Home Blogs After Hours March 2004
A Day | 03.07.04 | 02:25:53 AM
1. Jerry wakes up in the wee hours of the morning with intense heartburn. It is so acute that stomach acid is surging up his throat to the back of his mouth. With some effort, still disoriented from a dream (Jerry is a contestant on a game show, in which he must answer questions about his job, with the answers being judged by a panel of former high school classmates) he'd been having, he staggers to the bathroom and barely makes it to the toilet before vomiting. After the first surge of vomit, he inhales sharply (He forgot to take a deep breath before vomiting) and something catches in his air passage. Jerry begins to choke. There is no one around to help him. He falls to the bathroom floor, gasping soundlessly. Jerry dies, alone, at the age of 46.
2. Jerry calls the number scribbled in faded black ink in his old address book. Unsurprisingly, no one answers. He hangs up and wonders what to do next, or if it is even worth the effort (It isn't).
3. He was once married, and although he never cheated on his wife (She left him after four years, and also did not cheat) he entertained the fantasy on at least two occasions (Once with an acquaintance, once with a total stranger he glimpsed while eating lunch).
4. Jerry is very quiet because his mother (Jerry's mother died when Jerry was 32) is glaring at him. Earlier, he was crying (He had been kicked in the shin by an older boy) but his mother told him to quit it (His attempt to comply was only partially successful, but Jerry's mother did not punish him for the few stray sobs that escaped him).
5. His last conscious thought before asphyxiating is of a fishing trip (Near Tallahassee, Florida) he took with his uncle when Jerry was ten years old. He caught seven small bluegill (His aunt pan-fried them, and Jerry often remembers how delicious they tasted). Later, they stopped by a gas station, and his uncle bought Jerry a grape Nehi (The best soda in the world).
6. Jerry was born on July 23rd, 1958 (The film Vertigo was released that year).
7. 1970 is an important year for Jerry, because it was the last time he can remember being completely happy (The highlight of the year was a trip he took to Disneyland, during which he shook hands with Pluto).
8. Jerry drinks (Jerry's favorite drink is a Bloody Mary with both olives and a celery stalk) and drinks, but no amount of alcohol seems to be enough to quell the sadness inside his heart.
9. Jerry fantasizes about hanging himself (He got the idea from a cartoon) because then his mother and father would be sorry for yelling at him and not letting him go to the movies.
10. His favorite song is "You Are Everything" by The Stylistics, for reasons he prefers to keep private (It was playing on the radio when he lost his virginity. Whenever he hears it, Jerry feels simultaneously sad and horny).
☄
A Day | 03.08.04 | 12:21:59 AM
If you came here yesterday looking for a new entry because the blogroll said the site was updated, my apologies. I did actually have an entry here, but I decided to nix it. It was just sort of a literary experiment I wanted to try, and it sounded a little creepy in hindsight, and, you know, I don't want to be creepy.
I don't know if it's winter finally starting to peter out -- I hope -- or going back on Wellbutrin after a drug-free few months, but I'm feeling a little more creative lately. I mean, you know, the yawning pit of despair is still there and everything, but it's sort of like having a big, ugly-ass troll move into your bedroom. At first you're like "Aaagh! Get that fucking thing out of here!!!" But after a few weeks, you get used to having him around, and pretty soon you're hanging laundry from his ears.
So anyway...yeah.
- - - Comments - - -
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: BOB
EMAIL: bob@agirlnamedbob.com
IP: 172.148.38.147
URL: http://agirlnamedbob.com
DATE: 03/08/2004 09:32:32 PM
I admit it. I got Punk'd by that little "updated" sign. I ran over here, and when I saw there was, in fact, nothing new, I got a little bummed.
I just *sniffle* miss you. There, I said it. Happy now?
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: dvl
EMAIL: dvloranger@aol.com
IP: 172.195.246.169
URL: http://dvl.buzznet.com
DATE: 03/09/2004 08:13:01 AM
everyone needs a bedroom troll from which to hang laundry. my ears are petite.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: BeerMary
EMAIL: mary@rantorama.com
IP: 24.8.13.121
URL: http://rantorama.com
DATE: 03/12/2004 05:10:44 AM
Sweetie, what good is a locked blog if you are STILL censoring yourself?
Everyone sounds creepy when they let their feelings out. But only to people who do not know and love them.
You would never sound creepy to us. Unless you do a good Hannibal/Silence of the Lambs impression. But that would be purposefully creepy so that doesn't count.
☄
A Day | 03.08.04 | 12:48:58 AM
The Stylistics, "You Are Everything"
This isn't the most depressing song ever, but I think it's one of the saddest, which is different. It caught me by surprise the other day, and I wanted to share it with you, because misery loves company and it excites me to think that I might be able to pass on part of my melancholy in some small way. I've heard this song before, but I've never really listened to it. I always thought it was just a love song, but it's one of those sneaky devils that sounds like a love song when it's actually the saddest song in the world.
The reason it's sad isn't so much the generic subject matter -- guy loses girl, guy sees other girl who reminds him of girl, sending guy spiralling into a miasma of despair -- as the fact that in every other respect than lyrically, it sounds like nothing more than a simple, sweet, if somewhat subdued, love song. Breakup songs are usually a lot more bitter (Elvis Costello, "Alison"), or, you know, all resigned and philosophical (Cat Stevens, "Wild World"), or maudlin (John Waite, "Missing You"). What they're usually not is quietly, intensely passionate, which is what makes "You Are Everything" so god damn heartbreaking.
The thing I like about The Stylistics is that the lead singer is so guilelessly sincere that he makes the most mundane sentiments sound weirdly profound. Like "Betcha By Golly Wow" -- when he sings "you're the one that I've been waiting for, forever," there's something so desperately yearning about it that it makes you feel like you're back in high school, in the clutches of your first Big Crush. Wow indeed.
This song has the same effect. When the guy -- someday I'm going to have to look up his frickin' name -- sings "You are everything, and everything is you," he invests that circular, palindromic phrase with such naked adoration, it's almost like gratitude, mixed with aching desire, the purest love, and a hopelessness so profound and final that you want to call a suicide hotline for the poor sap.
That's why I find the song so fucking sad -- it's like, the guy is so deeply in love with the girl that he can't even bring himself to feel angry over being dumped!
Now that's some sad shit. You know it is. Don't be frontin'.
- - - Comments - - -
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: matthew
EMAIL: bino1@hotmail.com
IP: 209.242.228.11
URL: http://bakiwop.f2o.org
DATE: 03/08/2004 11:32:17 AM
pass me a tissue.../sniff/
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: dvl
EMAIL: dvloranger@aol.com
IP: 172.195.246.169
URL: http://dvl.buzznet.com
DATE: 03/09/2004 08:10:46 AM
lovely sentiment, but it compels me to break out the big guns to clear away this funk... one song can turn it around - an anthem-style song for our generation:
B-Movie - Nowhere Girl
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: BOB
EMAIL: bob@agirlnamedbob.com
IP: 172.148.107.83
URL: http://agirlnamedbob.com
DATE: 03/09/2004 08:59:16 PM
I don't know why I like these depressing songs so much, but I really dig them. This one is great... thanks for sharing. =)
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.43.142.48
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/09/2004 09:08:55 PM
Depressing songs are the best. It's nice to just lay back and wallow in the misery once in a while. Or constantly.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: BeerMary
EMAIL: mary@rantorama.com
IP: 24.8.13.121
URL: http://rantorama.com
DATE: 03/12/2004 05:09:17 AM
I love that kind of music. I have no idea when the song was made, but it reminds me of the late 70's/early 80's.
When I get sad and know I need to cry to get it all out, I don't like to cry about my own shit, so I watch a movie. Bridges of Madison County, Titanic, or Steel Magnolias usually does the job.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: groovebunny
EMAIL: wabbit@groovebunny.com
IP: 68.224.168.139
URL: http://groovebunny.diaryland.com
DATE: 03/13/2004 11:37:52 PM
Damn. Now ya got me wanting to break out my old Stylistics records.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: The Raz
EMAIL: KevinRazban@msn.com
IP: 68.136.22.33
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/kevin
DATE: 03/15/2004 09:32:08 PM
I love the Stylistics! I'm a sucker for all of those low-rider oldies groups. I think it comes from my days at Disneyland when my friends Isabel Chavez and Lisa Ybarra would play this music when we were closing up the Stage Door Cafe at 1:00 in the morning. I also like: the Chi-Lites, the Delfonics, the Coasters, the Platters, the Tabulations, Rose Royce, the Floaters, Patrice Rushen, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Stacy Ladisaw and Tina Marie.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: groovebunny
EMAIL: wabbit@groovebunny.com
IP: 68.224.168.139
URL: http://groovebunny.diaryland.com
DATE: 03/16/2004 11:26:32 PM
Teena Maria was the female version of all that was funky back in the day.
☄
A Day | 03.08.04 | 01:49:56 AM
I had kind of a depressing (for the other person, not me) conversation with S yesterday while watching an episode of Freaks and Geeks. In case you haven't seen it, F&G was a short-lived series that ran in the 1999-2000 season on NBC. It was set in Michigan in 1980, centered around two groups of high school kids (hence the title), and was sort of like Wonder Years without the syrupy sentimentality. Anyway, this episode featured the storyline with Nick Andopolis, a painfully earnest romantic who's infatuated with Lindsay Weir, the show's confused teen protagonist. Nick is the kind of guy who, for his first romantic evening with his date, will decorate his basement with candles and play "Nights in White Satin" on his 8-track player while declaring that he doesn't want sex, but merely to hold you. Isn't that smoove?
S eats that shit up, so she was totally swooning over Nick (on the show, Lindsay is somewhat less impressed -- she finds Nick's intensity overwhelming and suffocating) and bemoaning the scarcity of guys like Nick in the adult world. "Why can't I find a guy like that?" she wailed.
The only answer I could give her is that, by the time they reach the end of their 20's, guys like Nick have largely been stamped out of existence by girls like Lindsay. When I say that, I'm not blaming the girl. I mean, human nature is what it is, and love freaks everyone out...it's just how it breaks, cookiewise. Lindsay can't help how she feels, or doesn't feel. But I think a lot of guys start out like Nick, all unrestrained romantic intensity, and they latch onto girls who can't handle that kind of intensity, who end up dumping the Nicks. From there, there are basically two ways to go. You can luck out and find a girl who likes you as much as you like her, and welcomes the intensity, or you don't luck out, and spend the next ten years falling in love with women who either don't share your passion or have intimacy issues, and little by little, you stop leaving yourself wide open. The poetry is the first to go. Then the more outrageous declarations of love, until finally you "wise up" and close yourself up completely.
Obviously it's not that simple -- the guy usually isn't too smart in choosing the objects of his desire, and ends up projecting his own needs and wants onto the woman, who senses this and quite properly recoils from it. But the point is, by the time he meets a girl he should be focusing on like that, his heart is so dented and bruised from being flung against brick walls that he holds back, keeps his feelings closer to the vest, and there's never that complete openness that leads to true bonding.
That's kind of what happened with me and S, actually. Before I met S, I had a brief but incredibly intense "thing" with this girl who was basically the Lindsay to my Nick. It ended pretty much the same way, and I was so freaking shredded by the experience that when I met S, who both wanted and deserved the naked passion that I'd foisted upon the other girl, I just didn't have it to give anymore. Not that I didn't love S, and express my feelings effusively...it was just this little portion, 10% of my heart, that I held back, kept locked safely away, because nobody was going to hurt me like that again. But I often wonder if that 10% would have made the difference between staying married and not staying married.
Since then, I've been on the "Nick" side twice and on the "Lindsay" side twice. I'm not sure which is worse. I mean, being Nick means never having to feel guilty, whereas being Lindsay means you trade pain for guilt. With R, I was Lindsay. In retrospect, I suspect that I felt so guilty over how that turned out, that I deliberately sought out someone like L so that I could play Nick and get the shit kicked out of me.
Romance, like math, is hard.
I often wish I could feel the purity and intensity of the emotions I felt when I was a teenager and in my early 20's. I have approached that level on a couple of occasions, both ending in disappointment. And, I know, life sucks, get over it. It does, and I have. But when the illusions fall, you're left with a pretty stark choice -- to settle for less than your heart's desire, or to forget the whole thing. I guess I'm heading towards the latter. I don't like it -- I'm still an idealist at heart, and I don't consider myself a cynic or someone who's bitter -- but I feel so disillusioned with the whole process that I can't get excited about it anymore.
☄
A Day | 03.22.04 | 07:05:39 AM
Back in my senior year of high school, when I was in this Young Republicans-type ultra-right-wing youth group, I fell hard for a Young Republican girl named Patty, who had joined the group at the same time I did. Patty was totally my type of gal -- cute, but in a dorky, cardigan-and-beret-wearing sort of way. (Misfit goofballs are where it's at, B-love-wise.) I don't think she ever had the slightest clue as to my feelings, because my typical method of letting girls know that I'm interested in them is to completely avoid them. (If forced to engage in conversation, I make sure to speak in the most pleasantly neutral tones possible. If I really, really like them, I back slowly out of the room and then move to another state.)
I didn't like Patty enough to move out of California, but I did like her, like, a lot, and when I say "a lot" I mean creepy a lot. When our group went on a trip to Washington, D.C. to stay at this ultra-right-wing indoctrination camp for a week, I broke my own "avoid cuteness" rule and did everything I could to get close to her at every opportunity. I would time my exit from my dorm room each morning so that I could sit next to her during our indoctrination classes. I didn't learn crap about supply-side economics that week, but I did memorize every curve of Patty's face. In profile, of course, because whenever she turned and trained those big brown eyes on me, I would immediately shrink to the size of a flea and bound out of the room with superhuman insectile strength.
The single creepiest thing I did during that D.C. trip was to take photos of Patty's butt. I did this surreptitiously, of course -- only when her back was turned, ha ha. No, seriously, I would do this whenever we were out on a group trip to some national monument, and everyone whipped out their cameras to take shots of it so that they could throw the resulting boring ass photos away ten years later. While they were snapping photos of the Lincoln Memorial, I was secretly taking pictures of Patty's butt as Patty snapped photos of the Lincoln Memorial. In retrospect, I'm not sure what my deal was. What can I tell you -- I was obsessed with Patty's butt. It had a pleasing shape. Anyway, I took pictures of Patty's butt at locations as diverse as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Capitol Rotunda. I think I still have a couple of shots from my "Patty's Butt" photo series lying around somewhere. If I'm ever elected to the U.S. Senate, I'll have to share this D.C. story with my constituents.
My one-sided love affair with Patty came to an ignominious end a few months later, when a bunch of us Young Republicans who'd remained friends after the trip decided to go to Disneyland. Most of my painful unrequited love experiences have involved Disneyland in one way or another. Anyway, I had decided beforehand that this would be it, "it" being the day that I would actually make my move. "I shall win her heart this day," I told myself as I drove down to Anaheim. "Furthermore, I shall refrain from looking at or photographing her rear end without her express permission." So, pretty much the whole day that we were there -- "we" being me, Patty, this guy named Wesley, and some other person I can't remember now -- I tried to insinuate myself next to her on all the rides, hoping for a chance to get her alone under some theoretical set of perfect circumstances in which I could make my theoretical move. I hadn't actually figured out what that "move" would entail, but I assumed nature would take over at the appropriate time.
Needless to say, the B never did lay the smoove on the P. In fact, I didn't say more than five words to her all day. But what added the final little -- ding! -- touch of misery to this misbegotten outing was that, toward the end of the afternoon, Wesley took me aside all excited and said, "Hey, do you mind if I sit next to Patty for the rest of the day? I kinda like her and, uh, I think she likes me, too."
"Wow! That's awesome! Sure you can!" I enthused.
The rest of the day went like a breeze. I was able to find some rubber bands and Krazy Glue to keep my facial expression frozen into a pleasant, "I'm really HAPPY that the girl I'm infatuated with is into another guy and that I've been reduced to acting as their chaperone on their first date!" smile, so awkwardness was kept to a minimum. Later that night, as I ransacked the house in search of some razor blades, I reflected somberly upon the capricious nature of love, and Patty's butt.
Epilogue: Wesley and Patty dated for about a month. All of us stayed in touch well into college, until about the time that I woke up and stopped being a Young Republican. I remained friends with Wesley and didn't wish him a speedy and almost painless demise at all, much.
- - - Comments - - -
AUTHOR: Wendy
EMAIL: wendy@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 172.134.225.41
URL: http://weirdsmobile.com/wendy
DATE: 03/22/2004 08:24:16 PM
That's so sad and so familiar. I was also very shy when I was young and often let my friends beat me to guys I had crushes on.
P.S. I had no idea you were in the young republicans club. The kids in my school who were in that club wore button down shirts that they tucked in and were all grade-grubbers. Good to see you made it out unscathed.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.43.142.48
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/23/2004 04:51:56 AM
I'll have to tell the whole sordid story of my Young Republican years sometime. The YRs at my school were the same as yours...I did not fit in.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Rachel
EMAIL: angrypixel@hotmail.com
IP: 24.247.173.41
URL: http://roninneko.blogspot.com
DATE: 03/26/2004 04:18:20 PM
One-sided love affairs are a beautiful and depressingly familiar thing.
You seriously had a Young Republicans clubs, though? That's so...80s.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Rachel
EMAIL: angrypixel@hotmail.com
IP: 24.247.173.41
URL: http://roninneko.blogspot.com
DATE: 03/26/2004 04:19:26 PM
Yeah, um, just pretend like that gramatically incorrect "a" isn't there. Denial is healthy.
☄
A Day | 03.23.04 | 04:49:56 AM
This news item about antidepressants and suicide underscores an important fact about suicide that few people realize. See, we are taught to think of suicide as the ultimate expression of sadness. But I think we need to look at suicide as a form of murder -- self-murder. If you think about it that way, a lot of aspects of suicide make sense.
Like with Skattie...everyone wants to know why he didn't tell someone, why he didn't go to his friends for help. In fact, the weekend he killed himself, he told friends he was going to be out of town, so that no one would try to call or stop by his place and possibly interrupt his suicide. You'd think that someone so depressed as to want to die would reach out for comfort. So his behavior at the end of his life seems odd. But if you think about it as more that Skattie was plotting his own murder, things fall into place. When you're about to commit premeditated murder, you don't go telling half the town. You don't call some "murder hotline." You keep it quiet, and once you work up the nerve to do it , you do it quickly and in the shadows and move on.
☄
A Day | 03.24.04 | 06:07:16 AM
We stumbled like slow-motion drunks across the sand, feeling our way with our feet because it was too dark to see the stones that might trip us. Two city kids fumbling around in the wilderness, blind in the moonless, pitch-black night. Shannon found a driftwood log -- nearly tripped over it might be more accurate -- and we sat down, facing an ocean we couldn't see, listening to the steady roar of waves whose motion we could barely make out in the darkness.
We had met like thieves after midnight, outside the Silver Surf Motel where our class was staying. Silently, grinning like loons, we sprinted across the highway and clambered up the chain link fence that bordered this stretch of Moonstone Beach. Shannon giggled at my reluctance to swing my leg over the row of spikes on top of the fence.
"Wimp!" she whispered.
"You can laugh," I shot back, feeling the spikes graze the crotch of my jeans. "You don't have as much to lose!"
I was all nerves and crackling excitement. Even though Shannon and I had spent many a wee morning hour cruising up and down the deserted streets of Fullerton and Anaheim and La Habra, somehow I felt more alone here, not even a hundred yards from where our entire English class lay sleeping, than we had in all of our nighttime wanderings through Orange County.
All we were doing was sitting on a log on a beach after lights out, but there was something about this simple, minor transgression that made me feel pure and free for the first time since I was a small child. Except back then I didn't know what purity and freedom were, because I hadn't yet had it taken away.
The wind coming off the waves was steady and cold, and we hunched together for warmth. We must have looked miserable, but I was thrilled. I didn't have to look at Shannon or ask her to know that she felt the same way. Out here, it felt as if we'd shed the skin of our lives and stepped out of them as ourselves. Not misfit brainiac geeks, or subjects of puzzled gossip, or the two weirdos who were always getting into trouble, but our real selves, whatever those were.
Neither of us spoke. I knew without knowing that there was nothing I could say that wouldn't spoil the moment. She leaned closer to me, and I let my head rest gently against hers, and we sat like that for what seemed like a long, long time.
I guess if we were normal seventeen-year-olds we would have started making out or something, but at that moment we weren't seventeen, we were eight. We were children and the world hadn't started in on us yet. It's how I felt whenever I was with her, and I knew she felt it too, from the bright elfin grin that always spread across her freckled face whenever I would propose some mischief, or whenever she was about to. Nothing at all like the dull, cheerfully neutral mask she wore at school. It was like our secret, that we were wearing teenaged bodies over our true selves.
I had never felt like that with anyone else, and I loved her for that. I loved being around her. She didn't want anything else from me, and I didn't want anything else from her. Hidden away from everyone who wanted us to be something or other, we just were. Another year, and we would begin, inevitably, to lose each other. But for now it was good.
So we sat there, saying nothing, and stared out at the perfect nothing, together, two lost kids leaning against each other and feeling completely and delightfully found.
- - - Comments - - -
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sherri
EMAIL: Sylkenvelvet@yahoo.com
IP: 68.59.165.165
URL: http://www.formyselfandothers.blogspot.com
DATE: 03/29/2004 01:12:08 PM
Ya know, I suspect you of being publishable.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.145.20
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/30/2004 06:01:28 AM
Thanks -- although where I'm at right now, I'd be happy if I could manage to pump out the occasional Robotech fanfic.
☄
A Day | 03.25.04 | 05:39:59 AM
I spoke with a friend of mine earlier this week who's thinking of starting a new weblog. He already has a weblog -- one of those "private" ones that's all the rage. Weird, huh? Before that, he had a regular weblog. He originally took his weblog private because he felt like he was expected to post about certain kinds of things, and he had other things he wanted to talk about and didn't feel comfortable doing that stuff on a public blog.
Anyway, that song sounded real familiar to these ears. I mean, part of the reason I started After Hours in the first place was because I felt weird posting both goofy ironic humor and ultra-serious depressing shit in the same weblog. Ideally, it shouldn't matter -- any weblogger should be able to post about whatever he or she wants. And yet, it does matter, at least if you're posting wildly divergent stuff. I know that many weblog readers are perfectly okay with reading a blog that might feature a comic strip one day and a painfully personal story the next. But it seems weird to me, especially if you start to get readers you don't even know. They come to your site expecting one thing, and they get something totally different that they might not "get" or might even be hostile to. Who wants hostility?
So,
☄
A Day | 03.30.04 | 07:20:42 AM
If you read this blog with any kind of regularity, you're aware of one fact: I don't post here with any kind of regularity.
OR SO YOU THINK.
In fact, I post here fairly often. It's just that you don't see many of the entries I put up, because:
1. I fall asleep while writing them, and when I wake up in the morning I forget why I thought the subject was so damned compelling, and never finish the entry;
or
2. I'm drunk/sleepy/listening to Manilow and churn out some horrifying bit of crapola that, in retrospect, I can't even bear to read myself, and wouldn't inflict upon my worst enemy, let alone people I actually like.
But in the spirit of emotional glasnost we encourage here at After Hours, I thought I might clip some of the more coherent bits from those nixed entries, and drag them into the light of day for your amusement.
No real order.
- - - Comments - - -
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sherri
EMAIL: Sylkenvelvet@yahoo.com
IP: 68.59.165.165
URL: http://www.formyselfandothers.blogspot.com
DATE: 03/30/2004 10:21:38 AM
OK, so now I have to adore you. You gotta cut that shit out if you want to maintain your hermit-on-the-mountain existance.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.145.237
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/30/2004 03:12:29 PM
Who am I to pass up adoration? Although in point of fact, it's more of a swamp than a mountain.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Jim
EMAIL: chaos@corrupt.net
IP: 67.106.83.29
URL: http://chaos.corrupt.net
DATE: 03/30/2004 05:36:06 PM
I think short stuff like the above aborted entries are worth posting. Also, this thing is pretty cool:
• • •
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.145.237
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/30/2004 05:50:53 PM
I actually kind of like posting this way, in little "blather bites" instead of big slabs of essay.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: matthew
EMAIL: bino1@hotmail.com
IP: 66.84.173.98
URL: http://bakiwop.f2o.org
DATE: 03/31/2004 04:21:25 AM
no no no no no! you do not get to claim you post here often and then not actually leave the posts up for the readers! you big, evil, super-meanie, talented, funny type guy.
"Who wants hostility?" well, it would be inspiring a form of passion and it might even re-inspire the passion you felt in your 20s.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.145.237
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/31/2004 05:03:49 AM
You wouldn't want to read the unedited entries...believe me, I am doing you a favor! I have this habit of writing even after I've essentially fallen asleep and don't know what the hell I'm saying, so the result can be a little...disjointed.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sherri
EMAIL: Sylkenvelvet@yahoo.com
IP: 68.59.165.165
URL: http://www.formyselfandothers.blogspot.com
DATE: 03/31/2004 09:44:14 AM
sounds highly entertaining -- especially if you post a guide to symbols, themes and motifs.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Rengirl
EMAIL: imac@pixelsensei.com
IP: 12.22.65.5
URL:
DATE: 03/31/2004 01:18:09 PM
I love these small posts. You might think they're half-baked but I think they're genius and pure. I also find it more easy to relate to the random "blather bites." I know what you mean about not posting. I do it all the time... somtimes up to 5 times a day. And those entries remain "drafts" in my Moveable Type database. Sometimes I post things, and then a minute later, I start to question the validity of the post so I take it down. Then I feel like a sheep conformist for taking it down. It's a mad cycle.
I go through the same thought process when I comment.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.148.4
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/31/2004 01:46:09 PM
Rengirl: Yeah, it's a mad cycle all right. I think sometimes I feel like I have to get more in depth on a topic, or otherwise I feel lazy. And it's always a mistake to write entries late at night or when intoxicated, because that's when I say the stupidest things. I should just set my default posting status in MT to Draft.
Strangely, though, I'll say any lame ass thing in other people's comments with no hesitation.
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A Day | 03.01.04 | 03:32:11 PM
Here's the one-act play of my life:
SORTA, BUT NOT REALLY, BUT ALSO DEFINITELY, I THINK a play in one act ACT I SCENE 1 (An office. B² is sitting at his computer, pretending to work but actually surfing weblogs. CO-WORKER approaches his cubicle.) Hey man, a bunch of us are going to lunch, you want to come with? (Grimacing) Uh...no thanks...I brought my lunch today. Oh, okay -- see ya later! (Mimes shooting finger gun) Righto! (B² watches group of co-workers head out the door, laughing and joking amongst themselves. He ponders the strange ambivalence he feels, reviling the idea of grazing with the herd and yet feeling sad to be left out of the socializing. Then he sneaks into each of his co-workers' cubicles and lowers everyone's chairs by two inches.) |
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: matthew
EMAIL: bino1@hotmail.com
IP: 66.84.173.98
URL: http://bakiwop.f2o.org
DATE: 03/31/2004 04:25:59 AM
embrace your anti-social-ness-iality-itude! having worked at a grade school for the last two years, i see how kids are forced to play together nicely and share and do all that other social nice-ity stuff. the kids who just stay to themselves having a good time are labeled with a disorder and then thrown into programs to force them play with others.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.145.237
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/31/2004 05:31:36 AM
Yeah, good point. I mean, I am someone who enjoys his own company and doesn't necessarily need someone around, the way extroverted people do. I don't see why one way or the other has to be the "normal" way, and the other way somehow abnormal or diseased.
But at the same time, I'm not so extreme that I don't like to be around people from time to time, or even often. Like I say, I'm not a misanthrope. And although I joke about being antisocial, I'm not antisocial so much as just socially impaired. So, I do wish sometimes that I could flip a switch and become extroverted once in a while, as sort of a vacation from the way I normally am.
Strangely, the only time in recent memory that I think I could have become more of that type of person was when I was taking Paxil, and I am pretty sure that anyone who knew me during that time who is still speaking to me would kick my ass hard if I tried that again.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: hannah
EMAIL: hannahw@med.umich.edu
IP: 141.214.129.152
URL: http://www.livejournal.com/users/misshannah
DATE: 03/31/2004 06:27:11 AM
I don't know that you're looking for advice, but here's some anyway. If you do try a group thing, try a small group. I am comfortable in a group of 5 or 6 that I know pretty well. Beyond that I kind of shut down some. And I'm known as a social person! And work socializing? Meh.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sherri
EMAIL: Sylkenvelvet@yahoo.com
IP: 68.59.165.165
URL: http://www.formyselfandothers.blogspot.com
DATE: 03/31/2004 09:49:51 AM
I know that feeling, too, except that usually I can't figure out what it is that people find fun about going to most social venues, like bars, etc. I mean, you go there, you sit or stand around with very expensive alcoholic beverages, and you talk loudly over the music to the people you walked in with -- like, couldn't you have just gone home and sat on comfortable chairs drinking much less expensive drinks (with a higher flavor-to-ice ratio) and not be screaming?
If you go to meet new people, it's going to be superficial as you can't possibly develope a real conversation, especially if you aren't looking to hook up and the majority of people are.
If you are going to listen to a band, then the talking gets in the way. Go alone.
I find that whenever I'm in such a situation, after I've tired of yelling and making small talk (I can't keep it up long), I just sit quietly waiting for the numbness to settle in and ruminate on how artificially enthused the people around me seem to be, and how much happier I'd be at home with a book.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.148.4
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/31/2004 01:31:01 PM
Hannah: For me, I think the threshold is two or three people. Beyond that, I tend to shut down. I also think that how you act in such crowds makes a big difference. I don't know why, exactly, but I can be in a group that includes several people who are saying no more than I am, but somehow I'm the one who gets singled out as "the quiet one." I was in the Borders Cafe the other day, and when I went up to the counter the cashier was all, "Oh my God, I didn't even hear you come over here!" Shit like that happens to me all the time!
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.148.4
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/31/2004 01:37:00 PM
Sherri: I totally agree. I've never understood why people want to go out somewhere if the intention is merely to drink booze and chat. And people who sit around chatting at concerts drive me crazy.
This kind of thing drove me nuts even when I was in college. We'd all trudge 12 blocks to some house party, and all we'd do there is drink cheapo beer from a keg and stand around talking...to each other. And of course the next morning it would be all, "Dude, that was an awesome party last night!" Right.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Jim
EMAIL: chaos@corrupt.net
IP: 67.106.83.29
URL: http://chaos.corrupt.net
DATE: 03/31/2004 05:00:58 PM
I've played that part for pretty much my entire first year at work. I regretted that later, as there were actually a few people in that crowd that I slowly discovered were cool later on.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Wendy
EMAIL: wendy@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 172.150.201.237
URL: http://weirdsmobile.com/wendy
DATE: 04/02/2004 09:14:10 PM
Speaking of the Unabomber... If blogs had existed back then it would have been a much better outlet for him.
And about the small group thing, I agree. Three people is a perfect number. Any more and I shut down.
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A Day | 03.30.04 | 05:31:03 PM
Whatever happened to the good old days, when you could go off and become a grizzled prospector, or one of those guys in loincloths hanging out on top of mountains, waiting for someone to come ask them the meaning of life? Unfortunately the Unabomber ruined the "living in a sod hut in rural Montana" vocation, but surely there are other options out there for the Solitary Male.
You can't be introverted or a loner in this society without being looked down upon as some kind of freak. Maybe it was ever thus, I don't know. It's strange, though, how our culture simultaneously honors and shuns the loner. If you look at our pop culture heroes, like The Man With No Name or any number of brooding action heroes, they're invariably Lone Wolves who live on the fringes of society, forever isolated from the people they protect, blah blah blah. And yet, in real life, if a guy actually is that way, we assume there's something wrong with him.
Consider the alpha male. I've always found the alpha male personality type kind of amusing, because for all his strength and power, in some ways he's helplessly weak, even pathetic. In any group, the alpha male is generally the guy who talks the loudest, appears most confident, and basically takes command of the room. The alpha male is the consummate power player. But what happens if you take the player out of the game? He's lost. The alpha male is defined by his social dominance, but he's also dependent on his social group. I can respect the alpha male and admire his many virtues, but I find his underlying value system repellent. It goes against my model of strength, which is tied to self-sufficiency and independence. Alphas pride themselves on being masters of the game, but they don't consider whether the game is worth playing in the first place. It's like the Lily Tomlin quote, that the problem with the rat race is that, even if you win, you're still a rat.
Behavioral biologists speak of the gamma male, who on the one hand doesn't strive for dominance the way alpha males do, but at the same time won't tolerate being in a subordinate position, like beta males. I guess that's where I fit in.
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A Day | 03.30.04 | 06:16:10 PM
I went to parties fairly regularly when I was in college, mainly as an excuse to get drunk and behave like an idiot. It was fun, but I always had that vague feeling of "what am I doing here?" When I hit 21 and starting going to bars, it was better because we'd go in small groups, and I liked the clubby feeling much better than the mass orgy of gregariousness feeling. But what I liked best was one on one interactions, where I could just focus on one person and didn't feel overwhelmed. I think some of my more, shall we say, attention-deprived friends liked me especially for that quality. I always used to wonder why I always seemed to end up paired with extroverted narcissists, but now I realize that they probably like me because when
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A Day | 03.31.04 | 05:23:45 AM
More outtakes...
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: matthew
EMAIL: bino1@hotmail.com
IP: 66.84.175.148
URL: http://bakiwop.f2o.org
DATE: 03/31/2004 01:46:22 PM
i so envy (in a mostly non-threatening, non-wanting-to-rip-your-heart-out) your talent with words.
would you write a book already so i could go out and buy it.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: B²
EMAIL: b@weirdsmobile.com
IP: 4.35.148.4
URL: http://www.weirdsmobile.com/b/
DATE: 03/31/2004 01:55:15 PM
Thank you, my friend! Your (mostly) non-threatening and kind sentiments fill me with a mixture of gratitude, modest demurral, and an undercurrent of purest dread.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Rachel
EMAIL: teenagesupervillain@yahoo.com
IP: 24.247.173.41
URL: http://roninneko.blogspot.com
DATE: 04/03/2004 05:43:56 PM
That last non-entry felt like being slowly asphyxiated by a sack of Dave Eggers.
For Skattie.