11:45pm :: Lean Pockets?!

8:33pm :: Little or no focus. I need to find someone who speaks French. Well. Translate Miller's little interludes into Francais that I just glare at, half trying to decipher it with my limited Romantic linguistic knowledge and half awed at the beauty of the words. We sigh at French but laugh at Spanish. Why? The difference in the perceived value of the pop cultural contributions. After all, you don't often see a poverty-ridden youth eating a frozen crossaint and you don't hear people saying "Je suis" It's the cheapening of the culture. Our own has been likewise done-in by over-production in movies, and unintentional perpetuation of positive stereotypes which have negative consequences. AH ambiguity!

But I won't speak of al of those things which are really important. Only short-term silly worries on my mind. Nothing to throw myself off a bridge for though. Maybe losing it slowly.

The warmth of laundromats, that's what is important. At least to someone my age. I've never done my laundry in one, but they have quite a mystique. Especially with their unending supply of liquor-carrying models, eager to dance with suave, well-dressed young men. Pop culture has sold me on my own youth. I am to enjoy it while I have it, not discard it in favor of a quick way out. Does quick maturity mean quick death? Wouldn't doubt it.

Fuck that though. No long-term worries. I need to do my recycling. I need to do some laundry. I need to clean my apartment. Tomorrow I will have ample time. I'm tired of this silly class schedule. School is stupid. Give me my piece of paper, call me a college graduate who is truly independent and self-absorbed and I will drive my college car to some college-oriented restaurant in a college town. All paid for with money earned from a college. I haven't earned this life in any way. All of it's fake, but few seem to realize it. Once you figure it out, it's so easy. But who really has it figured out when it keeps catching up to you? No more catch 22, or whatever.

10:33pm :: I can only assume from watching television, that I am supposed to strive to be as cool as the Levi's people. Wear my jeans low so that my tanned, hairless stomach is barely visible through my open jacket and tight t-shirt. These could be the only role models worth listening to. Someone at Levi's likes Mogwai, and Air, so that just goes to prove my point that even good people can turn into greedy, unethical self-serving whores to the marketing machines. Maybe these should be my role models.

It's not striving for independence and individuality which drives the creative self, rather it's self-hatred, self-doubt, and indifference. I keep having to remind myself why I keep writing in this thing, or even why I keep doing whatever I'm trying to do. It will lead somewhere, but I don't even want to try and predict it. Expectations only bring disappoint, since nothing ever works as expected.

I don't really understand why I'm so pissed off. I realize that the same teenage anger I showed years ago is still there, but has been redirected, almost condesned, so that the intensity is focused. Developing the focus. It's not always good to be focused.

You shouldn't let anything interrupt or deter the things which are imperative to your happiness, short- or long-term. This was the mantra, but how realistic is it? You can only close your senses so much, and that little bit of leaway is enough for the unfiltered pushes and shoves to come in. All are best intentions, but few are for your best interest. Is this important? Yes, the balance of inter- and intra-dependence is something that I haven't figured out yet. You just never stop growing up. You're always developing, forming these silly opinions about whatever is going on at the time. That's why we die, otherwise we'd have the opportunity to figure it all out, and there would be need for the protege, the eager youngster waiting to take the place of the others.

I see that an intended selflessness and concern for others is in fact selfishness, since it's often done to gain some sort of personal, ethical, or emotional benefit. What the hell.

Can't get much more pretentious than that. But I think it's good that I at least realize that I'm selfish, and so many others just go by trying to fool themselves. Damn.

Picture time. Leave it as it is/was.

9:33pm :: Apparently our war has started. I've heard several times, somewhat jokingly, "Revenge Wears No Wristwatch." But I say, indifference wears no wristwatch; it truly does not expire. Just an opinon, yes. But sometimes, every once in a while, it is a true belief.

Chilling? I need to go to New Mexico soon. Spend time in/with nature. Building up rapport. Live through it, not in it. At Taco Bell, the same woman always asks me if I want whatever their special is, but someone else always continues the drive-thru experience. It could be an impersonal automatic gesture. Seems a little underhanded, especially for Taco Bell. Taco Bell is a true keystone for business ethics.

I know my drumming has gotten better over the past year. Don't want to roll off of modesty and onto self-hatred. But that's something else. Sinus medicine sure makes you happy. Why do people drink alcohol when they could just take Sudafed? It's much safer to drive on, and you won't get in a fight. It's almost like ecstasy, except much less focus and much more sobriety. I need some mushrooms. Acheive that pure intellectualism. Fuck these nazis with their anti-drug attitude. Drugs are not the way out, but they are also not to be disregarded. Nature has its reasoning. Eventually we'll figure out that we did indeed, after all this time, need our appendices.

There are thousands of day laborers in Houston, someone should talk about this. Their lives of standing on corners in the morning waving at passing cars and trucks, looking for a low-paying, manual labor job. It is true free market Keynesianism, but sad that immigrants have so few opportunities.

Enough of this deep-thought crap. It's time to do something else, reasonably constructive.

9:13pm :: No new ideas, just old crap. No new cities, only small obscure towns in the desert. Old men, old cars, old beer, old cigarettes and old oranes that stink up my apartment with their ripening (if that's what it is). Everything will in time be blemished. People get scarred and wrinkled, CDs get scratched, books and papers that for you are keepsakes get stained. A buddhist might spout out something about cyclical time, but that's crap, that's just how it works. I fear the day in which I give up on this whole thing. When I resign myself to worrying about cars, appointments and the price of oil. Just enjoy it.

Being concious of your self as opposed to being self-concious is a good way to avoid this eventual objectification I think. But I could be wrong. Tennis today, I got slightly sunburned, Nadia got her car towed. This is how it goes. Next time we'll go to a public court. okay, so chicken is tasty, especially when you fill it with water and MSG, but it will still be wasted. I just need more vegetables and fruit that won't rot. I need someone to cook for me. Maybe I'll move back to my dad's for a week. That would be just long enough to drive me nuts and realize all that I'm taking for granted here. But enough of this silly reflection.

Austin. This weekend. Or rather, this Friday. What will happen? Not sure, but I am optimistic for the future at this point. Sure, optimism can sometimes only bring disappointment, but pessimists have such sorry lives, full of silence and regret. I'd rather have misadventure, or least try. This time is not prolific, but it is defining. The pictures from my South Plains odyssey were everything I could have hoped for. But this is unimportant now. No worries, just thoughts.

10:09pm :: New idea. I will be a career politician. Who the hell wouldn't vote for me?

New Orleans survives off of this intangible myth. I've never understood it. Sure, it's nice if you like architecture, but after that, there are hot wet streets, Popeye's chicken stands on every corner and chain drug stores you've never heard of selling hard liquor. Alcohol everywhere. Bums sitting along the riverwalk yelling at the stupid tourists in their stupid hats and overpriced shirts. The quarter has these two groups and only these two groups congregating within. The true seediness and the attractive seediness flow past each other down Dauphine, north to Canal where the tourists spill out wondering where their New Orleans has gone to, and south to the river, dragging their myths out to the Gulf, which most of them have probably never seen. The Gulf seems close in New Orleans, but it's not. It's 100 or so miles through retched, Mosquito-infested swamp. Louisiana is like a cup that has sat out for months; the top is nasty enough, but the bottom, where the rain water has collected, is full of a sort of natural puss, and you just end up throwing the cup away, because you know that you'll always have that memory in your mind when you see the cup again. It's like sleeping on sheets you know your parents have had sex on.

Sure there's something wrong. I'm tired of this, and I'm starting to come to false epiphones. Sex is worthless. For me now, it's either abstinence, or find some dumb girl to fuck with for a couple of weeks and never talk to. Why? I'm not going to go into it now, however, these are my most viable options for the moment. Or?

I have replaced the picture for March with one I took in New Orleans. My new camera is terrible, which is what I wanted. Obscure, out-of-focus pictures with absolutely no context and seemingly terrible framing. don't forget the juice. Man, I just don't think I can stand to be in large groups of people anymore. If nothing happens with the job, I would like to live a month in Palo Duro. I want to go back there now, spend at least 3 days. But I can't. Too cheap, too expensive. Leave it.