And furthermore, I am in a daze. I am not tense or lonely or happy or stressed, though I am sort of quietly sad. I feel quite ill, quite ill indeed. I want to go home.

I have no home.

Tonight, J-, I stick my tongue out at you and at your empolyer, who exploits its employees to the fullest.

And J—ie, I didn’t want to put you in a cage then, like you thought I did, but I’d love to put you in a cage now, and pluck your feathers, and put my cigar out on you. I made you. I pulled you out of the alcohol slums and sent you to Costa Rica, but you never prayed to me in thanks. I know that you haven’t forgotten, that it is awkward for you, and that you fear it.

And T-, you thought you’d taken me, commanded me, but you didn’t realize it was only because for a time you had my permission to do so. I still remember your shock when told you that I’d see you only in hell. I see that you’re there now, and I breathe it, and it is good.

And aqueous, you felt threatened and ran, but I am your friend anyway. Except tonight. Tonight I am not your friend. Tonight I would not save you if you were clinging to the cliffside in the gales. Tonight I am threatening.

Tonight I am dark and threatening to you all.

Tonight is my night off. My night off.

I take tonight, the first night in many, many years, to revel in apathy. To myself. Tonight I am male, unapologetically, deeply male and fertile. Tonight I am a giant. Tonight I roar again that I am a brilliant mind, a creative force, a wishing dragon, an ageless rock.

I am. I am and you all swept up against me, as I have been told too many times, as I have accepted too many times. I am the most generous soul in the universe, more generous than Jesus, more generous than the Buddah. And I have been there. Tonight, I take my thanks as homage, as bounty. I take it from you and you are powerless. Yes, it is about power. And I tonight, for a moment only, my moment, I claim it. I claim it and there is nothing for you to do.

So in response to the disappearance of “linksys” I went and bought a directional antenna with 15dB of gain. Now I have another, slightly different “linksys” in my life. Whatever. Do with me what you will.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

I am listening to pop rock (Stone Temple Pilots) and remembering watching a movie in the dark with J—-ie a million years ago when I was much younger and an entirely different, but entirely similar, person.

It feels like I have been digested a hundred times since then. Oh wait, I have.

I’m getting grey hair in my beard.

Nothing is ever not what it seems to be. Not for long, anyway.

All painful things appear to be better if you don’t think about them. They’re not actually better, but they appear to be. At the end, that may be all that anyone can really hope for.

—

“…they say if you look hard,
you’ll find your way back home…”

So in response to the disappearance of “linksys” I went and bought a directional antenna with 15dB of gain. Now I have another, slightly different “linksys” in my life. Whatever. Do with me what you will.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

I am listening to pop rock (Stone Temple Pilots) and remembering watching a movie in the dark with J—-ie a million years ago when I was much younger and an entirely different, but entirely similar, person.

Nothing is ever not what it seems to be. Not for long, anyway.

No web at home right now, so this is my end-of-the-day post. As happens every night during these summers, I’m going to go home and try very, very hard to be okay, and to keep my mind on what I’m doing, whatever that happens to be, rather than what I’m not doing or could be doing or wish I was doing.

Tentative plans:

– Go to Lazy Acres and buy some gourmet beer because I’ve had too much Riebenbach
– Go to CompUSA and buy a cheap amplified 802.11b antenna, in a last-ditch WiFi effort
– Read some more Derrida
– ???

That last one’s a real moddafogga.

I think this weekend I’m gonna try and re-climb this hill that J- and I climbed a while back where a lot of dead wood was hanging around looking National Geographic. We’ll see. I still haven’t decided whether to join the “New to SB” club yet. I could use the interaction, but at the same time it’s pretty f’in tacky. I mean, at least when you go to a mixer at your new university department they try to frame it as an exercise in academic discussion as well as mindless “I’m lonely” schmoozing so that you don’t seem like such a weenie.

But whatever.

No web at home right now, so this is my end-of-the-day post. As happens every night during these summers, I’m going to go home and try very, very hard to be okay, and to keep my mind on what I’m doing, whatever that happens to be, rather than what I’m not doing or could be doing or wish I was doing.

Tentative plans:

– Go to Lazy Acres and buy some gourmet beer because I’ve had too much Riebenbach
– Go to CompUSA and buy a cheap amplified 802.11b antenna, in a last-ditch WiFi effort
– Read some more Derrida
– ???

That last one’s a real moddafogga.

I think this weekend I’m gonna try and re-climb this hill that J- and I climbed a while back where a lot of dead wood was hanging around looking National Geographic. We’ll see. I still haven’t decided whether to join the “New to SB” club yet. I could use the interaction, but at the same time it’s pretty f’in tacky.

Life and everything in it seems so fake and transparent. I’m not quite sure what seems real. I’m a fool. I just don’t know how not to be. (Yet.)

My favorite line in all of film (and favorite quote of all time, really) has always been from 8 1/2, when Guido (Marcelo Mastroianni) says:

To whomever is reading this, anytime, anywhere: you are wasting your life. It doesn’t matter who you are or what age you are, you will be dead. Soon.

– No amount of money will buy your way back to life or make death less final.
– There will be no miraculous medical breakthrough “before then” that extends human life.
– No god will save you and no afterlife awaits you.
– Even fewer people will remember you after death than are aware of you now.
– Your children will seek to augment their own legacy and name, not yours.
– Every place and thing you’ve ever set eyes on will be gone shortly after you are.

—

There is not enough room on a thousand websites for all the people I resent and the things I resent them for, nor is there any way to explain how deeply disconnected and destroyed I have always felt, since I was very young. Nothing in my life has ever been anything but hurt, and I am tired of it. The most liberating thing I can imagine is to finally one day post all of the things I always wanted to say to all of the people who think they’ve cared, but that I never could because I was too busy trying to be mature and trying not to alienate them for fear of being alone.

It’s another one of life’s dirty tricks: you can’t avoid being alone simply by repressing your resentment of the people whose caring you can’t feel. If everyone around you makes you hurt all the time, then you’re alone anyway, and what’s more, in a self-made prison. Better to say what you think and be physically alone as well, thereby avoiding the discomfort of always living a lie.

Only sadly, I don’t yet have the intestines for it. But maybe soon.

—

Mom and Dad: You always cared more about your dogmas and your gods and your other family members than you cared about me, and as a result, you didn’t prepare me for the world, sent me into it as your caricature, your effigy, a sacrifice to your beliefs. You destroyed me first.

Jennie: Strangely, I may resent you least, because you were too stupid and too small to be anything more than you were. Like I fool, I tried to make you into something worthwhile, and I resent only that you let me try for so long, then sent me away without any thanks.

Lydia: You are a selfish b!tch. There is no redeeming quality about you. You exist only to act selfishly. Even when you engage in what appear to be unselfish acts, your motives are entirely selfish. You seek to redeem your worthless, hideous, narcissistic self by exploiting others, and worse, by exploiting those most in need. You disgust me.

Jolinda: You are the same as Lydia.

Carlos: You commit the same sin as Jennie.

I had strange dreams during the second half of last night, about the Maori and about being alone and about the wisdom and happiness of rocks. I thought it was probably a subconscious call for me to go to New Zealand until I looked at ticket prices this morning and realized that a round trip from Los Angeles would be more than $2,700.

So much for New Zealand.

But I think I will have to go somewhere soon and spend time with some rocks. The end of the summer remains a thousand dreams away, but I

Anybody wanna tell me why I keep waking up, or what’s going on inside my head the last few days that’s causing so much trouble?

The Imp of the Perverse has me in his grasp just now and I am kissing him sloppily.

Need better alcoholic beverages.
Need better self-control.
Need new culture and nationality.
Need a bigger headache

need need need need need need need need need need need need need

I am the world’s biggest ball of need, bow before me, lest my needs increase still further!

right now i find many things to be very troubling

I’m watching Larry King live and they’re talking about depression and bipolar disorder and the extent to which they’re much more prevalent in our society than in others, and in recent years versus past years. Amidst all of the talk of genetics, medications, evolution, etc., I find it shocking that nobody seems to think that depression may simply be a symptom of a larger deviation from human needs that results largely from modernity and capitalism. Humans are not designed for:

– Socially dictated lack of intimate emotional contact with other human beings
– Socially dictated lack of a stable social universe
– Demystification of the objective, commoditization of the subjective
– Near total lack of sovereignty over almost any aspect of life

How funny. A person has zero people that he can depend on, zero people that he is sure will even be in his life six months from now, no god, no sense of his own labor (his entire productive world seems to funnel into the boss’s office; all of the time of his life into the abstract that is The Company), and the knowledge that no matter what he is doing or desires to do, The State can at any time do anything to him that it likes, for any reason whatsoever. But he is wrong to be depressed; we should be sure to drug him to the extent that none of these things seem bad any longer, so that he’ll be able to go right back to his lonesome, exploited, impersonal life and work extremely hard for The Company within the rubric of The State.

People!

Depression is not a disease. Depression is the sadness, found among the intelligent, at the pitiful, disconnected, invalidated, ego-sublimated state in which we all live here in capitalist modernity.

I am the most alone person in the world tonight.

And everyone who I tell that to will, in order to demonstrate just how alone I am, tell me that either it’s because a) I’m selfish or b) I should leave my girlfriend.

The fact that nobody understands the extent to which neither a) nor b) is true for me demonstrates how little they know about me.

I feel so alone I would kill for a hug from someone who just loved me for me right now, no strings, no complications, nowhere to be in ten minutes, no advice about what to do with my career or my love life, just a fucking hug.

It has been so god damn long since I had one of those…

Help me. Somebody, please.

I am so totally alone. I’m despondent. I’m in danger. Everyone thinks that they’re there for me, that they care… my family, my friends, my girlfriend… and I can’t even explain, to any of them, why that’s not the case.

I can’t explain anything to anyone without tearing apart my world even more, but I can’t afford to do that right now. I’m alone enough. But the fact that I can’t tell anyone why I can’t even talk to them just makes me more alone.

I can’t tell anyone anything and still keep them in my life. And I can’t lose anyone right now. But without telling them, I also can’t talk to them, because what they say just makes things worse.

Everyone is right. My friends are right. My girlfriend is right. My parents are right. Only I am wrong. But I don’t care. I am wrong and it’s my life, so I can be wrong if I want. Anyone who really cares about me will just let me be wrong, will be there for me while I’m wrong, will love me regardless and not try to change me, but will instead just love me.

But there is nobody like that. There are ten million people who think they’re like that. Of all the people in the world right now, I really wish I could talk to you, A–ie. I wish I was back in I-House and you were dropping by #424 to have a drink and a few light, friendly words, and I could say exactly what I felt and you would know exactly what I meant and instead of advice, you would just tell me that things were rough but you understood why they were they way they were.

I undervalued our friendship. I’m sorry. It’s because we’re almost exactly the same person (sorry, L–ia, there’s someone else who’s more “the same person as me” than you, by a million miles).

Maybe I don’t care anymore. Maybe I should be hospitalized.

I am cutting like mad tonight, and it’s not helping. I am drinking like mad tonight, and it’s not helping. I can’t face tomorrow. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out.