Category: Angst

Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

December 21, 2001 /

I’m trying to figure out how to do some sort of Xorph special, since Tuesday (ie Newcomicday) is also, um, Christmas.It’s going to be difficult without the ability to draw anything. Maybe I should do it in ASCII art.

You can’t buy real Christmas lights anymore. You go to Wal-Mart, you find the seasonal aisle in the back corner by the gardening supplies, you expect massive stacks of light boxes. Not so! You can, technically, still buy the traditional tiny-white-bulb strings–but that’s about it. No C9s or 7.5s, not even multicolored small bulbs. Instead we have–yes!–the stupid light extravanganza!

You have your net lights, which are a cheap and stupid way to get out of wading into the bushes. You have your rope lights, which are not only ugly but unwieldy. You have your bubble lights, which are fine, in limited qualities, indoors. And you have truckloads of curtain / icicle lights, which are–I firmly believe this–the will of Satan manifest on Earth.

All of this is meant, essentially, to explain the slightly odd configuration of this year’s Second House on the Left light display. We had a nice multi-colored theme going on, up until I ran out of working colored strings and still had three trees (the big ones, naturally) to go. The aforementioned trip to Wal-Mart produced the aforementioned results, and only by scavenging the clearance rack at Big Lots did we come up with five strings of C9s. Unfortunately, all of them were entirely white.

I got two of the big trees with said white lights, which at least makes for a symmetrical design. The problem was this: the enormously fat tree by the basketball goal (which I have privately nicknamed “Brendan’s Self-Image”) was mostly strung with colored lights already, and needed maybe one more string to top it off. A white string would have to be distributed evenly or look like whipped cream atop a cherry-and-lime jello mold.

This is why I sat on the driveway for twenty minutes today, unscrewing and switching bulbs between one white string and six colored ones.

Experts estimate that I have spent at least six months of my life doing menial, pointless work like that.

in through my veins
without brains

November 30, 2001 /

Running on three hours of sleep. Presentations are done, but Hell Week (-and-a-half) ain’t over yet.

November 6, 2001 /

I am my mother’s son. Cleaning isn’t something I do often–my work area is a complex system (or lack thereof) of piles, bins and bags. But I’m starting to realize that when I do it, it’s a way of centering myself, restoring emotional balance.

It was a good day. Shouldn’t have been, really, as I’ve spent it running, being tired and thinking about the impending doom of tomorrow’s Calc and Theatre History tests. I’m getting nowhere with my novel and Jon’s finally made the decision to take the semester off from Short Story. And of course there’s a dead end at… well, nevermind.

But I wrote my play. It’s hasty, overdone and generally awful with a near-complete lack of plot. I’m proud of it all the same.

I want to cast Will and Melinda in it, but grapevine says they won’t work together. Actors! Ishould boil the whole lot of them.

the drummer from Def Leppard’s only got one arm!
the drummer from Def Leppard’s only got one arm!