Scot

03:10 am: blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah.

03:33 am: I am on an online dating site
It is different than regular dating because they get to read a little bit about who you are, what you do, what you love and what you are like.

It is exactly like regular dating because nine times out of ten the people looking at your profile judge you entirely based on the way you look

It is different because you can say your whole piece without interruption of loud, irritating music or being cut off

It is exactly the same because they still aren't listening

It is different because I don't have to buy them a drink to get their attention

It is the same because I need to be shitfaced to have the courage to approach anyone new



technology may change the way we interact, but it will never make us stop being awful to each other

01:33 am: I can only tell true stories
[this is incredibly self indulgent, so read at your own risk]

"You can say what you want about me being a whore, but you sleeping with her even after agreeing with every awful thing I've said about her makes you fucked up in your own special little way. At least I'm honest with myself."

She turned the music back up, the intro to Baba O'Reily not quite drowning out the thoughts going through his head. He wanted to quip back at her something like, "You wouldn't have believed me if I did say anything nice about her," or, "Yea well maybe that's what I thought you wanted to hear," or even tell her what he actually thought about her (the girl he had slept with, not the girl in his car, although he had slept with her too). What came out of his mouth was, in fact, true, but it wasn't quite everything, and it took him until the chorus of Pinball Wizard for him to get it out of his mouth. "I slept with her because I am depressed, and I thought it would make me feel better." Also, because the other girl made him feel great, awful, good, and terrible, all in that order and all in the course of one evening. Nothing like telling someone that they really miss them, need to see them, then complain about their appearance and condition of their palms to put their opinion of you in the toilet. She deserved more credit than he was giving her, but he wasn't feeling terribly charitable.

The girl in his car wasn't thrilled about this response either, but she didn't ask him to take her home or to stop talking. She was still mad about his last outburst after they had had sex two months prior: He remembered quite suddenly that she had a boyfriend and what they had been doing was probably a fluke. A drunken fluke, she said, laughing about it. "What, did you think I'd leave him for you?" Maybe you should leave him for you, he had thought, but had kept his mouth shut about that part. It made him feel a little cheap, a little used, and more than a little like shit, and what he DID say was probably a little meaner than it had to be. The little things she said like "I don't really have high standards about sleeping with guys," coupled with the things like "We just knew what we were going to do and did it... it felt so right," infuriated him. It was always like this, between these two, to go back and forth as such: one criticizing the other, each one believing that they were truly the ones being hurt in the end. Of course, "in the end," generally led to their lips pressed together. No emotional rollercoaster is complete without that sexy kicker, that last drop before the ride wheels in and you know you've either gotta pack up and try another one or wait another 3 hours in line to do it again. Today's rollercoaster was definitely not headed there, and she lit another cigarette without bothering to roll the window down. The funniest part was that the girl in his car was doing almost the exact same thing the girl not present had done, just a spread out over several months rather than several hours. At least she had the decency to insult him AFTER they had already had sex, and not during.

"Sometimes I wonder about you, how you can be so smart and still have these emo streaks you go through. It's depressing."

Well, yea, duh, depression is depressing! He wasn't quite sure how to even begin to explain, to justify the feelings in his head. She was right, after all, about him being smart. He was smart enough. So why bother feeling sad? He expressed some dissatisfaction with his job, with life, and with the world at large. Blame, blame, blame.

"It's not like you're the only twenty something who doesn't know what they want to do with themselves, or feels like they're not where they want to be."

It was hard to hear her over Journey yelling about how she loved her lovin' things, so he kept quiet and gunned the engine a little bit to pass a car on the road. She wants to go home, she wants to be out of this car, she wants to be out of my life, he thought. And why wouldn't she? All he did was mess around with her emotions and get back nothing but the same. Sure, he wanted more, but she was always with someone else, always seeing some other guy, always... fucking someone or the other, and it made him worry. Would she cheat on him? Would he cheat on her? Was what he felt for her really as strong as he thought it was? Was this just another byproduct of his issues? She had been single for about a week, and he was already driving around aimlessly in the middle of the night listening to classic rock too loud to talk comfortably, the whole car smelling of her clove cigarettes.

She turned the music off. "I thought you weren't in a hurry." 
"I didn't think you wanted to be in the car longer."
"I didn't say that." You don't say a lot of shit, he thought.
"You don't seem terribly happy with me."
"Well sometimes I want to know what's wrong with you! You always seem so put together and it's all bullshit! I know it's bullshit, you know it's bullshit, but yet you don't tell anyone. Why even bother having friends?"

I don't want to trouble them, his mind says, and his mouth stupidly follows with the same words. The storm begins. Always being the walled fortress, the island, the unapproachable loner, is this really what she thinks of him? Maybe he just doesn't want to sound like he's bitching constantly. It seems she can't even make up her mind about whether or not his pity party is something to share or something to grow up and be ashamed of. This is the kind of thing he wants to avoid. Sure, he doesn't want her to worry, sure, he wants to be up front with her, but he can't think of any good reasons, actions, or resolutions to his problems besides "Chin up, bucko!" Once again his mouth betrays him. "I don't have all the answers. I can't know all the answers. It's hard." Oh, nice one, idiot. It's hard. Real insightful. She already thinks he's a prick, first for not telling her anything is wrong, and then for telling her when everything is.

"If you have everything planned in advance, you might as well have one foot in the grave."

Her prowess with words on the fly is really dumbfounding to him. He is usually quick-witted, but something about her makes his mind slow down, makes him feel stupid. Maybe he did really care for her after all, the way he thinks he does. "Part of the challenge of life is not having all the answers," she said, "always having something new to keep you on your toes. Life doesn't hand you things like it used to, back in high school and even in college." She hated his complaining, yet she still tried to help. She still cared that much for him that she would remind him of what an asshole he was. He wished she was as brutally honest when she was flirting with him as when she was insulting him, but it didn't change the truth in her words.

"You've got your whole life ahead of you, you know. You aren't stuck."

It wasn't anything he didn't know or hadn't thought of himself. He didn't know whether he wanted to kick her out of the car or kiss her.

11:52 pm: Feelings!
In my head!


Aaah!

06:11 pm: I'm gonna read this Body for Life book that my dad used to lose a ton of weight and get in shape (well, he's not doing it so well any more, but hey, old habits die hard I guess). I believe this new job and new.... life of adulthood is something I can use to motivate me to further take care of business, like my health, now that I'm not so worried about my career any more. (I will still be applying to things, of course! I don't want to work help desk all my life!) The point being, is that I have the goal I set for myself: Decent employment by September.

It's time for some new goals.

05:49 pm: this is funny to me for all the wrong reasons
http://www.hulu.com/watch/90056/howcast-how-to-deal-with-your-sexually-active-teen

actually kinda useful, but still made me laugh

06:32 pm: Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Near the end, there's an intense discussion of chocolates, their manufacture and their design, and it made me really want a box of chocolates. It is all vital to the plot of course (thanks terry) and also made me laugh. But still.... I want some goddamn chocolate.


Also, apparently I cannot run my computer, my air conditioner, and the dishwasher at the same time. I think I'll spend some time out of my room or turn this damn thing off.

02:55 am: Hoo boy
This has been a strange night.

07:02 pm: oh well, so much for professional ethics
my options for jobs are the following

big pharma ("what, you want to just GIVE that medicine away?")
big oil ("Alternative energy? But this one is so profitable right now!")
big corn ("Is that a thermodynamics textbook on your desk? You're fired.")

etc

03:34 pm: I need to draw more.

02:06 am: tonight I saw harry potter because thefuturist88 wouldn't see it with me. Instead, we saw a more complete, resolved better movie called Public Enemies. Good times.

I could use a stiff drink.

06:16 pm: I really need to put a lock on my door
To prevent people and dogs from coming in when I'm half awake or just not really paying attention to life. Back in college, if someone knocked on my door and I didn't answer they just left, they didn't open the door to check if I was still alive.

IN ANY CASE. The flurry of friends (okay, maybe 2, and samara but I don't read her journal) posting I decided to write a little sump'm sump'm. I've been in the process of cleaning all those things in my life that were dirty, namely my bedroom and the basement of my house, and while it's not really done yet I can safely say that at least the bedroom is looking good! Hopefully it'll still be this not cluttered when sara moves back in, and I can still find places for all the shit I left in her room.

Of course, I also might just sleep all day. Boo. I need to not watch movies until 7 AM on my computer. Or get a hobby, or something.

09:04 pm: gaaaah stop me from buying cheap books from mcsweeney's

02:34 pm: I know I'd be one either way
Being an engineering graduate in the US without a job or health insurance kind of makes me feel like a part of those buzz-statistics you see on the news.


(I am very, VERY aware of just how worse off I could be. I just don't like being a number)

09:40 am: "Things you might not know"
This is reposted for all those people I'd like to show, but don't necessarily read my facebook notes where I originally posted these. The first was spawned by a "25 things about you" tag request, and I decided to really think hard about them. And since then, I've been trying to dig out things from my memory as I recall them. Even though many of these are somewhat (or very) distorted through the lens of time, the feelings I have regarding the incidences are still true to life. It is impossible to change history, but it's still far too easy for the mind to change perception.

1) The only reason I ever had long hair was because I didn't want to go get it cut. It was pretty much just a product of being lazy. The only reason I cut it was because people stopped bitching about me having long hair and I wanted to mess with their heads. It also was a great way to challenge the "authority" that Casey thought she had over me.

2) On a related note, I can't decide whether to get some sort of hair loss treatment like Rogaine or to just shave the whole thing once I develop a bald spot on the back of my head. One or the other of these things will happen.

3) My eyes are very sensitive, that's why I always wear glasses rather than getting contacts. They had to hold me down at the eye doctor's office until about the age of 13 because I could not for the life of me sit still while getting things like eyedrops. I can't open my eyes underwater without it burning, even in freshwater, and I have to dry my face if I'm underwater before I open them again.

4) I have dry skin on the back of my knees. It itches constantly, but I haven't really done anything about it. I scratch my legs until they bleed, sometimes. It's a disgusting habit.

5) I used to be proud about everything I did, because my family and my teachers made me feel like a very special little snowflake, entitled to praise and accolades. Hell, they basically rained them on me in elementary and middle school, which set me up to become a huge prick during high school. You could counteract this and say EVERYONE was a huge prick in high school, but I was very much a braggart.

6) When I was either 12 or 13, I considered killing myself. I think it was just hormones being stupid and causing me to have weird mood swings. I still have mood swings, but they're less intense and significantly easier to track. I also believe suicide is extremely weak and selfish.

7) My first experience with religion (aside from people complaining about CCD in elementary school) was the first year I went to Camp Yawgoog (yes it's spelled that way) with the boy scouts. On the last day (Sunday) they started grouping us up by Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish (The boy scouts are such a diverse organization, aren't they?). I said "What if I don't know what I am?" They all looked at me like I was a complete idiot. "Well, what is your father?" "Uh, I don't know." They proceeded to look at me like I was an even BIGGER idiot, and stuck me with the protestant group. It was pretty weird. People stood up and sat down at predetermined times, and they said prayers that everyone else seemed to know and I didn't. I was very confused, a little scared, and then later bored. I have never felt anything spiritual at any religious service ever since. (I have been to catholic and evangelical services)

8) I really only felt connected to a few people while I was growing up. Later I learned what I was missing with a few people, but there were a ton of people that I really never felt were my friends that are still listed as my "Friends" on facebook. I remove these people from time to time, but there are enough people who never really were nasty or deserve any kind of malice that I keep them. They are good people, don't get me wrong, I'm just not terribly connected with them.

9) Anne and I drew a comic in third grade called "The Dumb Bird." He walked out of a hollow log and got hit with a hammer. Ha ha! How stupid you are, Dumb Bird!

10) In high school I drew a comic called "Eyeroids," the characters and their designed based entirely on things that my older sister had drawn, except I turned it into a humor comic that really wasn't that funny. Like this one time, one of them got hit with a hammer! Ha ha! How stupid you are, Eyeroids!

11) My father made me play a brass instrument when I was 8 years old. He would stand over me while I practiced and every now and then he would tell me what I had played was wrong and that I should do it again. I would ask him what I did wrong and he would say something I didn't understand. This continued until I cried. One of the biggest reasons I never practiced baritone in high school was because I could still feel him silently judging me from the other room (sometimes not so silently judging me, but much less overbearing now)

12) I tried to pick up the guitar when I was 6, but it was too heavy for me to play it effectively. No, seriously, the thing was too heavy and I couldn't hold it properly. On a related note, I tried to learn classical guitar with a guy by the name of Marty who gave me lessons after school when I was in middle school, but one day he stopped coming to the lessons without saying anything. It wasn't until about a year later I found out he had dropped everything to travel with a band and didn't tell anyone. I cannot play electric or classical guitar.

13) I can sleep through an entire day and a half. If I have nothing to do for a day, I won't DO anything.

14) I hate talking on the phone. I can't hear anyone clearly even if they are a professional speaker. I feel like an ass asking for people to repeat themselves. I never really spoke to any of my past girlfriends on the phone much, partially due to this. The other part is that I'm not talkative.

15) I can't eat ketchup. It makes me sick to my stomach.

16) The only things I'm proud of nowadays are my skills in photography and cooking. I'm not yet proud of my ability to play the drums, but I'm working on it. The thing that makes me proud of it is that I picked it up, became good, and perfect my technique entirely of my own volition. That and I like pretty pictures and good food.

17) I refuse to type internet acronyms and text message shorthand in any of my typed conversations. It makes it so a text message that would have taken 20 seconds to send takes 2 minutes, or that it becomes the length of 3 text messages, or anything like that, but if I have something to say I'm going to say it clearly, goddamnit.

18) I occasionally get wanderlust and walk around outside late at night. I whistle to myself or take pictures or sit on the rocks at the lakefill. I have done this less, recently, because it's fucking freezing.

19) I meet a fair number of people through my travels on the internet. I've been on lots of social networking sites from when I was angsty and bored and didn't have real friends in middle school, and some of them stuck to me. Most of them are, as you'd expect, just internet people, but there are a fair number of them that are genuine, fun, and interesting (and pretty). I hate it when people tell me that meeting people online is pathetic and stupid. Wouldn't meeting people in bars be the same way? In clubs? At events? At anything? The internet's just a different form of communication, not necessarily always a lesser one. The only reason you think the internet is full of terrible horrible people is because that's where you go to be a terrible, horrible, person that you can't do in real life.

20) I have never been to a strip club or some other form of sexual entertainment, and I probably never will. I don't see the excitement in stuffing dollar bills into some woman's g-string while drinking $8 light beers, the whole place stinking of cigarettes, booze, and hopelessness.

21) If it was easier for me to do so and I could learn how to prepare vegetables better, I'd probably be a vegetarian for a while, or at least stop relying on meat for my food as much. I'd like to have a more rounded diet, but it's too expensive.

22) I want a woman who will challenge me emotionally, sexually, and intellectually, but mostly I want a woman who is capable of being someone without me.

23) It would also be nice if that person had striking red hair, played the cello, and was an artist. But you can't get everything you want in one person. (they're already taken)

24) I don't actually like the way scotch tastes.

25) It has taken me over two hours to write this.




1) When my family first got Buster, our Jack Russell Terrier, I vehemently protested. As I saw it, it was another thing I was going to have to regulate and take care of and have to deal with it shitting all over the place (like the cats did) except that it totally wasn't going to be my fault this time. In fact, I was such a flippant little shit when we went to go get the thing, that the breeder almost didn't sell it to us. Buster's one of my best friends, now, even if he's a little clingy.

2) My father occassionally refers to the dog as my "brudder." I absolutely hate this. It's almost as bad as my mother's favorite phrase, "Men are dogs," which is accompanied by hoarse woofing whenever I protest this statement.

3) I've been staying up really late, like, past 5 AM. While it's nice to see the sun rise, it's really damaging my health and awareness during the day. I am fighting my biological clock to get it back onto something more normal and diurnal, so when I'm home I can read the paper in the morning and catch up with my father, the only time it's possible to have a word with him since he's not at work and he hasn't started drinking yet.

4) This isn't really about me, but after about 6 PM, my mother and father drift to their computers separately and do their separate things, either games or mindless e-malling in front of separate TVs and living essentially separate lives. While this makes it easy to talk to my mother without interruption, it really makes me worry about their relationship, their personal life, and their marriage, even though it's none of my damn beeswax.

5) Some of the turns of phrases I use, like "none of your damn beeswax" and "around the sun to meet the moon," cause people to blink a few times, ask me what I'm talking about and why I sound like a 60 year old person. Part of it is because my grandparents use these pretty often, and I think they're actually decent phrases for non-cussing stuff, and also because I kinda speak like a 60 year old man at times.

6) I have been borrowing a hairbrush from Sarah since the I came home from my sister's recital, having left my hair brush at home. Now that she's gone (and took her brush with her) I'm using a broken one I found in an empty room in the chapter house. I really miss my good hairbrush, that was actually bought for me by an ex of mine most of my friends know pretty well.

7) When I was in 4th grade, we had two teachers whose names I don't remember. One of our final projects was to make a board game of some kind, and I really hated it, having always disliked little crafty things where you had to finagle scissors and construction paper into beautiful works of elementary school goodness. I've never been patient enough to cut straight lines or to fashion designs more complex than bands of color, so obviously the final product was terrible. I still got an A in the class.

8) Speaking of As in classes, I was in a lot of the same classes as my twin sister in high school (even though I shouldn't have been). The teachers that badmouthed her or picked on her for "not being as smart as" me or "not working as hard as" me, I would do things like deliberately not pay attention, turn in homework assignments half completed or not completed at all, scribble nasty notes on the back of tests (that usually had near perfect scores, sorry sara I wasn't going to fail for you) or do other stupid bullshit like doodling comics about how crappy the class was to disrupt the peace or at least give them the impression that their class was worthless. One particular teacher I did this a lot to was my Italian 4 honors teacher, who really didn't deserve it, but I was a brat. I wrote nasty notes on the backs of tests or flippantly respond to her questions in the language we were studying, which made the sting twice as hard. She actually pulled me aside once, asking why I wrote "this class sucks and is boring" in the margin of some quiz or the other, to which I just shrugged (even though I was actually pretty nervous about getting some sort of serious disciplinary measure). Obviously, I had gone too far and simply stopped doing the homework. For two and a half quarters. I still managed an A in the class.

9) My ex girlfriend has recently asked me to write her a letter, telling her the story of our relationship from my point of view from beginning to end, so she can read it when she is ready. I am willing to do this, but I'm still not sure if her knowing the truth will be any better or worse than her endlessly wondering what really happened. (rest redacted)

10) There's a long stretch of flat, wide sidewalk at Northwestern that cuts through campus on the side of Sheridan Road. In the late spring and summer, the leaves of the trees perfectly shape this and the perspective of it like a long, green tunnel. I like to get on my bike, focus on the end, and pedal as fast as I can towards it, just letting the world flow past me, the vanishing point never really getting any closer.



1) When I was in 6th grade I went to my first schoolwide dance (or at least for middle school, since it was all 6th graders) and also experienced one of my first migraines. Even though we weren't supposed to be able to leave, I walked out (with some goading of the teachers like, "my head is killing me" and "I live 10 minutes away from here") and told myself I'd never go to another school dance.

2) Threeish years later in 8th grade at the end of the year, we had a final dance for all the 8th graders. I was pushed into going to this and decided I was going to be a total shit and not dance with anyone. I was asked by two women to dance, resisted heavily and turned them down. Unfortunately, both of these two have turned out to be some of the best people I wish I knew better. If you're reading this and you remember.... you were both better than I deserved then, and I should have been honored to dance with you.

3) I have smoked cigarettes and cigars. (I can still count the number of cancer sticks I've had on my fingers and toes). I enjoyed it, but not really anything that was life changing. If there were no health risks and it wasn't such a fucking disgusting habit, I'd probably take it up. I like the smell of unburnt tobacco. I also often dream about smoking cigs, even before I had ever had the things grace my lips. It never was the focus, it was just kind of in the background, but I was aware of it. I'd wake up craving a cigarette not even knowing how that would FEEL. And now that I do, I've got to say I'm not terribly impressed. I still like cigars for special occasions, though, and the pack of cigs I bought with my friends last weekend is taunting me on my desk. I'll probably put them away when I get home and forget about them like I did with Cailin's cloves.

4) I've always been an avid reader... at least before high school got into its full swing. I'd read anything with words on it when I was a kid. Textbooks, papers, random scraps on the floor, flyers, posters... We had several elementary textbooks for whatever reason in my house of science, math, grammar... Even if I didn't understand what was going on, I'd read them anyways. I spent most of middle school at the main branch of the cranston public library, and started reading science fiction. I read tons of crappy fantasy, about slutty elves rolling in the hay in addition to asimov's classics. I'm not sure if that affected my brain in too many bad ways or if it was just smut that contributes to every boy's development during those times of hormonal tidal waves.... Well, too late now. I stopped reading in high school because music became a full time problem rather than that thing I did that made me special.

5) I got my facebook account when two ladies visited me the summer between graduating and leaving for school when I had mono (my girlfriend at the time did not have it, and no I was not cheating on her) and brought me delicious pudding and hung out with me for a while. They were like "Sign up for facebook! It's fun! Believe me!" and I just couldn't say no to that. Seriously, what would you have done? Before that I had resisted so hard, too.

6) I also resisted getting a cellular telephone. It was sent to me halfway through my freshman year at school unexpectedly with a bunch of other stuff I actually needed. I didn't carry it around with me so people wouldn't call me... I refused to text message... and now as you all know I text constantly. I still get fucking cramps from it though, and I hate it.

7) (redacted)

8) I know that it will hit me soon that I'm graduating and all these people I've known for years will no longer be the people I see every day, and this will make me incredibly depressed. But until I get there, I'm going to pretend that everything is cool, and I will be fine.

9) (redacted)

10) I have been reluctant to tag any of the people I talk about in these notes, in hopes that their attention will be drawn towards me anyways. I'm not sure which is the bigger plea for attention, though.

11) 10 is a nice round number, but I don't believe in ending on a downer. The last one didn't, that long stretch that doesn't end is an exhilarating ride (in case you thought differently) Anyways, one of the most fun drives I've ever had was driving back from CT last summer from the two people I visited, blasting the Youngblood Brass Band through my open windows down the long stretches of highway early in the morning, yelling loudly along with the words and feeling the wind whip through the car mercilessly as my speed went a little higher than the numbers displayed on the side of the road. Driving isn't always so bad.

02:23 am: One more to go.
Tomorrow is my last final of my undergraduate career.

I'm worried that as I transition into an "adult" (whatever that means), I will never be as driven to do things as my sisters or as some of my friends are. I'm worried I won't find love, I won't find happiness, and that I'll never get any better at artistic pursuits than I have achieved in my first 22 years of life. 

Then again, these are similar to everyone's worries, so I'm in pretty good company.

Things will be okay. I know that no matter how poorly I do, how bummed I've been about life, or how fucked up I've made everything with relationships, I've managed to get by without too much damage on either side, at least in the long run. I've never failed a class, I've never been in debt beyond college loans, and I've never kicked a puppy. I've done some things I'm not proud of... but I don't think I'm a bad person.


I can succeed. I just need to care enough to do so.

02:17 am: decided to start trying to use the tablet


EDIT

02:56 pm: My last assignment (aside from finals) of my undergraduate engineering career at Northwestern University was an ink still life.


What the fuck.
 

07:32 am: hey look at this thing I made
 www.youtube.com/watch

03:53 am: "...To steal our precious bodily fluids!"
 I donated blood today.

It's fairly uncomfortable. 

I don't think I'll do it again.