Flows of Air and Jazz, and Truth and Lies

There comes a time when you have to accept that everything you know about love is wrong
Wrong
And so it goes with all life, with all life
And so it goes with all life, with all life, with all life
Everything, everything, everything you know is wrong
For it all changes, changes each day and each moment, changes each day
Everything is fluid, nothing is static or real
We all have to live in the moment, we all have to feel
But you can't forget the past, even though it ain't for real
No, you can't forget the past, even though it ain't for real
But you have to remember it, you have to remember it, you have to remember it, you have to remember it
And you have to think on it, you have to think on it, you have to think on it, you have to think on it
Think and think and think and think and think and think and flow and flow and flow and flow and flow

You know the truth, and where it lies, in your heart, which you despise, for you want something real, something you can feel, but that's not where it lies, and not in your eyes, but in your heart, in your heart, in your heart, in your heart, in your heart

But look to the future, look the to the future, for it as fluid as the now
As fluid as the now, as fluid as the now
But you must remember that it's all wrong, and there is no right, except for the sight
You get from your heart, your heart, your heart, you heart
Everything you know changes, everything you know flows, you have to flow with the life

posted by Pacer 5/31/2002

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Untitled, Unfinished

And all the time slips by
So I heave a sullen sigh
For I care to be at odds with the world

And the sun sets slowly over the fields
While my thoughts set slowly over my dreams

posted by Pacer 5/30/2002

English Department

Don't trap me
Don't bind me
Don't force me in
Like all those morons who write poetry that ain't theirs
Don't break me up
Don't bottle me up
Don't condense my mind
Into something finite, something you can't find
All those little fools
All those little marionnettes
All those little show-offs
All those little shits
They wait down in the English Department
Writing their bad verse and prose
But what they don't realise is
You don't need a fucking degree to write those

posted by Pacer 5/30/2002

Rudderless Ships

It is the moments when I am alone that I realize, most acutely, the flaws of myself. They resonate most clearly when I am pondering the possibilities of the day. They reverberate more soundly when my mind is empty of necessity and free to think of nothing. I don't know how to be normal. Or happy. Or content. I don't know how to be real, only fake. I wander aimlessly around, like a rudderless ship, and the growing sense of rocks, or their possibility, creeps into my mind.

So here I am! I am fake, I am lost, I am directionless! I am a bore of the nth degree. Someone who loves me, or even puts up with me, for extended periods of time is not a thing I will ever know. Not unless I change. Not unless I fix my rudder. I'm afraid I'm out of parts, however. And there is no help in sight.

posted by Pacer 5/30/2002

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

The Fringe

I sit on the fringe. I am a fringe person. I am not the one who is called when an idea pops in a person's mind. No one randomly comes to my door. I am the one called when the group, the organization, the whatever is having an event, a happening, a whatever. I am the fringe. I am the background that fills out the scene of the drama. I am beyond Rosencrantz and Gildenstern for I, I, am not even a bit player. I am not even a character - I am scenery.

So I sit, and I ponder, and I try to break through the scenery into the scene. I try to become real - but I fail. I am fake.

So I fade back into the background. I am forgotten, except when used as a prop. It is no matter, I suppose. I doubt I could carry a lead anyway.

posted by Pacer 5/29/2002

For Those of Us Out of Practice

For those of us who had shut the world out
We are out of practice, now
We have lost our touch
For when it comes to matters of people
We have no idea what to do
We have no idea of how to begin
For we sit in our rooms, at desks and such
We sit and watch the pixels go by, or the cars, or the wind
We sit and wait for those who know to call
For we know not what to do
We are lost
We are forgotten
For we know not how to remind the world, again, we are here

posted by Pacer 5/29/2002

Monday, May 27, 2002

Panic!

"But don't panic!" she said as I looked down at my feet dangling sixteen stories above the street below. "Panicking is bad!"

"Shit, I knew I shouldn't have climbed the freaking fire-escape." I say to myself, outloud as if I'm in some blasted movie.

"What's that?" She said. "I told you that you shouldn't climb that freaking fire-escape."

My eyes rolled. And then they rolled into the back of my head as I got another glance of the sixteen stories. My grip on the edge loosened a bit and I panicked.

"I'm hanging sixteen bloody stories above the sodding sidewalk!" I screamed. "How the hell am I not supposed to panic?!"

"Well how the fuck should I know?" She said back. "But don't panic! I'm coming!"

I heard some movement going on up on the roof as I waited for ... something. My fingers hurt. Hurt more than I thought fingers could hurt. This was a spot, it was. See if I ever chase a blasted bird for a gal again. Typical, I always get in trouble over dames.

Red hair and a warm smile popped up over the edge at me and suddenly I realized why I always got in trouble over dames.

"Hi." She said, with a smile and a wink. "I'll get you out of this mess in no time dear."

A roped dropped down and I grabbed on, hauling myself out of my previously embarrassing situation. I vowed to stay away from red-head dames from now on. But that was before she kissed me on the cheak and grab my hand to lead me to the stairs.

"Thanks dear!" She said. "You're the best!"

Dames. Typical. There was trouble in this, there was.

posted by Pacer 5/27/2002

Skit Skat, The Word's Down Pat

I think it's time to blow this thing get everybody and their stuff together okay 3 2 1 let's jam ... We hopped in the car and hit the road down the way and kept going with the sun in the sky and all the fields so fine and the blue lights lit us up from behind for we'd forgotten to see the sign. Blue man stepped out from the car, walked over to the driver's door, and told us we'd been going too fast. Nothing can last. Don't be lining the road with your body bags, he said, we don't want your parents being sad. So with a yellow sheet in hand, off we went to the promised land. Fields of green so nice and lush, nothing so nice could do anything but nurture a crush. A crush with this life, this speed, this need to be. So we played out in the sun that day, nothing could we say to explain the feelings we paid. But that's for another day. Another day all along the way.

posted by Pacer 5/27/2002

Stars

The lights blur into imitation stars as the sky shifts from night to morning. The music beckons me to float away with it, but I don't. Can't. I ignore the plea from my eye-lids, asking me to just let them rest this once, and I let the newly-formed stars above me float in a sound-absorbing, tilled space - not black but textured off-white.

After the pushups, the sit-ups, the movies and music, there was still an hour to go on the shift. I was alone. Solitary. Except for the ghosts of my thought. The ghosts of my memories.

I try not to think of her. Honestly, I've thought about every other damn thing I could, well, think of. I don't want to jinx it. I want to just let it flow. After all, she most likely is not thinking of me. Thinking about her is just going to spoil it.

But when I do think of her, it all comes rushing back. The unshakable feeling of ... something. It wouldn't go away. I was drawn to talk to her and I'd drop everything I was doing in order to talk to her. And whenever I was dating someone, I kept it from her. And I kept her from them. And I felt guilty each time I saw her, because I'd rather be talking to her than them. Bad karma.

A whole year passed. I fought the damn feeling, fought as hard as I could. I couldn't shake it, though. It hung on, not roughly, but softly. It was just ... there. I'm not foolish enough to try and name this feeling as "love." It is, however, something. Something. What, I don't know. But I feel attracted to her. It hasn't faded, it simply gradually increases. If I am to really be whole, if I am really to be fixed, if I am really to be myself I have to follow it. I have to step into the darkness, trust in my own abilities and God's grace, and see where this uncharted path takes me.

There have been too many uncharted paths, lately. They all scare me. Shikata ga nai.

posted by Pacer 5/27/2002

Saturday, May 25, 2002

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

It's tricky, love. I can't figure it out. There are so many types of love. So many types. And so many of those types can change into another type with a whisper, with the nudge of a slight breeze. How can you tell someone you love them? When you don't know how? How to tell, how you love?

Let's say you have a friend. A friend you hang out with all the time, you do stuff with all the time, someone that makes you feel at ease. Let's say you have a friend you can tell just about anything too, a friend that you never feel uncomfortable around - ever. For no reason. Sounds great, right? But, what if the friend is of the opposite sex?

Welcome to confusion my friends. I have a great friend, a friend I cherish above all of my friends. She, however, is a girl and the cause of much confusion. Confusion on my part, confusion on my friend's part, confusion on my parents part, and I think even confusion on her part sometimes. And it is far more complicated than this, even. I simply can't explain it. I love her. I truly do.

But at the same time, I don't love her. Yes, yes, very confusing. You start to see some of my dilemma, now? I don't blame her for this confusion, and I think much of our confusion has passed. Being the single one of the pair, I imagine it is actually only my confusion that remains. Queer thoughts go through the minds of single folks who stay up late at night,and confusing situations don't help. At the same time, It's not that way. Not the way you think, dear reader, not that way.

I love her. But do I want her to leave her boyfriend? Nay. Nay. Sometimes I wish I did, but only so that it would be easier to fit a mold, a archetypical set of actions, feelings, and reactions. I would know how to act, how to feel, what to say, et cetera because it has been proscribed to me before in the culture of our time - on TV, in books, on radio, in conversation, everywhere. But I don't. I don't know how to act.

It's all new, I am treading on new and undiscovered ground - at least for me. And being new and unchartered territory I look around every once in a while, like now, and say to myself "Where the hell am I?" Unfortunately, oftentimes when you speak to yourself you don't get an answer. If you do, then, well, you might want to see someone about that.

But I digress, the point of the matter is that it is all very confusing. I have the habit of doing research on subjects I feel I will come across, or I am dealing with, to a great, great extent. A very base example, one I would never mention if my Mother read this site, is the topic of sex. Yes, I am still a virgin, but I consider myself an "informed" virgin. Yea, yea, snicker all you want. But I sure as hell don't want to be in bed for the first time with the girl I love and then suddenly, whammo, I have no idea what I'm doing! Or, even worse, what if I freak out? I mean, come on, as naturally excited about it as we all are, if we really think about the specifics of the act it is rather on the disgusting side. Being in bed for the first time, ever, with the woman I love is not the time I want to say "Umm, you mean I stick that in there?!" Talk about a mood-killer.

But I digress further and support the stereotype that all men think about is sex. (True, but we can run that thought in the background. Sometimes.) So what is this all about? Why am I writing about this again? Besides sitting alone at a desk in one of the dorms at 3 in the morning listening to Jazz after watching two incredibly romantic, heartwarming movies (Serendipity and When Harry Met Sally), I'm damn lonely. My friend, regardless of the lack of a romantic interest between us, is in Spokane. Yes, that's Washington. I'm in Georgia. Athens, Georgia, to be exact. And I'm lonely and bored and I miss her voice and talking to her on IM and going to breakfast with her in the morning.

Does this mean I want to marry her? Hell, I hope not. I love the girl, I truly do, in a more complicated way than I've ever loved before, but I definitely think we're better friends than we'd ever be at that other stuff.

So here I am, missing a good friend. And all I can do is sit here and try and figure out what people do when they miss good friends. It's all new ground to me, but I'm willing to keep moving despite the darkness and uncertainty ahead. And soon I get to try and figure out, crash course no less, how one shares a good friend. Sometimes, no, all the time I wish I was able to make more close friends as a kid so my maturity level with this kind of stuff would be a bit more developed. But that's life - all I can do is hope I don't alienate those I care about during the learning process.

And here's the real kicker - that friend is this site's biggest fan. So, to my friend, I apologize about writing about you. Chalk it up to the late night, the Coca-Colas, the boredom, and a lack of material for this site. Besides, you always like stories. Have a good night, friend. Sleep well. And the same to all of you, readers.

posted by Pacer 5/25/2002

Thursday, May 23, 2002

Eureka!

The secret has become unveiled. I have discovered the trick to writing a popular Weblog that might even make it on Blogger.com's Blogs of Note list: political sensationalism! Write something on the liberal left or the conservative right! Rant and rave about nonsense here and there and act like a foaming-at-the-mouth zealot, radical or reactionary may both apply!

Unhappily I can do neither of these. I am no radical, but neither am I a reactionist. I prefer to call myself a realist. Or rationalist. Of course, those terms are easily usurpable by those kooky radicals and those nutty reactionists.

"There is another," sayeth Yoda. And he is right. I could become chummy-chummy with the folks over there at Blogger. Such cliques, techno-geek or political, are not my style, however. So I am doomed! Doomed! Doomed to never appear on Blogs of Note on Blogger.com! Doomed to suffer a lifetime of low readership numbers!

But you know what? Hell if I care. I just needed something to write about and my constant quest to make the Blogs of Note list was an easy scapegoat.

What? You let go of the leash? The goat got loose? Damnit ... Now I have to find a whole new topic to write on ... Soo ... How corrupt is Major League Baseball, anyhow? Wow!

posted by Pacer 5/23/2002

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

You Just Gotta Jazz With It ...

The flower bouquet tilted downwards as he watched Anne walk away from him, down the street, and around the corner.

"Well, shit." He said to no one in particular. "What should I do now?"

"You just gotta jazz with it, my man." The old man leaning back in a chair in front of the cafe said to him. "Damn, she was cold. But you just gotta jazz with it, my man. Just gotta jazz."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He said to the man in a bitter, angry tone. "Just what the hell does that mean??"

The situation had begun to hit him. The shock had begun to wear off. The numbness was gone. He began to become painfully aware of what just happened.

"You just gotta flow with the music." The old man began again. "You just gotta let the troubles of the world slide off ya, you gotta let it flow. Like water through a sieve."

"What?" He said. This man was crazy.

"Water through a sieve." He said again. "It just flows through the holes. It don't let all that metal get in the way. All that other stuff gets caught up in that sieve, in all the tiny holes in the metal. But not the water, it just flows on through. You just gotta jazz with it."

"Anne just left me, you know what that's like?" He said to the old man. "How can I just let it 'slide off'? My heart, my life, is crushed and ruined. I can't..."

"Boy, you gonna let one thing block you?" The old man interrupted him. "Are you gonna harden up and get caught in that sieve? You just gotta flow. You just gotta let go and flow."

"How? My life?" He said, still not hearing.

"You alive, boy?" The old man began again. "You alive? You eating? You have a job? Even if you didn't have those things, you alive? As long as you alive you got fight in you. As long as you alive you can make things happen. It might not always be good, it might not always be bad, but regardless you just gotta jazz with it. You just gotta let it flow."

"Yea, I'm alive." He said. "I'm alive. But only in the technical sense."

"Boy, a man is as alive as he wants himself to be." The old man continued. "You gotta fix that nonsense in your head. That's all it is. Just flow with it, jazz with it."

"Jazz with it." He said. "Jazz with it. Thanks old man."

"No worries son." The old man said with a smile. "No worries."

posted by Pacer 5/22/2002

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

Blogger Hiccup

Blogger hiccuped on me and now my archives are all screwy. Please bear with the mess. I think you can still access all, or at least most, of the archives by going back to the index page and using the archive links there. Update: I think I fixed it. Let me know if I did not, please.

posted by Pacer 5/21/2002

Monday, May 20, 2002

Unfinished Hope

To believe in something,
Something so far away
To believe in something,
Something someone might say
But how might I believe in something?
Something that she might come one day?
I imagine I'll keep on believing something
Something that she might say

posted by Pacer 5/20/2002

Delusion

There she sat, and there I stared
She was so beautiful, sitting over there
But what should I do, and how might I dare?
So there she sat, and there I stared

posted by Pacer 5/20/2002

Sunday, May 19, 2002

Her

The truth of the matter is that I lie here and dream of her
Although I do not know who her is, and I have never met her
But her is who I see when I close my eyes, her is what I smell when I breathe in
My hands remember without knowing her, and the curves of her
The way her undergarments slide off of her hips and over her hair
These thoughts of her invade my mind like the waking hours are invading by he in my dreams
While awake, I sleep with her, and while asleep I walk with her
Her, I know my mind and body is not ready for her
The only way to have her is to kill her, to kill my dreams of her
But they will not stop of her, and only activity can drown them and her, but activity is not to be found
So I sit here and type, with her, and dream of her while awake and my mind belongs to her
While her, she belongs to nothing, not me, not the world, not reality. And her faceless body
Her body, sways still in my eyes and I want to get rid of her as much as I want her
For that is the only way I can find her, and her ways might find me.

posted by Pacer 5/19/2002

Saturday, May 18, 2002

Love For All The Wrong Reasons ....

I think about love all the time. More than is healthy, I'd imagine. There is, perhaps, not a moment that goes by that I am not calculating something about love or some ancillary structure of this human anomaly. But, I believe, I've been thinking about Love for all the wrong reasons.

At night I sleep with two pillows - to rest my head on, one to hold like I used to hold a girl I do not see anymore. (Yes, you guessed it - this is the girl which inspired much of the earlier posts.) I have been unable to really love since her. Pathetic, I know. I offer no excuses, I accept my position as "that guy," the one who couldn't "get over it." No biggie.

Before her, you see, I used to have these crushes. I used to have this feeling in my stomach, this nervous excitement about a girl. But the highlight of my days was the times when these crushes moved beyond this point - the times when I not only had that nervous feeling when I was around the girl but, when I was not around her, there was a little pinprick of a thought about her just pricking away at my mind. A sudden and un-meditated remembrance of something she said, a random thought that "Wow, she would like this," and other such nonsense. Childish and immature in some ways, I know, but pure and honest and fun nonetheless.

I missed this. But I also realized how dangerous these things can become. Before the dramatic crumbling of the relationship with the last girl (who shall henceforth be named "The Other") I used to allow these pinpricks to infect my mind and allow myself to create unrealistic constructions and infatuations. This was a dangerous past-time for, as you might have noticed on this site, I have quite the imagination.

The Other and I had talks about relationships and love when we thought we were going to get married. (Yes, dirty laundry, but ignore the tangent and focus on the now.) We would discuss what love meant and how people loved each other. Courtesy of various relationship books she purchased at dollar stores, we discussed the idea that people "project" their ideals, wants, and desires onto those they feel they love. This is a dangerous prospect for, one day, you might find you wake up next to some middle-aged person you've been married to for fifteen years but you hardly know them, if at all.

This is where many relationships fail on many different stages of "recognition." Dating, girlfriend and boyfriend, husband and wife, and even simple friend relationships. You do not love the person for who they are but rather for who you perceive them to be. Or, in a simpler tongue, you love them for what they represent to you, not for who they actually are. So, if a person goes through a life altering phase, often times the relationship crumbles.

The sad part, however, is that these life altering phases do not have to be drastic, like a religious conversion or a change in sexual orientation, but they can be simple and petty. A change in hairstyle, the wearing of more comfortable clothes (for instance, mothers who simply want to "feel comfortable" rather than "dressing up" for their husbands), and other minor details. A new job, or a new schedule can throw these perceptions off. The only way a relationship survives is if the love goes deeper than each person's perceptions of the other.

I have fallen guilty to these same sins. I can not count the many times I place a woman on a pedestal and subject her to the harsh glare of idolatry only to have her finally decide "enough is enough." I have let my perceptions of what someone means to me cloud who they really are and, in disappointment, shove them away.

So what is the point of all these words? I want to find the key to love. I want to find a way to love someone for who they truly are. The trouble is I want to be selfish and I want that person to love me in the same way in return. Being able to love someone is a difficult thing. The odds of two people loving each other, truly, are not the most favorable. But one can only hope, and try, and persevere. Bon soir!

posted by Pacer 5/18/2002

Friday, May 17, 2002

The Sun, Oh the Sun!

Sometimes when you want to write, you can't. Sometimes inspiration fails to come when you most want it to. So instead of having gentle rhymes about the color of the sky, the way the wind caressed the grass up on North Campus, and the gentle warmth of the sun on a lovely day in Athens, Georgia, you get this horribly written piece of garbage. Ironically, when I am happy, or shall I say content, nothing comes of my writing. When I am sad, confused, or hurt I find myself writing profusely. So what happens is that people who read my writing seem to think of me as on the verge of picking up a razor-blade and slicing my wrists.

One day, perhaps, I shall have the ability to write during those times of contentment. For now I am going to lay down in my bed and take a lovely, lovely little nap.

posted by Pacer 5/17/2002

Thursday, May 16, 2002

Scholarly Irresponsibility

Nothing irks me more than misinformation. Information, knowledge, is a great and powerful tool. Misinformation is a harmful hindrance. One of the most prevalent distribution methods for misinformation remains generalizations: stereotyping, politically correcting, bandwagoning, and oversimplifications stated as absolutes.

While many of these methods of generalization are used in common everyday life by many people, myself included, these are facets of life an intelligent and learned person should be able to distinguish from the reality of the situation. Often times these methods are used in haste for various reasons: frustration with explaining something to a listener, the need to sensationalize a topic in order to garner a larger audience, and plain distortion of the truth. We are surrounded by this sort of thing - a basic simplification of various aspects of learning created so that a person who does not have an overly large amount of time to study each topic in-depth will be informed to some degree on the subject - in every aspect of our life.

I can accept this, although sometimes I find it quite disturbing (especially in the case of yellow, or sensationalist, journalism) in every day life but when a scholar in a certain area of a subject, or an aspiring scholar, is in an academic setting and uses these same methods I become quite incensed. If you are not certain of a fact do not state it as an absolute - simply state it as an informed guess. Do not take a complicated issue, such as the reconstruction and the southern reaction to black franchisement, do not simplify the responses of a wide variety of people. Do NOT latch on to stereotypes and categories created by the common peon of the subject, that regular Joe who reads about the subject. not in a journal, but on CNN or Fox News or some other area during a special report, for this is an irresponsible act and you degrade yourself as an academic.

An academic, by nature, should have an open mind and consider all questions brought before him. This does not mean all angles, aspects, views, or perspectives on a subject must be accepted by said academic, but they must be given equal weight of consideration and be viewed as valid, if supported appropriately. The simple fact of the matter is that there are no absolutes in this world when it comes to such subjects as English or History. You might have facts, such as publication dates, names, places, dates of famous occurrences, but the perspectives of which these facts are viewed, and interpreted, are as many as varied as the people on the earth - not to mention in a constant state of flux.

No one can avoid doing these things I profess to dislike so very much completely, even myself, but a supreme effort should be put forth by those in academia to stand above the common crowd and avoid these mistakes as often as possible. Academia should also own up to mistakes of this nature as often as they are discovered, as well. I am no saint, I generalize as much, if not more, than most people, but, when it comes to serious academic work, the standards should be raised to almost God-like levels. We might never achieve these levels, but each time we aim for them the higher we get.

posted by Pacer 5/16/2002

Monday, May 13, 2002

Save Ferris!

I watched the always wonderful Ferris Bueller's Day Off with my friend Katie. She has red hair, a short attention span, and likes Notre Dame too. Always cool. So tonight I get to try and sleep again ... alone ... sniff. Sniff. And tomorrow I play frisbee golf and get tickets for Star Wars: Episodes II, Attack of the Clones! Yea.... I need to actually do something so my life sounds a bit more exciting and I have SOMETHING to write on.

posted by Pacer 5/13/2002

Sunday, May 12, 2002

Going Back

Going back, going back
Going back to Athens town.
Going back, going back
To the best old place around.
Going back, going back
To hear that grand old sound
Of a chapel bell and a Georgia yell,
Going back to Athens town.

That's right folks, I'm heading back up to Athens today! So more boredom, different place. So, in honor of my trip back up to my favorite place, I figured I would cut and past the words to one of UGA's fight song. Enjoy!

posted by Pacer 5/12/2002

Saturday, May 11, 2002

Loneliness is a Drink ...

... better taken alone. I'm sitting here doing laundry, bored out of my mind. (Some might say the fact I was doing laundry was proof enough of the statement that followed.) And yes, I am all alone. I don't really mind, per se. I don't think I'd rather have it any other way. But not today. For today I am sitting here and wondering what to say. What to say.

So I sit and linger in front of my keys, bored out of my mind with no one to please, and I try to formulate some words in my mind that someone out there, somewhere, might find as a bit of amusement, amusement to read, and amusement to consider in bed as the night draws around with out a sound except for the chirping of the crickets deep within their thickets as they read from a sheet, rather incomplete, of my work and my mis-art, but before I can start I have to find something to think about, something to rhyme.

But I am afraid I have failed, so fix another nail into the coffin of this poorly written work, or stick another fork in my thoughts for today, for some might say "They are done, go away!" So I sit still, and ponder with free will, what I could say to keep boredom at bay, make amusement stay, and being alone sucks, sucks today.

posted by Pacer 5/11/2002

Friday, May 10, 2002

The Fellowship of Food

Food. Eating. This is one of my favorite things to do - eat. But not just eating, nay! Eating with people. Eating with people is a special event. Eating with people is an act of fellowship. When food is around a table something magical occurs: discussions happen, people laugh, stories are told, lives are shared.

You do not even have to eat much to share in this feeling. Hell, some people get it just going out and drinking together (although this, in my opinion, is less of an experience - albeit an experience, nonetheless). All you have to do is be there and join in the community around the table. Unfortunately, not to many people see things my way on this matter.

Today's culture is about the now. About the instant. About the watch and about the time. Seconds, minutes, hours all overshadow the moments. Things become defined, rational, logical, sterile. Moments are no longer undefinable happenings around a general time - they are broken down by the seconds, minutes, thousands of a second, and more. The world zips on by while people become more and more isolated, alone, despite the interconnectivity technology allows.

It is an ironic fact that the more technology has allowed us to stay in contact the less we feel part of other people's lives. More and more you see instances of people feeling alone, searching for some part of something, and being denied that feeling of community. Or worse, people who reach wit's end and subjugate themselves to an idea, a communal project, in order to fill the void and feel connected. In reality they are not connected, however, but simply subservient.

To us an analogy from a computational perspective, this is akin to a computer being placed in a cluster where a master computer parcels out instructions for it to perform. The computer ceases to be an individual machine but becomes subservient to the cluster as whole. Is this what one should do to feel connected? I personally believe no.

So what do we do? If I knew that I would be a rich man.

posted by Pacer 5/10/2002

Thursday, May 09, 2002

Failure

Sometimes I have meltdowns. Sometimes my brain just becomes overwhelmed with "what-ifs" and I become paralyzed - or worse, I become violent. I throw things, beat things, kick things, et cetera. I don't harm other people, normally only myself. Usually walls don't bruise, but my own hands are another thing altogether.

If you've read any of the nonsense on this site then you already know the sheer lack of self-esteem I have. I have the lingering feeling of being a failure always in the back, if not front, of my mind. Today was one of those days when it was indeed the front, rather than the back, which my feelings of being a failure came through.

My whole life I've felt less. Not less than others, my delusions of superiority carefully insulate me from that, but less than what I should be, what I could be. I feel like a fraud, like I'm missing something key to my whole personal being. The real truth is that I am most likely little different from anyone else. Of course, this bugs me as well - I hate being average. The ironic part of this is that I spent all of High School trying to be average.

I became a sports fanatic to counteract the accusations of "nerd" or "dork." I literally stopped doing work in High School so my grades became "average" rather than spectacular. I stopped mentioning test scores to friends unless they badgered - or became competitive. I sought to become average and I did so in a spectacular fashion.

I am now the "gray man," the man that stands out in no way. I have nothing to recommend me, I am the man in the background of any and all scenes who is passed over non-chalantly by the human eye. I am the person walking on the sidewalk behind the person you notice. I am the nothingness that fills the scene.

But what if, what if I want to be different now? How do I end this modus operandi and go in a new direction altogether? How do I return to the former self? You see, I was able to do it once before. I made a conscious effort to change at the beginning of High School. Can I do it again?

And do I want to, truly? Maybe I do not want to return to the old, but maybe I want to create a new-new? Maybe it is a natural progression from introverted to extroverted, but now I wish to maintain elements of the introverted character?

Hell if I know. All I know is that I am tired of this feeling of failure. Even the old character had it. The only way to escape it is to be myself and live for myself - not an idea of who I should be, not who others want me to be, but who I truly am.

posted by Pacer 5/09/2002

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

Moving Day

My room is quickly becoming bare and soon I will have no computer. Yep, it's that time of the year again: move out time! I absolutely loathe moving. It puts me in a foul mood, which only puts me in more of a foul mood for being in a foul mood. And I've already cut myself multiple times, smashed my fingers, and had multiple sneezing fits from dust and such. Maybe the day will get better. Maybe.

posted by Pacer 5/07/2002

Monday, May 06, 2002

McDonalds at Midnight and Sunscreen

After driving to a McDonalds in town with a 24-hour Drive-Thru window, I am not sure what I can say of any significance. My day has been rather bland, although I will say that flirting without sunscreen is hazardous to your health. My skin-cancer risk skyrocketed today after flirting with a sister from Phi Kappa. Well, you might say, what are you doing flirting when you like this other girl? Well, I would answer, I'm a big flirt and a border-line whore. She is very talkative, I am very talkative, and we both flirt a lot. It happens, and my feelings for the other sister from Phi Kappa remain unchanged. Now if only I can remember to wear sunscreen the next time I go out on the Quadrangle. After all, you never know when you might run into a girl that needs a flirting with.

posted by Pacer 5/06/2002

Sunday, May 05, 2002

The Date

So I finally went on that date I asked the girl to about two weeks back. Yep. Well. Don't know what to say. I could gush over how much fun I had, how interesting she is, how pretty she is, and all that jazz but, well, I'd be gushing and I guess that is expected? I walked her to her door (which is in my dorm, right across from my friend Ansley) and we talked some more and we had the awkward goodbye... I didn't know what to do, I gave her a hug... Maybe she wanted more? Less? Hell if I know, but it does not care because I like her and I am determined to not let her develop an opinion on my solely on they event anyhow. I refuse to try for a homerun here, I'll work the bases with a lot of hits. I'll grind my way down towards the touchdown old-fashioned style rather than going for flash and glitz long-bombs to the endzone.

You see, I like this girl in a way different than before. I do not know how to relate it exactly, however. Usually I go for the "homerun," in other words I try to be as perfect as possible and worry about each and every little thing. I try to see how good of an immediate impact I can make. This time, however, I don't want to use this method. I want her to like me for who I am, I want to take it slow, and maybe something (or maybe nothing) will come of it.

It's odd, too, that for some reason I feel like I'm in no hurry. Well, as much as an impatient person such as myself can feel. I feel like she will like me, eventually. I'm confident about it in an odd sort of way I've never been confident about anything in my life. Who knows. This could all be nothing, this that I feel.

posted by Pacer 5/05/2002

Saturday, May 04, 2002

Weddings and More

I went to the wedding reception of one of the most beautiful girls in the world. She has two of the best parents, too. The whole experience was surreal. There was so much love present -- love of the married couple, love of the friends, love of the family -- I just don't know how to feel. All I know is that I want an experience like that. I want to be able to look into a girls eyes and be at peace and feel love, simple love, flow through me. I do not want any taint on that love, I just want a nice pure, simple love that will last forever.

I do not think I can ever have that, however. I am tainted, you see. Even at the reception I was an outsider, and observer. I feel my ability to love simply, to love deeply, and to be pure and innocent has vanished -- I am corrupted by the evil in the world and within myself. Everything that occurred tonight was something I wish for dearly, the feeling of love all around, but I know I will never have it. My chance at that sort of experience has passed. I am only left to be an outsider looking in.

posted by Pacer 5/04/2002

Friday, May 03, 2002

Dodging

Well, I dodged the first two walls by miracles, but the third one smacked me right in the face... But that's okay, no more finals for me!

posted by Pacer 5/03/2002

Thursday, May 02, 2002

Walls

I feel as if I am running blind and there is a wall right in front of me I am about to slam into. That wall, folks, would be my final exams.

posted by Pacer 5/02/2002