality is nothing less than heartbreaking. True love? Close enough to make me punch walls in anticipation of future regret. At times, the only thing holding me back is my conviction that love has a certain quantum quality: you don't know if it's real or not until you actually observe it in action; and I'm not sure if I want to know the answer.
posted on Friday, August 15, 2003
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For some reason, I was feeling very unhappy about school for the first few days, but on today (the third day) I'm feeling substantially better about it.
I don't have many classes with many friends - in fact, all my good friends except Trevor and Jake are conspicuously absent from all of my classes - but getting to know new people is generally fun, I guess.
I've got the sort of sleeplack that's rather hard to alleviate, on account of the fact that my body is set against the idea of falling asleep at a reasonable, school-night time. Thoughts ricochet around my brain now and then, but they have no apparent connection to each other.
It's going to be a long year. But I think I can make it to this weekend.
posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003
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Of all the things not to be done the day before starting junior year, first and foremost in my mind is not listening to music that inevitably takes me back to a time when reality was as simple as a night sky filled with blazing stars, quiet music, and a dusty gravel road. At times like that, I can't be persuaded that anything but the moment really matters. The past is behind, and the future doesn't start until tomorrow, and it's not unreasonable to think that eternity could pass before the sun rises.
I think it's only times like that when I can completely love someone, when I'm caught up in the moment, when I can forget or outright deny the question of how I'll feel in a week. I wish I could be that carefree all the time. Maybe if I could stop worrying about changing feelings, I could stay in love forever. There's nothing I want more. But unless some wrench gets tossed in the gears of time, it seems that I can't stay that way - madly in love, utterly without doubt - for much more than a few hours.
Bad thoughts to be having before the first day of school, especially since I still haven't finished all my summer homework. This is, in all likelihood, altogether too prophetic of the coming year.
posted on Sunday, August 10, 2003
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Going to the Dellingers' felt like stepping out of the real world.
Their house is of unimposing size, built of stone and covered in places with vines. It's set about forty feet back from a quiet road which winds over a small mountain. Their situation on the mountain is such that the trees don't block much of the view from the porch. So when you sit on this porch, and happen to glance out over the road - you're staring off at the Appalachins.
Stepping inside, you will notice a number of things. This is not surprising. The first really surprising thing, which you probably won't notice first - but not long after, either - is the books, stacked on shelves, lying on tables, sitting upon chairs. If you go upstairs, you will have the impression that some new and revolutionary form of insulation has been invented, one that actually sits within the walls and consists almost entirely of paper and ink. This was where I slept.
Roughly two-thirds of the windows are open all the time, and it doesn't matter because the air is even now quite cool. I received two mosquito bites while I was sitting outside for a period of about four hours. At home, even I could not go that long without receiving a dozen or so bites unless there were to be some hapless female in the vicinity, too tender-skinned for her own good (in this matter).
The idea of going to see Mr. Dellinger was originally hatched, at least in part, when Trevor and I wondered what he'd think of our current respective spiritual conditions. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Mr. Dellinger was responsible, by teaching us to know what we believe and why, for the kind of thoughts that led to a night - and a following year - of honesty with myself.
When we first told him, the first thing he said was, "Oh," followed by, "Well, that's good." Mr. Dellinger being a Christian, this was somewhat of a surprising statement. When asked what he meant, he responded, "It's good that you know why you don't believe." I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that that remark meant more than is apparent to me.
Lengthy discussions followed. The greatest amount of time was taken up arguing specific cases of inconsistency. That really wasn't so much my cup of tea, even though I did interject a comment here and there. I'm not nearly so much interested in disproving Christianity as in demonstrating a lack of evidence pertaining specifically to Christianity.
Overall, he didn't seem to surprised about it. In fact, the discussion wasn't too different from the sort we'd have in Bible and Teen Culture, way back in 8th grade, when we still professed to be Christians. I guess this is the sort of thing he expected from budding skeptics.
In any case, this was the best way I can think of to bid farewell to summer.
posted on Saturday, August 09, 2003
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Today was the book fair, and I can unfortunately no longer ignore this approaching hell, to the ink-fueled flames of which I've first unwittingly consigned and then unwillingly resigned myself to. But disregarding infernal allusions, today was a Good Day (TM).
Mostly because it was great seeing all those friends again. To tell the truth, I'm not sure what else was great. Having dinner with people (nine of us around a table about three-and-a-half feet in diamater!) at the Armadillo Grill was fun too - sed illum cadere puto in umbra primi. Maybe I just like seeing school again, even if I can already feel those four APs bearing down on me like some damsel in distress, or perhaps hazing victim, feels a train rumbling inexorably towards one's track-bound self.
Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow with Trevor to go see Mr. Dellinger, who I've not seen since around the start of freshman year. He's being amazingly cool enough to give us a place to spend the night, so we won't have to make the Raleigh-Ashville run twice in the same day. I plan to use that travel time to get some much-needed time in on my AP US History summer homework. Bastards. Those teachers need someone to teach them what "vacation" means.
posted on Wednesday, August 06, 2003
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