Thursday, February 27, 2003

mixed signals

This cat bothers me more than it probably should. I need to learn how to forget about things, people, and cats that are not interested, that do not want me, and seek out those things, people, and cats that do, that don't hiss when I reach out my hand, when I reach with love.

We are babysitting anotheryourself's psycho cat for a couple of days, and for whatever reasons I want this cat to love me. I want to win over its heart. I get the impression that this is what it wants. It rubs against my leg lovingly, like it wants me to pet it, and then I do. I pet it, delicately touching it and then kittie goes psycho, jumping towards my hand and hissing at me. Fucking tease! Don't rub against my legs, purring like you want to be petted, like you want to experience love only to slap me away, you stupid cat.

This cat depresses me. It just seems too symbolic of my life right now, another thing rejecting me. I had a dream last night, a lot of them. I set my alarm for ten and hit snooze every ten minutes for an hour and a half. Nine times or so. And doing this, hitting snooze continually lets you stay in whatever cycle of sleep the dream state is for so long, for hours. And the dreams made me happy, made me feel loved, desired. There was circular flow with feeling flowing inward and outward, no stopper, no cork on the outward emmision of these feelings of love, and I woke up, and there was that cat, that stupid cat, putting a cork on this feeling of love yet again, hissing at me, at my love.

Monday, February 24, 2003

heaven to drink

Some vanilla ice cream purchased at the C-Store, some root beer purchased out of the soda machine. The two brought home, Bob Marley and his Wailers invited along because it is that type of sunny day. Life feels good, feels like that sound. I scooped in some vanilla ice cream into a big glass, poured some root beer over it, and watched it fizz, felt that yummy mixture in my mouth. Drank it slowly, sometimes with a spoon.

I left a message on my mom's machine telling her I was kicked out of school, she is going to be in Florida on Saturday. I love a person in a pure way, a friendship way, and I am learning how to do that, how to love people and the learning process is slow, is something that should have happened a much longer time ago.

Saturday, February 22, 2003

eating this heart

On Valentine's Day, I was kicked out of school. There was an SASC hearing, I didn't know about it, didn't attend it, and was given the boot. The first night, this made me sad, but once I decided not to appeal it, that fuck school, I was the happiest boy in the world. Friday morning, pushing things as close to the deadline as possible, I applied to Hunter for the fall. Becki has applied there too, also on Friday morning. Maybe we will be roomies.

My eleven days straight of working is finally coming to an end. Tuesday is almost here. I can spit at it. It is that close.

I am in love with the idea of love. Dante's Vita Nuova astounds me.

Last night, I was pissing over the 3rd Court wall, and it was one of those long pees so I looked up at the sky, and there was the moon, the big bright fucking thing, and clouds were flying by me, heading north so fast. These clouds were moving faster than the speed I would normally think was acceptable. And it looked a little scary, like planes approaching. And they were zoom zooming North. It's that time of year, time for migration - the birds, the clouds, me - time for thoughts of it.

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

st. augustine vs. my alarm clock

The alarm clock won, the motherfucking thing. I was actually really excited about Medieval Phil. today because we were going to be talking about Augustine's Confessions, which I am smitten with right now, and what happens? My stupid bobo motherfucking alarm clock did not go off at eight am like it was set for, did not go off at all.

And now added to my TO BUY list from Wal-Mart is a non-electric alarm clock, one of those tiny battery-operated ones, so incidents like these can be minimized in the future. I hate this feeling of disappointment and self-loathing that you get when you unintenionally miss a class.

I've got to get it down. And I'm scratching things off my to-do list lately because I am getting it down, because I think some people are dumb, because I am mastubating more frequently, and because I love donuts, Taco Bell, Wal-Marts, chains in general, and this land.

Saturday, February 8, 2003

palm court tonight - midnight - be there or be square

Rock n rollers, come out come out and dance at the Cypress Circle madly improvised wall that will be going down tonight. Dance to music we like, music you like, music that doesn't suck ass. Right on?

"this ain't rock n roll, this is genocide"

Today, it was dreary during the daytime. I picked up my bike from the bike shop and biked to work, sat there for eight hours, and read lots of St. Augustine, who I love. And maybe I drank quite a few cups of coffee during this period, and maybe I read lots of Augustine aloud because I was getting excited by it, because I read this a couple years ago, his Confessions, and was not nearly this moved by it then. Now, I realize how fucking amazing this thing is, how Augustine is such a beatnik, maybe a little more religious than the real ones, but he is all about love love love. And tomorrow I will go to work, sit for another eight hours, drink more coffee, and read more Augustine.

I went to school tonight. Dipped my toes in three social situations. Goldstein 201 where there was a b-day party for Christy. The wall, where there was the occasional good song played between lots of obnoxious shit, where there were few people I knew. And 3rd Court, packed with the hipster/activist crowd, where there was much better music, but where I felt so awkward. I want to get away. I would have stayed longer if I didn't know anyone, if these were fresh faces I would never see again, faces that didn't make me feel uncomfortable for whatever social anxiety reasons I could list if I gave a damn. And tomorrow brings the promise of more Augustine and when no one is asleep some loud loud David Bowie, some rock and roll.

be there

Cypress Circle wall tonight in a little place called Palm Court. Dance and love.

Thursday, February 6, 2003

to do list

And I am adjusting, get into the flow of things, and a couple of hours ago, after spending time at the cheap movie theater napping duringRabbit Proof Fence with Sarah and Bonnie, and too cool Steve somewhere at his little cashier booth, and yeah tomorrow I have a 10:30 class that I thought I had on Friday and have as yet to do the reading for, because of this erroneous assumption. And to do list:

-Write out a schedule, so these instances of confusion can be prevented in the future.

-Tackle making movie of Ben Haber obsession, because it would be so funny.

-Take bike to bike shop tomorrow to get it fixed.

-Pay CC bill.

-Play tennis, maybe work out, jog.

-And read read read for class

-Apply to Hunter ASAP, apply for internships this summer.

-Research what cities are along the Mississippi and investigate what job options are available in any of these cities.

-Get contract signed on Friday.

-Get real. Yeah.

Sunday, February 2, 2003

"fucking niggers"

And when this was uttered, exclaimed an hour or so ago, I just shrugged my shoulders because life is rough and this is Sarasota, and I deal with these things. I am learning how complex things are.

So, one of the guests at the Best Western left their room to go their friend's room for five minutes or so, and he left the sliding glass door leading out to the pool unlocked. Five minutes later he came back to his room and noticed that his car keys were not there. Then he noticed that his car was no longer in front of his room. And then he noticed that his wife's purse, and his new camera were also MIA. He came to the front desk soon after, told me this - I called the police, set off an alarm in the office that would not go off until I called three managers and figured out how to turn it off, and I wanted to cry - it was this high pitched whistling sound that could cripple you to your knees if you were a slightly weaker person. And during this already tense time where I was having to deal with a car robbery, where I was already a little stressed, I seriously just wanted to cry, I was so close to the weakness threshold, where had I reached it, I would have been on my knees, in fetal position with covered ears.

And his friend was there too, waiting for the cops to arrive. He was the one exclaiming "Fucking niggers" to himself, to us, astonished, somehow trying to explain things, why the world is so fucked up. And they could have been black, but I really think it was a carful of Latin kids that circled through the parking lot earlier. They also could have been white. It should be irrelvant. But nothing is. Especially here in this town.

A week or so ago, I ordered Dominos and when it came, Lance told me about two robberies. Two drivers beat up while delivering pizzas out into Newtown. One of them, his father, who was pistol-whipped. And this is how perceptions of race are formed right there. Countless incidents had happened with Lance and pizza deliveries in Newtown. He has proudly kicked the shit out of people who had messed with him. And he was sad that he wasn't delivering that night, because he would have done something, he thinks. And he has no embarrasment about making generalizations about blacks because most of his encounters with black people have not been pleasant ones.

And stuff like this gets to me. I am never mad at the person who utters these sentiments - I don't even think of them as racist sentiments - I understand them and where they are coming from. I don't know. But then I think of how bad a person's situation must be to pistolwhip someone for twenty bucks and some pizza. And poverty is the problem, is probably the biggest hindrance to democracy. When things like this happen, when someone's economic situation is so dire that wanton violence becomes a neccesity for survival than democracy is endangered. Our humanity is endangered when someone is degraded to these conditions where this would even become an option, where we are thrown back into animal conditions. Our humanity rests on such fragile and mutable conditions. When people resort to violence for basic survival, either the bridge dividing humans from animals is shown to be just a stupid myth, or that we are failing in our responsibilites and are devolving into animal conditions, forfeiting our human essence for whatever short term benefits we reap profitting from class inequalities. We are fucking humans, of the same species as those early Greeks, as Jesus, as Augustine, as Emerson, as all those beautiful minds who helped develop this conception of the human, and we can fucking do better, we must.

And last week, I checked this guy into the hotel. A white guy, if it matters at all. And he had just been released from jail that day, and he told me his whole life story, his current situation. His name was John and he had been released without notice because his parole committee had just realized that he had been sentenced for too long, and had already served 10 or so months more than he should have. And so he was released from jail, kicked out into the street with no money. And goddamn fucking shit, this is our criminal justice system. I was so pained to see that it, that we (we are it - this is our government, us) did not care two shits about rehabilitation and just released someone without a dime to their name out into the streets where to survive, to even eat enough that day, they may have had to do something to risk going right back into jail.

And I checked him in, with a credit card authorization done over the phone from his wife in Georgia (which we are not supposed to do). And I got reprimanded at work for this for checking someone in without a credit card, and appearantly the card given to me over the phone was not legit.

Bob, the night audit guy, asked me about that tonight, and he told me that he has encountered so many scams in his years there, and said, "You just can't trust anyone." And perhaps because I liked how it sounded, I said, "I am learning that." And then I felt gross, I was chilled to think that I could ever utter such a sentiment, when I need to live like Christ and trust everyone. I need to be outrageously compassionate and think the best of people because otherwise, my worldview would be horrible, my life would be. And Jody, the manager was so scared about me biking home and told me to be careful, be careful, are you sure you are going to be safe. And I laughed and said I'm not worried about. I am not worried about it. And then I biked home, soaked up the stars, the bright, trusting things."f