Internetsless VII
It seems that I can't, or at least won't, write a thousand words every day. I will, though, write approximately eight hundred words every three days, all at a go. This seems to be because I am critically depressed every three days. I'm not sure what I do with myself the rest of the time. I suppose it must be pretty awesome, if it keeps me in good spirits for two and a half days at a time. That probably means it has to do with dinosaurs.
Now, we are familiar with the statistic to the effect that it is normal for men to think of sex for one second out of eight. This I can accept comfortably. However, I've noticed lately that I also seem to spend one second out of eight thinking about dinosaurs. That scares me.
And then I end up spending half an hour thinking about how much I think about dinosaurs.
Three more words.
Internetsless VI
Five years ago, I was in love with Amanda. It was a Great Summer, and she's still the only girl I've ever made a mix tape for. I never gave it to her, because she broke up with me a month after she left for college. Just going into college myself, I had plenty to distract me. I have plenty to distract me now. I'm not distracted, though.
Ten years ago, I was in love with Erin. It was horrible in all the best ways, and she screwed me up so bad I can't even look at a carnation without getting depressed. I wrote lots of poems about her, but I didn't write any poems for her. Our first date was Deep Impact, and I still have the ticket stub.
Fifteen years ago, I was already in love with the past. The year before, the Twins winning the world series, early grade school. I was good at spelling, then. I spent all my free time playing make-believe. I had superpowers. I have superpowers now; I used them the other day. I remember using them. I don't remember what they were.
I can't go back any farther. Twenty years ago, I suppose, I was just getting out of a cast that encumbered one of my legs and my entire lower torso. I played with a lot of Legos. I hung out in cardboard boxes. I have pictures.
Twenty-five years ago, I was, as they say, a twinkle in my daddy's eye.
Internetsless V
So I have this record by Alvin and the Chipmunks. It's called Chipmunk Punk, and the album art is the Chipmunks standing defiantly in front of a brick wall, safety pins and skinny ties, spikey hair and bored expressions. I found it in an antique store, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to buy it. But I never listened to it until tonight.
And I listen to the Chipmunks singing "My Sharona", and I rock out. And I think, if there was a girl who wanted to listen to this, the whole thing, all the way through, I would fall in love with her. If she could just sit in my room and soak it in, listening and enjoying unabashedly, I would be head over heels. Do women like this exist outside of movies? If so, they should keep away. I'll only fall in love with them.
It's not that I'm addicted to falling in love. Yes, it's bad for me. Yes, I enjoy it. Yes, I do it too much, the heart flutters, the knees go weak, the nostrils flare. But it's not like I seek it out.
Right?
Internetsless IV
A good friend recently told me that I carry duty to the point of irrationality, which was a great surprise to me at the time. Not so much the accusation of irrationality, since I'm accused -usually unjustly- of systematic irrationality on a regular basis. (The accusations of temporary and sporadic irrationality are, I will readily admit, much more often accurate.) Rather, the accusation of being dutiful. I don't think of myself, I protested at the time, as dutiful. My actions are not defined by duty, except to employers, or the country. Formal situations. I have a duty to show up on time for work, and to defend this country should it prove necessary, for examples. But the discussion got me thinking. Well, directed my thinking towards this subject and away from the things otherwise occupying my mental faculties (id est, dinosaurs).
Duty is a hard word to define, especially without Dr. Google to consult. I've learned from Leah the value of investigating existing definitions before stating my own. Is it something one needs to do? Supposed to do? Should do? Will do? My affection for formality leads me to suggest that a duty is something contractual, something one is obliged to do. One /need/ not do a duty; it is conceivable, as an example, that I won't ever pay off my student loans. And though one should do one's duty, not all things one should do are in the domain of duty. I should be polite to everyone, for instance, but I certainly don't have a duty to.
But I'm comfortable with the contract. Failure to fulfill a duty voids, or at least damages, the relationship that gave rise to it. This resonates with me, certainly because of the formality of it, but also on account of the mutuality. Duty is not, to my mind, one-sided. If it was, what would be calling the actor to fulfill his duty? Only he himself. But duty is external. (I tried hard not to make that argument circular, and I'm not sure I succeeded. I basically just said that duty must be mutual because of my assumption that it must be external. But even if that assumption is true, the conclusion doesn't follow. Scrap this paragraph; I need to think about this some more.)
Internetsless III
The reason I am never happy with the music scene in Chicago is because it's not metal. Not that metal is an end-all-be-all for my appreciation of music, but it's the culture in which I came to love music, and Chicago's urbane rock-and-pop music mentality lacks what I'm thinking of when I want to go to a concert. These kids have never been in a spontaneous mosh pit. The mosh pit they know is the one villified by outsiders, and so the restless and devient among them seek to tap into the mosh they know, the false demon set up by mosh's accusers. They intentionally create the evil they were warned against, and miss completely the true joy of moshing. They punch and kick, driving their surrounding pit-goers away. They purposely assault those who want nothing to do with their antics. They create an empty space in the middle of the crowd and seperate from it, lacking both the group participation and spectacle of a dance circle and the mutual closeness and fellowship of a mosh pit. It's just a festering sore.
Granted, since these holes are the closest I'm likely to get to a pit or circle (some venues go so far as to ban moshing and certain forms of dancing), that's where I'm likely to be. I'm just never satisfied. And I know it's likely I never will be again. My days of being crushed, scraped, and pummeled by a thousand arms are propably gone for good. And that sucks.
Unless someone can prove me wrong. Please, someone, prove me wrong.
Internetsless II
I don't want to be a writer. I just want to make sure I am literate. Or rather, I don't seek to be a writer. I seek literacy. I can read. Most of us can. I can. But can I write? Can I, specifically, follow some bad advice, and write one thousand words, every day? Perhaps.
And does it count if I spend the day painting instead?
I think I can. I am still timid about making definitive statements. I cannot say if this is likely to change.
More to the point, I wonder whether I will write a thousand words a day, and what, if I do, or even if I do not, the effects upon me might be of the experiment. It is a vanity, I am aware, but I cannot recollect why vanity is an evil. "A little folding of the hands to sleep", perhaps? And should that comma be before the quotation mark, or after? (I've been reading Foucault's Pendulum, forgive me.) But the experiment progresses. I wonder how many words I am at right now? Vanity, vanity. Two more. Four more.
Thursday, thirteenth week after Pentecost
So I have the Internets again.
Let me back up. I didn't have the Internets for a while there, a long while. Now I do, and further, I've discovered a new CSS trick. If you look at this post, you'll probably notice it. I'm still playing around with it, obviously, but it's not too bad.
For any of you who may be content-starved, I did write a number of things over the past couple weeks, and I should have them up soon enough. I was also reading Foucault's Pendulum at the time, so some of them are a bit.... wonky. So it goes. I'll try not to put them up all at once, and you should, of course, feel free to comment on them.
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