Haven't been on here in forever. Not too much has been going on. Then again, way to much has been going on. It's kind of one of those win/lose situations.
The rant to end all other rants...I had.
Ive been slowly working on writing something huge. Every event in my life that still haunts me in some fashion. Every event that I recall thats ever kept my mind awake at night frustrating the hell out of me. What I have already is about 6 pages long. So, I can only imagine how bad things will be by the end of it.
The good news is I think putting these things down somewhere will def help.
i'm making 'omnanimously' a word, and that's the end of it.
So, i'm on vacation with my family. We go to the k-mart in Petoskey. Not my decision, but in the interest of caving to the more forceful individuals involved, that's where I wound up.
My dad gives me spending money (it would've been much better spent on the slopes, but that wasn't in the cards, apparently. So, I still haven't spent it.), which in and of itself is both sad and cool. With what money I brought up with me, I buy a soda. A 20-ounce bottle of pop. The lady at the register asks me if I have a k-mart rewards card. I have to sound all stupid, and ask her to repeat herself because she's one of those soft talkers. You know the ones. I'm half deaf, because i'm getting over a sinus infection, and i've spent several sessions in the last 24 hours submerged in either a hot tub or a pool. Since I can't fucking be skiing. would you like to sign up for a rewards card? I'm sorry, what was that? Do you want to sign up for one? No, thanks. And in my head, there's a battle raging between the logical part of me that's thinking 'she doesn't know that I never go to k-mart, probably won't again for a long long time, and the only reason i'm here in the first place is because i'm from out of town,' and the other part that's saying 'lady, I don't have one already, and i'm just buying a fucking soda!'. Alright, that'll be a dollar sixty-nine. I didn't actually hear what she said, but I knew it was more than a dollar, but less than two, and deduced the rest from the change.
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Just a fun fact (or an FF. See what I did there? I shortened it. Which is automatically more cool. Or cooler. See? Shortened again! Damn, i'm cool), this stems from a game of phone tag that i'm currently in.
I am fascinated, at least for the moment, with the phenomenon of being 'it'. Like, how would you describe being it? (again, short=cool) Defining 'it' is easy, but describing it is nigh on impossible. You're in a position of some singular importance, but at the same time it's something you try to avoid. I guess it all stems from the simplicity of the game. It is competition in its most sublime, simplified form. Still, the human mind needs some context; some rules. Granted, they're basic: if the person who's it touches you, you become the person who's it - The game begins with whoever initiates contact and calls someone else it - Anyone who chooses to join in is potentially it. Them's the rules. Then why is that sensation so difficult to pin down? We all know it (at least, anyone who has ever played tag. Which I omnanimously declare to be everyone), and yet it remains so difficult to put to words. You're either chasing, or being chased, and taking it in turns. And the game is pretty much over when the person who's it gives up, and nobody else in the game decides to take up the mantle.
In some ways, I wish phone tag were more like the game of my youth. Regardless, I still hate being 'it'.
Sicker than a dog. I wonder why they call it sicker than a dog. Why not sicker than a cat or a ferret? Whatever, all I know is that I feel like death has ran me over with his car going 150.
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2011 18 January :: 2.08am
:: Music: SuperLibrary - it continues to grow
so.... you hit it and then it works?
yes. yes it does.
so, i live on a cul-de-sac (which is a word i despise, but there really is no other word for it...). at the very end is a path that leads to the school behind the house. by the path are a fire hydrant and a streetlamp. now, for the past year or so, the light wouldn't always turn on automatically. sometimes you'd have to kick it, nudge it, whatever you felt like doing in order to jostle the thing to life. now, at first it was just every once in awhile. then it got to be once a month. still a novelty at this point, as i spend a lot of time visiting with the neighbors across the path, and he would usually beat me to it. but eventually it got to be once a week.... then every fucking day. that got old for him (i was excited to have a fighting chance to be the first one to kick it), so he called up the township or whoever is in charge of maintaining the lights (yay 'burb life) and asked them to come fix it. they say yeah, sure, first thing.
about a month later he calls them back, reminding them of their promise to fix the damn thing... he even has the file number they gave him from the first call he made so she could look it up. she said the number didn't really matter. okay, whatever. "but yeah, someone needs to get out here to fix this soon. i'm getting sick of kicking it."
"i'm sorry? what seems to be the problem with it?"
"well, it doesn't turn on when it gets dark, so you have to hit the pole so it turns on."
"so, you hit it, and it comes on."
"yes ma'am, i'm not pulling your leg. it really turns on when i kick it."
"huh. you sure?"
"yup."
"alrighty, well i'll send someone out within the week. your file number is 1928340987-"
"-i thought you said the number didn't matter."
"oh. well, yeah, right. you have a good day then."
"thanks, you too."
i'm only semi-bullshitting the conversation there. it's not verbatim but that's the gist of what he described to me.
i just didn't realize that hitting things to make them work could be so foreign to somebody. it's like, the first thing i do. not violently. just to see if there's a bad connection or something. i guess maybe she was just surprised that hitting it actually worked. she must have a bad track record of hitting things and having them remain woefully unmended or something. guess i've got the magic touch.
all i know is, about a month ago they finally fixed the blasted thing, and now it's brighter than blazes all effing night long out there. it seriously hurts my eyes to look out the window. and it's got this weird pinkish hue to it. i almost liked the broken one better.
see what i mean? bright.
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in other news, i'm still a sagittarius, pluto's still a fucking planet, and triceratops is still the most badass herbivore this side of the big bang. the bce/ce from bc/ad didn't bother me as much. i mean, change typically comes slowly for me, if at all, so i still use the old ones, but i don't mind seeing the new ones because of the unholy ruckus the bible-bangers made about it. if you're too shortsighted to see that changing the name of something doesn't change the thing itself, then i really don't care about whatever got your panties in a bunch. we need some way to measure time. the modern world is too fast paced for people to say "year of our lord twenty-hundred and eleven." and the documentation on christ's life and when exactly that was is a little ... spotty. science demanded a more precise measurement, for whatever sciency things it is there doing in there. as long as they don't burn the place down i guess i'll let them stay. until i get pissed about whatever they pry from my unwilling fingers next week. fuckers.
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so i've been tutoring this kid for the past couple of months. he's mildly autistic, which means he's in normal classes, and social enough, but it makes my job difficult. it's not that he can't focus. he can focus plenty, if it's something that interests him. it's that he can't focus on algebra 2 when he doesn't feel like it. which is most of the time. so, instead he's always telling me about all this different stuff that does interest him. like some cartoon he was watching with his brother, or this video game he's designing. tonight he was regaling me with how there are different types of fruit. shit you not. he's got this bowl of fruit, and he comments on how the strawberries are making him pucker. i sample one and concede that it's a little tart, for a strawberry, at which point he launches into this thing about how there are different types of fruits within the same species. well, not species, but that's the word he'll use (i'm not entirely convinced he was wrong on that count). "like, apples. there are all sorts of different kinds of apples. macintosh. jonathan. that one's named after me."
"alright, so, the opposite of b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac, all over 2a." he stops to pet the dog. and play with the 2 remaining chunks of strawberry.
"but it's all food, i guess. i mean, it's not alive, like animals, but it still provides sustenance." i kindly explain that fruit is indeed a living organism until we kill it, much the same as animals, though admittedly less mobile.
"well, it's still food."
"okay, so in this function b is 4, a is negative one, and c is 8, so...."
and that's pretty much how it goes. he talks about his girlfriend a lot too. apparently she wasn't at school today because her mother felt she needed to be home to celebrate martin luther king day (she's black, after all). seemed justifiable to me. i'm just trying to figure out how she can do that, when it's exam week. whatever. you know, i want a white person holiday. you know, one where we celebrate how our ancestors took advantage of all the minorities to their own personal gain. and all of them (our ancestors) are dead now! one ethnic dead person holiday deserves another!
oh, god, when the shit happened with the birds and fish in arkansas, he was telling me about how she thought there was a volcano in arkansas that was going to erupt and destroy the world. her particular brand of autism apparently has a penchant for the doom and gloom, so it doesn't take much to get her going. but this was a very real concern in her mind, and so it becomes that much more real for those in her life. the unerring font of knowledge i doubtless am in his mind, i felt obligated to elucidate. and honestly, i tend to figure i might as well, since i'm not convinced i've actually taught him anything about math at all. i know his folks are paying me to help with school, but i figure any seed i can get to germinate, whatever the topic, is a mini-success and makes my time worthwhile. so i told him about how there was some speculation that yellowstone - decidedly not arkansas - may erupt "soon". in geologic terms, soon is probably not in our lifetime. but it's a possibility. even if that does happen, it's not going to be the apocalypse. it'll do a dandy number on most of the US, michigan included, but i doubt it would completely kill off all the humans on the planet. he seemed reassured by that; mission accomplished.
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so this book i'm reading right now is basically robin hood, as this guy thinks it should be, or might have been. he's based it in the 11th century in what is modern day wales. he's changed things completely, but it's well written and actually seems far more realistic than most of the romanticized robin hood crap we're used to seeing at the movies. if you're genuinely interested, you should start with the first book in the trilogy, though. anyway, the language tends to have this overly formal archaic type of style to it. most of the books i've read by him are that way, at least at times. but once i start to get into the swing of it, i think i could really run rampant and emulate that voice fairly well. i think it would be a fun experiment to try. maybe not as accessible to readers, but fun. and i could be verbose without it seeming like as much of a stretch. condescension and overly flowery language are pretty much expected from that dialect. i couple probably pull it off. i'm halfway there already, right?
this weekend will be the 6th weekend in a row Ive gone out all night and come home on the first train in the morning. Im not entirely sure how I feel about that.
I had a dream last night that I went to a bar with my friend Benedict. I paid 2000 yen at the door, got my wristband and two tickets, and entered. When I got in, a fat lady with a poorly shaped bob haircut and thick horn-rimmed glasses stops me and asks me for proof that I had paid. I show her my wristband but she says, `that proves nothing`. I pull out one of the two tickets I had and I get the same response, followed by the other only to yet again hear how useless it is. She starts chuckling and I say, `what do I have to do to prove to you that I paid?`. She grins and replies `Tim should have given you what you need.`
`Then Ill go find time`
`Tim wont give it to you now, Im sure`
She is laughing hysterically and Im getting incredibly frustrated at this point. I start cursing in Japanese, to which she responds with laughter.
`Its no use really` she says and continues laughing, her belly jiggling rythmycally.
Its then that I pull out a Colt .357, cock it, aim at her face, and pull the trigger. I hear nothing but see a flash of white, at which point I wake up in a cold sweat.
what does this mean?
For a reality update, Im still alive. Thats nice yeah?
