Eh . . . To-day, I will get an oil change . . . for my car.

I'm surrounded by fascists. Go 'way fascists! I really think I am surrounded by them.

Reason takes a back seat to "feelings" these days. It's cloying and it gives me stomach ache.

Woke up with a bad stomach ache this morning. And a headache. I dreamt I was part of a team of teen vampire hunters. We were all drving about in old Buick--there was me, another guy who had shoulder length black hair and glasses, a chubby blonde guy with a buzz-cut, and a guy and his girlfriend. This guy had glasses and short, oily black hair, and his girlfriend had mousy brown hair and wore big sweaters.

We regularly drove to the graveyard to hunt vampires who were rapidly taking over the world. One night, we were over powered. The guy and his girlfriend were making out in the back seat so they never saw it coming. The other two guys vanished into the crowd of blood-suckers, and I was the last one fighting. I finally lost consciousness, and when I awoke, I was in a regular looking hospital. My friends were there and we were all okay. Only we were all vampires now, of course. As was everyone in the world. But it turned out that it didn't matter at all--everyone was exactly the same as a vampire, only we had pointy teeth.

. . . Just watched the last episode of Evangelion. Am I a sap for feeling terrifically better about reality for having watched it? Maybe. Maybe it helps to be reminded of very simple things now and then. It certainly seemed to help Shinji.

The last episodes of Evangelion are always better than I rememeber them. I almost don't wanna watch the Evangelion movie, afraid it'll spoil the vibe . . . maybe I'll wait on it awhile.

Hideaki Anno was right. How the last episode went was truly better than how a lot of people thought it should have ended. The series really was about being human, and not about big robots. Kudos to Anno.

On a side note, it becomes very apparent in the last episode that the voice of Rei, Megumi Hayashibara, is also the voice of Lina Inverse. And Girl-type Ranma. And . . . well, lots of people . . .

I feel like shit. Like Spangler said at the end of Ghostbusters, I feel like the bottom of a taxi cab.

But I shall press onward . . . I managed to get some laundry done last night, finally. And I drank copious amounts of Cherry Coke.

Talked to Cryptess on ICQ last night. Our first real time conversation since I left Seattle. She has sung in an opera thing.

Also last night, I spent a lot of time plotting the trip Trisa and I are taking to Los Angle-lease on Wednesday. It can't possibly go as bad as last time.
I have class to-day . . . But first I will have coffee.

"Now where am I?"-Ryoga Hibiki

Last night's episode of Justice League was surprisingly enjoyable. It really surpassed any previous episode. Even though there technically wasn't anything wildly original in the plot . . . It rather firmly held my attention. Perhaps because the animation is not only good but also, unlike it's counterpart X-Men: Evolution, it's very sensitive to how people actually move. Unlike most American animations, this one seems close to that typically exclusively Japanese knack of knowing what to animate and, when you don't have a massive budget, what not to animate.

X-Men: Evolution is a good example of this widespread folly as it is a show with good animation. The problem is that, the characters, when in conversation, or casually walking about, give one the sense--from the unnatural, overwrought gesticulations, and at times, outright bizarre walking frames (witness the Sirens episode and you'll starkly see what I mean)--that the people working on these animations have never actually witnessed a human being in motion.

And it's also true that the writing is a little better on Justice League. The premise of X-Men: Evolution, which attempts to pander to the Britney Spears-ish teen crowd, makes several miscalculations, most notably the absence of the Wolverine/Cyclops/Jean Grey love triangle.

So now I'm hungry . . .

It's definitely blue beach-ball time around here.

I bet you all know what I'm talking about and I bet you all have had the experience of bemusedly shaking your head, sighing with nigh frustrated affection, at the antics of those around you who bring home the blue beach ball that they naturally coinsider tyo be the best thing ever and always (I left my typos in because I liked them).

And what's not to like, really? It's round with a rubbery skin and filled with air. It's bouncible and playful.

Things can get scary though. I once heard of a woman drowning her own children rather than let them be tortured by blue-beach ball Death Collectors.

Of course, that was back in the forties, and to-day blue beach balls are generally deemed something like soma that's okay for kids. Kids even.

Sure, you get the popping accidents now and then. But it's kind of inhuman to deny anyone their basic right to blue beach balls, so whatta you gonna do?

. . . okay.

I'm gonna go for broke.

I'll just say it . . . I DON'T GET IT. WHAT IS SO FRELLING GREAT ABOUT THE BLUE BEACH BALL??!!

Oh! I almost forgot to mention . . . The Pumpkin Smash smoothies at Jamba Juice taste exactly like the vanilla milkshakes at Jack-In-the-Box.


"But answer there came none--And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one." -Tweedledee

Okay, so come 7am I did actually sleep, I think. Ha, eat that, gods. Or whoever you are.

Empty coke can still next to my mouse . . . I ended up watching more Star Trek and not being at all productive. It really is amazing how soothing it was to watch Star Trek. I never realised before what a tonic it is.

I'd made these Star Trek tapes a very long time ago . . . High School, childhood. I wonder if this is why Randolph Carter was so interested in pursing his childhood. Maybe if I keep watching my old Star Trek tapes . . . I'll slip out to where the Old Ones are?

I promised Tim I'd help him get a bookshelf to-day. I also need to buy shaving cream and deordant . . . I'm just so exciting, ain't I?

You may have noticed I added a bunch of links to this page. Go visit all of them repeatedly until you're reduced to a feverishly sweating, meaninglessly giggling little baby with bulging, senseless eyes.

I wanna get coffee . . . but first, I will do some crunches.


"Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief, knowledge comes with death's release." -David Bowie

Halloa. I know this feeling. It's the feeling that says, "Hey, guess what? Yer not gonna get a wink of sleep to-night. And what's more, you probably won't be very productive."

What I need is a sedative (he says as he sips his coke).

As sedatives go, Star Trek is amazingly effective. But it's not enough.

Damn it, I swear to the gods that if I can't sleep I shall, damnit shall be productive.

Your soul is bound to the Fifth Totem, Homid:
The Monkey.

Homid appears as a viridian monkey. He embodies
intelligence, potential, understanding, and
skill. He is associated with the color
viridian, the season of spring, and the element
of fire. His downfall is pretentiousness.

You are most compatible with Owls and Tortoises.


Which Animal Spirit Totem Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yesterday I encountered a man praying before his meal at the mall food court, a woman calling her boyfriend a retard in cloying, false anger, and a young woman who yelled vaguely near me at no one in particular about lesbian-haters, lazy communists, and fucking tits.

I also, because I was writing a scene in my novel that I was very happy with, felt more at peace with myself, and stronger, than I have felt in many days.

But right now, I'm angry because apparently I've just narrowly missed Trisa. It's the kind of cursed miss that gets thoroughly under my skin . . . So fucking angry . . . Maybe I'll try calling her from the mall. Maybe somehow the gods will allow me to reach her from there.

Old gum is bad gum. Don't try it.

I found some old Bazooka Joe bubble gum in my coin basket, leftover from when Trisa and I went to a nice 50s restaurant a long time ago. I was gonna throw them away but . . . I had to see the Bazooka Joe comics. And once I'd opened them, naturally I had to chew them. It's something I regret.

Oh, but . . .

Iichiwawa!!

I've been flat broke for the past couple of days but now, thanks to my enormous store of pennies, dimes, and nickels, and my patient coin-rolling, I have thirty-four dollars!! Yes, it is all from loose change.

The biggest yield was the dimes, which alone gave me twenty dollars. I was only able to roll two dollars of pennies as I had only four penny roll sleaves, and four dollars of nickels, as nickels seem to be by far the most scarce coin. I wonder why?

Then I found lots and lotsa quarters, and a single coin dollar. I also found British money, Thai money, and Star Wars action figure collectable coins. Not to mention all the movie stubs I found (Divine Intervention, Russian Ark, Wild At Heart). And oh, yes, the gum . . .

Sometimes I wish I had been born an eye. Just an eye . . . A big, annonymous, sensor. I feel that disinclined to generate output. Well, most output. I did do some writing to-day . . .

I have class on Wednesday and I wish I didn't as I'm currently broke. I don't have money for any gas except what's already in the tank.

Hmm . . . Most of the things on my mind right now are things I don't wanna write about here . . .

Life would be better without plastic. I think.

I think I'll just read right now . . .

??

Yup. I want another coke. But it feels like a bad idea . . . Actually, what I really want is orange juice.

To-morrow I'd like to use for getting lots of things done. But I doubt I shall. I have two appointments (hehe) to-morrow. Well, social calls. But social calls are impoitant, very impoitant (that's how Chiana's brother Nerri says "important").

Okay . . . I'll have another coke. I meant to do so much to-night . . . but a single new page of Doll Merchant was all that I managed.

Can't . . . stop . . . drinking . . . cokes! Can't stop! Huah! I'm on my third can in the last three hours . . . Oh, that's bad.

Maybe I'm just trying to get the taste of the Pepsi Vanilla out of my mouth.

Weeks ago, Tim recomended that I try the Pepsi Vanilla, saying that it had a stronger vanilla taste than the Vanilla Coke. My attempts to purchase the Pepsi Vanilla were thwarted by machines lacking the item and by machines bearing erroneous labels.

But finally; a stroke of luck. I got one.

So intense had my expectations become by this point that I could do nothing but feverishly scream/think "eureka!" as that, indeed, indelibly vanilla-ie stuff dribbled down my gullet, impregnating my eye with madness.

To-day, bearing my bottle of Pepsi Vanilla proudly to the home of my mother, I, in an aloof and mischievious tone, asked of my sister, "Have you tried the Pepsi Vanilla, hmmm?"

"Yes," she said. "It tastes like medicine."

Lightning flashed through my synapses(sp?) and I gasped, very like Inu-Yasha, foiled by Naraku. "It is true!" gasped I. For verily did it taste of cough syrup, and mine eyes and throat and the odd eyes in my throat and those things which feel things in things all viciously did attest to mine brain squegee; YES! IT IS BAD! IT IS PEPSI BLUE ALL OVER AGAIN! BUT WITH BLACK MAGIC!

Just when I thought words could not be emphasised in any other way, things got underlined, and I sunk into the despair of Knowing . . .

Later, I had myself beaten senseless by Lizard Man. Or the Lizard Men, I should say, as there were at least five of the bastards. This was at Tim's house, inside a Game Cube and a television, and I made Tim uncomfortable, and he had to leave the room. It was team battle (this was Soul Calibur 2, by the way, in case you hadn't picked up on it) and I was using Charade, Talim, and Taki against Lizard Man after Lizard Man, and not passing that stage for, as the game clock noted 90 frelling minutes. I had used the randomiser option to choose my characters (one of the challenges I set for myself. That, and the fact that I refuse to play on any level other than extremely hard), but it was still what I considered to be a good crew. Not to mention a sexy crew, as Talim and Taki are young, scantily clad women (Charade is a sexless construct/golem. But I bet there're some people who go for that). But having my--their--pretty little asses kicked repeatedly, so very many, many . . . many times began to make me feel I was being subjected to a brutal cruelty towards women. Lizard Man can not afford the ticket back from Suffragette City. Er, does that make sense?

The point is, folks . . . I went farbots in that little battle cage. Yes I did.

So . . . I've decided that I shall get more work done without the air coditioner, and with less light.

AH! I found my copy of Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes! It was in one of my Farscape DVD cases. Of all places! I don't remember why I put it in there . . . If I hadn't decided to watch A Clockwork Nebari to-day, who knows how long it would have been before I found it?

Gods . . . I hear children's voices elsewhere in the house . . .

I'm behind on a lot of things. I've taken the last couple of days for "research into the the arts" *koff, koff*

In the shower this morning, I started thinking about the entirety of my novel . . .

I saw Lost in Translation with Trisa on Thrusday, and I'm still in afterglow, because it was a very good movie.

In fact, the next day it put me in the mood to do nothing but absorb. Lost in Translation was the kind of movie that makes me want to take the time to appreciate art.

To watched Farscape and Star Trek: The Next Generation, read a Sherlock Holmes story and a Peter Straub story called Mrs. God, which is phenominal (of course).

Those two stories, mind you, are both short stories (actually, I think Mrs. God is a novella)--I haven't started reading a new novel since I finished Age of Innocence a few days ago. And I'm a little frustrated.

I could not begin to give you an idea of the massive quantity of unread books I have that I desperately want to read. And some of those, I'm even under a sort of obligation to read as soon as possible.

I think I've decided on Huxley's Brave New World as it was giving to me around two years ago by my cousin who I but rarely see . . . except for the fact that, starting a few days ago, he now lives in the same house as me. So I must read this book.

And after it, I suspect, I shall read the other book he gave me, and then Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk, which Trisa gave me not long ago with an air of "sponaneously read this now for fun!" I'm afraid I had to schedule that spontinaity for a later date . . .

I also need (and desperately want) to read several Peter Straub and Stephen King novels that Marty loaned to be nearly a year ago. He's been such a good sport about letting me borrow books . . . I really need to impress upon him how very slow a reader I am.

And in the meantime, I shall occasionally gaze sadly at my untouched stacks of Ursula K Leguin, William Gibson, Leo Tokstoy, Charles Dickens, Caitlin R Kiernan, Poppy Z Brite, and who knows what all . . .

You are Mitsurugi -

Both mysterious and attractive, you captivate people with the fact that you seem to be
good at everything! Spending quiet moments with a friend and talking about what life means to you is your ideal situation. You don't like to stand out very much and you seem to be more old-fashioned
than modern, but when you do take the spotlight -- you command the floor!


Which Soul Calibur character are you?


this quiz was made by david park

Bad Words


Saying things off
Truth in our seperate seats
Filled with everything
Sharing nothing

Shaded, dull, fake
Leaves of grey anonymous plants
Empty records reveal
The ordinance of silence

Pretty character of
A different story
Only canons speak
Between our galleys

Dry gunpowder and
Stupid sparks
Kill
Even as they pump blood

Every laugh is a recording
Every thought is a charity
Every moment is spent longing
For a return to sleep

We don't know what we saw
We can't wrap heart around it
Blinking we go
Invisible grocery shopping

The supermarket is a church
Alters are freezers
And in the morning sun
This is no place to be

"Jimmy rapped on and on about his suicide, how he'd kick it in the head when he was twenty five . . . Don't wanna stay alive when you're twenty five." -David Bowie

At twenty four, I basically do wanna stay alive, I guess. I got volume three of 1602 yesterday. It's shaping up to be a good little series.

To'day I'll thing some dos and what some whos.

I just got up to do something . . . and I sat back down again.

About an hour ago, I went to the supermarkert to buy something . . . and when I got there, I forgot what it was I meant to buy.

I was gonna buy something at the mall to-day . . . and then I inexplicably didn't.

I was gonna say something else here . . . but I forgot what it was.

I didn't mean to vote to-day. And I didn't. Hurrah for convictions. Y'know, Jack Kerouac never voted.

(of course, when I keep saying "to-day" what I really mean is Tuesday . . . I haven't gone to bed yet).

I ate dinner at my parents house where they've installed a new fountain in the backyard, so we were constantly treated to what sounded like a twelve foot tall man urinating. I have to go back there early to-morrow for doughnuts. Then, I have to go to school. I need to fill out the take-home "quiz" before class to-morrow . . . It's an infuriatingly simple exercise, and one which that frelling bastard has made us do in class and in groups THREE FUCKING TIMES now. Oh, yes, I had it the first time. But far be it from me to suggest that even the vaguest opportunity to force me to interact with humans should be passed up.

And now I do get to do one on my own. Oh, goody. I'm not sure if I can do it because if I do, I think I may just start to cry.

It's one of those things that you feel ought to make you feel like you're accomplishing something, as it's an important school assignment for the betterment of your grade. But when you look at it, you find that it's very lame, and you realise that upon finishing it, you going to feel very empty.

Gods, is that really what I'm whinning about here? No. Not just that. This little piece of emptiness just kind of carries with it feelings of all sorts of sensitivity of the emptiness. Things like, "Hey, I'm gonna vote for the governater!" or "No, brother, I don't want to watch Farscape, even though I'm sitting and watching nothing on the TV" or "Now, boys and girls, we have to feel all the feelings in the world, okay?"

I've been watching Neon Genesis Evangelion a lot lately, and Asuka's line; "Mina daikirai!" ("I hate everyone!") keeps resounding in my head.

I don't want to hate the people I love. I love the people I love. But lately I've been wanting to scream at most of them . . .

My mother was watching Oprah to-day. I stood close by as Oprah interviewed a woman who'd been in solitary confinement.

I could do with being in solitary confinement. How nice if the whole world was contained within four, very close walls . . .

I was surprisingly sociable yesterday. I gave out my URL to two people (If you're one, or somehow both, of these people, welcome). Hopefully I won't all together fall off my anti-human wagon.

Yesterday I also had a brief and depressing visit with Trisa. And I had two brief, but depressing classes.

Time for me to go. I suppose I oughta go vote. But since when have I been a legal citizen of this planet?

Currently wearing headphones with no sound coming out of them . . . yes, let's have some music . . .

Ah. The Rasputina cover of Velvet Underground's "All To-morrow's Parties". Good, good.

It's hot in this room.

I need to go to sleep.

I don't want to sleep at all. I wanna wake up and have Monday happen already. I'll be honest with you, I'm disappointed with myself. I'm completely unprepared for class to-morrow and that bastard'll put us in groups.

Ugh. I feel frantic and lethargic, exhausted and impatient, consumed and empty, and all that usually unusual rot.

I told Trisa a few weeks ago that I was going to cultivate my uselessness. I'm making headway, but I need to go further. Or so the Lovecraft Tarot tells me.

There's a big crack in my windshield. I think it just might be getting steadily larger. Tim told me it could just break on me while I'm on the freeway. I thought this was just more of Tim's paranoid claptrap. That guy slept with a black widow spider last night--he told me he's gonna do something about it to-night.

I'm gonna keep up steam until dawn. Let's list the things I oughta be doing. My horoscope said I should do that on Saturday, but I procrastinated. So here 'tis now.

I need to work on my novel.

I need to kind of rewrite everything I wrote for part 8. Or at least heavily edit it.

I need to read a lot of my text book.

I need to care, damnit. I need heart.

Plus I have another project I started on Friday . . .

And there's a short story I wrote half of a few weeks ago . . .

I have eight dollars. Hurrah! In your face "hurrah"! I can get coffee to-morrow morning.

You know what I want, though? A pretty concubine.

Well, I don't feel like doing a damn thing to-day. Not a damn thing.

Is there anything creepier than people? I mean, really, people are really, really creepy. People are seriously creeping me out to-day.

I do have a good cup of coffee next to me, though . . . Ugh. And you know, there are a lot of things I need to do? I just so don't wanna do 'em.

I stayed up late watching Seven Samurai last night. I'd never cried watching that film before, but I cried last night for some reason. It's a great movie. Blah. Blay blah.

I'm going to give my sister my old DVD player to-day. I have no place for it . . .

I need to pee.

I cannot get to the bathroom.

Should I go to the mall? Should I really go to the mall, just so's I can pee? Has my life really come to that?

If I go to the mall, I'm liable to spend a little money. I'm liable to get a coffee, at least. I have twelve dollars. I wanted to save some for the vague possibility that Trisa might have some free time this weekend, and she and I could go see Bubba Ho-Tep, Lost in Translation, or any other of the many movies that she and I have talked about going to see.

Oh, but I need to pee. What'll I do? What options do I really have? And no, I'm not going to wet myself. I don't care if I have a closet full of pants next to me . . . And by the way, I like pants. Just thought I'd say that while I was thinking it.

...

Got free lunch at a place called Mimi's today. Ate with several of my relatives, spent most of the time keeping my eyes dead and fixed on my coffee, similtanously to discourage conversation, and as a way of using the time to think.

I've been wondering about part 8 of my novel a lot lately. I may do some serious things to it . . . To-day, at Mimi's, I finally thought of something I'd been trying to get at in my brain regarding the overall thrust of part 8, which I rather need, as I am now entering part 8's last couple of chapters.

There's something strange about the deliberate way I've been placing configurations of words in this novel. It's sort of like a very, very long haiku. I'm wondering also if this format shall end up detracting from the novel, or being an enhancement.

Don't know.

I wanna pee.

My water smells like feet. Which is too bad because I'm very thirsty. I've been thirsty a lot lately.

My wild cherry pepsi, which I bought on accident last night as I attempted to buy the new vanilla pepsi, just to try it out, smells like laundry deturgent. It smelt that way last night, though, so I guess it's okay.

. . . It' weird, the sorts of things that can captivate me. Yesterday I went to the mall, and going to one of my usual parking spaces, I had to come to a stop because some morons had decided to rope off the road just around a very tight corner--I think so's they could paint it. There was barely room enough for me to do the old Scoot Forward A Little, Back Up A Little, Scoot Forward A Little manoevre until I'd somehow edged my way out. But when I finally did, and drove to another parking space, I left my car to immediately go to a spot inside the mall where I could watch other cars abruptly finding themselves in the same predicament. I was treated to seeing two cars going down the street at once, and saw the car in the rear had to back up first for the lead car before going into the same edging manoevres himself. Meanwhile, I could see the painter foreman, or whatever, frantically yelling at his people to remove the tape blocking the little road. Good fun, good fun.

Oh, and it was another hot day, of course.

First of all . . . I got me a copy of Shadows Over Baker Street!

I am irrationally happy about this.

I read the Neil Gaiman story, A Study in Emerald, last night. It was brilliantly creepy. And bless Gaiman for turning the tables just as I was starting to get a sick feeling near the end.

Then I read part of Elizabeth Bear's Tiger! Tiger!, which is all right so far, even though it doesn't actually have Sherlock Holmes in it . . . Although I would very like to skip to the Caitlin Kiernan story and the Poppy Z Brite/David Ferguson story, I have decided to strictly adhere to reading each and every story in order . . . not for any particular reason, except that, perhaps I don't wanna end up saving the best for first (which, I know, I might already have done by reading the Neil Gaiman story first, but then again I honestly find some of Kiernan's stuff to be much stronger than Gaiman's).

So for that, I'm down to only 36 dollars, but it was worth it. It was worth even having the sales clerk root around in the back room for it. It was worth it.

You know, there're just too many good things coming out lately for me to be keeping a responsible budget. Supposedly the new Elvis Costello album's coming out soon, although I don't know exactly when. And last week, I bought the new David Bowie album, Reality.

The review in Entertainment Weekly accused Reality of being the latest example of a very misguided ethic that Bowie's been employing in his music making lately, saying that the music is so studio slick, and overly tampered with by Bowie, that any good melody is lost under the sort of cacophony. The first time I listened to Reality, I might have agreed, but by the third listen, I was very much under the album's spell. There's a kind of wonderful, vicious insanity about it (underlined by the presence of Aladdin Sane pianist Mike Garson), especially evoked after I had sat down and read all the lyrics. I especially liked "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" and "Bring Me the Disco King". The title track, "Reality," is kind of nightmare-ish and sort of makes me wish that Bowie would do an entire album of nightmares.

I also obtained a copy of Radiohead's Hail to the Thief from Marty as well as a copy of a Cranes album from Trisa. Both are very good, and still percolating between my ears.

...

Yesterday felt very frantic for no apparent reason. It just seemed like I had no time to sit still. I meant to do some writing, but it didn't happen. Well, unless you count the new page of Doll Merchant I did (just now realised I should've been italicising Doll Merchant all this time. At least, I think so . . .).

Cats are like sock puppets that no hand controls.

Currently drinking a bottle of Aquafina water and noticing that the bottle is very phallic shaped. It's an exceptionally slender bottle at 16.9 fluid ounces with a domed, sort of mushroom shaped top. This top also bears faint ridges, which further indicates the thing was designed for her pleasure.

I don't wanna think about the fact that I got this bottle at my mother's house.

...

My sister works at a restaurant called Claim Jumper and it seems she had to call 911 Sunday night because one of the customers was having a ceisure.

My dad is a fireman, so of course he showed up in his paramedic, fire-truck thingy. And so it seems that I have people in my family who do service to the human race.

What a misguided endeavour.

Didn't talk Tim into watching Pulp Fiction. Instead, I went to Target with him where he bought some storage containers. Apparently, his parents have finally put their feet down and have ordered him to clean his room. Which is too bad, because his room was such a wonderful colage of random junk. I love messy rooms. Maybe because I haven't got a messy room. True, I don't have a room . . .

After Tim's, I stayed up rather late drawing this.

Aside from wanting to flatter Nar'eth, I think I drew it mainly because I hadn't drawn anything but Doll Merchant in quite a while. It's been a very long time since I used my colour pencils. And this was the first time I ever in my life attempted to colour in leather garments, which was difficult, but not as difficult as I'd thought it would be.

I think to-day, I'll catch up with all the school work that's due to-morrow . . .

Not much to say to-day. I spent my time last night organising stuff on the computer (as you can see, I changed my blog a bit. Made it more streamlined, I hope. And, of course, I replaced the bird gentleman with a naked alien pretty lady).

To-day I think I'll go to Tim's house and try to talk him into watching Pulp Fiction. It's just a crime that he hasn't seen that movie yet. A crime.

After Tim's, I'm going to do some Other Things . . .

I am so uncute.


Rate Your Cuteness!
brought to you by Quizilla

Found the test on Mel's journal.

It's nearly 5pm, and I've just finished breakfast, how pathetic am I?

Not the first time . . . although, this time I have a somewhat reasonable excuse. I got to sleep at around 4am and had to get up at 8am while some realtor showed the house to some people . . . Yes, looks like I'm going to have have to pack up all my stuff again pretty soon and move to someplace else. Looks like it'll be Tierrasanta, which I always thought of as being a nice part of town. Of course, it'll cement my dependency on the motor vehicle, which ought to make me worried that I still need to get some new car insurance before November . . . I want it to be November so's I can see the Two Towers extended edition! It's not fair that I should want that month to come both soon and late.

Anyway, the realtor didn't leave until 10am, and it wasn't until then that I was able to go back to sleep. I did type up a lot of writing in the interrum, so at least I was productive . . .

I'd intended to stay in all day, but I'm starting to rather want to get out . . .

I read Caitlin R. Kiernan's Postcards from the King of Tides last night and got all intimidated, like I got reading Age of Innocence. You know, some brilliant works, for some reason, don't remind me of my short-comings as a writer, yet these somehow do. So I also read through bits of my novel last night, which is dangerous, because no matter how tired I am, reading over stuff I've written always has me compulsively editing it.

sigh.

As I was walking along in the mall to-day, a young woman asked me who was on my shirt.

"Robert Smith," I said. It's a black t-shirt with Robert Smith's big pale face with a dash of red lipstick. Under his chin, in red letters, it says, "The Cure."

"And what's the cure for?" she asked.

"The Cure's actually a band," said I.

"Oh . . . so it's the cure for entertainment?" she deduced cheerfully.

"No, no. The band's name is 'The Cure'." No one understands me.

"Oh! . . . I went to a Misfits concert once. Are they anything like The Misfits? Like, rock n' roll?" Yes, this individual was not attended by a parent, and in fact looked to be around thirty years in age.

"I haven't heard much of The Misfits' stuff, but I don't think so."

She said, "Oh, neat! How's your cell phone?" which I should have seen coming. Only some goofy Verizon salesperson would feel perfectly natural in the bizarrely pathetic-little-neighbour-kid-trying-to-fit-in tactic of "You like music? Me too! Let's be buddies!"

...

I started writing a new short story at my aunt's Starbucks. Looks like the first non Sci-Fi/Fantasy fiction I've ever written in my life. It's a little noir-ish.

And just before going to my blog here, I finished watching a Stephen Frears film noir that Marty lended me called The Grifters. It was terribly good and surprisingly disturbing.

For some reason, to-day my grandmother was trying to peddle Bill O'Reilly's book off on my aunt as my aunt was trying to walk out the door. My grandmother said something about O'Reilly's relationship with Cardinal Law and I piped in "Wouldn't it be funny if there was a Marshal Law?"

My aunt said, "The Marshal Law? There is a Marshal Law, it's called the Marshal Plan."

My grandmother said, "No, Cardinal Law is a person."

I said, "Yeah, I know. I'm saying what if he were in the military--like, Marshal's a rank in the military. And there's also m-a-r-t-i-a-l for Martial Law. Like when there's a police state."

"The Marshal Plan," said my aunt, nodding.

My grandmother said, "No, he means martial arts."

I gave up at that point.

Found this quiz on Mel's journal . . .


You are Mary Bell. At the ripe old age of 10 you
strangled a neighbor boy, afterwhich you carved
your initals into his skin. At his funreal you
laughed. Your next victim was a 3 year old. You
pushed him off the roof, resulting in a broken
skull. After he was found you went to his
mothers house and asked to see him, she replied
tha t he was dead. You smiled brightly and said
'Oh, I know he's dead. I wanted to see him in
his coffin."
You horrid little girl you.
-smacks your hand-


Which Imfamous criminal are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


It's pretty accurate, I think.

...

I had a really good day yesterday. I skipped class and Trisa and I hung out all day. She gave me things . . .

. . . I can't sleep.

This may have to do with the fact that I slept in 'til 1pm on Sunday. It may have to do with the fact that I had four meatless, soy corn dogs for dinner. It may also have to do with the thermos of very strong coffee coffee I finished drinking a few hours ago. Or it may even be because when I lay down in my bed, my mind starts boiling about my current animosities, my current fears, and my current causes for sorrow.

This whole year has been one period of change after another.

I currently find myself at a point where I've realised that I can neither trust or depend on some of the people I once considered my closest friends. And of course, at the same time I have to be wondering whether or not I'm suffering from paranoid delusions. I have to wonder that, you see. I think it could have something to do with the fact that I grew up with a mother who quite casually and frequently lied to me in her attempts to manipulate me. And, in case anyone reading's ever given thought to trying out this technique, I'll tell you now it doesn't work. The truth is invariably found out, if not by the conscious mind, then at least by the spirit.

In any case, I currently find myself in a state where I am far happier alone than I am when I have meaningful relationships with other people. And it doesn't actually feel like there's anything wrong with me, it merely feels like a preference. And I still derive pleasure from superficial relationships, where I just chat or play with someone who shares my interests.

So why do I attempt to have deeper relationships?

Let's see . . . I guess it's not so much a need for companionship with a human, as it is a need to bond with specific humans. It's not that I seek a relationship, it's that I seek a soul. And the only path to a soul that I know of, is through a relationship. Is there another way to gain possession of a soul? Paging Mr. Lucifer . . .

Anyway, I did a new page of Doll Merchant. It's been a while since I've done a page at night . . .

I am very angry to-day.

Very angry.

My anger has actually given me a headache. I'm so disgusted with 90% of reality right now that, if I had the means, I'd probably destroy the world.

I won't go into why I'm so angry . . . There're a lot of reasons.

I wish I had more money. But on the other hand, I can't think of anywhere money would take me that wouldn't piss me off . . .

Just looking over the Forbes listing of 400 richest Americans (don't ask me why) and noticing that the list still includes one Rockefeller and several Hearsts.

Some things will just make you angry, huh?

I despise nearly everyone on this list, except maybe George Lucas and Steven Spielburg.

...

I dreamt last night that I still lived in my old neighbourhood (from when I was 12 or so) and I was over at a neighbour's house. This guy (who I've never seen in real life) had two kids, two little boys. It was around midnight when I told him that his children were in trouble.

"No," he told me, "they're just outside playing."

"Then let's go find them," I said.

So we began searching the dark streets, finding no one, our sense of panic deepening. We split up.

On one very long, wide street, I spotted a little boy walking in the dead centre. This was not one of the little boys we were looking for. This boy was much younger, not even two years old, and very pale. He walked with an awkward, stumpy little stride and I wondered how he had gotten so far away from his adult supervisors--he was alone. When I approached him, he spoke to me in the deep voice of an adult with a thick German accent. After I brought him home to his mustached and smiling father and his plump, blushing mother, I resumed my search.

Many times I saw the silhouettes of children in the distance but somehow knew that no one would ever reach them.

...

I've been treading on dangerous territory lately--nostalgic territory. I've been watching my Evangelion tapes and last night I even broke out my Star Trek tapes. I haven't watched my Star Trek tapes since before I was kicked out of my mom's house . . . The commercials back then were so innocent and so, come to think of it, was Star Trek . . .

Avast and stand well, me hearties, for with me swings a lantern's tale
Aye, for who best sees ye cats sympathies for the gable and turn
And out on the line o' sea does the perty Apollo burn, aye
We 'aven't got a plane to ogle and swap the bloody swallow

Who aught me lass go 'un?
I take me hearty glass for fun
Drep te coast and loverly bossoms
Girl, me friend e'er me cosms

So one "arr" rides more on for her
Ye see no great troubles singing 'll incur
So take saucy dance with saucy drepin' lass
And hoist the dead men over
Hoist the dead men
Hoist the dead men over the river they need pass . . .
An' we sail on top o' the water, cut a' glass, cut a' glass

I wanna go back to sleep. Dasani's not as good the next day.

Yesterday my sister told me that she and her boyfriend had broken up. When I said, "I'm sorry," she just said, "It's okay," and didn't seem to think there was much to talk about.

It turns out, she dumped him because he cancelled a date and because he didn't know what Brail was and he didn't know who Helen Keller was.

Suddenly I'm glad I never had a girlfriend in high school.

...

I did get around to reading The Miller's Tale yesterday and . . . damn. The Farley brothers are but amatuers. Chaucer had raunch and fart jokes nailed six hundred years ago.

I also looked for Neil Gaiman's new book, Endless Nights, but it was of course sold out at both comic book shops I went to. I suppose I'll try next Wednesday . . .

Gods . . . I'm angry.

Tuesday was . . . disapointing. True, it could've been worse. I could've had Trisa's day. Her day looked like it was far worse than mine, poor dear.

Now I am, once again, drinking a Mountain Dew whilst making a blog entry. Now it's almost an hour later than last night's, though. I'm making progress.

I'm supposed to be reading the miller's tale from Cantabury Tales at the moment. But I don't feel like it. I haven't been good for much lately. Feeling sludgy.

I typed up more of chapter 71 one to-day, but otherwise got little done.

I'm currently tired of the human condition.

Did you know that Peppermint Patty was a swinger?

I just drank a full bottle of Mountain Dew, and it's made me realise that I've been going to bed awfully early lately . . . It's not even 2am, and I feel like I should be going to sleep . . .

Awakened this morning by fear!

Fear of what exactly, I'm not sure. I just found myself suddenly griped by a mysterious, rapidly escalating sensation of panic. Dunno what caused it. Perhaps it was all the pizza and coke and chocolate cake I ate last night.

I was flat broke yesterday. Actually, I'm even flatter broke to-day as yesterday I scrounged together just enough money to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks so that I might write at that place. Seems I can't simply go at the pen and paper at home anymore . . . At any rate, I did get a good deal of writing done. I wrote roughly half of chapter 77--no, not chapter 78 because, as you remember, I discovered that what I'd been calling chapter 77 for weeks was in fact chapter 76. I think. By the time I'm done with the first draft and I've gone through the whole thing carefully, I may find it to be chapter 2. Maybe.

I did find out why my room smelled of an aquarium yesterday, and why the adjoining bathroom smelled even more aquarium-esque. I won't say much about it, except that 1) it wasn't my fault and that 2) humans and fish really aren't so different as we perhaps like to believe.

Why does my room smell like an aquarium? Ew?

Saw a nice fellow Nebari on Caitlin Kiernan's forum this morning mention the upcoming Shadows Over Baker Street. A terrible thing to show a penniless soul like myself. Of course I have until the 30th to pull money together . . .

Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft, as written by Caitling Kiernan, Neil Gaiman, Poppy Z Brite, and others . . . I want it so badly I can taste the badness sizzling behind my eyes. Oi ouch. I want it!

I have a number of things to do to-day . . .

Watching the detectives to-day . . .

As I read The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans earlier, I was struck by how odd it is that the best collection of the original, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes only seems to be available for free, here. All of the so-called "Complete" Sherlock Holmes collections at the stores omit the original illustrations, thereby, in my opinion, making them decidedly incomplete.

After reading that, I watched an episode of Twin Peaks for the first time in a very long time. I love Agent Cooper.

. . .

Victoria the cat does not meow to-day, so much as 'quacks'. Exactly like a duck.

It's just true.

I'm sleepy. And lacking optimism, pessimism, and cynicism. I am void. My teeth hurt. Although not as bad as they did a few days ago. It's as if the pain's diluted into a big, general bruise.

I bought the second issue of Neil Gaiman's 1602 yesterday and it is good. It is a good series.

. . . yaaaaawn . . .

I wish this computer worked properly so that I could play some TIE Fighter.

Last night I had this crazy idea about going through all my old Star Trek tapes and finding the episodes I really loved. I didn't do that. What will I do?

So far to-day I did type up some of chapter 70 of my novel. I have a lot more in my notebook than what I've typed, and it is a little daunting at this point . . .

Hello, hello. It's been a few days, I know, Seituyo Blog. How're you? Oh yeah, you don't talk.

I felt like laughing a lot yesterday. I had Ed Wynn singing "I Love to Laugh" in my head.

At Target yesterday, I saw Tim buy a can of coke for a dollar. A can. In fact, a less than eight ounce can. Why was it so expensive? Because it was in a can the size and shape of an energy drink can--like a red bull can.

So basically Coca-Cola is marketing a new energy drink. And that energy drink is . . . Classic Coca-Cola.

It's absolutely no different from a regular coke.

Tim hailed this as marketing genius and bought it completely for that reason.

That made me laugh.

...

To-day I finally finished what I thought was chapter 77, but what turns out to be chapter 76. It's so frelling huge, I think I'll probably divide it into several chapters.

In any case, I'm on the last page of my outline for part 8 which means, interestingly enough, that part 8 is both the longest part in the book as so far and the part that took me the least amount of time to write. Or it seems that way at least . . . I guess I began part 8 in May . . . so maybe it was a goodly amount of time. Seems like it went by really quick, though.

...

To-day's September 11th . . . How odd. And how odd that that's now odd.

Anyway . . . peace.

A couple weeks ago, I read an old article by Johnny Depp about the time he hung out with Allen Ginsberg. Depp discribes Ginsberg as constantly flirting with him but, in the midst of this, Ginsberg apparently played for Depp a recording of Oscar Wilde reading an excerpt from Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Ever since reading that, I've kinna desperately wanted to get my hands on a copy of this recording. So I was naturally very disapointed when I came across this article, which asserts that the recording, believed genuine for almost fifty years, was probably a fake.

And that just sucks.

It's weird to think that Ginsberg died thinking that he had heard the voice of Oscar Wilde. Does that, too, suck, I wonder?

...

Typed a lot yesterday. To-day I think I'll eat.

Looks like they still show Mystery Science Theatre 3000 on Sci-Fi channel, Saturdays at 9am. If Sci-Fi channel was all Farscape and MST3K, it'd be a very good channel indeed.

What've these two shows got in common, other than being brilliant, having a huge cult following, and having been cancelled by Sci-Fi for no apparent reason? One other thing; puppets. I guess I like puppets.

...

Seems my blog's not loading. Don't know when this post might appear. Why do I have a bad feeling about to-day?

Still don't know what's wrong with this damned computer . . . It can hardly open web sites anymore. No one I know seems to know what's causing the system to use 100% of the CPU, all the time, for no apparent reason. Gods, it pisses me off.

Last night, at Tim's, playing Soul Calibur II, I spent fifty minutes using some rapier wielding new character named Raphael, fighting Inferno, on extremely hard difficulty. It took me fifty minutes to beat him, I mean.

I only a few days ago started playing Soul Calibur II. So why did I insist on playing at extremely hard difficulty? Because my fucking personality would not be satisfied with any victory on an easier mode.

I finally stumbled home, fatigued from a day of bitter, mostly futile, vicious feeling. Very appreciatively listened to "Marilyn, My Bitterness" by The Crüxshadows.

I'm going to spend to-day doing Stuff. First of all, a new page of Doll Merchant . . . it's been a while, huh?

I's feeling very gollum at the moment, yes precious. I wants to wring necks, wants to open up filthy head, yes precious.

I'm definately very keyed up to-day, and jealousy's a lousy thing. Got to go distract myself . . .

Just watched Victoria the cat spread her hind legs very far apart, duck her head down between them, and begin licking herself. This is, as many cat owners will know, a very common sight. But it only just now occured to me how very sexy it would be for a human woman to do this. She'd have to be a contortionist, course . . . My, what a filthy mind I have to-day.

For no reason whatsoever, I started whistling the theme to Super Mario Brothers at the cat, and this caused her to look at me with an intense, fearfully fascinated expression on her face. And it finally prompted her to walk slowly and cautiously away, and quietly crawl under my bed.

...

Did some vicious writing at the mall to-day. A very violet action scene that caused me to sweat all over the page. Maybe this is not professional? Well, damn it all, it was fun.

I haven't been writing much lately, so I'm very glad to have written so very much to-day. I'm almost finished with the very, very long chapter 77.

Just got a junk e-mail titled "Feeling too small in your bed?"

I suppose they didn't mean to conjure the image of a 16-inch tall, little man, quivering under the sheets of his ominously vast bed, terrified of whatever gigantic monsters might be lurking in the shadows. I can even hear his high pitched, tiny voice crying, "Heeeeeeeeelp me!"

Yesterday had a lot to do with video gaming nostalgia.

After I made that entry, I installed and played a game called TIE Fighter, a game I was quite thoroughly obsessed with during high school. Unfortunately, whatever strange spirit it is that has hold of my computer, causing the system to use 100% of the CPU 99% of the time, makes TIE Fighter only a little closer to playable than Morrowind. This thing is really irritating me.

Currently listening to Tom Waits's "Whistling Past the Graveyard", which is appropriate given all the electrical appliences I have running close to me during this freak, rather fierce, thunder and lightning storm going on outside. It's very strange; I went into the mall, it was cloudless and astoundingly hot. I sat down to write in the food court after buying a coffee, and suddenly I hear a rumble distinctly reminiscent of thunder. I glance outside and immediately a whole bunch of water comes out of the sky.

It's very strange . . .

At the mall lately there's been a kiosk set up with some kind of new gaming system featuring old Nintendo games I recall from my youth. Games like Elevator, Contra, and Joust. Not to mention Super Mario Brothers, a game I distinctly remember spending five hours a day playing at my friend, and next door neighbour, Jesse's house. What an interesting feeling of nostalgia it was to watch kids playing this game at the mall, or watching people my own age playing them and probably feeling just as nostalgic about them. It occurred to me that my generation is probably the only one that's going to feel nostalgic about the original, 8-bit Nintendo system, and it seemed to me that this is a very strange thing as a human being. There are unique things about every generation, truly, but it seems to me that maybe generations are getting to be a little more unique. How greatly did past-times really change for people from 1800 to 1900? True, there was the Civil War and other social changes that would have made differences from one generation to the other. But if past-times changed, it was usually merely because it went out of style, not because it went obsolete.

But then again, I did, after all, just see the old Nintendo games at the mall so maybe there's an enduring quality to these games after all.

Maybe the advancement of video games, technologically, has moved so quickly that we've left valuable aspects of games behind? Maybe there's a hunger for a certain kind of game that gaming companies don't see the point in making anymore--this would explain the flash games people make in their spare time (like these). What these people are doing now just for kicks may have been hailed as conceptual genius just ten years ago. Maybe?

I'm reading Beowulf for class and I got to thinking about how often people have re-done Beowulf in film and literature (or even video games), or have drawn on it for inspiration. And Beowulf is, of course, quite old, and really, at it's heart, it is a very simple tale. When people look back to it, instead of any number of other, newer fantasy epics, what are they looking for exactly? Some granule of idea that imitators or inspired artists had never thought very relevant before but now seems tremendous in light of modern thoughts and sensibilities? Or just some sense of what these very different people were, and how they are like us enough to create an engaging tale . . . what has been lost in the evolution of literature, and what can be gotten back from the ancient grave and harnessed to-day to give us a rebirth?

Perhaps, hundreds of years from now, game makers will harken back to the days of Super Mario Brothers and wonder! . . . er, or maybe not. But then again maybe! Who knows? is all I'm saying . . .

Anyway, at the mall to-day, I noticed a little, four year old boy and girl--they couldn't have been more than four years old--playing Duck Hunt. And this little guy was very quietly getting a perfect score, hitting a duck with every shot.

And I thought to myself, "How interesting!"

Trying to read something for school here and I find it interesting that when I have loud music playing I'm far less distracted. When music isn't playing, I start to go subtly mad from hearing the small noises of people existing in the other rooms . . . Forks and knived against plates, cabinets opening and closing . . . it all makes my skin crawl.

Honestly, for me, evidence of other people in the vicinity can be as bad as fingernails on a chalkboard. If not worse. I am not exaggerating.

Yet I'm strangely more comfortable in a crowd at Starbucks or the mall . . . I think I shall now go to such a place to finish my reading.

I just thought up a really bad joke:

Whether Aragorn chooses Arwen or Eowyn, it is basically a wen wyn situation.

I can't be the first person to think of that . . .

I just watched Daffy Duck attempt several times to murder his friend. Daffy was unsuccessful, which was fortunate for him as his friend later saved Daffy's life by killing himself. The doctor thought he might be able to save Daffy's friend until Daffy took his friend's brain, threw it on the floor, and began stamping on it.

This was on the new Duck Dodgers series featured as part of Cartoon Network's Saturday morning lineup.

I wonder why it is that I thought it perfectly good fun when Eric Cartman killed the parents of his enemy and fed the diced up pieces of them to his enemy, but this new Daffy Duck cartoon just leaves me feeling sickened? Perhaps it was that the victim was not Daffy's enemy. Perhaps it was that the cartoon seemed to feel there was nothing wrong with Daffy murdering this person, while the fun of the South Park episode was that it was so over-the-top wrong. In any case, the writers of Duck Dodgers are morons who do not appear to grasp the humour behind the violence in classic Looney Toons.

And how is it, you may ask, that this sort of thing can be shown on a children's show? Well, you see, Daffy's friend was a robot. So long as everyone you butcher is a machine--no matter how sentient he/she/it behaves, or how human he/she/it is shaped--it's perfectly kosher. This is a weird standard that's exploited to very good effect on Samurai Jack. I fear it's the morons on Duck Dodgers that'll ruin things for good shows like Samurai Jack.

...

I feel more tired to-day than I did yesterday. I did get some writing done, though. I wrote for two and a half hours at Trisa's Starbucks, continuing what looks to be a very, very long chapter 76.

I'm missing a few CDs. A few good ones . . . Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes, Elvis Costello's Blood and Chocolate . . .

I'm feeling tired to-day, now, and I haven't really done much of anything yet. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the drama. I wish people'd stop putting lemon juice on their own wounds.

Sometimes I wish the big space mamma that everyone seems to be waiting for would just fall down and crush us like ants.

I'm sounding vague, aren't I? Well, I'm hoping I can hit some people who evidently do not enjoy listening or comprehending. If you're struck, then you know who you are.

...

I feel . . . sluggish. Drinking some good, very good coffee at the moment.

I had an interesting day yesterday. I kinna went on tour; first to the mall to buy tim the new H.R. Giger calendar for Tim's birthday, then to Tim's, then to my mother's house, then to my biological father's house, then to Trisa's house, and then she and I went to Micheals, the Olive Garden, and finally to the Madstone to see El Mariachi, which we both enjoyed.

I'll feel better if I write to-day . . .

Hm. Almost woke up too late.

To-day's Tim's birthday, as he informed me last night. I'm gonna need to go out and purchase something for the fellow now, but what? This is one of those tasks that can turn out to be mega-time consuming and I hope that's not the case to-day. I feel like I've had hardly any time over the past several days . . . The only real writing I've gotten done was one three hour spurt at Trisa's Starbucks. And while that went well, it was well below my pace of previous weeks.

There are a lot of things I would like to do right now. I'd like to work on my novel. I'd like to write a short story. I'd like to post comments on Caitlin Kiernan's message board. I'd like to hang out with Trisa. I's like to investigate mysteries. I'd like to see what's crawled up Cryptess's ass. I'd like to do a new page of Doll Merchant.

But what I am gonna do is get dressed . . . get out of here . . . and go shopping.

I hate Thursdays.

I was rather tired all day Wednesday, and now it's nearly 2am Thursday and suddenly I can't sleep. Had trouble sleeping Tuesday night as well. My mind is occupied.

Gods . . . I hate people.

Started class this week. My two main, real classes are Japanese II and British Lit I. Very different subjects, yes? Guess what they have in common.

First time attending both classes, the teachers wanted every student in the class to introduce themselves to someone else in the class, interview them, and be interviewed in turn. To "make a new friend". To make me fucking puke, more like.

Just what the fuck is this obnoxious forced ritual? I don't ask the "point" because I sense the point in much the same way I smell a pile of shit--that by forming human connexions with our classmates we're less likely to drop the class and we're more likely to "get involved" with the class subject matter in our social animal group mentality . . . thing.

Well guess what? It doesn't help me one bit because all these people fucking suck and I don't wanna be involved with them. Not one jot, iota, tittle, etcetera. Don't believe it's that bad, eh? Think ol' Setsuled is a crabby, anti-social lich or something? Let's take, then, for example the fellow I interviewed for Brit Lit.

He gave me a bunch of boring details--the most important one here is when I asked what his favourite music is, he replied that it was Worship Music. Worship Music. Do you, reader, know what that is? Hmm? In short, it is the sound of mediocrity. To elaborate, it's Christian rock, featuring songs about how The Lord is The One and is Great and All Wonderful and . . .

Well, you get the idea. I mean, I love a lot of art featuring Christian related themes and even characters (despite the fact that if I find that the Christian god is not dead, I certainly intend to kill him) but Worship Music is something else altogether. It's arrogant, it's ignorant, and . . . well, I'm digressing.

The point is . . . why all the people, people? Why you need all these? Is being alone really that tough for you alls, so tough that you need several friends lined up for when some are unaccessible?

Your Life: The Movie by mintyduck
Who will play you:	Jason Lee
Who will play your love interest:	Demi Moore
Weeks you will stay in the box office:	25
Song that will play during your love scene:	The Bangles - Eternal Flame
Song that will play during your death:	Emiliana Torrini - If You Go Away
Your name:
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

(snurched from Mel).

I do like to think my current beard is a little Jason Lee-ish.

Yesterday involved peculiar Japanese ice creams and Morrowind and the evening brought an e-mail from a Nebari imitating Samuel L Jackson.

Can't say much else as I'm in a hurry . . .

Two days of no productivity now, but I'm thinking that's okay since school starts on Monday and Trisa and I have just made up. Flimsy excuses, I know, but still . . .

Last night, she and I saw The Secret Lives of Dentists, which was really a lot of fun. Best use of the stomach flu that I've ever seen in a movie, and the whole thing worked rather well, even if it could've done without the Dennis Leary character.

There are cookies all over this room . . .

Well, so, not much else I wanna say at the moment. Ja ne.

Listening to samples from David Bowie's new album due out next month. So far I like it better than Heathen, and I loved Heathen.

Apparently, according to my memories of yesterday, Trisa and I are speaking and hanging out again. So yay-ness. We watched The Misfits (and enjoyed it), I tried to seduce her (didn't work), and we ate food at various places. Good fun, and I fulfilled my goal yesterday of screwing around.

Monday class starts, which I am looking forward to. Hope I don't fuck up or anything.

I still have one class to pay for, so I think I'll go and see if the college cashier is open on Saturdays.

Beat Castlevania: Symphony of the Night last night, which makes me pretty kick ass, I know. It got a lot easier once I found out that the Alucard Shield (not, mind you, the Alucard from Hellsing) could kill anyone really quickly while similtaneously healing me.

This was at Tim's house, of course. After we watched and made fun of the end game cut scene and credits, we went to his living room to watch The Daily Show, during which I became aware of what sounded like a small child sobbing in the next room.

I glanced at Tim questioningly as I knew that there had not been any small children in his house for maybe five years.

"Hear that?" grinned Tim. "That's Charlie."

I thought this was some kind of joke at first . . . Charlie is the name of one of Tim's cats. But I could see that he was serious.

"He only does it when he thinks he's alone," said Tim.

"That's really weird," said I. The sounds were so like human speech that I could swear that I could almost discern specific english words . . . almost. It was very like hearing someone speak in a foreign language similer to english, like french or spanish. Your mind automatically starts sorting the sounds into recognisable words. Very weird.

...

I think I'll devote to-day to screwing around. I've been given the titles of lazy bum, moocher, and lay-about. It's time I started earning them.

Didn't sleep really at all last night because it was really very hot. The fan was on high but seemed to exist on another plane of reality, visible from this one, but not tangible.

I don't remember much of yesterday except I wrote a very crucial chapter of my novel and I watched Blade Runner and Farscape.

I think I'll go to North County Fair now as this definately feels like a day for getting away from it all.

So long, it all.

On the freeway last night there was a car stopped in the second lane from the left with a girl standing on top screaming incoherently. A young shaven headed fellow was trying to talk her down--to me, it looked like perhaps he was the driver, and in the midst of a traffic jam, his drunken female passenger climbed onto the roof, forcing him to stop the car.

Now, as I watched a police car pull up to them with flashing lights, threading carefully through the traffic that was now slow-moving only because of this disruption, I knew someone was in trouble but I wasn't sure who and how. The guy can hardly be blamed for stopping the car when the girl was on the roof. I guess the girl would get busted for drunken, disorderly conduct but that kinna sucks. I mean, if she's so hammered that she's climbing on top of a moving car in the middle of the freeway, should she really be blamed for her actions? I guess they actually put a lot of people in danger, so I guess someone has to pay . . .

I wrote lots yesterday. For three hours at a Starbucks in Clairemont by the Japanese mall, then for another two hours at Horton Plaza. I have been all too energetic lately . . . All in all, yesterday was very, very, very good.

I think I took this too seriously . . .

Children
Circle I Limbo

Hipsters
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Ants
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Emotional opportunists
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Thomas Kinkade
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

blackmailers
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Religious zealots
Circle VII Burning Sands

Mercenary friends
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

rapists
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Things sure went well yesterday. Got a Thea Gilmore CD in the mail, which got me terribly, irrationally excited. There's an artist I'd been wanting to check out for a very long time. I also got an unexpected extra one hundred dollars . . . I think I'll sign up for another college class. Maybe then certain family members will get the hell off my back about not having a job (oh, I'm such an archetype!)(yes, I know I can think of worse names for me. I've been called by them several times in the past couple weeks).

Now I'm gonna go out and eat because there are children here. I feel good about to-day.

Thought about blood a lot yesterday. First as a plan to get rid of the ants in the kitchen--I thought, "I wonder how they'd react if they were all drowned in blood?" The little fellas must've heard my thoughts because they blessedly disappeared that very night.

Mine's really not a disturbed mind, by the way.

Then I thought of blood at Tim's house while playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night which is, by far, the best Castlvania game and I heartily recommend it, if you can somehow get your hands on it. It is extremely hard to come by. Tim had to get his copy off some thing similer to ebay. And even then there was only one copy.

Anyway, I was playing it, and I picked up the Blood Cloak in a room filled with bloody chopped up people parts. And I started thinking about how much I badly wanted tomato sauce, right away. So strong was the desire that I left Tim's forthwith and came here to make a pizza, on which I verily poured copious amounts of that vivid red fluid. Yum!

...

The computer's been running horribly slow lately and I don't know why. It's really starting to piss me off. I left it defragmenting all night, but that didn't seem to work. I honestly don't know what's slowing it down . . . if anyone has any ideas, I'll thank you powerfully if you e-mail 'em to me.

Hey, look at that! (that way -->) I sorta got archives now! I can't get January working for some reason, but still, finally, wow! It was a lot harder than I suspect it should be. I guess I'm probably missing something technical . . . but, frell it, it works! Hurrah! (I mean it!)

Just did a new page of Doll Merchant while listening to Philip Glass. And now both myself and three cats needs to be fed, so I'm gonna go and take care of us all.

It's too bad the kitchen's become again a place of hellfire stress, what with the return of the ant pestilence. Oh, damn you ants. I guess I'll eat out . . .

I have too many ideas about what I'm to do to-day. So I'm kinna paralyzed contemplating the possibilities.

Typed lots and lots yesterday after I finally finished sorting through my stuff. I've neatly put all the stuff I wants to be rid of in one box. Looks generally to be Star Wars and Anne Rice books . . . I guess I'll try to sell 'em at used bookstores or something.

Watched Gangs of New York last night. Fentastic movie. I'd only seen it once in the cinema, but it was a good viewing as it was in the quiet and respectful atmosphere of the Madstone.

I feel just blah to-day. And a little queasy. I'm discusted at life or something, I dunno.

According to Lifetime's test, I will gain twenty nine thousand, eight hundred twenty five point seven pounds in fourty thousand years. It seems the trials of immortality are somewhat different from what Anne Rice would have us believe.

I'm tired . . . of all this stuff. I wish Richard and Cryptess were still around so I could give them more stuff. I wish Trisa was still speaking to me so I could give her stuff. I wish Tim's room wasn't already crammed with junk so I could give him stuff.

Let's see. I have yet to sort through three boxes and three garbage bags. I'm tempted to throw it off a pier.

I hope I'll end up with time for writing. I still haven't gotten a chance to watch Gangs of New York . . .

If anyone came by here earlier and noticed that none of my graphics were working, well it was because my graphics are hosted by BowieNet, and BowieNet was effected by that big blackout in New York. On msn, there was a photo of hundreds of regular commuters sleeping on the steps of the post office . . . See, that's the sort of thing that should be legal anyway.

I asked quiz . . . what kind of girl would I be?


Angry Girl


What kind of little girl were YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

Started to-day reading Age of Innocence at Starbucks (this was 6:30am--horrifically early for me). I was feeling all good about the writing I'd done yesterday, and then Wharton made me feel all amatuerish. I barely restrained myself from doing something silly like rapidly slapping the table like a bongo when I read one particularly genius bit.

Not to be daunted, I set in to writing after two chapters of Age of Innocence. I think reading that a bit first helped me slow down and smell the roses with my own characters and situations--there's been a lot of action sequences in my tale lately, and this helped me reorient my narrative.

So it's just barely 10am now, and already I've written the entirety of chapter 74. Not too bad . . . I think I'll even write more to-day! Oo-da-lolly, I seem to be on a roll of sorts.

Started on chapter 73 yesterday and then, in the evening, I bought a copy of Gangs of New York for only thirteen dollars. Not bad, eh?

Last night I also watched the last two episodes of Fooly Cooly, aka FLCL, aka FuriKuri. It's a series that is enjoyable and rather zany and reminds me of something a teacher at college once told me about his thoughts on Anime. He said that all of it--all of it--is created primarily to teach young japanese boys how to deal with their sexual attraction to girls.

Now, I might take issue when it comes to something like Grave of the Fireflies or Princess Mononoke, but I'd certainly agree with him in the case of FLCL. I watched it with my friend Tim, and I was intrigued by the way he (and so many others) tends to overlook this rather garganutuanly blatant aspect of the show in favour of simply saying, "Wow, that show's so fucking bizarre--I don't get it, but it's good."

What's not to get about the growth in the young boy's head that he's embarrassed about, that appeared there after the frightingly unpredictable yet lovable sexy mystery girl on a motor cycle hit him with an electric guitar? Or what's really ambiguous about the scene where the boy's running through his house screaming whilst carrying his father's decapitated head? (I loved that scene).

All the reviews I've read this morning seem to fall over themselves talking about how astondingly impenetrable the series is. In my opinion, these folks are just afraid to see what is a little too obvious for their liking--This series strikes a sensitive chord in us sexually pathetic men (boys), and I say bravo.

Thirsty last night so I went out and bought a 2 liter bottle of Tropical Sprite Remix. Not having anything to pour into, I've been drinking it straight from the bottle. What does this say about me? If you think you know, then write to:

setsuled@davidbowie.com

...

Yesterday had some kind of bone caught in it's lungs. I spent a lot of time just driving around, first of all, continually looking for some place to write. I was weirdly picky . . . I finally settled on my aunt's Starbucks in Santee. There I wrote the entirety--from start to finish--of chapter 72. It is a pretty short chapter, particularly compared to 71.

Discovered that Sonic the cat has a wound on his neck . . . I found him in the garage sink. First I noticed all kinds of stickly sort of marrigold coloured sticky stuff on the left side of his neck. As I cleaned him off with wet paper towels (which, apparently, feels really good as it caused him to purr. I'd never heard that cat purr before), I found that under the mysterious junk was swollen, bare pink skin and two bloody holes.

They don't look like claw marks. I started thinking maybe he'd rubbed up against fly paper or something (accounting for the missing hair), but I'm starting to think it could be a bite wound as I spotted a coyote in the street later.

Both cats were energetic, getting into things in the house they weren't supposed to. I was feeling a little wacky myself, and I noticed at 1am that it was eighty degrees in the house.

So . . . yeah.

My face feels slow this morning. Facial expressions, I think, shall come only reluctantly. I think this must be what having botox must feel like, at least a little.

Sitting here listening to BowieNet Radio . . . Bowie DJs on channel two with random picks of his from the past fifty or so years. Really good stuff--This morning I've heard Ray Charles, Roxy Music, Stone Temple Pilots, Sonic Youth, Screamin' Jaw Hawkins . . . Such a nicely broad assortment.

I think I'll spend time in a coffee shop to-day, writing. Yesterday was mostly about typing things up . . .

I finished chapter 71 yesterday . . . Also went with Tim to check out an impossibly large, Atlantis-themed Fry's in San Marcos. It was big, it had an awful lot of fish for an electronics store, and it served a decent veggie sandwich.

To-day I believe I shall type stuff up.

Two nights ago, I had a Super Mario Brothers dream . . . but who doesn't now and then?

I am now hungry . . .

Thursday I saw an enormous alligator lizard, curled up outside the front door of my aunt and uncle's house. I prodded him once with the newspaper I was carrying and I wasn't sure if it provoked any movement--if it did, the movement was too subtle for me to see.

When I returned that night, I noticed first that the lizard was gone, and second that the screen door was slightly ajar. Opening it, I found that it had been made ajar by the body of the lizard, sitting on the threshold. THe lizard had opened the door!!

Really quite extraordinary, especially as he was apparently on the verge of death. For when I prodded him again, he again gave only a lacklustre reaction--merely crawling down off the threshold. And when I next saw him--Friday morning--he was covered with ants, and his eyes were gone.

He is there still.

...

I quite squandered Friday. Didn't do very much useful--first day in a while where I got no writing done. I went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast and saw a huge column of black smoke in the distance. Then I went to my grandmother's and watched both DVDs that I'd gotten on Thursday for only twenty bucks--Hollywood Video has a deal goin' for two previously viewed DVDs for twenty bucks. (heads up to anyone reading who might live near a Hollywood Video.)(I occassionally wonder; does anyone read my blog anymore?).

The movies I got; Ian McKellan's Richard III, which was interesting, and Ghost World, the watching of which was a heartbreaking experience (I suppose the nice thing about not having Trisa around is that I can be as meloncholy as I like and I won't have to worry about her calling me a whiney bitch).

Actually, I thought of Trisa while watching the movie--when Rebecca very strongly doesn't understand Enid's love for the complete dorkiness of Seymour, I was reminded of when Trisa had been sincerely disturbed by the fact that I knew that James Horner wrote the melody for My Heart Will Go On. The movie made me feel a little better about the possibility that I may be a hopeless geek.

I watched it with my Aunt, who didn't quite get it, I don't think. Afterwards, I tried to explain to her the meaning behind the title "Ghost World", but it was a futile task when she couldn't understand why the mediocre fifties diner was funny, or why Seymour and Enid felt unable to identify with 99% of the human race. But I sensed that she was giving it the old college try.

I think I shall sleep now. Good night.

Wanting to be lightyears away this morning, I settled for going to Plaza Camino Real mall, which is as far north as I regularly go on mall wanderings. Of course, now that distance seems like a pittiance.

That mall has the perfect coffee place for writing--true, their coffee is very bad, but the place is spacious, reasonably quiet, and not usually crowded. It even has a computer and a cosy little bar facing out at the mall thoroughfare. I spent about five hours writing there to-day. I almost came back too late to feed the cat.

At the moment, I'm at my grandmother's. And I've just finished a new page of Doll Merchant.

I amNyarlathotep! The 999 forms of Nyarlathotep are a point of meditation for the true initiate. It is through these manifold faces that the secrets of the universe are made known. Called "The Crawling Chaos", Nyarlathotep is the disembodied ego of Azathoth and thus the universal "I" of known reality. Some of the many documented forms are; Father of Knives, Nephren-Ka, the Black Man, the Beast of the Lashing Tongue to name a few.

Which Great Old One are you?

I would very much like to go back to sleep right now. but I can't . . . it's my sister's birthday and I have to be there to go and see Freaky Friday with her and my family.

Last Friday was my mother's birthday, and the Friday before that was Cryptess's. All Leos. I'm surrounded by lions.

Last night, I broke through a lazy haze to go and see Swimming Pool, a movie which was the kind of good that left me in a very good mood. Charlotte Rampling was very cool, and the other girl was very nude a lot of the time. And that was nice.

Macy the cat--who I'm cat-sitting (basically the whole reason that I'm housesitting)--gave me quite a scare by not coming in last night . . . I was very happy to see her this morning.

Here I am at aunt and uncle's again. Yay!

Yesterday was quite interesting. I left at around 10:30am for North County Fair Mall. And I stayed at North County Fair until 4pm. Was never bored once . . . I had two things to do, aside from eating and happy-idle mall wandering, that were sure to take up loads of time: I had my writing, and I had to find a birthday present for my sister.

And I didn't even end up finding something for my sister at that mall! I did write a very peculiar short story, though. Not a small one either--in a very nice journal book that Cryptess gave me for my birthday, I sat down and wrote the entire thing from start to finish.

After the mall, I travelled south and stopped at a Barnes and Noble in Carmel mountain and purchased for my sister Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. She remembers Chaucer from A Knight's Tale starring Heath Leager and, as I remembered her mentioning the other day that she wants to name her next dog Chaucer, I decided to see if I could spark an interest in her for the man himself. I'm always hoping.

I next travelled further south, and for some reason went into the Barnes and Noble in Mira Mesa, where I didn't buy anything.

And finally I went to Parkway Plaza, where in the Border's I saw one of Trisa's old friends who, she'd told me, is scared of me. I thought about this, and about the fact that Trisa now thinks I'm crazy, and I began to wonder if I might be a Super Villain. Hey, an outcast has perfectly the right to romanticise his position, don't he? You know, in spite of superficial prevailing sensibilities, few people ever actually love a lad insane.

Ugh. I gots to stop thinking about that.

Until 9pm, I sat down at the mall's Starbucks and read Age of Innocence, which is such an insightful and wonderful book about human nature. I think it's actually very, very relivant to-day, in spite of being about late 19th century society in New York.

At nine, I went to Tims, and thus concluded the day's adventures. What shall happen to-day, I wonder?

Well, I'm out of here once again. Housesitting at my aunt's and uncle's, once again. Just how did I get roped into this gig so many times? It seems they asked me to housesit for them once and now, forever after, they pull it out to say, "Remember? You've already agreed to this. We've discussed it, see?"

So next I post I here, I shall be there.

Everyone thinks I'm supposed to be going to Phoenix to-day because I didn't feel like sharing with my nosy, gossipy family, "Trisa and I no longer speak and so, naturally, we're not gonna see Tori Amos together." So to-day I have to pretend I'm in Phoenix. I guess I'll go to the mall . . .

Here's one of the things I was talking about . . . it's from an old, old sketch book;



And here's something else from that sketchbook.

Trying to do something with all my things . . . wading through innumerable trash bags I'd hastily filled with my possessions of the past twenty years I'm finding a lot of very surprising and interesting things. I'll probably post a few here later, when I have a chance.

Looks like the stuff may end up being more manageable than I had thought. Which is good. But I still haven't found my note book. Which pisses me off as I very much wanted it to-day.

...

Yesterday I went to my cousin Jared's 21st birthday party. I'm not sure why I went--I don't really know Jared very well. Seems like I only became aware of his existence a few years ago.

I ran into my cousin Christa there, with whom I sort of grew up with. Hadn't seen her for a while, and we got to chatting about movies and stuff. We were chatting when Jared announced that his sixteen year old girlfriend, Crystal, sitting next to him, was pregnant.

Crystal looks like . . . well, like a baby. She's one of those especially young looking younglings. Jared is the kind of guy who seems like his personality probably hasn't changed significantly since age five.

Christa immediately started asking me, "Are they serious? Is this a joke? It seems like a joke."

Now I think I know from jokes, and this was no joke. Not judging from the manner in which all of my older relations, in their nattering little clusters, pronounced that the young lady really ought to get an abortion.

Maybe it was because I didn't quite disagree with them that I felt especially bad for the kids. Before leaving I shook Jared's hand and congratulated him on his birthday and "the impending one."

Did I mention that my life's been a weird collage lately?

The girl at Starbucks put cinnamon in my tazo chai, and I didn't even ask. How nice . . . it'll be awkward to thank her for it later, though.

I saw Pirates of the Carribean for the second time last night. Not as good on second viewing, but still good. Lots of little holes.

I can't seem to find my notebook . . . I'm sure it'll turn up. Probably floundering amongst all the stuff making its exodus from my biological father's house.

Still haven't gotten over Trisa. It sticks out in my mind that she did not seem remotely sorry to be rid of me. As if I'd never meant anything to her.

And it looks like Tim's sister is out of prison. Last night I heard her screaming at her parents in the upstair's at Tim's house. I wonder what's going to happen to her?

I just wonder these days; what's gonna happen?

It seems like shit has been rather persistently and even rhythmically hitting the fan ever since I got back from Seattle. It's like my absence has made so many people realise how much better life is when I'm not around. Well, nuts to them, really. They can just go fuck themselves, la la di da, I say. No sir, I ain't gonna let it get me down, nyah huh.

(frell, I think I've caught Richard's cough).

To-day's offender was my biological father, Ted, who'd made an appointment with me on Wednesday night to discuss something with me "in private" on Thursday night (Wednesday, his girlfriend Patty was home and anyway he was drunk).

Turns out, he'd needed privacy in order to tell me that he's realised that I'm nothing more than a lazy bum and that I had to get all my stuff out of his house.

That's the gist of a conversation that involved him asking me, "Do you think you can really live life without a paying job?" to which I'd replied, "Yeah, at the moment, I apparently can," which'd stumped him for a moment. The bastard evidently has forgotten or has gone back on his agreement with me that I could stay there so long as I had a job or was going to school. It suddenly didn't seem logical to him that I should quit my part time job--which was only a distraction--and take eleven units of classes at college. Although the hardest part, of course, is justifying to him the validity of making time for my writing and other artistic pursuits which are not currently yielding profit. I told him that for one thing it was spiritually rewarding, which he of course took as absolute bull. Gods . . . It seems some people are so fucking concerned with how to live that they forget that some of us need to find a reason to live.

I had to smile when he got to the part of his argument where he insisted that the fact that I was male made it especially important that I not live off the generosity of my grandmothers. Oy vey.

Of course, I pointed out the flaws in all his weird little argument (it's no hardship for my grandmother to let me stay under her roof, especially as I help her out with some chores), so in the end he was reduced to justifying his argument with "that's how life is". And then he started physically shoving me around the kitchen. What a fucking neanderthal.

I guess the weirdest part, though, was that he began the conversation with, "So I hear you haven't been brushing your teeth."

The implications of this statement were so bizarre and troubling that it took me a moment to respond. "First of all, I have been brushing my teeth. Second of all, on whose authority do you make this accusation?" Just who is it that he's been talking to who thinks they can make such a pronouncement regarding my hygiene, and yet have made an inaccurate pronouncement? Sometimes I think I should be more paranoid.

"It's just something I heard," he said, unwilling to identify his informant.

...

I feel I should mention here that Tim's sister's now in jail. I feel awful for that girl. She's made such a colossal amount of varied mistakes.

...

And finally, I got a good start on chapter 71, which looks like it's going to be a very long chapter. I'm starting to feel a little self-conscious about my ability to create three dimensional characters . . .