Sunday, August 31, 2003
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Thursday night. I couldn't sleep for reasons I can't exactly describe. I kept myself busy by working on my new blog template. When I had early finished it I took a break. It was closing on 7:00 in the morning and I my bed looked inviting. I lay on my bed, and with my hand, separated the blinds and peered out into the dawn sky. I live on the the second floor of my dorm and my bed is ontop of cement blocks, putting it level with the window sill. There were only a few pink clouds in arranged seemingly radial, the center being where, in a few minutes, the sun would peer through the mossy trees and over the blackened horizon. The sky burned an array of every color possible between blue and orange along the red side of the color wheel. My eyes throbbingly dry, I lay comfortably, pondering meanings of the random, and otherwise sensory deprived. When suddenly my vision was consumed by a blindingly orange light, forcing heavy translucent lids to creep shut, transforming the blinding into a pallid flush. Sleep fell quickly, and agaist my better judgement I slept through my morning classes of the day. It was actually strage how it happened. My alarm rang, but as always I pushed the snooze button. I fell back asleep, and a few minutes later my roommate got up just as he always does and took a shower, but what seemed like oly a few minutes was actually a few hours. I had checked my watch when I heard him get in the shower, but I had only looked at the minute hand. When he got out I realized it was 10:30. Fuck.
Well, either way, the first week of school was ok. After reading Laura's most recent blog about the feeling she gets about school, I remembered a similar feeling that I got back in High School, but it's so different here the feeling has left, and different one's that I cannot yet describe have been born. The always desired freedom is strange. Hopefully I'll adjust to it.
This thought disintegrated at 12:29 AM
Thought Consciousness
There is an area between awake and asleep that I've been experiencing a lot lately, not that I haven't before, but since I've been sick, it has become much more frequent. When I'm attempting to sleep ( I try and take a nap around noon between classes) when I first lay down I'm aware of my surroundings (example: sometimes i put my stereo on low and just listen for awhile) and I begin to just think about things. Slowly I begin to lose consciousness of my surroundings and all thats left are those thoughts, so that all I'm aware of are my thoughts. Then I'll stay there for a long period of time, in between, it feels really weird, and from there it can go two ways. The first is that the thoughts continue and begin taking on images and spiral out of control straight into a dream. That feels really weird, because if I go that way the images seem like they are on the back of my eyelids, because im not quite asleep when the dream begins, so my brain places it somewhere, as if I'm looking at a movie almost. The other thing that could happen is that I will suddenly realize that I can't sense my surroundings and snap out of it (like when I'm listening to music i will suddenly realize that I can't hear it anymore and my ears click on almost instantaneuosly). The weirdest thing happened to me the other day when I started to drift off into a dream, but then snapped out of it before I lost control over my thoughts. I remember an image began to fade in behind my eyelids, a first person perspective of my as a little child sitting on the floor of my house with my shadow directly in front of me, then another shadow came into view and it was my sisters shadow, she looked like she was on the phone. Then I was like 'wait, I'm not in my house', and my eyes burst open so fast, that for a few moments I could see the afterimage of the shadows. Totally freaked me out. I think I'm going out of my mind. I feel sick and strange things have been happening to me, many related to my vision. The other day I was walking back along a sidewalk from my class talking to my Dad on the phone. I was about to cross the street so naturally I looked behind me to see if there was a car coming, and as I turned back the horizon seemed to turn vertical and my equilibrium went all over the place, I fell down on my knees and sat back for a second, to regain myself. It seriously freaked me out, and for a little while after that, distances seemed extremely unrealistic. So I sat down on a bench for a minute and called Chandler to see if he was anywhere near me so he could walk me home, but he wasn't so after a minute I got up and walked the rest of the way, I was fine again. Today I was with Chandler and we walked into his dorm and I immediately had to brace myself on a desk, the room just started to tilt. I was fine a bit later, but I don't know. I feel extremely fragile, when I fell on my knees the other day I thought I was going to break. Weirdness.
Monday, August 25, 2003
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Saturday, August 23, 2003
Thursday, August 21, 2003
I awoke this morning from a terrible slumber, if you can even call it sleeping. Really it was more of a back wrenching jerk to sit up in a cold sweat every 15 minutes. Sleep was hardly possible between the tossing and turning and the silence piercing rustle of my blinds whenever I brushed them, or speeding air from my white fan ran past them. The hot and cold, hot and cold of the waving fan, forever seeming like its searching for something but can't find it, became increasingly annoying as more and more there was a squeaking as it turned to its far apex and then back again. A squeaking that grew louder than the blinds until it became so ear piercingly loud, I fixed its position on my lower half so it would squeak ad search no more. When finally I had received the daily call of my alarm clock at 7:30, I clambered out of the ruined paradise that was my bed, grabbed some clothing and took a shower, and as I climbed in a turned the light out. The only light to be seen was that coming from the edges of the closed and locked door. I take dark showers a great deal because of their incredibly relaxing nature, just feel the water rather than use your eyes to look at it or otherthings such as yourself, I wasn't too excited to see my insomnia deformed body at that particular time. In the dark you often have to guess between shampoo and conditioner, I always seem to get it right, perhaps because somewhere in the back of my mind I remember the order I put them in. Which makes me wonder what other unconscious memories hide back there. Dressed, fed, ready, I felt somewhere between sick and healthy, asleep and awake, though insomnia is not new to me, this sick feeling was very much so. I biked down the always changing paths of people to my class, I felt hollow inside. I felt that if I had fallen I would shatter into a billion tiny pieces, as if I was made only of clay, made, molded and hardened by a sculptur named time, and his mistakes and imperfections make this clay much less than invulnerable, despite its appearance.
This thought disintegrated at 12:35 PM
If a deaf man screams in a forest, but no one is around to hear him, does he make a sound? What if he's not deaf.
If a blind boy is born by the sands of the desert, but no one ever saw him, does he exist? What if he's not blind?
If you were to put a rat in a box, and filled the box with a gas that may or may not be poisonous, then the rat is neither dead nor alive, but somewhere in between, until you open the box.
The mind makes it so.
This thought disintegrated at 12:09 AM
Well this is it, classes start tomorrow, I have to get myself ready for the college life and all the hours of hard work and study that must be done...... NOT! I'm going my classes will rule! So heres my schedule:
Monday:
Intro to Theater, Multicultural Film in the 20th century culture and at night Intro to Theater
Tuesday:
Elementary Oceanography, and at night Intro to Sociology (which I want to chage to Psychology)
Wednesday:
Intro to Theater, Multicultural Film in the 20th century culture and at night Intro to Theater
Thursday:
Elementary Oceanography, and at night Intro to Sociology
Friday:
Intro to Theater, Multicultural Film ad I'm done for the weekend at 11:00!
BOOYA! Yes It does rule, but I'm trying to find a General Psychology class thats at about the same time as my sociology class so I can switch them out. Whats even cooler is that on M W F, all my classes are in the same building! What luck! To bad its on the other side of campus, but its a ok bike ride as I've said before. In other news, my site will be undergoing a major template change in the followig weeks, but it will take me awhile cuz I'm making it all from scratch. Making the template, the layout, and yes even the graphics will be from scratch (I'm drawing them). So it will be a little while, but when its done it will be major coolness. Also, I saw Matrix: Reloaded in IMAX last night. HOLY ..... um (thinking of a good word to use but can't). It was so incredible, so huge, so in your face. The scene with Trinity on the bike going against traffic on the freeway was freaking intense! You haven't seen the Matrix until you see it on IMAX! Ok now I sound like an ad, so I'd better shut up.
This thought disintegrated at 12:34 PM
Well, Damn. My roomate finally moved in, I was kinda hoping he wouldn't, then I could have the whole room and all the furniture to myself but oh well. He seems pretty cool though, I only talked to him for a few minutes before he left to go shopping with he folks, but from what I can tell he plays guitar, and he brought a microwave (woohooo!). So now I can have easymac and other great Microwaveable things.
I'd like to tell you about the creepiest place I've ever seen in my life, and hey its less than five miles from where I live now. It's ' Sunland Mental Hospital ' and it's been codemned for about 20 years. Driving up to it, it doesn't look like much, a 4 story building overgrown with vines and whatnot, broken windows, rusty gates, barred windows ad the usual creepy stuff. The real creepiness is in the story about the kind of people that lived there. When it was first built it housed the criminally insane (hence the bars on the windows). All the criminally insane from the entire state were housed here, and oh yes, there were a few escapees. After awhile it was no longer a prison for the criminally insane, they had new tenants. It became a hospital for children with serious birth defects. All the thalydomide (sp?) babies in Florida, and many other types of serious defects (such as water on the brain, dementia, exterior organ developement (which is like organs developing on the outside of your body)). Oh and for those of you who don't know what Thalydomide babies are here you go: In the 50s or 60s (cant remember which) several medicines came out with a drug called Thalydomide in it. Many people thought it was a miracle drug, util they saw the horrible side effects. Women taking this drug during pregnancy gave birth to horribly deformed children and the drug was banned from the market. If you've ever heard of children born with flippers instead of limbs, this is where that comes from. Most of these babies didn't live for very long, but most of theses babies born in Florida went to this mental hospital to later die. Man I'm getting the chills just typig this from a safe 5 miles away. The place just has a really, really bad vibe.
Well aside from the bone-chilling tales of the Sunland Mental Hospital, I've been informed by my suite-mate and RA Colin that Hoobastank is playing for free today at 3:00, so I'm proabably going to go to that. Wow. An extremely hot girl named Sarah just invited me to a party later. Crazy! I'm starting to like this place.
This thought disintegrated at 12:54 PM
The New World
The cool thing about this place...... ITS NOT ALPHARETTA, and I don't mean that in context with friends and family, my point is merely this, how many have you been driving around with friends and you can't figure out what to do because in Alpharetta there isn't much to do? Not so much of that here. And its so much more beautiful (building color schemes, natural anomalies etc.) that is actually very pleasant to just take a walk (as opposed to rather unpleasant in most places in Alpharetta). Granted it is hot in the afternoon, but most of the campus walkways are veiled from the sun by huge oaks covered in a beautiful Spanish moss and other mosses. Downtown is cool too, its like a little mini-city, with a colorscheme that matches everything else. Its got large buildings and little town squares, but you could probably walk form one end to the other in less than a hour. And heres something I find amusing. Many people here call the capital building, the (ahem) cock and balls, heres why. When they built city hall they put two domed wings on either side, and later someone built a high rise building directly behind it so if you're driving right up to city hall (down Apalachee way I think) it look like a giant cock and balls. Interesting huh? Oh and here's something wonderful too, Laura prepare to be Jealous, downtown (which is only a 10 minute walk from my dorm) is an IMAX theater and this weeked they're showing The Matrix: Reloaded. So this weekend I get to see (what is it like 10 stories?) of massive Keanu, kickin some massive ass. ot going to lie, that is goign to be fun. In other news, My Job interview went well, they asked me to come back on Monday to see if my schedule fit their schedule. I met another guy named Ia the toher day too, and strangely he reminded me of Bob, except a little shorter and more football player-ish. Kinda freaky.
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
I spent the whole drive down here recounting all the things that have happened to me in the past year. It felt strange, as if it had been recollected from a past life. In some ways it has. The first thing I thought of was that around this time last year, I met my future ex-girlfriend. Filming The Lost Soldiers with Tommy, she and I had met on one day in which it began to pour rain in the middle of filming. We were all out, deep in the woods, when it suddenly began to pour. We all got soaked, but it was still a lot of fun. And then I remember The Elephant Man, my first play at Milton. There were two things I remember most about that play. The first was the trailer I had made for that play, and all the positive feedback I got from it. The other was the strange blossoming relationship between Laura and I. I started to feel (lack of words to describe) when she would hold my hand either in class or during the production, that and a few other things combined gave birth to this blog. Too bad I couldn’t have made anything out of that. Then came Anonymous the I. Which started out as a mistake when I did not fill in my name on a comment in Laura’s blog and she and others seemed intrigued by the knowledge put forth. So I took the idea and ran with it, dropping clues and hints everywhere, which no one seemed to pick up on. I found it fun to put forth a different point of view through a person who did not exist. I got the most comments on my blog ever on a post that incited an on going investigation into the identity of Anonymous. And what better way to monitor peoples suspicions the have them posted on my message board. What fun that was. Second semester was a different story. Things began to spiral from good to bad to worst. Towards the beginning I met Sarah Thomas on AIM, and she and I became friends rather quickly. Laura and I drifted apart a bit, my fault mostly. The stress factory that was Twilight Zone, my parents riding my back, and all that stuff, drove me to nicotine and depression. During Twilight Zone I tossed around the idea of asking Aniele out in my head, but the stress was a little to overwhelming to add anything else in. And when it was over, my social life started to crack and fall apart. Tara had come back into my life, I was grounded a lot, and I had to spend a lot of time in math, but Sarah and Chandler were there for me, through a lot of it. I still managed to make a lot of bad decisions. All of which I’m sure most of the people who still read this know about. And then it all exploded right in my face, and quite unfortunately I had to deal with it over AIM, I was in Athens, Sarah in Alpharetta and Tara in New Jersey. At that moment I had become everything that I hated in my gender. Everything, and not more than two months earlier I had sworn to myself that I was above that, and would never become that. Strange how things can turn around on you in a instant like that, and you can wind up hating yourself. I remember one major things Tara asked me during that conversation, “If you were in my position would you forgive?” and I spoke one true word “No.” Yet she forgave me anyway, and claimed that I was worth another chance. I tried to make myself worth another chance. The day after she returned from New Jersey I made her a picnic, no ordinary picnic mind you. It took place around 9:00 PM while it was pouring rain. I set up a blanket in the middle of the floor in my mother’s gym, the floor is very large for those who didn’t know. On that blanket I set up a single scented candle, a small stereo with a mix I had made her inside, brought her favorite cookies, bubbles and some (ahem) drinks. Off to the side I bought fifty tea candles and arranged them to spell “I (heart) U” when lit…. Two days later she left again, and when she came back things were different. She didn’t love me anymore, but she didn’t tell me until much later, I deserved that though. When all of it exploded, I thought that I would be going to college in trouble with the law and with no girlfriend. I spent most of my summer paying for another mistake I made involving the law. Selling my car and working my ass off to pay for a lawyer myself, and then working 80 hours of community service at the recycling center, but thankfully on August 6th that ended and Sarah and I got off with only a 500 dollar penalty. The following weeks, people began to leave, but I felt closer to my original group of people we were at the beginning of the year than ever before. Aniele and I began to speak again, and very enjoyably too. Laura returned from her little visit to New York, and before I left, she and I talked much as we had at the beginning of the year, it’s weird, it’s not so much the words exchanged, but more the tone of voice and mood of the exchange. That made me feel well again with her. I’d like to explain something, I wanted to have something positive that would, in ways, bind me back to Alpharetta so that it wouldn’t feel like I was leaving forever. At the beginning of the summer I thought it would be Tara. Ironically, however, my original predictions came true. On Wednesday, I was at Milton and I got a ticket for Criminal Trespassing, even more ironically I was on my way to see Tara. The next day she broke up with me. So here I am, starting a new life in Florida, and my strongest tie to Alpharetta, is a ticket, but I try to keep a positive attitude. “When life gives you the finger, smile and give it back.”
Well anyway, my Dorm fucking rocks my ass off, though its all kinds of small, I still think its fucking awesome. When I got here I thought it would suck because the suite attached to mine is the RA suite. But the I realized a few things, that its only one guy, so its 3 guys to a bathroom rather than 4, which is definitely better, and I met the guy and he’s pretty fucking cool. Like I expected him to look like a camp counselor or something and he comes in with a Mohawk and his heavy-metal music blaring through the bathroom door. My roommate isn’t here yet though, so it’s kind of lonely, but I’m enjoying the room to myself at the moment. I have a new cell-phone and if you would like my number, leave a comment and I’ll try and give you a call.
This thought disintegrated at 1:25 AM
Today was interesting. I woke up at 7:45 and got ready as if I were going to school. Back at home it usually took me about an hour, but here it’s almost as if time moves slower. It took me 25 minutes to get ready… Anyway, I hopped on my bike and rode over to where my classes are for Monday, which are on the opposite side of campus, but it only took me about 10 minutes to get there. When, I get there I was half-way to where my job interview is, so I went ahead and rode downtown to Andy’s Bar and Grill. Andy is a good friend of my family, and my father and Uncle worked there when they were my age. So there’s a good chance I can get a job there. Afterwards I came back and took a little nap, but again, time seemed to move more slowly, my nap felt like 6 hours when, in fact, it was only 2. It felt weird. When I woke up I called a friend Paola, who is also going to FSU. We met up and hung out for awhile, I showed her my dorm and she showed me hers, we ate Taco Bell, and watched Family Feud at her place. Then I left and came home, it feels kinda weird calling this place home, but I’m getting used to it pretty quick. All in all it was a cool day. They were having a poster sale at the bookstore and I was so pissed I didn’t have any money, they had this Kill Bill poster I really wanted. Maybe they’ll have it again another day.
This thought disintegrated at 12:27 AM
