I can’t remember

Listening to The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, I was overjoyed the other day to learn that eidetic (“photographic”) memory doesn’t exist, and relieved to learn that everyone’s memory is inherently faulty in everyone. After 31 years of eventful life, I have my fair share of memories, and this is the time of year for nostalgia with me. Sitting at the window, working on my Linux installation, listening to Ella while the sun blinks intermittently from the fat wet clouds, I reminisce. It’s the gaps in memory that really make me think, and make me feel sometimes that recently all I do is think about what I can’t remember. It makes me wish I kept a journal.

PatSanto Says:

Everyone, year after year, expresses dismay when he or she learns that I have done nothing to celebrate St. Inebretius, on March 17, the day of my youngest brother’s birth. I rarely answer coherently or rationally; this year, as my walls are greenly-painted, I am hosting a post-Pat’s.

I want to expound, but I just don’t feel the need, energy, or inspiration.

So, here’s what I’ve learned about alcohol:

* about half is enough

* when one starts to feel good, one is halfway to not-good

* hindsight is harsh, self-critical, and inevitably more wise than foresight which spys a desired bottle and desolate stretch of time

* alcoholic regrets are never worth the remembering unless something worthwhile and lasting has come from them (my current score is zero, unless we’re looking at a cumulative scale of bad decisions)

I could go on, but that would waste precious minutes I’ve alloted to drinking.

again

Well, [I was hopeful, again] the only logical explanation was that he was on his way, but it turned out he was only inattentive, lazy, forgetful, as usual. Is this destiny, doom, or merely hell?

Oh, dear…

The Art Institute was no consolation today. Yes, even the moist must of ages did little to calm me. Clear proof that I’m near losing control of my reason and senses.

I fear you’ve trapped me, wittingly or un; much as I have always wanted to resist such irrationalities, especially given my recent history, I am enjoying this.

At least we’re forced to take our time. What is the point in wasting the delicious unknown?

Requiem

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. If you haven’t read any of his work, do so. Breakfast of Champions is an easy one.

I’ve pasted below the close of his last book, which also closed his New York Times obituary. I find it apt.

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

Random

Is it me, or does Firefox simply suck? I absolutely love the features and goodies that come with it, but it regularly crashes on every computer on which I’ve installed it. My favorite is when it just disappears, and then I reopen the application and I get a guilty little message that tells me “Firefox closed abrubtly last time,” and gives me the option to restore my previous session. My second favorite is when I’m told firefox is already running, and so I can’t open it… because when I close it, apparently it doesn’t always close…

I’m at the Westin in Southfield, near Detroit, and I’m doing a bit of work, with the television on the Discovery Channel. The single most idiotic show I’ve ever seen is on: A Haunting. What is wrong with people? I want to believe in “something else” as much as the next guy, but why do so many people go to such lengths to convince themselves and create fantasies? Seriously, this is the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen – so bad it makes me want to flip the screen off over and over again. Double seriously, EVP is the uber-studpidest thing ever… well, enough about that. Listen to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe – they do rants much better than I.

I’m going to blog at length about Detroit, as this is my 6th week here in about 2 months. I have a lot of observations, but I have to put off writing. I feel like going downstairs for a cigarette.

wail and gnash

A painful year came to an end, and I never took the time to do some kind of happy new year post. It’s far too late for that now. I guess it’s never too late to hope the year will be happy, and to beg that it will be easier than the last, but the reality is stark: obscurity lingers, and time moves much too quickly.

I don’t really dwell on personal details here. There is not enough vitriol in the world to fuel a full-blown screed on my part. That is not why I started doing the blog thing. From time to time, anecdotes and laments have crept in, but I’ve just never been the sharing kind. I have plenty of very good friends, and I’m not afraid to burden them with my woes, because one who won’t listen is not a friend. Of course it is painful to find that one you thought of as a friend is merely an acquaintance or a co-worker, but… well, better late than never (or is it?). Often I don’t talk about my problems because I want time to work them through for myself. I either work it out, or I’m too embarrassed, after a little reflection, to admit that I’ve been foolish. That’s the case with this past year; though my friends – and some acquaintances – have shared in my wailing and gnashing of teeth to some extent, I’m embarrassed to say that I brought it all on myself.

I spent a year lolling about, really. 2006 dawned, and I looked around and thought, “where did the time go?” I made some mental lists of things to accomplish and change, and did nothing. I had some enjoyable moments in those twelve months, to be sure, but I was wilfully blind to what was going on, and what I was doing to myself. I want to hold grudges and hate and blame, but in the end, I lost control of the whole situation. I was blind and lazy, and despite being jostled half out of my slumber several times, I continually dozed off.

I finally realized around Thanksgiving that I had taken the last 8-10 years of, in a way, just coasting, flitting on autopilot and doing nothing to improve myself. Collecting degrees means nothing when you put forth little effort in the collecting; dalliance doesn’t earn a PhD.

So here I am, halfway through the second month of this new year, and I really am no better off. Other being 12 weeks into the idea to pay more attention to my physical fitness, and having lost 25 lbs since Turkeytime, I still have no plan. Any suggestions?

Must love…

Have you ever really liked a terrible movie? I’m hoping I wake up tomorrow with more sense, but I recommend “Must Love Dogs,”if only for the Cusack-Lane-Plummer-Channing  performances.

The final few scenes are gut-wrenchingly awful.

What?

Have you ever taken a stance or made a decision, and then decided maybe you were wrong? Of course, most people in possession of a soul have. And have you ever come close to avowing your change of heart, only to have your original opinion immediately confirmed?

It can make one almost physically ill.

I’m all out of coffee

I don’t know why, but I have had absolutely no motivation to write lately. I miss the wonderful urge, always of varying strength and duration. It is pointless to reminisce and rehash, because that will certainly not bring it back. The paradox is that I’m writing without an urge – or am I? I listened to PHC (how the hell do I add a link to “Prairie Home Companion” without having to search and dig for a tutorial?) this evening, and had yet another pang of misundercomplishment. It was during a somewhat unpleasant rendition of a fairly enjoyable Xmas carol, when suddenly the ensemble broke into skit. It was a sketch in which Garrison Keillor trys to get his mother to realize he won’t be home for the holidays because he has to try to meet with an editor to finally get something published; he’s been in New York trying to be an author for years, but all he’s found is work as a balloon clown. He’s pretty much a failure, including a recent breakup after 15 years with a woman his mom says has a serious body proportion problem, but he remains optimistic and fights off the loving onslaught of his monther’s reality for quite a while, until he finally agrees to use the tickets she’s bought for him and come home to Minneapolis for Christmas. He is able to maintain a shred of his dignity, refusing to accept that his mother bring some winter clothes to the airport so he can change in the men’s room, saying “I’m 64 years old, mom, I have my own clothes.”  Somehow this story struck a chord with me. I find myself all of a sudden at the age of 30, and really nothing has turned out the way I had envisioned it – other than the fact that I’m living in a city I love (now there’s a topic I could write on for days.. why don’t I do this?). I’m not unhappy, but I’m not content. I have never been content. I think that is what I long for the most in my life – contentedness. What a silly thing to realize, all of a sudden, at the age of 30. Should I have followed my “dreams” and my mom’s advice, and gone into acting? I don’t really want to be a waiter, and I don’t enjoy struggling. I obviously don’t have the discipline and drive to be a writer – I can’t even maintain a blog, ferfuksaik. Should I forge into the law path? Should I try to excel and conquer in my current career? My rope of my life – with all these lines of impulse entwining in some way – is as frayed as ever. The only solution I can see at the moment is to bitch.

I broke a glass earlier in the kicthen while cleaning. Soap, I have come to discover with the wisdom advanced age brings, is slippery as hell. No matter how much I sweep, I seem to find shards of the former pint glass everywhere, knifelike little memories of beverages past.  I had an urge to go to Aldi to buy paper towels to clean my microwave – a strange urge, I know – and decided while there to get the staples I had planned to buy at Trader Joe’s. I was pleased with my flexibility, and so happy with myself for having unexpectedly accomplished so much – it’s the little things that truly make me happy, like finally closing the storm windows, or wiping down a dirty windowsill. This buoyant, sepia-toned feeling of halcyon happiness was crushed by the realization that I am out of Trader Joe’s Bay Blend coffee.

Not a tragedy, but not a good thing, either, by far.