david mamet. is really great. he wrote the play "glengarry glen ross" and the untouchables and house of games and state and main and the winslow boy and ronin and heist, coming soon. could be good. he's strangely.. very good. he's apparently this underground film god that i had never heard of before i saw state and main, which i'm claiming to be the greatest movie ever. he is this revered being. i think the term "mametism" is even being used. a lesser known shakespeare? i'm not sure.. i'm very intrigued. he directs too, of course. but i think he's primarily a writer. is he who i might be one day? less revered, of course, but maybe not, like in my wildest dreams. hm. and his wife, a rebecca pigeon, is in every single movie i've seen of his so far, with the exception of glengarry glen ross, of course he didn't direct that.. who did? james foley, who also did Fear and the tv show-turned-david-lynch-film "twin peaks". i retrieved all that there from imdb.com, a place i visit usually two or three times a day because i'm always thinking about movies and i have these random moments where i want to know who wrote this or who starred or directed in that and it's all at my fingertips at the glorious imdb.com. good gracious, it's a good friend. i mean imagine a place where you're humming a song or singing one line and can't think of who did it or what it's called, and then you have this place where you can just type it in and click "search" and it all shows up for you and you can then find out the album title and who else appeared on it and what other songs are there and what other albums by said artist and who said artist has worked with and on and on. that's the beauty of imdb.com in my life. i'm a little obsessed right now, i know. i woke up at 2 pm today and i'm displeased and would much rather see morning hours and go to bed much earlier so i'm trying to be quick so i can go read some more of Deadeye Dick (probably finish it) and go to bed earlier than four for a change and wake up before 12 for a second change. my real intention here was to write about deadeye dick because i'm loving it so.

but first i have to get this out here or i'll forget it years down the line and i'll never do this, but i had an idea for a cute little movie i want to make one day about a simple middle-aged woman looking for meaning in her life who then decides to become a mary kay salesman and reach the climactic point of owning her very own pink cadillac. i think that could be a wonderful film, if made correctly. woo

alright. deadeye dick. oh one more thing

on my errand run today i went to that amazingly great little used bookstore, legible leftovers/the cat's meow and got in a book daze (imagine those scenes in movies where you see dollar signs in a person's eyes, only this time you see books in mine) and i decided i needed a big book on adolf hitler. because it's always good to have a big book on hitler. and it's this clumsy 1000+ page paperback for only like $3 with pictures and everything.. little hitler, big hitler. i don't think i'll ever really read the whole thing, but if i ever get curious i can look through and find out little things. i'm sure it'll be interesting. i wanted mein kampf, but i couldn't find it. then i of course wanted something on ghandi. evens out, i think. i particularly wanted some of his works, instead of a bio, since i'd seen the movie and all, but i got a big bio anyway, i'm sure it'll give me some new information. and after finding an entirely other section of this incredible store, full of movies and records and cookbooks and books on different countries and selfhelp books and books on sex and love and feminism and whateveryoucanthinkof, i really wanted to find a book on the history of haiti, since deadeye dick is mentioning it and saying "haiti as a nation was born out of the only successful slave revolt in all of human history. Imagine that. In no other instance have slaves overwhelmed their masters, begun to govern themselves and to deal on their own with other nations, and repelling foreigners who felt that natural law required them to be slaves again." and i found that very interesting. but i couldn't find a book on haiti. so i went to the next best thing and, since i've been meaning to become a gourmet cook, bought a creole cookbook titled just that: "the creole cookbook". so i will become a creole cook. i'm looking forward to it. one of the funny little ridiculous items in this book is that vonnegut states that creole is a language that only deals with the present tense, which actually isn't true, but he gave a funny example which was some time after his father had died and he was talking to someone in creole and the conversation was
"he is dead?" he said in creole.
"he is dead" i agreed. there could be no argument about that.
"what does he do?" he said.
"he paints" i said.
"i like him" he said.

i wanted to include a couple of other little amusing things from this book to maybe tempt you to read any of them, or anything at all i guess. in the book, the main character, rudy, his father was once close friends with hitler (most of these books are set around ww2) back when hitler was a PAINTER, yes, that's right. he only became this nasty politician because the art community rejected him. so in deadeye dick rudy's father comes across him in an art class in vienna i think where the professor calls his art terrible and then hitler's art terrible and hitler storms out and rudy's father storms after him and to show the prof what an ass he was, buys hitler's painting right there. only an hour before, hitler, who was living on the streets, incredibly poor, had just sold his coat for food in the middle of winter, so.. "there is a chance that, if it weren't for my father, hitler might have died of pneumonia or malnutrition in 1910."

one more:
it doesn't matter if i give away some of the plot, btw, you'd have to read some of his books to understand.. he often talks about the big events casually before they happen. such as, in the fourth chapter, without notice "little did i suspect back then that i myself, rudy waltz, would become a notorious murderer known as 'deadeye dick'." so basically when he's 12 he fires a shot over the rooftops of his little town in midland city, ohio and it happens to hit a pregnant housewife, vacuuming, right between the eyes. well then. her name is mrs. metzger. mr. metzger hires bernard ketchum to sue the waltzes, and here's the funny story about that:
"ketchum was ruthless on metzger's behalf, just as he would have been ruthless with metzger, if father had hired him. he certainly never let the jury forget that mrs. metzger had been pregnant. he made the embryo a leading personality in town. it was always "she", since it was known to have been a female. and, although ketchum himself had never seen her, he spoke familiarly of her perfectly formed little fingers and toes.
years later, felix and i would have reason to hire ketchum, to sue the nuclear regulatory commission and the maritimo brothers construction company and the ohio valley ornamental concrete company for killing our mother with a radioactive mantelpiece.
that is how felix and i got the money to buy this hotel, and old ketchum is also a partner.
my instructions to ketchum were these: 'don't forget to tell the jury about mother's perfectly formed little fingers and toes.'"

there's the humor that is solely his. ok i'm done for now. go read it.

gosh it's hard going to bed early.. too much to do. there are 24 usable hours in every day. quick, alan, what's that from?!

lovemelo

ugh it's 2 in the morning and i couldn't fall asleep because frankly i'm just not tired and all i can think about is how i want to go type stuff on my computer and have it fly through space to this thing and i have to wake up in ten hours and i'm complaining. i swear i could sleep for FIFTY hours but if i am then woken up with an alarm clock of some sort i will still feel tired and unhappy about the whole thing. i have to wake up to get to ONE CLASS because i can't be sure the notes will be available to me online and it's at 1pm and that's great, except if you're now accustomed to sleeping in til 12:30. and all that gas and time getting ready and driving and wasting fifty minutes and blah blah. how silly this schooling thing is.
this thing plagues me when i'm trying to go to sleep: i like the fan on moderately high because i love being cold and wrapping up in something (like my wonderful goose down comforter) but the upper region of my throat starts.. i don't know if the word is hurting, because it's more just uncomfortable.. because the cold air. a very mild version of when you run and it's cold outside and your throat burns. but i can't sleep with it. so i try to put my hand near my mouth to block it a little but then i get hot, and then i try to kind of put my face a little in my comforter and then i get claustrophobic. i sometimes get up and drink hot tea but then it just bothers me again later on. i don't know what to do.
and my poor pajama pants are tearing on one leg, irreversably (unless of course i try to do some sewing) - and i could either try to fix them which seems like only delaying the problem, or buy a new pair.. but i love this pair. this pair is my loyal and trusted friend. i hate how "pair of pants" is singular.. or even how "pants" is plural.. so it's one pant plus one pant? two legs but one complete entity.. it's annoying.

the greatest time to be outside is right after a storm and right before the sun starts setting. everything has this incredibly strange yellow glow to it. the light is all different. you can't tell if the colors are more defined or dulled. it's really weird but really interesting.. you can always see the glow from inside through closed blinds. look for it someday.

i'm tired of american flags and "God Bless America" and "America Stands Together" and all that. stop it. we're not great because we're american. we're great because we're people. today someone said "it's great to see everyone together, being american, no matter what race, no matter what nationality, we're all just being american". "no matter what nationality, we're all just being american". uh huh. stop with the borders between countries. the people at the beginning of all this said it best: this is not a threat against america, it's a threat against the free world. let's work together as a world instead of just a country. i'm tired of it. all we're doing is seperating people. a lot of us are differentiating between the terrorists and the arabic peoples, but some of us aren't. it's not the taliban vs america. it's people who want to kill vs people who don't want to kill. i wish we could just see it like that. it'll be interesting to see what countries take an active effort in helping us here. nostradamus prophecies say that france will prove to be our greatest ally, so watch out for that. it's strange how they're overlooked and instead seen as wimpish. but then they did so much to help during the american revolution and then in the vietnam war. it's interesting.

oh i saw the greatest movie last night called "Steal This Movie" with vincent d'onofrio (who i'm going to start a thing with) and janeane garofalo and the guy from Grounded For Life and The Tao of Steve and that guy's sidekick from GFL and kevin pollack. it's about abbie hoffman, a revolutionary during the 60s. 60s politics gets me so excited, i would've loved so much to have lived then. it tells his story of how he sort of started this post-hippy group, the yippies, and how they helped end the placement of american troops in vietnam and during all that got massive amounts of anti-war folks together and formed a circle around the pentagon and tried to make it levatate, which i thought was so great and hilarious. and his downward spiral when the fbi and cia were after him and he had to go into hiding for 7 years and how he got back into politics in his 50s.. it was just so so so interesting. this guy was the most passionate, stir crazy, grandiose, sexy, loud, powerful thing you've ever seen.. rent it just to watch him work a crowd. one of the greatest lines was about how, yes, they were all crazy and drugged a lot of the time and dirty and scary and unorthodox, but they were RIGHT. that's good stuff right there. i plan on reading his book, "steal this book".

oh i'm even less tired now but maybe i can make it. thinking of abbie has gotten me a little excited. i'll make do. let me think of a quote to end on...

"Today we announced the death of MONEY!" -steal this movie

lovemelo

the gorillaz are kicking my ass all over the place. wow

kurt vonnegut. is so great. i went to panera for breakfast/lunch instead of sitting around campus for an hour and a half and got the most amazing cinnamin crunch bagel with hazelnut cream cheese (thanks for the recommendation, jenn) and an old-fashioned little thing of chocolate milk followed up with a "Mocha Blast!!" which supposedly contained expresso but actually made me *more* tired. hm. too much guessing on the math exam. oh but so i was sitting in panera and reading this wonderful vonnegut book called Deadeye Dick and noticing how the place is just Swarming with businessmen on their lunchbreak - alright this book is tragic but hilarious at the same time.. the main kid's dad is so hilariously a good version of my histrionic/theatrical mother, i just loved it, it made me see how it could've been in my life if you subtract all the evil ;) then the poor child accidently kills a pregnant housewife and you see this scary foundation running thru society - everyone out of the biblical scene of the rock throwers and the prostitute. man we're so quick to judge. but it's all told in this matter-of-fact way with little casual remarks about everything (including random recipes) and while there's all this horrible stuff going on around you, you're still feeling light and happy and a little befuddled, but overall good - there is vonnegut's magic, not exactly explained right by me. but it's so purely wonderful. it's just so.. good. i mean wow. i always want to run into him and take hours and just talk to him. go read his stuff. hurry. alan for fuck's sake start the sirens of titan.

so the other night at borders i walked in for an intended very quick run in, run out with the gorillaz (after paying, of course.. oh good god movie gallery is going to shit upon my head for that) but there was this old willy nelson-looking guy with an acoustic guitar setting up and i remembered it was open mike night, which i always translate as a poetry reading type thing but i always forget they always bring music too. so i decided to slow down and sit and listen to this guy who somehow played the guitar just as i would've wanted him to, it reminded me a lot of jonah and jeff buckley. it was so great. it's so nice to run into little beautiful things like that. just stop and smile and connect with strangers in that little way.

i keep singing "new york, new york" in liza minelli's voice so i went and downloaded it, along with her song "cabaret" (reminding me of darling alan cumming's appearance on snl where he sang his cabaret song in the monologue and it's so HAPPY and he's so animated, his whole face smiles, and always makes me happy thinking of it. god i love broadway.) and all this makes me want to get a bunch of showtunes because they're so GREAT, like in Little Voice (what a great movie, go rent it) with all the judy garland/marilyn monroe/shirley basset records that i want so much to own and play all day like LV and mimic them with her (incredible) accuracy - i want to sing like judy! or liza. or any of them.. i need to make a musical day.

oh damn, pavarotti sings on this version of ny, ny - oh well. he's great. but i want to hear *her* belt out. dammit man. that's an hour of downloading time there.

yeah all this tragedy and singing makes me want to move to new york even more. because out of this tragedy all i see/hear is stories about how great it and how great the people are and man i just want to become a new yorker. florida? no of course i never lived in florida! i could do it. "the greatest city in the world" i believe it.

lovemelo

oh god i'm so so so tired of seemingly smart/cool boys falling for seemingly dumb/silly girls.. when does it end? do they just end up marrying one and ending up like everyone else? can i do anything to help? i don't think i can. i think that everytime i try i'm not listened to or am accused of being judgemental. so my standards are a little higher, shouldn't everybody's? shouldn't we all want the best? i mean i see it as just as bad as falling for an alcoholic, or someone who steals, or has a tendency to become physically violent. i guess we all are just blinded constantly by little momentary things that seem appealing to us and then they turn into.. three years! and then we do it again and call it something different! jesus! when will i ever be satisfied with people's girlfriends? i know cool girls are out there, boys, don't give me that excuse - is it just a penis thing? the penis is doing all the thinking? i don't understand.. i cringe at the little word usages and giggly noises and PINK - what the hell, guys - how old are we? i understand it has its place but why in the lives of the boys i love? can i just shake them out of it? should i just give up now and become a user like everyone else? oh it wears me out.

on a severely lighter note: undeclared is a fantastic new show on fox every tuesday at 8:30 that i've been waiting for for weeks and finally got to see the premiere of tonight and i was, to put it lightly, very impressed. it's hilarious and endearing and fun and the main kid is a miniature jimmy fallon, though without hope of becoming an obsession of mine like the glorious jimmy. and the brit is sexy though i'm thinking not british unless it's some actual accent that sounds like an american acting like a brit. and rufus wainwright's father stars in it and i'm just getting into rufus.. what a small world. everyone go find and listen to the amazing rufus. and for chrissake, watch undeclared.

i finally bought the gorillaz cd and it's so so so very good - damon is a hip hop star after all! and he does it so *well*. but it's not fully hip hop.. it's so eclectic and interesting and GOOD. go buy it now.

AND (see this is what money brings) i finally picked up the pictures from my boston/vineyard trip at eckerd's and they're great, even though i got way too many of the bay on the sailboat and of me and jenn trying to fly a kite at gay head, but some are absolutely wonderful, one in particular, which looks like a postcard, from when we were making the long downhill walk from the hill at gay head (martha's vineyard) to the beach below - gay head is where jfk jr's plane went down, kids. and if i were to have my plane go down i'd want it to go down here. let me try to create a link to this wonderful picture, you can even make it your wallpaper and it fills up the whole screen like a perfectly crafted.. thing. alright nevermind i don't know how to put a link here for it.. someone email me at melo@usa.com if you know how or if you just want to see it. it'll rock your world.

i just found out this evening that i have a math exam tomorrow morning and i haven't been to class since the last exam.. oops. heh, well i did fine on the last test, i'll study for a little bit and do fine on this one. voila.

ohh i need shower and letterman and sleep and other things..

lovemelo

the acid in orange juice never fails to give me heartburn but i love it so much that i just keep drinking it. that's love.

well it seems i'm running into movies about threesomes everywhere i turn.. first there was Splendor, a little silly, but it made me believe. then Threesome, (I FINALLY SAW IT!), both about a girl and two guys.. which the more i think about it might actually be.. nice. i mean hell, i've always kind of been turned on by two good-looking guys together.. hm. well in these movie situations it almost certainly wouldn't work, though threesome had a completely different kind of reality to it, no fantasy there.. it might could happen that way.. and before that The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human. so much sex. jesus. so now i'm just feeling all weird. where are people when you need them? i'd go on but unfortunately i can't shake the knowledge of who gets to read this thing. we need to get over that.

friday i roller skated (the middle school hangout) and then went to steak n shake (the high school hangout) with niko and becca and it was all delightful, though i'm an awful skater and i felt like a burdon for most of the night.. but talking was wonderful. i'm so glad to be past that stage where three girls can't hang out together without worrying two will pair off and leave one. that's been a rule for so long. it no longer stands. how nice. ;)

and saturday was the night of ::metal sign here:: and finally seeing *alan* and juan and frank and john and will and a wonderful surprise of axel. oh and let's not forget tyran. good god, tyran. that kid still gives me butterflies. he's still two years younger.. i've always been fascinated with the mrs. robinson game. hm. that boy is unstoppably gorgeous AND now dresses precisely how i would dress him.. what a bizarro-world. so, melody, what was it like having all the significant male figures in your life in one room? well i'd say it was something straight out of bizarro-world, ed. will. he still wears the same damn cologne.. i kept noticing people leave him for other people, something that happened/happens to me plenty so i kept almost walking over and discussing our situation and making an evening buddy. well i never got around to it. i'm afraid i might've eventually left him for someone else.

chilis is i think my most significant high school hangout, and it was very nice to be there with the people that matter. and finally to be around alan in a state where he'd rather spend more time with you than go home earlier and sleep. i guess it took college and time away. i think he acted the way i've always acted around him. it was so strange but wonderful finally getting it back. such happiness at simple little moments in the car when he said "i've missed you" and i was so kind of taken aback to say it back right away.. i kept thinking "this is how it should've always been". i've tried over the past several weeks to make him less important, but he's just.. not.

i encourage all to go see Apocalypse Now Redux at the enzian or at least go rent the original, it's amazing, should be required viewing. feel that chill when brando whispers "the horror.."

lovemelo

WELL cowboy dan's a major player in the cowboy scene... he goes to the reservation, drinks, and gets mean. he goes to the desert, fires his rifle at the sky and says "GOD, if i have to die, you will have to die"... [modest mouse]

i really enjoy this alicia keys song "fallin".. she's bout it.

that modest mouse song always got me at that "god.." line.. what a strange thought. God/god/G-d dying. well i figure God can't "die" by any means other than himself, if that.. so then i think of what a sad state everything must be in for God to kill him/her/itself (i hate our language where we must give God a gender or even a name)... then i think of Bob. Bob is my dad's friend who's very Christian, but he's educated, he's an intellectual, he majored in philosophy. i swear i could debate theology with him all day. he had said something to illustrate another concept and it was this: "if God can do anything, can he create a rock he can not lift?" and that always stuck with me and i didn't remember what it was supposed to mean so i asked him the last time i saw him and i don't hardly remember now, but it was something about how he CAN do anything, but WON'T do that which compromises who he is or what he stands for. ok. well of course that's the biblical interpretation of God. which i don't mind so much because it shows him as more human than we'd take him to be.. of course i'm not sure if that's good or not.

i've created a different definition for him since leaving Christianity. and it seems to be just the being i strive to be. and we all have different ideals, so therefore we all have different images of God - so as much as large groups of people pretend to go directly from a book and all agree on one concept, i'm thinking we all make him whatever we'd like him most to be. and i don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that. i just wish we'd admit it, is all.

i've thrown out the good vs evil mindset. but that's not exactly what made me leave Christianity.. it started with a (very strong) disagreement with the "policy on homosexuality" as i now call it.. then a general dislike and finally a disbelief in the concept of heaven and hell, which lead to the dropping of the good vs evil thang. i don't feel the need to differentiate, because hell, it's all life, it's all existence, and, in the words of jude in Immortality - no one really wants to destroy all the evil in the world, because it would mean destroying a part of every human heart. let's not pretend we can wipe it out or that it's all centered in a few areas or embodied by one being. "satan" is nothing but a scapegoat, in my humble opinion. the guy that does things we don't like is being influenced by satan. our collective struggle is against satan. i guess we need a face to fight against. and an excuse to kill.

i hope as many people in the world who are against capital punishment are against the killing of osama bin laden and other terrorists responsible for these heinous acts. because it's the exact same thing. i'm sorry, but ghandi was right. there is no excuse for violence. bin laden and others attacked this country because they did not believe in our system of values, politics, and religion, but not only that - we attack their interests, support their enemies. our efforts in the middle east kill their people and/or harm their cause. and now we want to kill them for doing the same thing back to us. and we call ourselves different.

and maybe we are. in fact, yes, we are. but killing is killing is killing, my friends. and we never have to. i said above that there's no excuse for violence. i changed my mind. if someone is attacking your country, your friends, your children, you attack to the point where they are out of harm's way. but you never. have. to. kill. bin laden made that mistake first, we don't have to make it again.

and george w stands up there and in the speech writers' most powerful moment, demands that the taliban give up all the terrorists. and all i can think is what terror could follow that if it happens. what a horrendous act and horrible example for the rest of the world it would be if we, say, lined them all up and shot them. and yet there is a vast amount of people who want that. am i the only one who's appalled? i can't stress this enough: I LIKE PEOPLE. I VALUE LIFE. that's why i'm so very against any kind of discrimination, abortion, capital punishment, war.. and whatever else kills or harms human beings. and other people also claim to have this belief, yet are proponents of one or more of the above listed.. and i just don't understand. some things are black and white, it's not such a scary concept.

alright that's all.

i'm going roller skating tomorrow night with niko, becca, and possibly brittany and jill. i expect plenty of laughter (at me falling on my ass because i never learned how to skate). and these are the things that matter, melody, not tenacious d. (i missed them) it's not what's missed, it's the efforts that are taken to finally get nowhere. ugh.. see? these earth-shattering events happen and we all are still completely wrapped up in our own little lives.. whattodo..

man i completely rambled off and almost forgot what made me want to write one of these things in the first place:

last night i had the most sexual dream i've ever had with fucking alan. what the hell man. why does this continue to happen? this is bizarro-world. i was visiting his dorm for the first time because either his uncle or grandfather had just died.. and i walk up the stairs to see the freaking casket lying there outside the door.. somehow it becomes a bed looking thing.. it's way oversized, like 3/4 of a full-sized bed. and suddenly it's in his.. bedroom? but it feels more like his house.. because it's his waterbed on top of this casket and there's a tv we're watching and i'm in pajamas for some reason and he's lying there watching tv and i just kind of plop down next to him and that some how makes us end up very smooshed together and our hands kind of find their way to each other and there's this kind of touching thing that all happens very casually. and it's not like we'd done anything before, even in the dream, suddenly what's been put off for years is happening and i'm kind of falling asleep and he's getting annoyed with me and storms out of the room and i get up and yell something like "oh just accept the situation.. you're finally horny and i'm tired so i'm not really caring" lol. i'm telling you. bizarro-world. alan i have no idea why this keeps happening. you probably think i'm in love with you or something. fortunately or unfortunately, that is not the case. well i guess when i'm not being consciously obsessive i'm being unconsciously obsessive, hm? and so fucking random.. where does this come from? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!?

jesus christ carrot top is so ugly and obnoxious and he needs to get off those goddamn at&t commercials.. oh my god

whenever there is a spare moment of no thought in my head i begin singing "yellow submarine". one of my fondest memories was when bonnie, liz, and i think gimpy or rachel or natalie and i went to oveido marketplace and liz started singing it and i caught on rather quickly (i'd never heard it) and began singing this echo thing with her and she laughed so much. good times, noodle salad. unfortunately, she's cursed me for life. :)

liz, one more in a long list of friends i treasure but never call. and i wonder - why? she lives near me in the apartments next to winn-dixie on 434 and i think instead of calling i'd rather show up and surprise her.. all i have to do is look for her car which she named gabriel and which i've had more than a few wonderful trips in, even if it was just to and from school. remember when riding in cars driven by teenagers was the best feeling in the world? i miss that.

in the town where i was born, there lived a man who sailed the sea, and he told us of his home, in the land of submarines..

we all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine! ahh!

lovemelo

i'm at school. the library. what a terribly long day at ucf, i can't believe i've been here since 11am and i'll probably be here until 9ish. wow. is that legal?

well not a lot of productive activity has gone on. the first three hours were just me sitting around reading and waiting to meet professors at their offices to get exam scores. this was the test of "am i to continue hardly going to school?" and i'm afraid i failed. i got an 88 on the sociology exam and an 82 on the human species one. hm. not quite good enough. if i'm taking fucking easy courses i should be acing these tests. and that's just what i did on the finite math one. 100. woo. given the difficulty level i should've gotten a 213. whatever. this is all kind of sad. so i'm going to continue to not go to math, it's the earliest anyway, but i figure i'll start going to soc and h.s. regularly.. why not.. only 3 hours total time here. 1-4pm. no early waking. fine. classes, here i come.

well while i was waiting i was mainly reading this local i guess politically-minded newsletter/paper thing called Impact. i enjoy Impact. they have a lot of interesting articles written by, mostly, interesting people. they have a good sense of the world. etc etc etc. i think i've just worn myself out with them though. i mean they fall under.. i guess.. radical left? not exactly left. not radical in any kind of nonsensical way. just kind of.. counterculture thinking. they're big green party advocates. ok that's all well and good but lately it just seems like they're stating the obvious. yes the wealth distribution is ridiculous, animal testing/eating is cruel, the world trade organization needs to die, capital punishment is absurd, we need more equal rights, blah blah blah blah blah. ok. i'm tired of it. there are things we can fix and there are things that are never going to go away and it's almost useless to worry about them even though it IS a form of denial but jesus look at the world, we're not all that bad.

well that's my opinion today anyway.

most other days i get all riled up like the rest of them. an interesting term i learned in art of cinema is doppleganger. double personality. i'm thinking most humans have multiple personalities. subtle, but far-reaching. they're there. they're our real struggle. who do we want to be? fuck if i know. political activist? artist? romantic optimist? lazy teenager? monotonous student? rebel? what? i have no idea.

dear moby is the same way Impact is. same issues. same good intentions. same inevitable failure. i've taken to reading his updates, or journals really, on his site moby-online.com. i just read a bunch of his "essays" he puts in his cd booklets. good idea before i read them. it's the same obvious world problems. where are truly intelligent people in the world? who are they? what do they do? how do they live? there are truly good people everywhere. i know a few. that's great. and goodness i'm quite certain is far more important than intelligence. but when there's a severe lack of one thing you tend to crave it more. and there's my rationalization.

i keep typing words that end in "ion" wrong and putting "ino". it's like the words are becoming italian. so i think of drew and laugh.

the sopranos, my friends. the sopranos is some good programming. i'm currently renting the entire first season from movie gallery/blockbuster. i can not explain the joy of being able to continuously watch episodes you have never seen of a show you are butt-crazy in love with. first i did it with sex in the city. man that's some good stuff. and i keep hearing entertainment is not what life is all about. and yet that's all i crave really. well i'll be the first to tell you my priorities are all out of wack, but how can something that feels so good be wrong? :)

can you imagine how good heroin must be for people to destroy their lives for it?

alright this is why i'm a dork:

i watched a very attractive boy/man walk towards me and enjoyed that and was stunned just a moment ago when he sat down at the computer next to me. kind of caught me offgaurd. and now instead of talking to him, because, a. i don't know what to say b. he's busy online c. i'm busy online - i type it here in hopes he's one of those nosey types who reads what people are typing next to him.

ha

also i think i discovered a girl in my human species class who i used to be very good friends with in 5th grade before she moved to lakeland.. i visited her twice down there, once to go to a 311 concert where we had a lovely time. now i find her here. and for the first few days i thought i'd just wait and make sure it was her but the more i think about it, how could it not be her? i mean if it wasn't, it'd have to be her twin. alicia doesn't have a fucking twin, that's soap opera stuff. and at this point i've waited so long and i believe she's seen me and either doesn't recognize me (she looks as if she's taken several varieties of drugs since last we spoke, i could be wrong) or is in the same boat as i am and we're both lost in this mode of um.. paralysis. right. i know what to do here, i just can't seem to do it. i believe i've spoken before on this problem.

damn i want to talk to this boy. i've already done one of those "act like you're looking behind you and kind of peer at him throught he corner of your eye" things.

oh the games we play.

granted, if i could have any one super power it would be to fly, but i can certainly see the benefits of being invisible too.

jesus he just looked over here to point out something for a guy and i got a better look at him and he's gorgeous. good god. but he's a m a n not a boy. he's probably a senior or something. hmmm ok sorry

because if i were invisible i could watch people all i wanted without worrying about them seeing me. because that's something i don't realize is my favorite passtime but actually is. yknow. they're fascinating. it's like watching animal planet. i could do that all day. the same damn lions in the same damn safari. but they're fascinating. we need more programs about bears, i think.

shit, what can i say here... i can't ask for the time, it's right down on the fucking screen. i could ask for a pen... hang on.. oh boy..

ok i rustled around in my bag and asked him and he said "sorry, no" with a cute smile and now my hands feel kind of trembly. ha.. what is this power attractive people have over us? wow

not very attractive hands, though.. hmm.. hands are very important. thus is chino. plus other stuff of course..

could i give up meat? i think i might could, but i'm not sure.. i've read so many arguments for no-meat diets lately it's seeped into my brain. i've never been proud of my meat eating. i've never really held it as a belief. i've just always been lazy. well laziness is not what makes the world go round. i've been hearing how good fake meat products are.. i could try it as an experiment.. but then if i decided months down the line that i wanted some actual meat again i'd have a bad reaction since my body would've built up a resistance.. hmm. i guess that doesn't matter. bonnie ate shrimp for the first time in years the day she chopped my hair off.. i haven't talked to her since so i don't know what it did to her. i need to hunt her down.

not like what our president claims to do to the arabic "monsters".

conan came back last night with a new show for the first time since tuesday.. it's so strange to see a man who is never serious about anything give a quite long, obviously emotional, utterly humorless monologue. and you could tell there was his heart. you could tell it wasn't staged. the sighs were real. the pain was real. and it was kind of chilling. he remains my favorite. if i were closer to his age i'd date him. yes i would.

the funny thing about moby is that he tries incredibly hard to be unpretentious and kind and compassionate and tolerant but he's kind of broken his face this week a little. tuesday, after all, was his birthday. i can't imagine. but he's very angry. he's very hurt someone would want to do this. understandable. well i have this strange condition. i'm not angry. i never got angry. i got sad. i forgave and worried. and that's all i did. and i worried more for the arabic-resembling members of our communities than the people trapped in the world trade center. but that's just me.

lovemelo

my last grossly large entry hasn't shown up yet, um

this is why i probably won't tell too many people about this:

hmm.. i'm woken up at 7:30am after going to bed at 3 like a silly person by mother who insists i take her and our obese cat shadow to the vet and making sure to bitch me out plenty along the way. how many times has she tried to kick me out now? three? four? you'd think she'd give up. i don't even know if it's in her legal rights to do it.. i kind of worry, but i have no faith in the system here. after one mood swing she busts down my door and tries to hit me but when my brother and i restrain her the police take her side since we are both under 18 at that time.. hm. now in struggling to get the cds out of the car and to safety she tries to.. kick me? but there is no force and i'm not moving and she's weak and too close and so she actually just kicks off of me and splatters onto the pavement.

there's the moment where she's down and i'm standing staring outside my apartment in this darkness but frighteningly close to the street light and it feels otherworldly. some people would be concerned for their mother. i was concerned that neighbors might be peering down at us from all angles. i can't imagine how it looked.

do not jump to conclusions.

i stand for some time and then just turn and walk back inside. jordan's down with her. and then the inevitable story she concocts about how i pushed her down in trying to get my precious cds. jesus all i wanted was the cds and then i'd get the hell out of the situation. they were the only thing on my mind. that might seem cold but you haven't lived this for ten years.

dad somehow thought this situation worse than most and opted to retreat jordan and i to a friend of the family's for the night. i packed for four days. the hadaways are such good people. i never want to involve others in this mess because i'm embarrassed and for a while on their couch i felt like i had a spotlight on me when all i ever want to do when this shit happens is hide. very uncomfortable. and then rem comes on mtv2 and i find a marathon of their videos, including everybody hurts which makes me cry every time. the art of crying without those around you knowing it is a tricky one.

so now. this morning after the vet visit i'm exhausted and get in the shower and expect to go to school (another day missed) but soon get a call from her cell phone. she'd left for a doctor's appointment. what a surprise. it's the police. she's been pulled over again for reckless driving. so many drugs, so little sleep, so much chemical imbalance should not be driving. ever. she's been pulled over like this five times now in the past two years - when will the police get it and take away her license? i don't understand these things. sometimes people are given too too much leeway.

i keep imagining these amazing collisions. there is too much at stake here. jesus

what depressing subject matter. i'm tired. i need more movies. they're all i want. they're incredibly effective distraction devices.

holding on,

lovemelo

alright i just changed my time zone setting so it's not actually like four hours later, it's more like half an hour later, or something like that. i'm being a pathetic blogger addict not for the sake of it, but because i figure i should post whenever i'm inspired, right? so i was just outofnowhere fornoreasonwhatsoever reminded of the possible love of my life who i've, by the way, never met. i want to post the story because, well, if anything, this is a way of permanently recording stuff and i'd love to run across this story ten years from now when i'm hopefully married to him or some such thing.. ha, no i just like thinking about it. who knows.. this could teach the world a lesson or at least get one of you to kick me in the ass and talk to this fucking dude. god this is going to sound really scary maybe and obsessive, which it kind of is, but this is me being honest and that somehow cures all ills or something


so, here's the dilly yo:

once upon a time i visit wekiva assembly of God to see my favorite local band denison marrs play an acoustic set with fellow great local band pistis and starflyer 59. this was in late march of LAST YEAR, i could go look up the date on my calendar because i had the CONCERT listed..not him.. ahem.. but i won't because that's creepy. Now. marianna and i are sitting there against the back wall and the lights are kind of low and the stage is being set and the people are beginning to show up and over to my left.. about 10 o'clock.. sits a boy in a lone plastic chair facing the direction to my right, all by himself. he's kind of drunk looking now that i think about it.. he's stretched out, slouching, sipping on the remains of i think an orange sobi. he has this.. messy short brown hair and he's around 5'9 and he's wearing some type of brown sandals and these kind of knee-length tan shorts and a slightly loose white undershirt. i labeled him one of those college kids who no longer fit into any specific fashion genre. he's skinny and his face looks like jordan catalano from my so-called life, with that kind of sad innocence and strange beauty. and he has these amazing blue blue eyes. and that whole year i looked for boys with very blue eyes because a palm reader said one would be my soulmate and i believed her.

he doesn't look happy.. more detached than anything. drifting off while we all wait. what struck me was that he happens to be sitting under this green light that's the only light on in the place besides the stage lights. it's like he was the before show.

and so i'm doing my typical thing i do when i find a new crush. i watch him and look away every now and then but mostly just watch him and think about what his voice might be like or what kind of music he listens to or how smart he is or what he's thinking or what might i say to him if i ever speak to him.. at this point i'd done it all before. but he's so strikingly beautiful in this strange limelight it takes my breath away and the night basically consists of wonderful music and me looking over to see the look in his eyes at certain parts in songs. he mysteriously disappears before starflyer and i figure i'd seen an angel or something and i'd never see him again.

i can't remember how long it was.. i thought for a second four months, then i think 2, then 1, i have no idea.. but a lengthy-enough amount of time goes by and i end up sort of forgetting about him since i'd never seen him before that night and i most likely never would again. i'm at sapphire with megan flocken back when i used to play with megan flocken and we're sitting outside at the tables talking to two girls who are mindnumbingly cynical and negative and psuedo-intellectual and i can barely breathe when suddenly, like in a movie, the boy walks past. i. am. elated. i couldn't believe the odds of seeing him again, i couldn't get over it. i'm stunned and just blatantly staring as he walks by in nearly the same outfit i'd seen him in before but now including a little indie-esque satchel and that same glorious face. i stutter some words like "that's the boy i saw weeks ago, i can't believe he's here, i thought i'd never see him again, he's so gorgeous" to megan and she kind of dismisses me and returns to her conversation. well now i'm not in so much hell. i sit there with their voices providing the distant background noise to my searching every second for him to show up again. he does several times. my god he works there! my new obsession works at sapphire. how fantastic. so i'm in awe the rest of the evening and i try to make eye contact but i don't think it happened and i sit in my little fluttery mode for some time until we leave and i can't stop rambling about it all night.

thus was the beginning of my "wave of love" for this boy

next it was just up to me to make it to sapphire as often as possible, mostly with megan, to catch a glimpse of him whenever i could. the next time i came i watched him all night throughout whatever band was onstage and observed which ones he seemed to like the most and they happened to line up with my opinions, which was nice. when it was time to go i walked up to a girl who worked there and asked "you know the boy who works here with the red shorts?" "Bryce?" she replied. "Bryce. ok.. thank you." and i walked away. megan was embarrassed for me. i was just ecstatic to finally know his name - and i thought how lovely it was and how i hoped to God he spelled it with a y and not an i because somehow that was so much better. when we walked out the door i was pleasantly startled by the sight of him sitting indian-style on the ground next to us, smoking a cigarette. he looked up at me for a moment and i was caught in that grasp of "jesus, look at those eyes, and they're staring right at me".. well i think i can say that was a perfect ending to an incredible night.

there were more like those. i'd go to sapphire half to see a band and half to see bryce. every time i'd see him my stomach would jump to my chest and everything around him would stop and he'd be moving in slow motion. and i'd just stare. and soon i'd have to confront my terrible habit of never talking to him. which would lead to depression and then i'd get over it and not care and then i'd have moments at random in different places where i'd get really angry at myself and then suddenly pumped and i'd write myself passionate notes of orders of different ways to finally talk to him, none of which i ever followed. i'd get up the nerve whenever i wasn't around him. it's that way now. it blows my mind, and scares me a little, but i haven't seen him in nearly a year, and i still think about him all the time.

see.. the other obsessions, and there've been many, have a tendency of dying out once i spend a significant amount of time away from them. and this one keeps holding on. and i wonder why. why does something so seemingly insignificant haunt me still? well who am i kidding it's not insignificant.. i tell myself that so i don't sound crazy to other people.

so i need to fucking do something. i read poetry in front of people at borders. i can do this.

the next sapphire show is october 11th.

oh my.

maybe i'll bring a camera and start with "can i take your picture?" like with the boys at epcot who knew no better than to stare dumbly and smile as becca, carla and i giggled.

no, i'm telling you, there's something here.. and i'm sure you're tired of hearing about it.


lovemelo

alright herewego

this is melo's attempt to be just like alan

no actually i loved the idea and then find OTHERS are doing it so i'm left with this undeniable urge to follow. it brings comfort. i could just not tell anyone about this and have it be my personal little.. island thing.. no because melo is a

narcissist

and

narcissists

need other people to read what they write thereby giving them the attention they've always been starved for

i think this is going to turn out sexy green but i'm probably going to want to change it eventually but my complete lack of html knowledge will most likely hinder me in that....

is it possible to not talk all pretentiously intellectual like i just did? what if you're a pretentious intellectual at heart? don't worry, i hate it too.
yknow john knows what it's about. john's bout it. here's what john has to say about the state of the world and i think we should all take this to heart:
it's not a habit, it's cool, i feel alive..

oh wait that's k's choice

:
imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky
imagine all the people living for today
imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too
imagine all the people living life in peace
you may say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one, i hope some day you join us, and the world will be as one
imagine no possessions, i wonder if you can, no need for greed or hunger or brotherhood of man
imagine all the people sharing all the world
you may say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one, i hope some day you join us, and the world will live as one

hmm.. i have a lot to say about all that and i'm not sure how much i should.. even though this is supposed to be a.... journal.. but dear eileen just bought me a new journal - with lines and everything (because i need that structure).. but alan you've got it, these things are just more convenient - but wait - do they reflect the sad state of a computer-reliant world!? gasp! oh fuck i don't care
ghandi is someone all human beings should strive to be like in my humble opinion, and ghandi said this: "an eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind" and i find amazing amazing truth in that and so, like i've said to 8 billion people, my struggle is to be a nonviolent person in a violent world, and try to hold my own - even in my own family. alienation reaches all levels, kids. yesss

so as some of you know, i have an insane and possibly evil mother. mothers like these make you forget about the carnage in ny and instead send you into fits of desperation and panic and oh i'd say a little sadness and anger mixed in there. so now to come home to all my radiohead cds safe but my most valued wall decorations destroyed leaves me in a bit of a mess. what are messes anyway? haven't we had our fill of them? this shouldn't surprise me anymore. but i am weak and fall prey and am surprised and hurt by all this shit that's happened hundreds of times in my lifetime. and instead of thinking about what really matters in all of this i sit and criticize my dependence on material possessions. see.. the ok computer poster was a "oh my god i finally bought a radiohead poster"/tampa/weezer trip memento (see that movie), the amnesiac advertisement from borders was a special surprise and comfort after coming home to borderline hell after an unimaginably spectacular vacation, the deftones poster reminds me of the olden days when will got it at sonic boom for me even though i wanted the gigantic one, and then the various pictures of thom yorke and a onelinedrawing tour poster jessica bought for me the night we met at his show and the two amazing pictures her brother took of jonah on that incredibly perfect night.

don't any of these things matter?

no i guess not.

you know who's really good? massive attack. s e x y

anyone want to move to boston with me? i need to get out of this section of the country. boston is everything i think i want right now. so i think i've mapped out my life: boston for about 5 years, then nyc for maybe 10, then sanfrancisco/sandiego/sacramento for 5-10, then to retire and die on a ranch in either wyoming or montana and grow my own food and tend sheep or some such thing. i could do it. oh but i'd have to spend a little longer in one of the three previous places, or all of them, because i can't retire until i'm in my mid/late 50s. right. ok my plan is almost flawless..


i said to marianna and becca at 1 am upstairs at park avenue that i always wanted to either make a shirt or get a tattoo that said that willy wonka line "we are the melody makers, we are the dreamers of dreams" and marianna said that a tattoo was a lot different from a shirt. and we all laughed.

lovemelo