2.17.01 - 8:52:02

did you ever wake up one morning and realize that it's not just your bad day, it's everyone's bad day? how is it possible? how can so many things all be going so badly at the same time for so many people? i can't understand it, so i think i'll try to ignore it by eating chocolates and reading infinite jest and speaking to my roommates only in spanish after dark.

listen. my brother sent me some sunflowers today. it was nice even though i asked him to send flowers for v-day and he didn't and then he felt bad so he sent them belatedly, but it's fine because they still work. sunflowers are the most cheerful flowers, i think. so now our living room is filled with roses and sunflowers and honeysuckle and it makes me want to hit pause and just sit on that couch, swiveling my head around the room. the sunflowers look "tired," though. this is because they are sent without water so their petals don't bruise. you really do learn something new every day. my stomach hurts. they have been drinking for a few hours now. they've drunk about two inches of water. it's pretty amazing. i hope they're awake by the time i am tomorrow morning.

southside, moby feat. gwen stefani is a really good song. the 'here..here..here..here' before the chorus is my favorite part. you know what i'm talking about or you don't. isn't that great?

talked online with gregory for a while today. he just got his internet connection all set up in his apt (in russia). greg's over there teaching english, doing the peace corps thing. i miss gregory. somehow i just feel like 85% of the coolness at rice graduated in '99 or '00. but it doesn't really matter. nothing really does.

the cult. edie. i looked for that song forever before i found it. mainly because i couldn't remember the title. or really any part of the song besides 'an angel with a broken wing.' in the days before lyrics.ch or lyrics.com or any sort of full text lyrics search. i wasn't even sure it was the cult. i wonder how i ended up finding it. but i'm glad i did. because you know, it's a good song.

the light bulb in my lava lamp is broken and the light bulb in my water column is broken, and yes, i realize the correct term is probably burned out, but things don't feel burned out now, they just feel broken. like that dylan song. ain't no use jiving, ain't no use joking, everything is broken...

caroline childress is throwing a varsity singers reunion this summer. can you think of anything stupider than a show choir reunion? 15 years of show choirs at some stupid church eating some stupid food, probably coerced into singing stupid songs. how can i sit here in this chair feeling this way when there are people like caroline childress totally stressing out because they don't know how to contact david watson, DHS, class of 87? how? i can't understand it. i can't wrap my mind around it.

one day i'll be a writer. i don't know what i was thinking about, but the other day it just struck me. it's inevitable. it doesn't even matter whether i'm a good writer or a bad writer or a mediocre writer because that's not the issue here. i mean, yeah, i would hope to be a moderate success, but i don't even care. if music listener was a profession, i could have two callings in life.

it's not abnormal, she said. look over here, these people aren't abnormal. i don't understand what's going on with you, why do you think so differently from everyone else? it's not a crime. think different. isn't that even a slogan apple uses? but listen to me. if i could think different in a way that didn't make me feel like this every other week, trust me, i would. and sometimes i feel like i'm getting somewhere and then the skies open up and i know i'm just waiting, just treading water, running in place until someone changes the scene, the lighting, the movie, anything, really, anything. i hated treading water. we had to tread water to graduate from different levels of swim class when i was younger. so pointless. why would you tread water when all you really have to know is how to float? why doesn't anything make sense? why isn't there just one thing?

i guess we're going dancing tonight or karaoke-ing or something inane and silly and stupid that will make us all feel like we've entered a reality where things aren't so dark and predetermined and the good things are maybe still illusions but they're ones that you can touch and hold. it's the kind of thing, you know, that makes me look up at the sky every morning, like i'm searching for the rainbow, like when i find it i'm going to drop out of school and get in my car until i find the other end of it. the kind of thing that makes you think this way while at the same time you know you're going to finish school, you know you're going to take those standardized tests, going to law school, going to be a grown-up, but the whole time it's like you know a secret. everyone thinks they're making choices, but the choices are already made. free will is just an illusion. there really isn't any true purpose, any master plan. how can you believe that after the blood stops pumping through your veins, after your brain stop firing nerve impulses, how can you believe that there's something after that besides the way you lie there, cold and stiff and dead? just dead. if we could imagine some million year plan, some goal, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but we can't. so we have god. because there has to be a point, right? there has to be meaning because we need it. we need it so badly we create its existence.

i was talking to angie about all this earlier. see, it's not that i don't believe in god. i think there's probably someone, somewhere up there. when i was younger, i used to think about it in these terms --you know when you dream, and there's people in your dream who you know that you have never seen before in real life? and they're there, and they're doing things, and maybe you're controlling them somehow because they're in your dream, but you have no vested interest in them and it doesn't matter to you what they do or where they end up or how they feel. they're just there, inside your dream. i feel like that's us. the cast list of some big, crazy dream. we've got such an overabundance of this feeling of self-importance. if there is a plan, it doesn't even seem halfway rational that it would end with us. i bet the dinosaurs thought they were here to stay for a while, too, you know. i bet they thought they were hot shit. but like i've said before, there aren't any guarantees. there never, ever are, and there it is, that's about the only thing that's guaranteed.

so what's my solution? yeah, i don't have one. i would suggest living your life and making the best of it and having fun with your time here, because really what else can you do? make some good choices. pretend they weren't already made for you. it's very difficult for me to turn my brain off and follow my own advice, though. borders on impossible.

so sometimes you just take a little soma vacation without the soma, substitute whatever you would like. my personal favorite? just block everything out and listen. really listen.

"i need a date to the prom, would you like to come along, nobody to go to the prom with me...baby...they didn't like american music, they never heard american music, they didn't know the music's in my sou-ou-ou-oul....baby...you were born too soon, i was born too late, but every time i look at that ugly lake, it reminds me of me....uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh...do you like american music? we like american music. i like american music...baby...do you like american music? we like all kinds of music. but i like american music best...baby...you were born too late, i was born too late, but every time i look at that ugly lake, it reminds me of me...."

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