halo33

I just got an email from Offie. I'm sincerely glad to hear from her, and she's in Yuma. Yea! (hooray assonance!) I was going to go home a couple weeks ago, but didn't for lack of money..and, well, because I think I was a bit scared. My sister is staying with me now, and while there are times when we don't get along, its been really good for the most part. It's helping me a lot with anxiety issues. This is the longest she's been away from Yuma (longer than Idaho, when she converted to Mormonism), so it's odd...and at times I feel I'm being a bad influence, toking with her and her boyfriend on occassion, but I know that isn't true. As a matter of fact, living here is really good for her. She got stuck with a bad group of people as she didn't really want to live with any of our relatives in Yuma, including our mom. Its eerily reminiscent to my situation senior year of high school and my whole U of A/NAU limbo years.

I'm planning on going home labor day weekend. I haven't been home in so long--there are a lot of things I miss. Two lane highways. Seeing the band of the Milky Way in the night sky. Orchards and Mexican food. My grandma reading me Christian poetry. It's all a huge Mastercard commercial, really.

Stagnant. That's how I felt all summer. For a while, this week, I felt myself starting to get depressed, but I pulled myself right out of it. I was amazed at how easily I did it. All it took was Philip Levine's book "The Mercy", a copy of Liz Phair's "Whitechocolatespaceegg" and "Exile in Guyville" and some brownies. And knowing that school will take over my life once again next week.

My sister suggested I make a list of stuff I want. Know, I know its anti-buddhist to attatch oneself to "wants", as well as firmly adhering to "American Dream" brainwashing, but I thought I'd give it a shot. At least for the next couple of years:

1. Finish my manuscript for my grad school application, and get accpeted to the MFA program at either NAU or ASU.
2. Go to Burning Man next year (as its too late for BM 2002, which is next week).
3. Big screen TV!
4. Read Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon before Christmas (its 760 pages long), as well as finishing Douglas Hofstadter's book on Godel.
5. Start working on songs. I have all the software I need, I just need to buy a synth and a nice sound system.

I just finished my somewhat sloppy re-design. I'm actually kinda happy with this: it's not too slick and not too skimpy. I'm not actively seeking a huge readership, either...again...just a place to vent. Haha.

There are a few HUGE pictures here and there...that are in bitmap format that I need to change to JPEG. Since I don't have the software to do so, I'll have to wait until school starts next week to change these using the brand new shiny IMacs at the computer lab. Yum.

I configured my webcam, which I will have on from time to time (that is, when I am desperately bored) and also, via NYC Chris, blogamp, which shows the last ten songs I played on Winamp. Cool. technology kicks ass. That's under "Music". Aight. I need sustenance.

I'm listening to the Smashing Pumpkins "Mellon Collie" album right now. It's making me so damn nostalgic....especially "Porcelina".

I haven't been this lucid in a very, VERY long while. At once, I'm good and frightened. This semester I'm lookign forward to. Taking three poetry classes, a couple literature, and grammar. I might even do the radio thing again. That depends on how much time I have, though.

School is starting next week. I should be graduating in May, hopefully.

I'm working on a new template for my site. I'm going to make blogger my start-up page, instead of msnbc or yahoo, as I'm sick of hearing bad news. Recently, I've been obsessed with current events...and while its good to be aware of what's happening in the world, its not good to go to bed with a nihilistic world-view.

A couple days ago I had a major anxiety attack, about 2 in the morning. Haven't had one of those in a while. Luckily, my sister was around. I'm getting better, I think.

posted by eddie  # 4:14 PM

So there was a shooting about an hour ago at LAX. Two people died, including the gunman. A few innocent bystanders were injured. This has to be a terrorist strike. And there's a sad part of me that knows this is just the beginning.

I started reading the Dhammapadda yesterday, and I found myself agreeing with many of the ideas posed in there.

But for some reason, I can't write. All I can do is digest, at this point.

But I'm not yet an addict.

Wow, I haven't written in a long time. I'm going to be making an effort to get my life back in track, hopefully writing in this will become a habit rather than a chore. My sister is living with me now, after Brandon moved out. Still can say that I'm glad he's gone. I've realized that my anxiety is getting the better of me, and I think its winning. I might be wrong, but I am noticing just how I do react towards others, especially because my sister knows to put up with my irritability rather than to back away and leave me alone. This may be annoying, or hard for me to understand, but I think this is for the better. Her being around.

I can't sleep right now. I gave all my "medicine" to my sister for safekeeping, and I told her not to tell me where it is or to give me any before 4th of July. (I place my bids on the next terrorist attack occuring on this date. Why? What date could be more attractive. I hope this doesn't make me seem an asshole.) I'm having a tough night. I started thinking about the past--the water pipe I locked my bike up to next to Zia Records in Tucson, the lemon orchard and the canals of Yuma, the crystal clear night sky, void of smog and light pollution.

Flagstaff is seeming more and more attractive. Falling snow makes for a cozy blanket. Philosohpy isn't offered at NAU's grad school, so I might have to venture further north....Denver or Washington. We will see what happens. I'm going to try to get some sleep.

I've been revising a story for my fiction workshop all weekend, doing some poetry here and there, but not really finsihing anything. I feel I can't ever finish anything--I have scraps and bits and pieces laying all over the place, on envelopes, on zip disks, in text books, in my head. Those I'm kinda scared of losing, but the one cool thing I've realized is that I can always replace those images that are lost, those ideas and characters and plot devices that seem to have dissapeared as quicly as they arrived.

I'm going to go home, make some pasta, watch the fourth to the last episode of the X-Files. I'm actually looking forwards to it a lot. Nothing too exciting planned for tonight.

I started thinking about what to do upon graduating, as I could earn my degree by the end of Spring semester, 2003. I'm not sure I want to go to grad school just yet, I feel an inkling to join the "real world", and not become a fixture of academia. I'm not even sure I'd fit in so well--I couldn't teach because of my generalized anxiety. I've been considering writing for a newspaper or a magazine, or a website. A music magazine like Spin or BPM. Or a local paper like the New Times, or even start my own. I don't know. I can do a lot with an English degree, I just have to start deciding what it is exactly that I want.

Just finished up my web page for my CSE 185 class. Nothing too fancy or slick, though I did want to incoporate a blog in there somehow, it is purely incidental. It is not the core of the site. Really, this site has no core; its nothing but a place to gather my thoughts, however random. I'm not going to pretend that I'm going to post blogs regularly. I have my writing to focus on, but just in case I need to blog, this will be here, ready and willing. And randy.

Hellacool links:
Hi there! I'm Wide Awake!!!
anticipated serendipity and other wacky oxymoronic mis-adventures

Now Playing: Lamb >>> "Zero"

Last day of Spring Break. Yipee. I'll be spending this beautiful Sunday afternoon doing homework. And laundry. How exciting.

I had a dream a while ago about one of my old friends, and he had a dog named Roscoe. You know that adage about dogs looking and acting like their owner? Well, Roscoe is the antithesis of said friend. Fluffy would be a more appropriate name for his dog.

My dog, when I get one, preferably a terrier, will be name Charlie. And say it with a Boston-accent..."Chaw-lee".

Yea, man!

Oh, found this site through Chris. Rock on.

Now Playing: Jimmy Eat World >>> "Clarity"

AAAAhhhh! I wann re-design my page soooo bad, but I'm in a creative peak right now. Aaaaahhh! I should be putting that creative energy into a slick and flashy new layout, but instead I'm putting it into my writing, which is good, but I don't want to spread myself thin, or become negligent to my baby blog.

Almost done with a short story based on incidents that occured at the Greenery Apartments at the corner of Priest and Boradway in Tempe, Arizona. Should be good, just need to finish the last section and do some fine-tuning. Also wrote like a million poems, about everything from a satire about the charity feast where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine set in modern-day Colorado, a dramatic monologue about an atrocity performed in Austria by German Nazis in retribution for the murder of a diplomat at the German Embassy in Paris before the start of World War II, and a few more I can't remember. An ode to onions. Yeeeaaa, baby. I've got a few more manuscripts, yet no reliable source of income for the next few weeks. I'm in great shape. In case you can't hear my rather irritating intonation, that was an attempt at sarcasm. Yea, great.

My mommy sent me some money in the mail, so I got to eat today! Woe is the life of a lowly lackey in college. Had a chicken teriyaki bowl for lunch. Fatburger for dinner. Best burger ever. I was really excited about seeing Resident Evil this afterrnoon, but when Lisa, her boyfriend, a couple other friends and I arrived for the matinee, we discovered all the shows until 9 tonite were sold out. Crimea River! So no movie, but I did almost jump from a third floor balcony at Lisa's old apartment complex like a rabid monkey. Or a flying squirrel.

I discovered I have a major complex about coming out to certain people. I've made a ton of friends this semester, yet I've only come out to one of them, and she is really part of any larger circle that I'm a part of too. It kinda sucks, have to deal with jealous boyfriends who think you're checking out their girlfriend when you're really checking them out, and questions about faulty past relationships, advice and such. Oh well. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to tell at least four people before the end of the semester. Or wait until they try to get into my pants. Girls can be quite forward these days, let me assure you. I just wish guys were just as blunt.

(Faggy Mode On) Ok, I'm watching Bobby Flay on the Food Network. Boy, he is a hottie. Damn, I'd love to lick that duck confit and apricot sauce right off of his chest, and make a trail right down his tummy...oh, hell, you know. (Faggy Mode Off = )

I'm going to sleep. Eddie is tired. Gotta go to work tomorrow morning. Criminy.