Defenestrate Yourself
Merriam-Webster (you know, the dictionary people) has named the top ten words of 2004. On what criteria they base that, I have no idea, but
here is the list. (The website kind of sucks though,
dictionary.com is much much better.)
Life is Good Sometimes
Once in a great while, I actually get what I want. Saturday night was one example, and I am still in a very good mood because of it. That's about all I can say about that without getting into trouble with a certain someone.
I am sitting in my office at the moment, just kind of wasting time. I'm all caught up on everything and I don't have very much to do. I am soooo sleepy because I only got 4 hours of sleep on Sat. night. I keep drifting off into deep sleep and then waking up startled, so I keep bobbing my head as I nod in and out of sleep. I just hope I don't get caught napping on the job.
I don't really have anything to write about at the moment, since I'm brain dead from sleep deprivation. So, I've decided to post a poem from T.S. Eliot. It's another one of my favorite dark/depressing poems (I love this stuff even when I'm in a good mood). Here 'tis:
The Hollow Men
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Rats, the Holiday Season is Here Again
Happy Thanksgiving. I just returned from my parents house.
As expected, the drive was Hell. It was pouring buckets of rain on the whole three hour drive yesterday and again tonight when I was coming home. However, the treacherous roads were compounded by the goddam drivers in Massachusetts. I have a theory that Massholes are trying to compete with New Jersey drivers for the title of Worst Drivers in America. I've learned to control my road rage for the most part, but it was stressful.
At any rate, I had a great day with the family. Got to see my three older brothers, and my awesome neice and nephew. Family gatherings have gotten pretty interesting with the kids running around. I think the best moment was when my nephew, who's three, came crying to his dad saying "I don't want to go freestyle!" over and over. Apparently the boy had a minor accident, and my brother has taught him to refer to going without underwear as "going freestyle." It was fucking hilarious to hear him say that.
I would have stuck around there longer, but I have to work tomorrow. I am spent and going to bed soon.
If anyone happens to be looking for some really cool wallpaper, I just got an incredible one from a site with images from the Hubble Space Telescope. The wallpaper is
here. To set it as wallpaper, click on the numbers below the picture you would like using the numbers that match the resolution that your monitor has (most monitors are 1024x768, so use that if you are unsure). Then right click the enlarged image and click set as background. There are some amazing images.
Here is another cool Hubble site. Both sites are worth checking out if you're looking for something to stare mindlessly at, perhaps after inhaling deeply (I'm talking about fresh air, of course).
Good night all.
hmmm...
"People need motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting." ------Jim Carrey in
60 Minutes segment (aired 11/21/04)
Tapping Into the Collective Conciousness
I swear, I have my finger on the pulse of the liberal elite (of which I am proud to call myself a member). Two days ago I posted a rant about how things will only be getting worse in America over the next four years of a Bush presidency (if we survive as a country for that long), and now I see articles all over the place stating pretty much the same thing. Here is one by
Molly Ivins, and here is a somewhat more glass-is-half-full one by
PM Carpenter. They both go further into detail as to the troubling signs of things to come.
Maybe us liberals are way too pessimistic, but considering that we've been proven to be right so often lately when it comes to the misdeeds of our dictator-in-chief, there is much to be concerned about. I think a lot of people are just glad that the election is over, and they would like to just tune out politics. I really hope people continue to pay attention. We will need all 50 million of us who voted against Bush if we are to have any hope of stopping his next war (
it's with Iran, in case you didn't know) and the reinstatement of the draft that the war will necessitate. In the meantime, support the troops, because pretty soon you may be one of them, whether you like it or not.
Tower Bridge from Millenium Bridge
Things Will Only Get Worse
Okay, I think I'm ready for a good political rant. It's been about three weeks since that so-called "election," and I'm finally starting to lose hope that proof will emerge showing that the election was rigged. I was so depressed in the first couple of weeks afterwards, but I'm gradually coming back to my normal cynical self. It just blows my mind that so many people could vote for the worst, most incompetant president we have ever had.
What do we have to look forward to? Well, let's take a look at what's happened in the last few weeks. We've ravaged the city of Falluja in a battle that was postponed since April because of fears that American casualties might make people decide not to vote for Bush. As it turns out, most of the bad guys fled and were off spreading violence across Iraq.
The terrorists also got a new recruiting poster with that marine spraying bullets into the head of an unarmed Iraqi (hey, I know, it's a war, and that stuff happens. But when it happens on camera for the world to see, it only fuels the hatred that the world has for America). We can expect that things will not be getting any better as a result of this operation.
We've got Gonzales,
the torture guy , taking over for Asscroft as Attorney General. You all remember Gonzales, he's the guy who's legal opinions brought us the prisoner abuse scandal. And speaking of Abu Ghraib, I saw a CNN special on Donald Rumsfeld last night that said he took full responsibility for Abu Ghraib. Um, excuse me? Just saying that you take responsibility isn't enough, there has to be consequences. He should have been forced to resign for instituting policies of torture and hurting America's credibility on human rights in the world.
We've lost the impotent Colin Powell as Secretary of State and have gained Bush's lapdog Cunnilingus Rice (thanks to Chapelle Show for the name). Bush is surrounding himself with the same yes men (and women) who's policy failures have made the last four years a nightmare. Condi is a professional liar, and she is now our face to the world.
God, the list is too long to go on with right now. We can look forward to drilling for oil in Alaska, privatizing social security, losing overtime, falling into poverty, reinstating the draft for Emperor Bush's next war...it just goes on and on. It's all very disturbing to think about.
...more to come...
Return to Civilization
I just returned from a weekend trip to my parent's vacation house in Vermont. I was expecting to at least have internet access while I was there, but they had taken the computer back to Connecticut for repairs. I spend so much time at my computer at work and at home that I guess it's probably good to get away from them once in a while. I just wasn't prepared for it this time.
I think I need to write an angry letter to the people of Claremont, NH. What a fucking civil engineering nightmare that town is. When you get to the center of town, you hit a rotary with exits going every which way, and none of the road numbers are clearly marked. You just have to pick one and hope that you chose correctly, because there are no street signs for about 30 miles to tell you if you were right or not. This time I only had to turn around once, luckily.
Also, I would like to reaffirm my support for the hunting of deer. They are really cute, and I know I couldn't kill one myself, but I came damn close to hitting one with my car the other night. This wasn't just a little deer that would smash up the front end a little bit. This was a huge one with great long legs, so if I hit him it would have taken out his legs, and then his giant body would have crushed the windshield and likely killed me.
I'm looking forward to seeing my family this Thanksgiving. It'll be good to see my adorable niece and nephew. I do have to work on Friday, though, so that means I have to drive 2.5 hours down on Wednesday night and then back on Thursday night. That also means I can't drink much on Thursday, so I'm not happy about that. Thanksgiving is a perfect excuse for getting shit-faced on mimosas at 11:30 am. Oh well, I guess I'll survive.
Okay, that's it for now.
Thank You In Advance
I really hate it when people send me business e-mails and say "Thank you in advance for your cooperation." It's a subtle way of saying, "You better do what the fuck I tell you to do." It makes me want to say "Screw you in advance for the headache you will be giving me."
At any rate, I'm having a somewhat busy day at work (not too busy to stop me from blogging, however). I will write more later...
Another Typical Bush Voter
A Typical Bush Voter
Stinky Armpit
I'm at work at the moment, killing some time here. I've had a pretty busy day, but I'm finally caught up on everything. I just realized that I must have only applied deodorant to one armpit, because the other one is smelling pretty rank right now.
...more to come...
Just playing around
I just learned how to post pictures from the web. This is my favorite painting at the National Gallery in London:
Source:
The National Gallery
Good Grief
"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'" ---------Charlie Brown
I was just looking at
Mary's blog. She posted a great quote from Charlie Brown about unrequited love (she credits another blog for using it, but at this point I think it's enough to just credit Charlie Brown). I was trying to find the actual comic strip online, but instead I found a
page of quotations.
I think the quote at the top of this post is perfect for this web log. I've been kind of depressed for a while now, and I'm hoping that I can work through it by writing. I can't afford to go to a shrink, and I refuse to take any drugs for it (tried that already--they created more problems than they solved), so I've decided to shout into the deep, dark abyss that is the blogosphere. It does seem to help.
I can be such a pathetic whiner, as some of my earlier posts show. I have a tendency to dwell on my last relationship, even though it ended four and a half months ago. There are days when it feels like it was only yesterday. Those are the days I whine the most. I can't help it though. I still think about her constantly. I even read her horoscope every day, just like I did when we were together (well, both horoscopes: she's on a cusp). Could I be any more pathetic?
We're still really good friends, which I am thankful for, but it makes it even harder to still be in love with her. If I had just cut off all contact with her, and didn't know what she was doing, it would have been so much easier to get over her. Now she is one of my closest friends, and I can't imagine not having her friendship in my life, even if it means not having her for a girlfriend. I suppose I'll get over it someday. I hope.
More purty flowers (photo by Mary, with creative input from me)
Warning: Reading this may cause hysterical blindness
Okay, so I'm a loser. I'm home alone on a Friday night. Big fucking deal.
Actually, it's exactly what I wanted to be doing tonight. Last weekend I went to NYC and spent a ton of money, so I decided to stay home and play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on PS2. I don't play very many video games, but I'm addicted to this one.
I like having time to myself, but it seems I have all too much of it these days. I tried dating someone, but I was basically just going through the motions. I thought it would help heal some wounds from my last relationship, but my heart wasn't really in it from the beginning. I was pretending to be interested to make myself feel better, and that just ain't right.
I've found that the best things seem to happen to me when I'm trying the least. Every time I've ever really fallen for a girl/woman, it's been an unexpected situation where the magic was just there and it happened. The harder I try, and the more I get my hopes up, the more I lose, and fail to get what I desire (and what we fail to attain, we desire beyond all else).
So I am going to stop trying, wanting, and worrying, and I'll have faith that something good will happen. If it doesn't happen, at least I won't have wasted any energy. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I've been bitch slapped by Fate so many times in this life that I've come to expect nothing. That way I'm never disappointed, and occasionally surprised.
That's it for now.
Bus Crash Scene in Trafalger Square
Pictures by marleyarcher
Mary insists I credit her for taking the pictures from London, so here 'tis. (However, I will say that I was there for each and was the creative inspiration in every case, whether she wants to admit it or not.
Dream Deferred
----By Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
A Wonderfully Dark and Troubled Soul
When I started this blog, I stated that I had been having a more positive outlook on life and that my writings would reflect that. I was merely trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. In truth I am perpetually depressed, and my writings will reflect THAT, no matter how hard I try.
I've posted an Emily Dickinson poem below. What a wonderfully dark and troubled soul she was. I've always loved her poetry. She could convey so much with only a few words. Despite being a total recluse, she seemed to understand to much about the human experience.
At the moment I am feeling particularly low. I let myself fall in love, and I let her destroy me. After we broke up, and time passed (not nearly enough time though), she fell for someone else. He broke her heart just as she did to me. She keeps clinging to hopes that he will want her back, just as I cling to my hopes that she'll want me back. It still hurts so much sometimes. I may never be completely over her. I don't want to be. Life can be so cruel.
I Felt a Funeral in My Brain
--by Emily Dickinson
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.
Purty flower
The Queen's Rose Garden
Killing Time
Well, here I am at work, killing time by writing in my blog. Seems like it will be another slow day in the trash business. We're in the off season, so the work load is much lighter than it was a month ago. Of course, when it rains, it pours, so I need to be here when the shit hits the fan so I can clean up the mess (how's that for a mixed metaphor!).
It's been about a week since I called Sarah. I think she' s probably gotten the hint by now that I'm not interested in her. I wish I hadn't let her borrow my Al Franken book (
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them). I might have to call her just so I can get it back. I guess I'm kind of being a pussy by not wanting to just talk to her and tell her I'm not interested, but I really don't feel like having that awkward conversation. I don't think I should have to. We had a couple of dates, it didn't work out. It's not like we had sex or anything.
It seemed like she was really starting to like me, and that's why I had to end it. If she was the kind of girl that could just enjoy having sex without getting hung up in a relationship, I would definitely do it, because I am DYING to have sex. She seemed to want to get all wifey from the get go, which turned me off. As I learned more about her, I realized that we would never work. She was way too well behaved to handle me.
I could never be honest with her about my past. It's not that I've done anything particularly bad (at least I don't think so), but I think she would freak out if I told her some stories about my youth. She said that when she was in high school, her form of rebellion was becoming overly active in her church group. She said her parents were concerned because she went to church too often. I am not even kidding. I'll leave it at that.
So I've thrown in the towel on that one. I am really lonely, and I'm dying to have sex with someone, but I can't in good conscience try to get Sarah to have sex with me if I don't have any feelings for her. I'm hoping I can convince my ex to have sex with me again. She is incredibly hot, and I really miss having sex with her. I think we could get away with having a purely sexual relationship without all the other bullshit. I've had female friends in the past that I just fooled around with once in a while. I'll have to see what she thinks (I'm not getting my hopes up).
Life Goes On
I'm still really depressed about Bush getting reelected. I'm gradually coming to accept it, but I'm still praying that someone will come forward to let America know that the voting machines in Florida and Ohio were rigged to assure a Bush victory. It just doesn't make sense that America could choose to reelect the worst, most incompetant president this country has ever had.
I don't want to write about my depression and anger right now though. Sarah came over for dinner last night. She cooked up this gourmet meal. The food tasted really good, but it kind of gave me heartburn (I didn't tell her that though). I just can't handle garlic anymore, even though I love the taste of it. I had chronic heartburn for years until I figured out that it was because of all the garlic I was eating.
In my last post I mentioned that I was thinking about trying to get her to have sex with me. While I was hanging out with her I decided that I really just am not that into her, and it wouldn't be right for me to try to get her in bed. We get along really well, and god knows I wouldn't mind being with a woman who can cook, but I'm just not that into her.
I have to get back to work. More to come...
We Are Screwed
Today is the day after the 2004 Presidential Election. Though it isn't yet official, it now appears that Bush will serve for another four years as president. Wait a minute, somehow the word "serve" doesn't seem to fit here. Let's say it looks like Bush will dictate for another four years, or longer if he decides to annoint himself emperor and stay in power for life. There are some truly dark days ahead for America. We won't have a country left after another four years, at least not one that we recognize.
On a lighter note, I'm having dinner with Sarah again tonight. She's cooking up some food and bringing it over. I'm still not sure how I feel about her. I think I might be using her to try to make myself feel more like I'm over my last girlfriend. Sarah is really nice and she has her shit together, but I'm worried that I might end up losing interest and hurting her feelings. On the other hand, if I don't get laid soon I am going to go blind. I'm trying to decide if I should try to have sex with her first and see how I feel about her after that, or if I should cut it off before I get in too deep.
...more to come...
