Wait... nope, still Jon

trouble with dreams

2009-04-24T04:07:29Z

As usual, I took the N train home from work today. The ride was less frustrating than usual - I was immediately able to find a spot against the doors, and at the second stop I was even granted a seat. Despite my having slept an anomalous eight hours the previous night, I was tired. Sitting rendered me unable to concentrate on my book, as the motion of mass transit vehicles of all types acts on me as a soporific. Gently rock-a-byed to slumber. I switched to the headphones and began nodding off to Kid A, which worked out alright. Never quite falling asleep, I exit the subway at my stop and slink home. Past the far intersection of my block, I see the laundromat, which reminds me: I have to do my laundry.

I know what happens when I lie down in my bed after coming home from work. I nap, and occasionally sleep the night. I don't mind to nap, since I prefer to keep late hours, but I arrive home knowing two things: it takes an hour and ten minutes to do my laundry, and I'd really like to lie down right now. I don't like to resist sleep; besides, I have an hour before it is 7:30, which is generally around the time when I absolutely must gather my laundry, roll a spliff, suit up, and quit the apartment with time enough to drop coins and dry clothes without making the laundromat close late. Closing time is 9:00. I know all the ladies who work the laundromat, and they know me, because I am the guy forever showing up with barely enough time to do my laundry. I wrote my senior thesis on procrastination, so I know what I'm doing.

I sleep a restful, unpleasant sleep. Unpleasant because of the dreams. Strange dreams. I don't commonly remember my dreams, and I don't often recall even having them. But today, in the space of an hour, I had and can recall three uneasy and eventful dreams, each related to the other, each separated from the other by the chirping of a set or re-set cell phone alarm.

1. I stroll through my neighborhood. It is my neighborhood in my dream, and somewhat similar to my neighborhood in waking life. An urban mix of two- and three-story brick dwellings, auto shops, storefronts, ironwork railings, cracked sidewalks, sycamores. I live on the strange borderlands between Brooklyn's Sunset Park and Borough Park neighborhoods, the former populated, at least proximate to me, with mainland Chinese immigrants, their restaurants (American Chinese, Chinese Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese, Vietnamese - all owned and operated by mainlanders), pharmacies, "variety stores", doctor's offices, garages. Borough Park is by and large an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, mostly of the Haredi stripe, big furry hats and modest women, the color black particularly popular, kosher grocers, cobblers, tailors, CPAs, a kippah shop. Generally a safe neighborhood, though sometimes the Chinese kids brawl, and the Haredim always keep an eye on you. But here in my dream, there is no population, there are no signs I cannot read. Yet I am strangely alienated in this place, far moreso than I ever am (or feel) in my usual environment. Typical dream crap.

I enter a building. It is a large structure, open inside like a warehouse, with a large cement loftspace. There are trucks up on the loft, two of them. I don't feel like I am trespassing when I ascent the staircase to the loft, where promptly one of the trucks reverses backwards into a pit filled with water, the driver somehow falling out of the cab and into the pit. The driver of the other truck gets out of it, looks at me, and seems to say, go, go help him. The dry trucker himself walks hesitantly toward his trapped co-worker, but I rush to his aid. I sense something is wrong, something has been thought through. The trucker in the pit isn't panicking; I pull him out. He says nothing, but all of a sudden the foreman, or some authority in the truck building, approaches me and thanks me for my quick action. Would I please come with him? He smiles in an obsequious way that gives something up, and puts his hand on my arm. I indicate my intention to exit his realm, but he persists in holding onto my arm. I tell him that I really must be going, my people are waiting for me just outside, they are expecting me. He lets go. Of course, I have no people outside, whatever he took that to mean. I flee hurriedly. The street again.

2. I am in a different New York neighborhood, not sure where, but it feels like Manhattan. A mix between the West Village and Midtown, with a little bit of Grozny thrown in, some wreckage and crumbled stone against the facades. I've been walking a long time. I'm going to visit my mom, who has just moved into this neighborhood. In wakey-world, my mom lives in South Florida, but my aunt does live on the UES. Mom's dream street is somewhat similar to Aunt Barrie's, some highway or bridge outlets onto it halfway up the block. I go into her building which, again, is a large and oddly open space with high ceilings and wide hallways. The visit with mom is pleasant, though I make a fuss out of her living in a neighborhood of disintegrating buildings - hey, what are you gonna do? I exit her place for whatever reason, and then decide to re-enter, only now the lobby has grown much larger and harbors some kind of railway depot. Wait, no, those aren't trains, it's some kind of amusement park ride, or in any case, small trams crammed with screaming passengers are regularly sent down numerous parallel tracks into a darkened, plunging void. People line up for this.

After witnessing two people slapping each other in the lobby/hell-train terminal, I decide to investigate why this is no longer my mom's apartment building; maybe I just went through the wrong entrance? I exit again, re-enter, and it is a different interior. I am in a hallway, walls painted dark purple, dim sconces barely illuminating anything. A janitor, young, long-haired, looking kind of like Vincent Gallo, mops in front of a doorway. I ask him what is on the other side of that door, and he replies that the meeting has just started, I should go in. I do. It's a book club! I don't know any of these people, but they all seem enjoyable enough. It looks almost like a class at Bard! And what are they discussing today? Wonderful Wonderful Times, by Elfriede Jelinek. I just happen to be reading that book as well (IRL), imagine that. I am invited to join in - sorry, there are no more chairs, but please make yourself comfortable. I sit on the floor next to the sexy girl. There is only one in this class. A lot of frumpy, Seth Roganesque guys, some nerdy birds, the teacher (whom I don't recall but I want to say looked like Takeshi Kitano), and the sexy girl. She wears a white skirt, comfortable shoes, her hair is brown, shiny and soft, eyes brown too, she looks rather Israeli, and has a proper melanin spot on her cheek a little above her lips, which are appropriately dreamy. She is fiddling with my hair. I glance up to see that she is attempting to affix her jacket to my scalp with some kind of adhesive tape. I look her in the eye and sternly inform her that I am not a coatrack. She looks a little surprised at this, the smiles and respectfully ceases that action.

I don't think the book club discussed the book at all, which is a shame. I find it odd that I just happen to be reading the same novel as this mysterious book club, not a popular novel in the U.S. at all, grim and violent and Austrian. My sexy friend offers me some white gum, which I do accept. It is gum. I chew it. Kitano-sensei attempts to organize the gathering, but I am now more aware of the fact that the gum seems to be expanding as I chew it, and certainly is becoming more viscous and grainy. I spit it out into the wrapper, but the gooey bits stuck to my teeth begin to grow again, working into an unmanageable volume. I look to the girl who provided me this impossible substance, and she smiles queerly. I excuse myself, walk out the door, and find that the hallways is now white-walled, the floors linoleum, the janitor in the exact spot as before. I ask for the bathroom, to which he accompanies me. He sees me attempting to spit out all the gum, picking at my teeth, and laughs. We crack jokes. He doesn't seem all that dimwitted, though he is now attempting to wrestle with me, wheezing and guffawing. He is obnoxious. Get off of me, I tell him, though he is now definitely trying to put me on the floor. Now get the fuck off of me, now. He just keeps laughing, trying to trip me, which he does. I fall to the ground, and he continues to attempt to restrain me. Holy shit, is this guy trying to rape me or something? I am not having this. I get out of his grasp with a combination of my foot and my crazy snarling voice, and return to the classroom, but I hear him in the hallway, laughing and wheezing. The horrible gum is back in my mouth.

3. This dream is very brief. I awoke from the previous one with my jaw sore, surely from grinding my teeth, which I am purported to have done often in my sleep as a child. The time on the clock/cellphone is probably around 7:20 at this point, but, following the laws of motion and thermodynamics as I do, I remain at rest. I reset the alarm.

I am back in the classroom. Apparently I've been getting along splendidly with my bookclubbers/classmates, as I now have my very own chair, and they are all gathered about me in little groups, standing while I remain seated. There is much laughter and merriment. Sexy girl and one of the Seths come up with a plastic bag. Let's play a game! they say. Hm. Seth puts a bag over his head, and the Israeli-y lady explains: put the bag on your head, and see how long we can hold it here until you don't want it there anymore, and when you no longer do, look, you can just put your head right through the bag. Seth promptly pulls the bag down tight onto his skull; the bag tears, his head is free, he smiles and laughs, she smiles and laugh, everybody smiles and laughs. Ohp, gotta get a new bag. She reappears with a new plastic bag. Thick. Seems to be reinforced every couple millimeters with embedded blue nylon lines, has ridges along its surface, textured, almost corrugated. Heavy duty. I point out the difference. Oh, there is more laughter, and an awkward glance between the girl and guy. A worrisome glance. I get up to to leave, and I remember the janitor. Everyone is laughing.

So then I woke up, cursed the time, and rushed to do my laundry, replaying the details of the dreams through my head as I lugged the heavy bag of clothes on my shoulder down the block. I have some ideas about what's behind these dreams. The laying-on of the hands may have something to do with an experience yesterday in the subway, while I was transferring from the J to the N at Canal Street after having dinner with my friend Jean in her neck of the borough. Going down a flight of stairs as the N train pulled up below, guy behind me begins pushing into my right side, trying to wedge between myself and the wall of the stairwell so he could get to the train. Pushing me, basically, while I was going down the stairs. I gave him the old rib-elbow, but in retrospect I should have shoved him headlong down the steps, shattering his arm or face on the platform, that little shit. I got onto the train at my apparently insufficient pace, as I'm sure he did too, unless he was expecting a Q. The subways, the sidewalks, they frustrate me, they do get me angry - the people, I mean, the great plurality of corpulence, flesh missiles on uncertain courses, having to dodge them, having to slow down for them, occasionally having to collide with them, having to adjust my step, reacting, causing reactions, and all I want to do is just get somewhere.

For the violence and malice displayed by the characters in my dreams, I can probably thank Ms. Jelinek. The feeling of foreboding, the paranoia, is certainly my own. I don't feel especially vulnerable in this city - no one has every harassed me, punched me, or pulled a blade on me, as other friends and acquaintances have reported - but I do tend to remind myself constantly that people are dangerous, dangerous. People cut off other people's eyelids and punch strangers for kicks and formulate nerve gasses and assemble antipersonnel devices. Cinema and newsmedia have made their case for a deadly and volatile world, and you can't argue with the pictures. The slapping that occurs in the amusement-void place comes from the mamma I saw slapping her young daughter on the subway platform at the Atlantic Ave.-Pacific St. platform while heading home from work. I never come up with the right thing to say to asshole parents in time to prevent the corporal punishment of their children, though I compose the perfect screeds later on.

Visiting mom in Bizarro-Manhattan? Well, she did mention yesterday that she wants to come up and visit me. She was born and raised there.

The ever-changing interiors seem like typical dream fare, but their darkness and spaciousness cause me to think that they may have their origins in Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, an ergodic novel I read some months ago about a family who moves into a house that, they soon discover, is dimensionally larger on the inside than it is on the outside, and, oh, a bunch of other weird shit. I was thinking about it on the train ride home, wondering why no one ever saw the unusual formatting and typefacing and asked, whoa, what is that? during the month I read it, mostly on the train. That would be my ideal way to meet people. Ask me about my book.

The emotionally turbulent Vincent Gallo janitor came from my watching The Brown Bunny on Monday. I am glad his dick did not appear in my dream.

The bag on the head I have no clue about, but now I can have a new kind of death to fear!

The gum, the gum. The gum was very persistent. I think it has something to do with my recent feelings about dental care. I bought mouthwash yesterday. I noticed a buildup of plaque a few days back, which I removed with post-it notes, lacking a brush at the time. And I ground my teeth, which probably accounts for a lot.

And, of course, there were the alarms. Violating my sleep-space, periodically cutting off my dream cycle, assaulting me. My better intentions (clean clothes) battling my basic desires (remain in bed), pitting one half of the soul against the other, laughter with murder, suspicion and doubt with heroism and art. I don't often recall my dreams, but when I do, they generally creep me out for a while.

somehow this is a book review

2008-10-15T06:49:49Z

I had a strange dream in which I seized control of the music played at the New York Sports Club (gym) I occasionally go to, and played Girl Talk. It truly united the classic rock-loving attorneys and hip-hop hardbodies who go there more regularly, and the gym turned into an uncanny cyborg dance party. As in, people were keeping the beat and dancing on the ellipticals, rocking out with barbells, engaging in weird choreographed moves with the giant rubber balls and adbuctor machines. Everyone was fit and happy, and no one wanted to go home. I woke up sweaty and aggravated. Time to start going again, my little brainmeats transmit.

I saw Beck with my friend Matt. As in, a Beck concert. Beck seemed somewhat unenthusiastic, but I've gathered that he's a moody fellow. It was a good show, but not conducive to partying. That's where that's at.

In the previous post, I mentioned having read twelve novels in the space of a year. They are listed below, for my records. I can recommend most of them.

Fiction read, September 2007 - September 2008

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima. Recommended by friend Sara, this is a brief and stark novel about the destruction of ideals. The central character is a young adolescent boy who engages in the excruciating and brutal annihilation of a figure he once lionized. With plenty of the delicate masculine posturing and sexual confusion you might expect from Mishima, it is a sinister little novel, and one to check out.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. This was my first foray into anything remotely "true crime"-esque, though this non-fiction novel is universally understood as being elevated beyond any genre. It is a labor of art. The story of the Clutter family murders is an incredible thing to read, and it lingers. Capote claimed to have a 95% memory retention and the level of detail in In Cold Blood is as remarkable and engaging as the careful explorations of tragedy, death, grief, justice, and humanity the tome serves up. Oh yes, you should read it.

The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq. The French author's Elementary Particles made an impression on me when I read it a few years ago, and I thought I'd return to the bitter stream for more. This is a melancholy book of ideas. Houellebecq seems transfixed by transhumanist notions of escaping our own biology; the novel is set in two times, the present, occupied by a highly successful European intellectual comedian named Daniel, and the distant future, as narrated by a sequence of Daniel's clones. Houellebecq is a cocky trickster-spirit, and the novel is rife with existential lament, sexual deviance, cultural recriminations, a doomsday cult, needless provocation, and then more sex. This novel doesn't easily fit anywhere. I really loved it, but, as I have learned, not everyone is down with Houellebecq.

World War Z by Max Brooks. The story of the oncoming zombie apocalypse, as recounted orally by a score of survivors from around the world. This was a supremely entertaining, and occasionally quite frightening, book from the author of The Zombie Survival Guide. Brooks has the keen ability to write convincingly in myriad voices, all of whom relate the terrifying cries of the undead. This book is full of compelling narrative, and if any of the foregoing sounds like something you'd enjoy, you should pick it up. It's a quick and satisfying read.

The Dying Animal by Philip Roth. A slim volume about longing, heartbreak, the fear of dying - typical Roth stuff, from what I've heard, though this was the first I'd read of him. I wasn't quite taken with the language or the story, but there are innumerable gems of specific knowledge and poetic suffering in the book, good stuff to quote to any undergrad lit students you may be trying to seduce. Apparently the movie Elegy is based on the book, but I didn't pick up on that fact when I saw the trailer for the flick.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. A new favorite. A sprawling, askew journey that begins with a lost cat, treks through some of the 20th century's forgotten horrors, and ends somewhere near a psychic assault, this is a many-splendored tale of loss, passivity, and connection. All I can do is tell you to read it before you die.

Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee. I believe this is the most recent of Coetzee's fiction, though the majority of it consists of occasionally-interesting academic essays framed within a fiction narrative. It was less than impressive, especially when compared with Disgrace, which is a mighty and solemn novel that will punch you squarely in the soul. This is basically Coetzee fretting about becoming old and lusting after a younger woman, which seems to be a fairly typical kind of novel by aging literary superstars. It does contain an impressive chapter about national shame.

White Noise by Don DeLillo. I'm still not quite sure what to make of this book. Yes, I did like it, though it also felt inconclusive, and not in the pleasing way certain left-uncertain tales do. This book was my first encounter with DeLillo, and the influence it wields is definitely apparent; I can't imagine authors like Ellis and Palahniuk writing without White Noise in the background. It's chic and cool. A product-hyperconscious story of (post)modern family love, vengeance, and academic bullpocky, it is totally worth reading (so maybe you could talk to me about it). As I suspected while reading it, the chapter entitled "The Airborne Toxic Event" has already been co-opted as a pithy band name.

Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee. Feeling let down by Diary of a Bad Year, I picked up this short novel hoping to find a bit of the old gut-kicking that Coetzee passed around in spades with Disgrace, and was not disappointed. This is an unsettling work, a parable of colonialism and localism that is clearly directed at the present, but could also have been written a century ago. A conscientious civil servant in a small colonial outpost is punished for his mild, sloppy, good-hearted demonstration of humanity toward a captured "barbarian" girl, and learns that the nature of civil order is highly uncivil.

Platform by Michel Houellebecq. The bastard child of the French literary establishment, Houellebecq is a confirmed provocateur (he recently stood trial for defaming Islam in this very novel). In it, Houellebecq reasons that sex tourism is the logical extension of the ongoing sortie of advanced capitalism into the realm of human intimacy, and plays out the founding of Club Med-like sex resorts in third world countries by the protagonist and his sexy professional girlfriend. Sounds intriguing? The novel abruptly ends in a sad, dissatisfying sequence of violence and loss (along with pussy and cock and endless balls, violence and loss are Houellebecq's primary fixations). I didn't like this novel much, and certainly not enough to recommend it to anyone over Houellebecq(that's pronounced well-beck; Coetzee, it turns out, is pronounced cut-zie-uh)'s other books, or any number of thousands of other books existing.

The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing. This is a remarkable and bare novel, Lessing's first. It was initially assigned to me in an anthropology class, obtained but unread. After the chauvinistic grandstanding of Platform, I thought I'd go for a feminine perspective on the horrible shit of life, and was quite satisfied by this one. It is a disturbing, sensitive, ambiguous novel about an ill-matched marriage in mid-20th century colonial Africa, which, as you may guess, also involves heaps of racial politics. There are yet no riots, no protests, no second chimurenga, and resistance comes subtle and incredibly personal. Characters that begin sweet and sympathetic become detestable and vile, which I am sure was very much Ms. Lessing's point. I recommend it strongly, though do not read it in conjunction with Disgrace unless you hate your life.

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. Another funky genre-bending journey by a passive protagonist, this time traveling into the snow country of Hokkaido in search of a unique, mystical sheep that penetrates the souls of men and uses them as tools of its terrible will. How fucking awesome is that? A thoroughly enjoyable book by a thoroughly enjoyable author, it is the second installment of the loose "trilogy of the rat," the third of which, "Dance Dance Dance," I am reading at present. If you like meandering metaphysical journeys through dreamlike simulacra of ordinary reality, and I suspect you do, then pick this up one day.

This concludes "fiction read, September 2007 through September 2008." Stop by next year for brief comments on House of Leaves, Dance Dance Dance, and others.

words, words, etc.

2008-10-08T22:36:06Z

Like all things in my life, and like me, this post comes in a little late. Citing the nausea that has stalked me since yesterday afternoon and what amounts to a rather fluid-heavy head cold, I called in to work this morning and notified the boss man of my absence today. Then I slept for six more hours. After spending much of the day sorting through an impressive stack of old, opened envelopes and categorizing the contents (a first sign of an organizational drive?), I concluded that I must write today. Just must write. Anything, really, so this will do. Writing, and in livejournal specifically, was once a part of my daily life, but over the years I have neglected the act, so much once a part of my identity. I am out of the habit. I have lost considerable faith in that personal capacity. I worry that if I don't begin excavating what is left, I will lose the ambition entirely and have to resign myself to a life of workdays, paystubs, and commutes, the dreaded spectre of ordinary adulthood I combated daily when I was fifteen, sixteen. The writerly life was my only hope, the best application of my best skill, a fiery pen jammed in the neck of the life insurance salesman, the tax auditor, the malpractice attorney, the copy editor, the hotelier. Writing was to be my shining path.

That path is now overgrown. As a person seemingly lacking the stringent self-discipline necessary to scale the heights of Maslow's ziggurat, I have tended to comfortable and unhealthy habits and become estranged to the earlier version of myself, that good Jon who would win money for an hour's worth of paragraphs. So here I am, trying to reconnect, and perhaps its working. This already feels good, though I know where it is going. For the little I've written in the past year, I have made a consistent effort to at least better acquaint myself with good writing. That's important, right? I have read more this past year in New York City than any other previous year, certainly including any year spent at Bard. It amounts to a whopping twelve novels. I am a slow reader and a slow writer, but careful at both. I get somewhere, but at ease, which is generally how I proceed. Yesterday my friend Danielle described me as a "long-suffering competent," which I liked, despite not being entirely clear on the meaning. Probably means what it means.

I've seen some famous faces in the past week, if you're the type who looks at the flaps of book jackets. Salman Rushdie, who edited this year's Best American Short Stories collection, presented the collection last Wednesday at Symphony Space on the upper West side, with readings of two stories by the actors Jane Alexander and Michael Rapp. Josh got tickets for himself, myself, friend Jean (who scored me a sweet hardcover edition from her job at a lit agency), and friend Jon, who also likes books and who was also born October 2. I've never read anything by Rushdie, though I'll get around to it. Apparently the fatwa, though still technically in effect, no longer keeps him from making public appearances in rooms full of aging Jews. Rushdie is a hope-giver. His existence says, hey, look, you can be a chubby, aging, bald literary nerd, but as long as you score a Nobel, you can score with the likes of Padma Lakshmi. He's a charming man.

Also charming is Haruki Murakami. I'd learned that he was going to be publicly interviewed as part of the New Yorker Festival on Sunday. Tickets apparently sold out twelve minutes after they'd gone up, but, I was told, a few would be available for $25 at the door an hour prior to the event. In the early afternoon, after toking with my friend Jes the remainder of the previous night's birthday party favors, we boarded the N, Manhattan-bound. She scrambled off at 34th, toward Penn Station, and I continued on. I got to the venue at 1:50, two hours and ten minutes before the scheduled interview. There was already a line of hopefuls, some of them outright "fans" of Murakami, which I suppose is what I'd be if I didn't recoil from the idea of literary fandom. Only three people ahead of me. Okay, the guy in front of me planned to buy a ticket for his girlfriend, too, so that's four. After waiting that hour and ten minutes, it was revealed the the tickets held for at-the-door sale numbered exactly two, but, the staffwoman assured the now thirty-person-long line, there are always last-minute cancellations, and those tickets would be resold at the door just prior to the interview. Okay. Only two people ahead of me. I could stand for another hour, whatever.

I chatted the dude in front of me, a cool fellow who, it turned out, also worked as a paralegal just a block away from me. We debated the pros and cons of the Hale & Hearty Soup on Remsen street, him railing against the prices, me apologizing it's flavorful selections, and the fact that it is the only healthyish alternative in an area stocked with KFC, Popeye's, Nathan's, and McDonald's. The woman behind me, an attractive 28-ish Japanese American woman who had somehow kept her PR job on Wall Street, spoke giddyishly with me about maybe getting Murakami to sign some of the first-edition Japanese editions she'd toted along. Behind her was a tall, brightly-adorned girl who said she'd come from Korea to New York just to see Mr. Murakami. Definitely a fan. (Apparently his public appearances are exceedingly rare). Paralegal-dude and his ladyfriend were informed that two tickets had become available. He wished me luck. The gals behind me looked hopeful, but with a tinge of dread. I was next in line for a cancellation-ticket, it was ten minutes to four, and legit ticket holders were now being permitted entrance. I looked at the tall Korean girl. Who flies 14 hours in the hopes of scoring a ticket? She seemed sincere in her love for the author. A New Yorker photographer asked her to pose with her Korean editions. She giggled sheepishly. Pretty cute, I thought. I decided that I would be a major jerk if I took a ticket and left her standing on the sidewalk, forlorn, perhaps utterly crushed, so close to getting in but ultimately denied. Staffwoman came around with a couple in tow. Apparently the couple was willing to sell their tickets to us. She pointed to me and the PR girl, said you and you, you can go, pointed to the Korean girl, said not you. You, you, not you. Oh man did Korean girl look crushed. I told staffwoman that Korean girl could have my ticket. Staffwoman looked shocked, told me I was a good man, Charlie Brown. Told me that she'd do everything she could to see that I got a seat. A man walked by while Japanese American PR and tall cute Korean were sifting through their purses to pay the couple. He overheard staffwoman, looked at me, said "oh, are you looking for a ticket?," and then handed one to me.

I sat next to Korean girl, whose name is So-Hyun, though her friends call her Soy. Mr. Murakami came out looking like one of his own protagonists, suit jacket over a faded Tide t-shirt, slacks, sneakers. His English, though fairly accented, is fluent, which I guess should be expected of a man who has translated Carver and Fitzgerald into Japanese. Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of New Yorker and elegant lady extraordinaire, made a brief introduction and got down to the quiz. Murakami writes because it is fun. He doesn't plot things out ahead of time, he just sees where they go. How does he know when a story is finished? Well, it's like making love; you know when you're done. What does he listen to? When he writes, baroque. When he drives, he likes R.E.M., Beck, and Radiohead. He does rewrite, sometimes heavily. He never reads his own stuff in Japanese once it's published, he prefers to read it in English. The translations are very faithful.

There was the man: easy, relaxed, probably even happy, nearing 60 and not looking a day older than 50, probably thanks to all that running. Discipline, he said, was very important. It is hard to sit down and write a novel. It is next to impossible to continue to sit, decade after decade, and write novels. You have to be tough. He learned his toughness from running.

Well, shit.

So here is a baby step, on the way to running. Hey, I'm meeting So-Hyun for coffee tomorrow.

enragedfetus @ 2008-09-16T16:29:00

2008-09-16T20:29:21Z

To the little bird who washed itself in the stream in the park while I sat on the rocks nearby the other day: thanks for stopping by.

I guess lots of stuff has happened. Also, hardly anything. Lately I feel like I'm living in a fugue. It would probably help if I kept some kind of ongoing journal of my thoughts and the events of my life. Hmm.

enragedfetus @ 2008-06-03T22:18:00

2008-06-04T02:19:31Z

Holy crap, I last updated six weeks ago? I thought I would do better than that. I would write a bunch now, but I've had such a long day and want only to sit under moving air and watch a movie, which will be After Hours.

Basically, I just wanted to come on here and express a little joy for Obama sealing the party's nomination. Just under a year until we see the White House on MTV Cribs!

I figure the slightly racist-interpretable element of the above quip will be negated by my voting for him.

my very first craigslist missed connection!

2008-04-20T07:36:59Z

Your shittiness is incomprehensible

You, caucasian, female, early to mid twenties, were standing on the Brooklyn-bound N/Q/R platform at the Canal Street stop at around 2:20 AM late Saturday night. I was on the N train that pulled up alongside you. I am sure you remember me. I was the guy stuck in between two cars, the doors of which became hopelessly jammed after I passed through one. Yes, that guy: the one you made eye contact with, and then quickly looked away from. You may recall how I tried to get your attention by addressing you directly and politely, asking if you would please notify the conductor, perhaps ask him if he could unlock such door. But, no, you steadfastly looked away. It was only after I began calling you out by what you were wearing that you looked at me again, and when I asked if you'd assist, you shook your head, clearly and calmly, 'no.' When I subsequently remarked that you were an asshole, you nodded, equally calmly. If you are wondering why I spat at you as the train pulled away, it was only because I was tired of being trapped underground between two cars, and was really hoping to have gotten inside the train before it crossed over the Manhattan Bridge, which, of course, it then did. That part of the journey was even somewhat lovely. Don't worry, when all attempts by people inside either car to open either door failed, I kicked in a window and found a seat. But then, you obviously were not worried. I would like to meet you, if only to get a sense of where your unsparing indifference seeps from. I give you my every assurance that I will not punch you in the throat repeatedly. Do write back.

the vague details

2008-04-08T09:10:11Z

Numerous odd things occurred today.

Whereas before there were no trees outside my building, now there are trees. Spring has come, and some city department has bequeathed onto my little stretch of street two young trees, I think cherry, positioned directly beneath telephone lines. While getting ready to go to work this morning, I watched contractors break up several slabs of concrete sidewalk. They used some kind of pneumatic smashing machine attached to what looked like a hybrid of a bulldozer and a golf cart. I had no idea what they were doing until I stepped out and saw their equipment draped with green banners, some proclaiming the great honor of the Mayor and his decree to better the city through flora. Sure enough, when I came home, there were two trees, maybe 10 feet high from trunk to tip, each steadied by lines tied to two large stakes that were in fact sections of larger, more robust trees that had been culled for the purpose. And as cynical as I feel when I think that these trees will be cut down in a few years to spare some aging telecommunications infrastructure, I am really looking forward to the color green again.

I transited and met a friend for coffee and information. On the way back home, after having screwed up a transfer, I was propositioned by a bashful prostitute while walking from one station to another. She asked me for a cigarette, I asked her for directions to the next station, and when I went in said direction, she began to keep up with me. "Say, sorry to ask but, gee, you wouldn't go for a blowjob, would you?" Something like that, really. I made up some lie about having a girlfriend who delivers vigorous and satisfying blowjobs. She continued walking by my side and asked if I spoke Spanish, which I don't actually. She was very aww shucks about the whole thing. Still, I was kind of annoyed that she kept walking with me after I'd given my final decision on the matter. I pulled the whoops, gotta tie my shoe while you keep walking maneuver, and it worked like a charm. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but my mind's Abacus of Stabbing Likelihood indicated that it was probably best for the both of us if we parted. On my train home, for the first time ever, I got an entirely empty subway car for TWO STOPS, and I sang just like I've always planned to in that scenario.

A very late phone call with a new person provided information that revealed a convoluted and highly improbable (seeming, and even more so than it seems) connection between between multiple disparate parties. This revelation was only possible in light of a conversation I had with my friend from earlier in the evening. I suspect that the flow of knowledge regarding these connections may have greater ramifications than the connections themselves. Hence my being entirely vague.

Also, tomorrow shall be a day in which I eat falafel.

return of the ragged claws

2008-04-05T06:31:34Z

Um.

Hello.

This is where I used to come to write things, and for a long time, it was good. Good for me, and good for you. I then became disenchanted; again, with me, and with you. I began to feel like the things I really and badly needed to write about, I could not share with you. And without an audience to feed my ego, either out of narcissism or necessity, the need to write itself, and its usefulness to me as I conceived of it at the time, slowly dried up. I believe that was a critical error on my part, but things having been as they were, it was also probably unavoidable. I think it is time for me to return.

I must assure you that I am apprehensive. This is the internet, and I am exposing myself. I've spent years carefully and ably withholding knowledge of myself from the external universe, tailoring my catalog of personal facts and modes of humor to each of the people I happen to love or get along with, perhaps a different strain of myself for each person. As sure as I am that this is incredibly commonplace behavior, I am also sure that the effect would be the same even if the behavior was not present. No one sees the same picture. Nonetheless, I am occasionally more or less overcome with a jolting, gut-punching dissatisfaction in what I think has been a long and willful denial of other hearts and minds into my own. This has to change before things get out of hand. Consider this journal a defensive strategy against previous defensive strategies. My aim here is to let off some steam before the hull cracks. The steam will take the form of little truths about me, or at least some considered self-interpretation. Of course, I will write about other things as well, because I get bored with my self just as you must have become bored long ago with people regurgitating their personal turmoil into dramatic little vignettes for you to comment on. I see weird shit all the time, and I promise to write nicely about it. At the very least, I need to practice writing again. I am rusty, charleyhorsed.

Livejournal, I return to you and embrace you as an outlet. I am simultaneously repulsed by the fact that I am writing this, and the fact that you are reading this, but I suspect that it will be best for at least one of us. Oh, do not expect the whole shebang. I cannot even conceive of a time when I will be willing, or even able, to perform a written vivisection of all my innards; anyway, the medium (and any other) does not permit that. Plus, I have to keep the choice secrets locked away for future barter. There is also the problem with my never having thoroughly (or anything much more than cursorily) examined myself for myself. I could say that I feel fragmented, but that's not quite it; it is more like feeling shadowed, shaded. I have undergrowth to hack through, you see?

So, this journal shall have several uses. I will dump into it memories, nightmares, fucked up fantasies, moments of beauty, snippets of overheard or generated conversation, annoying meanderings, conclusions that you had pegged when you were in middle school, experiences you wish were your own, criticism, madness, poetry, stories, and eulogies. I am mining for soul.

Also, it is worth noting that I may abort this project at any time, and that the possibility exists that I might never write here again after this post. One problem that sure would be great to resolve is my seeming disinterest in committing to projects of the most useful kind. However, this probably will not be all. I hope and pray, except not really. I tend not to pray.

Also: quit reading my private thoughts!

Just kidding. Thank you.

enragedfetus @ 2007-04-12T04:18:00

2007-04-12T08:30:22Z

Kurt Vonnegut was a person I had really hoped to meet at some point. So it goes.

enragedfetus @ 2006-11-27T18:50:00

2006-11-27T09:50:52Z

I experienced anxiety and hesitation before writing out this first sentence. Those are some of the things I will have to deal with in this project.

Some hours ago I returned from a solo trip to the beach. Same beach I always go to. From the lifeguard stand where I perched I could see some kids further down, around a fire. The wind coming off the Atlantic was strong and the fire was burning very well, but very quickly. I gave them some kindling, sheets of palm bark dessicated by the wind. Then I left.

I went to the beach because it has featured prominently in moments of ecstasy and thought in my personal history. It is a very dynamic place, where many of my favorite bits of the universe come together. I like going at night. Then the stars can be included in the dynamism. The people who go to the beach at night tend also to be reflective and unseen, quiet silhouettes moving against the thin white lines of the breaking surf. Sometimes they also fuck on lifeguard stands, or start fires, neither of which I really mind at all. I will also go to the same beach tomorrow, in the day, because I also love the beach in the day. I can wade and swim with less caution, and finally feel some sunlight on my bareness. Tomorrow evening I fly back up to New York, get into La Guardia around 9pm, drive back up to school. There my shirt will remain on while outdoors.

I went to the beach tonight to think on the dead, and also to think nothing. I could not clear my head. Instead I just sang to myself and looked into the horizon, imagining an asteroid striking at sea and the waves swallowing South Florida.

it's a dream post

2006-06-20T07:41:35Z

On the flight over to Japan I had the most entertaining and realistic dream I can recall. In my dream, I woke up from my hazy nap to find myself in the same seat, sitting next to the same people, looking at the same screen in the center of the fuselage on which, at that very moment in waking reality, the in-flight movie of Big Mama's House was playing to no one's satisfaction. In my dream, however, the stats of our flight were listed, and the estimated time of arrival was 53 seconds. I looked out the window and saw Osaka bay, with brightly-lit buildings lining the shore a the Incredible Sinking Island that is Kansai Airport forming under the wing. We landed and I was ushered to the shore by a rowboat, where myself, my friend Georgia (whom I sat next to on the flight) and our professor Michiko were brought to light of a conspiracy taking place at that very moment by high-ranking members of the Japanese military, who were planning to create a national panic and launch a coup. This plot element was quickly shoved out of mind when we met the Rat King, a highly developed rodent not unlike Master Splinter who took us to a night club in Osaka where we were asked if we would like an in-flight beverage. I then had some orange juice.

Remember: http://nijon.livejournal.com

enragedfetus @ 2006-06-17T14:09:00

2006-06-17T05:09:23Z

Hello. I am in Japan.

http://nijon.livejournal.com/

you got it you got it

2006-04-04T01:57:33Z

As a person who flies in and out of New York several times a year, and like most adults who've boarded an airplane, I guess I've inured myself to the terror and awe one might expect a land mammal to experience when being propelled through the atmosphere. Though I am always sure to book a window seat, it's because the view helps stave off the boredom of air travel, and frankly I'd rather be randomly seated next to one person than two. Aeronautics is no longer the domain of dreamers and restless engineers, but open to those of us who'd rather just get there faster and watch some Direct TV on the way. Slightly tragic, but not surprising; practicality consuming the sublime. It so happened that one of the highlights of my Spring Break came, quite accidentally, in through the windows of the Airbus A320 I took out of Florida yesterday. I suppose I could have calculated the event, but I just happened to be sitting on the right side of a northward flight over the Atlantic at 6:00 AM, and the solar system did the rest. There was the brilliant Morning Star, and below it was another celestial body, dimmer but still visible slightly above the brightening Eastern horizon. It was the first time I'd ever seen the planet Mercury. Below us I could just barely discern the outline of an island, lit up on the edges by hotels and streetlights. At 6:20am I got to watch the sun rise over the Bahamas, neon acid light highlighting the wispy clouds a few thousand feet below, a wobbley red orb peaking over the slight curve of the earth and penetrating the cabin windows to produce a static disco-ball effect of red ovals, on the passengers, on the crew, throughout the fuselage. And in that moment I truly appreciated air travel.

in which jon is overwhelmed by the urge to kill

2006-03-29T07:30:03Z

It was huge. It was moving across the top of the wall opposite me, a mobile, brown stain on all that is domestic and familiar. I don't remember when my revulsion toward large, winged insects was programmed into me; it was probably wired somewhere between ancestral DNA and the poolside wasp attack when I was five. While I regard the prejudicial formulations of my mind to be fair sport for my intelligence and antipathy toward nonthinking response, I also consider how useful these instantaneous judgments/responses can be. For example, I usually don't even have to consider not touching poo when I see it. See also: the olympic leap I made after meeting a rattlesnake while walking home from highschool. However, I just cannot seem to justify the intensity of my response to seeing a fat cockroach roaming the walls of my home. It was merely being, just as I was - but it also just happened to be defying gravity and betraying civilization and reminding me of the inherent meaninglessness and absurdity of my own existence. My transition from relaxed repose to murderous rage was alarmingly quick, paused only by about a half-second of utter disgust. My scientific indoctrination has led me to believe that cockroaches are harmless foragers, cleaner than cats and typically not a vector of human disease. So maybe my literary indoctrination is to blame. Whatever the source of the hatred, the response was as offensive as the stimulus. The methodology of my execution of the insufferable insect, though not given much thought in the act, probably can be mined for all sorts of fascinating insights into my psyche and contemporary Western culture in general, if you've got enough boredom and pretense to have at it.

I believe my first "thought", really just an image replayed in my head, upon seeing the roach was a commercial. Greenish, animated bugs lament their fate in colloquial working-class English as a stylish woman's hand positions a canister over them, spraying them with a toxin which causes them to instantly vaporize. This is what was on my mind as I was moving from the study to the kitchen, where, under the sink, among dish detergent and rubber solvents, I expected to find a canister of Raid or somesuch concoction. I fell to my knees before the sink and swung open the cabinet doors. I scanned every bottle and can for the signs of insect lethality, but found none. I was determined to poison it, as oppose to simply squash it or, better yet, gently coax it into a box for outdoor release. Squashing, as an idea, is just too messy, and capture-and-release was not an option; it would just find its way back inside, and anyway I didn't want to have to get so close to such an organism to capture it. The spray-death has been sold to me as the acceptable way men and women kill bugs. Historically speaking, poisoning is regarded as one of the more efficient models of pest liquidation, and, of course, has become nearly synonymous with the word "extermination." Under the sink, however, there were no canisters of insecticide. There was still the question of the Cockroach Problem.

Time was running out. When I had darted from the study, the bug was moving swiftly along the angle of the wall and ceiling, all sheen and thick brown legs. If I took too long in the kitchen I might lose track of it back in the other room; I did not want the discomfort of meeting Herr again. I thought of incapacitating it with some other spray; I had successfully frozen invasive wasps to death in the past, using cans of Dust-Off held upside-down. There was none of that. My eyes turned to the WD-40. I did not even consider the silly notion of disabling the insect with unmanageable lubrication. No. What immediately came to mind was the product's flammable properties. I decided at that moment that the quickest, surest, and possibly most spectacular way to dispatch the intruder was through the act of torching. Not incineration, mind you, which would involve a little too much fire in the house, and would anyway be unnecessary. I figured that a quick blast of intense heat would kill the tiny bastard, so I fetched a grill lighter from another kitchen drawer and rushed back to the room, Delta-Force style. As I entered the doorway I watched the enemy flutter down from the ceiling to the floor, emitting a droning sound which chilled the marrow in my bones. It sensed me approaching and rushed under a small stack of magazines in a corner. I hit the area with a quick spray of WD-40, which burst into a surprisingly hot and bright fireball when it met the lighter flame a foot away. I guess we were both a little surprised. It darted out of the room and into a hallway, and after a second of well-reasoned hesitation, decided to try and torch it one more time, now a little more safely over the tile. The second blast did it. The roach hissed quietly and went belly-up, unmoving. The flame left a grey residue on the tile around the dead bug which smelled like turpentine. I still placed a twice-folded paper towel over the bug and crushed it with the end of a crow-bar which I'd also found under the sink, just to ensure that the job was done while maintaining a safe distance from disgusting brown roach goop.

Only after I had flushed the remains did I allow myself any surprise at my actions. The fact is that I took a little bit of pleasure in killing a bug in such an outlandish, unnecessarily dangerous way, even turning it into a kind of play, calling the roach "muthafucka" and possibly mocking a German accent. Until I set my eyes upon it, the organism and I inhabited different worlds, neither competing for food nor space. Then I saw it, and space became a huge issue. For whatever reason, my programming regarding domestic space, hygiene, and intrusion caused me, without much thought or reflection, to become a killer, and though I don't feel truly awful about having annihilated a cockroach, which I regard as a mechanistic entity lacking even the sensate equivalency of fish or chickens (which I kill directly or indirectly quite often), I do feel a little unnerved about the rashness of my response. A little part of me knows that the cockroach and I could have continued to peacefully coexist even despite my having witnessed its grotesque existence. I could have gotten past that. A greater part of me was so intolerant, however, that I monomaniacally focused my energies on ridding my world of its apparentness. Is there an ethical question to my methods? Is burning a bug worse than poisoning a bug worse than stepping on a bug? What of the joy taken in this kind of extermination? What of the tinges of guilt which follow? Was I, through my specific actions, play-acting a part of the greater Historical nightmare? The Holocaust? Afghanistan? You write the damn essay. I'm going to watch more TV.

enragedfetus @ 2006-02-04T05:26:00

2006-02-04T10:28:20Z

Wow, it's been so long since I just dicked around on livejournal for three hours. My attempt at sleep officially ended an hour and a half after it began. It's just going to be one of those nights. Thanks for writing stuff.

enragedfetus @ 2005-10-24T19:19:00

2005-10-25T02:51:48Z

Hey Florida, I hear trees are down. I can't get through to anyone's cellular phone, so I assume some towers are, too. Is everyone alright and dry? None of the accounts I've heard so far sound particularly horrific. My sister reports that our grill in now toppled over in the grass by the lake, which I am prepared to accept. I heard that power may be out for a couple weeks, so this post may lack official purpose. All the same, I do hope these early autumn weeks are cool and breezy for you. Maybe a good time to visit upstate New York? We have colorful trees here, and all the squash you could ever possibly want. Dress warm, though, the winds here are chilly. On the other hand, they're not likely to drive a fence post through your bedroom.

Remember not to operate your generators indoors, folks, unless the patio damage was just too much to bear.

enragedfetus @ 2005-10-02T06:19:00

2005-10-02T10:22:49Z

Oh, my shoulder.

enragedfetus @ 2005-09-15T02:02:00

2005-09-15T06:03:28Z

Everybody plays the fool.

No exception.

oops pow surprise

2005-06-23T04:06:27Z

Last night me and Julee and two newfound friends drove down to an uninhabited strip of Ft. Lauderdale beach and got drunk on cheap vodka and pure, grovestand-style Florida orange juice. About twenty minutes before the brilliant sunrise, Brandon, who leaves for the Airforce in a week, used his Arab-tracking night vision eagle eyes to spot a couple fucking on a lifeguard stand. The rest of us could just make it out, but there was some very definite doggy-style silhouette humping going on. "Slap that!" I shouted. And slap it he did. Our cheerful applause of the female orgasm will forever haunt their naughty public sex urges.

kaplan gets pink eye

2005-05-26T12:39:12Z

I'm hideous! I am grotesque. I look like a half-caste Zombie, pus dripping from my eye sockets and gluing lashes in clumps. My summer vacation is off to an inauspicious start, no doubt, with a waning strep throat and what the physician's assistant called the worse case of conjunctivitis she'd ever seen. My eye was swollen shut! Pinkeye bullshit, it looks like someone popped a cherry tomato into my ocular cavity. A cherry tomato that leaks yellow goo. Toss that into your salad and dress it. Thankfully I received prescribed antibiotics yesterday so I may get to schedule some non-solitary fun for the weekend (I'm looking at you, Julee... with my hideous crimson orb), or perhaps next week. I love antibiotics. They ease real suffering! My friend Radhika refuses to treat her infectious maladies with pills or drops, which does smack of some kind of noble faith in the body, but I can still call it imprudent. There's definitely a line to be drawn. A headache can wrestle itself to death in the dark without any chemical assistance, but when important body parts start leaking like cracked eggs, I think it's time to partake in the fruits of science.

A medical theme is developing. Next month my mother will undergo a major reparative operation on her lower spine, in a last-ditch effort to relieve herself of some long-agonizing pain and, hopefully, to help her walk better. I'm to care for her, with the occasional help of my sister Sage, while she recovers. I've assisted her after previous operations and the work was surely no fun, but I have no idea what is in store for us this summer. As worried as I am, my mom is nervous to the point of neuroses. She swallows all her fear and it comes out as an obsessive need to keep every corner of our house in an impossibly pristine state, I guess her way of maintaining orderliness, exerting control. Her body is being undone, has been shifting from within for years and years, and for someone who has put up with so much pain and real stress, I'd say she's extraordinarily rosy for all of it. Her mind has kept well through years of daily pain. Some minds do not. Apart from my sickness, though brief, and my mother's continuing unease, I must also contend with a father who is, to say the least, unhinged. Since I've come home he's been calling me incessantly, begging for my company, speaking to me about things which, I imagine, most fathers do not speak to their sons about. As I recall, though, that's always been the case. I seem to have talked him down from his dusty old ledge sometime in my last couple visits, and though he's put thoughts of suicide back into his dresser drawer, I suspect it's only a matter of a few weeks until his mood swings back in that direction or his fear of eternal damnation wanes. I might be wrong. He seems more conscious of himself now than I ever remember him being, and I like thinking that this is because I now speak to him honestly, and do not file down my points. He is now openly questioning why, for instance, the older two of his three children want nothing to do with him, and he is finding answers that might be of some wound-binding power. I can only hope so.

I've got a job to find. I don't really like these summers in Florida. My urge toward indolence almost always overcomes my better-laid plans, though I imagine this summer might be different. I'll be busy enough. Annandale seems so far away.

The New Henderson Massacre

2005-05-17T09:40:52Z

It looks like someone opened fire in the computer lab. Bodies sprawled everywhere, on the couch, on the floor, in the hallways, slumped over the desktops, all sound alseep despite their decision to spend the night working. Me? I'm jazzed. I'm getting my shit done. Hopefully I'll only have to work on two final papers in Ft. Lauderdale. Only one of which will be overdue.

Ah, progress.

T-minus

2005-05-16T07:43:53Z

I have eleven hours to write my Anthro of Violence & Suffering final.
After which I must attend the Anthro department party at my professor's house, 5:30 - 8:30
I must then finish another final for another Anthro class, by Tuesday 3pm.
I must also write an overdue 3-page response paper for my Relativism class for an essay I have yet to read.
I must attend the final Relativism class at my professor/dean's house at Tuesday 4:30.
I must also pack up my belongings and place them into storage somewhere which has yet to be fully determined.
I must also box some of my belongings and ship them home to Florida.
My flight leaves La Guardia at 1:25 pm on Wednesday. Which means I must catch a train to Manhattan to overnight at my aunt's apartment by 11pm Tuesday night or, more likely, find some way to get to the train station by 10am Wednesday morning.

This means, effectively, that I cannot allow myself to sleep for the next 48 hours or so. Why do I fuck myself so?

Goodnight, Livejournal.

enragedfetus @ 2005-05-13T01:00:00

2005-05-13T04:59:07Z

In the meanwhile, I sure love a lot of (you) people.

Thanks for visiting the Game Room, friends.

enragedfetus @ 2005-05-12T22:23:00

2005-05-13T02:39:18Z

What do you tell an old man when he's thirsting for death? Hanging in by a thread, empty of any redemption, hopeless husk man, years of waiting and nothing coming. When nonexistence seems preferable to the alternative, by nearly all accounts but the priest's, what reasons does one provide for preserving the body and cradling the consciousness? Is it even right to encourage hope? When hope seems so empty. What do I tell the sad old man whose got nothing left but a dog and a television, both of which he stands to lose any time? Children he's hurt too much to ask back to his side, one last kid to keep him company. The man who used to speak so fervently of God and Jesus has forsaken thoughts of both, after years of begging the air for better. How can the old man stick around when there's nothing left to cling to? What would you say to this sad old man?

enragedfetus @ 2005-05-05T06:11:00

2005-05-05T10:12:18Z

iPod: recovered.

Also I will be living in Tewksbury 119 next year. Please ignore the stench of gastric juices wafting down the halls and visit me.

Also I have a debilitating desire to gorge on eggplant parmigiana right now. It is 6:29 a.m. My heel is bruised from shopping cart shenanigans. I saw Carmina Burana last night and was very pleased, especially to see a number of my friends in the choir. I have so much work to do. I must do my work. The computer lab monitor keeps pacing, as he always does, and it's making me nervous. I want to damage his spine, just for a while, just until his shift is over. He can pace all the fuck he wants in the privacy of his home. Just leave my field of vision out of it, you fucking swine.

Holy god I need to do my work.