I don't recognize myself anymore. I mean, if I look in a mirror, I am totally repulsed by the person I see. I think, "Who is she, and why is she staring at me with that hopeless look in her eyes?" It's out of control. I'm out of control. I think that not doing anything for this long (be it school or work) has been very very dangerous to my mental health, which has taken a toll on my physical health. I just feel horrible every day.

When I go to sleep (which I haven't yet... went to bed at 1:30pm yesterday and got up at 6pm), I do not want to get out of bed. Lying there thinking, "I have no reason to get up," is fucking depressing as all hell.

I don't see many of my friends anymore. I see Toni maybe once a month, Bry every blue moon, haven't seen Chris & Bryan since November.... Well, you get the idea. I have become completely non-social from lack of effort to actually leave the house. I still have a Christmas present for Chris and Bryan sitting in the living room. They live l5 minutes away. Rarely speak to Justin.

There used to be a time when everyone was doing something. I'd go do something at least once a week. Now there is nothing. I sit on my ass with nothing to do. Only time I drive anywhere is to go to the bank or fill our applications.

It's all so very... crappy, for lack of a better word.

I am going to try to keep that appointment I have to see a gyno and figure out what is wrong with me physically (besides being a cow). I try my best not to think about it, or I end up creeping myself out. Just walking into a hospital makes my skin crawl. Doctors, nurses, anything remotely medical in nature makes me tense up and actually hurt from the strain. I'll worry about the cost later... just more stress that I don't need. Figuring out what's wrong and then how to fix it and how much the fix costs--I am so screwed.

If I don't get a job in the next month, I'm going to go insane. If it's not too late...

Hmm. So, my mom sent up an appointment for me with a Gynocologist... then she told me it'd be expensive and asked if I could afford it. -_-; I guess she'd forgotten that she'd offered to pay, which is why I agreed to go in the first place. So, I told her I'm broke and she offered to maybe pay half and try to set up a payment plan or something. Fucking wonderful.

Rotting from the inside out is sounding more and more appealing. Diabetes, here I come!

*grumble*

I got a haircut... something like 6 inches completely gone. Honestly, I'm not that happy with it... Took over an hour to explain to this Chinese woman exactly what I wanted (don't get me wrong, her English was perfect... she was just... uh... scared to cut my hair too short). By the time she was done, she still didn't go short enough, in my opinion, but whatever. It's just hair. It doesn't look bad; it's just not what I really wanted. -.- I swear, since I had my hair chopped off super short in high school, no hairstylist has been able to repeat that style for me. GRR.

So, basically, my hair went from being over a foot long and past my shoulders to just below the ear. And I have bangs... sort of. Murr. Now I'm all itchy.

The job hunt has renewed! I am full of joy! Anyone have any suggestions? I'm fucking spent... I don't know where else to apply. I may apply again at places I've already tried.

I'm still reading my old diaries... Just read past the time when I worked two jobs and was lucky if I got one day off. How the hell did I ever manage that? Jesus... I was insane. And I've pretty much spent all the money I made from those hard days. Go me. This is so fucking pathetic, and I fully admit to being a slacker.

I think I might take up my mom's offer to go see a doctor... that is, if she's not pissed off at me. Haven't heard from her in weeks. I'm terrified of the expense, if I end up on medication 'til the end of time. Murr.

Just got home last night. Hmm...

Ocean City was a bit chilly (mostly due to wind), but it became gradually warmer over the week. Sadly, everything was closed until April--including the boardwalk. That kinda sucked. We didn't do much there aside from walk the beach, watch tons of TV in the evening (I Love Toys on VH1), and shop a little bit. The condo we stayed in was nice. Toni and I shared the room with twin beds, and my dad got a nice queen size bed in the other bedroom.

We went to Washington, DC on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We were going to take a tourmobile on Thursday, but 20 bucks a person was a little steep since we weren't going to be there the whole day.

We parked in front of the Capitol and walked the Mall, visiting most of the Museums: Air & Space, Natural, Native American, The Castle, National, Sackler Gallery... Unfortunately, most of the other Smithsonian Museums were closed for renovation. We went to the top of the Washington Monument. Couldn't quite muster the strength to walk to the Lincoln and walk back on Thursday... because we're all gimpy.

My calves and feet feel like guitar strings that've been tightened so much that they'd snap if you plucked them. Eheh... murr. Yay atrophy!

Hmm...

The trip was really cool with one exception: my dad drives me fucking insane. Let me explain... He only let me drive about an hour and a half on the way to Maryland. Toni and I were bored out of our minds in the car. So, somehow, I ended up being the navigator--going strictly by the fucked up directions he'd printed up from mapquest. On the entire trip, he got lost more times than I can count. I wanted to rip his head off at one point. After the first day, he did all the driving. Fuck, even the one night Toni and I went out to dinner by ourselves, he told me to be careful... which set me off into the whole, "I'm 27 years old, not 12. Please stop treating me like a child and an idiot," rant. Heh... I snapped at him a lot early on in the week, but eventually, I gave up and let him be the control freak (and get lost quite well on his own).

Anyhow, this trip has cemented one thing for me: I'm never going on a trip with him again... especially if it involves driving. It was bad enough that I had to put up with his opinions and machismo, but Toni had to endure that and my snapping at him. Hee. Sorry about that, Toni.

Murrf. Maybe I'll post pics when I get the film developed (yar, no digital camera for me yet... I'm so 20th century).

Dear Stomach,

I hate you... stop making me feel like I want to die.

No love from the bathroom floor,
Fyx

*listening to VNV Nation, "Homeward"*

I think that I am on the verge of detaching from my body... Well, now, this isn't so much. There was a time I was very good at it. Then, I lost the skill some how. However, through time and the neural net within my head, I think that I am somehow getting closer. At some point in the last day, perhaps while I was sleeping, I felt myself separating. You know that feeling of pins and needles you get when you sleep on your arm funny? Well, I felt that from scalp to toe... and a cold, fiery ripping sensation... Meh, I was probably dreaming.

My birthday is in 2 days. Remember when you used to get cake and icecream and presents for your birthday? Remember blowing out candles? Yeah, I haven't done that since... I can't remember. Wow, I'm really trying, too. Hmm... When's the last time I celebrated anything?

I like how I approach things now compared to 10 years ago. Wisdom really does come with age. The bad thing is, I think I'm trying to push all my wisdom into now rather than accumulating it over time... and I cannot figure out why. I have no sense of time, so that could be the issue. Yesterday, tomorrow, what's the difference?

Why does the soul speak in poetry and art?

*listening to Massive Attack, "Angel"*

Haha, my friend Fuuko says, "You were emo before there was emo!" I giggled heartily.

The more I read... the more I can see that. Everything I wrote or did back then would be considered "emo" now. But, who cares, really? I'm not that fond of labels.

Reading this older junk has really made me miss some people... and despise some people. Some of them are the same. Miss but despise... but miss, nonetheless. I wonder how some of them are doing. Gotta be better than I'm doing.

I'm getting closer and closer to talking myself into seeing a gynocologist. Yeah, it's taking me long enough, I'm well aware of this. The ache in the lower left side of my abdomen is rather convincing, though... especially since it has become rather consistant over the last couple weeks. I suppose I just dread being on the pill until menopause... or a hysterectomy... or fertility drugs--yay! -.-; Well, I dread a lot more than that, but I understand the importance of getting myself checked out and taken care of.

Bollucks.

I can't sleep yet. /stab

think of what i'm saying, we can work it out and get it straight or say good night

My ears are driving me insaaaaaaaaane. Itchy.

Stop.

*flails* Where is my mind?

I've been reading my paper diaries... it's... well, amusing and sad at the same time. I started keeping a diary in the 6th grade (I think.. somewhere around '92), but a lot of that early stuff is rather mundane. "I went here, I did this, I saw this, I hate her," and so on.

Only when I hit high school did it start to get really readable. I actually started writing thoughtfully and sometimes with a purpose. Last night, I started reading my April '97-Sept. '97 diary (it was on the small side), which includes my trip to the British Isles. That was very enjoyable to read. It made me miss Scotland quite a bit ;;

So, anyway, I'm probably going to continuing reading these things 'til I'm up to my most recent diary (which is fucking huge and will take 5 years to fill, methinks). As I come across interesting passages, I'll try to share them.

Here's one from July 9th, 1997:

...When you look like me, you can dress up & feel good & disgust the neighbors. When you look like me, you can walk through the house half-naked and feel fully exposed. When you feel like me, you can smile all day long and still cry into your pillow at night. That's part of life. I just don't see how people go through their lives without feeling out of place. I feel like I've been taken off my chess board and put on a checker board. I may have only been a pawn before, but now I'm only a mindless drone, hoping to someday be king. If I had a better personality, if I weren't nuts, if I were attractive--would I be happy? I'll never know because that is not me. Not even a chance to find out. I am who I am. And I am lost...

I just got back from taking my dad to get a colonoscopy. *thumbs up* He checked out okay.

Now I'm tired as fuck because I got less than 3 hours of sleep. WEE...

I should really quit smoking. I don't particularly care about my health (or I wouldn't be smoking in the first place, right?); I just can't afford the habit anymore. And seriously, who wants to financially support a bad habit? Wanna know why I smoke? It used to be relaxing and it used to give me something to occupy my fidgety hands with--or offer some kinetic static. Before I knew it, I was smoking on every break at work or between classes. If I were at a friend's house, we'd have smoke breaks and step out onto the balcony every 1-2 hours. You see where this is going?

Smoking is supposed to be something done casually--ya know, like men taking a smoke after dinner while sitting in their parlor and talking about golf with George. When you take a drag, you're supposed to enjoy it and revel in the taste (yeah, this is about as appalling as beer tasting and the like... all beer tastes like piss, I don't care what anyone says. But I've still drunk it. -.-). Then suddenly, smoking became hip... almost expected of people. Advertisments presented smoking like it was the normal thing to do and more people would like you if you smoked. When the tobacco companies saw that this angle really worked, they took it further and further and further. Holy shit, there's a lot of money in this! Goal: get everyone smoking so they'll be buying cigarettes and lining our pockets for generations to come! GENIUS. Hmm... let's see... how can we get more people smoking....?

Give me a fucking break. Anyone with 2 cents to rub together knows what the tobacco companies have done to get people smoking. You don't need to watch "truth" ads to figure this stupid shit out... and if you do, you're stupid and deserve lung cancer. YOU, out of the gene pool!

So, I know all this yet I still smoke. Yeah, I'm a fool. I freely admit that I allowed myself to become addicted to nicotine and having my hands occupied. In fact, I'm craving both things now, but I'm out of smokes. What troubles me the most is the amount I'm smoking now. Since I stopped going to school and haven't been working, I lose track of the time between cigarettes. Pretty quickly, I'll look down and see that my pack's empty, then I stare at it thinking, "What the fuck? I couldn't have smoked all that already." But I did. Right now, I'm up to about one pack a day. To me, this is insane. Some people are much much worse but for me, it's just fucking retarded. First and foremost, I blame my computer. For some reason, once I sit in my chair and start staring at the screen, I lose all sense of time. Doesn't matter if I'm playing a game, reading, writing, drawing... I'll smoke one after another without even realizing it.

Christ on a cracker, I really want one right now.

I'm not sure what it is... when I smoke that many back to back, I know it's not the nicotine I'm after. Hell, I can go hours and hours without a cigarette. But for some reason, the moment I sit down at the keyboard, my hand itches for it. As if there's not enough going on. I'm usually typing, listening to music, reading, playing something or other... it's just become a habit for my left hand to go back and forth from my mouth to the ashtray.

I've tried quitting cold turkey and I just can't do it. I don't have anything to replace the habit with. If I could space them back out again, so that I'm eventually under half a pack a day or even less... I'd be fine. I could handle that. Maybe then I could find something to occupy my hand and brain with, so I wouldn't reach for my lighter at all.

You know as soon as I save this, I'm running out to get cigarettes, right?

Man, I stink. I smell like the Marlboro Man's gas.

Myspace.com is the number one place for sexual predators and pedophiles to snag people of all ages. Chew on that for a while when someone adds you to their "network."

And... watch "THIS". It's funny.

Goddamn creepy internet.

Well, it's 3am... My sleeping has gotten a little bit off track again, but it's no big deal. I've kinda set aside looking for a job at the moment since I'm going on a vacation with my dad at the beginning of March. I've never been to D.C. Should be interesting. Sucks that I won't have much money to spend while I'm out there.

Hmm... I think I'll go read and pass out.

In the last few months, I've been slipping in and out of a meditative state... and I'm not particularly sure why. At any rate, I rather enjoy little bursts of enlightenment followed by a sweeping calm. It's like satiating your hunger with a big bowl of fruit, then sitting back and thinking, "Wow, I love fruit... Ohmmm." See, I would have used sex as the simile there, but often times sex is emotionally charged before-during-and-after, and that doesn't really describe the state that I'm talking about.

I love the term "it just dawned on me," like a thought just came out of no where and broke the horizon with light.

Last night (well, sometime early this morning, to be honest), as I was snuggling into my pillows and Sleep's embrace, I kept thinking about memories and the wiring of the brain. All memories and thoughts inside the brain have no sense of time. Everything we ever experience or feel is connected to all of our other thoughts in some way. Networks of emotions fused together by neurons are what make us individuals. Everyone has different networks. We all transmit information differently in our brains.

Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. Well, let's say you think about a past love. Now, normally, the part of your brain that contains the network you built for pleasure, affection, longing, etc. lights up just like it did when you were with this person you're thinking about. But now... it lights up some other networks... usually hurtful ones, and your mind begins associating love with pain.

Now, the conclusion I came to last night was that no matter what I think of while remembering something, be it love or a particular person or just a feeling, I don't have to experience the pain with it anymore. No matter where I go in life or what happens to me, those thoughts and memories will always be mine. Linking them to pain and regret does them a disservice.

Hah, I think the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" covers this topic better than I do, so you should go watch that rather than read my babbling.

In the midst of this trancendental fit I seem to be having as of late, people keep telling me I need to see a therapist. Most recently (as in, I just got off the phone with her), my mom seems to be "worried" about me and thinks I'm depressed.

...

Is it that obvious? I mean, really, I've always been rather matter-of-fact about how I feel, and I apoligize that I can't shit rainbows... but come on, when have I ever been different? I will admit that it gets worse at times. I go from low to negative in a matter of hours. But I've never been high, so to speak. I've never been completely content or happy about my life, and I suppose I've come to accept that.

Of course, I've spent years of my life wondering what it would take to make me happy. I wonder what happiness is to me... and it just pushes it further out of reach because what I really want is something I can never have. What I really want is not even a possibility.

My mother also informed me that not only is she prone to depression (I've written about this before), but her mother was depressed and admitted to hospitals for it... which means that both my mother and grandmother (whom I never met) were committed. So, maybe it is genetic. I'd sure love to have an explanation for it.... But to be honest, I think it's a combination of genes, childhood, and my personality that have sculpted my reality.

I don't mean to sound hopeless, but I really don't see how therapy would help me. It's not that I think therapy doesn't help people, I'm just not sure it could help me.... and by help I mean change. Furthermore, medication changing my serotonin levels... it's just tricking my brain.

My mom says everyone has a purpose and has to have something to do in life which they enjoy. If this is true, then wouldn't all the events in my life and who I am maybe have just a smidge to do with my purpose? Yeah, we're all special, little snowflakes with destinies! Sure. But what if I was born and grew up like this for something else entirely? What if it's an evolutionary chain reaction, separating the crappy genes from the good ones? Well, no worries there... even if I was medicated, I still wouldn't have children--despite these sudden maternal feelings I've been having lately. But that's another entry entirely. Yuck.

My point is that I made need help, but I don't want it. And no help in the world is going to make me happy. It might keep me from getting worse, but it's not going to make me better. Just let me live this life and see for myself. It's my experience. No one else gets to live it.

Bother... she just called again. -.- Apparently, my brother finally spoke to her on the phone. Only been ten months. Then she babbled more about therapy and offering to pay for it or it maybe being free since I'm a bum. Yeah, okay.

The heater's broken. >_> I am thankful for freaky KY weather, otherwise, I'd be freezing my ass off right now. The temperature in the house is hovering around 50 degrees. ;; Space heater= nice electric bill!

At any rate, I now present to you something to chew on for the day:

Think about how specialized humans have become.

Now, remember that humans as we are now have survived this long because we are multi-taskers; we can do many things and adapt to just about anything. The stages of man before us died out because they were specialists. If you have no idea what I'm writing about, go study some anthropology... it's quite fascinating.

So, why have we narrowed ourselves down to specialists again? Some could argue that this is due to the enormous population increase. We've sort of hit a plateau as far as evolution goes. Of course, we are still evolving--it's just not something you can really pinpoint unless you're looking at stages of man over thousands of years. I mean, hell, it took millions of years for dinosaurs to evolve from one species into another... so, we're pretty dynamic to have done it in under 100 thousand years.

So, here's what I'm really getting at...

If you removed the hospitals and everyone in the medical profession from the world, how many of you could stitch up an open wound? How many of you know how to deliver a baby? Could you treat a fever or a headache without medicine or instructions from anyone else?

That's pretty scary to think about isn't it? These most basic bits of knowledge... which should be ingrained in every human being, are gone. Having a baby, something every human female is designed for (and if you're a human male, just consider how many women are in your life)-- the very continuation of the species--is something you would think is passed on from parent to child or from one generation to the next.

Why is this vital knowledge no longer taught to each human as they mature into adulthood? When was it decided that this knowledge should be left to "experts?" I'm not saying that that we should not go to medical professionals or anything like that... I'm just wondering why we leave everything to them and without them, fuck ourselves over.

If you watch the tv show Lost, imagine how things would be on the island without Dr. Jack. Imagine everyone else on the island has had no medical training other than what they learned from their families.

If you want to widen the scope a little bit more, imagine how far you'd get without a grocery store. Do you know how to hunt or garden? How many people know when to sew seeds and when to harvest crops? Could you survive if you had to find your own source of food and water?

If you were lost, could you find your way home using the sun and the stars? What on earth would you do without road signs or maps or even roads?

We have become totally dependent on professionals. Even the most basic of things... we leave in other people's hands. Taking care of ourselves, feeding ourselves, even knowing where we are... all totally left to strangers.

The more I think about it, the more interesting the future of humankind looks. If there were ever some global disaster, who do you think would live longer: tribes in the jungles and savannahs, Quakers and Amish folk, and farmers... or city folk relying on (looting) what the grocery stores have until they're empty? Think of those poor people trapped in the south after Katrina... how long would they have survived without aid?

Kettle to Pot: You is one black muhfugga.

That out of the way, I thought I'd write a little bit about living in mediocrity. Specifically, I have an issue with people who settle. Whether they settle for a house they don't really wanna live in, settle for a job they don't really have any interest in, or settle for a mate they don't really have that gut feeling for which tells them this is the only person for them... I just can't fathom it. You only get one life. Or, if you believe in reincarnation... you only get this life once. That's it; no rewind, no continue, no restart.

So, why on earth would anyone settle for anything which doesn't make them completely happy? It's not about money, either. Screw money. The only currency that matters are good feelings vs. bad feelings. Good feelings have worth, and bad do not. The end.

If you look around you, you probably know a ton of people who claim to be happy with where they are and what they have. Maybe some of them are. Maybe you're one of them. Truth is, the majority just settle for what they can get because what they really want seems impossible to reach or requires more effort than they're willing to put forth. The latter would be my personal problem. I'm one lazy motherfucker.

I honestly don't know who I'm writing for... I don't think anyone reads this diary anymore, but that's fine. It's just a tiny catharsis for me to babble once in a while, anyway, so it doesn't matter if it's read by anyone or not. The point is that I don't believe in settling for something you don't truly love, especially if it's a person or a place. If you live somewhere that doesn't feel like home or if you pair up with someone who doesn't feel like home... why would you? To me, it would be like pretending. Look at all the people constantly moving, changing jobs, or divorcing. Is it so impossible to find home anymore?

I guess so.

And I can't really blame individuals. The whole world seems to be Under Pressure to be something they're not... to live up to impossible ideals. Couple up or be a miserable pariah! Buy a home bigger than is humanly necessary or you're not successful! If you don't make lots of money, you're not successful! It's as though happiness has been forfeit to what the masses tell you to be. You can't possibly be happy unless your life suits some standard. Balderdash.

This gigantic instant gratification mess is really a problem, too. Good things comes to those who wait? What's this shit? NOW NOW NOW! Gimme! It's no fucking wonder people settle for crap then get fed up with it and toss it aside to move on to the next big temporary fix.

Think of the human "soul" or consciousness and a giant flood held back by a dam. Every dam has the tiniest of cracks when it's formed. Rather than find out what happens when the dam breaks, people slap bandaids on the cracks--bandaids being mediocre crap that doesn't really fulfil them. The things that would really fulfil them would probably cement the dam. Bandaids don't do crap. Over time, the cracks get larger and larger... well, you can figure out the rest of this metaphor.

I've got nothing more to add. Go be happy, and I'll try to do the same.

The sky this morning is beyond beautiful. What I mean is that the word beautiful doesn't begin to describe it. I was coming out of the grocery store (because my sleeping is all fucked up due to raging insomnia--more on that later), and I was on the brink of sunrise. Dark, velvet blue mixed with light stratus clouds from horizon to horizon. It wasn't really the clouds that made it so lovely... it was the color. It was like navy and indigo's love-child.

On the way home, the typical Kentuckian, hot-pink dawn started to break up the the blue.

Such a pretty thing to witness when you have the time to stop and look at it. I suppose if you can't stop and admire the world for how amazing it is, you should probably question why you're living in it. I mean, it's a speck of dust in the cosmos... but it's a damn amazing speck. I think a lot of people forget or just don't think about how enormous the universe is. The place we live in is more than a space that stretches from horizon to horizon. Trillions upon trillions of lightyears in every direction. Our own galaxy is just around 100,000 lightyears in diameter and has a few hundred billion stars. Most people don't even know that galaxies are thought to be born from black holes or that the Milky Way's black hole has her very own photo portfolio--that is, you can actually see her right now because she's munching on a passing cloud of gas. And let's not forget our neighbor, Andromeda, who's going to collide with us in a few billion years. That should be quite a show.

But us? We're a teeny tiny planet floating around in just the right conditions to substain life. Nevermind that asteroid 1950 DA that's headed right for us in 800 and some years.

Enjoy the sky while you can. Life's too short, and you're too small to take such a gigantic thing for granted.