Bottoms up.

I do the six degrees thing with my thoughts a lot. There’s a guy at school my friend and I call Falco because of that. It’s quite funny, actually.

I mean, we could call him Puck, too, but that hasn’t got the right ridiculous quality. Plus, it’d be jumping down the wrong rabbit hole, in all likelihood. So rock me, Amadeus.

Pssh, part of me wants to be found out and the other part does not. I’ve said some things here that are very not good; if the right person sees it and figures me out, I’m in trouble. How much who knows, but potentially, it could be a disaster. I suppose this is my lame attempt at taking a risk. Better than nothing, at least.

I’ve got an abstract pile of work I should be tackling, but I’m just so terribly fed up that I’m stuck like this. I don’t know who to blame, them or me. Or it. I feel so weighed down.

This is one of those times I wish I were old, my health failing, but I’m dying without complaining. Cracking jokes, maybe, around people I love.

I just want to be satisfied and free like that, I guess. Not here, where I don’t know what the fuck is happening and I don’t particularly look forward to what’s next. Like death, I’m afraid of, yeah, but there’s an expectant, earnest curiosity in what happens when you leave. I don’t really expect what’s going to happen in the near future to be all gravy, because only a couple of people make out with really awesome lives, and I’m not going to be one of the winners of the jackpot. I want to imagine that my life won’t be some kind of bastard’s struggle, but so many people’s lives are that it’s almost arrogant to assume that you’re special or something so that you don’t live in a world of shit.

I think of myself as an optimist for the most part, though people I know see me very differently, and yes, if you judged me by the above you’d probably say what they say, but there’s a lot more to people than that. I’m forgetting that all the time, and I get these crummy impressions of people just by one or two little observations. I infer lots of stuff, and I could be wrong, but I don’t know what else I can go on. You can’t go through thinking nothing about anybody. Perception is a fucked up thing.

But god damn, I already knew that, and I’m not wise enough to move beyond it.

Today I got word of my first college rejection.

It was not my first choice, but it also does not indicate good things about the other decisions

I am disappointed, yes. But moreover, I am worried.

This is a holiday, though not the perfect one I was thinking of.

But this will do all right for now.

So I’ve got things to do, but free time for the most part, and I’m trying to figure out whether I should devote myself to something worthwhile, or just shit it all down the toilet.

I don’t know, my high after school yesterday has plummeted to the fog I’m in now, but I see why.

I read some things of people expressing themselves or just yammering on about this and that and it all just made me wrinkle my nose. And true, I voluntarily read these things, but I don’t think that bars me from having a bit of a headache about it.

Perhaps I am simply jealous of all these people I know going off and visiting places while I’m stuck here. I’d really like to be somewhere else.

I (gasps through the crowd, please) am getting tired of being at home is what I guess it is. I am in sore need of something ass-upendingly-novel. The challenge of adapting to new surroundings. I’d like to go to Europe. As you’d probably guess, England or Ireland would be good. Plane ride (i.e., the accompanying air sickness and disorientation and god, you’d hate to be the poor fucker next to me on a plane) be damned. One of these days I’m going to have to talk to a doctor about getting something to help me through those trips.

One time, I was flying home and I was watching some of the TV programs they have on those monitors on the back of the seat in front of you and I think I was watching Whose Line is it Anyway? and Mr. Bean and I was just cracking up. All the passengers were relatively quiet, probably trying to sleep as the lights were dimmed, and there’s me cackling and cackling because I was so out of my head that I could not control myself. I really couldn’t have given a damn. My mother told me to hush up, but I, like I said, was so fucked up I couldn’t have given less of a shit. I mean, it’s funny now, but I’m sure at least some people were bothered. I suppose I should apologize here, if you were one of them.

I am very sorry. I hope I did not inconvenience you too much.

In other news, I suppose I am also lonely. Man cannot live on bread and water alone (if he did, his corneas would fall out or something). It is true that I am pained that though (I think) I am terribly interesting, (I think) not very many people will talk to me.

Sweet jesus, this is getting pathetic.

And people are catching on that I have issues with attention.

Histrionic personality disorder, or another offshoot of some kind of psychological hypochondria?

At this point, I’ll even take the tiny bus to Stupid Town.

So I was all stoked to hear that VH1 was having a My Coolest Years marathon, because that show is pretty cool and I’d missed some episodes. I was especially looking forward to the episode for "The Geeks" because I’ve only seen half of it. But they’re not playing that one, for whatever reason.

Bastards.

Sometimes people are too nosy, and they get terribly pissy if you ask or tell them to back off, and you, for whatever reasons, have to deal with them daily.

God, I hope if I am ever in a position of power of someone that I don’t lord it over him or her. I can’t be acting like that much of a dumbfuck. I am so afraid of becoming what I hate. I don’t want it to be true that that happens to everyone. Or, well, more to the point, I just want to be one of those who sticks to his or her ideology. Everyone else can go to hell in a handbasket for all I care.

Back to the situation…it is not a happy one. Some people are just so incomprehensibly dense (pot calling the kettle black, we might say to ourselves).

I refuse to say I am at fault for this one. I just can’t be. I’ll have to do something drastic if it is.

I hate always having to be the one to apologize to this person. I should be getting the apologies, by cracky.

What is this? Learned helplessness? That, I guess.

I mean, this shit is uncalled for. What a control freak. "Control freakery." (Yeesh, only an Englishman could come up with that.) How unnecessary, insensitive, rude, arrogant, vapid, asinine, and uncivil. She’s so small. I should be pitying her (I, uh, got told I have a superiority complex (by someone else whom I relatively respect, though) today, if that explains anything).

Without so many adjectives and all the flowery prose: FUCK
exclaimed in reaction to this mess. I’d just call her a "bitch," but it doesn’t read well on paper, I think. That word has to be said aloud in most cases to get the right punch. Reading it like this only sounds whiny and puts you on her side. At least, that’s how I feel when I see these things in other places.

As of late, I’ve been getting real lucky with my music on shuffle. Hearing some good things.

"Life’s a piece of shit / when you look at it."

Empathy (well, shit, maybe computers do have feelings and it’s sympathy) from a machine. God damn.

At least my computer isn’t all up in my face with value judgments about me.

It’s not been a good week.

I can’t stand thinking about how close spring break is.

One of those "so close, yet so far" situations.

Jesus, they’re using Take Me Out in a commercial for those PSP things.

Was the band like, "Hell yeah, money!" or was it more like, "I love the Playstation"?

Both, yeah? I guess it’s none of my business anyway.

On the one hand, it’s like, big fucking deal they put it in a commercial; as long as the good music gets cranked out, it’s not a big deal; the money’s probably going to help them make more music anyhow.

On the other, it’s like, "selling out," whatever that means now. Music should be created for expressing oneself and should not be used for purposes divorced from that pure expression.

But mumbo-jumbo, mumbo-jumbo, it’d be easier if I weren’t so fickle.

Personally, do I have any integrity left? I’m so out of it I don’t even know.

We’re studying Russia in my comparative government class (which, by the way, has become a much, much, much more enjoyable experience for me; I like it best after my Japanese class), and it makes me think about those books I’ve read that involved the crazy psychological and physical tortures they used and I feel kind of like I’m being fucked around with a little bit like that. Kept sleep-deprived, not eating well, bright lights in my face, tedious activity, this hopeless, never-ending quality to the whole mess.

And it’s so fucking late and I’ve still got a few things to do and I guess I’m the one to blame for not hopping to it but god damn, I’m tired.

I don’t think the bags under my eyes are lying. Maybe I’m a hypochondriac, but I think I’ve got infections all over the place, too.

But my mind feels like it’s deteriorating since I’m running around without getting enough sleep like this. I can’t remember things so good, and it makes me think of senility, and then I have fear. Fear of that time coming, fear of that time setting on early, fear that I am completely incapable of making lasting, honest, meaningful relationships with people, fear that I am just not good for anything; I’m kind of just a scaredy-cat all around.

I will go into tomorrow pretending something amazing and wonderful will happen.

"A las siete y treinta y cinco de la mañana…"

7:35 a.m. is when school starts. How whimsical.

And I mean, hell, I’d love it if some coconut at school blew himself up after talking to the girl he’s attracted to.

Plus, that’s one frickin’ catchy song!

I wonder what the short film that beat out this one was like, then, because this thing was top-notch.

Well, okay, seriously, why couldn’t you have just straight-up talked to her instead of holding everybody hostage? That makes no god damn sense. But I am very willing to suspend my disbelief in this case.

I have a Spanish-speaking friend who says Spanish as spoken by people from Spain is to Spanish as spoken by people from Mexico as English as spoken by people from Great Britain is to English as spoken by people from America.

I thought the accents were a little funny, but in a good way. Then again, I could’ve totally been imagining that because I don’t speak Spanish and I’m sure even after using the film and Spanish tutorial pages to figure out what the words in that one line are, what’s typed above is wrong.

I think learning Spanish would be fun, but there’d be no way in heck I could ever ever ever come close to nailing the pronunciation. I can’t roll my tongue to save my life. I think I used to be able to do it when I was little, but now I’m lucky that I can even do the one little grazing of the roof of my mouth for R’s in Japanese.

Well, I’d probably be able to get like a good amount down because I think I am pretty familiar with pronunciation in Japanese and Japanese and Spanish bear some commonalities in that sector.

But uh…watch my interest come to nothing.

Damn right I’m Kathy from Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

My birthday is two months away. The end of high school is about two and a half months away. College starts in let’s say five months. Some time between two and a half and five I will probably be kicked out of my house.

Lots of things are happening and I am thinking a lot of things about them.

Is this what I’m being paralyzed by, I wonder?

Maybe I am just depressed in general. The symptoms are in order for that, I suppose.

But let me think about my birthday, and getting presents. New music and movies and shows and books and discovering those expansive self-contained worlds. That makes me excited, though I can’t say I don’t feel guilty about being so materialistic.

I had a friend once say to me that I have a guilt problem. I suppose I do, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Admittedly, it keeps me willing to abide by the status quo and to try to act like a good little cog, but I figure I’m being pragmatic. And it keeps me conscientious. I obnoxiously pat myself on the back for how considerate I am.

I’m a little tired of hearing people jabber on and on about college. It does not do anything to assuage my fears and anxieties about what’s going to happen to me. Really, it isn’t about me at all and I’m just self-obsessed like that.

It reminds me of my thing about the MBTI. Only the profile about me holds much interest for me. If I could get a profile that was written exactly about and for me, I’d probably cream my jeans.

Having my ego petted or feeding into some well of narcissism; problems, man, problems.

There is a part of me that would like to be "known," to be understood; I guess that’s why I’m so eager to believe those things. Like I remember reading about how my personality type can appreciate things without owning them, like great works of art and such.

I’d really like to believe that, and I suppose it has at least some truth (though at others, no, definitely not, though usually I either want to own something so I can see it any time I want or because I feel like the creator deserves some money, but here I am rationalizing away my faults and hot damn I sound like one of those blithering psychology idiots and this is what a college-type intro psych course will do to you by gum), but I mean, come on, lots of people appreciate art and I’m sure they don’t have this burning desire to own every great thing they see.

Do I honestly think that any of these thoughts are "deep"?

The steam is running out of this train, isn’t it?

I like to think I am one of the last of the steam-powered trains.

Instead of doing homework, I watched American Splendor. Twice. First to just see it, and then once more with the commentary (commentary was kind of lackluster; Pekar seemed out of it; maybe he’s just taciturn; or maybe it’s because he’s getting old; maybe it was the cancer treatments; heh).

It was like, terribly aware of itself and analyzing itself in the moment and that’s postmodernism, isn’t it?

And like, the hipsters are into that, and I think postmodernism is kind of neat in some respects and in certain cases, so what am I to think of that?

I use labels a lot, but sometimes they trip me up.

But that’s not important right now.

That Harvey can do what he does, and people like him, respect him for it…

Ah-durr I’m awfully inspired by him.

I should be so lucky, you know?

It gets me a little down, though, that since he’s already done it, there’s little point for me to repeat him.

I’ll probably end up a doctor or something. I like anatomy and all, but I don’t think I love it. If I could adapt better to different (worse) living conditions, I’d love to do something like Doctors Without Borders, though. But yeah, turning my head over my shoulder and checking out my pampered ass, sucking it up (look, that I even have to call it that) would be some kind of test for me.

But yeah, the movie was pretty good, but I don’t think I would have liked it too much if I hadn’t read that American Splendor anthology earlier and grown attached to Harvey.

Today was pretty crummy otherwise. School was only two hours today, but I actually kind of don’t like it when school’s on a different schedule because I get disoriented and everyone seems to act really frickin’ weird. Probably because it was sunny, too.

All these people in skimpy clothing and bright colors that look unnatural in this setting and I almost want to move to Minnesota and live through snow storms and cold bastard weather.

You’d think I was a Puritan or something in my past life.

Have I spoken of my secret theory that I was some kind of angry white man in my life before this one?

I guess either it’s not so secret anymore, or I’m repeating myself. Neither is all that good.

It was a lot like walking on a ship atop rolling waves in the 1800’s today. Careening to and fro, out of your mind and wishing it would end. Hoping that you would not make a fool of yourself or do something that you’d later regret. Keeping it all together, under control.

On some days, I think I’m made of surprisingly strong stuff.

I kept my composure for the most part and I think I hid everything pretty well.

Well, I got really upset at one point, but I was in a room by myself and no one could see me and all I did was put my hand on my face and the moisture was gone with little work on my part.

Yes, as a stupid teenager, I have security and esteem issues. I hate when these weaknesses get exploited. Showing signs that I am negatively affected only gives people something to use against me. Like handing them the bat to club me below the knees. That isn’t okay. That to me seems obvious.

To be made of stone, hey?

Just when you want to be, though.

The little voice chimes in, with a reminder.

Ah, yes, pleasure and pain are of one. Pain necessary for appreciation of pleasure.

Doesn’t that sound sadomasochistic?

Yeesh.

You’d think I was suffering through the apocalypse with my complaining.

Admittedly, today was not without its highs. I felt especially liked and wanted at little points of today.

But I’m all paranoid and I don’t know the motives of these people. The intention behind their actions could change the very nature of those acts.

Oh, slangs, accents, and dialects; your tricky little qualities almost make me want to wade through all these linguistic terms.

The imperative word being almost.