Sleep

For the third night in a row now I will be getting only four hours of sleep. I intend to make it up tomorrow. Monday night I stayed up until four reading Microsoft Paint Adventures. I recommend it, to say the least. Last night I was up until two working on a paper. Tonight I'll be waking up early to work on that same paper before it's due at 9:30. I tried to do it tonight, really I did, but the computer lab was closed for cleaning. On my way back to the dorm my friend from Shanghai rolled by in his car and invited me out to dim sum with his friends. I didn't have the time or the money and I'd already eaten dinner; I agreed. It was interesting. One of his friends is the boyfriend of a girl I work with. The other is merely Indian. I'm glad I chose to do something different. Sleep now.

An Interesting Day

 Today I was inspired by a man who undertakes, every January, to write a comic every hour that he is awake. I decided to write a brief Haiku for every hour that I am awake. I got to two haikus. I stopped because they were too short and I couldn't convey everything I wanted in them. I had no less than three haiku-worthy things happen to be in the first hour, after I'd already written that hour's haiku, and then the next hour I was stuck in a boring class. So I decided instead to just write about them.

In the dining hall they were serving shrimp and grits, but I am what I call a "mostly-tarian." That is, I'm mostly vegetarian. I try not to choose meat if it's my choice, and I don't buy it at the store, but if someone makes it for me or if it's free I'll generally go for it. And I almost always go for seafood. But I've had a pretty clean record lately of eating no meat, so I took a pass on the shrimp and grits, which looked delicious, and then got depressed over how much my lunch of rice, edamame, zucchini and an apple sucked.

At the bus stop some asshole had peeled an orange and thrown the peels into a flowerbed. Yes, I know it's biodegradable, but this is an urban campus, not the backwoods of Vermont; it's still litter! So I picked up the orange peels and threw them away. This may not sound like much to you, but I did it in front of a bus-stop crowd and I was proud of it!

Once I got to the building where my class is, it had begun to rain lightly. Outside of the recessed front door there are two benches, and a book was sitting on one of them. It was getting rained on. I picked it up, knocked the water off of it, and leaned it against the wall under the archway, only a few feet away, so it would stay dry. I did it all without breaking stride, and I felt good about this too! When I came back out it was gone. You're welcome, stranger.

The remainder of my afternoon was the sort of monotony you'd expect, and it was this that inspired the surrender of my little project. There's only so many haikus you can write about entering item numbers onto a spreadsheet. I would have needed four.

In other news, I wrote my will and living will. Hooray preparedness.

The Worst Day of My Life

     The official worst day of my life was around the time I wrote the entry "Existential Problems." There was extensive derealization and everything became flat and shallow. I fought with it the entire day. I've just recently had a few more of the worst days of my life, though I admit they were marginally less bad. It was visiting my family that did it. I've done it two weekends in a row now. The first was because James and his girlfriend Adair, who, let me tell you, is a Gertrude so attractive I've considered being Claudius, were out of town. The visit was moderately boring but otherwise unremarkable. This most recent weekend was the bad one. I was already having a little trouble Friday, and then arriving at my house to having nothing at all to do and a sticky leather couch to try and sleep on in between my infant nephew's crying jags was just what my spark of anxiety needed to flare into some serious depression.

     Have you ever been depressed, reader? Hush, that was rhetorical. This is my blog. I'm going to wax poetic here and try to describe it to you. It's as if all hope and beauty has gone out of the world. Everything is short, sharp, and brutal. Happiness is an illusion that you were a fool to believe could exist. Nothing can ever be good, there is only pain and horror and badness. That's severe depression, anyways. When it isn't so bad I'm merely incapable of experiencing significant amount of happiness or joy. The best I can hope for is to temporarily content myself with a mindless game, sleep, or alcohol.

     The thoughts which drive me to depression are like a live thing that I wrestle with. It's a demon that squats on my shoulder and yells into my ear, and the effort required to keep my mind away is very much like trying to focus your eyes on a blurry object. The harder you try, the more tired you become, and the more things slip away. I realized last night that I walk extremely quickly (and I am already a fast walker) when I am in these moods. I can tell myself that my heart is racing because I am exerting myself, and not because I am terrified. The constant fleeing is tiring. I suspect it may be having negative effects on my health. I begin to question my mental stability. How much stress can a person take before they begin to act significantly differently? I am giving serious consideration to going on medication, even though I object to it in principle.

     I have arrived at another solution, of a sort. It is at least a thought which can keep the others at bay for a while: I, being a human, am so limited in my faculties and so inherently biased in my judgement that I cannot possibly begin to understand the nature of our universe, time,God, etc. Therefore, it is entirely pointless of me to worry about it. I should concern myself with my existence in my present form, because that is the only form over which I have any control. I know the potency of this thought may fade. Maybe, though, my future self will have forgotten this thought and it will reassure him once again.

     I miss James and Adair so much. They're my best friends, and I only see them on the weekends. I intend to see them this weekend. I think it will make me feel much better.

Sometimes Life is Poetic on its Own

     This morning I was too lazy to go to Publix and buy myself fresh fruits for breakfast, so I went without. Consequently, this evening on my way to visit Marie I stopped by Publix to buy fresh fruits. Marie called and asked if I could pick up some Yoo-hoo, for which she possessed an unholy lust. When I agreed, she said, "Thanks, I adore you." I replied,"No problem," hesitated, and then added, "And please don't say 'I adore you.' I'm sorry." But she had already hung up.

     I bought one pear, one plum, and two bananas. I will eat the pear first, because I do not know how quickly they ripen. I will eat the plum on Friday, because if I left a banana until then it would be too ripe. The bananas I will eat in-between. I also bought three mini-cannoli; one each for myself, Marie, and Chef. They did not have any Yoo-hoo, so I went to the corner gas station to get a bottle. I gave the cashier a five, and it was not until I was almost back to my car that I realized he had given me change as if I'd given him a ten. I went back and stood in line to give him back five dollars. I don't think he understood my broken, mumbled hesitation. Explanation. I left the five on the counter and got out.

One Thousand is Probably not an Exaggeration

     Every morning I make myself breakfast: One banana, a bowl of whole-grain cheerios in soy milk, a glass of orange juice, and a scrambled egg with salt, black pepper and basil, folded into a wedge shape and soft in the middle. It's pretty good, if I may say so myself. In the process of preparing and consuming my breakfast, I produce one eggshell and one banana peel every morning, both of which I throw in the short, uncovered trash can that resides in our kitchen. I hadn't changed the trash in over a week when I came home one evening to find several things had changed:

1) The trash had been taken out.
2) The bag of oranges that I keep on the counter had disappeared.
3) In its place, there was one trash bag and a sticky note, reading: "A gift from a non-trash-producing roommate. One thousand fruit flies cry out and are suddenly silenced."

     I suspect my next-door roommate Work, who is nerdy enough to pull a reference like that. In any case, I responded with a sticky note of my own, stuck on the counter next to the original, which read: "Did you take my oranges? If so, I admit I deserved to have my oranges stolen and I hope you enjoy them. --Trashman."

     Guess I should take my trash out more regularly. Or buy more oranges.

Goings-on

     Tonight I went with the Transhumanists to Taco Mac. Had a nice time, though I wound up sitting across from S, the aforementioned frigid woman, and so had a good ninety degrees of my field of view forbidden to me. Last night I visited Marie and her roommate Chef in their dorm up the street. They go to an art school. I smoked a cigarette and a cigar, and afterwards worried about my lungs.

     I've run out of eggs and fruit. I need to go to the grocery store soon. Until then I'l be eating nothing for breakfast but multi-grain cheerios in soy milk with a glass of orange juice. That is not a balanced breakfast.

     Last week my parents received an anonymous t-shirt in the mail concerning zombies. It was right after my best friend and cousin James's birthday and I hadn't gotten him anything, so I brought him the t-shirt and gave it to him as a present. Now my aunt on my father's side is asking if I got a t-shirt in the mail. I'm hoping it's a present from her and not them looking for a misplaced package. That would be an awkward situation indeed.

     I think this post may have been premature. Too many inanities.

An Inexplicable Attraction to Women Who Inevitably Turn Out to be Bitches

     We share a remarkable consistency of routine, and this pleases me. On Friday I noticed her immediately. She wore a brown plaid jacket that tucks at the waist, flares at the hips and falls to mid-thigh over jeans. She walks very quickly. I can't explain to you how compelling it is to me when a woman walks quickly. It represents direction, ambition, and disdain. She wears the slightly irritated expression of one who is confident of meeting no-one tolerable in the near future. I was coming up Ferst; she from the Biotech plaza. We fell into line as she crossed the street and I made the turn onto Atlantic. I had to speed up to stay near her. Her hair is a light brown, long and wavy. She disrespected a hedgerow and a steep slope to walk across the lawn of the Civil Engineering building, and I lost sight of her.

     The aforementioned consistency was seen this morning, when at exactly the same time we came from the same directions and fell into line at the same distance as previously. Again I followed at a distance and again she walked at a breathtaking speed through the hedges, up the hill and out of sight. She resembles Marie more than a little, and I have to ask myself, as I often do, whether it is nostalgia or merely preference. A pointless exercise.

     It brings to mind distinctly my last adventure with an angry-looking woman with whom I shared a schedule; this one every day for a month, for several hours. Even the mildest advance was treated with the scorn I could see in every bit of body language. I shouldn't have expected otherwise. She lives down the hall now, and despite being in the same club and attending the same discussion groups, outings, parties, and even casual evening card games, relations have not improved. We ignore each other with a fierce deliberation.

     For this reason, and because I am introspective in the extreme, I find it highly unlikely that I will ever speak to this person. But there is always hope.