yeah, so i'm leaving for the beach in around four and a half hours, so i figured i might as well write something up in here before i go pack and whatnot.

i've got fifty bucks to my name.  i've got a paycheck up at work, worth maybe forty dollars.  i've got this weekend, the senior trip, prom, graduation - financially speaking, i should not be taking this trip down to the beach.  but, you know what?  who cares.  this is my senior year.  there are a lot of people i'm never going to see again.

so, i'm going to enjoy it.

i'm going to sit back and watch it all happen, enjoy myself and take some pictures along the way, because before you know it, it's all going to be over.  brian's already gone, for a second time.  soon, others will follow - fallon, amber, laura, mindy, rachel (who might be starting winter semester, so at least she won't be leaving for a little while).  i'll still have lou near me, michelle, steph and jen, lindsay is only going to lancaster (thank god)...but still, it's a lot to think about.  not seeing these people anymore.

in truth, that's why i started doing this, making a log of my thoughts (which i've kept, in notebooks, since this time last year) public to my friends.  i wanted them all to realize how very much i care about them, in ways that i often have trouble verbalizing.  this summer, when i was broke and shouldn't have been spending money, i said "forget it.  i'm going into ocean city tonight."  i did it because i was young and it was august and i'd never be able to spend an entire summer alone at the beach again so i might as well make the most of it.

so, i took what little money i had and i went ten miles down the road from bethany beach, i went to the boardwalk, bought an afi t-shirt, played in the arcades, went to the ripley's believe it or not museum, ate thrasher's fries.  a couple weeks after that spending binge, it was all over, i had to sit in classes again, and i've been there ever since.  so, finally, this weekend, i'm getting out.  i'm leaving lancaster, at least for a day or two.  sitting in class, i never once regretted spending that money; i never once regretted the night spent at the boardwalk.  all i did was yearn for it again.

sure, i had almost no money (i still don't), but i'm through thinking like that.  i stopped thinking in terms of complete safety a year and a half ago, when i realized i didn't want to live in a house with a picket fence and a dog and a wife.  i've got down what i don't want.  now, i just need some time to figure out exactly what i do want.

it might take a little while, but time is all i've got.

so, yes, i'm going to the beach, again.  i'm going to spend money i don't have, again.  i'm going to have a lot of fun, again.

memories.  in the end, all you've got is memories.

___

stupidest line of the day belongs to adam iforgethislastname, in calc:

"what's the incentive to become rich if you get half of it taken away from you (in taxes)?"

ok, maybe i shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but damn, was that ever stupid.  i felt literally angry when i heard it.  i was sitting with jeff at the time, the only other self-proclaimed "socialist" i know personally, and i just turned to him.  "i can't live here anymore, jeff.  i'm going to kill someone."

it made me mad, but i managed to chanell my anger, which i now release onto you, faithful reader.  i turned to the kid and said "isn't it better to have a lot and be forced to give a little away than to simply have nothing?"

to his credit, he sort of nodded, and said "well, i guess that's true," really quietly, and then returned to working on the day's regiment of problems, and i sort of felt bad hearing his meak reply.  he's not a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination.  i don't dislike him.  i just dislike the ideas he grasps onto.

but, like i said before, i need to get out of garden spot, or i'm going to lose it someday.  i mean it.

___

i'm reading this interview with chuck palahkiuk, reading what he seems to feel about masculinity, about the sheer thrill of fighting, and applying it to my own pacifist lifestyle.  it doesn't really meld, and thus i wonder why i enjoy his writing so much.

i can't say that i don't agree with anything he's ever said.  the joy of destruction, the sense of power one derives from unmaking something, i can't say i haven't ever experienced that.  i just feel it should be put to some sort of creative outlet.  it's possible to create art from a broken plate.  or, use photography to document what you're destroying.

i guess i just feel the act of creating is much more refreshing than the act of destroying.

___

ohhhh.

a list of fincher's (fight club, se7en, panic room, the game) upcoming films, taken from davidfincher.net

THE BLACK DAHLIA
"We're still working on this. Josh Friedman's writing a script and we're trying to get it under 240 pages. The thing I love about the book is that it's not really so much about the killing of the Dahlia [wannabe actress Beth Short, who was brutally murdered in a crime that stunned '40s America], it's a tale of sexual obsession, it's about the politics of murder, and the politics of the feeding frenzy of the press. Ellroy is awesome."

SQUIDS
"It's kind of like the boat ride up the river in Apocalypse Now, except on a $200 million submarine with nuclear warheads. It's a very scathing look at American military foreign policy at the end of the Reagan era, so it's exactly the wrong time to be making this movie. The white power structure very rarely wants to look at its shortcomings."

RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA
"Morgan Freeman brought this project to me. But it's a very tricky adaptation, because the book's been pilfered so often since by movies like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Armageddon and even Alien. It's a survival movie, it's what it would be like if five satellite repairmen rather than scientists had first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence."

HARD BOILED
"Nic Cage brought this to me. It's about a robot who thinks robot's are despicable and can't believe he's a robot himself. But I don't know what we're gonna do with this. Frank [Miller] has an idea, and I think he's a genius, so I'll follow him anywhere. But I don't know what he's got in mind yet..."

SEARED
"It's a kind of sex comedy about celebrity chefs in New York. But it's too obscure to really explain. It's what Soderbergh calls 'a purification project', like Dogme. You've got to do it all hand-held, with no storyboards, no pre-visualisation...It's sort of a romp - or as much of a romp as I can do!"

hard boiled is going to be cool.  very cool.

___

a new top five, jacked right out of high fidelity.
dream jobs.

1 - writer (playwright, freelance journalist, novelist, poet, anything really)
2 - record store owner (used vinyl only)
3 - social worker
4 - film writer/director (think wes anderson-like nuanced characters by way of lynch-ian surrealism by way of scorcese pop sensibilities and slo mo techniques)
5 - psychologist/psychoanalyst (private practice).

maybe the only job paid less than social work, indy actor, would be on there somewhere, too.  i guess having two jobs which i'm likely to pursue in real life on my top five dream list isn't too shabby, eh?

i need to pack my bags.  leaving for the beach veddy, veddy soon.  i've said too much today anyway, but i guess i just had a lot to say.  enjoy your friday off, if you go to gs.  i'll take some pictures of my time at the shore before i'm due back here on saturday.  speaking if which, i've got SEVENTY-THREE photos from saturday, sunday and wednesday to work through, clean up, resize, and eventually add to the site sometime soon.  watch for 'em.

i'll say hi to lindsay, lou and lisa for you, ok?

hugs and kisses.