10 Crappy Songs

I’ll probably regret this, but I’ve stumbled across an interesting idea on another blog (Over at Slacktivist where I frequent for the biting criticism of the Left Behind series of novels) that I’m too bored not to try.

It’s called the Friday 10. Here’s how it works.

You load up your music library. You hit the random button. And then you post the first ten songs that appear.

I’ll probably regret this because I have a weird habit of downloading MP3 files, just to see what they’re like, ridiculous things, pop-culturey things, and then I never delete them. I’m currently sporting 9165 songs, and I’m sure that there’s a whole lot in there that are, not only not good, but probably embarrassing as well.

Though I suppose that’s why this exercise is interesting.

Without further ado, here are this week’s Friday 10 (which may also be the last week, if I completely forget about this notion by next week, which is pretty goddamn likely)…

1. The Beatles – I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – I don’t think I’ve ever heard this song before…see what relentless downloading can do?


2. The Bangles – Manic Monday – Gotta love 80s chick bands. This actually a live version, from somewhere, after a post-new-millennium reunion of the band. The song is the best thing ever, but I have a major love for their version of “Hazy Shade of Winter” – I have a perverse fascination with cover songs…


3. Antarctica (JC Denton’s Lair) – Deus Ex: Invisible War Official Soundtrack – I like game music, because it allows me to relive the experience of playing that game. Granted, the experience of playing Deus Ex: Invisible War is not something I really want to relive, but some of the music is not half bad (and, while on the topic, all of the music from the original game is fantastic) though this song is not among those…


4. Tangerine Dream – All of a Dither – Someone I knew in high school originally got me interested in Tangerine Dream. This song doesn’t ring much of a bell to me, but some of their stuff can instantly transport me back to the late 80s with just a few notes.


5. Radiohead – Creep (Acoustic Version) – Nothing much to say here, except that this song is brilliant, wonderful, fantastic, and ridiculously sad. Can’t go wrong with something like.


6. Mike Oldfield – Runaway Son – I’m a massive fan of Oldfield’s work (and am incredibly enthused about the upcoming, new, two-disc album) but this song doesn’t do a damn thing for me. Why do I have it? Because it’s Mike Oldfield, and I’m one of those psychotic types who can’t sleep unless he has *everything* from certain artists, good or bad. Yeah, kill me now.


7. Depeche Mode – My Secret Garden – Well, the theme of this week’s Friday 10 seems to be bands I enjoy playing songs I’m not even remotely familiar with. Depeche Mode’s stuff can drop me back into the late 80s and early 90s with just a few notes, when it’s the right song, but this isn’t the right song. I don’t know this song at all. It doesn’t seem to be a bad song, mind you, just, you know, unfamiliar.


8. Tomoyasu Hotei and Ray Cooper – A Drug Score 3 – From the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Soundtrack – can’t go wrong with that. Dr. Thompson, you are still missed…


9. Marilyn Manson – Rock Is – I think I’ve got this song from a soundtrack of some kind, but I can’t place what the soundtrack is at the moment. Nonetheless, it’s one of the few songs from Mr. (Ms.?) Manson that I enjoy. Wait, I’m thinking now that this might be from the Matrix Soundtrack. Is that possible? Whatever…no one cares…


10. Eurythmics – Sex Crime (1984) – Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is from the mid-80s film version of George Orwell’s 1984, correct? I can’t remember. If it is, then I’m reminded of how much I’d love to see that film again…I haven’t seen it since, well, 1984, and that’s more than 20 years. And if this song isn’t from that film, then I’ve just made an internal, memory-based, non-sequitor. And I think that’s unhealthy.

And so that brings us to the end of this week’s Friday 10. Thankfully nothing overly embarrassing cropped up, which means I might actually try to do this next week. Not only that, it actually forced me to sit here and listen all the way through a bunch of songs, songs that are taking up space on my hard drive, that I normally would have just skipped through. Which is kind of cool. Because some of these songs are pretty good.

I suppose the point of this Friday 10 thing is also to illustrate the (potentially) diverse nature of the blogger’s music collection. I don’t have the foggiest idea how diverse this selection of music is, but that’s not up to me to decide, is it.

See you next Friday.

PS: This post was written in MS Word using Blogger’s spiffy plugin.

PPS: I’m trying editing the blog in MS Word, but I’m not sure if it’ll just post another entry. If it does, I’m deleting the old one.

PPPS: It actually updated the original blog post, instead of dumping a brand new one on the blog. OMFGWTFBBQ, I think I’m in love with blogging from MS Word…

And apparently...

...It works. Though I need to remember to leave a few extra graf breaks, to put some distance between the bottom of the entry and the silly "Sent via Blackberry" message...

Sent via BlackBerry on the Bell Mobility network

Test

Q. How can you tell I'm bored?

A. I'm farting around, trying to ge moblogging set up on my Blackberry.
Sent via BlackBerry on the Bell Mobility network

Fini (or In Case You Missed It)

In case you missed the reference in my last column (which appeared on the street today) it is, at long last, finished -- I finally got to type the words "The End" on the last page of the novel I started last November during national novel writing month.

I actually finished it last week. I'm not sure why I didn't make any mention of it here, after counting down the last few thousand words so religiously. I think, maybe, I found myself so relieved to finally be finished, to finally have a novel finished after so many attempts of starting and not quite getting through, that I just kind of purged all thought of it from my mind from the moment it was done. It took me three days to remember to send the last few pages to the friend that had been reading along, ever step of the way, since November, and usually I'd send him something as soon as it was complete.

In a way, I was dreading it being over as well. In the same way that, when reading a really, really good book you can find yourself dreading the end, because you'll have to close the book on the events and the characters and the people you've come to know and love over time, so it is when writing a book. I really grew to care about these characters, and even like most of them (some of them tried very hard to be unlikeable, but in the end, I think even they found a few shreds of decency). So walking away from them was hard.

Not that I won't be visiting them at some point in the future -- the book may be done, but it's a mess. It needs a rewrite *badly*. But I need to put it away for awhile. I need to let the characters and the ideas and the themes drift out of my head, so that when I go back to do the rewrite, I can approach it with a completely new set of eyes. So I can be a bit more objective, so I can more easily yank out the parts that don't work, and discover the things that really, really do.

Until then, I have a one act play called "Dinner and Drinks" in the works (three stories, about three different stages of relationships). I'm about halfway through one of the stories, and I'm already convinced that it would be almost impossible to put on the stage here in Williams Lake without offending more than half of the people who came to see it. Which, while not something I'm always against, isn't really the point of the story. Unfortunately, some of the subject matter in the play has proven difficult to talk about without being...well, vulgar.

Still, if all goes well, the play should be complete by the first of November, and the start of National Novel Writing Month, and my third crack at it. Two weeks ago I was terrified, because I realized that I'd been spending so much time finishing last year's novel that I didn't have any ideas for a new one. No old ideas rattling around in my head waiting to come out either.

A title came to me one night, while lying in bed, my brain refusing to drift off to sleep. Even though, at the time, there was no story attached to it, the title was too good not to use -- "The Smalltown Pornographer's Blues". I decided the next day that it would be a fun challenge to go into a book with nothing but the title, and just sort of let the story tell itself, however it saw fit. Within the next few days, I'd figured out the ending, as well as the first two chapters, so I'm pretty confident that this will actually be doable.

And even if it wasn't...well, the title would *still* be too good not to try.

I've avoided blogging the novels in the past, though I did stumble past a few people who were posting their entire book, as they wrote it, to their blog, and it struck me as interesting idea. I probably won't go quite that far (I'm a little nervous about copyright infringement, after getting burned a number of years back by a newspaper that shall remain nameless) but I might post occasional novel excerpts here, so if you're interested in the saga of my pornographer and his blues, you'd do best to visit periodically during the month of November.

In my last bit of writing news, I'm considering getting into small-town political discussions in my column by writing a review of campaign signage. I've seen two signs so far that have made me think of two things that are very different than what they intended, and I thought it could be a pretty funny approach.

Though I'll probably wait until a week or two before the election itself, just to make sure that everyone who's going to get a sign up *gets* their sign up. Though I have found a spot that seems to have a sign from just about every current candidate under the sun. I should finally figure out how my stupid digital camera works and snap some photos of it...

I am...

You're Great Expectations!

by Charles Dickens

Coming from humble beginnings, you have become pretty stuck-up in your
later years. While hard work and dedication were the path you first walked on, a sudden
fork brought you glory and fortune. Unfortunately, you have changed even more than your
bottom line. You really should turn back to your old friends and at least respect your
old life. Look out for haughty hotties.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

And I've never even read the silly thing...

Weird and wonderful

Every year, for the past few years, I've found myself thinking, "Oh my god, this is the weirdest year of my entire life!"

I kept waiting for those sorts of epiphanies to pass, thinking that I would eventually reach a year that actually wasn't terribly weird. And then other day something occurred to me.

It occurred to me that there was nothing weird about having the weirdest year of my life. Becuase that's what life was all about.

Every new experience leads us to a knew realization about something. And as much as I once thought that new experiences would eventually run out, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that, in fact, they won't. There are new things around every corner, waiting for us to discover them, waiting for us to rejoice in them. And in a way, every year will always be weirder than the last, simply because with each passing year we expect the next to make more sense based on the wisdom we've accumulated the previous year, and in each year before that.

But it never does. It never will.

And as I realized that, I realized also that I couldn't think of anything more wonderful. The notion of life always remaining fresh and new and interesting, instead of becoming sad and bleak and familiar, was one of the most refreshingly optimistic ideas I could concieve of.

At 32 years old, I still don't know what it's all about. I still don't know what tomorrow will bring, or next week, or next month, or, God help me, next year.

And I can't think of anything more wonderful than that.

Novelizingismesque

The book is sitting at 90,000 words.

That's 5,000 tonight, plus 5,000 after my blog post of last night. 10,000 words in two days. I'm absolutely stunned at the amount of output I've had. But not entirely surprised, either. I think I suspected this would happen, once I got the ball rolling. So much of the story was there, and I was so goddamn close to the end, that once it started to roll, there'd be no stopping it.

One chapter and epilogue left, plus a little bit to do to the middle to get it done.

Final chapter is on the agenda for tomorrow or Monday. I don't know if I'll be able to get it done in a single sitting, like I've done for the last two chapters, but it will more than likely be another situation of starting and simply not being able to stop until it's done.

Still, I don't like making promises to myself. So we'll just see what happens.

90,000 words. Seems pretty likely at this point that it'll break the 100,000 word mark, and will probably even drift to 105,000 by the time I tack on the epilogue and fill out the middle.

105,000 words. Goddamn it's been a long time.

What a ride.

Novelizingism

In spite of the fact that I seem to be ending up with more and more in front of me, scheduling-wise, I've still been managing to pick away at the novel. Another two pages tonight, another two pages earlier in the week, another couple last weekend...etc...

Current word count sits at about 80,000 words, which means that since the NaNoWriMo cutoff in November I've dumped an additional 30,000 words into it.

By my estimation, there's somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 still to go before I can type the words "The End".

If I pick at it a bit more regularly (as in 2-3 pages every day or two) I think I can be out of this draft within two or three weeks.

It's an idea I find unbelievably exciting. I've been chatting with a friend who's read this unfinished draft about the direction things are going, and in the course of the discussions, more and more ideas just kind of spill out. I sumbled onto the last two ideas I needed to know earlier in the week, which means every conceivable thread that that the novel has conjured will end up wrapped up -- and wrapped up neatly! -- by the time the book closes.

Those moments, the moments when everything just kind of clicks in your head and you can see how beautifully everything can tie up in the climax of the story, are some of the most beautiful moments I've ever experienced. And it's something that you can only experience when tackling something with the scope of a novel. You can get a smaller sense of it in a short story, or a novella, but in order to feel the real victory of tying up multiple plot threads, you need to have a story with a whole bunch of threads to begin with. Something with a bunch of meat on its bones.

It's been a long time since I had a project like that.

My previous kick at the NaNo can doesn't really count. In spite of the fact that I managed to get across the 50,000 word mark, I never did get around to finshing that one, and -- for moment -- don't think I ever will, because I *don't* know how to wrap up the plot threads in that one. I have some notions about things that have to happen in order to create a satisfying ending, but I don't have the foggiest idea how to get there.

I don't mind, though. Who can complain about a story that didn't pan out when they're working on one that is panning out, and panning out wonderful.

Oh joy, oh bliss.

Oh sweet, sweet euphoria.

Clarity

There seems, to me, to be a certain amount of clarity that comes from losing hope.

The thing about hope, at least for me, is that it forces a focus. It demands that you stare at it, that you never take your eyes off it, that wherever you are, whatever you're doing, that thing is always on your mind. Front, back, middle; conscious, unconscious, preconscious. It's always there, it's always with you, and it's always draining a certain amount of your energy, whether you're aware of it or not.

But when you lose hope, however dreadful a concept that might be, that all-encompassing kind if passion goes with it. And all of a sudden, you lose focus on this one little thing and you find that you can look at your life, your whole life, for the first time in maybe months, maybe years.

And in spite of the fact that a desperate and passionate hope in something wonderful is now gone and dead, there's still something wonderful to come out of the process. Because you are reintroduced to yourself, and to parts of yourself that you had forgotten about. Wonderful parts. Beautiful parts. Parts that are crying out for attention, and have been crying out for attention for months and maybe years, but you haven't heard them, because of your single-minded passion towards that one hope. Because, for that time, there was nothing else in your life.

And when that one thing is gone, and you have nothing else to hold you up, nothing else to inspire you to reach for the clouds, and the heavens, and the stars beyond, it is such a wonderful surprise to find that, upon falling back to the earth again, that there are arms waiting to catch you. Your own arms. Arms that hold you tightly because they know, better than anyone, just how you're feeling right then. You're trapped in an embrace that is softer and more comforting than anything you could imagine, because the embrace comes from you, from someone who knows exactly what you need, and is more than willing to give it.

And then you hear the voice, your own voice, whispering in your ear:

"We've missed you," the voice says.

"It's good to see you again."

This is a test

This is a test.

Testing my bizarre new MS Word plug-in for Blogger. How weird and unnatural this seems, to be blogging from Word. Assuming it doesn’t turn out to messy and bizarre, I might actually get in the habit of doing it this way.

Novelizing

I decided last week that, the correct way to prioritize my current projects (one play, one novel) was to focus, initially, on the play, because I knew that if I really worked at it, I could have the first draft done in one to two weeks. Then I could just set it aside for awhile to rest before editing, and turn my attention to the unfinished novel that I've been mucking with, off and on, since last November, when I started it during National Novel Writing Month. That, I figured, might take me as much as a month to finish the first draft of.

Seemed like the most logical way to go -- get the quick and easy one out of the way first, before turning my attention to the one that will likely take more time and energy out of me.

So why the heck am I working on the stupid novel today, instead of the play?

The answer, really, is simple. Because it was the novel that I was inspired to work on today. It was the words of the novel that were dancing just behind my forehead, waiting for the chance to be spilled out onto the page. And that's the only thing that matters when it comes to this kind of thing -- what is it that you're inspired to do? It doesn't matter what you *want* to do, or what you *think* you should do. It's where the inspiration lies.

This is why I should always have two different projects going at any one time, so I can always turn to the one that I'm inspired to work on when the other gets a little stagnant for a few days. Because if you've only got one, and it goes stagnant, you end up stuck with nothing to work on, and then it's hard to get working on *anything* again once the stagnation passes.

About 7 pages done today too. Decent output. I think I could even squeeze out another 3 or 4, and bring this current chapter to a close.

And all I can think is, "Nice."

"Nice..."

More stickage

Following up yesterday's massive Stick Figure Drama update, I've decided to upload the latest strip (completed less than 30 minutes ago), so it'll be appearing here even before it sees print in the newspaper.

It features the first part of what I'm sure will be an exciting showdown between two competing arch-villains.

Enjoy.

OMGWTFBBQ! Stickage to the extrmez0rz!!11!!

I made a massive stick figure drama update today, uploading episodes 46 through 65, bringing the links on the right-hand side as up to date as humanly possible as of this moment in time.

I've also split the stick figure drama links into "Season One" and "Season Two" as there is a fairly distinct split between them. Everything from Stick Figure Drama #31 through to the current issue (and beyond) is part of a single, ever evolving storyline. While everything that occurs before #31 is sort of the kind of mess that a cartoonist might create while trying to figure out exactly how to be a cartoonist, publishing those experimental abominations at the same time.

Stick Figure Drama fans, rejoice! And enjoy!

The persistence of loss.

My trip to Nanaimo in July placed me on a ferry for the first time in more years than I can remember, and placed me there just days after another ferry lost control and beached itself on a marina (or some such thing).

I took the book I had brought with me for the trip up to the top, outside deck, sat down, lit a cigarette, and started to read while I waited for the boat to depart.

When it did, I found myself unable to keep from thinking about the ferry that had gone out of control the few days prior. I also found myself thinking, with pretty much equal interest, about accidently driving into another ferry halfway through our journey, about our boat springing a leak and filling with water, and whether or not there would be anything good to eat at the cafeteria.

Barring the thoughts about food, I realized that one of the curses of adulthood is just how negative we become. I can recall riding the ferry dozens of times as a child, without a worry, without a care in the world. There was no chance that it would sink, no chance that it would cross the path of another boat, and certainly no chance that terrorists would come aboard and blow us all up. Because my parents were nearby, and nothing bad could ever happen to me.

Of course bad things happen to children all the time, and often those bad things happen *because* the parents are nearby, and not in spite of it. But kids don't know these things when they're kids. Thank god.

Years ago, in the middle of some ridiculous debate with my then-wife, she accused me of being naive. I agreed that I was and, in fact, was proud to be. I also hoped to be able to stay that way for as long as possible.

I'm far less naive now, which I think is unavoidable. I'm also a whole lot more bitter and a whole lot more jaded. Which is as disappointing as it is inevitable.

In spite of the comfort it gives (or maybe even because of the comfort it gives me) I feel a little bit more disappointed in myself, in the world around me, in life in general with each step I take towards a bleaker outlook on life. I know I'm not alone, because people keep telling me things like, "That's how the world works," and, "Get used to it, it doesn't get any better."

The reason for that disappointment is that I really and honestly believe that one of the greatest things we lose in our adulthood, thanks to the anger and disappointment we feel, is our ability to believe in things. In our ability to hope for something good. In our ability to close our eyes and feel, in our hearts, the possibility that we might somehow, some way have a happy ending.

We shroud ourselves in depression and disaffection, sometimes because it's what we've been taught how to do, sometimes because it's all we know how to do, sometimes because just so sick and fucking tired of being disappointed.

And I am. I am so sick and fucking tired of being disappointed. The problem is, it's also so fucking hard to have hope.

It's a bit like the story of the boy who cried wolf, but instead of crying wolf he tells you to cheer up, that your life is lovely, that your future holds wonderful things, and then he punches you in the face and runs away laughing.

After awhile you get tired of being punched in the face and just kick the kid in the stomach as soon as you see him.

One of the things that greatly appealed to me about the play I'm directing this season was the tone that it ended on. One of optimism. One of hope.

It's not an obvious, in your face, "they lived happily ever after" kind of ending. Instead, it's more of an allusion. An allusion that, somehow, things might be okay, if we just believe a little bit. In ourselves. In each other.

It's an idea that warms my heart just enough to remind me that there is still a little bit of hope tucked away inside this bitter and jaded shell, and that makes me kind of happy. It reminds me that there's still a little bit of my young naivety hanging on, and that means that it's not hopeless. That there is still a chance for me to believe again. In something, or someone, or just the idea that tomorrow might be better today.

That's something worth believing in, I think, if even only a little bit.

And something worth reminding people to believe in.

Tales of the potential kitty.

One of the coolest ideas I've stumbled upon in the last few years is the idea of Schrodinger's Cat.

Here's how Wikipedia explains it:

A cat is placed in a sealed box. Attached to the box is an apparatus containing a radioactive nucleus and a canister of poison gas. The experiment is set up so that there is a 50% chance of the nucleus decaying in one hour. If the nucleus decays, it will emit a particle that triggers the apparatus, which opens the canister and kills the cat. According to quantum mechanics, the unobserved nucleus is described as a superposition (mixture) of "decayed nucleus" and "undecayed nucleus". However, when the box is opened the experimenter sees only a "decayed nucleus/dead cat" or an "undecayed nucleus/living cat."

The question is: when does the system stop existing as a mixture of states and become one or the other? The purpose of the experiment is to illustrate that quantum mechanics is incomplete without some rules to describe when the wavefunction collapses and the cat becomes dead or remains alive instead of a mixture of both.

In a nutshell: Put a cat inside of a sealed box, that can not be tampered with from the outside. Inside the box with the cat is a device that, after one hour, has a 50/50 chance of killing the cat. After the hour is up, the cat is either alive or dead, but according to certain rules quantum physics, until the cat is actually observed in one state or the other, it is, in fact, in both states simultaneously.

Which I think we can all agree is kind of ridiculous.

The point of Schrodinger's cat was to criticize certain points of quantum mechanics. Certain points which are, I can assure you, quite over my head. But I think Schrodinger's Cat beautifully illustrates a part of day to day life as well.

Potentiality.

Every moment that is in front of you has potential. Until you seize the moment, make a choice, and take action, nothing is decided.

I can lay in bed for an hour wondering what to have for breakfast. And for that hour, every breakfast possibility is equally likely to come to reality. But the moment I grab the bowl and pour the cornflakes, the potentiality is gone and one particular course of action becomes fact, and then history.

Or, wait, here's a better analogy

It's like a game of russian roulette. One bullet in one chamber of a revolver. You spin the chamber, and put the gun to your head. In a sense, until you pull that trigger and find out for sure -- until you are actually able to observe the state of the chamber somehow -- it is simultaneously in both states at once. Kind of. In a sense.

Wait, forget that russian roulette thing. That's just gross.

But I think maybe you're getting the point by now anyway. So let's just drop the analogies.

As long as you're waiting to do something, as long as you're thinking about doing something, the potential exists for that thing to go in any of 1000 different directions. Once you do it, the potential is gone, and the cat is either alive or dead, no two ways about it.

That's the thing about life. Sometimes you make those choices, and everything just works out spectacularly, and you ask yourself how you could put that decision off for so goddamn long.

Other times, you wish you could have just held on to the potentiality, either because things didn't go the way you wanted, or were more complicated than you thought, or you just plain fucked up the choice somehow.

There's something sadly good about potentiality. There's something sadly good about just sitting within a situation where you have equal chances of success or failure.

I've long believed that publication, or exhibition, is a vital part of any creative process.

The creating itself occurs in a rather solitary place, and in rather a solitary piece of mind. But there is implied, I think, with any artistic endeavor, the hope that you might one day able to share it with others.

And I've often felt as if creating something with no intention of ever sharing it is a bit like masturbation. Sure, it's fun and all while it's happening, but when you get to the end of it, it's really kind of silly and pointless.

So what do you do when you start writing something that you know you could never publish, never exhibit, never share with the rest of the world. Because it's too close to you. Because it dips into biographical stuff that you can't deal with yourself, so you tuck it as far back in your mind and soul as is humanly possible. You can't share that kind of thing with people. They look at you funny afterwards.

But how can you *not* write it, when writing can be such a cathartic experience? Getting those things out in a private way, when it's just you and the page, allows you to deal with those things in a way, albeit a small one. But even small ways are better than no ways at all, and too often I feel like I have no way of dealing with the things that are bubbling and gurgling in my psyche.

The problem, I guess, stems from the rare possibility that this thing I write, which I could never show to another human being, might turn out to be really, really good.

What then?

Even if I was a perfect altruist, the knowledge that I had created something might shake people, or move them, or make them think about something or realize something, and that I was actively keep it away from them...that would be wrong. That would be perversely wrong.

Of course, I'm not a perfect altruist, so it would be my ego that got in the way. The ego that would want people to go, "Wow, he wrote that? That's fricking brilliant! Not only that, imagine the balls on him if he's got the nerve to actually publish / display that work! It's so intimate!"

I doubt I'll have to worry about it. Things that are this close to me rarely turn out that good. They are what they are, and that is a cathartic exercise, a way to vent my spleen onto the page and get rid of at least a few of the cancers that eat away at my soul.

In the future...

...we will all be made up of 75% cheese, by volume.

Resurrection

I opened up my still unfinished National Novel Writing month novel last week and actually wrote a few pages in it. And then I did the same thing tonight -- a few more pages of progress actually complete.

Those of you who know me know that this is almost unheard of. And those of you who don't know me, well, now you know that fact too.

It's not so much that I'm not a creative person. I think I'm a highly creative person. The problem is that I get far more excited about the "thinking about being creative" phase than the "actually sitting down and being creative" phase. By the time it comes to actually sitting down, I'm either distracted by liquor or video games. Or both, sometimes.

I know that creating a habit of sitting down and writing a little bit every day just involves, you know, doing it often enough to create a habit. But even knowing it has rarely ever allowed me to pull it off. I try for awhile, then something else gets in the way for a day or two, and then it's bloody hard to get back into it again, so I just let whatever project it was alone for a few months, before guilt finally brings me back.

I enjoy the creating when I create, but I still can't motivate myself to do it.

I'm waiting for an epiphany. A moment of sudden, shocking realization about my own mortality, and how fragile my own life is. With that realization, I think, should come the ability to do all the things I've always wanted to do. Create with complete abandon, knowing I need to get these ideas out now, before I die; quit smoking, because smoking isn't doing anything except shortening my life span; quit drinking so goddamn much, because what's the point of being alive if you're only ever going to see this wonderful, beautiful world through eyes clouded with liquor?

No epiphany as of yet. Clearly. Maybe there will never be one, and I'll simply continue down this path until the day I meet my end and go on to whatever strange and surreal things exist beyond this world.

But if that's the case, I fear that regardless of all the nice things that people might say at my funeral -- because you have no choice but to say nice things at funerals; it's some kind of bylaw -- what they'll all really be thinking is, "He had so much potential. He could have done so much.

"What a sad, sad disappointment his life turned out to be."

Filler

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In immediate retrospect, I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret this...

"I love you," I said.

"I know," she replied. "I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. You tell me that every day. We have this same stupid conversation every day. And every day I say that I love you too."

"But then you say that it's 'only as a friend.'"

"Does that make my love any less valid?"

"No, I suppose not. But it does mean that we won't be having sex any time soon."

"Yes, it does."

"Oh, come on, who're you kidding? You want me."

"Me?"

"Desperately."

"I don't doubt that you think that."

"Oh, please..."

"Or that you think that I think that. Or whatever."

"It's true, you do."

"I don't," she said. "I really don't. I wish I did. If only to make you happier, if only to make your life a little bit better, I wish I did."

"You feel it."

"I don't."

"You should. I do."

"No you don't."

"I do."

"Not really."

"What do you mean?

"You're a guy. You...you want to fuck something, that's just what guys do. It's nothing to be ashamed of. But it's leading you astray. You're confused by our friendship, our closeness, that has nothing to do with sex."

"And fuck you too," I said.

"Pardon me?"

"Okay, so maybe you love me as a friend, fine, whatever. And maybe you don't want to have sex with me, fine, whatever. Those are your feelings, and they belong to you. But don't sit there and try to tell me what I feel. Don't tell me I'm confused. Don't tell me I'm misunderstanding our friendship just because I'm a guy who wants to fuck anything with a pulse. Don't diminish what I'm feeling just because you're uncomfortable with it."

"Wow..." she said.

"What?"

"Where'd that come from?"

"Frustration, I guess," I said. "Frustration at having this same conversation with you every day and not getting anywhere, getting the same goddamn answers from you every goddamn time."

"Fair enough," she said. "Do you think this conversation would go any differently if you actually talked to me instead of playing this scene out in your head?"

"If I thought it would, do you really think I'd still be sitting here alone, talking to myself?"

"No, I suppose not."