Your Space.

So lately I have been neglecting this blog because of my Myspace. The thing is addicting, pointless (much like this blog, but to a stronger degree). I basically am posting to let the world know that a book review of Tremor of Intent should be coming soon: I am nearly done with the book. I might also post my Personal Statement as graduate school application deadlines are coming up, fast. I might also post a story that I am supposed to be working on, the deadline for that is December 31, 2005 at 11:59 p.m. This year (and my life) is almost over. And, while on the topic of what I might post, I might post pictures that my sister took while she was India (if there are any good ones). Bug me in the comments section if you particularly want to see something.

So many goals. Higher, higher, low.

An Anniversary for the Annals

So it has been one year since I have started this blog. One whole year. I could look back and see what terrible posts I have written--maybe highlight them here in traditional self-loathing fashion-- but instead I sunk to a new low: I got a myspace. I think that exemplifies the steady (exponential?) decline in brain cell count, and encapsulates my general descent into madness.

I'm a Thief, I'm a Weirdo...

I hate my job
I hate my job
I hate my...

Six in the evening here I am
(Turning blue)
I'm staying late working late again
Bourbon can't clear my mind from this
Voice in my head
I hate my job
'Cause it makes me
Think about the smile that I'm faking

I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my job
I hate my job

Yeah, that's the scene that I am in
Lying
At odds with every bland image
How many assignments can this
Fool ask me to do?
I never cared
There is no end
Only misery and uninterest

I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my
I hate my job

I don't care
I don't care

This Unbalanced...

I got Resolve today. It came on a Monday that was a train wreck after a grueling weekend, betwixt a credit card bill and a bank statement (I owe them...). Before I get further into this, I would like to outline my Monday.

Before I outline my Monday, I'm going to highlight my weekend: I took the the "Literature in English" GRE. It was the hardest test I have taken in recent memory. My mother and older sister left for India on Sunday night. Their flight was out of LAX, and was not scheduled to leave until 11:30 p.m. I went to see them off, and I did not get home until around 11:30 p.m. So I did not get to sleep a whole lot. Now, to Monday.

First, I had to drop my brother off at a financial aid meeting at school this morning. I was late getting him there. I did get to work on time, but today I had to take care of several important documents that were due today. One of them required me to copy 500 pages in exhibits. The other involved me meeting with the client today (the day it was due...service is complete once the documents are in the mail, thankfully), and arguing with him over minutia. While I was focusing on finishing preparing these documents, I was dumped with more work that is awaiting my response tomorrow. My boss did not show up for one of his appointments, and when the finally called me, he wanted me to tell the client stuff regarding his case, and somehow that ended up in a half an hour appointment where the client was complaining to me about things that I cannot possibly change nor control. I needed the associate attorney's signature on some other documents that had to go out today, and, because of a late appointment she had that went extra long, I did not get that signature until 6:30. The credit card terminal ran out of journal tape, and it didn't take just normal tape, but "thermal" tape, which I had to get the office manager to get. The office manager returned with her daughter, and that was just a distraction (helping a high school freshman with English homework, and answering personal questions while I'm trying to get things in the mail was distracting). This was all on top of the normal phone calls of people yelling at me, getting the mail, and scheduling appointments. I did not leave the office until after 6:30 p.m. (6:45? 6:50?) It sucked, to put it mildly.

But I got home, and there was the package from Fat Wreck Chords. I opened it up, and there were the usual freebies (a poster for some band called "Consumed", a Strung Out sticker, a Dillinger Four sticker [which rules], a little ad advertising Lagwagon's Resolve (on one side) and Western Addiction's Cognicide (on the other), and a free compilation called Rock Against Floyd), and Resolve. It was not wrapped in plastic. There was no impossible-to-open-sticker sealing the CD in air-tight paradise, completely inaccessible to those of us who have fallen. I opened the case, and found the signatures of the band on the back of the CD booklet. These are not fake signatures. Leon's signature is in silver, Joey's signature is smeared a bit on the J, Dave's signature is kind of faded. I smiled as wide as the girl on the cover of Let's Talk About Feelings (I probably looked that beautiful too). My whole day changed. I thought "even if this album sucks, it rules that I have their signatures on this CD booklet." The album does not suck. I have listened to the album twice so far, and, like I usually do with new CDs, I'm going to post the lyrics from a song on it, but all this needed to be said.

Resolve

Don't leave me in this room
The walls are closing in
This is the space I used to say
The line is drawn for you each day
But every day you show
With sound of caving walls
Some day this song will have no pulse
And I'll cave alone
But there we are
Waiting for your answer
Your arms speeded elation
Beating out your salvation
But when the tape stopped you were gone
A half measure from home
This week I recreate
Edit you back into
The blare that could define you
Coveted by few who knew
The phone rings without pause
This grief wills everyone
All I have is our shitty song
How could it ever be enough?
Here we are in our final accord
A mortician and his tools
Sonically bury you
You could have chose another chord to resolve on
~Lagwagon

It's Not Going Anywhere

He was thoroughly convinced he was not a good person. There were moments--recurring, and often so--that seemed to prove this conviction. There was that moment (how long was one?) when he had popped that girl's balloon with a pen, vindictively, instinctively, and with such satisfaction that if the girl had several more, he would have gone (hypothetically, against and contrary to the fact, the history, but of such sure conviction that he called it true--made it so) on a(n) homicidal spree of flying rubber and ink. Her mother, standing by, innocent as the child, was so shocked, her mouth was a agape. The accomplishment fell to bitter ruin with the tears of the child. She must have been six or seven, the age where one can comprehend evil and fear, but had no idea that these things were real. His heart sank. He wanted to cry with her and apologize, but it seemed pointless. He should not have done what he did, and the regret could not be washed off with something as common as an apology. A carnival (for that is where they were, and the clown from whom the girl received the balloon, a few yards away, clucked bitterly, condescendingly at the scene before him) was simply not a carnival with a girl crying. But, ironically, and he noted this with the pen still protruding from his clenched fist, sword-like, he was simply saying farewell to the sins of the flesh. Destruction of oneself and others (and, by extension, their property) was a sin of the flesh, ingrained and part of the human condition, and though there was no lent--and hence, no purging, he... he could not justify it. He walked over to the clown, made a gesture to the jester, which the clown understood immediately. The jester gave him another balloon, the same color, and he gave it to the crying child while the mother stood, anger aging her skin with a thousand wrinkles. Why did he do such a thing? Why did it feel like victory? Why did he feel so bad afterward? He did not know, but only knew that there were more moments, and, incidentally, more incidents which proved his utter worthlessness to humanity.

A Tremor of My Intent

"We were both drawn, during the interim time, to the only community we knew; we went back to school."

~pg. 17

This sounds like me and a couple of people I know.