Shit, it is a royal pain in the ass working with geocities...Why can't they just fuckin' display the filenames in fetch or ftp? Makes it a shit fit to move or delete anything. Jeesh. Well, it's done--the archives are now up and working right, if anyone cares.

I'm now back in Arcata. Had a lot of mail waiting for me too...dat's mostly. I also got a letter I mistakenly addressed to my own damn self...*sigh* it was *supposed* to go the PJ fan club, my order for two tix for the Maui show. Cutoff date was Jan 1 and I obviously missed it. Stupid fuck me put everything in the wrong envelope--the *return* SASE! jeesh...so I had to call the venue and order tix over the phone--meant an extra $8 in fees, *sigh* Oh well. At least I still get tix...although not getting tix would have been one way to save myself a whole lot of cash I suppose...

Looking at the archive homepage now--looks like crap...I really don't feel like going back and rewriting it all with geocrap editor though. such a damn hassle. no-one goes there anyway, so no worries.

I just fucking wish I could have the same 3 meg geocities gives me on my school account...how the school admins expect anyone can be satisfied with 1 meg? Sigh, I suppose they figure if you want more, get it yer own damn self. ah well.

The great job search begins. Some guy sitting next to me is looking online...I think I'll hook into the school's online carreer center bit...there's a link to "part time jobs for students" that might prove usefull...mebe...McDonalds...yeah. a job is a job is a job.

My car is freaking out on my again *sigh*. It's the clutch master cylinder again. Looks like it needs to be replaced again--what the hell is up with the thing? This is the second time in less than four years. Something else must be wrong if it's going bad so quickly. So great, that's another $150 down the drain.

And another thing--not one person emailed me about the notify list. Not one damn person. Sigh. I even got a couple hits while I was gone and everything--domains I don't recognize. maybe no-one really does care--mayeb the only one getting anything out of this is my dad--and that's completely *not* the purpose of this thing. here I am, spouting off into the wind. I mean, jeesh, it's not like I *need* a huge gargantuam audience like Gus or Zach or maggie or any of the "journalists who have made it big" but at least a *few* would be nice. Sheesh. mebe I should just go back underground. I've got enough things to do than spend my time hassling with geocities for example. I guess I'm not being fair to people who actually *have* read bits and pieces...it's just so hard to keep going when I look at that counter and realize no-one cares, no matter how much I deny it. I mean, If i'm failing in the purpose of putting this online--for comfort in fellow trauma, maybe I should just abandon the whole shibang. Keeping a paper journal is a hell of a lot easier and still effective...I mean, I can still spout 'n' shit...yet, sometimes It's just nice to know it's "out there" where others *can* read about it, even if they don't...kind of like crying in the rain. You do it so no-one will realize, yet still hoping *someone* will be observant enough to see, maybe offer comfort or feelings of empathy...otherwise, why not cry in your room, alone, under the covers...turn out the lights and smoke a joint or drop some acid to make your life go away for a while...make it all seem so artificial...I dunno. I'm not advocating heavy drug use--it creates more problems than it solves--trust me, I'm not an expert, but I've seen it happen to myself and others enough to know. I don't know if I agree completely with Rollins theory of it as "crowd control" but it sure is a great way to look at it...

Anyway, if you're reading, and it matters at all to you, please, let me know...with a quick email

Even just a "hi, bye" to let me know you're out there...doesn't matter what you say--just let me know I'm not just crying in the rain alone.

So why bother writing anymore for a while...

Sitting back tonight, I made a pact to not get online until at least 10PM...no email, no journal, nothing...Liz was expecting a call I guess anyway so that helped...just the thing is, all I could think of doing was writing here--so I guess I'm stuck doing this whether ppl read or not. I guess that's great for the staunch supporters like sarah who do read...I'm tied to my keyboard...

I was reading this afternoon, still on _Gravities Rainbow_ by Pynchon. That book has held up my reading list more than any other book I can think of--it is so damn dense and hard to read for long stretches at a time...but *great* dense, not bad. Some of the shit he does is unbelievably original...kind of stuff I think you'd have to be on acid to come up with--who knows, maybe he was, but I just read a 9 page bit that was a short story about "Byron the Bulb" a fucking *lightbulb* for christ sakes....a sentinent lightbulb. You can fatal falacy it all you want fellow English major/writer geeks like me, but it is *so* awesome...he summed up so much of what the book is about just in that 9 pages--the insane, nutty depiction of this "immortal lightblub". If you never read this book, I implore you, AT LEAST read pages 754-763. You won't think the same way about a lightbulb again--or about a lot of things, probably...so intense. It's the kind of metaphysical musing that will "get us all" in the end--a brutal way to write what I mean, but it's effective that way I suppose...I never could of thought of that story. What's so incredible is that even past the stand alone--it ties so deeply into the inner workings of the book--putting it so far towards the end is like a little cherry at the bottom of the sundae--rather than the top...none of it would have connected without the preceding 700+ pages

I've had this great idea for a story lately--it's based on a sort of nightmarish fear I've had off and on again for several years now--ever since I started thinking about god and metaphysics and such...The problem is, I just can't seem to figure out how to write it. I just trashed page one of the first attempt. See, here's the idea...what if, redemption day actually comes. Only, it's not this fire and brimstone thing we all picture--eesentially all the worthy just *disappear* leaving the "damned" behind on earth, in normal, everyday life. After all, one interpretation of heaven/hell is with god/without god...The thing I wanted to paint in the story is how this disappearence would be so damn unnoticeable, with all the sin and "unworthies" out there like me since I'm an agnostic and done all kinds of horrible thigns without seeking repentance, etc...so few ppl would be considered "worthy" that the world would still be overcrowded, freeways would still be busy, etc...you'd only know if you had actually known a "worthy" who disappeared. So now, how does one write that story? I mean, the whole premise is that nothing changes for us, and that's "hell". TRUE faith is gone from the world with the "worthy", so that's a change, I suppose. Eventually, ppl are going to wonder why ppl like Mother Teresa are gone out of thin air, and oteher various figures of goodness--but then, all these "so-called worthy" people won't be gone--exposing them as not being "worthy"--Argghhh...I just can't get it out. Obviously, that alone isn't a story then...it's a backdrop. So great, there we are, another beautifull backdrop for a story, and no story--this seems familiar territory to me, it's happened b4 like this. Maybe some plot will come to me. *sigh* it's so maddening...

Liz just had dental work done--seomthing like *2 hours* she said. I guess she's getting new caps or something like that. her lip got swollen and she can't eat solid food for two weeks now. Her friend Elizabeth came over to see her for a bit--never really got a chance to get to know her, seemed pleasant enough...I was just floored one of Liz's friend came by....hardly anyone *ever* comes here 'cept Liz and I. We're loners pretty much--at least that's how it seems...but then--Liz and I sat for a while and talked a bit. It was weird. I just got this funny feeling about it, I don't know why...I didn't really have anythign to say, and I guess she really didn;t either, but she just kind of sat there and wanted small talk...if she wasn't dating Mike I woudl have taken that as an "interest flag". so weird. maybe she thinks we don't talk enough or interact enough--trying to "get things going"...I suppose I seem to foster this image of "leave me alone please, I'd druther be left to my own devices." That's what made strange for me too--cuz I realized that halfway through the small talk, and it's not the image I wanted to portray--yet, I couldn't think of anything to say. so weird.

sarah is going on prozac in a matter of hours, and I feel like shit about it. Not like there is anything I could do, not like I could "makes things better" To even really try would be pretending I have the right too--I really don't. I'm just an outsider reading her journal, wishing life wouldn't deal such people deprived hands, such crappy deals out there, so many happen all to one person at times, and life isn't fair--that's just the way it is. I know the woman through her words only. I've never met her, never *will* meet her, and yet I got sucked into her world, her pain...and it just tears at me. There is just so much suffering in the fucking world, and I should feel an ass for worrying about my petty problems, but I still do, and will continue to do so...And I know she wouldn't want me to think this way, and I hate it that I *do* think this way. Fuck it all. I'm on vacation right now. It should be lazy days--blissfull, not a care in the world. Life ain't fair though--I've got tight shoulders from stress over my car, my $$$, my parents view of me, my need for a job, the fact that I'm going to have to work my ass off like never b4 this semester so I can afford my car and still get A's and B's so I can get money from mom and dad for school next year...and it just doesn't stop. Even if I pull everything off--there's next year and the *real* dire straits I'll be in when I have three or even four more semesters to go with not enough money to pay for them, bills crammed up my ass like toilet paper, and who knows what other terrible things I'll have to worry about by that point. shit, university life is a "unique time of your life" as Liz put it tonight...no fucking shit. Torn between so many worlds--where is home, here or with Mom and Dad...what side of my nature will will out ultimately, science or literature. what will I do this summer to make $$$? flip burgers or work in an office making big money...i can't help but feel resigned to flipping burgers and being broke--i've already realized that I'm eating pidgeon this semester to make ends meet...fuck but Life is Hard and it's all because of the choices I've made--at least there is that, I have none to blame but myself, *really* I could squabble about this raw deal or that raw deal, abou this missed opportunity because of that person who is always "just a notch better than me" whatever...but at least I can cradle my mistakes as my own doing...ppl like sarah have had *so much* shit that they had no hand in, no way of forestalling or even predicting...and I feel such a mess right now and it's terrible to say I don't feel like I deserve to feel that way. I've been putting the real world at bay for 22 years now it seems--putting so many things off, ignoring so many decisions, always thinking there will be time, or things will work out. Well, now it comes to the point that if I keep putting things off, it will drag me down to the point where the bad poker hands will be dealt by others, by the world around me, and my finger on the wheel of fate will be torn asunder by others--then I'll *really* have something to cry about.

So yeah, sarah said my journal reminds her of university life. Fuck I hope it isn't like this for everyone...but I suppose it is, to a large degree...a time to realize you need to make those decisions, or face the consequences of fucking up the rest of your life. What do I do if next semester comes around and I have no $$$ for school? What do I do? Mom and Dad won't take me under their wing anymore--sick of my failings, and I wouldn't want them to either. What would happen? I know what would happen. I'd end up getting a burger flipping job...ditching my car as an expense I couldn't afford...probably at some point being forced to ditch my stereo and golf clubs and this computer and just about everything I love, to make ends meet--to make enough money to pay for college tuition b4 I turn 30...b4 it all gets so hopeless I just put too many pills in my mouth, or heaven help me, actually be able to afford a gun...maybe a leap from tall building--that would be a wonderfull last few moments to experience, the terror, the shit in my pants, the wind in my face, the knowing it's all over now....the intense pain of hitting ground at several hundred miles per hour. be a great to write about, but, too bad, I'd be dead--surviving it somehow wouldn't make it possible--it'd be so different a perspective then...

But now I'm just sitting here at 12:53am, far from suicide, far from such desperation--feeling that desperation in others through journals, feeling so much of what I'm afraid of...and it's therapeutic in a way, a way of seeing what it could be like, how lucky i am to still be where I am, with what meager talents I may possess...even if I do think I'm a hack, like I do now, even if it's an audience of two or three, even if, all along, I should have just forsaken science or literature and picked one--forcing myself into a life so removed from the one I know dream of, envision, work towards and just about pray to see.

"Don't you think you ought to rest. Don't you think you ought to lay your head down. Don't you think you've done enough" PJ

but right now what makes everything so hard is realizing I *haven't* done enough. That I ought *not* lay my head done. Not that I'll get much sleep this semester I think...maybe a six hour average at best...*sigh* I guess I should get used to it now so I'm ready for when school kicks in.

Nonfilter Pall Mall's rule. I love the way the smoke curdles around the butt end and not just the front...problem is--remember when I wrote that when you could chain smoke a pack of these all the way through--you're fucked with cance for sure--i'm heading that way I think. OK, I really think I ought to space out these give in to cravings and buy a pack a bit more...but this coming semester I need to work my ass off, and itsa gonna be hard...but then again, it's just another one of those thigns I need to grow up about. *sigh* God I hate how I can sink myself into these wells of depression, realizing how undeserving I am to feel this way--knowing I ought *not* feel this way. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I need to masturbate and go to sleep.