Today I found out that my new friend is dying of an unknown disease. He accepts it. He is alive and embracing the now; achieving his dreams and publishing as much quality work as he can, to pass on to his son. He told me all this this morning. And all I could think was, "Okay."

What to make of this life when even death fails to motivate. For the love of life, live. Be the example. Lead the way on your own path. To hell with the rest; they are not your responsibility -- they are your responsibility, but only by following your own heart can you ever hope to inspire anyone else.

current mood: artistic
current music: Felt - Primitive Painters

Here comes the rain...

Yes, it's that time of year again; the neurotic in me has resurfaced. I kinda liked repressing my neuroses and really making the implosion worthwhile, but, what the hell. Psychological sadomasochism. Okay, I am feeling really lame writing this junk. I used to think that I had to be perfect, and how arrogant and self-important is that? Must've been deep insecurities. Good. Check that one off the list. What am I thinking when I refuse to let myself enjoy.. myself. Wait, no, it's not what you think... I just don't let myself live in the moment. I observe, then analyze later. And there goes my life, I see it for the first time after it has passed. I simply must decide where I want to go. Who I am. I am a being here to learn, love and understand. All boils down to the same thing: Here to make mistakes. That is the point. And you've the brain to decide, to will, to discriminate. It's so easy, and here you think that you have to keep punishing yourself so the goal seems worth it. There is no goal, doofus. The search for the Holy Grail... It's the journey. All of these words I've heard over and over again but they don't seem to sink in. Must process. Must live. Just participate, screw the plan.

"I've really pulled a boner this time."

Every time someone says, "You've pulled a boner," I can't help but laugh. What is this phrase's origin? When parents yell this phrase at their children, do the parents know what they're saying? Okay, maybe only my parents used to say this. If anyone else says this, I'd like to know. I want to hear some weird sayings or funny things your parents did when you were younger that seemed okay at the time, but looking back, were positively nuts. We can have a "What's Your Childhood Trauma?" party.

It's thundering here, we're going to have a severe storm shortly. If I get cut-off, I'm not retyping this. So tomorrow I am going to an Anti-Flag concert. I don't know their music but again, I said I'd go, so I'll go and hang with the teenyboppers and burn flags or something. I'm not in the mood for that, but who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. I'd rather go to Dundas Square at Yonge and see The Weekend tomorrow at 5pm... and The Dears on Sunday at 6pm... and the beach volleyball games.. all for free... But I have to keep my word, else there's no point in living.

Today is an odd day. It's just a day when I feel out-of-place and gone.

current mood: torn
current music: Tainted Love - Soft Cell

Happy 136th birthday, baby.

Today everyone went up north to go boating. Except for me, because I thought I'd give them some time to bond since they rarely get to spend time together, by themselves. Speaking of bondage, I went downtown on Sunday to the gay parade with S and A. (I could use their realnames and no one would know them anyway, but it seems more scandalous this way.) I recognized a couple of people from university there, and I think I saw someone from my hometown. When we got downtown to Church street around 5:30ish, sheets of rain fell from the sky. We were drenched so we walked to Taco Bell (not an endorsement) and had an enlightening discussion about the main differences between dykes and gay girls (butch and femme). Yes, our binary categories marginalized the tomboys. 'Marginalized' is one of those hot keywords everyone uses in university classes.

current mood: weird

Masquerade, smiling faces on parade

June 11
The (Ozzy Osbourne) concert on June 11 was all right. All night, Ozzy was yelling, "I can't fucking hear you! Go fucking crazy! Hey! Hey! Hey!" He said that he loved us all, and that those who didn't come to the concert because they were afraid of SARS, were fucking pussies and cunts. Good thing not a lot of feminists showed up.

Of the four of us who went to the concert (together, more than 4 people showed up), I was the only one frisked at the entrance, so I felt special. The frisker was this shortish, red-haired lady. I think she was wearing a faded brown suit, because when I think of her, I think brown and glasses. I don't think she was wearing glasses; maybe her eyes were glazed over or glossy and reflected the light like glasses do. When she told me to "Spread 'em" I didn't immediately understand what the hell she was talking about, so I just stood there with my bottled water (which was confiscated shortly thereafter as per usual), raised my arms, and tried to part the sea of people like Moses. No; I just stood there and pretended not to enjoy being felt up in the middle of a crowd while secretly memorizing every touch for future sexual fantasy themes. Later I realized that I was concentrating so hard during the frisk, that I forgot to tighten my ass muscles. Damn. Always tighten the ass cheeks when someone touches them, or while you're standing with a group of people in the subway: It impresses people who might randomly touch your ass, and if you're mistakenly slapped on the ass by some chipper person who miscalculates the distance from his/her arm-hand to someone else's ass or face, then the sting of the slap will be lessened by the tightened ass muscles. I know this because my brother used to slap my ass all the time. Oh you pervs. (I said you were pervs, I didn't say you were wrong.)

Several times during the concert, Andrew asked me if I was having fun. I didn't know what to say, though I've been asked that same question a thousand times before. Yes, I know my expression at parties is the same as my funeral standard, but it doesn't mean I'm not having fun. It just means I'm happy someone died.

Family Fun
This past weekend I went back to see some relatives. My brother is taller than I am, and he has big muscles, that bastard. He's a cute guy and I love him. Too bad he's still an immature little dick. Some things never change.

On the way to Bayfield, we stopped at McDonald's to change someone's diaper. Not mine, but I'm not against wearing one on a long roadtrip. As we were pulling back onto the highway, a couple of guys ran after us, motioning towards the parking lot. We pulled back into the parking lot and a guy was standing there with Liesl's shoe. That was the nicest thing in the world - someone cared to flag us down because we'd dropped a little shoe from Walmart in the parking lot. I need to keep a list of the good people I need to thank, so I can repay them with the millions I'm going to make defrauding the elderly.

current mood: retahdly tired

stream of unconsciousness entry

I've been busy lately, doing outside work and raking the backyard dirt before we build a retaining wall. I can feel my muscles (the ones I always forget I have until I play volleyball, or rake).

And I have cleaned out my junk and in doing so, have symbolically rearranged my life. I am organized; I am aligned with the common man and all that is good. Sometimes I can't tell when I'm making fun of myself.

Other than work, not much is new. I was thinking about my first-year poli sci TA today, probably because of the parade downtown and all the celebratory junk, but anyway... I remember that once when she tried to lead a serious discussion on the 'Israeli-Palestinian conflict', we all kept giggling like schoolgirls because her coffee mug on the middle of the table read, "Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians." She wanted to start an anti-racist, anti-homophobic, feminist, marxist, political party. And anti-capitalist. And anti-patriarchy. Sometimes she was funny.

current mood: thirsty
current music: A disgruntled eastcoast fisherman on the radio

Oh, to have my problems.

Oh shit, I just realized I missed ER.

"You copy old Theory of Knowledge essays so you can get an A in the Ethics unit."

My goal is to go to sleep before 3 tonight. I will. I have the power. I am empowered, hear me snore. Yes lame. Remind me never to stay up past 4 am; I start to think of people I haven't thought of in awhile and then I almost do something stupid like e-mail them a pathetic 'miss you' letter. Spontaneity's only fun when cutting class and doing stuff like that where you are sure to have some immediate gratification.  

current mood: awake
current music: The Cure - Just Like Heaven

I am joking.

I was 'the shadow' in Andrew's movie today. I was supposed to be in a sensory deprivation lab, but I'm not quite sure what my motivation was. I wore a long black costume and kept tripping, which added to the sense-deprived effect, I guess. I also played with the camera and captured some outtakes for the making of the making of the movie Antidromica (Shiv is doing the first making of). We ran through the university tunnels and read the graffiti left there by the potheads. I typed 7 "I's" in this paragraph. So that was my exciting day. I've been staring at the computer screen all week, so it was nice to stretch out my legs and walk a few miles to the bus. 8. 9 if you want to get all technical on me... 8, correction, 9, first-person nominative subjective pronouns? -- or 8.9 miles to the bus? Who cares.

I laugh when my friend feels violated when her friends read her online journal. What the hell is the point of an online journal? Exactly. If I didn't want anyone to read something, I wouldn't write it; I would run to the nearest confessional booth and give the priest his daily whack-fodder.

current mood: shocked
current music: The sound of my nun ancestors turning in their graves

um

This morning when I woke up, I could hear mourning doves and people talking outside my window. Not with each other. Just so you know.

song lyrics that make me giggle

the murmurs - you suck. "right now there's dust on my guitar you fuck, and it's all your fault. yeah, you terrorized my mind, and for that you suck, uh hooo." 'you suck' was the first song i had ever heard from this band. the song was so shitty that i was moved by its shittiness, listened to it nonstop, and ended up developing an unhealthy attachment, and dare i say it, a queer affection for it, something like the responsibility i would feel for a three-legged dog that followed me to the lake, or for a fireant hill on the far corner of my summer cottage property. don't kill it! don't kill it!

helium - hole in the ground. "there's a lot of things i'd like to do, there's a lot of things i'd like to do. boy -- one of them's not you."

the geraldine fibbers - dragon lady. "got some satisfaction from lifting up your dress. a slap in the face is worth a hundred words." i like this entire song.

fifth column - imbecile. "don't get me wrong, it's just a goddamned song, words and music only two minutes long. don't get me wrong; so what? you're a freak, like everybody else... a demi-god would never laugh as loud as you." i heard this one on the radio one night and it made me laugh. the second time i heard it i didn't like it as much, but i still listen to it twenty times a day.

mecca normal - ice floes aweigh. "my dad asks is there anything i'd like to know, like before he dies, anything i'd like to ask? i ask, 'dad, where'd your dad come from?' but what i'd really like to know is, 'why'd you throw that huge glass of chocolate milk at me when i said i was moving out, at 17? and did either of you read my last book? and why'd you tell people you're going to kill the guy in the trailer next door?'"

mary timony - the dryad and the mule "...checking out my friends, like, are you cruel? am i a mule?"

Fragmentary, my dear Watson.

Today I am sorting through my belongings and getting rid of everything that I don't absolutely love.

Absolute love - redundancy or misnomer? Discuss.

I want to go to a Bif Naked concert but I don't know where she's playing or when. I also... like... Buffy the Vampire Slayer. *assumes defensive position*. I want the DVD collection.

I want to play in a band.

I love listening to my mom's stories and recollections of her childhood.

I want to protect the people I love. I've found that I have no idea what is best for people, nor they me, so I shall just bug off, in general. What did Thoreau say? -- something like, 'If I knew a man was coming over with the sole intention of doing me good, I would run for my life!'

I miss watching black-and-white movies on my aunt and uncle's small t.v in their bedroom while sipping a cold can of orange c-plus through a straw. The can was placed in one of those styrofoam can insulators. I miss it all. I remember.

Etymologically speaking, 'naive' or 'nice' originally meant 'ignorant'. Semantic shifts are revealing.

I want to start my own business.

I am so damned grateful. Sometimes when I'm deathly serious and lose perspective, a smile or a tragedy suddenly reminds me how often I waste myself and take people for granted. And knowing that makes me hate myself more. Must be hormones. Chemicals explain a lot of behaviour... They explain behaviour. Reactionaries unite. This whole fucking world is one huge reaction. I don't like to swear; I'm a bit of a prude (which is funny considering I'm going to hell anyway..hee hah hoh), but lately 'fuck' is THE word that best satisifies my language needs during emotional outbursts. fuck this, fuck that, fucking this and that.

I choose not to watch television. Unless Janeane Garofalo is on. Or a decent comedy. Or a thought-provoking movie. Or nudity. Or I'm bored. So much for my convictions.

I want to see The Matrix Reloaded and The Lord of the Rings. (I'm reading Tolkien's LOTR books because the author was a philologist and I've decided that philology is the answer to all of my earthly problems. Or beer is. I joke. I'm a prude, remember? But hey, prudes always turn into perverts, so, Woo-hoo!)

I am a control freak because I don't trust myself.
Note to self: Trust yourself. Trust me.

[I ate too much sugar.]

snippets from the past week

May 6. In last night's dream, I was crying, yet still self-conscious (meaning that I cared about what people watching the display thought, so I know that whatever it was that I was crying over must not have been too dire. Or maybe it was something existentially dreadful, and I just couldn't comprehend its weight because I have stopped valuing things and have forgotten what really matters to me... Okay, I get the message. Now I shall rethink my values. Nietzsche would be proud). May 5. I walked around town in the rain with a friend-in-training. We went to a few stores and ate at Lick's. Sounds really interesting. At one point we were half-naked and watching movies while our clothes were drying, but no one wants to hear about that boring stuff. Almost every single time that my sister wants something from me, she does not ask, she demands. I, as the others she offends, immediately assume the defensive position and expend hours of time and energy trying to prevent her from, say, using my extra pencil sharpener for example. May be A Unified Field Theory would put a smile on my face.

I have to go downtown right now

I like to use gender exclusive terms like 'man' and 'mankind' in essays.

I saw two really good short films the other day - 'Bullet in the Brain' and 'The Man With the Beautiful Eyes'.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know the feeling? It's that weirdly uncomfortable feeling, like you've just had some perverted sexual thought about your relative or something.

me, talking out of my ass. (a rare skill to possess. i apprenticed for 20 years.)

shallow thought of the day

Today a news commentator said, "needless suffering" and it made me think that suffering is suffering because it is needless, in a way. I mean, it's because we ask, 'what if?' that we suffer -- because we can imagine another, possibly better in some way, state. Knowing that the outcome could have been otherwise, possibilities changed through some action of our own... that's the part that sucks big bananas. [I don't know either.] For example; If I absolutely had to cut off my arm - if I knew beyond question that I must amputate my own limb, I would do it without any regrets. No choice equals no problem. But if I wasn't too sure that I was doing the right thing, then there's no way that I could act with a clear conscience, or act at all, for fear of setting myself up for some bad thing that was formerly under my control (or under the guise thereof, yadda yadda not this discussion). Competing values are a bitch. That's the key -- the old free will vs. determinism debate. (I didn't say what I wanted to say about this topic. I suffer. ;p But what the hell, moving on...) That's why I like some existentialist thinkers. You make your own meaning; you give your life its purpose; (you are the maker of the Maker.) Or in Sartre's words, "Man is condemned to be free."

Condemned because he finds himself thrown into the world, yet free because as soon as he is conscious of himself, he is responsible for everything he does... Man is responsible even for his passions, because even his feelings are formed by his deeds. Freedom is appalling precisely because it means that there is nothing forcing me from behind, so to speak, to behave in any given way, nor is there a precise pattern luring me into the future... We are all free, therefore we must choose, that is, invent, because no rule of general morality can show us what we ought to do. There are no guidelines guaranteed to us in this world... There is an element of despair in human existence, which comes from the realization that we are limited to what is within the scope of our own wills...

The value of life is nothing else but the sense each person fashions into it. To argue that we are the victims of fate, of mysterious forces within us, of some grand passion, of heredity, is to be guilty of bad faith (mauvaise-foi) or self-deception, of inauthenticity.

This is the part I like to recite to my mother, because I like the blank looks I receive shortly thereafter:

A woman who consents to go out with a particular man knows very well what the man's cherished intentions are, and she knows that sooner or later she will have to make a decision. She does not want to admit the urgency of the matter, preferring rather to interpret all his actions as discreet and respectful. She is in self-deception; her actions are inauthentic.

"'You become what you are in the context of what others have made you'; nevertheless, within these limitations man is still free and responsible."

pretending to take religion seriously. incoherent anyway

Responsibility. That's what's missing from religion, at least in my hometown. People would rather not take responsibility for their actions and resultant life situations. For them, seemingly good outcomes are 'thanks to God' and not-so-great situations are 'all part of God's mysterious plan', which is all great and wonderful, but where do people come into play? Where's the creation and the excitement in life? Where is the responsibility and choice? With religion-logic, if I accomplish some great thing, do I get the credit? ('no.' well, only as the lightning rod for the materialization/manifestation of some greater force; sure sure, everything is one, remove the veil of maya...) If I murder a few locals, is it ultimately my responsibility? (religion says 'no.' and in this era, society'd be blamed, because individuals - especially in Canada - are viewed as social constructs to an extent that is communist-automaton scary.) If everything that happens is part of some grand narrative that I can never hope to understand, then I am going to enjoy myself, gosh darn it. Because it's all part of the plan. [insert tongue in cheek]

not off my soapbox yet

What happened to Canada? It is not a country. It is a liberal holding tank. Anyone notice the current SARS outbreak in CANADA? Whether legit or not, this whole episode nicely illustrates to the world Canada's assbackwards logic and lack of a backbone. Canada, or at least the big cities, is/are ultra liberal and all about defending individuals' rights. I'm thankful for the latter. Except there is not much of a balance, and now by overvaluing individuals' rights, the public's rights have been compromised. That Dr. James Young doofus individual announced that Canada suggests that individuals potentially exposed to SARS should voluntarily quarantine themselves. WTF? Simply put, Canada is scared shitless of offending any groups (except white people of course...) so we let in more flights from infected regions because public relations is more important than public health. I'm really pissed. (Angry, not drunk) :p

So what the hell else do I want to waste time writing about. My day. I saw 'Identity' and liked it. It was at the mall so I only paid $4.25 Canadian. *happy dance* I am such a loser. Last night I saw 'Phone Booth' at the regular theatre but didn't have to pay because McKenna knew people who worked there. Good deal. I just realized that my main friends are guys. That is sucky. [And not like that.] Normally no one EVER calls me, but today I spoke with four friends, all males. My mother is ecstatic. Anyway, I enjoyed 'Identity' more than 'Phone Booth'. Both are cynical movies with their own sort of polluted optimism. I liked the existentialist references in 'Identity' too... No, I will not lecture on that subject anymore. (No guarantees...)

I just thought of something else that's been bugging me - emotion... and my inability to feel. I don't feel. It seems as though nothing touches me and I am unaffected by everything. Like a zen buddhist and the non-attachment meditation, but it's something less.. like nothing really matters, but not like it's some deep spiritual 'coming-to-terms-with-reality' revelation . I'm detached, but not 'enjoying the illusion' anyway. And so I've been attaching way too much significance to trivial things that I know don't matter to me. It makes perfect sense. I cannot seem to recall the last time I had 'fun'. I'm rarely living in the moment; I'm not a real individual, I'm just playing out a role. On a happy note, none of this matters.

[laughter resounding throughout empty corridors.]

Last exam is over and done with. Weeping commences.

I wrote my last exam tonight. Linguistics. I like philology. And etymology. Just so you know.

So now what do I do with myself? Should I go for a masters degree or just make my millions in thirty-thousand years working at a fast-food chain with a shitty poli sci B.A. to my name? I am sick of the academic b.s and the stresses of 18-page reports on the non-existent future of Canada's military, but in another sick way I miss it already. I don't miss paying for it. I don't miss writing exams and debating fluffity fluff. I don't miss taking [re:missing by five minutes] the york region transit. I miss the people and the books and I miss watching really bright people getting excited about ideas. That sounds so lame, and it is, but this is my united states of whatever. [Thanks Liam Lynch.] But I can still read and see through people without paying hefty tuition fees, so that is what I'll do. That was easy.

I like this book I'm reading, 'The Act of Creation' by Arthur Koestler. I'm also reading some William James and more Goethe, that sexy beast. I seriously think that the generations are progressively regressing. ;p Devolution, baby. It's not nostalgia, it's that the past simply WAS better, damnit. In key ways. Ways in which I am too dumb to articulate. See? My point.

A lot of crap thrown under the heading of 'postmodernism' makes me laugh. I was so tempted to send this Postmodernism Disrobed article to my humanities professor. But I didn't and I will go and cry perpendicular tears of emotional excrement on my pillow after drowning past regrets in tea and cigarettes.

Steven Wright pisses me off.

I love the people I know. I take them all for granted. I am the ice queen. The stone angel. Stone angel sounds better.

Perspective a la Nietzsche

Passage from "The Gay Science" by Nietzsche (translated):

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sign and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence -- even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing,"Do you desire once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

self-mockery is the cure

Excuses: Why I am afraid of making anything of my life:

1. I would not have time to waste writing neurotic lists and then analyzing my current dysfunction via graphology.
2. I would have to learn more words and refrain from saying 'via' because I liked the sound and feel of the word.
3. I might shatter my delicately constructed philosophical views when I realize that most of the shit I devote energy to really is shit. and feel ambivalent about it.
4. I would spend free time having fun instead of debating with myself, 'what is progress?'