of an end to some of these rituals that are slowly killing me. Seriously, I sit here tonight thinking there’s gotta be less of a few vices in my life because I do actually like myself with a brain and no, I don’t want to end up chewing on my tongue in public like GWB, the dirty frat-boy bastard.

—

The reason I hate life so much is that I love life so much. You can’t feel a lot and not get hurt, but of course getting hurt is the same as getting angry. I do love life, despite cheap-and-easy appearances. And by God, I really hate it, too. 🙂 Same thing again, I suppose, actually, and yes, I am fully in love with the contradiction as well.

—

I feel good tonight, as it turns out. I’ve felt good for the last several days, but I’m not gonna say why just to be a bastard. And yeah, it’s true, tomorrow will suck a little harder just because it begins with work and ends with reading, but at the same time, it’s always nice to feel tremendously transparent and (more importantly) tremendously edified. I’m so much less conflicted than usual it’s almost bewildering, like I’ve been granted some kind of absolution.

I’m old enough now to know there’s not a chance in hell that it’ll last, but for a brief flash now and then it’s nice to get a living-life-and-it’s-actually-sorta-swank-no-yeah-fuckin’ high.

—

“‘Well, and the moral of the story?’ I asked Severin, placing the manuscript on the table.
‘The moral is that I was an ass,’ he cried without turning toward me—he seemed embarassed.”

—

I think the most optimistic scene ever committed to film is the one in which Marlon Brando is talking to Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, before the latter bludgeons the former to death. It paints, more perfectly than any other scene ever has, the process of redemption, at that moment demonstrating through the very act of representation that such a thing exists, if only as a conceptual program.

All programs can, however (in theory), be implemented.

Only the correct tools and some measure of jaw-setting are required, the latter available anywhere age, booze, or fatigue are sold.

—

Shit, wait, what was I saying about vices?

D’oh.

I love it when you yawn so hard that you tear up and it looks like you’re crying. Only I can’t figure out whether I love it because other people think you’re probably crying or because you almost believe it yourself. Whatever.

Sunday morning at Cosi. Here we are again. Strangely familiar. After the coffee, I will go to the school and read. Then I will take then train home. Then I will go to work. Then I will go to school. Then I will go home. I can perhaps add in some hobbies. Maybe I become a Zen monk and also a crack photographer. So these will be added to the cyclical list. Huzzah? No.

There is nothing to any of this. The usual complaint is to say that it’s all smoke and mirrors, but it’s not even that. It’s just a möbius loop covered in scurrying ants. Sometimes I really love this, but mostly I really hate it—or at least I wish I had been born in a different time, place, and context so that I could have at least enjoyed the kind of vacuous sensuality that so many seem to be amused by on their way to the coffin.

Me I’m just sitting in a coffee shop at 11.00 on a Sunday morning with nowhere to go and no particular desire to talk to anyone, friend or stranger. I am the void, as usual.

Years now after its release it remains the most perfect musical composition of any kind in existence.

A bit silly. A bit crestfallen. Nothing new.

Tired. Very tired, as always.

As though I have a mountain of work and a long slog ahead of me, since of course I do.

Upside?

I don’t know. Hard to say. I often still don’t know whether this is where I’m oughtta be or not. No Alaska. Didn’t stay in Chicago. Hated L.A. Didn’t see much interesting in Portland. Don’t belong in Salt Lake City. Here it’s not that I’m happy so much as that the days pass quickly and there’s nothing really pissing me off so it’s easy to get into a groove.

—

There’s gotta be someplace.

I don’t think it’s New York.

I don’t know how much longer I’m willing to travel around and look.

I don’t know how many more people I’m willing to talk to, dammit.

Stupid fucking modernity.

The answer is:

No.

They fall like:

Dominoes.

They will fall until:

The end.