“If I had my life to live over I’d like to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual trouble, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.”

- Jean da La Bruyére

I have here a podcast from This American Life on NPR that I remember listening to a very long time ago. The entire podcast is about an hour long, but the invisibility vs flight section runs from roughly the 5 minute mark to the 20 minute mark. It is well worth the listen; it deals largely with the psychological and sociological implications of having a superpower.

Invisibility vs Flight Podcast

Enjoy.

“Sure, I follow the herd- not out of brainless obedience, mind you, but out of a deep and abiding respect for the concept of community.”

i think the smell of cold air would be a sky blue.

It’s almost two thirty here, and I’m typing in the dark on my laptop… note my lack of both numerals and any punctuation other than periods or commas. This is because I can’t see anything the way I’m laying with the computer on my thighs in the dark. Trying to hit dash and missing, then having to try and find backspace… too much work. I’m not even really using the shift key. Since I’m tying this is Microsoft word, it capitalizes most of the important stuff for me automatically. Notice how Microsoft gets a capital M.

What.
The.
Fuck.

I should be working on something for school. That, however, is proving to be a fruitless venture. I’d rather sleep than write anymore for school, and I’d rather write something not for school than sleep. More than that I’d like to go get my guitar out for a bit, but at two thirty in the AM I think not. I don’t play enough anymore. I don’t think I played enough ever, but that’s neither here nor there… I play less now than I used to is the point.

So here I am, writing and writing and writing. Why is it so hard to write for school and so easy otherwise? Ha. I got sneaky there… That was a question mark I busted out without really thinking about it… I’m looking forward to the narrative that I have to write soon. I think it will be relatively easy to do. It’s fairly long… six pages I think, but I’d have to double check to be sure… but I imagine that it will come out pretty quickly. This is a good thing since I will invariably be writing it while under duress to go play board games.

I hung out with Jeano today. I really miss seeing her. We used to go bowling like once a week when she lived in Michigan. Then she moved to NY and we have seen less and less of each other since then. Knowing she is going to be in Ecuador for 27 months is a bit daunting. I had never really thought about it before, but she’s actually been the catalyst for two of my relationships. What a queer thought.

I was talking to someone tonight and during the course of conversation she said that she doesn’t do well with sameness, that if things are going too smooth she creates things to rock the boat… non verbatim and summarized of course. And while I didn’t say so, I understood almost exactly what she was saying. I am at my best when things are a bit of a mess. I could give some sort of silly ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ sort of explanation, but in addition to being absolutely cliché it doesn’t really explain it. Simply put, I thrive on a bit of chaos. I’m the kind of person you’d want with you on a sinking ship, in a burning building, or during a zombie out break. Jenna and I were friends for exactly that reason, I think. The way she fucked stuff up for both of us kept things interesting. Kristen was/is/(will be?) the same way. She rolls around once a year and just stirs up a shit storm. I can’t really say that I don’t look forward to her visits, though. There’s nothing quite like vodka at the cemetery.

Shaking like a dog shittin’ razorblades,
waking up next to nothing after dreaming of you and me
I’m waking up all alone, waking up so relieved
while you’re taking your time with apologies,
I’m making my plans for revenge
Red eyes on orange horizons
If Columbus was wrong I’d drive straight off the edge
I’d drive straight off the edge

The Alkaline Trio - Radio

If Hildegard of Bingen were alive today, I think she’d be mixing and remixing for some club in Ibiza.

If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will take you there.

I imagine that one of the worst feelings in the world, next in line after castration and disembowlment, is fear. Not terror, mind you- where conscious thought is shut off and you piss on yourself- but plain old simple fear; the kind that doesn’t go away. Maybe it’s the fear of death… You lie awake at night wondering what comes after you pass. You pray that your death is not a violent or painful one. You want to go silently, painlessly, while you are sleeping- just not this night, or tomorrow, or the next.

The worst part about a fear like that is it is never ending. It doesn’t fade or dispel with time. Instead? It lurks. It bides it’s time, whispering to your mind, fortifying itself until, in a near prophetic manner, your fear climaxes in the form of the actual event. Then what? Death brings a manner of peace in this regard- there’s no more living in the shadow of your fear fulfilled. Fear of rejection? Of failure? Of outliving a spouse or loved one? These are fear you experience all the way through.

I don’t lay awake at night, with fear of something dominating my thoughts. I lay awake at night wondering what it must be like to lay awake fearful. I don’t have any, and maybe it’s ignorance or stupidity or something else, but in this case I’m glad to err on the side of bliss.

Main Entry: amor·al
Pronunciation: (”)A-’mor-&l, (”)a-, -’mär-
Function: adjective
1 a : being neither moral nor immoral; specifically : lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply (science as such is completely amoral — W. S. Thompson) b : lacking moral sensibility (infants are amoral)
2 : being outside or beyond the moral order or a particular code of morals (amoral customs)