November 1, 2001 (6:09pm): Can you believe I slept right through the Zombie Barbeque? Nuts.
Well, see, my friend Don was in charge of this thing, just a barbeque, but it was on Halloween so it's called the Zombie Barbeque. Ooh, creepy.
Anyway, we had gone to Wal-Mart yesterday afternoon to get the food and supplies, and I dunno why, but somehow I got this huge damn headache, and went home to take a nap, and this is a really long run-on sentence. I laid down to sleep at, like, 5:00pm, intending to wake up at 8:00pm and go to the BBQ. I slept like a log, not waking up till 3:00am, my alarm having been going off for seven hours. I'm sure my neighbors LOVE me now, what with the incessant alarm and pounding stereo all hours of the night.
Fuck'em.
I woke up this morning at ten-thirty. Geez. I even missed breakfast.
But now I'm more or less not-bad, you know, not considering the usual stuff. Of course.
I really really really wanna get a copy of Ryan Adams' Gold. It's keen-o alt-country, and the first printings come with a bonus CD with five, five, non-album songs. Sweet sassy molassy!
But...okay.
November 2, 2001 (2:28pm):Wow. It's so nice outside today. It's been really nice for weeks now, with a few days of chill, and I don't know what the hell's going on. It should be cold and forbidding, right?
Anyway, it'd be fun to play frisbee out there, but all my friend's are typically lazy, either sleeping or just watching TV. It's not fun to sit outside and do nothing. Alone, at least. Bah. And the weather's so nice...
Did I mention that I stole a Spider-Man mask from Wal Mart? I did, 'cause I didn't have a costume for Halloween. Like I've said, I went to Wal-Mart to get supplies for that BBQ, and while I was walking around I thought, Hmm, this Spidey costume rocks! I couldn't wear the suit, but the mask's made of nylon, so maybe it'll stretch over my head. So I snagged the mask, carried it around, and put it in my pocket. Fun fun.
Funny thing is, kinda, I got the hell away from the costume aisle, 'cause the mask I took was from the last Spider-Man costume they had, and I didn't wanna be around if some little kid started crying 'cause somebody stole his Spider-Man mask, and all he would have to wear was the suit.
November 4, 2001 (5:16pm):I'm convinced my friends and I are too boring. Really.
Last night a few of us got together to see what we could do, and we didn't do all that much. Hrm. Well, I don't think we're quite clever enough to amuse ourselves. Or maybe our ideas of amusement are too varied. Who knows.
Whenever we did something that amused one person, the rest were bored. Just the same, by the time we were all snuggled back into our beds at 4am, a volunteer fire department garage had been peed on, we'd been followed down the street by a drunken vagrant (or someone like us), we couldn't get a damn yes-or-no answer, a tiny gingerbread man was brutalized, we had more wine than we'd ever drink in one night, we'd laughed heartily at dick songs, and I bought little hamburgers. Not a ripping night.
But now I'm at work, theoretically, and I have a headache for some reason. I don't wanna move books, but I might soon just to justify my paycheck. Sheesh.
November 5, 2001 (7:00pm):You know... I really don't wanna be here.
I've been working the last couple of days, with Don, moving books from shelf to shelf to shelf. We finish, and it turns out we didn't move'em quite right. So, we have to move some again, and I just don't feel up to it. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.
I wanna go home, and I'm hungry. Hrm. And I have a headache, but no surprise there. Seriously, there must be something wrong. I dunno what.
Anyway, I wanna go home and eat. Maybe those little White Castle microwavable things I got at Wal Mart Saturday night. Maybe I wanna eat what I don't have, that always happens. I want some coffee, though. Yeah. It's damn cold today.
Then I wanna listen to Tenacious D. Then sleep.
I get the feeling that this journal, er, MONITOR, isn't getting quite as deep as I would like. In ten years I'll see that all I had to say, out loud, was that I was hungry everyday, had a headache, and got drunk once in a while. Is that really it?
No.
But...
You know, I'm getting pretty damn sick of the people I know here in Salem. No names will be named, but the scope is wide enough to catch most everyone. I wanna leave, but like everyone else who wants to leave, I have nowhere to go, thus negating the sense in leaving. Or maybe I just wanna go, not arriving, just going. There's a goal. No. I want a steak. Yeah. Damn. I'm hungry.
November 5, 2001 (7:52pm):No, really, I want some coffee. I'm cold and tired, and it just sucks.
You know, there are four of us working tonight in the library. I'd think that one of us could manage to sit behind the desk and help the people here. But no. Well, there are no people in need of help, so nevermind.
There's this chunk of ass Arab guy, Mohammad. He's just some typical self-serving jock. He waltzes in ten minutes late, sits down in the back of the library and pretends he's not really working here, but be damned if he doesn't want his paycheck. Fucking idiot.
This, by the way, is the same guy who was bitching 'cause the FBI interviewed him. Yeah. He's a Iraqi Muslim aviation major, and he's clueless, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, as to why the FBI wanna know what's going on. Hmm... And no, that is not a violation of civil rights. It's the FBI's job to mull things over, boo-hoo if they step on your toes.
Speaking of what the FBI/CIA/NSA's supposed to do, what's with this increased security? I mean, the new Congressional bill that allows phone taps and email reading by governmental agencies? Being background-checked by the FBI is one thing, having them nose in on what you're doing is another. But I have no desire, or capacity, to argue this out. I'm far too scatter-brained to do that right now.
And I'm sleepy.
November 6, 2001 (8:47pm):I'd like to take World Civilization To 1900 again. That class was interesting.
Those little microwave hamburgers were awful. Squishy inside, crusty out. Not good at all. Funny thing, though: I loaded them with mustard and ketchup, then thought, "Uh-oh, these'll never taste good, not with this much on'em." As I started eating them, though, I couldn't detect the slightest amount of mustard or ketchup. And why do I say mustard first? Doesn't everyone else say ketchup, then mustard? Curious.
The coffee in this school's cafeteria is terrible, too. Hrm. And they stopped putting out green tea. So it's freezing now, and I'll have nothing warm to drink. Bah. The hot chocolate...no. The dregs of the chocolate powder sink to the bottom. It's just one big mess here.
Yes. This journal has become, or has been for quite a while, an exercise in time-killing meandering thought.
November 7, 2001 (8:34pm):Alright, dude, I've said it before, but apparently it bares repeating...um...WITH KARATE I'LL KICK YOUR ASS! Karate de ass o kickemasu!
November 8, 2001 (2:36pm):You know, I don't know if I'll ever get this independent study paper written. I'm so slow. And I'm not good at writing organized papers. Organization...eh, I'm not so hot at it.
I know what I wanna say, but I've always tended to synopsize things really well, so I only get about a page and a half. That's not good enough. I'm shooting for at least five pages, hopefully more. I've never been very good at expressing things that I know. I mean, if I know a lot about the society and values of ancient Crete, that's cool, I know it. I do. But I couldn't tell someone else. I just hit the highpoints and fail to string it all together with an under-pinning of continuity. Der.
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November 8, 2001 (7:10pm):I'd like to go home and make a mix tape. Yeah. But I don't have a blank tape. And the thing I record on always has shitty sound quality.
Nuts.
I'll just go home and start compiling a list. Maybe this time I'll document my maddening process.
November 10, 2001 (3:17pm):I'm working in the library this afternoon, but I'm not doing anything. I feel kinda bad. I mean, I'm being paid, I could at least stand around and pretend I'm looking for something to do. But I don't wanna do anything. I have a headache. I dunno.
I'm really sleepy, though. But I think I've been getting too much sleep. For the last week or so I've been sleeping for about ten hours a night, if not more. I just lie in bed and roll around.
So sleepy... I was gonna go down the street and get something to eat, but it's too damn far. At least half a mile. Whoa. Far far far.
November 13, 2001 (12:32pm):It was 23F degrees went I came out this morning. That's pretty cold. I had enough sense to wear shoes, though, not flip-flops.
But right now the weather's nice, so I wish I had those flip-flops. I have to get used to wearing shoes again, and I'm not so sure I can...
Anyway, I have till the end of Thanksgiving break to finish my Kerouac paper. Yay, I guess. I need the time, yeah, but what's taking me so long is just plain everyday procrastination. I don't want to work, and even if I did, I don't really think the results'll be all that interesting. I know I'm not interested, or interesting myself.
Holidays are a miserable time, you know. I mean, just terrible. Heartbreaking.
November 13, 2001 (3:32pm):So far, not a good day for Mike.
Okay... I woke up this morning, and as I said, it was only 23F degrees. I hadda get up at, like, 7am but I got up at 5:30am 'cause I couldn't sleep. By 7am I wanted to go back to sleep, but I had to take a practice JLPT. Well, I didn't have to, but Ioroi asked me to, so I said "sure." I go out, it's freezing, my face gets numb. So cold that even my forehead hurts.
I got to breakfast, and the coffee's as bad as it ever is. Doesn't matter. I go on to class to take the test. Ioroi's not there, which means I didn't have to be there afterall. Damn. Still, I thought I'd take the test.
Oops. There aren't enough copies. Everyone but me gets one. I have to go down stairs and photocopy the 40-odd pages, then dash back up 'cause, uh-oh, everyone's waiting for me.
Took the test, passed it, I don't care.
Got to lunch. Lunch, in theory, would have been nice. It was a kind of "Thanksgiving" meal, served early since no one would be around for the actual holiday. Green beans, corn, turkey, ham, all that good stuff. Well, not really good. The only thing that could've really gotten me down happened. The goddamn corn was frozen corn, not canned. Now, I don't wanna go off on food physics, but once you freeze something, you can't just heat it up and expect it to taste good. Only liquids, and sometimes not even then. Does anyone know what freezer burn is? IT HAPPENS, AND IT RUINS PERFECTLY GOOD CORN!
Also, I saw a pretty brown-eyed girl at lunch, hence the song "Brown-Eyed Girl" getting stuck in my head. (There it goes again. Damn.)
After lunch, the computer lab is packed, so I can't work on my paper. The library's full too. My work is on disk. So I go to financial aid to hammer a few details out. Turns out, I'm screwed. I'll leave it at that 'cause I don't wanna repeat all the bullshit financial bureaucracy run-around nonsense. Thing is, I owe BIG and can't get copies of my transcripts to send along with applications, hence, no going anywhere till I pay my bills.
But...!
I can't pay my bills, even if I wanted to, 'cause I got a letter saying that, between now and late January, I only get 42 hours of work-study. Yeah. 42 hours is about, say, $200. I will starve to death, or run out of toothpaste, or fail a class 'cause I couldn't buy the book, or some other damn detail that'll bite me in the ass when I'm not suspecting it.
Worst of all, I can't see Bob Dylan tomorrow night. That's just shattering, you have no idea.
All in all... Nevermind. Forget it.
November 16, 2001 (12:45pm):Still can't believe I missed out on seeing Dylan...
Anyway, I gotta clean my apartment sometime over Thanksgiving break. Have to finish that damn paper, too. I keep starting it over. I can't stop!
On a lighter note, once I get that damn paper outta the way (and from now on, that's its official name, "damn paper"), I'm gonna start typing up that Mix Tape Manifesto I've been working on in the back of my head. Hrm.
But I broke the shitty little radio I used to make mix tapes. And Waak's retard friends broke the tape deck of my stereo. Damn fucking morons.
Anyway, I think I can run through the mix tape process in my head. Of course, there are several different kinds of tapes to produce, hence several different kinds of corollaries and if's and but's... But if if's and but's were fruits and nuts, I'd have a party. Whee.
November 25, 2001 (3:22pm):No sah, I still ain't finished that g'damn papah. Don't reckon I will, either.
Sheesh. What've I been doing that's kept me too busy to make a new entry? Well... Let's see... Library was closed 17th and 18th... 19th, I was here, working on my paper, too distracted to do anything... 20th, I went to Charleston for paintball (only got hit once, in the ankle, in three hours of play, yay)... 21st, I really don't remember, but the library wasn't open... 22nd, Thanksgiving... 23rd, library was closed... 24th, ditto...
Anyway, I'm still busy, and I should stop fucking around, goofing off, whatever, and get to work. Hrm. Work sucks. Someone pay me to not work. I'll revolutionize the whole damn pay-for-work system.
November 26, 2001 (4:54pm):Started College Algebra today. Nuts. It's easy so far, but I don't like math, so it just bites anyway.
I finished that damn paper, though. Wrote a little less than fourteen pages in about three hours. I just sat down, squinted my eyes and wrote the damn thing from memory. I've written and rewritten it all so many times it was just second nature, I suppose.
It's getting late. I mean, just five o'clock, but still... I don't know. Some undefined lonesome feeling, like all I have left to do is go home and sleep. Which I just might do... Nothing else on deck for this evening.
This weekend, however, I must venture to yon Chicago and taketh the JLPT. Egad, verily. Faileth I shalleth. Fuck. This sucks.
November 30, 2001 (8:01am):Scary thought of the month: This morning, around 2am, there was a raging thunderstorm outside and it woke me up. I couldn't get back to sleep, and in a quasi-awoken state I thought... You know, going to war wouldn't be so bad. It's a socially acceptable way to die... Yeah. That'd be fine. Took me forever to get back to sleep 'cause I realized the implications of what I thought. Hrm.
Anyway, tomorrow, leaving for Chicago. Yay.
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