So it's been a while since I wrote anything of substance here. Haven't had much to say, really. The grad school thing hasn't been going very well -- I think I may need to spend more time researching the various programs and options, figuring out what I want to do in the future, etc. than the earlier deadlines permit. And I'm still so uncertain about everything. I'm considering joining up with the Peace Corps or submitting an application for Teach For America. Fuck, I'm even thinking about enlisting. Or taking a bath with a toaster. Hopefully things will come together soon, but honestly I don't see how they're going to. Sighs all around.

Lately I've been very cold and haven't been able to shake this feeling of constant dread: I always feel as if I'm on my way to take a very difficult examination for which I haven't studied -- I don't even know what's going to be on the damned thing -- yet its results will determine the course of the rest of my life. My gut is contracting, my teeth are chattering, my skin is covered with goosebumps. My head hurts. I'd just as soon hide in my room feigning sickness (though it wouldn't exactly be feigning sickness, since I'm so sick with worry I can barely walk without collapsing into a shaking mess) and send the Dean an e-mail to ask for an extension, but that's not an option anymore.

But if I swallow sleeping pills
I might escape these dreadful chills
They'll dress me in my Sunday best
and I won't have to take that test.

Last week I had some interesting dreams -- dreams of running helter-skelter through open fields filled with zombies and climbing wooden fences with cracking white paint and dashing down dusty country roads with a slender girl slung over my shoulder; dreams of hiding on my knees amidst pews in huge worship halls, chanting protection spells as armed gladiators rushed at granite devils wielding slim revolvers and holding the hands of wounded damsels as the light of life left their shining eyes.

Ja ne.

I'd like to be sleeping right now, but they've been at it outside with the jackhammers for the last hour. I wonder if what they're doing is part of an intricate scheme to take over the world or otherwise upset the foundation of society. Or is it all in my head? It's giving me a fucking headache. And since I can't really do anything that requires much concentration -- and therefore a certain measure of quiet -- I'm writing another blog entry.

Question for the creative types: How often do you have ideas for projects for which you think, if you were able to complete them (and the public actually paid attention), people would violently attack you and even try to kill you for vocally expressing so contrary a point of view? Because maybe I'm just paranoid, or overestimating the uniqueness of my own ideas, or underestimating the capacity of people to tolerate, understand, and even accept new and differing ideas (as opposed to simply ignoring them; I can't even get people to publish my fiction, with "too didactic" being among the primary reasons cited for the rejection of my work), but I think I have ideas for enterprises like that at least twice a week. (more...)

I've been wanting to write something here, but lately I haven't had the energy to write much of anything. Well, I've gotten two Scary-Crayon articles up this week -- The Infernal Realm of Paid Surveys and Spider-Man is gross -- but that's about it. I've been sleeping 16 hours a day and feeling like crap and doing little when I am awake. Meh.

So I was lying in bed the other day at 4 PM and was thinking to myself that since my dreams are both more interesting and preferable to my waking life, I may as well just go ahead and end it all. If death is like a long sleep, then it'd definitely be an improvement, and if it's nothing at all... it'd still be an improvement. And then I slipped into sleep and had a strange dream. I was somehow living alone in this house that was apparently based on my current one, but things were in different places -- sort of like when you play a video game in the special "arrange" mode that mixes up the locations of the puzzles. Or maybe all houses share certain similarities. Anyway, the kitchen was on the second floor, the cereal pantry was in the dining room as opposed to the kitchen -- things like that. But there was no furniture anywhere in the house save a small portable television and a telephone on the wall.

Everything looked grey. The wind outside was whipping so fiercely that all of the doorknobs shook as if someone were trying to get in -- and all of the locks appeared to be broken or loose such that I had to struggle against the wind to keep the doors closed. And judging from the fact that my suitcase was open and in a different location from where I had placed it -- apparently I had packed all of my few possessions in this place into a suitcase; I think I had just arrived there -- it seemed as if someone had been inside, but nothing was missing.

But what struck as being most interesting about the dream was that I kept thinking to myself that if I stayed in this place a little longer I would find out why I was there, though I couldn't remember at that moment. The next morning, when I woke up and began to get ready for work as part of my routine, would it strike me then? Or when the landlord or whomever called and/or showed up to collect rent -- I assumed I was paying rent on the place -- would he/she have proof of employment that would tell me where I was supposed to be? Or was I living in the place with a roommate -- it was a pretty big place for just me -- who could tell me what was going on when he/she got in? And even if none of these things obtained I was certain that I would remember why I was there with just a little more time -- when the wind stopped and the sun shone in through the dusty windows and the doors stopped making so damned much noise.

I woke up before any of that happened. When I realized where I was, my first thought was, "Okay, maybe my dreams aren't preferable to my waking life." But then I thought that they were definitely more interesting -- and now, considering the certainty I had that things would somehow come together, maybe that dream was preferable to my present state after all. Of course, my thinking that things would've come together doesn't necessarily mean that they would have -- or that I would have continued to feel so confident about my unusual predicament.

My dreams last night were much more exciting, but I can't quite recall what they were about.

And my birthday's next Tuesday. It's going to suck, like it did last year and the year before that. The year before that it wasn't so bad, but that year I was in school and some people actually came by to hang out with me for a bit. Wonder how they're doing.

Ja ne.

I don't know how it happened, but this page ended up among the referrals to this page. That makes me glad.

In other news, I went to the local library and borrowed a bunch of books on Marxist thought. I meant to pick up some specific philosophy titles, but our library doesn't have them. I did get Harry Potter and Philosophy, though.

Oh, did I mention? Instead of embarking on this crazy move and losing myself in a new job, I'm gonna buckle down and study my options and apply to grad school. English or Philosophy? That is the question. If only there were a program that combined the study of both areas! Perhaps there is. I will look into it. Maybe one of my old professors knows something... assuming they remember me at all!

I feel more creative already, though -- I actually wrote a little of a short story tonight! And regarding the Marx -- that's more/less research for a book I've been planning to write for a while and will finally have time to work on. Nonfiction. Ooh baby. Maybe I'll dig up my drawings and finish that illustrated kids' book I started working on a while back, too.

It kinda sucks that I'm not working anymore -- and therefore don't have any more cash coming in -- but it's so refreshing to have a viable plan, projects to work on, and the time to actually see them through! Shit, maybe I'll even clean my room. ('Cause it's even worse now.)

Ja!

So now I'm thinking I'll probably end up in Hoboken or Jersey City, since for the same price that I'd pay for a tiny hovel in one of the outer boroughs of NYC I could apparently live in a relatively nice place and spend about the same amount of time commuting into Manhattan! Plus, while I like the city lots and would probably be hanging out there a fair amount, it might be better to actually live in a quieter and cleaner little town. I think sales tax in NJ is lower, too!

Hopefully this will all work out! I submitted my two-week notice today, so as of August 26 I'll be free of employment ties to the area and ready to relocate. And in the way of careers, while I'm very much interested in writing and would hopefully be able to find a gig doing that, a man from US Investigation Services came by the school to do a background check on a former student, and as I escorted him to the appropriate office he told me about what his job entails, etc. -- and it actually sounded pretty gosh darned cool! Almost like being a private eye or a government spy. I will have to look into it. Can you see me doing background checks? I'd like to do a background check on myself to see what kind of dirt turns up. (more...)