|
 |
OK, this is something that I am unsure of.
There is a blank page staring at me, and all the words that come out seam to me to be wrong. But, I have a compelling reason to fill this blank page and urge myself to not succumb to the urge that is forcing me to not put this stuff down.
There is one thing that I have found which terrifies me more than anything else I have found. And that is that death is something which seems inevitable given the information I have been given all my life, and as such there is the most likely possibility, given the same information, that there will be a time when I will cease to exist as a person and cease to exist as a conscious entity, and all of my memories and life experiences will cease to exist.
I don=t know whether at birth one starts with a blank slate, but if it is so, then my resurrected self (if resurrection occurs) will be as any other person that ever existed or a new person.
I am fighting the words. The logic I am trying to follow is that any person that has started with a blank slate is exactly the same at that moment, and will, based on different personal possibilities and physical characteristics, develop into a different person. So if I am in fact resurrected, with a blank slate, I will no longer be me and will in fact be a completely different person. Therefore, in order to make myself a person again and fill both possibilities, I must somehow create an image of myself. This may seem to be a simple concept - the immortal nature of writing - but it seems to me to be more than just the simple written word, but down to the nature of the existence of one=s character. As such, I will attempt to write down me on this blank page on a computer screen that exists as a sensory input into my head. No small task, you say, and in truth I know it. There is no way on earth that I could write down every facet of my existence because of several things - the slowness with which I type (only 60-70 wpm) and the deficiencies of the language (English) and the inability with which I can use that language to interpret what it is I am. So, here it goes, I guess, and perhaps if, like Plato said, we all forget everything we already know at birth, or like the Buddhists or the Hindu or any other religion with beliefs in resurrection, I may somehow be able to recall me from the thumbnail sketch of me (King of Birds by R.E.M. comes to mind) and be able to remember me. So, essentially, this is a very personal letter to me, from me. Hello, me, how are you? By reading this you may remember yourself, or I may remember myself, I mean. So, hows it going, remember me?
Earliest memory
The first thing I remember in my life is a memory of sucking my mother=s breast. This seems like it is impossible and in fact is not a memory, since I would have been so young that I could not possibly have remembered it, but it is like this. I was in my parents room (pause to get a hat to keep the hair out of my face as the wind blows through my open window) and my mother was sitting in bed, and I cried, and I remember putting my mouth over the warm breast which was in front of me. Maybe I didn=t remember but created that memory in my subconscious, but that possibility is always evident, so to keep in mind that I keep that in mind, I will not have to repeat it over and over again.
After that, I have fragments of memory, associated with my age. I guess this is the earliest inclings of self consciousness, and that is why I remember it, but I remember when I was 2 years old and my family was eating dinner. I had to go to the bathroom, and I couldn=t reach the light switch, so I had to come back to the table in the living room to ask for help. My sister went in and turned on the light for me. A brief description of the house: A small red brick house at 579 12th avenue in Salt Lake City, UT, with a grassy hill in the front that had 2 benches on it, a driveway on the left which is wide enough for one car to open the doors, with cement walls on the sides as it cuts into the hill. That is, the garage is on the level of the underground basement, and the driveway cuts through the hill, so it only ascends a little from the level of the street and there are cement retaining walls which keep the hill away from the driveway. There is a staircase which ascends from the driveway, slightly spiraled, with juniper bushes on either side and a black lamp that is about 6 foot high on the right side as one walks up. The doorway is in the center, with a slight vestibule type thing. The door is white. Inside, on the right is a living room with a coffee table and couch, and stereo system. My parents say I was very interested in the stereo when I was young, and would always try to turn the knobs. The carpet is a grey/tan sort of thing, and it covers the dining room to the left of the entrance, and more. I am getting lost in the description, but I guess it=s not that important, and I cannot possibly describe every detail to teach one who is not recollecting, so I hope that you can recollect it. Anyway, main features: A hall directly in front of the doorway, picture windows in dining room and living room, kitchen next to dining room, staircase to basement next to kitchen.
I remember having feelings, as my sister did the light switch. There was the AI=m only 2, I can=t reach it@ thing, and that consciousness of my existence as an entity separate in age from others is important. Another memory of that age, I went to Mae Gordon, a babysitter who sat 8-10 kids daily, and she asked my how old I was, and I said Atwo@ with my fingers showing the two digits. I remember my third birthday, when we went to the I street fire station, fire station #4, and got a tour. I remember standing next to the fire truck with a plastic fire fighter=s hat on. I remember saying I was 3 years old at a daycare sort of thing, with a lady who called me charles, and I played with a train thing. I also remember inklings of prespyterian church which I attended with our neighbor 3 doors down, the white house with large porch, whose name I cannot remember (antecedent = person).
Other scattered memories of that age exist, though I can=t verify time because there is no time associated. Grandpa sitting in the big chair and me putting stuffed toys on him as he sleeps, playing with toy cars a lot, I loved little toy cars as a child, going to the Mrs. (Ms? Divorced) Davenport=s who replaced the Prespeterian church people when they moved to Mount Pleasant and saying that I had forgotten my underpants and showing her, playing with egg cartons and coloring things to make computers and high tech stuff, making potions with my sister, putting stickers all over the bathroom, sitting on my mother=s pregnant lap and she telling me (joking, as I understood) that she had a watermelon in her, because she swallowed a watermellon seed, holding my baby sister after she had just been born, playing in the swings in the back yard, stepping on a bee and screaming and having my dad pull the stinger out, playing with the juniper berries from the huge juniper tree in the back yard, there was a dead tree trunk about 6 ft high that got cut down, a peach tree that yielded bug rotten peaches, a sand box where I lost and found cars, built castles (always extremely primitive), there was a dog run that was never used. I remember my dog Bronco (parents dog) a golden retriever, and I remember sleeping in the bunk bed with my sister above, sleeping in the top bunk once or twice, I remember the existence of the crib, but have no clear memories associated with it, I remember my mother sleeping in the couch hide-a-bed in the living room while pregnant and just after giving birth, I remember playing with a wooden puzzle map of the United States, playing with legos downstairs and making all kinds of things that I always thought were inferior to those things Tony, the neighbor from across the street who was a year or two older made. I remember playing at his house, where he always was very dominating, and used extreme (fuck, shit, damn, etc) language for his age, though I don=t remember details of exactly what bad words he said. I remember playing in a bunny suit he had, playing vampire where he always bit me and my sister=s necks (too young to be sexually motivated) and he claiming that he could break metal, he was so strong, and put a hole in a sprite can. I remember physics picnics my dad took us to at the Llama farm lady=s ranch style house, and playing outside in the grassy, cottonwood tree yard, seeing the llamas, riding in a carriage, eating the buffet - pot luck food, not drinking the fizzy drinks because I didn=t like them. I remember visiting her later (much, 7-8 years or more) and sitting in her kitchen, I remember hearing later she was dead. My first memory of death that was close was of my great Grandma Livesay, who I had met but once or maybe twice, and didn=t really feel that sad, though I knew I should cry, so I did, with consciousness of the exaggeration, though there was some sadness there. I do remember the first time I was scared of death, and coming up and talking to my parents because I couldn=t sleep because I was so scared, though I don=t remember if it was in the old or new house (more on houses later). I remember getting my own room downstairs, after my parents had finished it and put in the wood tile floor. I remember being scared sometimes at night because I was all alone, and I rationalized to my parents that I would rather have other people down there, such as my sister, not because I was scared, but because it would be more interesting that way. I enjoyed my double bed downstairs, and the independence having my own room gave me. I was different because I was the male kid, and as such had my own room, and my sisters had to share upstairs. I remember a nightmare I had downstairs that was somewhat recurring, and another couple dreams, two. The bad one was sliding down the stairs on a sort of board thing and seeing a grotesque (almost Pink Floyd The Wall Judge but head ish, but more Disney Beauty and the Beast scrollish kind of thing) head shape on the ceiling, and being scared and running away. There was more too it, the saturated dark colors that are somewhat indistinct and a business, but I don=t remember exactly what. (Pause to put on long sleeve shirt) (ended up being a sweater).I remember a dream that involved a soccer ball and kicking it around in the front yard. High bouncing, as it went up a hill. This dream is very closely associated with the previous. I remember another dream where I would jump in the front yard, after running in a special way, and flying up over the pyracantha bush separating us from our neighbors to the east and flying up and swooping, and soaring, which is closely related to another dream that involves strange, paisely-like extensious that are very fallic, not rigid but relaxed, with lines coming out of the tips and stretching out, spinning in loops, making an intricate design with classical symmetry. I remember my father once getting angry at me, I know not what for now, but he swung his hand to hit me and punish me in the face, but picturing the TV/Movie thing where you get hit hard and your head swings to the side, I swung my head to the side and as such, hit my dad=s hand harder and with a worse angle, and bloodied my lip. I ran downstairs crying, and realized the blood and screamed bloody murder. My dad came down, and apologized greatly for drawing blood, I understood that I had done wrong, and that punishment was acceptable, and drawing blood or causing permanant damage for that punishment was unacceptable. I recall being potty trained, and wearing training pants, and taking a nap, waking up to have wet myself, and coming in to the kitchen, feeling ashamed, and telling my mother that I was sorry to have done it, and she was quite amenable and said that it was alright. I remember falling out of the bottom bunk of my bed, once, and having my parents come in having heard the thump to see if I was alright, and it had only barely waked me a bit. I remember my parents making cookies once, during the time when they were trying to sell our house themselves, and my sister and I went out to the homemade sigh and pressing the bubbles of the paint and popping them, leaving the yellow shine of the wood through the black. My dad came out, furious, and said we couldn=t have any cookies until he had retouched it. I remember the cookies were chocolate chip and tasted good. I remember one fight my parents had where my mother got extremely angry, and she left, and I remember fearing that they might get a divorce when my mother grabbed her purse and walked out. The fight had something to do with a plate of hamburgers that had fallen to the carpet, and I think now that she was just going out angrily to buy more hamburgers because my dad was complaining about it, but I had interpreted it as her leaving for good, though that may not be what actually happened. I remember dinner parties with relatives where I was eating at the small wooden table that we had, and still have. I remember our next door neighbors to the west, and how they changed with great frequency. I remember one in particular where they had a kid named Jay, and I asked what his name was. He said J, and I said, OK, but what=s your name? And he said J, and I said, AI know that=s your first initial, but what is your name?@ and he said AJay is my first name,@ and then I got it. I think I comprehended the name because of Scrub Jay, which I knew because of my bird watching dad. I remember a mover next door who was a big guy that was very red, possibly sunburnt, or possibly projection - because Jay and I were making fun of him or something (Jay=s idea) and he asked us if we wanted to have red asses, because he would whoop us. The neighbors to the west were in a duplex, and the one closest to us had a kid a bit younger (1 year or so) than me, named Reed. He was a very nice guy, and a good friend. But, he had some relative or friend who was very mean, and who once smashed two of my toy cars, and I became extremely upset and tried to get justice for it, but nothing came of it.
[I just erased a statement that existed right where this sentence does commenting on the metaphorical nature of the way in which the previous paragraph was written. But, since I always enjoy the artistic, I suppose I will leave that to reader interpretation, and for character understanding, merely understand that I recognized metaphorical implications that were only slightly intentional.]
For school, [pause to give my roommate a syllabus for the math class we are both in - he says he probably left his at Adam=s room] I was in Japan for first grade (more on that later) and [pause for removal of sweater and application of deodorant - Old Spice is nice, no alluminum, but requires twice a day application. Roommate closed window, making the room warmer.] for 2nd to 6th grades, I attended Ensign Elementary School on 12th avenue and L street. (Or is it K? No, L) My second grade class was taught by Mrs. Peterson, an extremely kind, good teacher. Damn it, I need to do Japan first, in order to make sense. OK, I am going to set this aside now, because dinner is approaching, and homework must be done, and I need to do homework. OK.
Break
Second day, 9-13-99
I just woke up 20 min. ago, have since dressed, showered, and prepared for day. No time to write, school. But I will say I did dream and will try to get dreams down, but I was awakened by alarm and lost it very fast, though I could have tried harder to hold on. Off to breakfast, school.
Correction: Breakfast. For breakfast I had a bagel, a bowl of Cream of Wheat, a bowl of Raisin Bran, 5 or so Tater tots, a glass of Orange Juice, and a glass of Iced Tea (caffeine!). I am not usually very caffeine oriented, but the 4 to 5 hours of sleep last night just don=t cut it. I was tossing and turning, stuck on a problem that Marco, a nice guy from down the hall, gave me. Here it is: Given a string containing M, I, and U.
Where there exists Mx, it can be replaced with Mxx. (Not reciprocal)
Example: MI = MII
MUIUI = MUIUIUIUI
Where there is an ending I, it can be replaced with IU. (Not reciprocal)
Example: MI = MIU
MUUIIUI = MUUIIUIU
Where there is III, it can be replaced with U. (Not reciprocal)
Example: MIIII = MIU
MUIIII = MUI
MIIUI NOT = MUU
Finally, where there is MUU, it can be dropped.
Example: MUU = M
MIIUUIUU = MIIIUU = MIII = MU
Goal: Given MI. Prove MU.
This problem occupied a lot of my thoughts, but not all of them. Other stuff too, though I don=t remember. My bed is not extremely comfortable (as all beds are, floors are preferred but impractical here). I need to go right away to my Environmental Sciences and Policy Management class which is somewhat boring, but is alright, and should be alright since it is a subject I enjoy a bit, though it is too basic in this class. I will be going to class riding a blue Schwinn bicycle which I purchased here at Berkeley and is in shabby condition. I must remember to take it back to the repair shop.
I am now sitting, 8:30 P.M., staring at the screen, with The Verve (The Rolling people just finished, Catching the Butterfly now) playing on my Winamp .mp3 player. Both player and mp3 were stolen from the net, though after I stole winamp it became freeware. I am also talking to Angel on ICQ. I just said: Because it is an involving proccess to record a song, and I have failed recording this one on 2 occasions before, and I am here taking a break. This was in response to her question and the dialogue we had about my songs and recording. We were talking about this because she asked what it was that I was currently doing, and I explained that I have just finished laying down some vocal tracks to a song of mine, ADreams Become One@ and they are a bit shabby so I will probably redo them tomorrow. Today I attended ESPM 40 in the morning, and learned some stuff about insects, but mostly played with the MU puzzle. That was followed by Music Theory in which I paid attention to the class, but didn=t learn anything anyway since it is so basic. After that I biked like a crazed person to my dorm at 2601 Warring Street, and [I just responded to Angel again] played around with two other songs I had recorded and sent them to -ZERO- who later today complimented me on how good they were (the download being very slow, 2k/s or less, I left it going when I went to class), the class being Philosophy. I had read the wrong dialogue for class - Plato=s Phaedo instead of Plato=s Protagoras. But, I enjoyed the lecture far more having not yet read the Protagoras, because it was much less boring. I didn=t take notes, but sat on the far left of the middle of the lecture hall and played with the MU game casually as I listened. I began to become very disenchanted with the game, having figured out the concept that the I=s must be in a multiple of three in order to eliminate them, and by multiplying the number of I=s by two and subtracting 3, I have been unable to come up with a number that is a multiple of three, and it doesn=t seem as though one exists. It must, because Marco assures me it does.
I thought a lot today about this project, and how it gave the opened and strange feeling. It seems to me to be almost as though it is a sort of a thing I might like to publish [angel calling again] and see what comes of it, sort of Henry Rollins meets the Blair Witch Project.
Anyway, today I tried to get a job again, and I noticed that I had forgotten the application. [Angel calling again] I then tried to get Phish tickets again (the first time I forgot the cash, the second time they were closed, the third time (today) they didn=t accept Traveler=s Checks, the fourth time I got the ticket). I apologize for the stream of consciousness, maybe it=ll be easier for me to understand. Who knows. I should try to fill more psychological insights and less boring daily details. Get inside me, more. OK. I know one.
The girl that lives next door with the brown hair seems very flirtatious, but I know she=s not interested in me because she goes out with other people. Still, it seems fun to be around her, but I know I couldn=t live with her because of her dominating self-centered easily distressed attitude. The other beautiful girl in that room - the Japanese one - is too closed and too set in worthless convictions. I am going to have to shut ICQ off, Angel is calling again. Ed just got in, I informed him that Adam had called.
Japan
When I was 5 years old, my parents informed me and my sister that we were taking a big trip. They knew I had interest in transportation mediums - toy cars, books of trucks and machines, etc. So, they said we were going to Japan, and asked how I thought we would be going. I said, Aby car?@ They said ANo.@ I said, Aby boat?@ They said, ANo.@ I said ABy AIRPLANE!!!!!@ They said, AYes!@ I was so excited. We were going to go on an airplane, and go to Japan. My next memory of the trip preparations are that we were going to the cousin=s house so we could get to the airport early, and since we were renting our house out. I had a brand new Fischer Price watch that I treasured, and I wore at night for the first time just so I could be sure not to forget it. We had to get up at 4:00 in the morning, and then we were off to the airport. Each of us (now 5) had 2 bags we had to keep track of. We went through the bag check, and got on the plane. They served breakfast, and I took a bite of what I thought was an Orange and turned out to be a Grapefruit, and I was disgusted greatly. I disliked the bitterness very much. We flew on, and I think (but don=t remember) had a stop over in California and then went to Tokyo. I remember we were in some sort of bus or taxi on the freeway, and I looked across and counted 16 lanes of traffic, total. This amazed me greatly. We got to our apartment in Kyoto eventually.
Our apartment was #410 of an International House, I don=t remember the name. Down the street a little ways was an open market (semi-open - it had a warehouse like roof thing, semicircular transparent plastic/glass dome light thing running the length of the middle) which had all sorts of shops. The grounds in which we lived were large, with plenty of space for riding bikes and the like, a Basketball court, and a park across the street. We (Older sister and I) went to school at the Kyoto International School, which was an English speaking school a ways away. We would take the #5 bus from the stop in front of our apartment building and get off, walk over a pedestrian overpass and down to a road, which curved up and backwards from the main road to the school, a single building that looked vaguely apartment building-ish, with a main entrance of two doors, underneath the words AKyoto International School.@ I had two teachers, one of whom was a short brown haired lady, whose name I have forgotten. There I learned daneleon hand writing, basic math, and other things. In school I was rather mediocre, lazy and C=s. In class there were about 10 to 15 people. It was not organized by grade, it was organized by class rather than by grade. I was in Class 1, with a kindergarten downstairs, and a Class 2, 3, etc. down the hall and upstairs. Indoors we had to wear indoor shoes, mine were blue and white checkered slipons. We had shoe cubbies at the entrance of the building. Across the street was the playground, at which we recessed each day. Around the corner from our classroom was a bathroom and a large sink, each person had a cup to drink water from. Mine was a blue cup with transformers on it. There was a playground on the roof, which housed lots of equipment, including scooters and balls.
The popular game we played at recess was Deadball. It is similar to kickball, but involves people being made dead and needing to be resurrected. There was a hill at one end of the (wow, the memories flow, it is elating) playground with vegetation and a wall, which formed a corner, and continued, making another wall. My friends and I, on the playground, towards the end of the stay, decided we were going to make rock out of a certain spot, which we pounded every recess to make it harder.
[Damn, fuck, shit. I need to go and do math homework, due tomorrow, I enjoy this much more.]
It is tomorrow now. Aka, September 14, 1999 (11:29PM)
I have just played AParanoid Android@ on the guitar, trying to arrange for solo guitar. I am tired, I am feeling alone, cut off from any personable connection to people on the floor. I am beginning to dislike my current situation, with ICQ being a simultaneously loved and hated thing - I love it because I connect with people that were as close as any friends I ever had, I hate it because of what it is . . . a communication in the digital medium which eliminates the real personal physical characteristic of talking to someone, like a telephone but even more - one doesn=t get a real person, one gets whatever the other person types, which severely limits thought. This is the problem with this writing so far. I am typing as fast as I can to try to get my thoughts down on a piece of paper, yet I cannot put things down nearly as fast as I can think them. I can=t say what I need to as fast as I want to either, but it is a difference in magnitude. Plus, with no reference to the knowledge level of you, my audience, I have difficulty knowing how to talk and how much detail to give. In addition, I don=t know how effectively any of the detail I give will give a clear picture (or how clear a picture is possible).
I will avoid the journal like Atoday I did thus and so@ that this paper could easily transform itself into, but will try instead to give the important (or so I consider) aspects of the day and thoughts that occurred.
I am currently madly (or so I claim) trying to get a job. I need a job to pay for my overpriced education at the University of California, Berkeley. So, I have been applying to a couple places a week in hopes that someone out there wants me to work for them. I truly don=t enjoy the job hunt process - it is full of annoyance, tediousness, repetition, self [I search for word] hype [bad word], and the ultimate hope and rejection that I get each time I apply. I understand that the process is in place to screen out those who would not do the job effectively, but I know I could do the job effectively, and I wish there was an easier way for me to prove it to them. ALet me work for you for one day, and I could prove it to you.@ But, unfortunately, that sort of forwardness is not appreciated, and one who claims to have the abilities that they do not possess is as likely as one who could do the job in their eyes. I wish they would just contact my references, all of whom would give me raving reviews. I don=t like calling people I don=t know, either. With the face of rejection staring back at me.
Today I also stood for a while after my Math 1B discussion to listen to Stony. (Stoney?) He is a left wing radical clown (if you could call it that). He is not the conventional clown in the sense of makeup and big wig and shoes etc, but rather a man who stands up doing routines, ranting and raving comedically against the capitalist system, anti-environmental things, and the current lousy state of the world. He is rather interesting to listen to. The first time I heard him, it was after I had seen him a few times, with his props and his suitcase littered around him, talking to a small gathering. He talked of nuclear power, doing a routine that involved two atoms talking to each other, and I didn=t hear most of it, since I was really looking for a place to park my Blue Schwinn bicycle. He said at one point, AYou know what happens when you split an atom? That is the shit in the sun. You know why the sun is way up there? Because the sun is fucking hot. It is way to fucking hot for us. You do not bring that shit down here!@ It was quite amusing. Today, he talked about a great many things, and I noticed how he was like many radicals in that he ignored the fallacies in what he was saying and instead concentrated on the emotional conviction to his standpoints. He was full of contradictions and logical flaws. He even realized and pointed out the fact that he was contradictory - he bashed the corporate law and someone who was wearing Nike, but wore Air Jordan shoes, and then proceeded to contradict himself with rapid fire statements to show that he was aware of his contradiction. I found this to be something that would be very difficult to live with, though I have in the past. (See future section on Ed Abbey, transcendentalism, and environmentalism)
Japan Cont=d
Every weekend (or very about as much, I don=t remember) our family would go on trips to visit different places. We visited all kinds of shrines and other historical and cultural places, all the tourist sites, and also modern areas such as Osaka where we got warm sand baths on a beach. (Sister older didn=t get one, because she ate too much Spaghetti the night before and got sick.) The places I have the clearest memories are of Ginkaguchi and Kinkaguchi, as well as the place (the name for which I have forgotten) that had hundreds if not thousands of Tori=s, all over a path going around in a forest, and a shrine that had huge grotesque figures in the entrance.
I remember desiring objects and toys in Japan, materialism was obviously evident in me. I wanted things like toy cars, especially remote control cars, and also school related items like pencil cases that were very fancy and full of handy features. I watched TV a lot, though I didn=t understand it, watching Live Man, MaskuMan and anything else that seemed cool. Products from those shows - .i.e. action figures - were also a subject of my craving. A less material desire I had was for a wafer cookie-like-thing that had trading cards/stickers in them. I liked the cookies very much, and acquired a desire for the stickers (and as such had a connection to one person I met in a place on one of the weekend trips where there was some thing such as steam baths).
The baths also remind me of another weekend trip that we took by bus to a motel sort of thing that had steam baths, different, but also was up in a mountainous area with beautiful fog that came in.
For my birthday in Japan, my 6th birthday, I received a remote control car. It was small, red, with black bumpers and wheels with dimpley rubber. It was rather fast, and I enjoyed playing with it all over our apartment building. On the second floor of the building there was a lounge, in which there was a TV. One day, while going to the lounge, I drove the remote control car off the mezzanine balcony onto the first floor. The car smashed into many pieces, and my father had to repair it. After that, it never functioned perfectly again. On that same birthday, I got a game that had a tower with a rounded bottom, which made it unstable. The object of the game was to place small blue and red men on the tower until it tipped. To make it more difficult, one had to roll a die that had red, yellow, green and blue spots on it, and the blue and red men would have to be put on the level with the corresponding color. While playing with a couple of friends (including the neighbors one floor down who had a mother that was of European ancestry and a father of Japanese ancestry, she was a doctor) and the colored die landed in a large metal ash tray. One of my friends, a larger somewhat stocky person, who was incredibly rich and had given me a fancy transformer toy that transformed into 8 different shapes, tipped the ash tray over to get it out, and thus flipped it, causing the razor sharp bottom to land directly on my bare toe. I screamed, don=t remember what happened for a moment, and my dad heard the noise from the 4th floor and came down to see what was happening. He picked me up and carried me to the room, then down to the floor below so the doctor (or was it a nurse?) of european ancestry could do what she could do. She bandaged the wound and called a taxi to take me and him to the doctor. I remember sitting in the lobby with such incredible pain as I had ever experienced, pain that one could reach out and touch, a throbbing pain that one was consciously aware of as though it had a physical presence in the room. I was taken by taxi to the hospital, and there was seen by doctors who set me on a table and commenced to remove my toenail. I remember screaming in pain and kicking, unconsciously, and at one point knocked one of the physician=s tools onto a tray. Then there was a point when they grabbed ahold of the toenail and yanked, and I don=t remember anything more of that hospital stay. For a month or two or more after that, I had a huge ugly bandage on my foot, and I limped when walking. I had to take medicine for the foot, which was in the form of an orange powder I took with water. I had to use the blue transformers cup stored in the bathroom on the second floor to drink my medicine a couple times a day. I also had to stand around and watch, and do nothing as the rest of the class was swimming in the swimming pool that the whole school went to on Fridays.
Distracted, gone for an hour or more.
Must go to bed, class early tomorrow. 1:01 A.M., 7 hours to wake up alarm.
September 19, 1999 (8:49PM)
I have not had an instant in which I felt capable of writing since the last time, and it is a while. 5 days. I hope it is never that long again. Lots has happened in this interim, I have signed on to mp3.com, and hope that I can get somewhere with my music that way. I don=t know. I am currently multitasking, chatting with Chanson d=Hiver on the nature of love and friendship. I will include the dialogue here. I don=t know exactly what format or how, but I put a little binki thing in the dialogue at the point (or close to it, after the thought had been more or less finished) when I started writing here. It=s silly/sad, I put on music. I converted the format to IRC style, so that one can see more easily the progression of statements, though since it was written in real time viewing style (we see the sentences written as they are written) there may be discrepancies. Typos exist showing the typed words that were corrected, though deletions existed in the chat, they do not show here. Brackets denote clarifications I inserted.
I am now feeling quite drained, with a feeling of anticipation and slight adrenaline. Like I had too much caffeine. Which I may have - I drank a large cup of coffee this afternoon as I read the end of Plato=s Protagoras.
I should continue Japan, but I am going to calm down first. Here I am saving and signing off for now, may be back tonight (P.S., the blue bike was repaired. Is now like an old car - purrs, with a knowledge of inefficiency but smoothness. Slight lack of responsiveness.)
September 20, 1999 (11:26PM)
I am increasingly compelled to write more and more and more and more - and get eventually to more recent circumstances, but it is necessary to develop the past first. Japan.
Japan Continued.
I realized an error - I got the red remote controlled car for Christmas, not my birthday. This makes sense because for Christmas my family was in Tokyo, and I recall playing with the car in the hotel room. I would not have brought it from Kyoto.
The place we stayed was a 3 room apartment, with a living room, single bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. My sisters alternated (at least some of the time) between the closet (my sister=s older=s usual location) on a futon and one of the two beds. I had the other bed, and my parents slept on a futon in the living room which they folded up into the closet each day. We had a microwave on top of a refrigerator, both white, with a small table that barely sat the five of us. There was ample counter room, it seemed, or perhaps our cooking was just not elaborate or maybe I don=t know, I don=t know. For the first time in my life, while in Japan, I received an allowance which usually went to cars or toys of that sort. Every day for school I took a yellow thermos full of a beverage, usually milk, and my sandwich of choice was cold melted cheese. I survived the majority of my days on cold melted cheese.
One day, our school took a trip to a Yak-Imo farm (sweet potatoes), though I don=t remember if Yak denotes the frying process or the type of potato. Anyway, we dug potatoes out of the ground, and then the officials of this farm cooked them for us. They were friggin= delicious. Every night, a car would drive by our house advertising this food, with loud speakers and people singing AYaaaaak-i-mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo,@ selling the potatoes. I have never since had potatoes that tasted as good as those. Another sensory input that I remember very clearly is a distinctive incense that was always used in shrines. Since then, on a couple occasions, I have hallucinated the scent of that incense, and it has been as real to me as though it were in my nostrils, but 30 seconds later it is just gone. Another similar thing is the flavor of the medicine I had to take for my foot.
I don=t know how long it took for my toe to heal after it was sliced by the ash tray, but I know I was in a bandage long enough - or at least had stitches long enough - that I missed several of the ritual swimming expeditions KIS did every Friday. I still went, but had to hang around the rest of the building rather than swimming. When the swimming was over, we took the bus number 206 and went to a friend of ours= house, and usually spent that time watching Live Man, Masku Man, and all the other imitations. I also recall eating candy there. I think (but don=t know if I am putting 2 and 2 correctly here) this was Monica=s house, Monica being the first instance I can imagine of any friendship I had with a girl that I recognized as being special for whatever reason. She, at the end of our stay in Japan, gave me a pair of swimming goggles and one of her brother=s comic books. I always thought she was very nice, and I don=t remember exactly how I felt, except that I was happy. It was positive.
For a rather long period of time, we took a trip to Omami Oshima. We stayed in a hotel by the sea, and since then, there is this image ingrained in my mind of the beach, the hills, and the sea - one which was closely mimicked a couple of times by low cloud cover in Salt Lake City, UT. I remember it being an extremely enjoyable trip that I didn=t want to end, but had to. I think this is where I met the guy with an extensive collection of the sticker-card fighting guys with strength bar graphs on their right sides. (Mentioned earlier).
While in Japan I got hired for modeling jobs - fair haired people are hard to come by and extremely desirable in the Japan modeling industry. I had an agent that was an Australian or some other English speaking with heavy accent country. She gave me work on a couple of poster campaigns. For one, I remember putting on a black beret and whatever clothes they gave me and having to touch a girl I didn=t know on the shoulder for a shot. Afterwards, when the whole shoot was done, I was feeling on top of the world - I was going to be on a famous poster, I had overcome the obstacles, I was great. I walked side by side with my dad in the dark, looking at the stars above the artistically designed concrete buildings and walkways. This agent that I had did nice things for me - she loaned me a sweater, gave me 1000 yen just for being good, took me to Macadonalrudo (McDonald=s). Still, I could not treat her anything but badly - I don=t know what was motivating me, but I >hated= her. I think it might have been something about the way she always was so patronizingly friendly toward young people. Grandma gripping cheek thing, but not literally.
My school had several activities that were captured partially on videotape and so freshened and maintained my memories of the time. Among these activities were a Halloween parade (in which I was, as I was for a few years to come, a Ninja), an Omochi making party, with footage of me standing and counting and jumping excitedly about the rice we were pounding with all our might.
October 9, 1999 (1:37PM)
Much time has passed. Much time, without any writing or any >documentation.= I am now aware that this work will never be what I wanted, and it will never be read by anyone who would enjoy it.
Chanson d=Hiver responded to the receipt of the Ame.wpd.@ She said nothing of assistance or criticism, only commented, AI=m sure you are aware of the futility of your undertaking.@ That made me realize the emotional high I had been on while writing it. But, frankly, I don=t give a damn, and I will write.
She also talked in future conversations about how she wondered where I would put my plug this time. I informed her that I probably would not record any more conversations here. I have had other conversations on ICQ about empathy and logic, philosophical sort of discussions. But now, Chanson dHiver is silent due to a computer crash. I am also experiencing difficulties with Word Perfect. This is alright, I guess, Microsoft Word is not that far behind Word Perfect, and it is more compatible for most people who have Microsoft Word and not Word Perfect. So, me.wpd is now me.doc. Okalli dokalli.
I have not written because I have been spinning in and out of midterms, and until just a second ago I was still feeling omninously repelled to this. But, with that bolstering mantra (I dont give a damn), perhaps I can actually do something worthwhile, who knows.
I find it interesting how incredibly suscetible I am to criticizm or comment by anyone. Today, as I have for the past several days, I applied Clearasil tinted anti-acne medication. Until today, it has seemed to treat me well, that is, it works the best of any medication I have thus tried. But, I was greeted by a question which grabbed ahold of my soul and compressed it with iron efficiency: ADude, are you wearing make-up?@ To this I responded, A . . . [angry apalled curiosity facial expression] uh - no. [implied >duh=]@ He said, AOK, just checking.@ But, it was clear and obvious that he had seen the film remaining from the tinted cream. Seems like a small thing. But, it kills me.
So, now, I am dead.
It is not uncommon that I am thusly killed. Any time someone questions my judgement or personality openly, or gains an opinion that my judgement and such are not good, it kills me softly.
Japan contd
Japan happened. Then came China for a month. There I have memories of the beds with mosquito nets (guard against malaria), the run down buildings, the exotic food (and quantities) wherever we went, the heat and rides in humid cars in the heat. I ate rice almost exclusively, being a rather picky eater, and drank warm water since I didnt like carbonated or coffee or tea, and the water was unsafe to just drink, so it had to be boiled.
After returning from China, (I didnt enjoy it), I said I never wanted to go there again. My parents said I would want to in another month or two, but I didnt, I swore.
The end of Japan: Many times while writing I remembered huge areas of things I had done and cant write in time. But, there is so much else to get to, more important.
I just cant do it now. There is a acid inside me that is eating me and I cant think, let alone write.
November 6, 1999 1:51 A.M.
Charlie? When dealing with drunk people, dont lie to them and dont treat them like dogs.
Oh. Was I?
Yeah. Cause, you know, empathy? Its an interesting thing how drunk people have a heightened sense of that. Its like they can tell when youre lieing to them.
OK.
In all my dealings with drunk people, this is just what I have found.
I havent had many.
I know. [pats me on shoulder] Im not, like, mad at you or anything, I just thought you should know.
Man, that party sucked.
I know.
Som was alienated by the drunken Christie. Charlie was alienated by the sober condescending tone of Marco. Drunkenness seems even more so now to suck extremely, and the whole half an hour to get out of the Foothill Hillside dormitory complex was just plain annoying. My experience with alcohol is very limited, and I now dont wish to ever have more alcohol than I can easily control all at once.
Whether the drunken Christie has been returned from the bathroom to her room, I dont know. She was so drunk, yet asserted that she wasnt drunk.
On the heightened empathy topic: I dont believe it for a second. Marco misinterpreted the data, I think. I will believe that a drunk person just doesnt lose any of their sense of empathy, and is capable of telling lies like a sober person, which may seem heightened given their drunken state. That is Charlies logical brain talking to you, Mr. Reader.
Again I am forced to ask myself, why am I so incredibly easily depressed?
I turn on Radioheads Let Down and feel the music wash me completely up, my eyes closed as I type blind, the room dark as my roommate finally stopped snoring the monitor too bright too bright too bright for anyone to see without pain. I just keep typing and hoping that it will make me happy in the end.
THE SUMMER OF 1999
The summer of 1999 started on Cliftons birthday some time around december or January or February or some winter month of 98 or 99. At this birthday party I finally met Cliftons first and only until now even steady girlfriend. In the party I was feeling a bit out of it, (a Utah party without alcohol) and proceeded to try to tear Clifton and Stephanie apart. I though, hey or rather, I dont know exactly what I thought, but I wanted to get down to the basis of what they were feeling together. So, I pressed them with a constant barrage of questions What do you see in each other? How did you first meet? How can you ignore this personality flaw? etc. The party stretched on, and eventually moved, illegaly, to a park Lindsay gardens. The whole thing continued, and basic characteristics of all three personalities were revealed in rather great detail, though at that point, I still knew nothing about the superficial aspects of Stephanie. Those revealed themselves over the course of the next several months, during which time, Clifton Stephanie and I were often seen together hashing out some sort of dillema, philosophical or otherwise, and we were always seeming to be going somewhere in the nowhere we were headed. I truly did not recognize any feelings beyond the friendship I had with them if I had any, and I had realized on the first night that it was imperative that I not ever be too close to Stephanie. I was jealous, to be sure, and I found stephanie to be a very interesting and engaging person, but I sort of agreed and reached the conclusion that if ever Stephanie turned to me and away from Clifton in a rapid fire way, I would have to regect her. I was suspicious, because halfway through the first barage of questions and personality hashing, she said, If only I had met you earlier . . . and never finished the statement adequately when pressed it was something to the effect of because youre an interesting person. But, that explaination seemed strange to me, though it may have been exactly accurate.
I ate lunch in this high school senior year often in a sort of nomadic way most people during lunch hang out with a specific group of people, but I made a habit of meandering between all the groups, catching snidbits of this and snidbits of that, but as the year progressed, I spent more and more and more time eating downstairs in the main building in the far corner of the main buildings basement, right next to its junction with the Science and Tech building. I was admittedly always very happy when Stephanie was there, moderately happy when Clifton was there, and happy when Clifton and Stephanie were there. I often ate in a corner between a coup,le of lockers. I enjoyed making myself small and unnoticed, and observing the conversations and actions of people around. A lot of the folks in this high school lunch group had relationships that were more a symbol of social status than a truly enhoyable mutual love or even deep friendship. The people were together when in or around the crowds, and not as together outside them, and never truly serious about one another. Clifton and Stephanie didnt seem to match this, because the time I spent with them Clifton was always extremely affectionate, and Stephanie seemed to return the favor often. Clifton talked when Stephanie was not around about how Stephanie was the one thing in his life that he had and enjoyued, his salvation, the best thing that had ever happened to him.
During this time I betgan composing the song Breakout. For the IB music theory, I had to do the full recording and the works, so I prepared the hwole thing = did a recording or two using the home equipmenta nd keyboard drums etc., and showed the lyrics and played it for Stephanie and Clifton. They were generally unimpressed by it, but it provided a useful ever present set of analogies. One day, a man was walking toward his house. He was thinking about many things, and among them the fact that he could not break the fourth wall of his consciousness. He could not break the fourth wall, ladies and gentlemen! [yaaaaay] He pondered this interesting concept long and hard, but unfortunately, he came to no conclusions. He discovered that every time he tried to break the fourth wall of his consciousness he went crazy. CRAZY! Can you feel the craziness? Can you see the craziness? So, he decided to abandon that project and move on to other things, like the television. [yaaaay] Have you all seen the television? Have you seen the light of the television? He saw the light of the television, and he became very bored with the television. So, he decided to move on to other things, like his dinner. [yaaaaay] He made a delicious dinner and afterwards was no longer hungry. He discovered . . . ladies and gentlemen, he discovered, that frozen peas taste better when eaten still frozen, on a stick! Still frozen, ladies and gentlemen. He discovered this: Who needs warmth anyway? [we dont]
This interesting analogy was extended to its farthest reaches.
|
 |
|
|
|
| A quick little ditty about top 40 radio. | |
|
| |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
| Solo accoustic steel string guitar song - a sort of morphing sort of thing. | |
|
| |
Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).
|
|
need help playing tracks?
lo fi play
hi fi play
download
email track to a friend
view track info