May 23, 2003

Coming to grips with the limitations of the language

Words fail me. I don't mean in the traditional sense. I can always find words and I often find a way to put them into an order that makes some sense. Often, but not always.

On this particular occasion they fail me because I cannot find the RIGHT words; words that describe my ambivalence. I want to be able to articulate my commitment to something I don't have while I am so immersed in college. I need words that can speak for both my longing and my satisfaction - my need to complete this tower I've been working on and my need to rescue the princess Yes, at the same time. The simple explanation that I cannot be in two places at once doesn't make the situation easier to tolerate. Or easier to explain.

So I try to imagine music that is intermittingly soothing and jarring--- soft strings mixed with bass guitar and drums. Oil paintings that are swirls of orange and blue next to a still life that is almost photographic in quality. What words capture that kind of discordance? What phrases convey such wide contradictions and antithetical ideas? Give me a list of verbs and consonants that represent full speed ahead and reverse ~ simultaneously. I need a data transmission that can adjust to that kind of direction change.

Carparks have been around (probably) since cars themselves. The concept of the parking space is obviously quite closely related to that of the car so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the carpark has become almost as much of a status symbol as the vehicle it contains. Several people in my workplace seem to hoard their spots as if it were their lifeblood, but one must ask the question:

Is a parking space really worth losing my job over?

Yes, that's right - there is a real life basis for that line and the related event did in fact, occur just yesterday. Firstly, here's the saga from my point of view:

(dRiVeN is sitting at his desk, doing a little testing in regards to a problem he is working on)

The company's production manager storms past, staring daggers at all who happen to notice

(dRiVeN elects not to inquire or even acknowledge Mr Juggernaut's passage until...)

A loud crash is heard from the direction of the back door^* which is then thrown open and slammed in one swift (and powerful) movement

(quietly, dRiVeN glances around the carpet divider to witness a set of gaping cracks and large hole in what previously appeared to be quite a sturdy door)

A heavy silence descends upon the usually cheery office. The office manager (and head honcho in this neck of the woods) rolls his eyes and follows out the back door.

About a minute later the Production Manager storms back in through the front door, makes a quick left and dissapears into his office where he proceeds to stew for about half an hour...he is later seen carrying a box of possesions out to his car before he dissapears

So what happened? Let me tell you...

First though, a bit of background: The production Manager is rather fanatical about his car and comes in most weekends (his own time) to prune the surrounding gardens and trees so that no shit falls into the carpark. Out of respect for this it has always been an unspoken rule that a spot is saved for him. The Office manager either doesn't know this or doesn't care (he is quite new in this office) but has said on previous occasions that he would like a park left for him around the back (as is his right).

On this particular day our fearless leader drove in to find that there were no spaces free for him. Picking a car at random he pulled over, walked up to the office and requested that the owner of that vehicle kindly remove it to make way for his own. Being so unused to this treatment the Production manager was outraged (you'd see why if you knew the amount of work he puts in to the gardens) and argued the point. It turned out to be a losing battle for him so he stormed out, smashed the door and moved his car - coming back in through the front entrance.

Evidently this angered him enough to whip up a quick letter of resignation (or maybe he had one prepared earlier), submit it and clean out his desk!

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Update (the next day): I assume that the job of Production Manager (in this sense)is quite a specialised field 'cause as soon as head office recieved the letter, the offending individual was offered two weeks of stress leave if he would stay. The offer has been accepted (I suspect he feels quite foolish now) and the door is already being bogged and painted. Life goes on. I suspect his days are numbered though as there is already talk of training up someone else in a suspiciously similar area.THE IRON FIST OF MANAGEMENT CRUSHES ALL WHO OPPOSE IT!

Keep it real.

i’d say that my life means to me approximately what your job (job, not career) means to you. if you do not have a job because you have a career, think back to that shitty minimum wager you had back in high school that gave you a pay check and allowed you to arrive fashionably late to every weekend party. it’s not as bad as it could be, sometimes you think you even like it because it keeps you away from sunday home with the family, but all in all you either did or you will eventually have it up to HERE and just fucking quit. yeah, i’d say that’s about right.

i myself currently do not have a job. i do not have a boyfriend, i do not have a blooming social life, and i do not have a steady educational career. it’s summer, it’s hot outside. i have an apartment where i live thankfully alone with my three cats whom i actually like quite a lot; my life would be much more void of emotion without them.

i have discovered that my preference for solitude is becoming an everyday habit that it does not appear that i will be seeking to change in the near future. i stay inside mostly everyday (this is seasonal, i like it outside but it’s just too damn hot to be there during the day) watching reruns of “modern tv classics” and the occasional black and white flick that comes on amc, tcm, or comedy central (i have a deep, life long respect for steve martin.) i read a fair amount for someone in my position. i run, and i write--i try to do these things everyday. they provide, besides a change in my otherwise stagnant routine, a release for the shit that boils underneath my skin constantly; and they are, besides the small mountains of pills i’ve been taking daily for three years, the last stab i am taking at things i believe to be beneficially healthy. *i waiver between a care and no care for punctuation and grammar. i am currently not seeking to remedy this.* in fact, that’s how i feel right now about most things: a mental wavering between caring and not caring, and currently i am not seeking to remedy this. i remember when convenience existed. now nothing provides that sort of gratification.

i started to drink occasionally, and like many mistaken declarations i made growing up but have now come to embody the opposite of, i drink to get drunk. it just sounds bad, it isnt really. being buzzed only makes me dizzy and boring; i prefer, if i am going to delve into the vat of toying with alcoholism, that i may as well go the full “humorous to sober people”, funny voices, and affectionate DRUNK. it’s the only time i really feel like being affectionate these days, and the only time i dont seem to long for affection from others. not that i want a boyfriend--on the other hand, i have gone from lonely to seeking time alone on a constant level.

my debased life provides no room--within my schedule of nothing there is no time for someone i have to attach my emotional self to. and i personally have no desire to seek this kind of relationship. i am silently resolved when it comes to my solitude: i have nothing to offer anyone romantically, and i desire nothing anyone else might have to offer me. “i am a rock,” but despite what you might think i am not concerned with my rock-like status. these days, i dont even go there mentally, even late at night when i am at my most vulnerable.

i’m not really ever that vulnerable anymore, though.

my desires have been greatly reduced. i dont even really care for food much anymore. i drink lots of chilled water and i want things to be very, very clean in my environment. i want my books nearby and i want to have important letters to write to pen pals. as i have all these things at current i am sustained, at least for now. going to the movies has ceased bringing me the menial pleasure it used to. going to shows leaves me feeling like a wet cat, unhappily submerged in cigarette smoke with painfully ringing ears and a few more unpleasant run-ins with people i feel no preference for under my belt. in the words of the experienced and jaded, “it’s just not the same.” but i dont regret it.

i have little to say these days. i have become a listener and even this is bringing me grief. my friends, few as they are, tire me with their meaningless jabber that benefits not them for having said it nor me from having heard it. perhaps it will not be long before my desire for solitude overcomes even the most carnal of desires for human companionship.

but i do not think these feelings will last forever. i am sure that some day, probably not in to the too distant future, i will reverse into my old ways and fall head over heels for some ass hole with a cool hair cut who calls me too much and eventually smothers me and at the same time pushes me away until i cannot stand it and become a hermit again.

it just doesnt seem worth it some days, does it.

everything is a cycle, void of meaning or pleasure. “i am healthy, i am unhealthy.” “i am depressed, i am not depressed.” “i am social, lovable, concerned--or i am not”. i wish i had a mission to do, something that would withdraw me from life as i know it and stimulate my body and mind to a state of exaltation.

this is where my need for religion comes in. For my definition of religion, see my collected memoirs, chapter 12. that is all, for now. boredom.

This seems like a good place to rant...

I'm beating my head against a wall, it seems. I'm tired, frustrated, depressed. I don't want people to know that, though. They seem to think that everything is going my way, everything is perfect for me. It isn't. But I usually don't want to complain.

It isn't just that my roommates are insane, or bitches, or are downright rude to me and break my stuff. It's that I want to move out--and they've said they'd be perfectly happy with that--but I can't. I can't afford to move anywhere, it seems. I want to move into Philly, into Philly proper (not the northwest or Great Northeast, not West Philly; maybe University City, but that's a big maybe). I want to make it that I'm not spending over an hour getting to work and an hour getting back every day. I want to be near my friends, near my boyfriend, near my theater--the things which are keeping me sane, which are getting harder and harder to get to. I want to live someplace where my neighbors aren't calling the landlord to complain that I'm parking on the street instead of in the driveway (well, given that my roommates' cars are taking up the whole driveway...) (And it's a public street--a public fuckingn street!). I want to have my own place.

Of course, I'm not making enough to do that. When all is said and done, I take home around $350/wk after taxes. You can't really afford to live anywhere on $350/wk except in the outter suburbs. Even with a roommate, I'd still be paying $500/mo, without utilities in some cases. Then you add in bills, utilities, food, car insurance... I can't save money, I'm living paycheck to paycheck, it seems. I don't go to the movies, I stopped buying only the most essetial records (thank you, Kazaa). I eat the cheapest food I can find (which is also the fattiest, unhealthiest).

And see, this is a full-time, salaried job. I have good health insurance (though my health problems are another, even touchier issue, and even more depressing, and I don't want to get into it, but it's making things even worse for me and others). But I have no future. And there are no other jobs out there. Only jobs which pay worse. And, if worse comes to worse, I may try to find a second job, which is what people do. I'll see less of my friends, family, theater troup, and boyfriend, but I'll be surviving.

Because it's either that or I move back home with my parents. I love my parents very much, and they love me. But neither of us wants me to move back home. I'm 24, but if I move home, I'm just going to have to act like a teenager again, like I'm in high school again. And I know my depression will just get worse. I know I'll just start fighting with my parents again. No one wants that. But I don't know what I'm going to do.

And kids, this is the tip of the iceberg. I studied something useless in college, I don't know what to do with my life. I want to write, but can't get published. I want to act, but can't get casted. I want to sing, play music, play my songs, but no one wants to hear it. So I sit at a computer, like all the other unhappy, angry people, and do the job of a monkey--pushing buttons, repetative work, uncreative. This requires no skill. This just requires repetative motion. And I can't stand it. The only thing that has going for it (other than the health insurance) is that I'm in a library surrounded by books. I can only see them on my lunch break, but still, I know they're there.

And, as I said earlier, there are all sorts of health problems. I need to have my wisdom teeth out, after I broke one. And other stuff, more personal stuff. And sometimes, I just want to cry. And sometimes, like last night, I do cry, out of frustration, out of sadness, out of fear of the unknown.

And then a voice says--"HEY! FUCK YOU! NO ONE'S KILLING YOU, NO ONE'S REPRESSING YOU, NO ONE'S BLOWN UP OR KNOCKED DOWN YOUR HOUSE, NO ONE'S FORCED YOU INTO PROSTITUTION! YOU'RE NOT STARVING, YOU'RE NOT DYING--WHO ARE YOU TO BE DEPRESSED? WHO ARE YOU TO BE UNHAPPY? YOU HAVE NO FUCKING RIGHT, YOU STUPID, MIDDLE CLASS CUNT."

And I'm afraid that the voice is right.

But I'm getting better at repressing this, I'm getting better at wearing the mask. I have to, you see. Any time I've expressed how angry and upset I am, I've gotten in trouble. At work, at home, with friends. I used to see a therapist, but I didn't get anywhere, really. Two years, antidepressants, and I didn't get anywhere. Not really. Except that I'm not suicidal anymore. I guess that is something.

I recently found out that my sister and my cousin are both on antidepressants. It seems to work for them. It never did for me. I'm just an average fuck-up. Hopeless. Pointless.

Yes, this is all very angsty, but that's what the daylog is for, I figure.

We're damaged goods
we're rotten fruit
we're backdrifting.

(with a faltering faith in mankind, I'm asking a favor of anyone willing to listen)

My stepfather is receiving two units of packed red blood cells twice a week. Leukemia is a costly monster and his insurance has just changed--no longer will it cover blood products or blood related services.

you can help. mm-hm, yes...

YOU.

Donate a pint of yours, giving the following information and he'll receive a pint of his in exchange. Note, though, that he can only accept blood donated through a blood bank, not the Red Cross. Information, updates, changes and etceteras will be on my homenode.

Quintin C. Ballentine
MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, Texas, USA)
patient #514283

Then msg me. I will glorify you...
and send you something pleasing to at least one of your senses.

PLEASE

(make me a believer)

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update--june27