Great day today. The sky was beautiful, warm, everyone seemed to be out. No one had any problems. No one giving any shit.
After hearing that Grindhouse may not stay in the theaters for very long I went to see it with A. I was told that not many people are seeing it and may be pulled by theater owners. I'd heard a few things about it before; it was two movies, it was really long and violent, all good things. I thought it would be the top movie in the country. Shows what I know. I'm sure that went to Hitch or some other worthless movie.
It is good, very good, particularly Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. Violent too, particularly Planet Terror. I wanted it to see it in a drive in but the nearest ones aren't showing it. I'm always impressed by Robert Rodriquez though Tarantino seemed to try to be too funny or cool that it was a let down. Anyone would have a problem following Planet Terror and after an hour and a half I wanted more from him. Death Proof is better than most, though. Where else could you see a mother give her six year old boy a gun and tell him to shoot daddy if he shows up. Where else could Bruce Willis be honored for killing Osama Bin Laden?



I made a day of it and headed to Kuma's to get some good burgers before the movies. I haven't talked much about that place so let's. Kuma's is heavy metal burgers named after Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Clutch and Mastodon. I'm going to try each one to determine which is the best. The best burgers in Chicago. I've only had the Slayer and the Black Sabbath and Slayer is leading the pack. Both amazing though I have to wonder how they earned their names. The Judas Priest has cranberries and walnuts in it. The Motorhead has goat cheese, olives and oregano which seems inappropriate. Motorhead should have motor oil and broken teeth. The Black Sabbath should have cocaine, bad weed and alcohol. The Slayer should have roadkill and blood, Judas Priest; leather and sweat.


Lemmy doesn't like his burger

The Slayer is leading as best burger- chili, onions, angus beef and jack cheese over a layer of fries. I want to get through the menu so I can get my next Slayer burger.

Both A and I couldn't stop thinking about what a perfect day it is. Great movie, great food and we're really getting along. Since I've last written, I told her I'm only seeing her and don't want to see anyone else. The concept of a "girlfriend" isn't something I've been shooting for since C opened me to the idea of being in very loose, informal relationships, but A has definitely shown her worth.
The movie and dinner at Kuma's is exactly something Kam and I would do and I didn't feel like I was on a date but just enjoyed being with her and enjoyed the moment. It's one of those rare times when (almost)everything seems to be going well.

I'm content.

Moving in Boston was always a huge chore. I had much more back then and it would take at least a day just to get all my stuff across town to a (hopefully) better place and moved in. Then I could look forward to an increase of rent with most likely little change in living. Now it's all I can think about. I spend a lot of my free time looking at new apartments, learning about different neighborhoods and trying to find where I most want to live because, unlike Boston, I can move where I want. Rent is cheap enough that I don't choose neighborhoods based on where I can afford, now I just find the best one that's right for me.

When I first agreed to move into my place with a roommate months ago it was because I didn't know anyone and he promised me he spent most of his days outside working, which turned out to be one of the bigger lies I've ever heard in my life. All his free time is spent watching tv, smoking and sleeping on the couch. When he is awake he stomps around the place, unaware of the noise he makes with the slightest movement. It's like he never really learned how to walk and continues to bash into walls and hit furniture. Add onto that his constant coughing, clearing of his throat and bellowing whenever he talks to someone on the phone. Several times this past week he's argued with someone (one of them his oldest friend), almost becoming violent.
He has a severe control problem and wants to dictate everything I do outside of my own room even going so far as to dictate what can and can't go in the garbage. Certain boxes, he says, should sit in a pile on the balcony rather than get thrown away because it's easier to take care of, despite how slobbish or smelly it is to leave garbage right outside the apartment.
He forgets simple things like turning off the bathroom faucet, washing the dishes, leaving the windows open in the dead of winter and locking the front door. He blasts the tv and radio with horrible sitcoms, court tv shows and bad music and the place reeks of cigarette smoke (which I've managed to keep out of my room). Each day I lose more and more contact with this place and already believed myself to be half moved out.
The great thing is, he knows this. While I've been very busy with both work and a social life having only been here for less than a year, he hardly leaves. He knows, or at least senses that I'm moving out. A few days ago he even mentioned how good a roommate I was and it was good having me around.
"Why, are you going somewhere?" I asked. I plan to tell him when I have a place and a date to move, which should be in around a month.
I didn't want to fill this blog with my complaining about him and have hardly mentioned him for months but wanted to make one final post about him before I go.
I have very little say in this place. I deal with that because he pays all the bills other than rent (which I get a deal on). I don't pay for internet, electricity, gas or anything. I'm not sure why, when I moved in he told me I would but he never got around to it. It's one of the few perks about living here.
He doesn't want any of my stuff outside of my room, which is fine with me because it would soon be covered with a film of cigarette smoke anyway. The rest of the apartment is creepy and filled with strange things- weird religious pictures, cartoons about drug rehab, odd art, grossly unrealistic (and more than slightly homosexual) toys of body builders. There is a statue of a man with a dog's head made out of brass that is weird as shit.
He also freaks out all my friends. Whenever I have someone over they get very uncomfortable, especially if he's hanging around or leering at them. It's just all over creepy. I can't wait to get the fuck out of here.

Right now I'm considering different places. Logan Square looks good, though inconvenient. I preferred Ukranian Village though I don't see many places open there. If anything I'll move somewhere around Wicker Park, not because I want to live there but because it's nearer to my friends and I always end up there anyway.

When I moved into my first place on my own in early 1997 I paid $835 a month. It was a pretty good place, in a good neighborhood (though I was robbed there once) and it went up to $1,100 by the time I moved out. A couple years later I had a much better place three blocks from the beach for $1,430 a month. It was a lot but I managed it. With that price I could find a very good place here.
Of course, I'd rather not throw that money away on rent. The reason I'm living beneath my means now is to save money to buy my own place in a couple years. I'm going to go beneath a grand on the next place. It's more than I'm paying now but much less than what I can afford. I'll live cheaply so I can live much better and more comfortably soon.

Today is one of my personal holidays. Not a good day, but more of a remembrance.

It is the anniversary of the Ruby Ridge shooting, as well as the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and the Columbine shooting.

I don't do anything to celebrate this day, I just always plan on something terrible happening. Today it didn't and that's a good thing.

One time while studying for finals in college I took several tablets of Vivarin in order to stay awake to do the cramming that I needed to do. I took one to begin with and planned to take one every couple of hours to keep me going throughout the night as I didn't plan to sleep. Since I never liked the taste of coffee I figured that would help.
The pills took too long to take effect and I took one after a half hour. Fifteen minutes later I took another. Ten minutes later I took two. I decided that was enough since I had begun to feel pains in my stomach. It wasn't so pain that I felt but activity. Soon afterwards I felt an incredible restlessness that grew to be not painful, but incredibly annoying. I couldn't sit down for more than a few moments and couldn't keep my mind on anything, never mind sitting down to read textbooks and tightly written notes. I remember pacing the floor, doing situps, jogging in place, anything to calm myself. My heart would skip occasionally and even sitting down I felt myself out of breath.
That broke my short lived reliance on Vivarin and until tonight I haven't felt anything like what I did then. Tonight I'm restless and, though it's past two in the morning, I don't feel at all like sleeping. I should lay down though I doubt I'd sleep. I didn't take anything but I feel incredibly restless. This week I've made definite plans for things I want to accomplish and have been working around the clock to get as many of them done as soon as possible.
Most of the jobs I'm hoping to get have asked for writing samples of my previous work. I have none. Those that I did have were lost along with my computer so now I'm hoping for someone to take me by my word and take me on but that doesn't just happen so I've spent most of the day writing and researching articles which I may or may not send to get published but will at least be a testament to my ability as a writer (despite this run on sentence- it's 219am).
When I get deeply invovled with writing and work on something I care about and not just some personal blog entry, I become very devoted to it. I suppose it's evidence of my emotional state (which I believe is much deeper than I'm aware of) that I'm this way. As my writing falters so, it seems, does everything else in my life. I get very uncomfortable, anxious and unpleasant to be around. I get irritated by the slightest things.
Now I feel like I can't calm down enough to sleep and if I did I'd be doing myself a disservice. My dreams have been particularly strange, creepy with a surreal twist. I've been imagining wide open dark spaces and lots of little sharp things, unreal insects with pinscers and sharp points for legs with intimidating eyes on stalks.

I'm thinking of the HG Wells novel The Time Machine, in which a man travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future. The world has attained an even, pastoral existence without any direction or purpose. At first it seems as if all problems, all wars, strife, hunger and crime have been removed from society. As the man becomes more familiar with the future earth, he sees that mankind has progressed into two distinctly different species; the Eloi, who live a carefree, idyllic life, and the Morlocks who live underground and keep the world running through their labor and painful lives.
The Eloi are fed, clothed and have all their needs taken care of by the Morlocks who work underground and live miserable lives. All that troubles the Eloi is the fear of being kidnapped, taken underground and eaten by the Morlocks who prey on them for food.

Wells, along with George Orwell, has an uncanny understanding of human nature that resembles the present day. Much of what they've written about shadows today's problems.

One thing that has been nagging at me for some time, and does so increasingly whenever there is an act of horrible violence that people seems to latch onto with a ghoulish fascination, is today's similarity to Wells' futuristic world. The great majority of people seem to go about their lives unconcerned with what is occurring around them. Prescription mood-altering drugs are now more preferable to facing the reality around them.
Then there are others who are pushed and trod upon their entire lives. Aware of their place in life, they seem to resign themselves to it but grow incensed at their treatment, at the seeming nonchalance with which others address them. Their burdens are the runoff of everyone, which they take until they break. Many do and find suicide, alcoholism or drug abuse as their only option. Even in death these people are looked down upon and disregarded. They are the detritus of society.
When someone chooses another route and takes others with them it is seen as a freak occurence, a horrible coincidence with no explanation. As the weeks pass the despair shrinks only to be revived when the next inevitable act takes place worse than the last.

-Humans are cruel to each other, sometimes for their own gain, often for no reason at all.
-The mentally ill are considered "broken" or "weak" and are often left to fend for themselves.
-So concerned are we with the actions of mediocre celebrities, our favorite tv shows and impressing those around us that we ignore what happens beyond our small sphere of influence.

All these things, and dozens more, would make acts such as this week's shooting inevitable. What shocks me is not that it happened but that each time it happens there is a renewed camraderie, some attempt to connect us to the incident and a collective gasp and condemnation of the crime.
What eludes me is the shock that comes with it happening. All the ingredients in today's world seems to point towards such incidents happening more. Why are we expected to come together to feel for those that were murdered rather than try to fix the problems that created such an epidemic in the first place?
It is an epidemic- that is what happens when so many shootings take place in such a short amount of time. All of them, those given widespread coverage and those unreported, are systemic of a larger problem yet no one seems to find any connection.

It isn't guns, nor is it our worship of them, but our lack of empathy for those around us, which only makes the manufactured shows of emotion only more transparent. Most people don't give a thought to anyone but those in their own lives, if they even go that far. It's become a chore to even hold the door open for someone behind you. Compound that with the countless shows of aggression, inconsideration, bravado and superiority that most experience everyday and you're bound to have more than a few people that have nothing left but wanting to hurt those- anyone- around them.

Banning music won't help. I speak from experience when I say that for some it's all that's keeping them sane.
Banning weapons won't help. They'll always be there.
Political manuevers or religious opportunists will never have the right answer.

It's about respect for yourself and others. Take your head out of your ass and stop to help someone that falls down. Don't push ahead of someone, you're not going anywhere that important.
Keep yourself closed off, make others feel as if they are nothing but animals and that's what they will become.

The reading list of my Literature class including several books I had never read before. I usually look forward to learning what I would read each term and while a few of the students groan at the choices, I get excited at the idea of reading a book I may not have considered before.
Slaughterhouse Five, one of my favorite books which I had read years before was included, which I found strange. As seniors in college, shouldn't this book have been studied years ago?
I can't recall exactly when I first read the book though I'm sure it was sometime in high school. In the following years I picked up each book by Kurt Vonnegut, one after the other. I was drawn to his cynical, dark, unique view of the world. His view went beyond characters or the setting. He detailed dimensions, the universe and the vague line between characters and reality. Readers questions if his creations were patterned after real people or his view of people. Perhaps they were once real, people the author was immortalizing or immolating for all time.
I try to grasp the intent and mindset of each author when I read their books. Vonnegut seemed to be working on another wavelength. At times he was a down home humorist like Twain then he would become a brilliant social satirist then he'd resemble Ray Bradbury. Sirens of Titan was the book that cinched it for me. It was the one that made me realize his genius and I discovered how complex writing a book is. As I finished it I learned that anyone that makes a living as a successful novelist is more intelligent than almost any scientist, researcher or scholar. It takes the most forethought to write such a book the genuinely surprises and pleases the author than any task I can think of.



Then there is the author, a man of modest background who often found it questionable that a former wage slave with a brutally cynical edge and an eye for hypocrisy was lumped in with literature's greats. Writing was a way to let others see his view of the world. Disturbed by the ironies and hypocrises inherent in politics his works attacked them with the wit of one that can ridicule what most fear and turn it into literature.

He died yesterday and I can't help but think he would have found it funny that his death was overshadowed by the media circus of Imus/Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson/Racial Politics but then again, most people thought he was already dead, that is, if they knew who he was in the first place.

He was the last of the classic American authors. No one writing today could wear that title honestly. In light of the sensationalism of the media, I'm surprised he got any attention.