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Also, if vodka isn't the answer, you're asking the wrong question
A R G H
R G
G R
H G R A
The unfortunate thing is that it doesn't read in a circle, rather in two parts, unlike this one:
A R G H
H A
G R
R G
A H
H G R A
Subtle but important difference.
Sally. Like Sally Heap, but not.
Boston Legal, Season Three, Episode Nine, at twenty six minutes in (HDTV XviD XOR rip). All about the meaning of friendship.
There was a spider in the toilet. Not in the toilet, but in the toilet-room thingie. I didn't like that. I don't like spiders. I can remove them, because I overcome my fear, but I did not look away from it the whole time I was in there. I had this frightful fear it would jump off the wall and bite my face. It might have moved a total of three centimetres, maybe, in the whole time I was there. But still.
I don't know. I'm a strange person. I had a dream last night that involved me kissing somebody (I should give her a nickname, but I'm yet to decide on one) and also discussing with her the common law interpretation of "maim" compared to the natural definition and why, despite codification, reference to the common law was still required. I shouldn't read law text books while falling asleep. I'll have to keep that in mind especially when I turn purple.
I think I've done far more offending than I should have recently. So let's get a few things straight.
Firstly, I don't think I have no friends in Hobart my own age. The trouble is that I don't have uni-friends in Hobart. Nobody in maths, nobody who I sit with during law... that's the issue that I was bitching about.
The other point is that engineers aren't really that bad. They're just really cliquey and sometimes it bothers me that I'm so alone in my maths/engineering lecture because there are two hundred people and all the engineers have their engineering friends and don't even look at me, and I don't have my maths friends, and so that's what happens.
In much more exciting news, watch out for me in my new t-shirts purchased from xkcd. They're a ripper, as Pat would say. I also have West Wing Season Two and all sorts of things. I'm enjoying Criminal Law despite not even having had a lecture yet. Maths is pretty good but not fantastic. If you want to know my thoughts on admin, just go and take a look at my admin law blog.
It occurred to me, not three minutes ago, that I really need to rethink the current state of my friendships. My closest friends either live in Melbourne or are substantially younger than me. I'm not "just 19", I'm nearly twenty! And yet I've seen the planning of TWO eighteenth parties recently. I'm not a part of those social groups, but I am a person who has friends within them. The issue is, of course, that these are my only friends, effectively. I have more distant friends, but my close friends are either not geographically close or not chronologically close.
I need to meet some people at uni. Law people. Maths people. Just not engineering people (pardoning the stabs at various readers; it's unintentional, it's just that I wouldn't fit in with an engineering group). But I seriously need to do something about my lack of friends, and fast.
The other possibility, of course, is that friends as I've dreamt of and read of and seen on TV, friends who I've made mostly through MSN, don't exist, and that I should cope with distant friendships, or cultivate them into friends who are distant but I see often. Shitty idea.
And I don't mean to exclude my friends who aren't in Melbourne blah blah, just noting a trend in my life. Damn you Melbournites. I just wish I was one of you.
Oh, that's what yesterday's song was. There's more bounce in California. And it raised the point with me that I'm never going to leave Tasmania because as much as I'd love to there are always things tying me here and I'd be afraid to go somewhere else, somewhere different and new. Damnit. What if I want to move to California? I probably don't, although Los Angeles would be nice. How about New York, or Washington DC? Melbourne? London? Barcelona? But I'll never go anywhere, because it's safe here and there's probably money and certainly commitments and no reason to move. But god damnit I want to.
I was going to write an entry with a title from a song that had made me think but I can't remember any of what I was saying. That was yesterday I think.
I have lost track of time. For some reason I can't lose track of all the things I have to do. But that's not helping. Sally. Word association. Priscilla (Queen of the Desert). Perhaps I should be gay? Nah, wouldn't work. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. All these things I can't figure out.
I have no DVDs left to watch. I have nothing more to do. Except websites. Fucking hell, this is just simply depression. Going to need to drink myself out of it. Ha! I'm so terrible.
This blog is now public.
Tonight I didn't drink. After all this telling everyone that I'm a drunk, I just didn't drink. Turns out I'm too damn tired. At 3:14am (pi time!) I need to snore.
I also need to do the Hockey Tasmania website, finish the Fairer World - Youth website (just the bits she told me to do today) and do a financials program. Once all that is done, it's just a matter of doing the other eight hundred things on my list...
Meh.
I won poker today. $35 and 14 HobSOP points. Main event is Sunday and I plan to win that too :P.
Watching Love Actually at the moment. Hugh Grant is dancing. I love it.
I love romantic comedies.
Vodka really does go to the head.
We've been seeing a lot of that drunk label recently.
The trouble with Tuesday is similar to Monday, but without the Hugh Grant. Instead it's just drinking.
I broke up with Nikky today. Consensus is: good move. I agree. I just like drinking.
I bought orange juice today too. So I have vodka and orange juice and water-that-used-to-be-ice and tiredness and too much chocolate and I was drinking it with a dropper that was to be used for bushflower essences. It's hot and I'm not in the mood but it's important that I drink weehee. I should put down my timetable properly. Like, in goooogle calendar n' stuff.
"Firefox" is not in the English (UK) dictionary for Firefox. Amusing, no? I think so.
I'm not even drunk at all. Just tired and sugar high. And wanting something more out of life. I get to complain again about not having a girlfriend. Yay! What better bitching is there, honestly?
The great trouble with Monday is that it would be terribly impolite to text someone right now, even to tell them that I am watching Four Weddings and a Funeral and drinking vodka and laughing but now crying because it's that bit of the movie and it always does that to me, even pre-emptively, not to mention the poem, that poem...
But it makes me want to pursue true love. Because that's what they do. Through any and all odds, over years. Learning sign language just to talk to someone you might like.
But Garrath is who I love, of course. Because his character does nothing but love life. He dances - he really dances! He's passionate about dancing, he does it for pure enjoyment. He doesn't care at all how he dances, he just loves it.
And as I type now he is dying on the screen, and it causes me to cry. I know what will happen. I can pre-empt the rest of this and it will just make me cry more, I know it.
Not drunk per se, but have had more than one drink.
...can't get enough of your love, babe...
On my way home in the car I sing. I sing and I dance. And I do one other thing.
I choose my music based on how long I have left in the journey. Tonight was Middle of the Hill (Josh Pike) followed by Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe (Barry White) as in the title, and finally I got to The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (and Can't Go Up or Down the Stairs) by Sam and Tully. That one didn't finish. It's great.
I have no idea what more to say... except that the song doesn't remind me of Nikky.
One of the things that I really enjoy is hearing from people in the middle of the night. I'm not at all sarcastic about that - it makes me feel incredibly loved. And it has happened twice in the past two days. I was sent an existential crisis at three in the morning and then Anne actually called me at one thirty to tell me of her drunken exploits. Too bad the total lack of GSM reception in and around my house made it impossible to hold a conversation and I'll almost certainly not hear nearly as much in tomorrow's update, likely coming by email, as I would have given her inebriation... but regardless. I like messages at the best of times, but if someone is thinking about telling me something in the middle of the night... well, I know that when I'm drunk I think of specific people who I actually want to talk to about these things. It's no longer about obligation or (I wasn't going to say it) pity, it's about what I want. Yay for lack of inhibition. And yay for people wanting to talk to me :D.
Now I'm going to have to slit my wrists for using such teenage bloggerisms as an pathegraph (emoticon).
Did you see how I slipped in a little emo joke there? Didja? I thought that was pretty clever of me, substituting one insufferable stereotype for another...
I clearly need sleep.
PS: didn't break up with Nikky, lost nerve, had sex with her instead. Damnit.
I keep having these fantasies about girls who serve at McDonalds (don't worry, McDonalds Kingston). Not sex-on-the-prep-table fantasies, but... I don't know. Just fantasies that we'll actually have a proper conversation, that they'll ask my name, that I'll make a new friend.
I don't know why any of this is... but I just... I want to befriend people who I think would make good friends of me.
Today Nikky came over. She brought KFC that I had asked for but didn't need. Following the feast, we retired to my room to watch Night at the Museum. Then we had sex. We finished watching the movie (because, of course, sex had interrupted) and then she left. Then there was a storm and a powercut and I played cards and I watched house.
I'd like to concentrate on the sex. Please, feel free to skip this entire entry if that bothers you. Sex has never held a particular allure for me. The unbelievable asexuality I expressed, to be surely cured by sex, has not been cured. Sure, it's fun, but it's not worth the mess or effort or secrecy (not that there's really much of a secret, clearly). I just... it's just not important. Sally once suggested that this might just be Nikky but I don't know. I'm entirely uncertain, not having a great deal of experience of sex with people other than Nikky. Indeed, I think I've had no such experience. Curiously, I feel the same need as everyone to ejaculate once in a while (though I guess it's a slightly different, though in many ways similar need for girls) but there's no real desire for sex in me. I just don't care. It does provide something though, which is nice. And there's a certain feeling lying there hugging someone afterwards that brings to mind a lyric: closed eye watching me, listening. The lyric is from R.E.M.'s At My Most Beautiful, one of the greatest love songs ever, in my incredibly humble opinion. Reminds me still, sometimes, of Canberra, thinking of Clara... was ever THAT a long time ago. Anyway, the point here is that sex sucks but doesn't suck enough to make me stop doing it, or even starting it once in a while.
But today was different. Today really did suck. Well, not really, but... there was nothing. No enjoyment at all. There was ejaculation, but that's not exactly the same. I don't know if this is a symptom of depression or something more sinister: me finally deciding that I don't love Nikky at all and can't stand to be around her and her terrible taste in movies. Not to mention the fact that she has only four CDs in her car, one of which is the Oops I Did It Again bumper disc from Brittany Spears. Took me so long to figure out how to spell that. But worse than merely having that CD, she listens to it, regularly. And voluntarily, apparently.
I'm sorry for dragging you all through this. I'd regret writing this but it's something I want to talk about, but this isn't the sort of thing you start a conversation with, is it?
I don't know what to do with myself.
Oh yeah, one other thing. Nikky called me "Bunky" today. She's never done that before. It's an old, old nickname of mine, abandoned around the end of 2001 if I recall correctly. I'm curious as to where she found it and why she's using it.
I'm clearly in what I would call a low. You know, like depression. Stupid, stupid things have already made me cry - like being told valentine's day is good. Stupid things have made me pissed off too - like the exceedingly jingoistic economic freedom fund.
hey look at me i'm ee cummings
except without nbsp
(or pre)
html wouldn't let me be
e.e. cummings
angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst stupid idiotic teenaged angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst angst
Nikky and I went to a gold class movie last night for Valentine's day. We saw The Pursuit of Happyness which was fantastic. It made me cry. Twice, at least. But I loved it regardless - very well made. It made me sad to think about homeless people who can never get out of the poverty trap - that still makes me sad. On a totally different topic, it was interesting to see Will Smith in a dramatic role. He managed it quite well, quite definitely. His son played the son in the movie and the talent is clearly familial.
The other mister Smith of the title is Kevin Smith. I'm watching Clerks II which is at least as good as the first, though quite different. Kevin Smith is just a great writer/director. These films are comic but also not - there's a certain reality to his films, despite the fact that much of it is clearly impossible or implausible. It's quite incredible that he manages to do that.
Like romantic comedies, this movie is making me doubt my relationship with Nikky. It's just the whole One True Love thing. That Nikky clearly isn't. And all these movies, all these books, all these everythings keep telling me there is some person who I will love, who I should wait for or find or fight for, against whatever odds. And that settling - which is truly what I'm doing - is a bad thing. And I don't know what to do about that. I don't know what to do.
Also, I changed my uni stuff today so I no longer have a clash. Yay. I also put down a major. I don't know if I was supposed to or not but I did. At the end of this year I'll have a degree in mathematics. If only I could do better. Unfortunately the change means I don't get Thursdays off any more. Meh.
I don't want to be going out with Nikky. I should find someone who gets me who I get who I'm always happy with and all that. Maybe.
I do have a diary, you know. I decided that I would write in it every day, an account just of what happened to me that day, so I would have a complete record of my life. Obviously I suck so it's not been doing too well with maybe twenty entries since the beginning of the year, if you're lucky. All of which are more focused on emotions and thoughts than actual occurrences during a day. So I've decided that the diary is effectively replaced by this blog, so I've given it up. I was going to write in my diary tonight but instead decided to post here.
I ran back to the living room to retrieve my laptop and then sprinted with it to the safety of my bed, where I now lie, hurting my left biceps because it's hard to hold it up for so long, computer on its side, typing. All the running, though, is important. It happened because I'm afraid of the dark. Not all the time, and it's not debilitating, it's just when I think I see scary people about to murder me. But for some reason it's always safe in bed. With my feet off the floor, clearly, in case they're under the bed. My bed is protected. This is what I'm reduced to. This and making the following anecdotal joke that sounds far better in my head.
So Nikky and I are spending Valentine's day together [I'll get to the topic of the day later]. We're going to have a romantic afternoon tea at a Foundation of Young Australians seminar on a national youth leadership body. That's followed by a meeting with Glenorchy's Youth Development Officer to go through an idea before the grand finale: project reports to be used for an acquittal! I'm kidding, of course, except about the fact that we will be going to a seminar where we will no doubt receive entirely unromantic afternoon tea. After that we're doing dinner and a movie, but gold class, so how much do we rock? Lots. Specifically, how much do I rock, given that I'm paying? Lots lots.
On the topic of Valentine's day, however, I'd like to make a few more comments. I have a friend, let's call her Anne. She has a problem with the fourteenth of February. It makes her feel alone. She's not alone in that, at least. But the other important thing to remember is what Valentine's Day is about: it's about having an excuse to do something a little bit romantic while maintaining plausible deniability! You can send a card to anyone and they'll accept it. You can send an unsigned card to anyone and they'll love it. Anything you do as a couple will be sweet and wonderful. It's just like an anniversary or birthday. It's about thinking of the one(s) you like, romantically. And doing something for them.
Alternately, choose just one and do something for them. Another possibility is not doing anything for anyone - I'm happy enough with that. I think it would be nice to know how many people met others in random Valentine's day encounters. In fact, I charge you to strike up a conversation with a stranger - someone serving you in a shop (without lines too long!), someone in the park, someone at school/uni/work - in the next twenty four hours. It'd be nice if that meant on V-Day itself, but just do it anyway. It'll make me feel powerful and special (always important) and I bet it'll make you happy to meet someone new and interact with them. I guarantee it'll make them happy that someone bothered to notice and talk to them. It doesn't take much.
That'll do, pig, that'll do...
As one example of a good weirdness, consider the fact that all my posts titles are in lower case. Of course they are. That's just the kind of guy I am.Also, I blame Patrick McPatPat for doing this to me. He always taught me to put text in serif, headings in lower case sans-serif. Apparently it's helpful for accessibility.
There are other weirdnesses that I like. Things like the way I try to overcompensate for my overuse of toiletpaper as a child by minimising my use of sheets these days. I insist on using at most one per wipe net over each session and folding to make my net use in a session less than the number of wipes, thus negating some of my earlier overuse. There's my massive distaste for violence in any way, shape or form but admiration for Quentin Tarantino movies. But it's not just my weirdness I enjoy.
I enjoy it when other people are weird. I enjoy weird conversation. I just generally enjoy weirdness.
None of this makes any sense, and it probably shouldn't. I guess the point was merely a bit of a strange ending to a conversation I had with Sally. It was weird, but good. One of those things that makes me want to use a :) pathegraph (emoticon). It's like a random hug from someone who doesn't hug - or even someone who does. I hope I've managed to explain at least a little.
And now I'm going to watch more Alias. I really need a life.
Yes, I am aware it's bad manners to post two entries in one day. For the first one of today, also the first on this blog, scroll down.
For the past little while I've been carrying around a folder which contains crash fatalities by state for people aged sixteen to twenty-five. It also contains a printout of a drawing of a girl sleeping and an attempt I made to copy that drawing. Importantly, the printout of the drawing contains a list of songs for a mix CD. The list is the second in a series. It is entitled four a.m. with chunky headphones (#2). The series is really about the chunky headphones. The time would change with each disc and the final number is sequential per disc. It just so happens that the first disc was also made at four in the morning (though it lacked the song Jackson Cannery by Ben Folds, as did #2).
I have been meaning to give four a.m. with chunky headphones (#1) to Sally. But I haven't yet. I might still not. I haven't made #2 into a disc yet but #1 is sitting beside me. It's very detailed. I might want to give her #2 too. I don't know. Feel free to comment, tell me about my taste in music, and what these CDs mean.
These have come about from a few songs which needed to go on a disc and then putting them together. And filling in the middle. I quite like #1 at least.
Anyway, here's the point.
four a.m. with chunky headphones (#1) (19Jan2007)
I'm really quite sad that my tagline ("just another steradian in the blogosphere") won't be appreciated by others. I actually don't want to keep this to a few people, I just want to keep it away from a few. Or maybe just one...
Next point to make absolutely clear is that I do mean unadulterated. Things will be said here that you don't want to know. I will mark them with this type of formatting so you can avoid it if you'd like. Of course, none of you will skip those sections, but I like to head off complaints before I get them.
One more thing: Emma, I know I owe you an email, I in fact have a draft saved from 20 October last year. It contains one irrelevant greeting line and that's it. Hopefully this is some consolation and I will get around to emailing you, I promise. Probably. I've been busy and stuff. I know, I know, I suck. But please don't let that stop you from staying in touch.
So, I guess I'll start with a few things about today (by which I really mean Sunday, yesterday, technically). Firstly, there's the fact that I spent all day with Nikky. That was fun. We spent all day in bed. There were DVDs and books and suchlike. There was also sex and things associated with it. Nikky's become a lot more ... enthusiastic about oral sex recently, I think because she thinks it makes me happy and she's afraid I'm going to dump her. So she's trying to stop that happening. Stupid really, but that's the way things go. After that I watched two classic movies that I hadn't seen, both romantic comedies. Man, should I ever never watch romantic comedies. They always put me in a mood to break up with Nikky.
Two other things to talk about. Firstly, that today I had a conversation with Anne (not her real name, but I'll use it) which was really good. I hadn't spoken to her in a while and we just chatted. It's important to have conversations with friends or you lose touch. To chat about nothing. She also said she'd lend me West Wing, so double plus there, hey?
The second thing was a conversation with Sally (again, not her real name). We talked about sex, which isn't something I normally do, but it was good to be able to do that without too much giggling. There was definitely a little though, at well deserved times. Phrases like "I think he used to fuck her pretty rough" still make me feel a bit weird. I'm really not mature at all, or ready for sex. Little late, I guess. The whole idea of sex is still off-putting, though it doesn't bother me at the time, that's just a different me.
Actually, this is a fair time to say it: I don't like sex because I think the joy of it doesn't justify the mess.
And to close with a few housekeeping matters: firstly, the first person to figure out the real identities of the nicknames I'm using will get their comment deleted. Secondly, please do comment, and tell me who I should let read this thing. Give email addresses. Finally... welcome to my new blog. Old stuff is still accessible at http://me.mjec.net/index.old.html and http://me.mjec.net/archive.html.
I have Seasons of Love (from Rent) stuck in my head.
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