"Dogma"

"Dogma" - KMFDM

All we want is a headrush;
All we want is to get out of our skin for awhile.
We have nothing to lose because we don't have anything...
... anything we want, anyway.

We used to hate people;
Now we just make fun of them -
It's more effective that way.

We don't live; we just scratch on day to day,
With nothing but matchbooks and sarcasm in our pockets,
And all we're waiting for is for something worth waiting for.

Let's admit America gets the celebrities we deserve;
Let's stop saying "Don't quote me,"
Because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying!

Sex, drugs, god, cash;
Sex, drugs, god... America!

We need something to kill the pain of all that nothing inside!

Sex, drugs, god, cash;
Sex, drugs, god... America!

We all just want to die, a little bit...

We fear that pop culture is the only kind of culture we're ever gonna have;
We want to stop reading magazines,
Stop watching TV,
Stop caring about Hollywood -
But we're addicted to the things we hate.

We don't run Washington -
And no one really does;
Ask not what you can do for your country...
Ask what your country did to you!

Sex, drugs, god, cash;
Sex, drugs, god... America!

The only reason you're still alive is because someone has decided to let you live!

Sex, drugs, god, cash;
Sex, drugs, god... America!

We owe so much money we're not "broke" -
We're broken!
We're so poor we can't even pay attention!

So what do you want?
You want to be famous, and rich, and happy,
But you're terrified you have nothing to offer this world?
Nothing to say, and no way to say it?
-- But you can say it in three languages?

You are more than the sum of what you consume!
Desire is not an occupation!
You are alternately thrilled and desperate:
Sky-high and fucked!

Let's stop praying for someone to save us and start saving ourselves;
Let's stop this and start over.

Let's go out -
Let's keep going.

Sex, drugs, god, cash;
Sex, drugs, god... America!

This is your life -
This is your fucking life!

Sex, drugs, god, cash;
Sex, drugs, god... America!

You need something to kill the pain of all that nothing inside...

Sex, drugs, god, cash;
Sex, drugs, god... America!

Someone's writing down your mistakes...
Someone's documenting your downfall...

Snowball storytelling

There once was a man from Ferndale... he was a strange, wicked little man, with aspirations of world domination - but shy.
One fine evening in the summer of '02, he was struck by a craving for gourmet pizza pie!

But alas, his craving occurred at a most unfortunate time: 3:18 AM.
— And, tragically, the last pizza joint had closed at 3:17.

So he grabbed his Swiss army knife, and set out to find him some pizza! ... by FORCE!

The first topping he encountered was a gnarled old woman in a shopping cart.
"Yes, she'll make lovely pepperoni!" he thought.

So he chopped her up into delicate little circles and stuffed them in a plastic grocery bag.
(Handy things, those. He has lots).

The next topping he encountered was a beastly giant squirrel!
Ebon of hair and ghastly of stare, the thing tried to fight...

... but lost, sorely! With a few slashes, a poke, a grunt and a drop of sweat, the critter became his sausage bits. Into the bag!

Next on his list to find were vegetables... so onward he trekked, to the local bar and grill - it was a popular biker hangout, and everyone knows that bikers are FANTASTIC vegetables.
Stalking around the corner of the building, he saw a perfect specimen!

With a huff and a puff, he blew the line of choppers onto their unsuspecting owners, and before they could react, he attacked!

Suddenly, Iron Maiden appeared out of thin air and began playing a great battle hymn worthy of his pursuit. On he charged!

In a mere matter of seconds, a score of bloodied bikers brayed helplessly as our hungry hero carved this vegetable and that: onions, bell peppers, fresh artichokes and more from the hides of the hideous little biker boors - until he could carry no more.

Then, satisfied with his haul, he turned 'round and spied a fresh fruit taking a smoke break, just leaning against the wall...

— With a flourish, and a crash of guitar, he leaped to a crouch and lashed out with his gauche and scored him a fresh tomato! Just like that! Wahoo!

Ingredients complete, our hero hopped to his feet and returned to his humble abode with his treat.

One hour later, his pizza was done, his belly was full, and his tongue was recovering from all of the fun - and he said to himself,

"Now, I think I could use some pork buns!"

.... and so the story ends.

— FOR NOW.

How many times can you make a different mistake with the same outcome as the last?!

I've been really frustrated this past couple of months. At myself, for once. Where do I start?

A couple of years ago, I briefly dated a girl who I thought was pretty freakin' awesome. She's super smart, super cute, and she's a complete cuddle-fiend. She's just a generally positive person, and every time I touched her I could feel those happy emanations from her like they were heat. Pretty much, she had most of the essential qualities I wanted in somebody I could share my life with. I always associate the color green with her; let's call this magical lady "Emerald."

We broke up under uncertain circumstances after only a couple of months together; I wasn't sure what was really going on with her when she ended things--I could tell there was more on her mind than the little she shared with me at that point--but before dating her I'd been in about the worst relationship ever - and I had vowed when it ended that I wasn't going to go out on a limb for anyone anymore. I'm normally the glue that holds my relationships together. I'd had enough. (Solo glue doesn't get much love from the junk it keeps from falling apart, it seems. I know this now). When Emerald broke up with me, it just happened to be at the one point in my life where I just said... "Okay. Whatever," and let it run its course. I had plenty of other things going on in my life, so I didn't have a lot of time to think about it - which was both good and bad, in retrospect. If I'd tried, I could've probably worked things out with her. But... I didn't. Anyway, on we go.

Shortly thereafter, I started dating somebody else (no, I'm not a serial dater; it was just chance) that I actually grew to love very, very much. We'll call this girl... oh, hell, she'll never see this: her name was Meagan. She was a very different person than Emerald, but no less special. She really wasn't the kind of girl I'd normally date - certainly not what I'd always considered to be "my type," if there is such a thing. She was a lot more... normal. More girly, but also a tomboy, and she had a huge heart for me and her then 3 year old son, Logan. Great kid, great mother, though her and I clashed on quite a lot; despite that, after a year with her there wasn't a doubt in my mind that this was somebody I wanted to start a family with, and somebody I could easily be with forever. She was capable--albeit very reluctant--of communicating with me at a level that allowed us to work through whatever differences came up. We usually had discussions, not fights - and finished with understanding, rather than compromise. It all seemed perfect. That's what I thought, anyway - turns out I was wrong.

Not long after I began the quest to find Meagan the perfect engagement ring, she started a new job, and then a couple weeks later stopped talking to me - just completely shut down. It was March, 2008. I knew the first day that something was wrong, but nothing I could do would get her to open up to me about it. A couple of days after those first signs of trouble, we stopped having sex; we stopped touching; we stopped being intimate in any way. She'd become completely cold. She said she needed space, and she'd work out what was bothering her on her own, and that she just needed me to give her some time. A couple weeks after that, I started sleeping on the couch - and she never did work it out. I never found out what was going on, and now a year and change later I still don't know. I've never been the clueless boyfriend, but for once I honestly haven't the faintest idea what happened that time. We don't talk anymore, so I'm sure I probably never will. I miss Logan, and I wish she would've let me help just for his sake, even. I worry about him a lot, but that's a whole 'nother thing I won't get into right now.

Meagan and I tried to make the roommates arrangement work for both of us, but after a few months I ended up moving out. There was too much memory for me, and not enough space for her new friends and new things that came after me. Every day I dreaded the possibility that she'd bring some other guy home, and I'd have one more unsolved mystery to add to the already unmanageable list attached to her name. I got out before that could happen.

So a few years after our initial romp, Emerald is a bit more grown up, I'm all grown up, and the playing field is a bit more level between us - though I haven't thought about it yet. I have my own place, have found my own happiness, and only think about Meagan and Logan maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Things are looking up. Progress, right?

During the course of trying to figure out why Meagan didn't work out, (another daily routine at the time, though more habitual than necessary by that point), I got to thinking about her qualities and shortcomings which might have contributed to the mystery, and in a roundabout way it led me to thinking about Emerald. I'm not completely sure why, but she popped into my head one day: a random and pleasant memory--though equally as confusing as Meagan--on a train of thought that was otherwise pretty bleak and depressing. I always remembered her very fondly, as I'd become very attached while we were together - even though it was a fairly short time we'd had back then. Our differences had certainly been exaggerated by different maturity levels in various aspects of life, but it was one of the "good" times of my life. If I hadn't had so much going on when Emerald and I first broke up, it would've been her stuck in the endless loop in my head every day for months, for sure.

Then, suddenly, it was January of this year, 2009; and I was thinking about her again. I found myself wondering if she would've ended up doing the same thing to me as Meagan had, and I knew as soon as I thought it that she wouldn't have. It made me really miss her. A lot. And it made me wonder if maybe hers was a relationship that was still salvageable. If I've learned anything from the last 2 years of my life, it's that truly precious things and people are rare, and even more rarely last as long as you hope they will. So I looked her up. I wasn't about to let another opportunity float by without at least reaching for it first.

Emerald and I hadn't parted on the best of terms due to me just letting the whole thing slide on its own, and I had a lot of explaining to do - but I did it. I'd had a lot of time to think about my reasons for not pursuing the relationship with her more aggressively, and for not fighting to keep it alive when it started to falter. I know myself a lot better now than I did even as the very mature young adult that I had been the last time we'd seen each other. Her reaction was understandably hostile and skeptical at first; why hadn't I said any of this earlier, before or just after we'd broken up?; why now? Valid questions, all - and fortunately for me, I knew the answers to all of them, and I answered truthfully. And, impressively, she listened.

We began speaking again, then, and somehow connected in the same way we had before; we just sort of picked up where we'd left off 2 years prior, and it felt really good - like taking care of some extremely important unfinished business.
And then I completely screwed it up. Yeah.

See, I'm normally a pretty happy guy; I'm a realist, and I see life and its contents for what they really are. However, I'm also an absolutely insatiable dreamer. Potential is everywhere; it's usually tough to get me down, and usually tougher to keep me down. What I didn't really realize--and what I'm still realizing--is how cynical and jaded my experience with Meagan has encouraged me to be. I range between two polar opposites in my approach to life: seeing the potential and celebrating every step made toward it, or seeing that potential and loathing people for their apathy towards it. Obviously it hurt me a lot to end such a significant chapter of my life on that kind of a down note, so I wouldn't expect to be completely over that residual cynicism for quite awhile (if ever), but by the time Emerald and I started talking again, I really thought I'd at least gotten it under control.
Well... I was wrong.

I still have these bursts of negativity whenever I think about Meagan which outright pollute whatever else is going on at the moment; to make matters worse, my new roommate and I had a huge falling out about the same time Emerald and I got back in touch, which has been/still is causing me a boat load of additional stress. Still, I'm a survivor; I'm the one who copes and gets through it. I don't make excuses. Usually.

So Emerald and I jump right back into our old relationship in this new environment, and I'm too excited about it to really stop and think about the fact that I probably wasn't ready to get in that deep quite so soon. As it turns out, I should've figured that out beforehand. My baggage was too much; it started to affect her right away despite my best efforts to keep it in hiding, and it ended up ruining things between us even more quickly than the last time 2 years ago! Grr!

I'm just pissed at myself! I hate hurting people, and I hate that doing so accidentally--or negligently, as is more probably the case here--has taken away all of the credibility I worked to create after not fighting for her years ago when it might've mattered. Now, as willing as I am to do whatever it takes, it doesn't matter, because the damage is already done! I'm really not a stupid person - not even for a guy, and I'm trying to tell myself that my track record is virtually spotless in comparison to the average joe, but I can't shake the realization that my recent poor moods have combined with the past's poor circumstances to culminate in a total loss. Emerald is a great girl - WAS a great girl; now, due to my own lack of foresight, I blew it, lost her, and for once it's my own damn fault!

Fuck!

This is not the kind of irony I enjoy.

I'm sorry, Emerald.

Lesson learned.

Arseholes!

... they killed Kutner! SON OF A BITCH!


That is all.

The secrets of life.

Here you go, folks. This is the comprehensive meaning of life...

... really. It is. So read it, learn it, and get started.

---------------------------------------------------

The perception of "arrogance" in others is most often generated by the failure to recognize ignorance in--and/or of--one's own self. Rather than become a focus for your frustration, these reflections of your own shortcomings should be cause for striving to achieve a higher state of enlightenment.

We are imperfect creatures by nature - but we have evolved to the point that we each possess the ability to correct our own imperfections and, in fact, exceed all preconceived notions of our own limitations.

We have infinite potential, limited only by our choices to either exercise our imaginations and reason, or let them stagnate.

However, given the fact that all humans now exist--to varying degrees--as social entities within a larger unifying construct, all members are affected by all other members. To allow one's personal development to remain neutral, or even decay, is to force such neutrality or decay upon all other members of the collective. To not invest completely in one's own enlightenment as the most fundamental and important matter of each moment of life is to weigh down the continued evolution and progression of the human race.

Every instant of denial constitutes an injustice against every living thing.

Every individual's moments of ungoverned weakness each bring us all one step closer to extinction.

Ignorance is never a worthy excuse.

Failure is necessary; failure to try is criminal.

Apathy is the ultimate transgression against oneself, as it is against all others.



Failure will bring about the death of our past, present, and future...
...but our gift as human beings is the singular ability to truly govern inevitability.



-- and almost none of us use it.

---------------------------------------------------

As a great artist sang:
"Thinking hurts and thoughts don't rhyme
To those of us who've never tried
To find a face behind our lipstick smiles;
And as our pretty faces die,
Our broken hearts will wonder why
The makeup just won't hide the scars of time."

Word of the day

And the word of the day is...

lamesauce

Interpretive Audio Journal: "No time to..."

B R E A T H E

More than just boredom

I'm perpetually alternating between feeling that I'm wasting my life, and feeling that there's nothing truly constructive I could be doing anyway.

I'm capable of succeeding--no, excelling--at anything I put my mind to doing. I'm good at everything. Concepts I don't already have a firm grasp of are second-nature to learn. I can't remember the last time I was challenged by anything except my patience.

You'd think this would make the world my oyster. I'm supposed to be the special prodigy whose options are unlimited, who has infinite potential and who only wants for something until he decides he actually wants it. People who know me tell me I'm "destined" to be a pillar for something greater in life, and that seems to make sense.

My brain is constantly occupied with those great thoughts of what needs to be done versus what's actually going on, on a social and often global scale. I understand the reasons governing why any given event occurs, and I see what's coming next. Everything is so simple to me that I honestly wonder how it's even possible that our world can often be such a terrible place to be a human being.

I refuse to believe that nobody else truly understands. Everybody else just lives in denial - and the responsibility for their INactions falls on the shoulders of people like myself--are there others like me?--who not only know better but realize that the balance must be maintained no matter how much sacrifice it requires. So I give and I give and I give EVERYTHING, expecting nothing back - but knowing that I don't really have a choice in that regard, anyway. Why? Are all the people I help in the course of my life going to suddenly have an epiphany someday and realize how much of a drain they are on society, on the people who love them, the people they pretend to love back? How exactly am I changing the world, here? I see everything, sure - but I don't see it.

Every day I wake up feeling absolutely flattened by the weight of this responsibility; I feel like if I were in "charge" of everything, I could fix it all. I know I could... it's really not just a feeling. But I don't want to be in charge! Just being in charge of MYSELF is difficult enough that the majority of other people in the same situation just pretend that no such maintenance is necessary! And the fraction of my energy that I have left for myself just keeps shrinking as time goes on; it's long past the point where I feel like the most significant aspects of who I am remain woven into the lives of people I've cared about in the past. I don't feel like I have anything left. I don't know why I get up in the morning. I don't know what to do with myself and even if I did, I wouldn't know HOW to do so.

I've never just been "me" before. I've always been "me the boyfriend/brother/son/friend/whatever" - and I don't resent any of that; I wouldn't give up any of that for anything, because I know that those efforts DO matter in the lives of certain individuals. But I can't shake the constant feeling that there's just not enough left of "just me" to constitute anything tangible anymore. I feel like a vast nexus of broken links to people and places and feelings and memories, and I have no idea how to escape that identity or function outside of it. I'm really not confident that there IS anything beyond it anymore.

I want the world and my friends and my family and everything else to fix themselves, just like I have always fixed myself. I'm tired of being the go-to guy for everyone else's answers time and time again, even though I tell myself I'm making some kind of positive difference by making myself available for that purpose. I just don't feel it. For as long as I can remember, I've always felt like I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders out of sheer necessity - picking up the slack for everyone else because I know nobody else will. And somebody HAS to do it! As proud as I am of the good things I know I've done, I feel like I have absolutely nothing to show for it.

I can't relate to anybody anymore, if I ever even could. I'm not sure I have any concept of true "self" left. Whenever I manage to come up with something I could do to occupy myself other than picking up somebody else's pieces, it takes me the space of a minute or two to follow that something's train of thought to completion; I see myself doing it, the possible immediate results, each result's progressively more distant repercussions, and I see that none of it means a damn thing.

Is there supposed to be a point to life? Does *ANY* of it mean a damn thing? What the hell am I doing here...

Interpretive Audio Journal: "Pause for reflection..."

As time stops.

Rendered

I trip into
Another time,
Into a place where you used to be mine;

This hollow soul
Has gone astray,
Waiting for another rainy day;

Trick-or-treat,
It tastes so sweet!
I want it all,
But I get defeat...

I feign my spiritual suicide,
Destroyed by what I put inside!

-----------------------------------------------------
Would you take my heart?
Would you take my soul?
Well, I'm giving you everything,
When I give you control!
-----------------------------------------------------

I denied you,
When I fell:
I sold my soul for a life in hell...

And though I ran,
So far away,
Now I'm back, and I'm here to stay;

Now I lay me
Down to sleep;
I pray the lord my soul to keep...

I'm tearing down the walls within -
- And giving you my heart again!

-----------------------------------------------------
Would you take my heart?
Would you take my soul?
Well, I'm giving you everything,
When I give you control!
-----------------------------------------------------

(Trick-or-treat,
It tastes so sweet!
I want it all,
But I get defeat...

I feign my spiritual suicide,
Destroyed by what I put inside!)

Rough sex

So I was talking with a friend today, and she asked me if I liked rough sex (yes, there was a perfectly good explanation for the existence of that context, no worries), and I answered, "90% no, 10% yes."

Which is 100% true.
It bores the fuck out of me.

But I hadn't really thought about it beyond that, and I suppose I probably should - seeing as how I am the guy who refuses to do, be, say, or in any way acknowledge anything unless it makes perfect logical sense. Yes, I know every girl is hard-wired to crave rough sex like monkeys crave bananas - and no, that allegory wasn't coincidental AT ALL. And, of course, I'm hard wired just the same way. That leads me to number 1 on my list of reasons I don't like rough sex:

1) FUCK my hard-wiring. I'm better than that. My body is the only thing determined by my genes; front end behavior is 110% choice. Giving in to natural impulses is... of course, totally natural. It's also completely fruitless, contributes to absolutely nothing at best, and outright prevents progress at worst - as proven by a few thousand years of human social history. And worst tends to be the norm.

2) Meaningless. Really rough sex really should best be described as "banging," because it so perfectly represents what is essentially a random, undirected cacophony of two objects chaotically thrashing each other with nothing but brute-force. How the hell can that be anything but boring to anybody? You might as well just go at it with toys or your hand; once you stoop to the level of simply having sex to achieve orgasm, it really doesn't matter whether you're doing it with somebody else, with a machine or with a doorknob for all I care - it's just a simple mechanical act from start to finish intended to culminate in exactly one result: spurt spurt, quiver quiver. No meaning, no significance, no value; at that point, your "partner" really is just an object - and so are you.

3) Boring. Once again, there is nothing special about chaos; you know exactly how this is going to end, so why ever do it more than once? Are you really so addicted to the fleeting hormone high and skin flush that you'd trade your potential for a meaningful exchange between two unique people for a simple act of mutual hedonism that could be done with anybody at all? That's not fun; that's called social dysfunction. You should probably see your therapist. While you do that, I'll be having genuinely therapeutic sex.

4) Too much work. Guys aren't constructed like women. We're predisposed to blowing our loads after 30 seconds, and anything you ladies get beyond that is sheer charity on the part of your guy, assuming he works out and is actually capable of control, that is. I can last as long as I'd like while having sex, and it doesn't require anything more than a 3 second position change every fifteen minutes or so. 2000 thrusts per minute requires actual concentration - and who are we kidding? Ladies get to sit back and enjoy the ride; that's really beside the point, but the simple fact is that sex is supposed to be 100% enjoyable for both people involved. So I'm going to take it easy and savor the experience.

For those of you poor ladies who have trained yourself to be unable to get off without your motorized toys or a guy willing to imitate one by 'roughing you up all night long'... I seriously feel bad for you; you choose what you enjoy, and if you chose the only nonsensical option out of the giant book of perfectly reasonable other ones, it's going to backfire on you. You're going to run into a roadblock in your late 30s or 40s where you suddenly realize that the guys your age have figured out that they don't have to go out of their ways to entertain you, and might actually resent you for expecting it - and then you end up one of those nasty ladies going after guys half your age because you can't get your dysfunctions satisfied by guys more mature than you. Sucks pretty hardcore, don't it?
-- just the way you like it.

But I'm not the least bit jaded about being the only sane person in a world full of cuntomatons.

Not one bit.

Nor am I even slightly offended that it seems impossible to find a decent woman who hasn't learned her concept of sex either from watching porn or from long couch sessions with "Dr. Jackrabbit XIVI model no.6000-2."

- or from "romance" (read: porn, duh?) novels... don't even get me fucking started on that crap.

(As if women weren't high maintenance enough? All I can contribute anymore is an unenthusiastic "wtf" for the sake of principle). At least my being "high maintenance" makes the world a better place.

Am I just trying to find worthy women in the wrong country, or what? I'm intimately familiar with all the various typical sexual dysfunctions of American women, obviously - but is it really just American women? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

Some lovely woman from another country needs to weigh in on this, please.

OMG!

Gooood song.

If we smile we can all be the same!
Let's pretend that we're all okay:
Happy numbers in a bullshit world...
Got a gun? Follow me!
-- We can make it all better!


(... aaaand fade into rockin' the f*ck out!)

I'm a TARD!

Alright, people. Here's the scoop. I definitely just pulled a gray-matter-muscle with the following intellectual overkill...

I walked into the kitchen in search of something to satiate my stomach's sensations of starvation. Behold! The pot of tortellini alfredo I concocted last night beckons banally; I never could resist the pasty perfection of pasta, and ME WANT SOMES!!

So opens the silverware drawer, I - and looks in to find me a fork, aye - and spies I with my little eye--aye!--that my roommate took the last god-damned one and probably used it to shovel some rancid-ass cheese-covered cacophony of culinary carnage into her gaping maw and then tossed it somewhere where I'll never find it 'cause she's evil and crazy and sloppy and lazy instead of washing it and putting it away as would a normal person who doesn't hate me and isn't out of her bass-ackward crack-smokin' little rat mind, and the only other freaking fork to be found is sitting in the sink, in another one of her week-old messes.

So I think to myself, "Hrmm... maybe I'll skip the pasta and go for something I don't need a fork to eat." (EDIT: More accurately, I was thinking I was going to brain myself if I had to wash one more of MY f*cking dishes that SHE had dirtied and left to rot for days.)

...So, without another thought, I made scrambled eggs.

=D

Interpretive Audio Journal: "My recurring dream..."

Somebody gets me

Interpretive Audio Journal: "I have to go back."

Back to square one

Magic Hour

11:11 - make a wish.

Venus

Circa mea pectora
Multa sunt suspiria
De tua pulchritudine
Que me ledunt misere.

(Iam amore virginali totus ardeo)

Amor volat undique
Captus est libidine.

Iam amore virginali totus ardeo.
Circa mea pectora multa sunt suspiria
De tua pulchritudine, que me ledunt misere.
Tui lucent oculi sicut solis radij,
Sicut splendor fulguris, qui lucem donat tenebris.

My measuring stick

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived:

This is to have succeeded.

Stuck

Sometimes the simple fact of rain can be so oppressing. I'm not normally affected by the weather in the same way many people in this area are; I like the rain. It's earthy, natural, a reminder that something beautiful still exists, functions, hasn't been completely broken - I like watching rain, usually. I love listening to it. Except today. Today, I really needed to get out of here for awhile. I wanted to just pick a direction and start walking, but I couldn't. Today, the rain was overwhelming.

I still feel like I need to get out; I've got that rising, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I know is a warning to change my train of thought, move on, get going anywhere as long as it's somewhere other than where I am right now. Walking helps, though I don't understand how or why, and I don't really think I want to. I'm beginning to accept the possibility that there may be some things in my life I need to refuse to understand, even when I know it's not beyond me - maybe especially when I know it's not.

The rain has its own voice today, and I can't help but be distracted by it; it's not enough of a distraction - just enough to take the sharpest edge off, I think. Just enough to move the front of my mind a few degrees to the left or right. I'm tempted to hit a bar for the first time in my life tonight, to see about the rest of it. Of course, I'm sure can't afford it, but I'm also sure I don't really care about that right now, or ever. Bones, sinking like stones - all that we've fought for; homes, places we've grown - all of us are done for.

I hate days like this; every sensation seems amplified to the point of pain, no matter how innocuous--or even pleasant--it should be. I know it's the analogy, the imagery, holding a captive audience in the back of my mind just beyond my reach. I know that every otherwise dissenting member is paralyzed in rapture, listening to that disembodied voice sparkle on about realities, possibilities, facts, unavoidable things, accidents, mistakes and ends of beginnings alike - preaching with every fiber of its false little soul to save something, anything it can attach itself to and live to hurt another day. Anything to avoid the inevitable, and it always wins. It always trickles its message just beneath my awareness, and I hate it.

We live in a beautiful world... don't we? Yeah we do, yeah we do.

I don't know why, anymore. But it never lies, and I have to count on something, sometimes. I hate it.