Me, Sad Sweater

Lots of feelings here. Music by Peggy. Video by Amanda and Scott. Emoting by me.

Context.

A Happy Thought

The following just occurred to me:

If (1) there is such a thing as eternal torment; it is (2) likely that it will be constructed in such a way as to ensure the maximum possible torment for each individual.

(3) It is far more painful to endure suffering when one is certain that it (a) could have easily been avoided (e.g., by not sinning quite so much) and (b) was directly one's own fault.

But!

If (3) and (2) are true, then it is also true that (4) whoever is in charge of the whole post-mortal tormenting biz would instill each tormented soul with a certainty that the whole thing was his own fault regardless of whether it was in fact his fault or not.

Therefore, if it falls to us to be eternally tormented, we may take solace in the fact that our certainty that we could have avoided this torment (by e.g., being slightly better people) may in fact be a false certainty. And the presence of even this admittedly minor comfort would be enough to ensure that we could not at any point be experiencing the absolute maximum possible torment. So, no matter what happens: it could be worse.

I had kind of a shitty day today, but this really cheered me the fuck up.

I believe I can fly.

I genuinely believe, with the full force of conviction, that I can float in the air and propel myself through the sky by waving my arms around.

I also believe that (for me and me alone) the aether is a tangible thing. That I can actually reach out and grab onto the air as one would a door handle, or a baseball bat.

Worse yet (and this is where my unique condition devolves from erroneous fantasy into pathological obsession), I am utterly incapable of thinking about anything else. I think about this every single night of my life. The days are no different. I am forever cogitating on this one idea - turning it over in my mind, analyzing every aspect of it, gnawing away at it until I can no longer separate the concept from the dim reality of my existence. It consumes me.

Not only do I have feathered flaps of skin attaching my arms to the rest of my body, but the mere act of raising my arms and exposing these flaps to the elements will allow me to suddenly and surprisingly glide through the air. To escape, from you, from my troubles. From this place.

Further, it is my unshakable conviction that I am able to rise majestically into the air in an easy, fluid manner that gives no appearance of strain or effort. When I envision this in my mind, it seems to me not (as I have described) like flying, but more like propelling myself through some kind of a wide, inviting doorway. On my legs.

Which, now that I think about it, really seems a lot more likely.

Nonetheless, I believe I can fly.

I believe I can fly.

I believe I can fly.

Terminator Salvation: A Review

I watched this film. In it, a man named Christian Bale and a group of his friends try to come to terms with their disappointment about the apocalypse by breaking a number of very expensive machines. The villains of the piece are a gang of humorless robots who are inexplicably angry with Christian Bale and his friends because of something that a man named Edward Furlong did in a previous, more interesting film, which they watched but did not particularly enjoy.

There are two parts of this film that I liked very much: In the first, an extremely large robot shoots motorcycles out of its knees, which I can relate to because it is something that I have always wanted to do. My other favorite part of the movie is a dramatic scene in which Christian Bale spends ten minutes shouting at a cinematographer who is acting unprofessionally.

All in all, I would have to say that I did not like this film as much as I thought I was going to. This is primarily due to the direction, by a Scottish gentleman named McG, who, due to a traumatic childhood incident where a killer robot belittled him for writing a competent segue, is convinced that coherent narratives are for sissies and elitists.

In conclusion, I would recommend that you not watch this film because it will make you very depressed about the future, which has no jokes or girls in it.

Top 10 List!

I've been told that people on the Internet won't read prose anymore unless it's been cut down into bite-size, manageable chunks for Web consumers. Nuggets. That if you want to grab someone's fleeting attention on this speeding superhighway of information and reach the front page of Digg.com, your best bet is to distill the information you want to convey into a Top 10 List.

I am therefore very pleased to announce that this blog is now less focused on "writing" and more focused on compiling easily digestible lists of things.

Here is my first Top 10 List. I hope very much that you and your short attention spans enjoy it.

Top 10 Most Recent Paragraphs I Have Written Today

1. From a Letter of Recommendation I Was Asked to Write

Mr. Ryder has been a colleague of mine for more than two years (we share opposite sides of a desk), and what he lacks in creativity he more than makes up for in boisterousness. In Charles, you will find an employee who is never at a loss for words, which he adeptly strings together at all times and in no particular order. It is my great pleasure to recommend him for employment in your organization – not just because I will at last have an entire desk to myself (I am not so shallow!) but because I genuinely believe that he will thrive in an environment where his garrulousness is allowed free reign and his intellect is not overtaxed. If your office is such a place, then I am wholly convinced that he will fit right in.

2. From a Post-It Note, to Remind Myself of Something

Don't forget! When you're in a bad mood, the combination of gin, painkillers, and uppers can sometimes ruin a friendship! :0)
(Also, lunch with the Andersons is off this Sunday.)

3. From a To-Do List

1. Prepare To-Do List
2. Decide on Items to Include in the List
3. Write List in Entirety
4. Read over List
5. Mentally Separate Those Items That Have Been Completed From Those That Have Not
6. Despair
7. Cross Off Completed Items

4. From an E-Mail to My Mother

Dearest mother – thank you for your kind and forceful invitation to come and visit you in St. Catherine's. Sadly, I fear I must remind you that my engagement on this latest archaeological expedition has been extended into the indefinite future. I assure you that as soon as I return from Kharkhorin, it will be my first priority to stop by with news of my travels and to investigate the unfortunate incidents with the staff in your ward that you have so diligently enumerated in your latest e-mails to me. Goodbye for now, or as they say here in Mongolia, Bayartai!

5. From a Response to a Judicial Summons

I would also like to complain about the language used by the arresting officer during our encounters. On both occasions, Sgt. Wooster stated that "anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law". If it is indeed true that everything I say will be repeated in court, then I should like to take this opportunity to state for the record that Sgt. Wooster is an ass and a cretin, who wouldn't recognize a tautology if it knocked him down and read him his Miranda rights. I am aware that a restraining order is a restraining order, and that – as you have astutely pointed out – ignoring one brings appropriately dire consequences. But must the violation really be met with such willful vapidity?

6. From a Shopping List

1. Sandwich Fixin's
2. Picnic Basket
3. Magazines (New Yorker, Harpers, The Economist)
4. Wool Sweater (Black)
5. Ski Mask (Black)
6. Camouflaged Treestand
7. Binoculars
8. Digital Video Camera
9. Change of Underpants

7. From a Sympathy Card

What I remember most about your son (and my dear neighbor) is not that he owed me 15 dollars from our bet that he could not jump from his balcony to mine, nor that he had just consumed half a bottle of my very best rum, nor even that he tragically landed on my brand-new Schwinn touring bicycle. What I remember most is his youthful vivacity, his tender nature, and the fact that he could always be counted on to pay his debts. Shall I send the bill to your address or to his executor?

8. From a Note Left on Someone's Car

So sorry – I think I accidentally broke your right front headlight when backing out of my parking space! Please do not try to find me, or I will be forced to come back and break the left one as well.

9. From a Posting in the Personals Section of Craigslist

m4w: SWM seeking d/df, hwp SF who also likes acronyms.

10. From a Discarded Blog Entry

Top 10 Best Things About Being Alone

1. Having lots of time to yourself.
2. Not having to go out because no one has invited you out and you don't want to go out anyway.
3. Spending time with the cat.
4. Cats are unable to file restraining orders.
5. They just scratch.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Don't jump.

I had a dream on Friday night that I had created a website/marketing campaign based around the tagline “Don’t jump.” With the exception of the Fonzie one, all of these images are created from ideas I came up with in the dream. Don’t jump.

Bad Idea for a Love Story

This is an idea for an epic romance that will actually make money. Every day, after she gets back from the salt mines, Elizabeth writes in her diary – not about the grueling, soul-shattering drudgery of hewing precious saline crystals from the living rock, but about the world that only exists in her mind. About the idea that sustains her through the desert landscape of her existence, where no plant grows save the thorny cactus, and the thought of rainfall brings nothing but the bitter knowledge that life, real life, is a mirage – and the dull toil of living is merely a perfect negative of our steady, downhill crawl towards an inevitable grave.

The idea is of a boy – youthful, earnest, and full of a hopefulness that her soul yearns for with the same urgency that her body aches to hold him in her arms. To forget, for a moment and forever, that there is anything in the world beyond the softness of his skin and the gentle warmth of his breath against her neck. Her visions of him take many forms, but when he comes to her, he comes always as a supplicant, carrying in one hand a perfect white rose, and in the other, a cold, frosty Miller Lite^TM, full of delicate hops and a smooth, satisfying taste that will never let you down.

There could be other sponsors too. For instance, I have this idea for a part of the novel where it turns out that her visions are not the tragic delusions of a broken woman in a featureless world, but real memories of a vibrant past, dressed up as hallucinations so as to dull the pain of loss – and, like, the illusion is shattered one day, when she's walking home from the salt mines, and she stops short because he's just standing there, waiting for her, a beautiful dream from her childhood come to life – come to rescue her from her solitude and her despair and her empty, barren future in a brand new 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee with heated seats and a V8 Hemi multi-displacement engine.

The boy, of course, had been lost in a storm many years earlier, and Elizabeth's grief had driven her to accept a job in the brutal salt refineries of her hometown where the harshness and the tedium of her work might eventually come to serve as a proxy for the agony of her lost love. But instead of being killed in the storm, the boy was miraculously rescued by a kindly old man who gave him the education and the training he needed to become CEO of Morton Industrial Salt, which, in addition to being a kind and benevolent employer, offers the most complete line of salt grades and salt-related products in the industry.

After that, there'll be a few chapters about how the power of their love for each other (plus a bolt-action Smith & Wesson Winchester rifle) finally frees her from the clutches of her cruel employers and her doomed town, and by the end of the story, she's blissfully working as Director of Product Development for Morton Salt Inc. In the final scene, they'll be lying together in the fully-reclinable passenger seat of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, lost in the warmth of each other's touch and the reassuring hardness of their custom Smith & Wesson rifles, as the memories of their years apart fade into the quiet absurdity of a bad dream that will never return.