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"Watch another movie
Play another song
Read another passage in the book
Spend another hour
Of just another day
I hope I don't spend way too much time falling asleep
I sure hope that you always know I'll miss you
And I hope that when you sleep you're looking up
’Cause when I rest I think of all those tired times
And I can't sleep when you're gone
Those closed eyes remind me
Of what we have
So please don't open them yet..."
- Week Long Embrace, The Juliana Theory
posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2003
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As is commonly the situation, I was going to write at length about some stuff – in this case, male hormones as opposed to some other stuff. However, I realized in the shower that it could all be rather neatly summarized into the following stream-of-consciousness adaptation/excerpt: "Think happy thoughts... no, not that kind of happy thoughts! For God’s sake!"
If the meaning of this eludes you, I submit that this is probably for the best, and advise you to gaze upon the venerable datastream Motto: "Readability is Our Number One Deficiency!"
posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2003
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I thought I wouldn't see much but clouds today, but now they're blowing out; each time I look, blue and gold have advanced further across the sky.
The gray clouds are only a vast, distant wall on the horizon now. The sun's glare is muted by the whiter, wispier clouds, and it looks like parts of the sky are filled with a vapor of luminescent champagne, a sky to lose oneself in. I feel sometimes that one could gain all worthwhile wisdom by staring at skies like this one.
I am all by myself in the house, since yesterday afternoon and until tomorrow's. This is almost certainly the eye of the hurricane - my parents were not feeling especially well-inclined toward me when they left to go camping - but right now, with no worries and music blasting downstairs, peace and a perverse kind of quiet prevail.
I may well be writing entries on paper and posting them from school for some time; exactly how persistent my parents' wrath is has yet to be seen.
The way the ink flows out of the pen and curls into letters, words, and then thoughts seems so implausible when I look at it.
This is how I plan to spend my weekend, running reels of rambling dimestore philosophy and snickering gently whenever I care to see how true it is, and yet how silly.
posted on Saturday, October 25, 2003
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I'm as dead tired as I was the moment I woke this morning, but the way the sun burned white and violet through a cloud fringe on the way to school made things better somehow.
Can't decide if I'm shallow or just honest. I am probably not the best-qualified judge.
I would love to spend a weekend in town, but it seems that my parents are set on going camping, and on me missing two-thirds of school on Friday. I don't like this idea. The limit of my desire is one morning of sleeping late in my own bed, and one day to spend with friends. I may as well quit writing now because my fingers are starting to spasm through the patterns of swear words.
posted on Thursday, October 23, 2003
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Stupid of me to post now, on account of being very tired and behind on my Latin - hah, I wish it was only my Latin - but the day deserves an account in much the same way as a sword deserves a sharpening. Wonderful - I extricated a metaphor (don't tell me that's a simile, tropes are a fundamentally flawed overlay upon inspired writing) from my rectum (metaphorically speaking; mad snickering) and already I've devised an interpretation for it (another parenthetical expression just for kicks), which is that I desire to put a sharp edge upon a well-forged day, or something.
The current over(ab)use of things that are not similes is perhaps due to my undertaking of a PSAT examination this morning, the three hours of which were not sufficient to produce a full day of school and were therefore sensibly encapsulated in a half-day. This provided ample oppurtunity to partake of some of life's greasier, rustier delights. I refer to the fair. So we went on over there, though without the presence of Trevor and Erica, on account of their being disinclined - for lack of the sympathy needed to cull a more specific term - to first bombard their squishier bits with fatty acids (though what the hell is acidic about them I don't know) and to next repeatedly invert and revert those bits and their fresh contents.
The rest of us didn't have any problems with those prospects and pursued them until we were willing to admit to each other that we were getting bored, and then we took the bus back to the selfsame Park and Ride installment from which we had departed, an event of epic proportions (I'm paraphrasing, badly) as Gabriel Syme might have put it. Claire, Elena, Hannah and myself were the only ones still present at this point (Diana, Sam and Carolina having left earlier), and Claire was soon removed from our number by so sinister an event as the arrival of one or another of her parental units. We three remaining, not looking to departure with any great longing, went to an appealing spot (very nearby) in the shade of several large trees and reclined on some small platform by a humble stream, and told of past woundings and other, less painful events.
Then was the ride home with Hannah; the sky was spectacular, just beginning to warm to the hues of sunset, and it was good just being there. Arrival at home brought procrastination, and this is one of the baroquely worthless products. I bid anyone who reads this a beautiful night, whenever that night may occur for you. Sometime I will enjoy that beauty to its unlikely limit, but tonight as usual I sleep trading that dream for others, in the hopes that I will have more chances and the wit to seize them.
posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003
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I don't recall having ever read anything by Thoreau before, but in the course of my APUSH homework I read a short excerpt from something that he wrote.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach... I was struck to find that his words are, though much more eloquent and easily understood by the reader, similar in meaning to my own. It's a thought that's come to me many times and that I've occasionally talked about with others, and seeing that such an idea was published over a century ago is a little startling.
And now I find that he says, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," I myself having used the phrase "quiet and desperate" to describe people only a few weeks ago! What is this...
posted on Monday, October 20, 2003
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One of the most useless pastimes in the world is trying to dredge up passion when it just isn't there.
posted on Sunday, October 19, 2003
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I'm now back from a previously unmentioned vacation, which began on Wednesday, the first full day of this five day weekend. The first day was spent driving to Williamsburg, the second meandering around historical sites in Williamsburg, the third at Busch Gardens and the fourth meandering around a few more historical sites and driving back. My most distinct memory from Busch Gardens is riding Apollo's Chariot in the dark, and afterward, seeing that the camera had caught me in the midst of three strangers with hands upraised, pinky and index fingers extended, and a huge grin on my face. I also saw Trevor there, earlier on in the day. I'd been to the same historical sites before, though, and they weren't very interesting this time either, and Trevor wasn't at any of those, which I envy him for.
At one point, while standing around being bored, I heard some passing stranger mention ultralights. Hey, I thought, ultralights are pretty cool, maybe I can get a job building ultralights - let's see, I'd need to learn about engines, aerodynamics, lightweight materials... and that was about the time I realized that ultralights probably are not a profitable enterprise, a hobby at best. Would be a cool hobby, though.
And I had a lot of things in my mind in those bored moments, things I meant to carry back inside my head so that I could put them somewhere else - on here perhaps, or maybe just (briefly) in other people's heads. But all the worthwhile parts of those thoughts somehow trickled away, leaving only the thesis statements that I used as mnemonics, dusty skeletons that I can't flesh out into anything interesting to myself or anyone else. I don't have the least idea anymore what it was that made me dwell on those things, laugh to myself, or why I cared about them in the first place. It's merely due to the fact that many things are only briefly interesting, I suppose, though for an inscrutable cause, packrat instinct perhaps, I don't want to discard those relics unsaid.
Consolidation (necessary because the above paragraph is more or less incomprehensible): a thought is generally not worth mentioning once the act of mentioning becomes more important than the thought itself.
Chris makes great magic:
on useless shards of chaos,
bad poetry thrives.
posted on Saturday, October 18, 2003
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"Do your best." What an outrageous, stupid request to make of any student. I wasn't provoked by that phrase at school today, or anytime recently; I just started thinking about it while I vacuumed and continued through the dishes. I have never, ever done my best at anything. I don't even know what I'm capable of. But asking someone's best is not something for school, or sports, or any kind of normal situation. It's for a time when it's truly needed, when the consequences could be more than severe inconvenience or humiliation.
I hear people saying that they don't deserve a bad grade, that they tried their best. Could anyone truly claim that they give every ounce of their strength and will to anything they encounter in high school? Or even in college? Nor should they try, because there's very little that's worth that kind of sacrifice.
Doubtless, many go through life without ever doing their best at anything. I don't want to be one of those; I want to be able to look back and point to something that was worth fighting for. But I will not ever claim to have done my best on anything in high school.
posted on Monday, October 13, 2003
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Got into bed at two in the morning last night and stayed there for twelve hours. Madness. But subdued, benign madness, because it's not a very appealing day.
Also, I glanced in the mirror this morning and realized I do actually share some facial features with Mingo. Weird, not only because I don't have any of his Saipanese (whatever the term may be), but also because I don't think of him much anymore. He's very much someone else, somewhere else.
posted on Saturday, October 11, 2003
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What to say about this week? Very Octobery, I guess. Not so cold this week, though, and that's a plus.
... don't feel very strongly about much, except for one thing, one of those "I don't want everyone to know about this" things.
I hate making posts like this. Life is fairly empty, thus should be the blog. But a lot of people seem vaguely quiet and desperate... maybe that's just me. I am, even if nobody else is.
In my dreams I'll spend one of these dead lonely nights walking hand in hand through crisp new snow, with neither cause nor desire to stop, nor destination. Aimless wandering, no direction but never circling. Dead trees and cold, so I can feel her life and warmth. An endless waking dream, all through the night and snow. Wake to another colorless day through which to plod, asleep on my feet, cherishing the same tarnished dreams behind open eyes. Strolling the fields of heaven with an angel by my side.
posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003
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People should be sent to jail on account of days like mine. I spent the afternoon and evening doing little else than sleeping, talking, reading, and drawing rabbits. Most people should probably just ignore that last one, although I did manage to draw a decent rabbit (the so-called Cuniculus colloquius).
posted on Sunday, October 05, 2003
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It seems I've got a cold following me through the vast expanse of a three-day weekend, but yesterday was still a bona fide good day.
The weather was beautiful, but I was feeling a bit beneath it and so was a bit reluctant to go when Hannah called to ask about a walk. Didn't take long for me to realize that I'd be a fool not to enjoy sunshine and company when both were available, though, so I changed my mind and went. We took a meandering detour or two and tried out the swings and undersized playground equipment in the area where we'd briefly taken shelter in the past summer's glorious rainstorm. And talked, naturally (I say "naturally" as if things were always that way; how easy to forget). It all seemed a bit surreal, but wonderfully so.
Today, church was a drag and the uninvited residents of my nasal regions went on the offensive. I wish I could see the conflict so I could cheer on my antibodies... go, guys, go! Rah, rah, rah!...
But no school tomorrow, and that certainty eases a Sunday's passing.
I was vacuuming last night and started getting little lines of verse running through my head, and wrote them down so I wouldn't forget. Later, as is the convention, I realized they were crap and tossed them into the trash. I think one of the tricks to writing good poetry is to write stuff that isn't specific to a single, narrow mood and mindset. Not that there's not loads more to poetry than that, but that's the first big hurdle for me.
I think when people write flurries of bad poetry it's a sign that their glands are belching.
posted on Sunday, October 05, 2003
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posted on Friday, October 03, 2003
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My brain has frozen over and cold weather takes all the color out of the world.
I was pretty stupid last year, looking for someone to warm my thoughts over...
I think I'm doing better this time, but it's all only started and that wouldn't mean much anyway, damn it.
Stapleton was talking in Latin class today about how everything is transient. I don't remember how he got on that tangent, but he started off by saying that he didn't believe in having a "high school sweetheart," as he put it. He talked about how high school is over so quickly, and nobody marries their high school sweetheart anyway.
I don't disagree with Stapleton often (at least, not on things unrelating to translational technicalities), but... I don't care how transient high school is, really, because the present is moving so damn slow, even though the past and future are going a lot faster.
I still don't know about this whole "love" thing. I'd like to believe in it. I've gotten two relationships better at knowing what love isn't, and this brings me some encouragement that I might someday get it right. Regardless, if I'm in love, I'm not going to let any transiency bullshit stick to my shoes. Nobody in their right heart would.
I will do better this time.
posted on Thursday, October 02, 2003
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