耀
a
r
o
4
e
d
g
2
l
p
a
n

a
r
o
n
h
s
i
a
o
w
a
s
h
e
r
e

 

 

Life is just a bit overwhelming at the moment. I can’t tell whether I’m a fool or a hero. I am living my life like the people that I used to make fun of. No order, no responsibility, no safety, no honor. Just skin of teeth and sneer and readiness for the road.

Bought a $10.00 German army windparka and a bunch of flares today. Have succeeded in completely retrofitting the propane system on the RV for OPD by hand (no, I’m not a gasman, so it may all explode tomorrow, though I have checked for leaks and all that jazz and put in a new reg) and have rebuilt just about every bearing and component except the pilot valve itself in the furnace. Am stealing 12v from that line for an inverter and with the big fat deep-cycles, we should be good to go.

We gotta paint and fix the driver’s seat and pray to whatever god we believe in that we a) don’t run off the road in the ice, b) don’t spring multiple flats, c) don’t freeze to death when we arrive, d) can find a place to park in the insane, dark, bitter Alaska off-season in a town that has forbidden RV parking, and e) actually do have work upon arrival or it’s troublesville.

It’s either jail or get out of jail free, but you can’t tell until you get the sandwiches.

Time flies. Everything flies. We’ll all be gone before you can see it anyway. Already I’m the second-to-oldest generation. A few more seasons and I’ll be the oldest generation. A few after that and no-one will be keeping track.

I don’t know what I want out of life, but this is what life is giving me.

Hi to all the people I should have kept more contact with. There’s an endless list. I’m sorry. I’m bad at that shit, you know. Certainly you know, if you know me at all. I’ve had my head buried inside of my escape-mobile for a stretch. And for a stretch yet, I’ll be driving it. Just for a stretch.

It’s all a fucking stretch.

it . is . december . 25

I came to remember tonight that for most of my life, I have regarded general positivity not as a virtue, but as both a weakness and as a vice.

Optimism and acceptance can acquit or absolve the past, but only skepticism and dogged determination can build the future. Bank on it. Touch it. Own it…

…I am it.

Only the unsatisfied are great. The rest are just along for the embarrassment.

I win and I dominate. Watch this noise. Watch it.

Impeach Nixon — er — Bush, and get out of Vietnam — er — Iraq!

Done on Winnebago so far:

– Make and mount storm windows
– Install insulation in rear room
– Replace dual battery relay switch
– Install and wire up two 125AH deep cycle batteries in parallel
– Fix up-down table by installing new wall panel
– Rebuild furnace blower motor and test furnace and thermostat
– Level unit and power fridge up
– Get Onan 4kw generator running

Still to do:

– Test toilet seals
– Test gas tank switch
– Oil change, new air filter, and fluids check
– Winterize water system
– Get fridge running on propane
– Clean the damn thing
– Have power steering gearbox rebuilt to fix wander
– Repaint interior
– Caulk exterior
– Call owner and ask about gotchas
– Go to Alaska

Big weekend. Now:

– I own a A ’71 Winnebago motorhome
– I’m moving to Fairbanks (soon!) though I don’t yet know where I’ll live
– I’m an adjunct lecturer at the University of Alaska

Still having to sit down every five minutes to take all this in.

Nothing makes any sense. Or everything makes no sense. Or whatever.

Just how big is the difference between splendid and troubled? And when will it snow? And what will I do next? What will my life look like? What do I want it to look like? Does it matter, or is it all beyond my control anyway?

Everything I’ve tried for, in the long term, has happened — except in my personal life (which is, ironically, where I have ultimately tried hardest). In any case, what happens when I don’t know what to reach out for next? How is it that so many people have come into — and gone again from — my life over the years? It’ll always seem weird to me, like births and deaths are always going on around me, filling my memory with bodies. I’ve tried to find some people from the past, but they are, for all intents and purposes, gone.

And today, when everything is swirling around me like a beautiful (or terrible?) storm, which God should I throw my lot in with, assuming I only have one oath of loyalty to conjure with and none of them are particularly reassuring or doting? Each could just as easily eat as elevate me.

Will I go to Fairbanks? Will I return to southern California? Chicago? New York? Again, does it matter? None of these sound right. I don’t know what sounds right. I have no means anyway. I only have people that I want to be with. But somehow I often worry that that isn’t enough — everyone seems to suggest that such things can’t be sustained without concrete, non-interpersonal desires… Or even that concrete, non-interpersonal desires are the only real things to begin with.

Isn’t that just a cloud’s whisper in an alienated world? But then, if I have to live in an alienated world anyway…

I don’t know. I’ve applied to several programs already. Some of the applications have gone according to plan, some haven’t. I have work about to find me, I think. There are many things to do just now and I feel burdened by them. I also feel burdened by everything else — bills, travel, holidays, even something as simple as personal organization.

I suppose I am feeling one again the absence of any God. But there is no cure for such things. No cure, now or ever.

I am so tired of all of this. Poverty, school, homework, work, student loans, taxes, banks, credit, debit, balances, contracts, applications, affadavits, forms, faxes, emails, phone calls, voice mails, arrangements, deals, agreements, requirements, credentials, identification, police, classification, transportation, distribution, commerce, cold, hunger, cold, hunger, cold, hunger, **cold**, **hunger**, poverty, school, homework, work, student loans, taxes, banks, credit, debit, balances, contracts, applications, affadavits, forms, faxes, emails, phone calls, voice mails, arrangements, deals, agreements, requirements, credentials, identification, police, classification, transportation, distribution, commerce, cold, hunger…

There is not time enough to fill out (not to mention submit, not to mention check on the status of in order to verify receipt and acknowledgement of) all of your forms, much less to actually be a person. The older you are, the farther behind in your life-papework you are (you know, the paperwork that you must fill out, that you are always working on, for the rest of your life, as fast as you can, in order to stay out of prison). You are always working toward that elusive chance to be alive, but you get farther and farther from it as the years go on — despite working faster and faster for longer and longer hours — because you are farther and farther behind in your forms and obligations, and with each form you complete and submit, two new additional forms are added to the list required in order to keep yourself out of prison, and with every obligation that you meet, two new obligations are added to the list required in order to avoid invalidating all of the forms you have submitted thus far.

Forms and obligations, obligations and forms, and agencies, agencies, agencies, and then, suddenly, death, long before you were complete and had a chance to live, and if you were lucky, also before they caught you for being too far behind and killed you off anyway.

Oh! Monster of modernity, terrible and ecstatic, wherefore dost thou hunger?

We have created for ourselves a nightmare world in which over time one cannot help but work oneself deeper and deeper into a massive and growing web of artificial obligations imposed simply by attempting over and over to meet such obligations. The upside of meeting each of them? You are given the privilege of remaining out of prison. The downside? You incur more with each new obligation that you meet. The upside of not meeting them? Sanity, for a moment. The downside of not meeting them… once that moment is over, your life is also over, and you will rot either at the far and dangerous fringe of society (if you are lucky) or in prison (if you are not).

Alienation! Alienation! Nightmare of nightmares!

ganz
ganz
ganz
ganz
untoll
antineu
unploetzlich
god man boy

The older I get, the more I realize that I can’t stand drama. I watch the sitcoms and I hear the news and I listen about friends’ lives and I am just bored with all notions of “coolness” and “funness” and “individuality” and “needs” and anything else that causes people to strive in their own idiosyncratic way to develop some sense of “identity.” You are a nobody, no matter who you are. Believe it. The Chinese have it right, individuality is lame and overdone. It exists only for its own sake.

All I want in life is a chair, a window, a game on television, a beer, some sense of what my basic responsibilities are, and a fundamental fairness that says I won’t be tortured simply for having been born so long as I do my bit, since of course I didn’t ask to be born.

Stone, sky, water, warmth. Those are the things that being — which lasts only a moment — is made of, and apart from the parents that bore you and the immediate others that nurtured you, those are the things that you ultimately will begin to miss in that moment that you transition from alive to dead, eyes wide open and afraid. You will not miss your goatee dye or your pink pumps or the network of shallow, climbing friendships you’ve built with dealers, promoters, bankers, or whatever the hell your network is made of.

All things are beautiful; it is the naming of things, the division of things that is ugly.

I always think everyone understands the extent to which I’m absolutely broke, but it always turns out that everyone has underestimated it and that I haven’t been as communicative of the fact as I could have.

For the world: I’m broke. I have apparently mismanaged my life. I am completely and unutterably broke. Why? Because I kept at my gainful employment for far too long. So now I am back on the job market. I feel a sense of rising panic, but I don’t know what to do about it.

I suspect it won’t subside until I’m back in school again.

– Did not yet end up in Chicago
– nor New York, the east bay, Portland, Burlington, or Alaska
– No RV purchased yet
– Cash dwindling
– Seeking work but not quite as hard as could be
– Beer
– Getting older and feeling your balls crawl up into you, a little bit at a time
– Beer
– Entirely preoccupied by the thought of returning to school
– Hoping still to find a spot in an adjunct pool until then

Have walked a beagle half a dozen times in twice as many days. Miss having pets. Beagle shoes at Petsmart: $15-45. I apparently shop at Petsmart now.

Was I ever cooler than this? Hard to remember. Maybe not. Been a while.

In order to hang out with your friends, you have to be within fucking spitting distance of them. You can always make new friends, but I get tired of how tired that makes me and I think instead it might be nice to join a monastery and break myself.

Finally got some of the powers that be to agree to recommend me for the programs that I will be applying to in ten minutes. Finally created a myspace profile so that I continue to exist (I remember when it was enough to have a web page, and before that, when it was enough to piss at least once a day).

.

I am not edgy and urbane. I am not crudely anatomical. I am not prescient and topical. I am barely awake. Things are not particularly wonderful, nor are they particularly horrible. They just are, which is, I suppose, the nature of this city, and why everyone tends to leave it. If you’re going to kill God, you’d better be prepared to replace him with rape+pillage and epics. Without such things, you garden.

addicts are kooler than jesus, yeah

pluck

Long-term, there are still two things that trump all. 1) Write. 2) Ph.D. = Teach.

So long as those are still possible, all other things are doable.

The city has changed a lot, lots of my old places are gone, or different. My friends have all left town — the few friends that I had to begin with. I’m here with my family, but they’re all pretty busy and I can’t start to feel too at home anyway, because I’m too old to hang around with them much. I don’t have a job, and even when I did, I didn’t feel at home there, but now I don’t, so that distinction doesn’t matter much. I don’t have much money, if any, most of my bills are behind and I don’t have an income — so it’s not like I can travel or shop or take classes or anything. My girlfriend is in this town but she’s not happy here and I’m not sure I can make her happy, I seem to mostly make her feel trapped. I’m not enrolled in school. I don’t have a regular hangout. I don’t have a home. I don’t have money. I don’t have nearby friends. I don’t have many friends in general. I don’t have an “adult” nuclear family of my own.

I have, as it turns out, almost nothing at all. I am very lonely. All I have right now is a beagle licking my palm. But she’s not even mine and at some point I’ll have to leave her behind, so I can’t rely on her too much.

Archives »

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
August 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
September 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
June 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
March 2012
December 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999