I always sit here and pound on blogs for two reasons. First, I can’t have someone next to me all day, every day to share my thoughts with (nor could I stand it if I did; but the thoughts are still there and they want out). Second, I’m always hoping that the mindless nonsense I generate will sound all cool and philosophical, like it does on Northern Exposure, and that I’ll learn from myself, solve all my problems by listening to myself, and be able to finally open myself up to life properly.

Unfortunately, neither problem is solved by this blog. And really, there are bigger problems I should be worrying about. Like the fact that I haven’t yet learned how to have patience, or how to appreciate and enjoy things that I know are beautiful.

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Part of the problem is that somewhere inside, I’m still living on the playground. I’m still fighting all of the battles that I’ve already lost — that I lost as a kid. I need to stop.

I need to let it go.

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You take me here from far
Up to the highest star
You took a part of me
No one else will ever see
And if I gave away
What I’m dying to say
I couldn’t give you more than this
I was born and it was bliss
I have died for a thousand years
Tasted salt of a thousand tears
And your kiss was almost gold

You took me near you took me far,
Up to the highest brightest star
You’re giving back the exchange,
We got something going on
And if I ever fell from grace
With every living human state
Well I throw the whole thing down
And I take to higher ground
Cast a spell on my surround
Time to think on what I found
This is almost gold

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Yes, I am still sitting here adding to this entry. I am in the basement. I don’ t want to work. I don’t want to go to the library. I don’t want to go and hang out in my department’s lounge or anywhere where I will know anyone.

Anyone I know will try to talk to me. I’ll smile broadly, make witty and urbane chit-chat, and gradually edge toward the door without realizing it. Then, without warning, I’ll make an excuse about having to make a meeting or being late for a class or needing to do my laundry, and I’ll leave. All of this just in order to be free of a conversation that the other person is generally enjoying.

I know they generally enjoy it because people keep introducing me to other people and asking me to talk and telling me that they’ve told each other about me. So I talk. We all talk. We talk and talk and talk. It’s like a little mutual circus, like a little verbal game of twister. And I dislike all of it. Why don’t I like talking to people? Because most of them never say anything.

I like talking to harmir and aqueous because the conversation is usually real. It’s personal. It’s about feelings and life events and phobias and triumphs. Other people tell me about their advisors and morning traffic. I don’t even know them. How am I supposed to care about their advisors and their morning traffic? You can’t tell someone about your advisors and your morning traffic unless you’re already very good friends. If we’re strangers and they’re not going to bother to tell me about the last time they cried themselves to sleep at night or how their kid is an addict and they’re at the end of their rope, then it doesn’t interest me. They’re going to have to do better than that. This is 2004. We have the Internet and Cable TV that are full of cheap thrills, people crying in bed, and young addicts. And I can get them by just sitting on my ass.

What do I want from people? I suppose I want their souls in a little plastic bag up front, so that the intensity of the actual communication can match the intensity of the physical experience of having to chatter. Maybe for most people midnless chatter isn’t such a big deal, but for me chatter is hugely performative. It’s like being on stage, and I usually need a drink or a nap before and afterward.

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The second book I ever wrote (also didn’t get published) was called “Every Kid Should Have A Car.” It wasn’t particularly well-written and I don’t think it could ever be published. But the point is that it was nearly two hundred pages long and I wrote it in the space of about eighteen hours.

That’s called figuring out how to channel all of your obsessive energy into something creative. I used to be able to do that a lot. Writing projects, coding projects, art projects, Web projects, travel projects… I was once wildly productive. Why can’t I do that now? I think the problem is that in the social sciences, there are only one or two things that I find interesting across the entire field. But as a graduate student at a major university with big loans, I have to spend my time doing social science projects whether I’m inspired to do so or not.

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This entry is too long. I have to get some writing done today, but not now. I think right now I am going to go and try to kill the sunlight by closing my eyes in the center of my mattress. I have obviously not had enough sleep recently. I need to get out of town. Badly.

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The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell – The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Hell Test

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and the green trees
and my black heart
and the road began here
and I was forced to follow

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Answer: I am a lucky bastard. BUT, I am a lucky bastard who is out of Alandia.

Jesus I can be hard on myself and others.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction — or so the wisdom goes. But sometimes instead, the logic should read that for every action, there is a framing dialectic, and within it, a complementary reaction. Rather than simply conservative, such dialectics are vectored and generative. And thankfully so, because if they weren’t, my life would be a lot less good than it is right now.

The point: Thanks for killing an hour. I’ll be more understanding. Let’s go to New Orleans.