For the first time ever, I wish I wasn't a hundred and eighty thousand years old, because I know this girl who is not into guys so old as me.

I would bore her pretty quick, I suppose.

anarchaeology

I just got something so god-awful awesome.

Scrounged up a recording of me and some friends at about eighteen or nineteen playing together. Now I need to find a tape player so I can transfer it.

If memory serves, it is every bit as cringe worthy as most other garage bands who play together within weeks of taking up their instruments. I'm not afraid to post it. I'll be laughing harder than you will be.

---

With slightly different group of friends, we used to turn on the tape recorder and make any sort of noise we could think of. I don't remember ever listening to it, only making it. Random noise jam.

My friend Chris stayed with it. We're out of contact nowadays, but thanks to the internet, I keep tabs on him.

He walks the talk, he's still a dreamer.



and



edit: I don't mean to imply that my stuff is anywhere near as good as Chris's, or that his isn't terrific. I'll post my amateurish music later. (Gotta find a tape player and a cable that'll hook into my pc.)

Also: I just hooked up my DVR again. I could have sworn that I've only had it unhooked shortly. I found unwatched recordings from four years ago. The most recent recording was over two years old, nearly three. I guess I don't watch as much tv as I think I do... then again, I have tons of ways of accessing "tv".

how to write like simpleton

you can be a fool too, it's easy. Part One: Style

1. caps or no capital letters. It's all good.
2. wear out your comma key. it's right there by the m.
3. the apostrophe is not optional.
4. begin many sentences with "I".
5. punctuation goes after the closing quotation mark.
6. numbers of twenty or less are usually spelled out.
7. lots of incomplete statements.
8. "gonna" is the prefered alternative to "going to".
9. Parenthetical statements are golden.
10. when changing thoughts use "---".

Part Two: Conventions

1. Dramaticize things. Don't just say it's Monday, say that it's the first Monday in a month of them.
2. Change the flow of the piece often (see #10 in style guide). When you change the flow, imagine that you are dog-earing a page in a book. You'll be back later, but for now you're jumping to something else.
3. Come back to a point made early on somewhere in the closing. Extra points if the early point seemed innocuous in it's context.
4. Fragment your point of view the way that early modern art did.
5. Make vague statements which *might* be important. (See #4 - #6 in Conventions).
6. Be cognizant of your own point of view and create many self-references.
7. Break your rules when they don't work. Or you're tired. Or depressed. Or lazy.
8. Invent imaginary characters to converse with when there are no real people.
9. when someone speaks, describe what they are doing as they speak instead of using "jane said this", or "said magda".
10. invent words as necessitation requires. or use uncommon ones. eitherwise.

Part Three: Lore

1. File the serial numbers off of your life. Set your tale on a small town on another planet if needed.
2. Tell only the pieces of your stories which you can write down. The parts which can't be written down might be captured in the mood of a wholly imagined piece. Try to get the theme and the mood right, and don't worry about the facts.
3. Retell the parts which interest you the most. Inventing new ways to tell the same story can be a rewarding challenge. Even better when no one notices. Almost.
4. The story is true. The writer is apocryphal.
5. Fade in and out of your own story where it pleases you. You are a literary cat. Bring a dead mouse offering, find the litter box, nap, zip around, or skulk.
6. Don't be taken in by symmetry. Find the beat, and shadow box to it. Mix your metaphors and find the stream of consciousness.

Part Four: Reality

1. Deny any connection to an online fictional life. This might allow you the freedom to be significantly more honest than most straight autobiographies allow.
2. Write every day. You don't have to publish every day.
3. Don't give up on your good ideas.
4. Don't give up on your bad ideas before they are made into good ideas.
5. Entertain yourself. Only yourself. Forget "write what you know". Instead "write for yourself".

--- sorry for all the lists lately. --- edit: ignore my bullshit.

g h

The phone rang at 7am. I tried my best to ignore it but it was insistent.

New employee was crying, telling me that her life is falling apart. Her boyfriend is leaving her and their baby. Today, apparently.

Which creates a scheduling conflict for her because she's supposed to work tonight.

I told her that I couldn't help her, because I'm on vacation. I'm just that caring these days, that understanding. Oh there would be that, and the fact that out of all the times I've covered for an employee, the favor has never been returned.

But mostly because I'm on vacation.

I've learned how to say no, even when the reasons sound good. I've learned that the right person can always make the reason sound good, so I just need to evaluate me. I'm not the only employee... I just happened to be off today.

It's odd to me that I'm not feeling guilty. A year or two ago, no, six months ago, I would have done it out of fear that I'd feel guilty if I refused someone in need. Then I would have resented it and been miserable anyway.

I've been paying attention to my own needs more often. The world I wanted to live in was one where people watched out for each other, but I got shorted too often to believe in that world anymore. I lost that idealism.

Then again, maybe it's the past seven years. It's been the first time I've ever taken care of myself, by myself. I've hated it, but I'm starting to get pretty good at it.

I'm a total mess, but it's a balancing act all about prioritizing internal struggles and external ones. I'm not spending my energy doing each visible thing which would appear important to an outsider because there are invisible ones that they can't see.