Lungfish

Addiction and family

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:02:40 -0700

I didn't think about it often. Maybe one reason was because I only knew one side of the family. My uncle described himself as an alcoholic who hadn't had a drink in over 30 years. He was in one of those terrible relationships that everyone was amazed existed at all but people had given up betting on when it would end (well, there's also the fact that my family was too nice to go that far and actually bet on when it would end). I knew that he'd given up drinking after his wife had told him to, but it wasn't until some years after his divorce that I asked for more detail. Other friends of mine had quit drinking or drugs after some traumatic event or climactic realization that they had little control over themselves. I became curious about the story behind why my uncle quit drinking after learning a friend's "final drinking story" which ended with waking up with his car halfway in his living room. I hoped for a story as outrageous as other stories of my uncles youthful adventures, but after some pressure, I learned that my uncle simply quit drinking because his wife (not ex-wife) told him to. Nor would I describe my mother's experience as addiction. Yes, she smoked the marijuana and sold acid, the quintessential "soft drugs" and the signature drugs of the age, but upon learning she was pregnant, she quit everything in order to give me the best possible chances. In true addict for, she exchanged drugs for work and became rich and successful, achieving a degree of what was left of the "American dream." My biological father drifted in and out of drug and alcohol addiction and now drinks a shit-ton of coffee and smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. He's also a Republican and hasn't read a single history book. His sister, my aunt, went from drug and alcohol addiction to extreme Christianity, via a 12-step program. Though she believes anyone who doesn't accept Jesus into their heart will go to hell, she expects that I will rise with her to Heaven because God would not allow me to remain unsaved. The same rationale my Grandmother probably had just before she died. . . . The last time I got fired, I could put at least a tiny bit of blame on my step sister, who visited expecting an amazing and psychedelic experience but encountered a mid-20-something trying to hold down a good job. I tried to introduce her to people and show her how to entertain herself while she was visiting from England, but she would wait for me to come home and demand we by a 24 pack and wreck havoc, just like my old stories. One day she burst in from a day of drinking with my manipulative friend and screamed at me - while she waited for the bars to open again - about how she interpreted her own insecurities as intentional insults against her and how her lack of an amazing time was entirely my fault. I felt bad, and resolved that family was more important than anything. I ignored a day of work to hang out with her, but she left before I woke up, so I woke up too late to save my job OR my relationship with the only person I could call my sister. . . . Thinking about all the jobs I'd had made me think about how I'd lost them all. I was always fired because of attendance. Even though there were times where I could claim that the straw that broke the camel's back was not my fault, I could not avoid responsibility for all the proceeding events that made it possible for one twist of fate to end my relationship with the company. Even the job I lost because of my step sister, I actually lost because I would lay away listening to my alarm clock, weighing whether I would more prefer to die than to get up and commute to a job where my primary responsibility was to give up my soul and personhood. Sometimes I would decide that sleeping in was preferable to suicide, mostly because I would hate to sadden my mother, and I would lose an attendance point. It was the only field I had experience in, though it made me want to die. I could never hold down a job for more than a few months, and every time, I would try and get a job I really wanted... but the economy in Oregon was never quite good enough for me to get out of my field, and my only other option was to go back to school. . . . I failed. By now I think it's not genetics, it's not my experience or my teachers, it's my soul. I can't do anything. I deserve to die, like I originally believed, like I initially almost did. My survival of a terrible accident in my late teens was a cosmic injustice to those who deserved to live but had little chance. I don't dare tell anyone that I am no longer eligible for the G.I. bill because I owe the G.I. bill money, because I am too ashamed of the extent of my failure. I write short stories about people who go to extraordinary lengths to avoid simple and mundane experiences, but the simple and mundane experience I am trying to avoid is my own death through necessary suicide - a modern honor killing. . . . I need money. The economy is worse than it's been my entire life. Now more than ever, I can't get a job outside the industry that consistently makes me want to die. I scroll through Craigslist, less and less frequently. I've already lost hope - I look forward to the day when my fiance wants nothing more to do with me, so I can just end the burden on us all. I find a chance to at least make 50 dollars doing a drug research study on alcoholism. Maybe I should just stop drinking. I do have something between 5 and 10 beers a week, after all. Maybe I'm an alcoholic? Maybe, in order to be well, I should prove I'm an alcoholic so I can get this experimental drug and get 50 dollars... Maybe I really am an alcoholic. There's so much addiction in my family history, it would make sense, right? . I drank more. . I love drinking. . My love of drinking is surely a problem in of itself. Surely this is more normal than drinking as an escape. . Unfortunately, respondents can not have had suicidal ideation. The psychiatrist, by asking terrible questions like "what is my relationship with my biological father and how do I feel about it," and "have you questioned your self worth," made me think about worse case scenarios that applied to the questions, and I built a new personality around them because I thought it would make me a new chance at life. I thought I would get a new drug and 50 dollars, but I gambled wrong. Duh. They want to test the drug on people who have never though of ending themselves, because they're worried that the drug might already cause suicidal tendencies. Did alcoholism come before depression? Can a drug treat alcoholism by merely removing the positive experience from drinking? How would such a person then find a positive experience? Telling 400 people a day that the company wants them to blow themselves? Telling 200 people a day that if they want their company's services, they have to vow to never disagree? Telling 50 people a day that they have none of the rights they thought they did? Telling 5 people a day that their dead father still owes the company 500 dollars? Is this more socially acceptable than being drunk? Why? Why shouldn't I just accept the advice of the customers I serve and just kill myself?

Epilogue

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:24:20 -0700

You looked at the news. All the same, always the same, but it made you feel good to see it. Your monitor was beige and bulky, so you'd wrapped the back with a colorful cloth. You reached into a black bag, not expecting it to be completely empty instead of just almost empty. You watched the sunlight pace it's regular path across the room, put on your shoes, and walked quietly down the hall, down the stairs, and slipped out the door. You liked the way it felt to walk in the middle of the street without worrying about traffic or decorum and followed the line down the middle as you enjoyed the cool wet breeze and imagined driving in an invisible car. You thought you heard a sound that felt familiar and impossible... but it could easily be the seep deprivation, which makes you laugh a little as you remember the one time you hallucinated and thought you saw a man in your kitchen. You drift into the grocery store, past the planting pots and free sample desk, to the bulk foods aisle, and happily fill your black bag with chocolate covered espresso beans. You notice that you were smiling as you finished tying up the bag, and laugh at the cliche effect addiction held over you, or maybe it was just the giddy emotional turbulence of sleep deprivation. You slip into a checkout stand, following the rituals you can't avoid following. You walk sideways slowly, looking around idly until you get to the end where you exchange some paper for the right to leave with the bag of chocolate covered espresso beans, like paying a tribute. You're journey feels over already. You walk home slower, on the sidewalk, kicking the leaves and sticks and thinking about going on walks more often and needing to brush your teeth, and you slip through the door, sneak up the stairs, go up the hall and you're back. Is it possible you really did see a person? You ask yourself if you're crazy. Do you imagine you see people or have you been imagining you don't? You enjoy your snack and read more old news.

Buried Alive

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:14:47 -0700

I've been in here for three days. I've been conserving water but the bottles of urine are piling up. I've balled up every article of clothing and stacked them according to type. The room looks cleaner than it ever did when I went outside, but it still feels like it's getting smaller. Sometimes I hear the room mate, and I wonder if he knows I'm here. I propped the mattress up against the window and the box spring against the door. I don't need a queen size anymore - I prefer the floor anyway. With all the clothes stacked on top of the dresser and the mattress pushed to the side, all the sudden extra space almost makes me feel agoraphobic. Still, I feel like the room is getting smaller. Or maybe that's not the right feeling - I feel like the door is getting closer to me. I can hear the mail. It scrapes through the mail slot in a short stream and plops into a growing pile of junk and bills. We used to joke that the door poops mail. I found the crawlspace. This could be my lucky ticket. I'm running out of water and since I turned to depend on the absorbency of my least favorite clothes, the smell has been getting unbearable. I'd retreated to the closet, and in the process of making it more comfortable, I found the crawlspace. Tomorrow I'll go exploring. I found some wires poking out from my neighbor's apartment and decided to splice my lamp into it, since it's as dark as you'd imagine the underground could be and I only have so many batteries. In some area's there's even enough room for me to stand a little. And thank god I have some bare earth to handle my waste disposal problem. There's also a substantial amount of moisture, which is both a pro and a problem. There should be some way I can pull the moisture out of the air and get a supply of water, but the amount of moisture in the air seems to be an ideal environment for mold. I've already gotten used to the loudest sound in my new world being the sound of pages turning, so my coughing feels deafening. The east side of the space runs up against a cement wall, and also boasts the most head room, a head shorter than I need. I think it belongs to the house next to the apartment complex. The wall is warmer than anything else down here and is covered in a green slime. It may end up becoming my sole source of "food" unless I can magically learn how to grow mushrooms from nothing. The West side just gets increasingly narrow until it just ends, about where the sidewalk would be. Under the southwest corner, some dryer exhaust leaks out, a source of heat I'll probably appreciate when winter comes. The western half of the north side is boarded, and the eastern half has cinder blocks emerging from the dirt. There's a 4 foot gap of dirt between them that I might decide to try and pick through if I feel industrious enough. Conveniently, south side ends in a wall of scrap wood, probably the crap left over from construction. Happy days! While moving some things I might want while I'm in the crawl space, I found a backpack I used when we went camping a few years ago and found chocolate and a can of beans. This will be my first food in almost a week, since my supplies first ran out and I started exploring the crawl space. Luckily it also had a hatchet, which means I can work toward my dream of digging more headroom and maybe some gutters to drain off the rain water that I fear might drown me when the really heavy rains come. Also, if I dig in the gap between foundations on the north side, I could find something. Who knows? Well, the upstairs is off limits now. I could hear them forcing the room open. I knew it would happen eventually. Too bad they can't evict me any more. I wanted to laugh out loud but had to settle for a giggle. I felt a little bad about ditching my room mate like that, and wished I could have told him I stopped paying the rent, but I guess the missing person's report filed on me convinced her not to take it out on my old roomy. Whether the joke's on me or someone else depends on the definition of a joke. Had my first meal of slime. I tried to "cook" it on the flat part of the hatchet black held against the lamp light for an hour, but I have no idea if that's anywhere near enough to "pasteurize" something like this. I also don't know if I got enough nutrients to stay alive. Still beats eating spiders. My cough has been getting worse, slowly, especially from the dust I kick up from digging. I've taken to wearing a shirt over my mouth at all times because preventative health care is all I'll get, even in an emergency. I've passed the time by drawing on the roof, but the only thing that wards off crippling claustrophobia is the terror of the alternative. I'd rather stay down here, buried alive, until I'm considered dead. Digging in the gap has brought some good reward. I'm risking tunnel collapse which might result in my being discovered, but I'm also finding food in what I guess is someone's garden. I cut small pieces of raw potato, carrot, and onion in order to make my slime more palatable. I still have the beans and chocolate, but I'm saving them for later. I could be in denial, but I think the slime hasn't been bad for me and has given me some sustenance. Water is now my big problem. I can only collect about a cup a day from areas that drip very slowly. I know I'll probably have more water than I know what to do with when it rains, and I'm sure it will soon, but my bottles haven't been full of any liquid at all in a long time. Either way, I don't think I'll be able to survive down here for another entire month. I'll definitely get scurvy or something, and my cough is getting worse. I probably am crazy. I know I thought I probably was crazy when I just wouldn't leave my room and then again when I started squirming around in this giant crawl space, but now I really think I'm seeing things in this constant low-light. I was digging and coughing, worse than usual, when I came to another garden. I'm pretty sure I'm 6 feet underground, since the ground above is packed too tight. Anyway, instead of a bunch of roots and the tips of some edible bulbs, it's like... hold on, I need to look again. Yeah. I don't know, I must be really bad off. It looks like everything is growing upside down. Earthworms dropping from tall grasses, blooming flowers, and herbs. When I saw it I turned around to see if I'd created a new beautiful reality, but the rest of the space still looked cold, damp, and barren. When I turned back to see if my vision had vanished, it was still there. I never took a psychology class, but I think persistent hallucinations like this are either rare or a bad sign. I'm going to eat a little bit of chocolate, take a nap (at this point I can only guess if I sleep for 3, 6, or 9 hours) and see if it's still there. When I came in here I was about 210, and now I look thinner than when I was in the military, when I weighed 150. Is it possible I lost that much in a month on a bug, root, and slime diet? Or have I been here for longer than a month? Certainly an accomplishment to be proud of. It hasn't been too hard, though I've survived on luck. In fact it's just easy enough I'm surprised I haven't found anyone else. My cough has been getting better, but I've been getting a lot weaker, despite all the work I do digging, crawling commando style through my tunnel, cutting support beams from the wood pile, and dragging them back. I've also been getting more water, though who knows what crazy chemicals I'm ingesting. I think I'm happy here, I'm finally living for myself and I don't have to really be afraid anymore. There's nothing to worry about. This dirt is mine and the only thing that can take it from me is a darkness I already know. I am a little afraid of the garden I ~~thought~~ was sure I saw yesterday. Tomorrow I'll try digging toward the marsh next to the grocery store. At the rate I've been going, I think I'll make it in a week. I'll sneak out at night and dumpster-dive some real food, hopefully some salt and citrus and fill my bottles with good clean water. It'll feel good to walk. Maybe I should find another crawlspace access and risk getting caught by a terrified apartment renter. I saw the upside-down garden again. I think it was the same as when I first saw it. I saw another earthworm drop from a patch of grass, and when I reached for one of the blades, my lamp went out. I knew it would happen eventually, but the timing was unnerving. I was a little more frantic than usual. I felt really claustrophobic for the first time since I'd been underground, surrounded by endless pure darkness that would randomly hit me with a support beam to my head or a knocked over bottle of precious water. When I finally found the lamp, I felt around for the box with the bulb but slipped and crushed it. I must of passed out from hyperventilation. When I woke up, the lamp was back on, and of course the garden was gone. If it's a waking dream, what do I think it represents? I can't really remember my actual dreams, so I don't have much to compare it with. Regardless, it did remind me of the possibility of the light going out, so I did some practice-crawls with my eyes closed and did a little "redecorating" so it will be easier to find the box with the spare bulbs. The really crazy thing is that I lost my hatchet. No digging today. My cough is almost totally gone, but my entire body aches now and a headache I've been ignoring has gotten really bad. I don't know how it's possible I could have misplaced the hatchet. I try not to think about it. I spent most of the day looking for the other crawlspace access panels. Every apartment has one. It's just that most of the occupied apartments have lots of crap piled on them since no one's really excited to have easy access to a spider metropolis. The only one that opens easily was mine. I poked my head up and was kind of sad to see that all the stuff has been moved out. Looking at my emptied apartment was pretty creepy. I got out to put my ear against the wall I shared with the room mate and when I was sure he wasn't home, I tried doing ~~some jumping jacks~~ a jumping jack and almost dislocated my hip. I took the opportunity to drink some clean water and raid the fridge, which had a good supply of old limes and a probably-forgotten leftover burrito. Walking around up there made me feel like a ghost. Then I decided I probably had enough time to sit on the toilet, and I was really struck by the comfort of it. I was a couple neurons away from deciding to just stay there until I was found and just let the consequences come. Parabolically increasing shame. Eternal debt. Constant consuming fear. I sat on that throne of comfort and maybe would have given up my chosen life despite all that if I hadn't heard the mail. It reminded me of when we used to joke about how it was like the door was pooping mail, which reminded me of why I needed to stay buried.

Meanwhile

Fri, 08 May 2009 03:33:38 -0700

They sat next to each other in the fake leather chairs and waited for someone to pass by and choose a seat equidistant from them and anyone else. "I was watching this show I like-" "Which show?" "Doesn't matter. Anyway, I was watching this show and I thought about how crazy it was, like, I'm spying on this family I don't even know." "Are they a real family?" "It doesn't matter that they don't exist, I'm still spying on them. TV's exciting because we feel like we're being let in on a secret when we're watching because the people we're watching don't know we're watching them." "Yeah, I guess." "Yeah... well, I got an idea from the show." "Oh, learned something from TV?" "It's cable, so it can't be too bad. I think I should sell drugs." "Sounds like a bad idea." "Maybe, but I can grow mushrooms for cheap and sell them to people I trust." He looked at the floor. The carpet at this airport had a pattern of planes and concentric circles. A funny image for an airport, since concentric circles are usually associated with a blast radius or earthquakes. Never anything good. "I hear it's not really easy, that you have to be careful to keep them from getting contaminated or something." "I don't care. I never need money less, you know? Every day it gets worse, and it's going to get to the point where I can't take it anymore, so it's probably best that I take a risk now rather than later. I might not be able to do anything if I wait." He opened the door. She was sitting on the red couch and didn't look up from her laptop, which played music quietly. "That's pretty cool, what is it?" "Some band. I'm putting them on my MySpace." "Cool." He took off his hat, emptied his pockets into it, and pointed to it to help him remember where his cellphone, keys and wallet were. "So you're MySpacing?" She nodded and typed something. "Well... I'm going to sleep." He looked at her. "Good night." On the bed was a three foot tall pile of clothes. He peeled off his clothes and pushed the pile off onto her side of the room, straightened the covers as he slid under and moved papers around on the bedside table, looking for a book to read while he waited for her to come to bed. He heard her pour a glass of water and go to the bathroom. When she opened the bathroom door, he decided he should go too. As they passed, she said, "ohhh, those were clean!" "Damn, well, you have a dresser for clean clothes." In the bathroom he could hear her moving things. He smiled, and immediately felt guilty for not assuming they were clean and putting them on top of her dresser.

The Doomsday Clock Has Been Set To Beer:30

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:56:21 -0700

Yes, scientists and experts across the free world have moved the time ahead of the infamous Doomsday clock, a metaphorical threat meter where midnight represents doomsday. The time now reads "Beer:30" Beer:30 (and sometimes known as "Beer-o'clock," of course represents the latest time in which you can purchase beer in cities, counties, and states which have not stopped grieving for the end of prohibition. Like stuffing a cat and keeping it on your desk at work, this decades long corpse of an idea is inconvenient and strange. Said one visiting British step sister, "I don't want to have to come home and yell at my brother for no reason, but if I can't stay at the bar and I haven't made an effort to get to know anyone else, I guess I have no choice!" Meanwhile, I'm aging gracefully. Turning 27 just means I don't know where the party's at anymore, but I'm betting there will be many more parties in my life. Especially if I only go to as many this year as I did last year, because then I'll have to make up for it, hard.

High-tech writer's block

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:02:23 -0700

I had two cups of coffee at the corner shop and couldn't stay focused on the book I was reading. I'd read it before, but I was sure it was the coffee that was inspiring me to intentionally read the paragraphs out of order. I also hadn't been reading much lately. I wondered if it might have something to do with the way I read when I'm reading online, usually just skimming through headlines or skipping through the main text to read the comments, each no longer than 500 characters. So, unable to read like an adult and inspired by the cafe's music, I skipped home to write. I no longer give paper and pen a second thought; yesterday I filled out an employment form and noticed that my handwriting had gone from it's typical bad to an outrageous crappiness, and I concluded it was because the laptop had become my sole writing implement. Another very modern problem was the question of where I should write. I mean a slightly metaphorical where, because I was definitely not going to leave my couch, but which blog I would write on: Livejournal would be fine, but I'd been exclusively writing politically minded content on my livejournal for quite a while and decided it would be best to maintain the theme, but I didn't really feel like writing on the political philosophy piece I had already in progress. MySpace was a possibility, but I felt an expectation to only write there while drinking or feeling self-deprecating. Facebook was considered briefly, but I noticed I only received positive feedback (if any) if I wrote a short and clever true and self-referential piece, and the approval of my long-estranged friends was too important for me to risk. Blogger or my own domain was certainly too formal, and I didn't feel like writing and editing a first draft before posting, and I couldn't handle the thought of losing several seconds of momentum by waiting for MS Word to load up. Writing in Word seems so dead now anyway, with it's big blank space and sterile toolbars, and even less hope of ever being seen by a person other than me. In fact, writing in MS Word vs a social networking site or blog was almost as foreign an idea to me as writing on paper, both things that felt exclusively under the domain of school work. By the time I had decided to write in Virb because of it's certain invisibility mixed with its simple yet glossy look, I realized I had spent more time in whispered debate with myself over "where" to write than I had considered what to write. I felt all previous energy, mental and physical, drained from me. I decided to play a computer game instead.

P1010679

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:58:30 -0700

Action shot.

homegirl

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:55:22 -0700

the couch that God built

gangsta

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:55:19 -0700

a parent

nonvegetarian

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:55:16 -0700

I chewed the meat but I didn't swallow.

Editors Note: I'll never tell where I am, but 10 points if you can guess

P1010681

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:53:32 -0700

this never happened

We're all gonna die (really, we all could die)

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:26:49 -0800

So it's established that everything, even if it's just one part or just a phase of something greater, ends. We all understand this, and though we can debate about an after life and the supernatural, it's undisputed that we will die. Nothing new there, though this is something people have beaten to death. What people don't seem to pay much attention to is that the world will end. You can dress that statement up as much as you want. Like, if the average temperature increases by a couple degrees, then the socio-political order to which we've become accustomed may change, perhaps to a relatively unrecognizable degree. Sure, there could be massive political change because of wars caused by real or manufactured resource shortages. But more importantly, the planet could be turned into an intergalactic spec of hamburger. Yeah, I'm talking about a rain of fire and seas boiling away as the atmosphere is blown away in a super-sonic wave of destruction that peels away 10k of crust, throwing debris into a near-earth orbit. In the history of the planet, it's happened 6 times. Life survived, but only barely, and humanity would surely be destroyed beyond hope. It's also possible that the next one could be bigger than previous events, meaning it's possible that Life wouldn't survive. "So," you might say, "chances are it won't happen -- at least not soon." Ok, sure. You aren't banking the survival of ALL LIFE on the chance it won't happen, right? I mean, it could happen at any time between now and some million years from now, but wouldn't it be infinitely better to be prepared now rather that unprepared when it happens? "So," you might still say, "we've kicked ass in previous challenges, maybe this kind of existential threat would motivate and unify humanity toward its common survival?" Yeah, if we have enough warning we might be able to do something about it, but space is big and looking at it isn't quite so profitable as to motivate a vigilant watch. The last dangerously big object to pass between the Moon's and the Earth's orbit (that is, it was closer to us than the moon ever is) wasn't noticed until just minutes before it passed us. A way more intimidating object is going to pass between us and the orbit of some of our satellites, it wasn't spotted (by an amateur astronomer no less) until less than a year ago, and it wasn't until recently that we weren't reasonably sure that it wasn't going to have its course changed by colliding with our satellites enough to end up hitting us some years later. Space is a really big place, but even if we're looking in every direction, something could be going so fast that there was no way we could see it with enough time to build a way to push it off course. "Okay, okay," you might still say, "maybe we won't get to reenact Armageddon and break it up with a nuke we drill into its core or something. Like you said, even stars die out, so what right do we have to try and escape our fate?" Whoa, that's a pretty philosophical question. But the answer doesn't just involve us, but all the life on the planet over which we've appointed ourselves stewards. Maybe we've made all the wrong choices and have proven to be one petty party of primates. But what about dolphins, dogs, daffodils, ducks, deer, deciduous trees, dung beetles, and the very biomes that created them? Don't they deserve to be given another chance if it's at all in our power? That's why certain fields of interest are more important than others. It's still fine to pursue a career in sports management, but science beats basketball as a way to get off the planet. And creating the political atmosphere that's receptive to major change, like funding such unprofitable projects as our future survival, is more important than any political pursuit. While previous "end of teh world movements" have been little more than kitty movements, this is for real. Will the world care enough to save itself?

Intrinsic value of the medium?

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:24:24 -0800

I had a blogger and now I have my own domain, with wordpress features I haven't figured out yet. I write often in my StumbleUpon blog, inspired by what I stumble on. I wish I hadn't written what I have on Facebook, which I can't seem to get rid of, I don't know how visible it is, and it could be embarrassing. I practice serious writing in my Livejournal, which no one sees, and I write trivial introspection on my MySpace which no one reads because hardly any of my 200 friends are more than the most passing of acquaintances anymore and are more like friends I wish I had. Alone in the teeming masses, we practice personal communication in broad daylight hoping to attract someone who will join the conversation already in progress. I wrote a great blog in MySpace the other day, naturally falling into the style of minimalist prose, getting maximum message from each short line. I accidentally posted it twice. Drunk, I didn't realize that I also accidentally deleted it twice. The blog expressed my bleak but not sad feelings by matter-of-factly listing my actions of the day. Maybe it described an argument I had with my girlfriend where she said writing in SU doesn't matter as much because it's a tool for finding websites of interest and maybe leaving short reviews, not really designed for blogging. Maybe it described the last interaction I had with one of the few people I interacted with on Livejournal, who had contacted me with a story about how he had accidentally offended someone because of the natural limitations of written communication and a friendship was permanently ruptured-- shortly after, with tragic irony, I accidentally offended her. Or maybe it was about all those things as well as how much I need a job and wish I was in school. I'll never know, because MySpace doesn't automatically save a draft.

The best of the internet, the worst of the internet.

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:53:50 -0800

The internet is a tool consisting of tools, or maybe more like a neighborhood resource center for the world where you can check out every tool yet invented. Everything has its pros and cons and can be used for good or evil. My favorite part of the internet is the pure democracy of it, with the teeming masses able to say what they want on any forum or even make their own soap boxes to shout from, a kind of absolute freedom of speech humanity has never seen. This is also my least favorite part. It's the old argument against Anarchism: the achievement of the anarchist ideal would be the doom of humanity because chaos ensues in the absence of a nanny state to oversee and mete out punishments. The internet, with unhindered chattering masses of the boiling blogosphere, is virtual anarchy. Vigilante justice falls on some in extreme circumstances and most forums have rules that can temporarily or permanently silence a violator, but there are generally no serious repercussions. I'm not just groaning about a sore lack of netiquite, although that's a big problem. The thing that I hate most about the internet is the complete freedom and anonymity that makes people feel like they can get away with not treating a person with an ounce of mutual respect. Some people have become so used to quality and speed that when they find something that they don't like, a video on YouTube for example, they will simply flame a person. A person with contrary political or philosophical beliefs will receive a "flame" of bitter hatred. I once thought this phenomenon was just a factor of youth, but it seems to have no demographic boundaries. Seneca the Younger, was a philosopher who gained a special insight on anger by being the tutor and adviser of the infamously angry-tempered Emperor Nero, and other opulently wealthy statesmen and merchants. An anecdote related to his experiences with rage came from a typical dinner party where a waiter dropped a platter of finely crafted crystal, shattering them. The host of the party was extremely wealthy and would spend the money it would cost to replace the glasses without a thought but still flew into an apoplectic rage, mercilessly beat the poor server, and threw him into a pool of vicious barracudas. The anger was not so much at the loss of the crystal, but the expectation that everything should go as planned, an expectation reinforced by great wealth, or by the exponentially increasing convenience of the internet.

Man-Boy May Be A Writer or Just a Smoker

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:55:53 -0700

Flipping through a forgotten Moleskein journal, he came across an undated page that threatened to destroy him with its lack of context.

"How To Be A Writer

Ask most people how to be a writer, and they will brush you off with advice that is safer than it sounds, that you should write as often as possible.

They aren't wrong, but it's not the whole picture. Practice makes perfect is a platitude that leaves out the important steps of drug or alcohol addiction. If the writer's purpose is to chronicle experiences so the reader doesn't have to go through them, then every modern writer needs to have the experiences of drug induced bliss or super-terror under their belt.

Cigarettes and alcohol are vital in their own right as the cornerstones of the writer image, along with coffee. These things keep the writer's analytical side down just enough to allow the creative side of the brain to go through otherwise unattainable perspectives."

The handwriting gets worse and worse toward the end, and it's obvious he had been drinking at the time. But he wondered feverishly, is there a chance he could have been sarcastic? It seemed so stupid, a small page of ridiculous self-importance in a brand-named and inherently self-important journal... "How to be a writer?!" he laughed.

Worse than the pretension of an unpublished kid trying to rationalize intoxicating himself by proclaiming drugs and alcohol as a vital creative tool of a writer, was the importance placed on achieving the IMAGE of a writer. Had he been this crappy of a person, he wondered? Would it be wrong to rip out the page and burn the evidence of such an extremely shallow moment? Or would it be worse, he considered while noticing the ample sized bottom margin, to add to the page so a future incarnation of himself would instead be delighted at the sarcastic fictional piece about image obsessed man-boys? It's possible that it was satire, anyway.

Still unsure, he accidentally wrote the word "fuck" at the bottom of the page, but instantly crossed it out, painfully aware at how typically 'Catcher In The Rye' such a gesture would be.

Nice template, nice paper

Thu, 17 May 2007 11:41:04 -0700

You know that feeling you get when some relative gives you a fancy journal for your birthday or christmas or because they saw it and thought of you or whatever? Of course, "you" actually consist of a lot of people, so you might not have this experience, but it's unnerving for me. I already have a couple empty journals. I'm also capable of making my own. And it's not so much that I don't need a new one, as much as it is that I can't write on this fancy paper. Thin paper with a chinese village in soft and red hues fading into the left margin, thick recycled paper with flowers or leaves set in them, gold leaf, or lineless paper probably intended for the water-colorer on the go. These papers are dead, because they're too good for the attempt at writing I need paper for. You can't brainstorm on fancy paper! You have to write a rough draft and have it approved by a panel of experts before you can carefully transcribe the argument, prose, or observation onto the fancy paper. And so, fancy paper is dead. A really nice template for a blog has a similarly intimidating feel. You think, "this isn't just MySpace, this isn't just LiveJournal. Now I'm in the big leagues, with a slick web page. I have to write a special quality that is in synch with Virb's special look." Of course, such intimidation is only a light version of being full of ones self.

Despotism is to Democracy as Machiavelli is to Ghandi

Thu, 10 May 2007 20:20:41 -0700

Who are you? Who am I? We can at least know who we aren't. None of us are either Ghandi or Machiavelli, not even Ghandi or Machiavelli. We, as individuals, are all human. We may strive for a chosen ideal, but we can not completely escape our humanity, which holds a yin-yang in it's core. But We, as a people, are not necessarily bound to the moral limitations of the individual; a person will refrain from killing one's mother, but a people may find cause to kill many mothers. That's why we, as a collection of individuals, have to make a conscious decision to set the goals of society. Do we want to isolate ourselves and build a hierarchy in which we are at the top and uniquely privileged? Or would we prefer a world in which we try to solve problems in a holistic way, democratically trying to improve the lives of the most at the expense of fewest.

Machiavelli and those that followed him felt that a will to power was in the best interests of the government and the governed, that security depends on control and a strong protector would hold his position resolutely and steadfastly. Fighting and sacrificing to reach the top, the warrior-king will stand as the king of the hill, kicking the faces of those that would climb the steeps to become challengers. Such a leader who instill in the organization in which they lead a similar kill or be killed view of a world that is inherently neutral, leading the governed people into fights to dominate or maintain dominion.

Religion and philosophy predominantly agree that morality condemns violence, and it is the Machiavellian method of command that creates violence. History has shown resolutely that the more violently in which an end is met, the more violently will others reach for their opposing end. A ravenous acquisition of power will require a ruthless maintenance of such power. Colonial powers invade and conquer people, and maintain conquest over the people with a proportionately brute force. Revolutions led by those seeking power motivates people made powerless by colonial powers to help install despots as leaders, with notable exceptions. On one of the few occasions where war was used to build a democracy and the victors did not try and reap all their spoils, the American democracy flourished for a long time, serving as an example for others. This success depended on rare conditions of an especially distant oppressor already weak from a more domestic war and a cast of statesmen uniquely enlightened because of the underdevelopment of technology in their time, necessitating that educated people enter statescraft.

The enlightened statesmen resolved to break a cycle of violence. Rather than create a government with centralized power and a micromanaged command over its people, the builders of the U.S. constitution created a system where impartial laws hold more sway than fallible mortals, and with checks and balances to slow the advance of those that would seek the absolutely corrupting absolute power. Though they could have installed a King of America, they achieved a Satyaghahian end despite Machiavellian means. Though they could have enjoyed a temporary power at the expense of the powerless, they decided to share that power so that the majority would prosper.

Finding ourselves a generation facing disasters that may plunge our world into apocalyptic chaos, we must stand up against tyranny just like our celebrated predecessors. The oppressors we face in search of freedom are more refined and technologically enhanced enslavers of the human spirit, but we have the tools to fight fire with water. In an age where nations are reacting to Peak Oil with war, we can promote renewable resources and energy efficiency as a way of life. In a time of "Peak Culture," we must resist the brain washing and homogenization of the human experience by struggling to bring alternatives and counter-arguments to any forum that can be reached.

Limiting "body force" and working for change with love, patience, and peace will bring ends that are sustainable, moral, and democratic. Fighting fire with fire reigns destruction, but those that pound swords into plowshares will die peacefully rather than by the swords others lived by. The preservation of the future as a valuable commodity commands that we fight this multi-front war and that we do so by the most effective means possible.

domicile dreams

Fri, 04 May 2007 18:53:16 -0700

The first room had two beds. A living room with a small window into a kitchen, which had a stairwell into a basement which I knew to be the only exit. Walls lined with kitschy nicknacks, like mickey mouse clocks, commemorative plates, and shelves of miniature figurines like my grandmother's. I've occupied the house and am planning my role in a community of people who have also taken over houses, left abandoned after some catastrophe. A man I don't recognize walks into the bedroom while I'm working -- he's holding a piece of paper, has bad teeth and is wearing a plaid snap-up shirt. He says he was assigned here. I try and get rid of him, but I know I probably can't and try to imagine where a third bed will go and how it would effect the living room as a space for gatherings.

Only a few things in reality seem more outlandish than in dreams, and vice versa. I've come to suspect that some things I dreamed as a kid have come true, certain situations that seemed impossible or unlikely at the time and dismissed as only a dream, all of a sudden being true, a weird feeling of deja vu. Who would have thought my old friend from skipping classes in high school would get tattoos and age however many years. It brings the "you were there, but you were different" part of dreams into perspective. Even the feeling of dejavu is remembered from the dream.

In another dream, there is a fancy hotel in the middle of nowhere that's been turned into a barracks. Four to a room, like when I was in school in the Navy. I'm standing outside and they're looking at my transfer papers. There's a heavy guard. It's raining. The inside of the rooms are brick, but the hallways are nicely papered. Some of my friends from the Navy were there, and I wake up with the feeling that this could have happened.

Imagine where you saw yourself in five years... I never suspected I would join the military while I was in high school, and while I was in I never thought I would break my back. Even while I was re-planning my life, I suspected to go to the bay area in California, but instead I very randomly found myself in Portland after some unique experiences delayed me from getting back on the greyhound bus. I had dreamed a long time ago that I would die in Burbank when I was 25, and who knows, maybe it would have happened if I hadn't bumped into who I bumped into while crutching around downtown at 3 in the morning.

I've seen that guy around town a few times, and we of course don't acknowledge eachother. I've dreamt I was in a house at a party, where some of the walls were missing and you could see feet on stairs going from a basement to a split level above the one I was on, and I knew the feet were his. I ended up in a house that looked similar, with angles unlikely enough you might think it was built to dream-like specifications. It WAS a party and I DID steal a beer, but of course that guy wasn't there.

Maybe the places are real and the people are the metaphores. It's said that everyone in your dream is a facet of yourself. Others say that we're all connected. I've also heard the theory that the forward motion of time is a comfortable illusion, that all things that happen have happened. I think these ideas compliment eachother perfectly. This also fits with the idea of an omnipotent god with a universe with both a predetirmined future and free will... all options are plotted already, the paths that number in the infinite to the power of infinite are all real and exist, they're just less real than the present from the perspective of this individual.

So I hope the one where I'm a middle-school teacher in the tropics pulling alien eggs out of children's stomachs after a hurricane doesn't come true. Because that was CRAZY

I'm in some kind of school, with yellow walls and low counters along both sides of this long hall with a set of big glass double doors at the end. It's night, and I'm really concerned for a bunch of children that I guess I'm responsible for because I'm crouched over them.

There are loud noises outside, and there's another adult that is on her way to another room. I ask her, 'are they going to help us?' and I think I was referring to the government. The children are lying on the floor, I guess preparing for a hurricane. The woman tells me that they can't help, and I'm angry at first, but then I am afraid. Right then, the glass on the double doors breaks and there's a strong wind pushing us, and the children are crying. I notice there's a microwave to my right, just a little above me on one of those low counters, and I unplug it and take it off the counter.

Suddenly, I'm outside and I am aware that I'm in some kind of aftermath, and I'm in a courtyard. It's sunny and there's lush vegetation around dripping from last night and also bits and pieces of wood everywhere, and I'm furious but can't do anything about it because the children are all screaming.

Apparently I've had to deal with this before, because I know exactly what to do; I run and grab two trash bags, I line all the children up, and I systematically pull large-grapefruit sized eggs out of the children's belly buttons, rip open the fleshy, blood red shells, and put the shells in one bag and the contents of the eggs in another. I am afraid to look at the black things that I dump out of these horrible eggs.

I am completely horrified, but there's a grim necessity that I kill these creatures before they have a chance to hatch.

I am also aware that we don't know when we will get a new shipment of rations, and while I put the things in the plastic bags, I think that we may need to eat them.

Somehow, it's the government's fault. Or at least it is connected to it. After thinking that, I wake up.

Bringing civilization to the Western tragedy

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:21:03 -0700

The story is that a student once asked Ghandi what he thought about Western Civilization, to which he replied "I think it would be a very good idea." Just as a modern American can be found sneering or laughing at the futility of "barbarian" tribes in such a terrible state of constant war that they were never able to advance, so Ghandi must have felt when asked the question of Western civilization. Ghandi saw our history as one wrought with power struggles carried out under the banner of God or "the people" but moral ends are not met and the greater good is quietly ignored in place of personal profit. This is the folly of war. The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman discusses this phenomenon, showing how "from Troy to Vietnam" we have turned to the sword to solve our problems, even when alternatives were well within reach and more helpful, but all warnings are ignored in the "must" at a chance for glory. Until Michiaveli is discarded as a pathological and dark priest of a barbarian religion of greed, society faces a long and uphill struggle for advancement. The internet is a major democratizing force, a gift that will change the human experience as completely as the introduction of move able type. With such a blindingly fast flow of information, maybe the sun is rising to light our dark times. This may sound over-dramatic, but I'm drunk. More on this later