the clark cat stare

1. Is it evil to write a sarcastic poem about "new hoopin' hippies?"
2. I have just spent my first night of Spring Break reading and wondering where I have been and why I have yet to understand the obsession with Ben Gibbard as this "genius" of my generation. God damn, couldn't it be someone else?
3. I have developed an ear for rhythm and this scares the bejesus out of me.
4. Ben Gibbard... New hippies. Ben Gibbard. Hoopin' hippies. That's it. I disown my generation.


-----


A car is screeching down
the street like a swarm of locusts are coming madly
to the carbon footprint of the end of the world.


Calm down, you crazy locusts.

dream journ

I keep having reoccurring dreams of being in a grocery store. Every single time I try to go grocery shopping my excursion gets interrupted by something happening. The first time it was the Waldo Rapist in my dream, stalking people. The second time all of the food disappeared. And last night I was desperately searching for kiwi and when I finally found the kiwi I noticed that they were all moldy and slimy. I decided to try to find another kind of fruit and kept settling for the fruit I didn't want. I found lots of exotic fruits that looked interesting but it wasn't the kiwi. Oh, the blasted kiwi.

I know what these dreams are referring to, especially the last one. I mean, lets think about kiwi for a second. It's green inside and hairy and I have been craving it like none other lately. Everything about it kills me -- the flavor (though mediocre here), the texture of the seeds, the juiciness of each bite. So when I walk into a store and am heading straight for the kiwi and they are all moldy, I freak out!

But other facts about my perception of kiwi -- it's not actually local. It's from somewhere else, though never from its native land. In fact, I don't even technically know where kiwi originated. When I eat kiwi, I love it, but there is something about it that doesn't feel right. How did this kiwi get here and how am I eating it now? Where has it traveled?

But going beyond the whole kiwi strangeness, it's obvious that these dreams symbolize this feeling that I am not getting what I "need" right now. I have many options, obviously, but something either interrupts me finding what I need or what I need simply isn't there. I always have to choose between other things I don't really want but I feel that I should try because what I really want isn't there. But nothing satisfies me, if I have a chance to be satisfied.

That is pretty much the ultimate metaphor for my entire existence. Something tells me I'm going to be living with those dreams forever!

***

A friend halfway across the world played me Happy Birthday on his guitar and told me that when he becomes an engineer he will help me pay off my college debt.

Today I thought that someone shot a bullet at my window. I'm not sure what happened but it scared me and I promptly started considering what I would look like shot in the head at the position I was at. I would have died on my hand painted chair head first into the computer with my browser opened to an astrology news tab and Rainer Maria Rilke poetry. To the right of me would have been a literature anthology opened up to Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature" and to the left of me would have been a ukulele. I am positive this would have been the perfect way to die.

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. - Rainer Maria Rilke

I hate having crushes on people who are real.

funny passages

"He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour, and industry which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared, and which will hereafter become distinct by the power of the different climates they inhabit. The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, SELF-INTEREST: can it want a stronger allurement? Wives and children, who before in vain demanded of him a morsel of bread, now, fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father to clear those fields whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and to clothe them all; without any part being claimed, either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord. Here religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God; can he refuse these? The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence.--This is an American." - J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

roflies

****

"The thing about liars is that they actually believe their own lies. They will tell themselves the lie and convince themselves constantly in order to believe themselves and that's the most dangerous. There's no way you can convince them otherwise."

Refer to Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" as a liar's field guide.

And another note, the whole "there is no truth" aspect does not apply here. This isn't fucking philosophy tonight.

i am separating one post into many posts

I can't wait to be in Iceland but I have no interest in their shark delicacy. I am sorry but I don't even eat meaty delicacies in my own country. A friend asked me today, "So you have to try the shark. They stick it under the sand and pee on it and let the uric acid cook it over night." I'm not sure if my vegetarian guts could comprehend that.