August 31, 2004
Day Forty-TwoAnd I didn't know where to go. Here I'd made the mistake of the lifetime, successfully fighting off an emotional release that I now realize I very much needed. My mother waved good bye, and I threw a hand back in her direction and jerked it side to side, looking back only through the corner of my eye. I let them go without a second glance and now I find that I need that second glance. I plan on calling them around five or five thirty just to talk things through that I couldn't handle at the time. But then I took the walk to clear my head that I'd made them promise to give me, and find myself alone surrounded by families and their kids. I get back to my room to find my roommate and his family. In the end I sat on a toilet in the floor's male bathroom and began to let places of my being harden that ought not to be hardened. Then I allowed them to boil to the surface a bit, and that nearly plunged me into an insurmountable depression. In the end I turned to words on the screen to allow me a place to vent without walling off the emotions or letting them drive me insane. The fact that I can call everyday now, if neccessary, is comforting. I doubt I actually will, but it's nice to know that the option is there. I've been forcibly isolated from my parents enough these last two days, and I need a rock-firm foundation from which to build my new college existence. Even though this is the beginning of my identity as a single person, as I said in yesterday's entry, being alone simply won't do. Building my foundation on unconditional love seems the best place to start. I don't want to waste my whole college existence wishing I was home, but at the same time I don't want to dread going back, either. Home needs to still be my home. If RIT becomes my home, I'll be homeless in five years. But if home stays home, I'll have a place to stay as long as I need to, in some form or another.Tonight was much better. Finally I feel like I can become comfortable here. I was at the absolute end of my rope; everyone I'd run into had been kind and open and polite but I hadn't really found someone I'd consider a friend. As a last ditch effort, I got in line for tonight's screening of "Starsky & Hutch" in the SAU lobby. While waiting, I ran into a kid from high school, probably the one I'd known the best of those I know are here. Him, I, and a girl he knew through family and religion, spent roughly three hours just walking and talking. Being able to freely speak with someone was absolutely the release I needed. I'm going to bed tonight knowing that there are people here I can do things with. I also understand that there's an Outing Club, which I'm thinking about checking out. It'll be nice to do things outside with a campus and cirriculum that is very indoor-orientated. For the first time in a long time, I feel like things might just turn out okay.
posted by Adam at 01:55 |
August 29, 2004
Day Forty-OneWell, I’m all moved in, pretty much. My parents took off much earlier than I’d expected them to. I had my first floor meeting today, and it went alright, even if it was duller (and seemingly far duller than the ones around us). The people in the dorm are alright, but we’ve kept our door shut most of the day. I haven’t met really anybody that I could realistically say that I’ve hit it off with. The problem is compounded by the fact that neither I nor my roommate can seem to get our internet working. In my case, I saved the account information on the old computer and so don’t even know the username from which I could retrieve my password. The building I need to go is only one over, so I’m hoping I can take car of that before my 8:30 deadline.The depression’s starting to set in a bit, already, however. One thing I’m sure of: There’s no way I’ll ever be happy pulling a regular 9 to 5 job unless I’m surrounded by people. Someone a month or so ago described the campus as “emotionally deadening”. That about sums it up; the rooms only have one tiny light above the door which means the room is permanently dark and gloomy. The fact that there were torrential downpours today and the whole campus was consumed by doom and gloom didn’t help matters. The thing I miss the most, however, is being surrounded by an atmosphere of love and trust. No matter how bad a day got at home, I knew I’d be coming back to a house with two people who cared about me unconditionally. Here I am surrounded by strangers, and rather than worrying about getting enough emotional support, I worried about where to hide my laptop when other people come into the room. My parents leave tomorrow around lunchtime, and already I’m thinking about college in terms of a really nice and open prison; how long is it going to be before they visit or I get to come home? This isn’t the right attitude to have, obviously. The book said something about a film festival tomorrow. I plan on checking that out to see if I can meet anybody more my style. Hopefully I’ll get my internet problem worked out as well, so as to have a reasonable connection to the outside world. I was thinking about contacting this kid going here from high school, as well, but now I’m not so sure. I’m not entirely sure that’s a road I want to walk down, always looking to the past. I know one thing, however: I can’t take this loneliness for very long. I’m either going to meet some people or reconnect with some people or just plow through this year and transfer out afterwards. Something’s got to give; hopefully it will soon.
August 29th, 10:39 PM
posted by Adam at 22:39 |
Day FortyI find myself standing at the edge of a precipice. Behind me, the past and everything I've held dear and valued. Ahead, an uncertain future. It was earlier tonight when I was sitting in the basement with my mom watching the Olympics that I realized this was truly the last night we had together in this configuration as a family. It was that moment that I realized everything would be different now.Throughout the night, I have traded off between resolve, trepidation, depression, optimism, and a spectrum of feeling I can't entirely classify. It's very surreal knowing that I'm leaving home tomorrow and will never return to being home in the same way I define it now. Perhaps in my future I will find an equally satisfying version of "home". But in the end, I don't really know. I stand on the very edge, peering down as the rough waters so very far below. Behind me, a rocky face which has always been steady trembles quietly in the oncoming tides of change. Soon enough, I will be plunging toward those unknown water. I guess we'll see whether I sink or swim.
posted by Adam at 00:27 |
August 28, 2004
Day Thirty-NineToday, the Three Amigos ran their last herd across the open praire. I scanned a shit load of pictures. Saw some people I expected, some people I didn't. Saying "Good Bye" to a major chapter in my life (if not the only chapter) was difficult, but in the end not as difficult as it'd seem. In the end, today boils down to something I told Darren on the ride back from Micky D's: "Really, the pain we feel in parting is the only way we know this shit was good."
posted by Adam at 02:02 |
August 26, 2004
Day Thirty-EightI sat there in my car, low-beams lighting up the gardens and fence that made up her grandmother's front yard. We had just hugged for a moment, and I watched her walk down the stone walk to the door. It was at that moment, just sitting there and taking it all in, that I realized that I had accumulated something of value in my life that was worth appreciating, that the sum of my driftings was something worth holding onto, in some form, and that there is enough of me that I'll be fine in whatever I do, so no worries. Most of all, I realized, perhaps consciously for the first time, that I'm a worthwhile human being and I shouldn't be embarrassed to express myself openly and finally fucking connect with another human being. For too long I've shied away from intimate contact in all of its forms. Too long I've avoided exposing myself, letting the currents of humanity flow around me without allowing myself to see what it's all really about. I've been afraid, I guess, that the awkward self-concious overly sentimental idealist with his many faults and biases and simplifications wasn't worth the time of day it deserved. So I created this obnoxious shell that manipulated situations in order to avoid having emotional evolution. I relieved my emotional needs through the safety of fictional mediums like books and movies. In the meantime, I accumulated a menagerie of people around me who either see through the shell to what's deeper or take solace in the shell for its consistency, using the safety that I build from it like an umbrella under which they can mask their own insecurities. Some are wise enough to grab onto whatever connections that can make in this beautiful, sad little world. Recently, I haven't found what I've been looking for in my parents. I blamed them a bit for it, but now, finally I realize that the fault was mine. How must it be having a son that is easy to love but so difficult to understand? My father can't always penetrate and my mother accepts the shell when it suits her needs and digs deeper when what she's looking for is harder to find. Occassionally, like ships passing in the night, our thoughts and feelings align by coincidence for brief perfect moments. I am at home with them, because there is so much of me in them. When you're operating at roughly the same pitch, the circumstances occasionally align such that there is resonance. But these were moments that we both understood instinctually, seeing your thoughts like a mirror in the other's eyes, but none of us knew what caused it or how it should be maintained. Perhaps they did but I avoided it, retreating as always into a safe place in the murkier recesses of my own skull. How sad the posers; what happiness will they find? At least when I faked it, my disguise was an original one. How insecure must those who must take another's identity to hide behind be?Every night, I am up to all hours of the night, searching for something that I don't understand. The movie Garden State tonight made me understand, struck me in a very real place. How surreal that a movie would tell me to get out of my chair and go live my life, already. Tonight I found what I was searching for, the key to letting me just be me already. I can only hope that force of habit does not force me back into my shell. P.S. I'm really pissed that I couldn't finish this entry before midnight, just for my own silly goals, but I think the end product was worth it.
posted by Adam at 12:07 |
Day Thirty-SevenThis should have been done last night but I just plum forgot to do it. I did transcribe the camp entry complete with the two scans, so I think that should count for something. Warming up in front of the campfire yesterday morning seems positively ages ago. We were out of the campground by eleven. We took the scenic route down to Warrensburg where we stopped at a place called George Henry's for lunch. I had a crock of French Onion Soup and a tuna sandwich, and my dad had something that involved gravy, fries, and what looked like beef. We both enjoyed our meals, but the overall experience was ruined because there were atleast eight flies swarming around at any given time. I'd like to go back there, but I won't because of the flies.I got home and hooked the internet up to my old computer; Mom needed me to get something that I didn't want to get on the laptop. While on it, I caught up with the news I'd missed over the last two days. Alot of stuff came out about the third season of Everwood, my favorite show during its first season and in my top three last season. The reason y'all got pictures last night was because the old computer's the one that still has the scanner hooked up to it. It's also the only one with half-way decent photo-editing software on it. So I transcribed the journal entry from the pamphlet and then got ready to go to the funeral. That was an interesting affair. The house that the deceased resided in with his very not-deceased wife is a very small house on a small quiet street. When you have about thirty cars going up and down the sides of the street (A street so narrow that an RV couldn't fit through when there were cars on both sides) and above and beyond that number in a tiny house, it gets claustrophobic. It was a mix of mostly old people I didn't know, middle-aged people I vaguely knew, myself, my friend, my friend's mother and step-father, my parents, some poor twelve-year-old girl who had to sit through most of it, my friend's friend, my friend's mother's friends, and the widow (who was my friend's Granny). Part way through my friend, her friend, and I made a run to Price Chopper where I ran into Darren, who was working the register next to those blasted self-checkouts that we were using to buy a carton of lemonade with Butch Cassidy's face on it. I didn't know whether he'd get in trouble if I talked to him, so I hedged my bets and waved violently, hopped up and down and mouthed some questions to him that he looked quizzically back at me for. Or atleast I assume it was the questions that garnered the look; I mean, what else could it have been? When I got home, there was a very creepy message on the anwsering machine with a guy addressed his query to me with first and last names and then left a number that either didn't exist or had been disconnected. Creepy. I also looked up showtimes for Garden State for tonight, which we may do after Six Flags. I love Zach Braff's gig on "Scrubs" and I just plain love Natalie Portman. Some other stuff happened too, but you know what? Forget it, this recounting the days events method is lame. I'm not long centered in the emotions that drove me through the events I've described, so I can't really bring anything compelling to the table at the moment. Better luck tonight. Be cool, everybody.
posted by Adam at 11:01 |
August 24, 2004
Day Thirty-Six[Transcript]
I write these words seated at the edge of a broad, open pond framed by trees in the foreground and mountains in the distance. The only sounds I hear are the chirps of birds and bugs in the air and the clang of metal in the background as my father washes our dishes in the basin I just returned from filling with water. A car engine purrs occassionally as new arrivals scope out the grounds. Our tent pitched, our fire lit, our bellies full of gas-grilled goodness. The stove that made tonight's dinner preparations possible fit inside the five-inch thick box I am currently using for a desk. The sun glimmers through the trees to my right, an hour or two from setting. We've only left for a candle to drive away the bugs and a cheapo camera. Otherwise, the day has been spent reading, setting up, and exploring. I have reached a state of near total contentment. What you are reading has been transcribed from a map of the Putnam Pond and Paradox Lake Sate Campgrounds. (Transcription note: See Image 0001) We are stayed at the former, at site 47, the only one with direct water access. According to the hands on my father's watch, it is 6:05 pm.
 
posted by Adam at 18:05 |
Day Thirty-FiveI read the following over at The ... Times's website and was struck by just how bold they can be in their self-serving criticism of alternative news outlets competing for their readers' attention:"Over the last few weeks, 24-hour news networks have done little to find out what John Kerry did in Vietnam, but they have provided a different kind of public service: their examination of his war record in Vietnam illustrates once again just how perfunctory and confusing cable news coverage can be. Facts, half-truths and passionately tendentious opinions get tumbled together on screen like laundry in an industrial dryer - without the softeners of fact-checking or reflection."
What gets me even more is the fact that I don't disagree with anything they've stated at that point. Cable news is full of coverage which provides you instant coverage, even when there's isn't any news to report yet. The twenty-four hour nature of the format automatically means that nothing you see is going to be put into a definitive context.The article begins to derail after that point, taking due time to trash Fox News, question Bob Dole's credibility, and try to paint CNN as being anything other than the "Clinton News Network." That's almost besides the point, however. The problem is that The New York Times is guilty of many of the same crimes, with the difference that they have the time to give their spin a particular polish. Increasingly, "All the News That's Fit to Print" provides a context to its coverage that is selective so as to paint a less than open portrayal of the events or topics covered. Sometimes, the bias is via omission or story placement; the stories with Conservative spin don't make front page. The liberals in my social circles mock me for preferring USA Today, like I'm stupid for reading the paper with the colorful diagrams. Personally, I prefer to have the newspaper share me the facts and I'll figure out the context for myself. As soon as a newspaper/news station/magazine becomes so presumptuous as to tell me how to think, I no longer have a great incentive to continue with their product. And on the off chance you're wondering, no I'm not telling you how to think; when you started reading my daily blog you knew it was a daily source of opinion. It's when mediums of supposed fact feel fit to inject their feelings on the topic that I get all hot and bothered. My views lean towards the Left, too, but I just can't stand how they operate. The Republicans may be sleazeballs, but at least they're honest about it. I went close shopping with my mother and my friend. After an agonizing day across two shopping malls, I came home with the requested three shirts and an "In-Between" jacket for college. I'm still not sure what the hell is between a spring jacket and a winter jacket, but the Woman seemed satisfied. My friend and I lost my mother at my house and I drove to Thatcher Park, got gas, and then we hit the Funplex across the river. Her grandfather had passed away the night before. It was a bizzare afternoon.
posted by Adam at 00:44 |
August 23, 2004
Day Thirty-FourI started this blog entry in my head several times over the course of the day. The majority of which, I'd say, were started in my head on the way hope from the party I attended tonight. I had several really good ones, too - one tied them all together with a message about truth. Then I sat down to write it and got distracted by the latest Blog of Note on the site column of the interface I'm typing from. I spent about a half an hour reading through some of that; really interesting stuff, and once I'd gotten enough of the content itself I started picking apart the statements and the format itself. Then I experimented with which color of the navbar would suit this page the best. In the end I settled on leaving it the way things are. All of this leads up to why I have so many late nights.Last night I got to bed a little after 1:30 in the morning, which is good for me, and then I woke up around six with bad acid reflux and some of the worst and painful muscle tightening I've ever had. It spread down from my neck across my whole right shoulder. I spent the morning in agony. At my parents' suggestion, I took a hot shower, and that helped for the time that I was in there. Before hand, however, I took a nice hot bath for about forty-five minutes and read a chapter in Myst: The Book of Atrus. I appreciate that story more every time I come back to it. They're well written works of fantasy period, the three books in that series - never mind that they're tie-in products. I absolutely love David Wingrove's style, even if most of the story backbone comes from the Millers. Eventually we decided to do the Alpine Slides at Jiminy Peak, even though I was still hurting pretty good. It ended up being a nice time, even though we had a fight in the car about my driving to Six Flags New England on Thursday. My mother also tripped on a rock and skinned her hand and knees. I managed to get three good rides in, my father had two good ones and one sucky one, and my mom got one good one and one sucky one. She gave her third ride to Dad since she needed to get checked out at First Aid. On the way home, we stopped at a local farm not far from the slopes and picked up three ears of corn. They had theirs with steak and I had mine with a tuna sandwich on a hard roll. It was a perfect meal. I surfed the web for a little while, and headed over to my friend Alex's around 6:30, so that I could look at his Old Forge pictures before we hit Darren's party. I use names for the first time merely because it's too hard to come up with ways of referring to a variety of people as "my friend" and still speak with some measure of clarity. I will never use more than first names unless I get the person's permission, however, and I may still drop back to "my friend" if the topic matter at hand would be too revealing with a first name attached. Darren's parties are always good, and tonight was no exception. Early on it seemed like everyone was doing something but the actual interaction was minimal. Later on, however, especially with the karaoke, things got moving pretty good, and by the end of the night (about an hour-and-half later than it was supposed to have been) I think everyone had had a blast. With the karaoke and everything, however, Darren's family must have though we were insane. The expression on his sister's face when I went out to the dining room for carrots was priceless. I have very little in the way of vocal talent, but I make up for it by being louder and more obnoxious than anyone else. I did a duet of "Summer Nights" from Grease with Ryan, a pathetic take of BNL's "Alcohol" where I sputtered out after the first verse with Darren, and a better but not great duet with him on "Beer for my Horses" as well. I was Willy. My final song of the night was a solo effort on "Good Riddance" and while I wouldn't say it did the song justice, I at least knew all of the words. We did some "Who's Line..." style improv which was fun. I had the best hit-to-miss ratio of the group, although my attempts weren't close to always dead on. We hit the road with a song of Darren's that he recorded locally at professional studio. When we all hit the road, I realized that this may very well be the last time I see alot of these people. I think it says something about the place I am right now that I was able to accept this and move on without wallowing in some sort of pre-emptive nostalgia.
posted by Adam at 01:26 |
August 22, 2004
Day Thirty-ThreeThings are winding down here. Just spent a night at the Drive-In with my folks after dinner at a restaurant pub (that I have suspicions may actually have been a gay bar), the whole while my bowels feel like they've been filled with pointy stones. My dinner was good, too. The French Onion Soup had some of the best broth and cheese I've ever had, even if the onions were a little undercooked. There was some brown shit that smelled like a mix of baked beans and cinnamon caked onto my hot dog but after I'd scraped that off it tasted groovy. All of the music was very queer, and we ended the night with YMCA right before we got our check. I'd still go back there, though, for the kick-ass soup. It was an all around fun family day. Two in a row, what do you know? I'm gonna hit the sack since we have another full day planned for tomorrow. I promise I'll offer up something more substantial with my next entry. Ta Ta For Now, as the more likable fools have been known to say.
posted by Adam at 01:11 |
August 21, 2004
Day Thirty-TwoAfter having learned something new about preparing Blueberry oatmeal via microwave, a thought popped into my head so worthwhile that I scrawled it on the envelope of a hospital notice as soon as I could put the bowl of steaming oatmeal down. The thought is this, which I think captures the two fundimental schools of thought about life:"The thing about life is, each day is one step further along than the last. How you take this fact says alot about who you are."
The latter sentence was the result of a full tummy and a bit of thought. For so long I've spent life mourning the fact that each day takes me a little bit further away from the times I treasure. The thing that I've been missing, the key to happiness when you have no true reason to be sad, is that each day is also a step towards something newer, fuller, and excitingly unknown. Each day is a chance to question my perceptions of everything and come away a more complete person for it. Sure, some people choose to work off a bit more of what makes them worthwhile. But that is a choice, and as long as I can perceive the difference I should embrace that step. Truly, danger lurks around every turn. What I never really got, even though I've heard it countless times, is that the greatest danger lies in trying to remain still when the rest of the world is moving around you. The things you treasure won't be around in twenty years, so there's no point in waiting around for them. If you keep going foward too, with a little luck and grace, there will be a continued flow of new things to treasure. This is not a truth I can take much solace in, but it is a truth that clarifies many failings in my current school of thought. There will almost certainly be times in my future so bad as to make me disavow this statement. But taken from a moment totally free of burden and responsibility, distant from the complications of life, it is undoubtedly real and true.Ironically, this all comes after an evening that has crystallized all that I'm leaving behind. I rented Starsky & Hutch and my parents watched it with me. Everyone walked away from it having had a pretty great time. My mother even thanked me for the Raisenettes. She's always loved Raisenettes, and I picked up the Sunmaid variety for her with a thing of Sour Patch Kids on a whim when I rented the flick. Such is my nature that this positive experience would have depressed the hell out of me yesterday. It is only after finally accepting the need to grow that I can enjoy the experience for what it was, without feeling guilty about it. Work was it's own strange experience. Today I worked the last shift on the last day. I was saying good bye to everyone throughout. My direct boss left early to head off with her boyfriend to Cortland. I locked up our office alone. Through sheer fate, I walked out with the wonderful woman at the front desk and the department administrator. I've always been on good terms with the former, having been right next door and talked somewhat regularly. Due to the sheer difference in scope of our respective duties, however, I hadn't seen much of the adminstrator. We have a very nice conversation on the way out, but it was quite surreal having the top boss getting to know me as I leave for quite possibly the very last time. I wasn't quite prepared for the scenario at hand, and while I was polite I was alos far more terse than I'd have liked to have been. Still making an association even a little more human is an opportunity I appreciate more and more. Time can seem like either a predator or a guide. For the first point in a long while, time just is for me. And that perception is far more satisfactory that I'd have thought it'd be.
posted by Adam at 00:26 |
August 20, 2004
Days Thirty and Thirty-OneWell, I'm finally achieving a life-long ambition of mine; I'm typing on the computer while sitting on the throne taking a dump. To be honest, it's not nearly as practical as I thought it'd be. For one, finding a place to put it while I pulled my pants/underpants down was a challenge. For another, I've never been really good at multi-tasking, and as such I find it very hard to concentrate on pulling off a decent bowel movement while formulating sentences that capture the full scope of it. I also have the cord for the headphone jack trapped between my legs and rubbing rather seductively against my penis when I've I see fit to turn my head.All of these things, from the location I'm typing from to what else I'm doing while typing, are mere distractions from what I've spent the last two days consumed with. Point blank, my emotions are all over the place. Sometimes I'm excited about college, other times I'm scared shitless. Sometimes I can't imagine leaving my family and friends, other times I feel the need broaden my horizons. Throughout it all I alternatively scorn the meaninglessness of the way I'm living and long for the maintenance of this carefree lifestyle. Whether I succeed or fail I clearly need the college experience. There are clearly parts of my life missing because of the relatively simple, carefree existence that I lead. And yet with all of the complications on my already and the multitude that are coming my way, I can only hope that things don't become to complicated. If I can find away to fit these daily journal entries into my day during college, I can only hope they can help me in putting the trends of my life into a more streamlined perspective. I can't afford to streamline things too much, however, or I will be perceiving the world through preconceived simplifications that will be of little assistance in making my life one that I view as relatively worthwhile. Sorry for not posting a journal entry yesterday; I was coming off four hours of sleep with the prospect of another four hour sleep ahead of me. To have stayed up the extra half-hour for the journal entry would have killed me. The details I can probably recall more vividly at this point anyway. My parents and I went up to the track for the final day at the races of the high school era of my life. Too put it modestly, I kicked ass. I cashed in on six of the nine races, and ended the day up $2.50 having bet exclusively one dollar bets. As is always the case, they called a Steward's Inquiry on the last race and it naturally affected one of my horses, so we had to stay till the end and let most of the crowd get ahead of us, much to my father's chagrin. I was rather irked to be carded twice, with one guy even comment on how "you look young." Needless to say, I didn't go back to either window. Besides the first guy to card me screwed me out of five cents because they didn't have any nickels. I found an older gentleman that I used off and on who was always polite and never questioned my age to buy the tickets, and a thirty-something woman who neither questioned my age nor failed to give me exact change. It rained around the seventh race, but overall it was a Grade A day at the track. Afterwards we went out to eat at the Outback and I got my newer favorite dish, the Toowoomba Pasta. I wanted to go to Olive Garden, but as usual they were packed. You'd think that chain would build locations that could adequately seat demands; I don't think I've ever been able to walk in and sit down there. Afterwards, Dad and I got in an argument about another of the infuriatingly vague financial aid forms. Then I surfed the web for ages, lost in my own head and overwhelmed by all the shit pounding down on me from all sides. Now I've got a handle on things, and that anxiousness has mostly subsided. My bowel movement having long since subsided, and fears of problematic cling-ons mounting, I wiped up and set up back on good old AC power balanced out to a nice steady DC current. Today was a whole different can of apples. Muddled-up phrased to be sure, but give me a break, I'm running on empty at the moment. Work was so long and boring that my boss and I ended up having a real and actual conversation over the span of a couple hours, and all the while those dreaded blue scissors further marked and blistered the base of my thumb. To let you know the importance I place on words, I just wrote the previous sentence three times, and now the point it was building towards has been totally blown astray. Alas. Having a decent conversation about things personal if inconsequential led me to understand the depths of how much I long for true human connection. There were by no means any sparks in today's conversation, but just the glimmer of the back-and-forth made me long for real sparks with someone in the future. Even as the basic urge for passion stirs ever stronger, I gain a greater understanding that it is only in the more benign affairs of romance that I will ever find true contentment. Even as the distractions in my life grow progressively better, my ability to see through them far outpaces. The college thing, I think has exposed exactly how shallow so many of my pursuits truly are. Even when I'm doing the things I enjoy the most, there's a little voice eating away at the back of my head telling me that there are more important things for me to be expending my energies on. Take tonight for instance; throughout the gloriously low-brow Harold & Kumar go to White Castle I was engaged with the on-screen antics and was lost to a place beyond the specifics of this time and this place. But before and after, I was totally trapped in this particular short stage of "present," with the future ever looming just over my shoulder. I didn't deal with this pressure particularly well, compensating for my unease with an exceptionally vulgar vocabulary and a more dangerous set of tricks behind the wheel than usual. Even as I should be leaving a better lasting impression for the meantime, I lower myself to the expectations and the stereotype because in them I find safety and a comfort zone. Hopefully I can find away beyond this before it's too late.
posted by Adam at 00:33 |
August 18, 2004
Day Twenty-NineI had an absolutely spectacular time at the Altamont Fair today, but during the final hour or so I really began to feel the crunch of time as I realized, yes, next week would be my final week living at home full time. It wasn't until I set off for home that I really got depressed about it, and it wasn't until a short while ago that I came to grips with it. This depression will doubtless come and go until I feel at home at RIT; I don't handle change particularly well. One thought sprang into my mind which made the vast change ahead of me bearable: "Who you are with is immaterial when compared with who you have become." I am the product of eighteen plus years of living at the address from which I type, and that's not going to change even as everything else does. If I can wholly commit to being the best "Me" I can be, corny as it sounds, then my future holds no worries. Through heartache and happiness, I will be me and will be shaped by the Whole of what I have done. I love the way my life is right now, and I sincerely hope I can maintain the elements I most treasure as I move forward in the future. But even with whatever changes come my way through will or necessity, I know that these treasured elements won't be lost because they have been essential to the creation of the present "me."Ironically, two songs from commercials struck home to me lately. Each performance seems to be the one that hits the hardest: "Bluebird of Happiness"
Neil Halstead/Ian McCutcheon
Mojave 3, Spoon and Raftergotta find a way to get home strong
gotta find a way back home
gotta find the light to guide me along
gotta find a way back home
running for your life won't get you so far
running for your life so far
gotta find the road to bring me home slow
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a road that brings me back slow
gotta find a way back home
the loving in your eye that holds you alive
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a way to get home strong
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a road that brings me back slow
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a way to get home strong
gotta find a way back home
saw you turning
big eyes burning on your way
nothing out there
the time to tell you what you own
never wanted to feel this pain
never wanted to feel so sad
never wanted to feel this pain
today
today
never wanted to feel this pain
never wanted to feel so sad
never wanted to feel this way
today
today
never wanted to feel this pain
never wanted to feel this pain
gotta find a way to get home strong
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a light to guide me along
gotta find a way back home
never wanted to feel this pain
never wanted to feel this pain
gotta find a road that brings me back slow
gotta find a way back home
the loving in your eye that holds you alive
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a way to get home strong
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a road that brings me back slow
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a way to get home strong
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a way back home
gotta find a way back home | "Mail Myself to You"
Woody Guthrie
John McCutcheon, Mail Myself to YouI'm gonna wrap myself in paper
I'm gonna daub myself with glue
Stick some stamps on the top of my head
I'm gonna mail myself to you
I'm gonna tie me in a little red string
I'm gonna tie blue ribbons too
Climb up into my mailbox
I'm gonna mail myself to you
When you find me in your mailbox
Cut the string and let me out
Wash the glue off of my fingers
Stick some bubble gum in my mouth
Take me out of my wrapping paper
Wash the stamps off of my head
Pour me full of some ice cream soda
Tuck me into a nice warm bed |
The first song gets me because of the theme of it; it nails the trigger of my depressions dead on. I love my home so much, and the life I have right now. Anything that threatens that, even the artificiality I've structured around it to make it more pristine than it ever was, makes me feel like I'm lost in the woods. I'm going to keep that song in my head when I head off to my strange new life. It will be interesting to see if it provides me comfort or grief. The second song dug far more directly into my childhood; it's a forgotten nugget FROM my childhood. That simple little jingle, especially sung with the wistful sing-song that McCutcheon brings to it, takes me to a place in my life that seems perfect; there's some intangible tie between it and my mother, to a time when we could have moments as natural as a breeze on a sunny spring day. It seems our frequencies never fully converge anymore.Indeed, it seems like my frequency rarely fully converges with anyone anymore. I'm headed down a path of increasing isolation, and it's this loneliness that drags me down more than anything. I used to be weak and taunted; now I'm guarded and closed. The former was horrendously awful, but the good moments were far better. The bad moments are gone, but so are the things which made the good. I was weird and quirky and strange as a child. But I was also open, polite, and original. The very qualities which attracted the torment are the very qualities that made me something else. Now I have been worn away to their level, a bitter shell that turns to cruelty when his loneliness becomes too unbearable. I'd like to think that I'm a step above them, however. They loathed the me I used to be for putting their own problems in sharp relief; I respect and admire that me for showing me what it's possible for a human being to be. They allow themselves to wallow in their mean-spiritedness. I try to rise above it and regain a hint of what I admire so; I am not always successful or I wouldn't be so cruel. But the effort sets me apart a little, I hope. The fair was wonderful. I went with the friend that couldn't make it to Sunday's goings-on. I like going with him because you get the most well-rounded perspective of the goings-on. His sister shows her horse every year, so that means we get to see the traditional aspects of the fair as well; 4-H and the animal barns, the agricultural areas and the vegetable judging. Add to that the burgers and lemonade and fair food as well as some truly bitchin' Midway rides, and you have a Grade A day at the fair. It was a wonderful experience like that centered in an event that I spent many years as a child doing with my family that showed me how much I was on the verge of possibly losing. I will never have the people and experiences I have now exactly the same again. It is a tragedy, and an opportunity. I spent the night's post mourning the tragedies of what will never come so that I may concentrate of the possibilities that I couldn't envision from a static environment of living. Freeing myself to the world is perhaps not unconquerable.
posted by Adam at 00:45 |
August 17, 2004
Day Twenty-EightMy time, it seems, is becoming in increasingly short supply. I only got four hours of sleep tomorrow and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow which begins with work at 8:30 again, so I'm going to keep this brief.I updated Serenity Cortex today by downloading the site to the laptop via FTP and editing the pages manually in Notepad. I'd forgotten how tiresome that is, having been lazy and using Front Page to edit and upload my pages. Had to post the news about the teaser leaking and add a really cool article out of Singapore about the movie which featured the columnist sitting in Wash's chair in the movie bridge. It looked very similiar, only clearer and less real somehow. I just got finished wasting an hour of time I could have put towards sleeping exploring the new Myst IV website. It did alot to ease my fears, as the product they presented there was a much slicker package and the video clips I saw - while not quite up to Riven's sophistication - was never the less much better than I'd credited the demo as being. It was also encouraging to see that Yeesha is a man character. I was supposed to go see a Valley Cats baseball game tonight, but it got rained out so we went bowling. I did good for me; a 118. It was a pretty good time after two games, but now they're talking about re-scheduling for next week which is my last. It was this, coupled with a party on my last Sunday of freedom, which made me realize just how little time I have left. Next week, and then I'm gone.
posted by Adam at 01:04 |
August 16, 2004
Day Twenty-SevenAfter spending the morning doing research (and discovering Streets & Trips in the process), I went to Office Max and got a mouse. I'm a ball mouse man myself, but I couldn't find one that would plug into a USB port. After researching it online, the mouse that came closest to what I use on my regular PC (the IntelliMouse 3.0) ended up being the Basic Optical Mouse. Both are from Microsoft and while they operate through different mechanisms, the interface for my hand is roughly the same and the shape is roughly the same. I also picked up 10 blank DVD+R discs, as I saw they were roughly a buck each after instant rebates. The whole shebang ended up running me less than thirty bucks and as a bonus I figured out how to get to Wolf Rd by going straight on 85 rather than taking Blessing. The trip home was fun; I was behind an SUV that failed to signal at three consecutive intersections and finally cut off a line on oncoming traffic turning left on Wolf Rd. Then I got on the Northway and all the people coming home from their weekend trips meant traffic was bumper to bumper until Exit 1N, which began consequently in the lane to the right and resulted in a lot of SNAFUs with people who tried to beat the rush desperately trying to cut back in.Anyway, now my biggest problem is that I can't get a permanent setup for my laptop. As I type, the computer remains on the tray table with the AC adapter sitting to the left on my old computer desk and the new mouse on my old mouse pad which is in turn on a board sitting on my bed. Every time I get up I have to jump the mouse cord and its sheer distance has my using the touchpad (poorly) unless I have the need to scroll. Went over to my friend's today. His parents had taken off to the Adirondacks. After tossing around a baseball outside while one of the younger neighborhood kids watched from his scooter, we decided to make a quick run out. I was just outside the red on my fuel gauge and he still hadn't gotten his graduation/Old Forge pictures developed. So he spotted me three bucks for gas, and I took him to CVS to drop off his pics. There are three gas stations on the way; Mobile, Stewart's and Getty. We noted the prices at each on the trip over. Mobile was $1.91/gallon, Stewart's was $1.89/gallon, and Getty was $1.87. So on the way back we stopped at Getty, which was very different and cool from the places I'm used to. The location is owned by a family of Middle Eastern descent. They just recently got over a battle with their gas suppliers over some issue. But what made it cool was their old pumps; they still had separate pumps for the three grades. And they still had you pull up the lever where the pump is to clear the previous fill-up. Surreal. When we got back we talked with his parents a bit, they'd gotten a bit nervous when they'd come back to an empty house. We popped the Simpsons fourth season DVDs into his PS/2. We were just getting ready to start our second episode, "Lisa's First Word", when his friend from down the street showed up. Wow, what a different a month makes. This kid who'd always been teased a little for looking young and being small; when he'd first moved here he and his sister had stopped by while I was over. I'd thought she, being taller and further along physically, was the older sibling only to find out that he was at least two grades older. I share all of this to put things into context. When he came in today, his voice was low and booming, probably more masculine than either mine or my friend's, and he'd grown so much so as to be only a couple inches shorter than the two of us. Even his face looked much older. I guess things just have a way of evening themselves out. Also, the Serenity teaser from Comic-Con was leaked to the net tonight in a fairly low quality AVI. It still kicked a whole load of ass though. Summer Glau is unreal. When I first posted my feelings about it, over at FFF.N I noted that it was like jumping from episodes of "Gunsmoke" to Once Upon A Time in the West The framing, no doubt due to the illustrious D.P. Jack Wall and the wider 2.35 frame, was just no-other-words-for-it Epic with a capital "E." I fear the intimacy of the series has been lost as a result, but that was perhaps inevitable. Either way, this looks to be one of the cinematic high watermarks of next year, no question.
posted by Adam at 01:20 |
August 15, 2004
Day Twenty-SixWell, I'm typing tonight's entry from the laptop. Slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of it. I downgraded the resolution and turned off font and image scaling, as well as font anti-aliasing. The result is a less pretty but more reasonable display for what I use it for.And while I still hate the touchpad mouse, I am getting better at it. I think i could live with it if it weren't for the lack of the middle scroller wheel. Damn, I miss the scroller wheel. My biggest obstacle today (other than the guilt of using this brand new beast on a card table right next to my old computer, all lit up and humming expectantly) was the barren quality of a new machine. Reluctant as I am to copy some of the more dubious content from old computer onto the new one, the result is that I am limited as to what can actually be accomplished. Everything I can do works much better, though. I also spent the afternoon fixing someone else's computer. Frustrating experience. Frustrating because I just got my computer and had planned to spend the day playing with it instead of frigging with someone else's, and frustrating because the job was such a monster. After a few hours of Ad-Aware scans and virus scans and deleting this and that from the registry and going folder to folder deleting stuff I ended up reformatting the drive and installing a newer version of Windows from the Dell recovery CD that came with the client's daughter's PC. The total formatting job took about twenty minutes. Amazing the time that can be wasted. I didn't mind too much; they're friends of the family and they paid decent for the time I was there. I posted the following at an internet forum concerning the Olympics: I just like the atmosphere it creates. For instance, the Greeks cheered when the American and Iraqi teams were announced during the Parade of Nations. It's like world takes a break from its petty infighting and takes a momentary pause for a unity through fair competition.
posted by Adam at 02:53 |
August 14, 2004
Day Twenty-FiveThe new computer came today. The word that best describes it is awesome. A true beast of a machine that failed to stutter at anything I tossed at it. And yet... I sit here typing this from my old keyboard, at my old computer. Mainly this is because the new one isn't hooked up to the internet, but partially this is because there's still a barrier. With the old one, my usage is effortless. My fingers know where the keys are and act without me even consciously thinking about it. The interface is invisible. The new computer is far more powerful and versatile, and yet I'm always conscious that the interface is there. It's wonderful and wondrous, yet foreign. I'm both overjoyed and apprehensive. The noises aren't yet familiar. The keys are just different enough to throw me off. As time goes on, I'm sure I'll break through. And when I do, I'm going to be in computing heaven for this laptop's the absolute shit.I strongly doubt I can keep my sanity with that blasted touchpad mouse, however. It registers when I pick my finger up, and if I pick it up and put it back down too quickly, the computer equates it with a click. I'm also a left-hander who’s trained himself over the years to wield the mouse adequately with my right hand. The touchpad makes it all moot, as my right-hand's useless with it. This is perhaps what spurred the apprehension. It's damn awkward having to steer the pointer with the hand you've trained to type. It means I have to pick up my hand to switch over to the keyboard, and if it I switch back too quickly it registers it as a click. Yup, I'm definitely investing in a USB regular style mouse. I can put up with the touchpad on the run, but when I'm at my desk, I'm gonna need the real deal. It fascinates me that after feeding her and letting her in and out all night for the summer, the cat (aka Dad's cat) has been re-programmed to whine at me for everything but one thing once the lights go out. For whatever reason, after she's fed and done with her inside wandering, she still scratches at my father's bedroom door to go out. It's interesting that their long-term mutual affection extends beyond current self-interest. If Pavlov was right about behavioral conditioning, clearly there's a deeper, more powerful force at work as well. I miss the glory days of Myst. When Riven came out things looked to be bigger and brighter and better and on and on. There has yet to be a game that matches Riven's photorealism with enchanting and enthralling interactive storytelling. The vast majority of PC games are movie and sports tie-ins, Cyan's daring and possibly revolutionary Myst update "Uru" underperformed and it's most promising feature - the online experience - was subsequently axed. Now comes "Myst IV: Revelation" which looks spot on, ventures into exactly the area of story I've always wanted expanded upon - that of Yeesha's childhood - and the demo is discouraging. Now visually it's not all it could have been or probably will be. But that's more than forgivable. No, the problem I had is much deeper; the developers don't seem to be comfortable with English. What glimpses we get of Catherine reduce her from the sexy, competent, intelligent Rebel leader of Riven to little more than damsel in distress. And Atrus, whose writings were always so fluent and articulate, his writings in the demo read as though written by someone with a sound sense of grammar and an expansive enough vocabulary whom never the less lacks Atrus's understanding of sentence and paragraph flow. Everything I read seemed to be trying hard to be articulate but each sentence was a clunker. The insight the journal revealed wasn't multi-faceted or subtle. Exposition without anything to dull its stiffness. A further insult to the player's intelligence, an amulet you find gives players the ability to force Atrus to read them allowed. Rand Miller, who has always played Atrus wistful and wise and open, can only plow ahead. He tries adding emphasis wherever the dialog gives him the opportunity, but the whole effect makes the writing seem even more hollow. It's bad when even the character's creator sounds like he rather be somewhere else. That said, the trailer was awesome and the visuals and decent if over-compressed. Hopefully I just got a bad read from the little I was able to play. And hopefully if the reviews are good I'll have a chance to play it through. Nite.
posted by Adam at 02:55 |
August 13, 2004
Day Twenty-FourGot to go to bed so I can get up early. As such, I'm keeping this brief. At work today my boss stood up for me when a higher up challenged what I'd worked on. It's nice to get support from the people you share the office with. The big life changing news was that my mother gave me a UPS slip to look up; apparently they'd tried to deliver it today but there was no one to sign for it. My new laptop shipped mad early, and it's here! That's why I'm getting up so early tomorrow; to make sure I'm here to sign for the computer. I also went to the movies with a friend. We hit the Spectrum 8 and saw The Manchurian Candidate. Pretty good film; wheels within wheels. Lot of subliminal messages and recurring elements; Marco's speech to the one guy is verbatim to Shaw's speech to Marco. There's a woman at all of Marco's meetings with officials, always looking worried and always looking out of place. There has to be some significance to the manner in which Rosie delivered her phone number; a lot of things like that. I really had to piss for the last forty minutes, however, and as if to torture me the movie ends when an interminable scene on the edge of the ocean. Nothing but soothing sounds of water. Grr. Came back, watched "Firefly." Think I got her hooked.
posted by Adam at 02:04 |
August 12, 2004
Day Twenty-ThreeI worked. I sanded my CD box. I went to a friend's house. And threaded through it all was a large number of hours worth of pure data entry. I'm tired, I don't feel like writing, and I'm going to bed.
Anticipating this eventuality, I typed up a little tidbit at work and saved it on a floppy so as to not leave tonight's entry totally devoid of insight:"I had a very surreal experience today. A girl came in with her mother for pool passes and remembered me as her instructor. I didn't even know what she was talking about until she mentioned Project Adventure. I had been a belayer in Mrs. Wendth's class and thinking back did remember her face in the crowd. She was very nice and respectful, and it made me feel pretty good about myself but it was just strange being remembered for that. I guess you never know what you'll do that will make an impression. Note to self: always show people your best."
posted by Adam at 02:52 |
August 11, 2004
Day Twenty-TwoI decided to start my journal entry tonight before I've gotten balls-to-the-wall tired. I just got back about twenty minutes ago from CVS, the second stop in my late night hunt for a glue stick. I wouldn't have gone out if I'd know that Price Chopper didn't carry them, but since I was out already I journeyed into Delmar to get one. It's amazing how different the public world is at one in the morning. At Price Chopper, nobody's in uniform and the employees yell back and forth to each other, their comments often punctuated by profanity. The roads are great, too; all the lights are on trips and since there's virtually nobody else on the roads all but one of them turned green for me as soon as I pulled up. The light by CVS, notoriously busy during the day, is a flashing yellow by night. There was a guy coming the other way and - so content was I with my current driving situation - I flashed him on and let him go. I hardly ever give someone a break, unless I think I'm going to get hit if I don't. CVS was also strange. They have all of their employees doing re-stocks, and the only open cash register had a sign which read "Please Ring Bell for Service" with a little silver bell like this one. At first I panicked; there were no glue sticks in the stationary section, only super glue. Instead it was stashed away with the markers in the poster board aisle. You'd think glue and poster board would be a natural fit in stationary, but there you go. The CVS employees were in uniform, and the protocol for such late night human exchanges fascinates me. Apparently when it's after mid-night but before sunrise you straddle your fences and open with "Good morning" and close with "Good night." The ride home was equally flawless; I didn't encounter another car until I got stuck at the one aforementioned light. Apparently the people who want to turn left at the intersection near my house are perpetually fucked; forced to endure an entire light cycle even if it takes two minutes (as it did tonight) for a car to come from an opposing direction. I turned off my lights as I pulled into the driveway and would have made it my room without disturbing anybody were in not for that damned sensor on the light over the garage.My day time was at least as eventful. Feeling exceptionally ambitious today (and frustrated by the fact that I'd again run out of harddisk space and had several files too big to fit unto a CD), I decided to catalog all of the CDs full of random files I'd burned over the course of several full system wipes and a hard drive installation. I also burned a CD which included one of those "too big to fit on single CD" files in a highly compressed RAR form. The cataloging process in ongoing, but the Excel file I've started it on has 329 files listed spanning nine CDs. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. In order to store all of the catalogued CDs in one neat place, I started building a box at around three in the afternoon. I'd almost finished cutting the first end piece when Dad came home, told me I was using the wrong saw, proceeded to finish cutting the first end and cutting the second end completely in the course of about a minute, then proceeded to inform me that the wood I'd chosen was too thin to nail anything into and that we should start the whole damn thing over anyway. At least my measurements were still good, and an hour or so after supper we kicked into high gear and got the whole thing built, glued, and nailed together. Then we filled in all the cracks, dents, and holes with wood putty and left it to dry. Tomorrow we sand. It was fun, will result in a better final product, and made a positive bonding experience to boot. The whole thing ties together, in fact. The case is designed to fit 80 of the thin CD cases with the spines facing up. In order to put labels on the thin CD cases, I cut and label thin strips of printer paper, rub the surface with the writing on it over a glue stick and use the point of a pair of surgeon's scissors to nudge it into place. The glue stick dries clear and the label is visible through the plastic. The problem was that I had previously killed my last glue stick labeling in such a fashion the spines of some SVCDs I'd made. With the whole house lacking in glue sticks, I set off against my mother's advisement and took a little drive...
posted by Adam at 02:19 |
August 10, 2004
Day Twenty-OneI just got finished posting at a message board in response to Kerry's latest allegation against Dubya:"I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needs to attend to"
Never mind that Kerry's comments are in the same league as those from the co-worker who comes in the morning after a big game and rattles off all the plays he'd have done different. That's to be expected; low and unfounded, but expected campaign mud slinging. The thing that concerns me is the number of people who seem to have forgotten what 9/11 was like. Now that the initial shock is over, too many people would like to pretend they didn't spend days in front of the television as exhausted news anchors fed the country all the latest developments. Too many people forget how shocking an attack on mainland America was; how unprecedented it was. And now the liberals are setting on Bush for responding as all too many of them did. Here's a quote from one of them: "It would be a forgone conclusion that if America is under attack nd the Pres. is at a public event at a public school, get him the h*ll out of there and abord AF1 (or to a safe place)." Said with all of the authority of someone with years of hindsight into the moment. No one knew what was going on, no one knew what was going to happen. And yet Bush was supposed to do what no one else in the country could do. Unreal. I desperately want to elect an alternative to Dubya, but I have to question the judgment of any candidate that takes his queues from Michael Moore.In other news, I got about five hours of sleep last night, and spent the entire day in a fog. From a little after I returned home from getting Jello pudding from the store for my mother's pie until dinner time, I was in a state of semi-consciousness on the couch. After dinner I made a glass-like Superman logo to mixed results. I also got in a game of B-ball with my dad, which was nice because we had done so in a long time. Basketball out in the driveway was always one of our things.
posted by Adam at 01:54 |
August 09, 2004
Day TwentyDuring the final scene of Nicholas Cage's Matchstick Men I was left in a totally different place then when I'd started watching. So far different as to feel disconnected from that which had come before. My passions were someone else's. Part of this came from my mounting concerns about going to the Drive-In with a friend. That event had always been a family event for me; indeed it was tied exclusively in my mind to family time. When I traveled in my mind to the Drive-In, I traveled to a place that was not quite real, at least not anymore, with relationships which time had warped and changed into something less natural; something more complex. I had asked this friend to go to the Drive-In and having done so now regretted it for any memories I could have tonight were surely going to trespass on that pleasant sanctuary in my mind's eye. The other was related to the movie itself. Watching a man with nothing gain a little something and then find out that little something was really a cruel deception. There was a happy ending tacked on, but the problem with a movie that moves by such mechanisms is that the audience - in seeking out the next plot turn - becomes wise and therefore cynical to the dramatic manipulations as well. The early naive viewer gains an emotional attachment to the characters and the cynical later view is isolated from the events that give those characters happiness.Needless to say, I did go to the Drive-In and had a really good time. As I had feared, it was a very different thing. The architecture was the same, but the decoration was different. From the 45 minute trek which included several lengthy misdirections to the fact that I was the one doing the driving, it was different even before we got there. And when we did, the arrow of the big fluorescent sign was burnt out. The road there was the same, but the parking area itself seemed smaller somehow. The closer you are to the ground, the bigger and more wondrous the world seems. I parked roughly where we'd always parked and this was perhaps a bigger assault on my nostalgia. The vantage point was the same, but the screen was in disrepair, the right side drooping somewhat. Inside the concession stand, the several upbeat employees waiting to help you at each step of the way was replaced by an overworked cook and a bored and probably underpaid cashier. I was going to get a soda, but no one was working the drinks. The posters on the wall which had always been pristine and flat and new were old and shabby and hastily put up. If the Drive-In experience had always snared me with its roar, it only had a whimper to offer now. It was like nothing had touched it since the last time I went with my family but time and the elements and things were jumpstarted again half-heartedly upon my return. That is until the movie. Once the trailers started, picture splashed across the gigantic distant screen sound humming out from the FM band it was like no time had passed. Even as I sat behind the wheel with my friend's inane commentary coming from my right, I was five again in the back seat staring out of the space between the seats in front of me. The Drive-In's power of me cannot be diminished by time nor circumstance. As the movie wore on, I noticed far more similarities than differences; for instance no matter where you park a big ass vehicle with three foot tall bike racks will always park directly in front of you at the last minute, causing you to hastily move a few spots down to the more preferable position behind the sedan with their lights on through the first twenty minutes. The bathroom will always be crowded (if not quite overcrowded like the heyday) and unsanitary. Little annoyances that I cherish for their familiarity and friendly signs like the reassuring glow of the concession stand lights in the darkness. So it was that the car rumbled slowly across the gravel towards the exit with my of very much the mind I always have after a night at the Drive-In. With so many doors closing, it's nice to see a door still open a crack, even if only for the present.
posted by Adam at 01:45 |
August 08, 2004
Day NineteenMy mother just opened my bedroom door and told me it's late. Once again, I have put off writing my entry until I'm too tired to properly convey my feelings; I'm seeing a pattern here. What part of me is so afraid of intelligently analysing my current place and time? What secret am I witholding from even myself that would cause such subconcious deception? Is it the depression that comes from another "Last..."? Tonight was quite possibly the last DVD party I'll host with the regular high school crew. The finality of it is almost overwhelming. There are too many endings and too few beginnings at this point in my life. An entire day has been devoted to cutting ties, even as a promise to maintain them. Why do I torment myself?Because to not have the "Last..." for all of these things would be the greater torment. I mourn what I am moving on from. It is better than the regret that comes with not saying Good Bye at all. The current carries me forward, and I can either ride it or ignore it and futilely hope it goes away. The time that remains for such ignorance is vanishing far quicker than I had hoped. Alas, on to the future.
posted by Adam at 03:28 |
August 07, 2004
Day EighteenWent to a party. Weird being around academic geeks when you're used to creative geeks. Saw a former co-worker there. Lots of people in a small house. People from high school I may never see again. Had to work to fit in and work to play off their humor. Strange foreign crowd; is this what college will be like? I hope not. Need sleep for my party tomorrow. Ta ta for now.
posted by Adam at 02:10 |
August 06, 2004
Days Sixteen and SeventeenI just did something that was horrifically shameful. Not the act itself, though that was nothing to be proud of; no, it was the motivations behind my actions that unnerved me. There was a spider in the sink. It moved in that uniquely unnerving way that water spiders in particular move. I have no problems with the spiders themselves. It's when they move that I can't stand them. Anyway, there was one in the sink and I was afraid it would move too fast for me to crush it underneath a Kleenex. I do not like killing in any form, and when I engage in the process I always try to do the deed in a manner that I would find the most appealing were it done to me. Drowning is does not meet those requirements. But I so feared the spider's movement that I tried to drown it twice. Each time it would crumple into a ball as spiders tend to when drowned. But each time, once the flow of water had stopped it would spring back to life. This increased both my respect and fear of the creature. And this is when I turned to the morally reprehensible deed. Having exhausted the morally amicable way (one instant crush) and the less moral way (drowning it) I turned to the spray. I Febreezed the poor creature until it stopped twitching. Then I crushed it to put it out of it's misery had it survived the Febreeze, and flushed it. I know one thing. I'd hate to be sprayed with chemicals to death. The incident has given me a fresh understanding of why people do the awful deeds they do. Fear is a powerful emotion, and down it are some of the darkest of roads.I had a whole transcript of a chat between myself and Greg (frontman for Angeldeath). I'd gone to High School with him, and we discussed the loss of childhood wonder as one grows older. He expressed a need to use hallucinatory drugs to reach beyond the mundane. I expressed an opinion that the only thing required to bring yourself beyond the mundane was a change of perspective. A wonderfully dense conversation on the meaning of meaning and the nature of life followed, but alas I remember very little of it. I did, however, quote the following passage from Tom Robbins's Another Roadside Attraction, pg. 335: "I promise. But, seriously, if life has no meaning—"
"To say it has no meaning is not to say it has no value."
"But to say it's all meaningless. Isn't that a cop-out?"
"Maybe. But it seems to me that the real cop-out is to say that the universe has meaning but that we 'mere morals' are incapable of ever knowing that meaning. Mystery is part of nature's style, that's all. It's the Infinite Goof. It's meaning that is of no meaning. That paradox is the key to the meaning of meaning. To look for meaning—or the lack of it—in things is a game played by beings of limited consciousness. Behind everything in life is a process that is beyond meaning…"
He also may have some work for me designing some artwork for his band. Hopefully if I have another of these chats, I'll be smart enough to save the transcript so as not to lie via paraphrasing.I also contacted my college roommate for the first time. First by phone, then by IM. He hadn't gotten his info yet. Boy was that awkward. I would have given yesterday (technically two days ago now) it's own good and proper post, but I was exhausted last night, had to work this morning, and was up until 3:30 wrestling to get the awful ShopNav leecher off my computer. I got it to stop messing with my browser, but I still get the pop-ups. Alas. This is not to say that nothing happened. Indeed, a good deal happened. I spent most of the morning finding the perfect laptop for college. There isn't apparently a mandatory computer for Computer Science. But if you choose to get a computer, it's got to have a whole shit load of expensive add-ons to work with their wireless network. It also fascinated me that I could customize to the same final configuration and get widely varying prices on Dell's website, depending on which link you started from. Coupled with a 15% off coupon I found via Google search, My total was $1928 and change after tax and shipping. But it's as close to state-of-the-art as you can get in a laptop for under $2k. I also had quite the interesting adventure at Thatcher Park with my friend Alex (whose brother I helped move). I've always wanted to do the Indian Ladder trail, which skirts the edge of the the cliffs there and has several waterfalls, during the rain. So we headed up and walked the trail at a little after seven. After you finish, you have to walk back along the upper edge. To switch things up a bit, I decided to take us a long the edge of the road. Well, we'd only been walking on the curb for a minute or so, back towards my car, when a Park Police pulls up, and snarls in an Australian-esque accent. "The park's closing." I said that we hadn't known that the park closes at dusk and were heading back to the car besides. He told us we had ten minutes to get there before we'd get a ticket and drove off. After running the fastest mile of my life (and after a decent walk to boot) we got to the car as a park ranger truck was pulling into the lot. As I unlocked the doors and got in, he turned around. No ticket. Meanwhile, up in the mountains at near dark I'm feeling ready to puke and my glasses are blurred from the sweat that had been dripping down from my forehead. I get us out of the park and pull over to the side of the road, clean my glasses, and set off for home. Our friend Darren had had reservations about us hitting Thatcher Park at night the last time we'd wanted to. I guess he was right. The trail was an absolute blast though, and the donuts I got at Stewarts on the refill ($5 of which was kindly provided by my friend Alex) were some of the best I’ve had, period.
posted by Adam at 12:39 |
August 04, 2004
Day Fifteen"I lay in bed perceiving the flows of the universe." This is the sentence that just popped into my brain as I watched a trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy render itself in TMPGEnc. As the preview image progress in fits and starts, I grasped instinctually the pattern and layers of movement they used to give their CG starfield depth. During this time I also remembered that I have to email the R.I.T. people about a computer.I watched Secret Window (possible spoilers ahead... turn away now!), which had an utterly thrilling and suspenseful build-up to an utterly ridiculous climax, one that was logical and yet undermined the very authority of its villain. The underlying theme of the danger lurking in one's own mind was poignant to me, however. As a society, we increasingly spend our time alone. Even when I am with people, I so rarely share their company anymore. As a society we are mastering interaction without risk, which is essentially no interaction. True interaction, I feel, in a connection between two people in which each leaves an impression on the other. Nowadays, I go through whole conversations and walk away without either party having made an impression on the other. It is this lack of basic danger that has made society so empty. It is why technology like AIM and text-messaging on cell phones is so popular when talking over the phone is so much easier. We avoid making lasting connections, and the result is that slowly but surely we are being left without any real human connections at all. The feeling of hellish futility I got from my job reached a new, concentrated peak. One of my tasks was to sort admission tickets by number and report if any were missing. None were. Five minutes later, my task was to cut all the tickets into two and through them in the trash. Eyes bulging with exasperation. Kept up with my Java reading, but didn't get much done due to the aforementioned futile tasks. Got really into encoding trailers and got a passable SVCD of that "This Land" parody that's been floating around the internet finished. Drifted in and out of sleep on the couch while This is Spinal Tap played on "Bravo." Two of our channels are blocked out, MSG and Fox Sports. I watch neither, and we get a buck rebate as a result, so I'm happy. In the mean time, I'm going to bed. I shall have another go at things tomorrow. Also: Matchstick Men
posted by Adam at 01:15 |
August 03, 2004
Day FourteenI'm tired, and I need to get up for work in six hours. My roommate information came today, he's from Rhode Island. I had a fun time at my friend's house watching "The Big Bounce"; slightly different crowd than usual. Thinking I embarrassed myself towards the end. Started reading "Java for Dummies" again, but didn't get into the meat and potatoes of it. Walked a trail at Five Rivers with my father, and things got put into perspective a bit. Also did an awesome back up job.
posted by Adam at 00:42 |
August 02, 2004
Day ThirteenI was going to start learning to program today, or atleast flip through my Java for Dummies book again. However, I was called away to glorious Connecticut where I spent the day lifting and moving heavy objects in humid air up a flight of stairs, getting two free meals, meeting wonderful new people, sharing time with a good friend - and being paid for the experience!I've got to say, it feels good putting in an honest day's work for a change. I ache in several places and am truly exhausted; it feels wonderful. The drive was I'd estimate a little over two hours. We got there and parked and met my friend's older brother, whose stuff we were tasked with moving. It had been a unique trip up, being in a mini-van following a giant yellow Penske rental moving truck over two toll roads and across winding country roads. Deciding to get food, we drove into town and found what seemed to be a Greek restaurant called Antigone's, which had a fantastic mushroom pizza. Crispy crust but with real cheese on top. Reminded me of Smith's Tavern out in Voorheesville. While we waited for our meal, I got into a fascinating political discussion with my friend and his family. Once we got back, his parents took to mini-van to deliver paste somewhere about hour-round-trip away. In the mean time we unloaded the stuff and brought it up. His brother's apartment is built inside the old power house for a mill, and the smoke stack still stands. It's on the third floor, which seems awful, but fortunately there's a back entrance which is level with the second floor. We ended up only having to deal with one flight of stairs. I had my first real conversation with my friend's oldest sister and brother-in-law, who have three adorable children: a six-year-old girl, a toddler, and a baby. My friend's sister handled the kids while everyone else unpacked. I was unnerved by how much more sophisticated kids are today. The two fully mobile children were planted in the apartment's empty bedroom watching movies on a portable DVD player. After watching them, I realized with absolute certainty that the six-year-old could undoubtedly operate a DVD player better than my parents. The trip home was a magnificent show of nature. From the fog rising from the valleys as we started our return trip to the lighting that flashed from inside the clouds, we saw some great and unusual sites. By far, however, the highlight was the most magnificent sunset I've ever seen. It was like a glowing bright orange hot-air balloon without the basket underneath, suspended in a blue-grey sky. I tried finding an example using Google Image Search, but I can't find anything like it. Picture this sun on a grey sky as the light's failing, and you'll get an idea. Watched tonight's "4400." I enjoyed it except I flipped off during the last set of commercials to check the news, and flipped back to the credits. Missed the last five minutes... Damn!
posted by Adam at 01:58 |
August 01, 2004
Day TwelveIt is late and I need sleep, for tomorrow I'm being paid to help someone move to the glorious state of CT. But that is Day Thirteen, and this is Day Twelve, so that is all I will say about that.Alot was accomplished today. I have a new ceiling fan in the room from which I am currently typing. My little video project may have at last reached completion. I went to a graduation party. And I had Clam Chowder for dinner at a Fireman's benefit in Glenmont. Oh, and the milk started to smell. The theme of today was taking a chance, and my results were varied. I took a chance by calling about a party I had forgotten to RSVP for, and that was a wonderful time. I took a chance on the Fireman's thing and that was less wonderful but still worthwhile. And my dad is peeing one door down as I type. Ah, the twinkle has ended. I also watched a shitload of "Reno, 911." Damned good show, but I hate the commercials. Finally sat through the whole end credits of Superman: The Movie, which was airing on TCM. Made me realize how much filmmaking has changed. If you compared the credits of a blockbuster made in the last year or so to Superman: The Movie, I wouldn't be surprised if there was less than a third overlap in job titles. It's a whole new behind the scenes medium. Every now and again, I have positive people moments that refute the overwhelming tide of disgust with the current batch of humanity. Such moments are holding less and less sway. I really should starting writing these earlier unless I can sleep in the next day. Oh, well; good bye for now. Raindrops patter on the roof of my garage. Next time you have a sunny day, by God, open some windows! I'll be sleeping with the fan on tonight, but it's a poor substitute for a good healthy breeze.
posted by Adam at 01:54 |
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Adam Freelance Film Critic
Albany, NY
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