To Embellish

I suppose it's high time for a post about my life, mainly for my mother and my sister - my mother, who I haven't called in a while, and my sister likewise. The thing about this job is you can only say so much, and then that sort of bleeds in to the rest of your life, like mud spreads. And all of the sudden your life is a gray mesh of classified information.

This is where I am.

I moved to a new squadron. So far I've been made to go on to a shift that's nights...which is awesome...but that includes a 4 hour shift on Saturday - which is decidedly not so. And I was volentold to do some duty at 6 am on a saturday. And I took part in a squadron-wide piss test in order to root our columbian drug lords or some other such nonsense. Welcome!

I hate it.

I'm trying to not be so negative. I remembered, from some previous "I can't talk about this" sort of training, that I had a nervous smile. I don't think I have that anymore. I have a nervous frown, and a calm frown, and a happy frown. Let's not go that far, but we're getting there. I tend to complain. I tend to whine. I should stop that, but then I'm looking for something really good - really good in my life. There are plenty of things I just have to grab hold of and shake and squirm like one of those tube blob things you can't really get a hold of. I'd rather not explain.

Otherwise...not much.

I read less, I write less. Here is a hilight. I'm taking drum lessons and practicing a lot. I've wanted to do this since I was young, but then, we always had guitars around. I play my electronic set and I do drills and etc. It's not ideal, but it's a light, for sure.

Side note. I remember when I used to go to church, in high school, in youth group...we were trying to come up with a new name for the youth group, rather that YOTM - Youth on the Move. My suggestion was B.U.T.T.E.R - Bound Undeniably To The Everlasting Rock. The one that ended up getting voted in to power was Luce or Luchay. The Italian word for light. Pronounced Loo-chay. It wasn't universally accepted. So a few of us painted the podium to say stuff about butter, and had verses about butter, etc. I really enjoyed that time.

Butter.

I'm trying to spend time with people, and I'm getting back in to creativity - being interesting - transcending. There are definitely bright points in my world.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Two percocet, some cotton soaked in clove juice, an upset stomach, and about twenty starburst jelly beans later, and I'm writing a blog entry at one in the morning. It was dry socket, I'm out of pills, and I have no ambition.

Hemingway was the man's man of writers. He used to tie himself to his chair, get drunk, and go until he passed out I guess. I may do the same tonight. Lewis Carroll's drug of choice was LSD, why can't mine be prescription?

Today I discovered that I can feel the hole in my lower left gums, and my upper right one is starting to hurt. It may degrade into dry socket like my lower right. I suppose I can stand the pain, and it's odd, but one of the main things I take into consideration when delegating my hope is whether it will get me out of work or not. This may, so I'm crossing my fingers for it.

I don't know if it's the sitting in a room with the same people, the sense of no direction, or the knowledge that I'm forced to take part in a system I don't believe in and am not interested in, like a minaret that hate's disco forced to perform Saturday Night Fever, but on the days I don't go to work compared with those when I do I find it's the difference between trying to spot a zebra in the serengeti or in a polka-dot pillow sale. That is, I don't feel quite at home. That is, I feel like an entirely different human being that thinks he wants things, and wants to appear certain ways, that the me laying on my floral patterned couch wearing a floral patterned bath robe would never even consider. That wasn't suggesting I'm hiding something like Heath in Brokeback Mountain was, it's a throwback to the camouflage analogy.

To keep this from getting too heavy (I was told that "ism" don't make for good crowd interaction in a place that ends in .com) I'll clarify that yes, now I have gotten dry socket in one tooth. They packed it with some kind of cottony looking stuff that is supposed to act as "scaffolding" for the gums to repair themselves. Apparently the scaffolding my body provided took a long union break, then went on strike, or went to protest the damage being wreaked on the liver, or something. Except there were no scabs to bring in this time: pun intended. This cottony stuff was soaked in an oil that smells like cloves and tastes like digested and crapped out cloves, and ended up making me feel high and nauseous by the end of the night. I said, "My feet feel far away."

I'm reminded of Shawshank Redemption. "You know, the funny thing is, on the outside I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook." I was a good high schooler, and it took me joining the military to get me tripping the light fantastic, kissing the sky, etc. Going to the square dance. That's an LSD reference.

The professor has been very sweet lately. I need to put seed in the bird feeder outside my window. My hair is even more red looking since I tried to bleach it. I still don't have a camera. Licorice tea is delicious, but somewhat hard to find. Why must emotions nearly always skew relationships for the worse? I'm very satisfied with my last round of shopping. The joy of intellectual stimulation is something akin to sex and I don't know how I get along when I'm not having it. A new office is on this Thursday, I think. Happy Birthday Amy, I'll give her a more proper post tomorrow, when I also buy her gift. Chinese is a useful skill, like when the seamstress only speaks chinese, and gives you a huge discount when you chat with her in it.

This is where I sleep, little whiskered ones.

"A cat may look at a king. I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where."

Renaissance Soul

I think this article is talking about me. I especially reverberate with the part about being jealous of people that have only on passion. I think I can jump into things and be really into them for just a bit, and then I quickly move on to something else.

The trick is just to make whatever I'm doing productive and creative. It seems like Leonardo DaVinci might have been this kind of person - painting, anatomy, inventing. I need to be independently wealthy so I can pursue whatever I want whenever I want.

Crunch Time

New book out next saturday.

Half way thru book 5.

Still have to do college class homework.

Plan tonight...sleep less, wake up early, get things done.

The Reason I Only Talk About My Cat...

Is because I have no life.

That said. I went out Friday night with people from my class to a bar called Double Down. It's sorta like a sports bar I guess...there's a deck outside and sand volleyball courts...but that's kinda it. Everything else is just sorta thrown in to make it sporty, it seemed to me. Wednesday was Tucker's birthday, so that's why we went. Redbull and vodka is a decent drink - cause I gotta not drink smirnoff ice - I am getting REEEMed for it.

Then yesterday I slept till about noon, woke up...took my laundry to the korean lady, went grocery shopping (it's been a good...month and a half), picked up my laundry...went home...fell asleep till 9 pm. Got up, played some video games, read some harry potter, fell asleep at about 3 am. Then I just woke up at about 2 pm cause the Professor came in, making a weird meow. It's cause his mouth had a big cricket in it he had found somewhere. I encouraged him so he'd keep killing the bastards.

The other day my friend Jason Copp came over and brought his new puppy. They're naming him Rudy, but I thought he should have been named Gyro.

The Promised

So I'm going to write a bit about my life right now. I just read andrew's blog where he gets to talk about what he learns at work/school. I can't really do that generally, which makes it difficult. But rest assured that this rockin classified stuff I'm learning is generally the kind of stuff you'd look at and say, "That's IT!?" You know, psychic brain probes and remote viewing.

What is the government not telling you? I know, and it's not that exciting. And no, it doesn't make Bush a better President, or make a Cheney or more honest man if you knew what was going on behind closed doors.

So now, where am I? I've started the class I'll probably be in till about Christmas time. I like the people in my class a lot - between séances we find time for sudoku and general merry-making. I had my first graded sim today and passed. I think I can say that and not be saying anything illegal. Yes, it was playing the sims and being graded. I had to add a third story to my family's house and make the husband and wife make woopee in the hot tub. I was nervous, but it was no big deal, as things tend to be when you start actually doing them.

On tuesdays, thursdays, and fridays we play ultimate frisbee for pc (physical conditioning). I'm usually picked pretty early on despite often throwing bad passes and elbowing people in the face (unintentionally of course (not really)). It's getting humid and hot here, and the base is near an Iams or Friskies or something factory where they make dog food. So sometimes you walk outside in 90+ degree weather, 70%+ humidity, and it smells like horse carcass and you just wanna puke all over the ground. You get out of the shower and feel like you wanna get right back in, but it's not that bad. I like how it feels at 5:30 in the morning when I go to work (on the 6am to 12pm shift right now). But the gym we're in for ultimate (we play in an indoor soccer field) has no exhaust and...I don't think has any air conditioning...so it's gotta be like 3000% humidity. You set your car keys down on the bench and you start pouring sweat.

I come home and I read books and read stuff online mostly, occasionally watch a movie, man vs. wild, the daily show, or the colbert report. That's about what encompasses my weekdays. I avoid loading/unloading the dishwasher as long as I can, as well as going grocery shopping. So I usually have clean dishes sitting in the dishwasher, nothing but tuna and boxed rice in the cupboard, and dried cheese/whatever I mixed it with (chips, eggs) stuck on the plates in the sink. Then I end up just drinking the last bit of the big 2 gallon jug of water straight from the container in the fridge before caving and spending my $200 on my sex-weekly (okay that sounds scandalous - what would it be? bi weekly, tri, quad...what's six?) grocery shopping trip.

The Professor's still pretty cool, but I think he's been gaining weight just sitting around all day, so I've started putting his food up while I leave. I'd love to let him out but there are 2 problems:
1) When I put a collar on him he just jacks with it till he can get it off.
2) The door to my apartment is in a hall that has another door to the outside, so when he'd want back in I don't know how I'd know unless I could train him to come to the window he escaped out of.
I'd also like to let him out cause he's starting doing this obnoxious meow, and sitting by the door - obviously trying to tell me he wants to go out. But he does it at like 2 am and wakes me up. I don't know why he keeps it up cause I haven't once actually let him out while he does it. I've started saying "Quiet!" and chasing him around a little.

Let's see...anything else to add? Taking a computer class online thru Metro Community College to fulfill what I need to get my associates degree thru DLI. I'm signed up for a biology class and a college algebra class next semester. I felt pretty proud of myself and I'll tell you why: Sophomore year in high school I took Algebra 2/Trig. After that year I took a math placement test at the comm college in So Cal and I tested into college math/statistics...like the math 140 range. Didn't actually take any classes until 2 years later after I graduated. I had to take the math placement test again and I tested into the math 070 range! Which is basically Algebra 2/Trig again. So in 2002 I took that class again. It has hence been 5 years. I had to take a math placement test again, so I bought an Algebra book and studied on my own before taking it. I got thru the book and tested into statistics...so like the math 140 range. So after 5 years of no math I managed to test into the same level as I did right after I finished the highest math I've taken. So I felt pretty good about that.

I actually like math now. I like figuring stuff out just thru logic - stuff that I don't necessarily know the real formula for. I always liked the humanities esk subjects more...but on the standardized tests in high school I always did better on the math parts.

I think that's quite long enough for now. Maybe more later. I'm sure there's more.

More: I work here.

The Vampire Within

Over this weekend, myself and my whole class has to make the transition from 6pm to 12am class to 6am to 12pm. I can never go to bed early, I just end up laying awake in bed until I usually go to sleep (which right now is 4 am). So this is what I did:

Yesterday I woke up about noon. Instead of going to sleep at 4 am, sleeping till noon today, and then trying to go to sleep at like 9 pm today...I stayed up till about 11 am this morning, then went to bed, and I just got up, and it's about 9 pm now. So now I'm going to stay up and go to class and then probably end up falling asleep like afternoon on monday. So this way...yeah I sort of lost a night of sleep...but I'm not tired and I'm just using my tendency to stay up late to adjust my sleep schedule in a way that feels more natural. Before, half my waking free time was in the middle of the night anyway.

So we'll see how it works out.

Superman

I think I go through spells of what I'm interested in, but these last for months at a time. I'm thinking, though, that if I could identify the order of my interests, I could somehow harness that power, like a bolt of lighting and frankenstein.

It seems to, at least sometimes, go - that I just play a ton of video games cause I just want to be entertained - then I feel as though I'm wasting my life on the video games, so I stop them, and get really productive. During those times I'll try to write a lot, read a lot of books, research things...etc. At some point I start to see the inadequacy of these pursuits and I get kind of wistful and musical, and like to plan trips and write fiction. Then I think that degrades back into just being entertained and the cycle starts again.

I just came up with this a couple weeks ago and I might just be creating it in my own mind - but if it's true it could explain why I, for instance, want to change my proposed major every few months (it's still philosophy, for the time), or why I'll have spells of weeks when I am very social and entertaining, and spells where I just like to go home and do whatever it is I do. Maybe everyone has these kinds of things, but I just wonder if the ebb and flow doesn't have a logic to it.

Right now I'm productive. That's lasted me a while - maybe I can form that into a habit so it'll just become me. I'm reading a lot of books (Neitzsche, right now), studying math, cleaning my apartment. It's during these times that I'm most optimistic about what mankind, and I, specifically, could accomplish with focus. It's during these times that Benjamin Franklin's attempts to perfect himself seem like something to consider, rather than laugh at. Maybe what takes me out of these times, though, is getting lonely. Not many of these kinds of pursuits are conducive to a crowd, with any honesty at least, though their worth it.

I guess a balance would be what the psychologist would prescribe, Chuck Palahnuik wrote, "trust me, you won't look back and savor the moments you spent alone."

But Neitzsche apparently did, as he wrote, "All great things occur away from glory and the market-place...Flee, my friend, into your solitude."

Schedule

This has become my schedule:

Up at 6, leave at 7:15.

School starts at 8. Lasts till 4ish.

Come home, read, write, check email.

5ish, fall asleep.

7ish wake up. Eat dinner.

8:30 go to krav.

9:45, come home.

10-11 watch Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

11-11:30 Read.

11:30 fall asleep.

Repeat ad nauseum. I gotta cut the nap out, it's killin my productive time.