10-18-00
I've come to love post-it notes. I've got them all over my computer right now, random post it notes with things I had to do this week. Things I'm not supposed to forget. I don't even think I look at the post-it notes, but the very act of writing the thing down and sticking it somewhere drills the act into my mind. I now will never forget, for example, to get the address of WEHR for Melissa. (I've already accomplished this, so I am now free to forget. I acknowledge this physically by crumpling the post-it note up and throwing it away) I'm rambling. I've been told it's alright for me to ramble here. I know this, it's my journal. *chuckles*
Well my cat is doing well for those of you who have asked recently (there were only a few of you, but I appreciate you nonetheless). He's definitely not one to give up easily. He knows that he cannot see out of the eye, but he is adjusting to this well, I think. That is a good thing.
"We won the Grammy, so eyes down, please."
- Maynard James Keenan
Old music is like a warm, fuzzy, comfortable blanket that you can crawl into and feel ultra-good, and which renews you with each listen. However, new music is like some kind of adrenaline shot, or a caffeine pill, that enervates and excites. You can't not be happy when faced with new music (if it's good new music). Double negative. Oo. ;)
9-25-00
My cat, Max, has to have one of his eyes taken out, because it's infected. I think this can serve as a good metaphor for today. I'm all about metaphors.
Max is the coolest cat in the whole world that I've ever raised from kittendom. He is an outdoors/indoors cat. I prattle on and on about how amazing he is to people sometimes. He is a mutant; his foot is all sorts of mangled and he has this lump on his side (but apparently the vets can fix that, but that's irrelevant). He can't run exactly right because his own leg (the one that has the mangled paw) is at an odd angle. But he hunts down animals that are much larger than him, and he's awesome. He gets along really really well with my dog, and my sister's cat, even though he pretends that he doesn't like the other cat. Sometimes he'll hunt down and almost kill an animal, and then leave it somewhere for Moe (my sister's cat) so that it can feel like it has killed something. Moe isn't a very good hunter.
Max is a real sweetheart too. He loves when I pay attention to him, or when Horne pays attention to him. And I hate when I have to discipline him, but he understands. Don't worry, I'm getting to the point.
So the vet told my mom that some cats when they have to have an eye removed (apparently it's fairly common) become really docile housecats. I can't imagine this will happen to Max..but I can imagine how it happens. Something happens that changes their world, and they can't deal with it. It's so hard to go out and hunt with only one eye, so they just don't bother. Thing is, Max was roaming the wilderness with his one eye so completely infected that he couldn't see anyway, half dead with fever, and he was having fun out there. I know he'll come back from the surgery and be itching to get outside and have the time of his life. He is a trooper, man, he is tough, tougher than me. You know what? If I had half the guts of that cat, I'd be the most awesome person you ever met. I'd never let adversity get me down, I'd laugh when I was pushed around, I'd be a real go getter and no one could convince me to slow down. I'd never be sad because what could get me down? I'm tougher than all that, I don't let infections and fever and losing an eye get me down. I'm admirable.
So I now have a new role model in my little cat buddy Max. Spider-Man, Max, and my grandpa. What a very strange mix of role models. *smiles*
9-9-00 Tangerine. Got some cereal in my pocket. Tangerine. I can't wait to make you nauseous. Makin' love. Nauseous. Now I'm nauseous. God, now I'm nauseous. I feel bad.
Tee hee hee hee hee!!!
8-29-00
Discard the old, in with the new. Discard the old, in with the FASHION!
Oops. ;) SO anyway, I'm debating about several things. For example, should I (a) go back to slanging dope or should I (b) maintain and try to cope or should I (c) just get crazy and wild?
But no, I chose D create the G child.
Someone stop my aimless quoting of songs. Today I learned that if you talk in class and you actually know what you're talking about, you sound really cool. ;)
8-24-00
It's difficult to explain how things can feel so great and hurt so much. I just don't know what to say about that. ;)
Much against everyone's advice I'm still tryin' I'm tryin' I'm tryin' I'm tryin.
Good line from that song: "They cheated me of everything. But I laughed..until..I stopped."
Silly, and yet oh so funny. I should go to sleep but I've no desire..ah well.
8-22-00
First day of classes. I think I'm going to really like these ones, the ones I had today. Tomorrow's classes I'll probably really like too, but I don't know that yet. Anyway, I am planning on getting a 4.0 this semester but I know that will take a lot of work. Wish me luck, and egg me on. I need all the help and stuff that I can get. *love*
8-17-00
There was no tomorrow. Meeting was cancelled. Now it is very possible that I will simply never see those people again. Now I'm very seriously considering staying an extra day at home and leaving at the very last possible moment just so that I can say goodbye to people who probably won't even appreciate what it does mean to me. Ah well. People are..wonderful, but at the same time, simple at times. I know I am.
Five decks tarot cards, three decks playing cards, one deck of cards to learn cutting with, one pack of index cards, two stacks Magic: The Gathering cards. A solitary, left-over tarot card that sits to the side. 'The Magician.' And a souvenir set of cards.
I got one of the coolest gifts ever in the mail today and it made me just incredibly happy. I never would have thought that I was getting it until I did. Imagine that!
And a few days ago, I got a free t-shirt in a mail that I completely forgot that I was getting. I mean, it blew me away and made my day completely super happy just because here was this free t-shirt that I had forgotten I was getting! I've talked about that before, about how much more awesome something like that feels when it's not something you're excited about and expecting..sort of, when I talked about a video game I had won in a contest, and when I finally did get it, it was exciting because I had almost forgotten about it. Same deal here, at the time they said they were sending me a free t-shirt I was totally psyched, a month or so passed, I forgot, and then the t-shirt actually came to my house, and I was totally psyched again! I love that feeling. =)
Ya da da da, yippety skippity. Probably, those were the six most intelligent words on this whole page. ;)
Love y'all.
Me
8-16-00
"I said what I said and you know what I mean
But I still can't focus on anything."
Tomorrow I say goodbye to some people that I've met over the summer that in all likelihood I will never see again in my life. That's actually really sad, to me. I don't regret it -- like I have said, I had a great summer. But I've been so..I dunno..not busy, but occupied, that I've not really realized yet that I'm going back to school in a matter of..four days or so. That's not long at all. Well, I'll enjoy it for what it's worth.
"Happiness is not a fish that you can catch." Unless you use dynamite. Mouahaahahahahahhaahhahahahahah!!!!
8-15-00
Did you ever notice, friends, that tears of bitterness, tears of frustration, tears of rage, tears of sadness, and tears of happiness all taste the same?
Maybe ultimately all of that crying has one root cause. I don't know what it is. I don't cry often enough to figure it out. Perhaps I should!
I've realized lately that everything is temporary. People who say they'll be there forever will not. This is no pessimism; I am not a pessimistic person. This is realism. I'm an optimistic person. When someone says, "I'm okay," I hear, "I'm doing well." Unless their voice just drips with pain.. But anyway, people are full of crap. I mean, I should know, I'm a person. Promises are as fleeting as the weather and opinions change as quickly as channels before a couch potato. That was rather funny, actually, that I had a couch potato analogy. Probably, I deserve to be shot for that. ;)
Anyway, back to the point I was trying to make, it really frustrates me that so many people say one thing and do another, or act one way at one time and another at another. This seems to me, though, the absolute defining quality of humanity, this momentary, rushed, momentum. Anything can happen in the woods. Any moment big or small is a moment after all, sieze the moment skies may fall any moment.
At least this is the attitude. I'm as guilty as anyone else, I feel rushed, feel like I need to be emotional, quick to be emotional, quick to judge, quick to anger. I wrote up a journal entry yesterday about being stubborn, and why sometimes it's important. Important to be stubborn because it saves you from being hurt or hurting someone. Stubbornly refuse to feel emotion until you are sure that you are feeling the emotion, and that you haven't been fooled into thinking you feel it. Stubbornly refuse to give in to the desire to say something hurtful just because you hurt. If I said everything I thought..god, I'd be an ass. Maybe the fact I even think the things makes me an ass. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't matter.
Selfishness. Everything is selfishness. I try to avoid it. I do selfless things, attempting to get no recognition for it as often as I can. Try to do things just because I know they need to be done, but ultimately it just makes me feel better about myself. This becomes something that benefited me. So it can be construed as selfish. This all ties in. Just wait.
So we're faced with a rushed, selfish, stubborn Adam. Contradictory but happy with his life. And the rest of the world around him is temporary, Adam tries to stay himself -- stubborn -- while everything shifts. Now change is good; if things didn't change they'd stay stagnant, and that's not good. Things die away because they don't change to suit their new situations. But this leads to a new situation that is no good for Adam, me, whatever. Temporary, so people abandon. Sort of. Abandon, ultimately. Then Adam is left with selfish thoughts, 'why me?', when he should be asking, 'how are they?' Hm, he should be thinking, 'Well, I hope that they are alright.' Wow, I'm rambling. But that doesn't matter! Selfish thoughts, you can't control them. Every time you -- I -- dwell in melancholy, depressive thoughts, we've become selfish. It is only when we are positive, happy, enthusiastic individuals that we have overcome the selfish. We're no longer thinking about what has happened that is bad to us -- because bad things happen to everyone -- but about what good comes out of that bad for other people. So someone dumps you. That someone is now happier, hopefully, because they were in a situation that wasn't ideal. That's something to be glad for, that you've helped someone to a happier situation, even accidentally. That's what makes enthusiastic people happy, not dwelling on themselves. But see, those happy people -- they annoy us. They annoy us. Why?
Temporary, rushed, selfish, stubborn Adam. Adam who thinks 'why me?' Adam wanders through 21 years of life and doesn't even know where the time went. Look to the future, look to the past, and someday you'll wake up and realize you've wasted your life. Please, let me figure that out right now.
I honestly hope no one's read this far.
There is no key to happiness. No formula. Overall I've had a very happy summer. I've been overwhelmingly positive. But I am not so overwhelmingly happy that it is cloying. In fact, lately things have just been getting me. I can't even begin to explain it. I have been snapping a lot. I think I need to go back to school simply to have a goal. And there's a feeling I get that I've messed up everything. That's complex and I can explain it better but -- I won't. Be careful what you wish for. You just may get it. I don't know what that means. ;)
I promise not to ramble this much in the future.
Who am I kidding. If you've read this far, you probably know me, and you know..I'll ramble sometime again. It's who I am.
8-13-00
Well, I haven't posted any new poems on this site in quite some time. In order to avoid having to actually write anything tonight (giggle) I'm going to post up one that I wrote sometime this summer. I refuse to say when it was written (could have been today, could have been in May) as someone might think it was about them. Probably, it's not. But feel free to ask! Makes me feel good, cause then I know someone's reading the stuff. ;)
Ah, I'm getting excited and nervous about going back to school..but anyway, here's the poem. It has no name, right now, and I realize it's not one of my best.
please
don't look at me
please
don't talk to me
just push me away
you're not what i need
what i want, but not what i need
or maybe even not what i want, but sometimes
what i think that i want
easy to want, and easily confusable
with true desire
true love
love = desire?
please
i just need this space, between me and
everyone
please
for now
just the space to find
love
in myself.
Actually I liked that poem better as I just posted it up. I realize it's nothing phenomenal, but I think it reflected exactly what I was feeling at the time. Funny how I usually like my stuff better later, funny how I usually like my stuff better than anyone else does. ;)
8-10-00
I have a candle in my room that I burned for a while at one point in time. There's plenty of wax left in the candle, plenty of life left in it, but there's no longer a wick. The wick was destroyed at some point in time so now the candle just sits here and I can't burn it. Now this is an excellent metaphor, this mass of wax that's meant to be burnt that can't be...all of this potential that cannot be tapped. A candle that died before its time.
8-9-00
In the next two weeks, I must hit 4,500 in sales. I know I can do that. If I don't do that, I'll kick myself in the nuts. I should hit 6,000 in sales. I'm pretty sure if I exert myself I'll hit that. And I could hit 10,000 in sales, if I work really hard, strive, and do really well. That's my goal. Wish me luck, but luck isn't really what I need..I need to eat, breath, and sleep Cutco knives..which could get really uncomfortable. Get it? Cause I'm eating knives? Tee hee hee...okay, not that funny..
8-7-00
Life is only a dream. If life is only a dream I am free to act as I please. No guilt, no fuss, no muss. No regrets. Life is only a dream, and I am the imagination of myself. I only wish life were this interesting. In actuality it's so boring that I never really wake up from this dream-life..
Hmm...interesting fact. Our blood really -is- just like the Atlantic. The chemical which most resembles blood in its composition is sea water. Yay!
8-6-00
There are only so many attitudes a person can have. Either a person can be looking for the positive, looking for the negative, or just enjoying.
Now obviously in different aspects of peoples' lives they'll have different attitudes. I think the key is to enjoy and be positive most of the time. I really don't know where I'm going with this so I'm going to drop the topic. ;)
8-4-00
I'm the only person currently visiting my site on a daily basis. This is somewhat liberating, because it means that I can write or do whatever I want to it. No one will notice, so no one can say bad -- or good -- things about it. Like I said, liberating.
Enthusiasm comes from success. Success can only truly be achieved if one is enthusiastic. Therefore, to start the cycle, one must breed fake enthusiasm to create true success. To have fake enthusiasm, one must dream up a success. Yay, I successfully started the engine of my car!! Now I'm enthusiastic and will succeed at -- fill in the blank. ;) No, seriously, this is how my daily routine is carried out. If I am enthusiastic at the beginning, usually my day ends well. If I'm not, usually the day ends poorly. So hurray for me. Hurray for web sites. Hurray for no visitors. Hurray for making two big sells today. It's been a good day. =)))))
8-3-00
My current top five favorite bands (in descending order).
I cleaned half of my room today. Tomorrow is for the other half. Good luck to me, folks. Good luck to me. ;)
8-2-00
Tornado to the west. Severe thunderstorm to the east. And not a drop of rain falls on my house. I can see the lightning in the sky, dry lightning, crackling, striking down everywhere around. But not a drop of rain falls on my house until after midnight, and then it's only in brief, sudden spurts. But the clouds were everywhere all day -- grey and disturbingly scary. A very interesting day, weather-wise. All of which is useless information, but, hey, useless is my middle name. (Something inside me says, Adam, you're lying, your middle name is Wesley. Well, screw you, thing inside of me. =P)
In Discover magazine, I read about a parasite that eats the tongue out of some fish and then replaces the tongue so that the fish now has a parasite for a tongue that it can use to actually grab things, so it basically has two mouths. How messed up is that. It looks really scary in the picture, too. For some reason I'm reminded of Tremors, when the big worms would open their mouths and a little worm tongue would come out. Why oh why should Tremors ever be anything like real life? Oh well..
8-1-00
I try to think, sometimes, that when things do not work out quite the way that I want them to, that perhaps it had to be that way. That perhaps if they were working out the way I had them planned something horrible would have happened. I don't believe in fate; never will, probably. But I do realize that every single thing that happens causes an infinite chain of events that would not have occurred had that first event not taken place. A minute misstep causes a person to wear down at a bone more than he should have, ultimately leading to a hairline fracture. While hospitalized, he meets a woman who eventually becomes his wife. Surely this was not his plan. Plans fail, that's in their nature.
This is not to say we should all be spontaneous and go with it....spontaneity is great and all, but sometimes it is not the proper way to live. Sheesh.
And on another note, I'm reading Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk and it is just amazing. The movie is great; the book is phenomenal. Highly recommended.
7-31-00
Why?
This is a question that needs to never be asked again. Okay that needs some clarification, because the word 'why' is not a bad word, not a word that shouldn't be used. But the question why -- a one word question -- is so vague, that it leaves an infinite range of possible answers. Not to mention, many people put a lot of hidden meaning into the word without ever hinting to the fact.
Example:
"Oh hi honey, where were you?"
"At the drug store. Why?"
Now, we have an infinite number of possible things 'honey' could have meant by why.
7-30-00
We'll start out with some Tool.
If, when I say I might fade like a sigh if I stay, you minimize my movement anyway, then I must persuade you another way. You're pushing and shoving and pushing and shoving and pushing me. There's no love in fear.
I'm staring down the hole again. Your hands are on my back again. Survival is my only friend. I'm terrified of what may come.
Just remember I'll always love you, even as I tear your fucking throat away. But it will end no other way. It will end no other way...
It's almost August and I wonder to myself if there is any way that I may bring my journal back to life. I've discovered within myself a well of apathy and happiness. It's funny. Makes me wonder where the anger used to come from..ah well.
Selling knives now. Making some money, and learning to be motivated but really, is it going to work? I try..but I slip, and I slip, and I slip. Rock hard for a day, maybe two, and then I slip. Whatcha gonna do..
On the upper hand I got a 170 bowling on Thursday. Can't complain about that..leastwise, not for my skill level.
If one is in a situation to solve a problem for oneself, should one complain when someone else in the same situation does not solve the problem? I think not, and I've noticed this happening lately. Someone gets pissed at someone else for not doing something that they could have done on their own. I think it's important for me to learn how ridiculous this sort of behavior is, so that I do not end up doing this myself. So I learn from this strange sort of thing, and so can you all! Don't be a hypocrite! ;)
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