Good stuff and questionable stuff and symbolism in newspaper comics.

Last night I wound up staying awake until one in the morning reading Frazz. I would say I’m not sure why (isn’t that standard procedure when you do something like stay up until one in the morning), but I love that comic, and the website changed so you can read back indefinitely (for now; I’m not sure exactly how far back it goes, but 2003 seemed like a good start), which was really fun until my back started getting sore. So my next move, at one in the morning, was to grab my sneakers and coat and take a walk, which was also fun, except that it’s way too light in the sky for a good night walk right now. I can’t wait for winter to hit, an things go properly dark. (Ye-ah, archaic grammar. I think.)

Anyway, I didn’t realize until I got home from the walk around three o’clock that Caulfield’s name (or maybe I realized on the way down the driveway and then forgot?) is Holden Caulfield’s last name. Oh my good golly gosh, symbolism? In a newspaper comic? …well, I like it. I liked Holden, I loved Catcher in the Rye, I like the characters of Caulfield and Frazz, and it was totally worth it to stay up for hours reading. Also, Caulfield reminds me of me at that age; I was constantly, constantly, getting in trouble for reading while I should have (I very nearly put those two words in quotes—shows how much I’ve grown up, ne?) been doing other things, most notably math. …Actually, scratch “that age,” I was getting in trouble for that through senior year.

The walk was good, by the way. Good in the sense that I mostly accomplished what I really wanted to; I walked into the woods, all the way down to the pond. I had to stop and gather my courage a few times, as I really do prefer the dark to a foggy twilight (it was also raining a little tiny bit) which confuses the eyes and twists perception. What I accomplished was to stand there, looking at the water running across the path, barely visible in the half-darkness, and assure myself that I was in hands larger than my own, that no harm would come to me save by a plan devised entirely by those hands, and also that if I couldn’t walk straight out of the woods which I know like the back of my hand and have been haunting on and off for five years in the dark, I would never be able to walk straight into the state forest, which I’ve never even seen, looking for… well, anything, really.

(Hey, let’s hear it for the very-nearly-run-on-sentence!)

So I got home around three o’clock, and was comfortably in bed before I realized I hadn’t prayed yet, and I am trying to do better. I think that’s happened to me every single night for the past week. This life is a lot more fun when you realize that God probably has a sense of humor, and most likely wants us to have one too. C. S. Lewis said something profound about being able to laugh at our own expense, especially knowing the one making the joke has nothing but our best interests at heart; I don’t remember it, but you get the point. I hope.

That’s life, leaving out the darker stuff about falling back into insanity again. I taped a poster over the mirror where my reflection usually is from the computer, to stave off the desire to stab myself in the eyeball. So far, it’s working pretty well. Life is not hopeless!

So much for that, then.

For a very long time, I have been saying that I will not have a romantic relationship because I am afraid of hurting someone, which I see as inevitable in the course of a relationship in a relationship containing a schizophrenic. Guess what?

I lied. I am afraid of having a romantic relationship because:
I’m afraid of opening up to someone
I have serious self-esteem issues
I don’t trust most people that much at all
and countless other very normal and not-related-to-madness issues! (oh, but the madness issues are still there; they’re just not the whole truth)

I really thought that admitting that to myself was supposed to be a big huge step, a big huge relief, and taking a weight off my mind. The truth! Sets you free!

Yeah, except that that passage is consistently misused and taken out of context. (John, chapter 8) 31: Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
33: They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
34: Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
35: And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
36: If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Anyway, my point was that, despite admitting to myself that truth, I am still just as lonely, and just as closed-off and unlikely to have a relationship. Bah! Bah, I say! Eh. Maybe someday I will meet someone who is as crazy as I am, and it will be beautiful and wonderful and love, but for now, I think that despite realizing that I’m not incapable of a relationship, just unwilling, I’d rather be lonely than dating someone who I don’t actually like or love.

Pointless post is pointless.

Introducing...

My room is ice cold, or so it feels to my fingers as they try to type. Yet somehow, I haven't the will to close the window. There will not be many days or nights to come wherein I can leave it open; I savor the few left me. I should go to bed an hour ago, but I need to get this out and off of my mind first. Or at least cement it in my mind, so the shadow can take a form and I can start to figure it out.

I sat down to do a few things; the latter was a letter, a prayer, something like both. I want to throw the material bits of this life away and find a spiritual truth, and my spirit is... well, pathetically weak. I come up with a thousand excuses, vague as steam and not nearly so substantial, why I can't. The fact is, I think I'm afraid of what I'll find. To plunge oneself into the void... to throw oneself into the wave, even though the strength be so great that all your strength came to naught. Yeah. That fear. Unsurprising, really. But anyway.

Today, my friend jolted me out of the rut I'd fallen into, lit a fire under me, made me remember how I felt-- dear God, that was less than a month ago. Wow. Anyway, I remember, now, the purpose of all this striving. I will become a journalist; I will write the truth, and publish it, and expose the people who control this world to the reality of what it is, as compared to what it could, or should, be. Rephrased a bit, that's what I believe. That's what I want to do. No, that's a part of what I want to do. That's what conscience demands of me. I -want- to tell stories, to spin the worlds and characters in me into tales, to spellbind people with the craft I was born to an understanding of. The problem with this is two-fold. Firstly, I have little skill as of yet, and those tales, if I give them voice, deserve better. Secondly, it is exceedingly hard to turn a living on story-telling. I will have to wait.

And, as I said, conscience demands more of me than that. The truth of this world, the horrors that lurk beneath a glamorous surface, have been laid bare to me. What would I be if I ignored them? How can I ignore the murder and slavery and poverty and disease that are directly caused by the Western lifestyle?

I can't.

And, to that end, I will become a journalist, and I will force people to look this monster in the face until someone decides to DO SOMETHING about it.

there's other matters to talk about, mainly the affliction of my conscience still regarding anarchists and former-idealist-chefs and my own part in theft and betrayal. and also the return of nightmares. but that can wait a little longer.

When Love Comes To Town

I was a sailor, I was lost at sea
I was under the waves
Before love rescued me
I was a fighter, I could turn on a thread
Now I stand accused of the things I've said

Love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

I used to make love under a red sunset
I was making promises I would soon forget
She was pale as the lace of her wedding gown
But I left her standing before love came to town

I ran into a juke joint when I heard a guitar scream
The notes were turning blue, I was dazing in a dream
As the music played I saw my life turn around
That was the day before love came to town

When love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

When love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

I was there when they crucified my Lord
I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword
I threw the dice when they pierced his side
But I've seen love conquer the great divide

When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

--U2 and BB King

My laptop died as a result of a few things thrown together into one occurrence, that is, the event of a liquid coming into contact with certain parts of the laptop which were not meant to have such exposure, and consequently, the device no longer works in the way it was designed. Fortunately, to counteract this unfortunate chance happening, I have broken down the machine into as few parts as I could manage, to allow the remaining liquid to drain or evaporate, as necessary, which should in the best scenario I can imagine, result in the laptop working as it had prior to the accident.

I drink coffee every morning, which is a bad idea because it’s generally not all that healthy, because it has developed me into dependence, which I strongly dislike, because most coffee is not fair-trade certified and therefore, makes a hypocrite of me, and because it’s an expensive habit, because I really just shouldn’t. But I do. I have an addictive personality; aside from this (I dislike the phrase ‘addictive personality,’ because to my brain it implies that my personality is addicting, which is, I believe, not the case at all) being an excuse for poor willpower (yes, I am guilty of that use; I am sometimes a hypocrite, but will own up to that), it is also an actual thing. After less than a week drinking one mug of coffee per morning, I will get a headache without that cup. After one cigarette, I crave another for a week. Thus, every time I decide to quit coffee, I am shortly back on it after a few bad nights of sleeping, which I can expect more of now that I’ve run out of meds. Sigh. Not an excuse. But still.

So the morning before yesterday (haha, that is a doubled sort of meaning. Could it not mean the morning that began yesterday, since the morning did indeed come before the day?), I put a cup of coffee—a full cup of coffee—down about half an inch away from my keyboard, and reached over the laptop and desk to open the window. My cat, anticipating an open windowsill to sit on, leapt up to the desk, reached over the laptop, and put her paws on the sill, as is her wont. Unfortunately for me, she also lashed her tail once, and knocked the cup of coffee over. Or maybe her leap did that. I don’t know. Anyway, she knocked it straight onto the laptop keyboard. So now I am sitting at my dad’s desktop computer, which he doesn’t mind me using, fortunately.

I don’t understand why so many things in my life want to go wrong lately. First my mp3 player quit, the same evening that I mentioned in a conversation to my grandpa that I’d rather go without a cellphone than an mp3 player, since music is one of the closest things to my heart, and otherwise my walking soundtrack would be traffic. The replacement never worked at all. Then I ran out of medication, at the same time receiving a significant bill from the hospital which writes the prescription. In paying off the bills for contact lenses and driving school, respectively, I overdrew my account and was charged a subsequent fine… which made it crystal clear that I could not afford to renew the prescription for medication… which has no refills. Then I spilled coffee on my laptop, on which reside all of my stories, poetry, music, photos, drawings, ramblings that I have not posted online, et cetera. In between this all was the concert to which I had looked forward for about a year. That provided a week-long euphoria, and also a permanently changed outlook on life. Maybe that’s why, despite what the words of this blog might lead you to believe, they are spoken in a fairly cheery tone of voice—and if not that, at least a matter-of-fact voice. I’m not even mad at the cat (it’s my fault anyway). Strange.

At any rate, that’s life right now. The positive side of this is that 1) it is no longer convenient for me to spend that much time on the computer, 2) without my music, I am forced to use online radio, which brings cool music to my attention that I otherwise neglect, 3) I am hearing it through proper speakers, rather than laptop speakers. The negatives are fairly obvious. But I won’t dwell on them.

October

October
and the trees are stripped bare
of all they wear
What do I care?

October
and kingdoms rise,
and kingdoms fall,
but You go on
and on.
You go on