Halftime of the NCSU/Cincinnati game. We're ahead. Costner is playing well, thank God. Figured I'd kill time by blogging.

Well, I fucking did it... I quit smoking. 5 days in, anyway. I guess I don't really get to say I quit until it's been months or something, but I'm over the 3-day hump, and I'm not really thinking about them that much now. It was SO bad for the first few days, because I seriously craved one about every 3 minutes.

The words of Bill Hicks took on new wisdom this week:
"It is hard to quit smoking. Every one of them looks pretty good to me right now. Every cigarette looks like it was made by God, rolled by Jesus and lightly moistened shut with Claudia Schiffer's pussy lips right now."

Kinda crude, but also true. I actually READ the word "cigarettes" in a book I was reading, and it made me salivate and taste tobacco smoke. I tried not to go out at all, but I had to go up to a Rite-Aid at one point, and I smelled someone's burning cig ... I almost mugged them for it.

See, this is why I don't do coke or anything like that. 'Cause I know what it feels like to be hooked on something. And yo... it sucks.

You never get over an addiction, either. I smoked for a few years, stopped for two, and then earlier this year picked them up again. Not only did my addiction re-activate as soon as I had smoked just one, it was stronger and harder to satisfy than ever before. I had smoked a half a pack a day in those earlier years, this semester I've been smoking a pack a day plus.

"Gee, Heath, why don't you blog some more about your cigarette addiction? We are all fascinated!" Thank you, I will. I did some calculations and realized that at 4.50 a pack, a 30 day month was costing me $135 if I didn't go over a whole pack (as I often did) and fucking 1,642.50 a year. My first thought upon discovering this was: holy shit, I could have had an XBox360, or a girlfriend! OR BOTH! Perish the thought.

I feel like I'm talking about cigarettes way too much, and it's making me salivate a little bit, so I should move on. But I can't really talk about what I really want to talk about. So instead I'll bitch about something else.

It's driving me crazy to be up at my dad's house. I love the guy, a lot, but in some ways we just aren't compatible. I get on his nerves, and he gets on my nerves. There doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground there. There are a few activities we can enjoy together, but not a whole lot. I feel like while I'm up here, I do most of the same shit I do in Raleigh -- sit on the couch, mess around on the Internet, play Wii, procrastinate on my writing, and read. I'd much rather be doing this in Raleigh right now, to be perfectly honest. I guess coming up here helped me quit smoking, but now... I'm like... another week of this? REALLY? Damn.

According to Fox Sports, there's nothing better than free food and candy during Christmas. That reminds me that I've been eating for free up here at my dad's, as well as eating a lot of candy. That's definitely a bonus. BUT DUDES. I have eaten more in the last five days than I probably ate in the two weeks prior. No exaggeration. I always heard you gained weight when you quit smoking, but damn. Something in my body is ballin out of control right now. I've tried to counteract the appetite by doing sets of crunches and pushups every day, which I havent done in like a year. I used to be pretty good about that, but then I just kinda let everything go to shit.

Wow this is a fascinating blog, so much so it would really be a disservice to my readership to end it here. I can picture everyone reading this rapt with attention, just going, "WHAT NEXT??" But I'm afraid I must break all of your hearts and end it here. Sorry.
(Sarcasm, btw.)

Holla.

The best moment in music occurs during the Mono Puff song "Creepy," about two minutes in. After singing "Creepy" over and over, the singer says very earnestly: "This song is called 'Creepy!'"

OK, maybe that's not the best moment in music, but it struck me as really funny this morning. I am easily amused.

I'm seeing Ween again next month. This makes 3 Ween shows in 2 years. I'd say that's a pretty good track record. They were good when we saw them in Raleigh last year, and MIND-BLOWINGLY AWESOME in Asheville earlier this year. From what I understand, the band was going through some tumultuous shit during the time of the Raleigh show... so that probably explains why they were less-than-perfect that time.

Any band that formed during middle school writing songs like "I Got a Weasel" and "You Fucked Up" that is still recording like 20 years later and is better than ever gets mad respect from me. Unfortunately, the only band that has cleared that particular bar is Ween. The new album is awesome, I'm looking forward to hearing how all that material sounds live. And my tickets are in the "loge," which is in the balcony section (lame) but at least it's at the front of the balcony (holla.) In Asheville earlier this year we were like 5 feet from the stage, and got caught up in some crazy crowd shenanigans. I'll never forget the sight of 100 hippie chicks climbing up on stage to shake it to "LMLYP," to the point that you couldn't even see the band playing behind them, the one dude that tried to stage dive that nobody caught, or the guy that was obviously tripping who got up on stage and did some weird chicken dance only to be thrown into the crowd by a 60-year-old security guard.

So, I'm done with my finals and stuff. I didn't really have many. I don't think I'll get a semester this easy in graduate school again, but I'm cool wit'it. Still don't know what my grades were, but two of my three classes were pass/fail, and I'm sure I passed those two. I'll get in an A in Shakespeare if my final paper was okay, but I have some questions about that. I was kind of super-distracted while writing that, but it's my own fault. It seems like distractions magically come up when final papers are due.

Next semester: Kafka & Mann (awesome), D.H. Lawrence (holla), and Advanced Technical Writing (fuuuuck.) It should be cool anyway. Halpern teaching D.H. Lawrence should be a serious trip. I'm also signed up for Victorian Novel, but planning on dropping that one like it's hot.

Thanks to the dude that commented on the below post. My first comment! I'm hitting the big time now. Look out, world!

I'm quitting smoking in just a few days. It is scaring the shit out of me. I'm starting to wonder if being at my dad's house is the best place to do that. But it's better than being here and being a dick to my friends.

Life is weird. I don't have much more to say about this topic beyond that. It's weird.

This is the most disjointed blog post ever, but I guess that fits with my steeeez. I can't believe I just said steez. I'm such a gangsta. After all, I'm the one that wrote the famed British bounty hunter verses on the single "Chardasaurus Rex," which is SO hot in the streets right now. I heard it on a DJ Clue mixtape the other day, boomin out some dude's jeep.

I will end this post with a brief anecdote. I was driving my 82-year-old godfather to Cup a Joe yesterday in his minivan, which I do not have good control over. He wanted me to park on the street right by the place so he wouldn't have to walk far -- dude is pretty feeble these days. I guess I cut it a little too close to the curb, because he shouted, "Shit, man, you almost hit that muthafuckin' pole!!"
I love that guy.

It Makes You Feel Human Again

I said in an earlier post that I really don't get advertising. Now I'm starting to suspect ad companies are just trying to fuck with us.

Richard and I were watching TV tonight, chillin, eating some cashews, saying word. We had just been laughing about this commercial where bedsprings seem to be stalking a mattress salesman. And then we apparently entered some alternate dimension.

The commercial immediately following that one started out normally enough. It was about one of those automated Shiatsu massage thingies that you try out for free in Sharper Image stores but never actually purchase. The ad went through the various benefits of buying one, noting that they work on the neck, back AND shoulders!! It was looking pretty good and the commercial was going smoothly.

BUT THEN THIS GUY. This dude sitting in the chair getting a massage from this robotic creation is finally massaged to his satisfaction and stands up and says.... "It makes you feel HUMAN again!" Commercial over.

...Just let that soak in for a second. It. Makes. You. Feel. Human. Again.

This raises several problematic questions.
1. Did this advertising company realize that there is a cyborg demographic, or a Pinnochio demographic, that they really need to reach?
2. Are they trying to communicate to broken people who have to stand up twelve hours a day at work and come home sore and tired and have no one to massage their neck, back and shoulders? People who are so worn down by life that they no longer feel a part of humanity?
3. The most pressing question, and one Richard and I speculated on for minutes after seeing this: IS THIS THE ADVERTISING SLOGAN FOR THIS COMPANY??

I think the only logical answer is that advertising companies are run by robots. Robots... selling robots... to robots. Now THAT'S a good slogan.

Basically posting this because I just discovered I can. Pics from my West Coast trip this summer with dad.

Wonder blog powers...... ACTIVATE!

Well, I didn't do shit this week. I was supposed to be working on all sorts of papers, projects, presentations, some other p-word would fit nicely here but I can't think of any. But instead I played Super Mario Galaxy, worked on my MLB Power Pros season, played some internet poker, worked on the novel a bit, watched NCSU's basketball team lose badly to Michigan State (ok Gavin, we've already got 2 of our 4 projected losses, no pressure), found out I got a 98 on my Shakespeare paper/presentation, read Lee's screenplay, saw No Country for Old Men again, and last night watched Taxi Driver for the first time in a couple of years with Anne and Brian and Erik.

I'd call that a good week. Next week, though, is going to suck.

If you haven't seen Taxi Driver, you should see it. It's another one of those pretty-difficult-to-watch-but-has-important-themes movies. I really like those. I think something is wrong with me because of this, but I really prefer fucked-up movies that make me think to happy movies where everything works out.

I hate to admit this because of what a fucked up movie it is, but I went through a phase where I watched that movie like once a week. Don't worry, I wasn't identifying with the psycho stalker main character. But I guess I wanted to understand him. I mean... more than anything, that movie is about loneliness and isolation and alienation (just like basically all the good films of the 1970s are.) As an only child of a single parent and a card carrying member of the I-Got-Beaten-Up-In-Middle-School club, I spent a lot of my life lonely and alienated. So I guess I do identify with that part of it, but whatever. I guess it gives me a little bit of perspective on what it's like to be on that side, but thankfully I never lost my sanity. That's not true of everyone, though. What fascinates me about that movie is how tenuous the balance is for some people. And it's really about what's in your mind. If you believe you're doing the right thing, or that you're justified in doing something horrible, you can do it. I don't think many people say, "Hey, I feel like doing something really horrible today. Let's do this!" Even the worst serial killers had some deep-seeded wound combined with a chemical imbalance that made them feel entitled, or forced, to do awful things to other people.

I guess the thing that really gets me about it is how easily someone could be Travis Bickle without anyone else realizing it. I'm not paranoid and I don't suspect everyone I see of being psychotic, but I do know that there's a basic facade we all carry around during our daily lives, and if you don't look closely you could believe that's exactly how a person is. And again, how we interpret these fronts is all based on what's in our own heads. It's like when Travis basically tries to confess to Peter Boyle's character that he's about to kill someone, without coming out and saying it ("I got a lot of bad ideas", etc) and Boyle just sees it through his own prism and relates it to his own problems. Gives some silly anecdote about being a cabbie and tries to make the point that you are what you do. Kind of like a Hallmark card. And then he just goes, "Get drunk, get laid, do something." But if he'd taken the time to listen a little bit more closely, he could have discovered what was really going on, and prevented a psycho rampage.

When I said what got me about it was how tenuous the balance is, I guess I mean this: there are plenty of lonely, alienated people with "lots of bad ideas." They want someone, anyone, to notice them. When that doesn't happen, they start seeing society as a whole as an opponent. They lump everyone together because they're angry about seeing themselves as alone. They become opposed to everything and everyone. And then they feel completely justified in attacking innocent people, because they're part of that society the crazy person feels wronged by. We see this manifest in school shootings, oppressive/genocidal dictatorships, random serial murders or rapes.

So do your part to stop a genocidal dictatorship before it starts. Talk to people that seem weird. Let them know you're listening to them. It sounds silly as hell, but I really believe a single person can make a difference to another person. What if someone had sat down with Travis Bickle and let him rant about what he went through in Vietnam and the things he hated about New York City and his problems with women and just repeated back everything he said in different words. He'd be like, "well, maybe everyone's not a dick." And then he probably would have reservations about killing people he didn't know. I'm not saying society is to blame for producing this kind of criminal, but I *am* saying we as a society could do a lot more to prevent them. And not by adding even more cops. Sorry, Rudy Giuliani.

I didn't mean to write all of this about Taxi Driver. I guess this makes me seem kind of crazy myself. But it's one of those amazingly-shot and -acted films that stays with me for a while and spurs all kinds of thoughts. And if I can't put those on my own blog, where can I put them?

I'm about to go meet up with my godfather. One of my favorite times of the week. Tonight I am going to destroy all comers in Risk. Hopefully my Diplomacy skills will transfer. Just don't tell any of my Diplomacy buddies I've been playing Risk. ("Dice? HAH!" they will scoff.)

And then I guess I better start working on, y'know, my final papers. I keep hoping they will magically write themselves. I think I'll give them a couple more days to see if that happens.

Josh put this in his buddy info a while back, but I want to preserve it for posterity, because it's simultaneously the dumbest and coolest thing I can think of ever having said on AIM.


hjdfssfdol: what did they have for police officers in colonial times
num but dem lacs: Probably just some old geezer on a mule with a lantern

"Blib, blub, blog 'im."

-Ryan McKay, circa 2001.

Well, here I sit in the Technician office. Sunday office hours seem kind of silly, because no one ever comes for appointments, except when time sheets are almost due. While I vastly prefer being in the office with the sounds of general merriment and newspapermaking floating up the halls, it's also kind of nice to be here alone. It lets me focus completely on wasting time on the Internet. 

The irony, of course, is that I live alone, and can easily waste time on the Internet whenever I want, but usually (recently, anyway) I play Super Mario Galaxy instead.  

My first semester in grad school is almost over, which is pretty damn stunning. Time seems to pass faster and faster the older I get. My dad used to preach to me about that -- something about how when you're five, a year is a fifth of your life, but when you're fifty, it's only one-fiftieth. I was pretty sure he said that because he was crazy and bitter about being old, but now I see the ol' man was dropping some wisdom. 

I meant to talk about grad school when I started that paragraph. Damn you, blogs, and your complete lack of necessitated revisions!!! But I guess talking about school would be pretty boring. So I'll spare my two readers (hi, Mom and Dad!) and move on. (Just kidding, I don't think my mom and dad know about this site. And if they did, they'd probably really want to read about grad school and not so much about Super Mario Galaxy.)

Thanksgiving break has come to an end. I'll be honest, this was a pretty disappointing one. Female trouble reminding me of my perpetual singledom, Thanksgiving lunch at a restaurant, finding a dog I *really* wanted to adopt at the SPCA only to find out that my lease doesn't allow pets (a surprise to me as my neighbor has one), and my first NCSU game as a student being a 37-0 loss to Maryland.

But the annoying-ass age-old rhetorical question about the glass and its various states of emptiness and fullness reminds me that there is something good about basically all of those things I just listed. Female trouble: well, I'm still single -- the girls I've seen this semester haven't worked out for me, but that just means I'm that much more eligible for all the hot ladies lining up outside my door (good lord that's a stretch, but I'm going for bright sides here.) Thanksgiving lunch: it was a *good-ass* lunch. And it was cool to be with my mom after spending the last 2 Thanksgivings away (once at my dad's, once at Steph's house... shudder.) Dog disappointment: the girl working as an "adoption counselor" that I talked to was incredibly cute. No, I didn't get her number. I was with my mom, and plus I'm un-smooth. But still, that lifted my spirits a bit. NCSU loss: at least I got to go with Brian (a friend from the Technician) and his brother to tailgate beforehand, and met up with Anne (Brian's fiance and my friend from Shakespeare class) at the game. Cool people. New friends are always good. 

I also got to see "No Country for Old Men" twice over break. I know that's kind of weird, but when I see a movie that I think is *really* good, I generally try to go see it again as soon as possible while I still remember everything about the story, so I can look for little details. It was definitely worth 2 viewings, and gave me a lot to think about. Everyone should go see it. I will warn you that it's very dark and offers an extremely pessimistic thesis about the human condition. What I took away from it was a sense that evil, while pretty rarely found in individuals, is still prevalent in the world, and a single good person really can't do jack shit to change that. Bad people seem to be more powerful than good people, if only  because their motives are difficult to understand and their actions unpredictable. And often good has to work in response to evil, which pretty much blows. It's not like bad people do bad things because they see good stuff happening.

It left me with a fairly profound sense of pessimism about the future of humanity, but the bright side of that was the fact that there are a hell of a lot of good people out there that I know of, that care deeply about other people and the future of the planet and kids and animals. I really think the problem has to do with organization versus apathy. I hope this moment doesn't come too late, but we all need some large purpose to rally around and make some pretty huge changes. I sound like a third-rate socialist tract-writer, so I will stop now. By the way, none of that was really in the movie, it's just kind of what it got me thinking about. So I didn't spoil anything for you.

I have so much shit due for my classes next week, so you will probably hear more from me as I attempt to procrastinate over the coming two weeks. Then, whenever Christmas break gets here, I'm heading up to Asheville to be with my dad and stepmom and also to quit smoking (again). Given that I wake up a couple of times a night on average needing a cigarette, it's sure to be a hair-raising experience, and I'll probably make sleep-deprived, irritable observations on this blog at that time as well.

I guess I'll end with a little anecdote. The other night (last week, I guess) I was walking from the Tech. office to the Dan Allen deck where I park. I approached the "gum wall" (a wall where everyone sticks the gum that they've been chewing) with near-hypochondriac trepidation. For some reason, that wall just looks like a gigantic slab of concrete disease to me. There was a young family with a girl about six or seven walking the opposite direction, towards me, and we passed the wall at the same time. I overheard the little girl say to her mom about the wall, "You know, Mom, in a way, it's kind of beautiful."

For some reason, I was really touched by that. Not only was it awesome that the girl looked at the wall, processed it, formed an opinion, and shared it with her mom, but the fact that she saw beauty in it was almost stunning to me. Because then I started thinking about it in that context -- how the hell could this be considered beautiful? -- and then realized that the thousand wads of chewed-up gum had been placed there by a thousand different people, all thinking different thoughts, carrying out different tasks, going through their various lives. That's probably the corniest thing I've ever written, but in the end, I agreed -- in a way, it was kind of beautiful.

To counteract how corny that was, I'll end this with the craziest painting I've ever seen, in the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.

Whoa now

OK, so it's been about 500 years since I updated this blog, but State's losing badly to Wake Forest (we're at the half now) and I'm trying to think of other things to do than write my Shakespeare paper.

I haven't written anything here since I started grad school, and I can conclusively say that it's "the heat." All my reservations about staying at NCSU have basically been turned around, I've been enjoying working at the Technician, classes are going really well (solid As so far... holla) and I've managed to stick to some positive lifestyle-change type things -- people who've known me for a while will know what I'm talking about.

I've been pretty busy, and I've discovered that I *really* like being busy. I've been attacking the novel with newfound discipline. I dunno, it all feels pretty good.

It's kind of been weird drifting away from my old group of friends, though I do still see some of them on occasion. But it's been awesome meeting tons of new people that are into the same sort of stuff I'm into. It makes me feel a lot less weird. For the first time I actually feel like I know where I'm going in life, and it's not too shabby.

OK, wait a second. I don't understand advertising. A commercial on ESPNU just showed a Sasquatch attack a dude for some beef jerky. No Sasquatch I know would go that far for some damn pemmican. I think we should be a lot more worried about Sasquatches learning how to split the atom instead of so cautiously guarding our jerked beef.

Sorry, random aside. Anyway, I've basically decided to start blogging again once in a while, just to write weird shit like the above when I feel like it. That used to be a lot of fun, and frankly I didn't set a great tone for this blog when I started it last year. I was in the middle of some serious post-graduation hating-my-lackey-job ennui, and I apologize for the emo tone of some of the stuff I wrote back then. But you got to go through it, man, you got to go through it.

The novel is at 70 pgs or so now, 40 of those having been written within the last month and a half. Like I said, I've actually gotten disciplined about it, and after having shown it to a bunch of people that I trust and learning that they do not, in fact, think I'm insane for working on it, I've sort of got a newfound interest in that and creative writing in general. I wrote a few good things early in undergrad and then decided to rest on my laurels for a couple of years, but I'm not gonna fall into that trap again.

I feel kinda all over the place right now, which, probably, is why I decided to post. The TV is now showing a commercial for an "Endless Pool." Has anyone ever seen these? It's seriously the most ridiculous thing ever conceived. A water treadmill. Ju crasy.

I predict I will post on this blog mostly when I have something due within the next two to three days, and much more rarely when I don't have a reason for procrastination. Check in a few days before Dec. 6th, if you're so inclined.

I never use this blog. I used to have a blog, Cosmopolitan Tang, in high school. This was before most people had blogs. (James Dempsey is seething with rage right now if he's reading this.) I like to think it was pretty amusing for others to read. For one thing, I made it kinda foolproof by signing like 10 people up to post on it. I mean, when you have an esteemed gentleman like George Kiwada making multi-post epics about the adventures of the Japanese Cowboy in law enforcement, you're doing well as a blog. But I don't know, this solo-blog thing, the I'm-an-adult-now-but-still-do-this-shit thing, is kind of not doing anything for me.

I remember once we had a CosmoTang purge. I was completely pressured into this and ended up removing a few new posters that the "old guard" didn't think were up to par. The bitter irony is that I quickly realized several of the people I had "purged" were as good of, if not better, writers as I was, and they went on to create influential, ground-breaking blogs that would one day change the face of American blog culture. OK, that last part was sarcasm, but I'm pretty sure that's when the ol' Tang died.

Someone needs to take the word "blog," wrap it in a full-body cast, and push it down a flight of stairs several hundred times. I really get sick of reading "blog," reading blogs, writing "blog," and writing blogs. I guess that's why I "blog" so rarely. In summation, fuck a blog.

Don't even get me started on vlogs. I pledge never to do one of those.

Vonnegut

Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to
end,
And our God will take things back that He to
us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our
God,
Why go right ahead and scold Him. He'll just
smile and nod.

From the end of Ch.119....
[K.Vonnegut :
Bokononist "calypso"]

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut.

Dr. Halpern is probably the coolest person I've ever met. Today he convinced me to write a memoir of all things, (a real one, not the joke fictional memoir I'd been working on until, y'know, I stopped) and then asked me to sit in on his class. Makes me kind of glad I'm going to NCSU for the grad degree after all.

I know I haven't updated this blog in a while, but given the general pervasiveness of blogs and the fact that this one is like all others, you should probably thank me.

So, after what seems like forever waiting to find out, I learned last week that I didn't get into some of the MFA programs I wanted, including the one I thought I actually had a decent shot getting into -- still waiting to hear back from some more, but I'm pretty much assuming they'll all be rejections at this point.

I kinda screwed up by not researching the programs more -- all those that I applied for were among the most competitive, which in retrospect was a really bad idea -- and I also really screwed up by not... well, writing more. I will admit I was not a very well-prepared candidate in some ways.

But I just found out I got accepted at the MA program at State, which I had applied to sort of as an afterthought among the MFA programs. But now I'm kinda thinking... why the hell not? It's 2 more years of studying literature, and it's not a terminal degree like the MFA is. I could forseeably get a PhD after getting the MA. So I figure maybe this isn't such a bad development. Staying in Raleigh will be cool in some ways, kinda stifling in others. I don't want to put down roots in Raleigh, having lived here 23 and a half years now I'm looking to try somewhere else out, so I'm hoping to get out of here eventually. But 2 more years I could do.

They said they didn't know if they could give me a teaching assistantship or not because they don't know what kind of funds they'll have, but that I'm on the list should they be able to secure money for them. Not quite sure how to take it but it seems like I have a chance, at least. That would be totally sweet.

In unrelated news, when I was driving from Asheville to Raleigh someone cut me off on the highway. I mention this because the car was one of the most ostentatious sports cars I've ever seen, like just unnecessarily flashy in its design, bright red, with a license plate that said something like "JSTSOBLESSD". All around it at other parts on the highway I see mostly busted out cars from the mid-nineties like my own. I was so dazed by the sad, sad irony I almost forgot how pissed I was at being cut off.

Also unrelated, I did a lot of personality-testing stuff while I was up in Asheville, on the Internet, and I got the same result I always get, INFP. I don't know, for some reason, reading the description for it really clicked for me this time. Having that kind of personality makes things kind of hard for me sometimes, I spend so much time in my own head that I worry I don't cultivate relationships/friendships well at all. I feel like sometimes I seem aloof or something with people I'm not quite comfortable with yet, but it's just how I am when I'm getting to know people.

I'm going to go play some Wii now.

gkiw: holy crap, maybe you will appreciate this
Auto response from heathdgardner: I am away from my computer right now.

gkiw: I was making small talk with my girlfriend
gkiw: and I accidently had the following conversation with Chris miller
gkiw: gkiw: old cougar
Gonryo: Hmm?
gkiw: that's you
gkiw: Gonryo: Still confused
gkiw: that's right
gkiw: just how I like you
Gonryo: Now creepy
gkiw: woah woah
gkiw signed off at 11:50:28 PM.

the typewriter sits silent, it's as if you've
been betrayed, it's as if a murder has
occurred.
yet words still run through your brain:
"the Spanish bird sings!"
what can
that mean?
at least it's a ripple, even if unusable.

when will the keys
beat into the
paper
again?
it's so easy to die long before the
fact of it.

I look at the machine resting under its black
cover; an unpaid gas bill sleeps on top of
it.

there is a small refrigerator in the
room, it makes the only audible sound
here.

I open it and look inside:
it's empty.

I sit back down in the chair and wait; then I
decide to fool the
typewriter.

I write this
now
with a ballpoint
pen
in a red
notebook;
I am sneaking up on a poem;
there will soon be something for that
frigging
typewriter
to do!

there is a French expression, "without
literature
life is hell."

the glory and power of that!

now let the Spanish bird sing!

-bukowski, "writer's block"

hjdfssfdol: man what would lincoln say
hjdfssfdol: to this shit going on now
hjdfssfdol: hed probably just sigh really heavy and say "figures"

By the way, I've actually thought a lot about what I'll do if I don't get accepted to any grad programs. I have high hopes that I will, but MFA progs are super-competitive since they generally take so few students per year, so I've been working on various alternatives.

One is to stay in Raleigh, look for a job, work for a year, apply for MAs for fall 2008. Those would be easier to get into, and taking the PhD track would actually make things a little simpler in terms of getting a teaching job someday.

Another option is just to say "screw it" and move somewhere else anyway. I'd be hesitant to do this by myself -- it's easier to get by with a roommate, at least financially speaking -- but I'd do it if I had to. I just have this sense that North Carolina was where I grew up, and now that I've basically grown up, I have to see what else is out there. I'm not sure why I have this instinct, but it is pretty strong.

Maybe I can go backpacking in Europe and become a professional bum. I know a few people that might be interested in going that route. We'd just have to know not to shampoo a shampooer on the way back through customs (a little reference for Mr. Show fans out there.)

I can't believe how lucid my thoughts are these days. It's kind of cool. It also forces me to face a lot of crap I'd been trying not to face about stuff in my past (see below posts.) But it's been really healthy overall.

I am starting to wish I never agreed to do this DipPouch editorship, though. I'm just not quite at the level of fanaticism over the game that some of these other people are, so I don't have ideas for thousands-of-words articles on tactics and strategy. For the first issue I'm writing my "first game" story, that of Pope Satan and rafting retreats. The gist of it is that I felt so screwed over by everyone in that game that I made it my mission not to let that happen again, and got really immersed in the Internet hobby so I'd be kicking ass next time I played against those guys. (It worked, but it was also kind of crazy. I was a weird kid.)

Oh well. Gotta go.

I had a mini-breakthrough today on my novel. I'd been stuck for several days and I felt like the old block was coming back. But I figured out I can harangue anyone that expresses any interest about it until I'm basically describing the plot to myself. It's really weird, but that's the only way I know how to describe that particular phenomenon.

The great part and the horrible part about what I've gotten myself into with that thing is how crazy the narrator is. I mean, it gives me a lot of freedom both to make fun of him and to kind of suspend disbelief to let me have him do unpredictable things... but there's a fine line between an overly bombastic character who is amusing in his bombast and one who is just annoying to follow. So far I think it's still on the funny side, but it's kind of been a nagging concern as I've moved forward, slowing me down a little bit.

Moving on from that, I've been in Asheville for a month as of tomorrow. I've never spent this long with my dad before. I've also very rarely been away from other people my age to such an extent. In some ways it's been good -- I've gotten a hell of a lot of reading and writing done -- but in other ways I just feel lonely a lot of the time.

My dad and stepmother are great, though they can get on my nerves a good bit if I'm in the right (wrong) frame of mind. I guess that's par for the course.

Now a complete shift in tone and topic, as is my habit.

I was thinking recently about the girl I dated for most of last semester. I kind of realized that she fit right into the category of people I promised myself I *wouldn't* date anymore -- little, if any, interest in me or the things I do, critical, not emotionally connected. The thing that killed me was the realization of how easy it was for her to just drop the whole thing. I hate it when blogs are turned into Weapons of Passive-Aggressive Destruction, so I definitely wouldn't be writing this if I didn't know for a fact she'll never read this. This is definitely not to get at her, I've just been kind of thinking recently about the need to respect and value myself more, and to date people that will sort of reflect the fact that I feel that way. It's about mutual respect, and I settle for less way too easily.

I dunno, I suppose because I've had a lot of time on my hands I've been thinking about that kind of stuff. And the conclusion I came to: the one girl that I think really actually loved me, ever, I ended up treating pretty shittily (this auto-red-underline spell check thing tells me that is not a word, but I do not care.) I mean, I guess we would have broken up anyway -- I had just turned 21 when we broke up after 2.5 years of being together, and I had the sense then that I was too young to be committing to anything serious -- but the plain and simple fact that I took that for granted has been haunting me with a vengeance. And the stupid, oblivious way I acted, the dumb decisions I made, it's kind of crushing me at the moment. And then when I think about the rebound period after that... man, I don't even want to go there. I've been acting like an idiot in a lot of ways. I can do better than that.

I guess I shouldn't even be thinking about serious dating right now because A) I don't know anyone up here in Asheville, B) when I get back to Raleigh, I'll probably only be there for a few months before raisin up for wherever I raise up for (if I get the opportunity to raise up for somewhere. Raise up. STOP SAYING THAT) C) I just need a break, time to just enjoy being me.

I guess the positive in all this is that I'm actually a point where I can put all the bullshit behind me. I am about to leave this area for some new place in a few months. When I get settled wherever I'm going, or whenever I start feeling like I can do this seriously again, I'm going to be handling stuff differently. In a lot of ways, really.


I've been thinking about a lot of stuff lately, and this barely begins to cover it... I'll check in with more soon. (I don't know who is reading this, but I think I'm actually more comfortable with it that way, keeping the Cosmotang experience in mind...)

George Bush = Worse than Satan

This is great.

RIGHT ON, BRUDDAS!!

Now that Presidential primary season is getting underway, I'll probably be noting ridiculous facts about the various candidates on this blog as well as the occasional bit of introspection, youtube clip, or tasteless comedy.

How about this little nugget: Senator Hillary Clinton recently announced her bid for the Presidency online (as though anyone had any doubt as to what her intentions were, really). Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Hillary, and I actually think the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton (and possibly -Bush, since they're still talkign about convincing Jeb to run one day, or his half-hispanic son George Prescott) progression would be a little too reminiscent of dynastic rule for my tastes (especially considering how tight HW and Bill are now.)

But I watched her announcement video, figuring I would at least give her a chance.

Here is my verdict, and since I have a blog again I can once more self-importantly declare my opinions to be the truth.

But it is the truth, dammit! ;)

I have a preconceived notion of Hillary as being the ultimate canned candidate -- and I know they all work off of a script, but she seems much less able to conceal that fact than some others (both Edwards' and Obama's announcements both seemed remarkably off-the-cuff, though obviously they weren't.) I was hoping that her video would do something to change this opinion. In fact, it only reinforced it.

Aside from her general wooden presence, there was this absolutely horrible moment wherein Hillary said, "So let's talk. Let's chat." I cringed; it was obviously intended to sound like the sort of thing she'd come up with and say herself on the spot, but it was so horribly forced I was actually embarrassed for her.

A couple of days later, I'm trolling political news sites, and I find this little gem:

"Let's Chat"

From the department of Scrutiny We Only Apply to the Clintons, But They Make it Easy By Having Their Staffers Brag to the Media, we now learn that the "So let's talk. Let's chat" riff in Hillary's speech was the brainchild of ad man Jimmy Siegel, who produced the ads for Eliot Spitzer's gubernatorial juggernaut.

Three questions:

1) Isn't it a problem that a guy who just started is already feeling the need to say he came up with particular lines in the announcement video, like he's auditioning for another job? Shades of "axis of evil."

2) Don't Clinton's people realize it completely defeats the purpose of supposedly authentic language for behind-the-curtain writers to go and tell the media, "by the way, that was my line"?

3) Is that really such a great turn of phrase that you'd want to go out of your way to claim credit?"

So not only is it a pre-written canned line, the guy that wrote it is so freaking proud of it that he had to leak his role writing it to the press? Please.

I don't think we can afford to go down this road again. I'll vote for Hillary if she gets nominated, but I know a lot of Democrats who won't (and, of course, plenty who will.) I also voted for Kerry, hating every second of it. They both have the prepackaged establishment aura that I think a lot of Dems don't like.

Who do I like right now? Well, there are actually an amazing number of good candidates in the field right now, including wunderkind Barack Obama, a much more polished and believable John Edwards, experienced Senate stalwart Chris Dodd. But the one I'm most interested in right now is New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

Why? A) He's a governor -- governors traditionally do better than Senators because they don't have the vote trail to be smeared with. B) He's been secretary of the UN and is well-respected abroad, and has shown that he has the ability to exercise real diplomacy with all kinds of horrible regimes and get them to bend to his will. [he brokered a ceasefire in Darfur recently when the Bush administration wasn't doing shit.] C) he's Hispanic. D) He's from the West, which everyone keeps saying is the new battlefield for the Presidency as it's starting to trend Democratic.

I'd be really happy to support Obama or Edwards, but at this early stage, Richardson is my guy.

All that being said, the more I see of Obama the more I like him. I've already made a donation and will most likely continue giving to both. Richardson is a big underdog, so I think it's only fair I should be allowed to back a couple of the horses in this race (did I just compare them to dogs and horses in the same sentence? oops.)

Re-adjusting

No, I haven't abandoned this blog as I have all the others. I've been up here in Asheville concentrating on recovery from two very different and yet completely interconnected conditions that have been plauging me for a long time -- one for almost 21 years, one for 7 years.

For the first time, I'm seeing that my future is completely under my control, and the decisions I've already made under duress have affected it to some extent, but it's never too late to make changes.

The biggest realization I've had in the last couple of weeks is that I'm afraid of success. I have these deep-seated feelings of doubt in myself and guilt over a situation for which I really should bear none. I've been limiting myself in all ways because of these insecurities. The fact that I managed to graduate magna cum laude despite all the crap I was subjecting my body and mind to is something that has heartened and even excited me in these last couple of sober weeks.

I'm in a position to actually *do* something with my life. I have already accepted the fact that I probably will not make money as a writer -- and possibly might not even get published (but I think if I get on the ball I'll have a decent shot.) I am okay with that, and I'm even okay with working some shit job to support myself as a writer. I've realized more and more over the past months that there's nothing else I want to do -- nothing else in this, the real world, comes even close.

My whole life I've entertained this fantasy that I'd be able to get through the absolute hell of my childhood and the seismic waves some of that stuff sent through my adolescence and early 20s, and still be intact, in one piece, still have my voice. I always imagined that once I was in such a spot, I'd be able to tell my story, and that was ALL I wanted to do. I'd always shoot that fantasy down, though, with the sad realization that I'd never get past all this stuff.

By some grace that I only am beginning to feel deserving of, I am actually getting through it. I've revisted the worst depths of that pain in my past, completely sober, have confronted those feelings and really FELT them for the first time.

And the most exciting part about all this is I'm just beginning to realize how many stories I have to tell.

I'm about to be 24. Life is a blessing. I'm moving forward.

RIP Yvonne De Carlo. I did like the way CNN Headline News did a Quik-Eulogy of her. They said "Fans knew her as the beloved wife of Herman Munster on TV's 'The Munsters'. She also played Moses' wife in The Ten Commandments."

When being Herman Munster's wife was a bigger deal for you than being Moses' wife, you know you fucked up somewhere.

Just gonna free associate, Mike.

I give myself crap for too many things, and apparently the need to write overwhelms all. I don't know what the fuck the point of anything is, I'm just lost in some abyss traveling at a rate of 3444 four miles per second on the Thomsonomic Reactor Scale, Thomson being this guy who had a hard time and was taken away in a white coat to a lab where he was put under a microscopoe and studied for four hundred three years until he was discovered by a moon bat wearing a radar sensor sent on a mission from flying electric mill operators. Robots, really.

OK, I'm going to now try to write an entire short story in three sentences off the top of the dome, and make it as depressing as possible.

After a day of drinking hard liquor, Thomson heard a knock at the front door of his dingy efficiency apartment.
"Who is it?" he called out, but he was already preparing his sleeping bag for the night.
"I'm an insurance broker," came the hopeful muffled response.




(I wrote this last night. Lack of sleep does wonders for one's sanity.)

I FOUND IT!!!

"ARE YOU A BUG, BILL MURRAY??!?!"

Seriously, this is the best scene ever from any movie ever made. Starring RZA & GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan and Bill Murray.



Thank you, Jim Jarmusch.

My old roommate, Richard -- some call him Chardasaurus Rex, others argue that he's evolved into a more refined Chard-bird -- is over here taking a shower because he hasn't had hot water in our old place for days. DAYS. It was originally due to a gas bill issue, but that was resolved immediately I understand, and... still no hot water. Mrs. Crum, the landlady (yes, that is her honest to God name, the whole time I lived there dealing with her I felt like I was in a warped neo-Dickens novel of some kind) responded to this problem by leaving Richard a business card with the following written on the back: "We came by to look at your water heater. You do know the water heater is in the hut out back."

And still no hot water.

Man, I've got to say, nothing beats having your friend as your landlord. Whenever there's a problem at our apartment, Dre and I just kind of look at each other, go "shit," and then the shit is handled. Too bad most of life will be spent dealing with the Crums of the world. Oh well. Gotta go.

Last night the good Reverend Hill and I went bowling. (Reverent in name only.) In our ongoing "Battle for the Wooden Grail" he was up 3 games to 2, and it was my chance, my big chance. I could have been a contender, a big shot. Could have been throwing craps in heaven with the angels. (Not sure what that means, but it came so I went with it.) At first things looked good. I got my exact average, 133, while Andrew scored a disappointing (for him) 106. I confidently threw another Yuengling into my empty stomach while Andrew remarked that a different ball might serve him better.

3-3. The match was tied. The trap was set. The game was on.

Yeah, I went and blew the next 2 while Dre threw strikes, 9s and spares. What kills me is just two months ago I was bowling like that, and now I can't get back on that level. I think the only answer is practicing more.

NEXT TIME, HILL... NEXT TIME!! (said a la Dr. Klaw from Inspector Gadget cartoons)

test 2 sibilance

Set it Off

Welcome to my new blog. My old blog became worn out, a once-amusing device that had become an annoyance, like an old bowling shoe; or a hula-hoop frayed from five years of frenetic bullshiting. Every time I'd take that shit out for a spin, I'd be left feeling bruised and empty. Well, maybe it wasn't that bad, but truth be told, I got kind of sick of Cosmopolitan Tang. I couldn't start a new blog without giving it a shout-out, though, after five years posting there. I posted with friends on that site, but I decided it was time to branch off and make my own bloggy way.

I couldn't think of a better title for this site, so I'll change it when I do. Mostly I just wanted to have a place to create blog entries to later import to a better site when I get around to registering a domain name.

About me: I'm twenty-three years old, 24 in August (holy shit.) Outside of BlogLand, I write fiction, mostly, and sometimes essays. I'm working on a very strange novel, which I guess you would describe as comic fiction. I've been writing what I'd call "serious attempts" at short stories since I was fourteen or so, and I have a storied history of delivering absurd narratives into tape recorders as a child. When I was in the third grade, I wrote a "novel" that I insisted upon reading aloud to my classmates. It was five chapters long. One of the chapters was five or six sentences long, the other four were either one or two. The story was about a robot detective and a dog with an implant allowing it to speak English who had been assigned by robotic higher-ups to assist in "sniffing out" evidence. The dog was able to find the stolen "robo-jewels," hidden, of all places, in vat of cockroach poison. I believe the dog's name was McGruff. That's how stuff happens in the future, man.

I just got a BA in English and I'm now going balls to the wall at an MFA. Meaning, I applied to a hell of a lot of programs, and I'm spending a lot of my time writing while I wait to hear something. I figured going back to "blogging" (I never could bring myself to like that word) would help -- an outlet to let my fingers keep moving, keep the rhythm going, when I'm too sick of the characters in my novel to deal with them any more. Trust me, they're really easy to get sick of. I really want the next thing I write to be a celebration of humanity rather than a condemnation of it, but the thing I'm working on now has pretty dark undertones, at least to me.

See, this is the part I don't like about blogging -- the tendency to ramble on and on about oneself. I hope to minimize that kind of stuff on this blog and try to make posts that will be entertaining. I will probably post some short fiction here (or possibly somewhere else, on this site I'm thinking about registering), but only stuff I know will be amusing to others. (Trust me, I wouldn't want anyone to be forced to wade through 90% of the crap I have saved on my hard drive that I've written.)

I'll probably just also do the general bloggage -- (how many variations on that "verb" exist. anyway?!) -- writing about funny stuff that happens in our apartment (and living with a fellow connoisseur of the absurd, Andrew Hill, we have our share of funny conversations/situations).. uh... bowling scores?... and... music reviews? Oh, and book reviews, too, maybe. Sorry, I'm just kind of making this up as I go along, hope that's not a problem for anyone.

I have been reading Emma Who Saved My Life by Wilton Barnhardt, the guy that gave the faculty address at my graduation. Makes me wish I had taken a class with him at NCSU, because the way the book is written is very similar to the way I try to write.