What I hate most about waking up at 2:30PM is that for most of the people around you, the day is already half gone. It's as though you've shown up to the party three hours late and no one wants to fill you in on who was dancing on the table with a lampshade on their head. So you end up hanging out in the corner, somberly blowing into a little party favor. On the upside, waking up at 2:30PM allows you to stay awake until such fine hours as 7AM (the morning sky does incredibly interesting things with color). Eventually, the people around you who were witness to the earlier party antics drop like flies, one by one, and you're left with an entire party hall to yourself.

What is this feeling of urgency?
The air is thick with it.
- tangibly weighted down
with the body of things coming.
...but what?

"Lay down under the playground,
Hold up, I can't, hold up for long..."

I'll accept that some people need to threaten the security of their lives to feel as though they're actually living. I don't understand it, but I'll accept it. Why else would sky diving companies still be in business? After only 21 years of age, though, why would it be necessary to risk your life for the fleeting thrill of throwing yourself at the ground?

My cousin - my age at 21 years - recently brought over a tape of her sky diving footage. From a plane thousands of feet above the ground, she leapt, professional sky diver attached to her back, and hurtled toward the ground. Through it all she smiled. The easy one hop landing could just as easily have been a sledge hammer impact at full speed. What if the chute hadn't opened? What if the lines had become entangled? -- She would have been ripped from her son's and husband's lives, all for a fall that was over in less time than it would have taken to put her body in a bag.

I think about death nearly constantly, so maybe I have a greater awareness of the transient, lightning-speed nature of life - something that makes me wonder why anyone would risk shortening the already split-second timeline that's been given to them. With my boyfriend contemplating a bungee jump, I'm trying hard to understand how the benefits could outweigh everything that could be lost. And I'm getting nowhere.

Any ideas?

The word disorder has such relative meanings, really. Nevertheless, I always feel compelled to see how psychologically out of sync I am with the expected norm. Hence, this test. As I suspected, I'm delightfully disordered:

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Moderate
Schizotypal:	High
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Moderate
Histrionic:	Very High
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	High
Dependent:	Very High
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Click Here To Take The Test --

I have a substantial list of projects I'd like to see completed and wrapped in cute little bows, and yet, the amount of choices I have seems to limit my actions to the point where I end up accomplishing nothing. Nada. I have not edited a single slice of digital video in over a month. The time and desire are present - and yet something has gone horribly wrong. But what?

Oh, that's right... I'm lazy. I always seem to forget about my lack of ambition. One of my favorite quotes has always been, "Ambition is poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy." And no, I never seem to accomplish much, but between my short-lived fits of creative bustle, I'm never the one worrying about getting things done.

And isn't that what life should be all about?
The answer, my friends: yes. Oh yes.

"Tell me, tell me what you're after..."

Too many things feel uncertain and shifting right now, at this moment. Fortunately, the school security blanket I'm hiding from the world under is still in place - but even that is uncertain. My major progress is almost completely up in the air. I mean, I may have to take English 101. A senior English major in English 101 - how pathetic is that? But school is just a part of the dynamic, jello nature of my life at the moment.

Things just feel odd.

I like Jello and all, don't get me wrong, but as a pedestal, it's not working out as well as I'd like. There's an ever-interesting, shifting view from up here, but the motion sickness is bound to kick in sooner or later.

Who knows?

After a lengthy absence, dp.com is back - though I'm sure not everything is in working order again. I suppose that's what happens....

I'll see if I can get everything straightened out as soon as possible.

Psychoanalytical multiple choice of the day:

The mere mention or thought of ghosts brings tears to my eyes, though the tears are unaccompanied by a specific feeling of sadness. Choose the answer that best explains this psychological response to spectral influence.

A) I am a coward.
B) Ghosts surrounding me at the time become agitated and send off tear-jerking electro-magnetic waves.
C) I am unwilling and unable to confront the idea of my own mortality.
D) I am entirely too sensitive to the pain and suffering of others.
E) None of the above. / I need to just get over it.

Tests results will be returned to you in due time.

The sky was shattered, but we could only tell when the moonlight slipped along its cracks. Night was over the cemetery as the five of us, breathless and terrified stared up at the sight. As the moon and earth danced their timeless dance, the shattered sky above us fractured and magnified the moon every few seconds. I stood, chest heaving and ears still straining for that unnatural voice that had chased us through the tombs, and watched the moon shift back and forth from the small, blurry globe I knew to a sharp, impacted plate of blue and gray and white fifteen times the size of its former self. It looked as though it would crush the trees beneath it. Only the moon moved in those few moments, changing, growing and shrinking between the shards of sky. We were all too afraid to speak. They were my family - without being my family, and the image of a crying baby came to me - and I knew it cried because it was about to die. I felt nothing. Even the air around my bare arms was dull and still. ...And then I ran. I could feel my feet pounding the pavement in time with my heartbeat. The canopy of trees above me filtered the deity moon above and threw spears of moonlight at the residential street below. I could sense the hundred hearts sleeping in beds in the boxes of concrete and plaster I passed, and I felt the pointlessness of every one of them. When I stopped running at the end of the street where the trees opened up to the flickering satellite, two grotesquely large men beside a pickup truck laughed chunky, hoarse laughs. ...And that's when I woke up.

"...people, they come together. people, they fall apart..."

Songs I can't stop listening to at the moment -

Echo And The Bunnymen - Under A Killing Moon
Call And Response - California Floating In Space
Pete Yorn - For Nancy
Moby - We Are All Made Of Stars
Placebo - Every You Every Me

I really do believe that musical tastes can translate into moment by moment snapshots of a psyche.... So there's mine. Make what you will of it.

Person A makes a snap comment to Person B, and in no time, Person B's mind reels with confused thoughts about his/her place in the whole mess.

This may make no sense to you at all, but try to keep up.

Person A's offhand, but probably built up, comment sheds light on the darker side of things, revealing feelings that might not have been ready to appear. Person B, in turn, takes the seemingly simple words and runs with them. "What did Person A really mean? And what other things about me does Person A dislike but keep to him/herself?" The self-doubt becomes a circular internal debate about whether to question oneself or the fault-finder.

Now you are free to return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Today's horoscope for Cancer (June 21 through July 21) -

"Rid yourself of all regrets about the past, dear Cancer. Guilt is a useless emotion. It doesn't do any good for anyone. Your emotions are quite volatile and they are apt to emerge in sudden, unexpected bursts. Feel free to let it all out. Today is not the best day to ask for sympathy, but that shouldn't be your goal anyway. Only you can clean out the negative issues that are floating around in your own heart and mind."

Just thought I'd share that.

Microsoft gets even more annoying.

Yet more reason to consider Linux...
Imagine the growth the little penguin could experience if Microsoft force feeds consumers DRM (digital rights management). I know that I, for one, won't be sticking around to see the latest improvements to Solitaire if every new Windows upgrade gets progressively more intrusive. How about you?

-Rare Opportunity!-
Be witness to the thought process of an habitual procrastinator!

::Jenny thinks::
Well, I have two papers to write for final exams on Tuesday, and nothing to do at the moment. ...They should only be around 3.5 pages each. I could even just write one tonight, and get it out of the way. After all, I do have to work tomorrow night until 7, and probably won't even get a chance to sit down with things until 9. Sooo... if I want time to study, I should get some of this out of the way now.

::Jenny procrastinates::
But I'm so tired right now... being able to just not worry about it for one more night. Now that would be nice. You know, even right now, I'm putting it off... by writing about thinking about writing papers. (Knitting eyebrows while pondering this redundancy) Either way, I suppose I could always work on them tomorrow before work. Sure. They can wait.

Preface: Judge not, lest ye be judged. Why it was written only the little voices in the deepest region of my psyche can tell you. What it means is something that eludes them all.

The old man and my death walked together last night.
And you'll never know the whole truth. Here we are, and you can't even tell.
Leaving - pear trees and popcorn, we sat that night by the lake.
Not a single word.

Never never never never maybe.
Leaving.

No, I am death and death alone - never breathed while in warm skin. Now I'm cold, unfortunate soul, to be trapped in endless laze.
"We never wanted it to be this way, pulling you in unforgivable directions until you just stopped."

I wonder sometimes [worry] about these sounds.
They seem to be getting louder, and I know too much about New Zealand now.

"...hey hey... look how low I've sunk"

I have the power to rise.
I do.
Wings and all.
Dirty. Misused.
The road, though...
is warm | is comforting | is seemingly
safe.
So here I sleep, 'til a car slides by.
All night. All I do. I just sleep in the road.

Looks like I'll have to employ some pagan rituals, maybe a few encantations and spells as well, if I want to avoid taking yet another math course. Someday. Someday, I will put this three credit math requirement behind me. Until that day comes though...

I have papers to write, drunkenness to ponder, and hours of time-wasting to enjoy.

I'm told the concrete excitement begins at seven a.m. This means, in the way we delineate the abstract idea of time, that I have approximately five hours and 30 minutes to sleep. - to rest myself in order to take a final exam for a math course designed for liberal arts majors. It's simplistic math really, the kind with which only those who work solely with words could have trouble.

(head shaking)

And that's me. So, after the noise starts outside my window as the concrete becomes a permanent scenic addition to the backyard, I have just a few hours to brush up on things like probablity and consumer mathematics to, hopefully, get my English major mind through the three credit math requirement.

(retiring to bed)

Here's a cryptic message from the past I found scrawled in my handwriting in a dust rimmed notepad atop my bookshelf:

I can not talk
It'll take too long in this drink - unless it floats -
It'd be a lot better than this

Whaaat? I'm an odd child.

Do you have things from childhood that have always stuck with you, haunted you almost, things people whispered into your child's mind that just linger there? I do. I remember sitting on the floor of my room, age eight, with a friend who was telling me stories she had "heard" from her older sister.
    "And when he walked toward his bed to go to sleep, a hand reached out from underneath and grabbed him. It pulled him under the bed, and they never saw him again."
    A chill ran down my spine as I looked behind me at the bed ruffle lightly grazing the floor, concealing a darkness beyond. From that point on, I harbored a fear as a child of stepping too close to the bed in the dark. I would switch off the light and jump onto the bed from as far away as I could, afraid of being dragged into the dark oblivion below.
    Some things, no matter how small, just stay with you. I wonder how many wordless things have travelled with me over years that whisper to my subconscious just before sleep...

There was a question of the day on WakingLife.com:
    Do you believe that life's outcome is predetermined or that life "is yours to create?"

Anyone who knows me well knows how heavily I depend on the idea that all of our daily actions and ultimately the paths of our lives are controlled by fate, so my answer should be obvious enough. The reason I never choose to question my intense belief in predetermination is because at my core, I know it's just an escape. How did the question go? "What is the most common human trait? Fear or laziness?" My fatalism stems from both. I know it. I'm both too afraid and too lazy to even consider that my life might actually be in my hands. How incapacitating is that idea... the idea that we have control over what happens to us. Not only does it open the door to more possibilities than my mind can handle, it also makes me realize how much time I've thrown into the waters and lost... all because I want to believe that I am ultimately led along on a leash by destiny.

I've lived yet another day to put all of my irrationalities on display for you, and yet I don't feel particularly lucky - as a person who has escaped death should. Every day, in fact, I never acknowledge my success in cheating death the day before.

Does anyone?
Should we?

Maybe the fact that we don't celebrate living yet another day reflects on just how magicless are the lives we lead. Nothing is a miracle to us anymore. Living is just a process, just a machine that has no room for the cogs within to celebrate its existence.

What a bleak look on things... maybe I'm just too frustrated at the moment to see the magic in anything. Forgive the cynicism. Or don't. Either way, it doesn't matter.

Maybe I'll die today.
By whatever end this feeling of ominous doom is inspired... I'm hoping for the best.

I hope someone's taping all of this.
I couldn't bear to think that this whole thing is going uncaptured and disappearing.

Now taking bids for a one of a kind experience to fill in for me at work today... anyone? Anyone? Really people, this is a priceless opportunity. Trust me. I'd want to go myself, but I have this condition that makes me allergic to work. It's quite unfortunate... Well. If you change your mind, just let me know.

Time: Sunday afternoon
Procrastinating: Reading Hemingway
Wishing: That today were May 7th
Thinking: "So many things to get done..."
Remembering: Last night at the movie...

    "Excuse me, I have children, so I deserve to get everything my way."
    Okay, she didn't say it in so many words. It was more like, "So this is the line for Spiderman?" as two little snot rags circled her knees squealing. "We're just going to set up here."
    The dyed blonde and obviously native Californian new mom started setting up camp in front of us in line, throwing down two plastic children's chairs and a diaper bag of sorts on the floor of the theatre lobby.
    Our objections bounced off her vacant little head: "Well, you're just supposed to line up against the wall here. We were here first."
    She tilted her dye-job back a bit and twisted her tanned features into an expression of confusion. She was obviously not used to being questioned.
    "Yeah, we're just going to be right here," she threw back, ignoring our indignation. Flashing a lying smile, she added, "Oh, we'll make sure you go ahead of us when they let us in."
    Her apparent source of power and privilege came from a two year old, stumbling toddler (which she and her husband called alternately "Gavin" and the ever-so-nauseatingly-cutesy "G-man") and his adoring, high-pitched, 6 year old sister. The happy family of four (oblivious dad, vapid mom, annoying sis, and isn't-he-just-so-cute-you-could-kick-him brother) sat on the floor and in their kid chairs at the front of the line against the red rope.
    Knowing we hadn't the power to battle the breeders and their offspring, we settled into resignation and tried to talk amongst ourselves. Just as we began to block out the laughter and shouts of "Go G-man!" from mom and sis as the little one ran around the theatre lobby, nearly tripping people and incoherently squeaking at others, it ran to a place six inches from our feet and stopped. After a moment of staring at us as though waiting for a response, "G-man" was pulled back by his mother with a simultaneously snippy and insulting tone.
    "Come on, Gavin. Leave these people alone. Not everyone appreciates how cute you are."
    Some people just beg to be slapped.
    She was right though. And our appreciation of the drooling, jelly stained rugrat didn't increase when during the first quiet part of the movie he hopped from "cute mode" to "screaming child mode."
    Maybe I should have told Kelly (because that looked like an appropriate name for the 20-something mom) that the simple fact that she carried out the overdone act of procreation didn't entitle her to push aside the rest of the world. Then again, she did just that.
    Next time I go to the movie theatre, I'm taking a tranquilizer gun.

A long week finally dies. Here, excuse me while I kick it to make sure it's dead.
[positioning steel-toed boot... pulling back... throwing foot forward full force]
Yep. ...And stay dead.

Truths last only for a split second. They exist for a moment and then disappear, swallowed by romanticized retrospection and the fog-shadowed world of memory.

Truth is this precise moment.

The past is but a graveyard of dead truths. In choosing not to bury them, we dress them, embalm them, and vainly preserve them in coffins no one can see.

So don't tell me the truth about what happened. Because it doesn't even exist, and you have no idea.