A certain soft yet unmistakable sadness... I have been replaced.
Posted by hKath at
2:28 AM ()
=============================
Ever feel like you're gestating?
Posted by hKath at
2:22 AM ()
=============================
Saturday, October 6
So tired. I thought "gee, I'll get online, there's bound to be something going on there" and of course there wasn't. I don't know where everyone is tonight, unless it's Baldwinsville New York. Anyone who's there, please say hi to Alec and Billy for me, willya? And tell Daniel and the other one to go to hell?
So anyway, Rebecca came into the store again today. It's remarkable how well we get along... I have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere in a place I'm not acknowledging right now I have a vague fantasy about running away with Rebecca. And it all started with a cigarette-smoking nun...
You know what's really annoying? Someone in my class corrected my story and changed my dot-dot-dots to some that looked like this. . .
Yick. And Joey. And Wheels.
So tired. My printer chirps and won't turn on, and I just can't understand what it wants, other than maybe it's just plain broken, in which case, well, at least I know what I want for Christmas.
AJ just popped onto IRC, so I feel compelled to continue to write in here as my plans for going to a nice, comfortable, movie-and-book-covered bed have been delayed slightly. However, I have no idea what to write about.
So there's this spider that lives sort of in the hollow of my desk and his name is Spidey. He has an as-of-yet nameless sidekick who is smaller and sort of just hangs around all the time and doesn't move. Maybe the sidekick is dead, or maybe he's just a lazy fucker. Who knows? Maybe they're newlyweds and the big one's doing all the chores.
In any case, I'm not scared of these guys... there have been so many little spiders in my room over the past few months that Spidey, who's a little bigger than the average Kath's-room-spider, can uphold a relative peace of mind, as long as he doesn't cross over into my territory, which means touching me or going where I want to go.
Sometimes moving within my line of sight qualifies as a breech of territorial rights, but I've been pretty leniant so far.
Posted by hKath at
1:57 AM ()
=============================
Friday, October 5
Um, okay, just so I know... who here knew about the Dan Bern album coming out THIS TUESDAY and didn't tell me? Not that I mind, it was a pleasant surprise, even though I am currently all alone on IRC looking for someone to share my joy. Chris Thomas King has an album out too, which is intriguing, and will probably sell like hotcakes, although I'm sure a lot of you only know him by the name "Tommy Johnson", which was his character in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Who else? Lessee... The Klezmatics are still around. Funny, I was talking about them on Wednesday with that Josh guy from my Creative Writing class. And Leonard Cohen's album has a distinctly uncreative title, which will keep consumers away, I'm sure.
Snooting around? I honestly don't know what you mean. Maybe this is one of those Franglais expressions that only you are aware of? ;)
Similarly, I realized yesterday, and I'm not sure if everyone does this or not, that MC and I have many expressions that no one else really understands. The one that comes to mind is "to hand someone a kitten", but there are others. I also remember Mike and MC and I using "nappytime" quite frequently, and well, I'm sure some of you remember the sponge, but has anyone used the expression "to get the sponge" in their everyday language? This isn't even linguistics, or cultural studies. It's sub-sub-sub-cultural. MC, if you remember any other expressions, please tell me :) I know I used one the other day that I was pretty convinced even YOU had forgotten about: I thought about it and decided I was the only person on earth who knew what the hell I was talking about.
Hahahaha! I'm SO joining the SMC mailing list. If you don't know what I'm talking about, FOLLOW MY LINK ALREADY!
I keep thinking I should really update my quotes page. I have new quotes, but I'm ashamed of them. That's because most of my new quotes (okay, all of them that I can remember) are from The Chatroom. *blush* I don't get out much, okay??
Posted by hKath at
11:14 AM ()
=============================
Thursday, October 4
I was expecting MC to already have a big manifesto up on her website about what a big genius Aaron Sorkin is. Imagine my surprise - over two hours later and not a peep.
I actually sat and watched the West Wing "special episode" deal, although it definitely made me squirm in certain clumsy places. I thought it would be interesting to know what's going through the minds of the people who are in fact *controlling* the minds of the people. I was pretty disappointed.
First of all, one thing really got to me: the way the word jihad was thrown around as though it was understood to anyone and everyone watching that this is a bad term that vaguely signifies something along the lines of "holy war".
All I'm saying is, don't get all your knowledge from Washington Post articles... Christ. Talk to people. Real people, you know, the ones you're so afraid of. Well, I guess there aren't that many real people in rehab or prison or... nevermind.
Also, and this is as much a plot critique as an ideology critique: who didn't know the Islamic White House employee was innocent from the very SECOND he was arrested? I thought the West Wing was known for really well-crafted characters and story lines. This was obviously a manipulative device. So was the repeated use of the KKK and National Socialist references which would have been remarkably right-on if they had had enough context behind them to draw a believable parallel. What I mean is that they were trying to tell us what the Taliban are like by telling us what other groups are like. I didn't like that.
If they were afraid to speak to harshly about the terrorists themselves, then why was a good five solid minutes of dialogue composed of the words "kill", "silencer", "bomb", "war", "attack" and not to mention "kill", "kill" and "kill".
If they're not comfortable defining the enemy in positive* terms (other than that one awkward description of general fundamentalist Islamic practice), why are they so at ease while on the subject of ending this enemy's life? I'd love to watch the episode again and count how many times the verb "to kill" is used in relation to these enemies.
I understand they've only had two weeks to throw this together. It's understood. This is just me talking.
*by "positive" here I mean to define the group by what it is rather than by what it is not. I don't mean to make them shine in a positive light or anything to that effect.
Posted by hKath at
12:32 AM ()
=============================
Wednesday, October 3
I'm playing trivbot with people who actually talk to each other. I just had a class where I actually sat around with people during break, and smoked, and talked about normal buddy things like music and school. Josh, who I know because he is a screenwriting major, was sort of the key to this. The point is, these people are more like me than the people in the film program were. Good, goddammit.
I am so hungry right now but I don't want to leave this computer with the connection. I suppose I will soon, though. It's so sad to be so out of touch. If this was the sixties, my computer would be a coffee house.
Posted by hKath at
4:02 PM ()
=============================
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, just give me a keyboard that works. With this school's connection and my keyboard, I could have a normal online life. Maybe. My connection came back for approximately an hour and a half yesterday, then died again. Fuckers. Sympatico, here I come. Unless the connection is fixed by tomorrow, and obviously fixed forever, they are losing my millions.
OK, MC - explain me this. When in all my bitching and moaning about AHWOSG did I ever issue a recommendation? I thought the book was angry, self-promoting, pathetic and pretentious. I recall writing here many times about how much I was *trying* to like it, but you'll notice that I never actually attained that goal, at least not anywhere within these pages. I can honestly say there were no omissions on my relationship with Dave Eggers, as I still think his novel is overrated. Oh, well. Sorry. Hope you like it.
That sounded kind of mean, didn't it?
It was pretty unfortunate that I read it in between two books that were actually *good*: "Fall On Your Knees" by Ann-Marie MacDonald and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon. I'm reading "Fall On Your Knees" again, this time aloud.
So... there's an American author from the mid-19th century called Susan Warner, with an a. Try sitting through a whole lecture going "Huh?" every time the name gets mentioned.
I had so much to say here. It seems like I've pounded this space bar back into submission for the time being. Who knows how long this is going to last?
Oh, well there was Radio Monday, which Jason Collett is erroneously referring to as "The Second Series". Jason can go to hell (just for this though) - he knows as well as anyone that there was a series in January which inspired all subsequent series, and that Andy Stochansky must be praised as at least a half-god for starting it. Jason even played in it. Dork.
And there was this guy there called Aaron. Aaron Riches, and I will spare you the three pages of text detailing every way in which he is similar to an old friend of mine (*ahem*Topon*ahem*), so let's just say it was uncanny. He also writes jaw-dropping songs with positively disturbing lyrics, plays harmonica and banjo, and stammers a lot, so you have to understand why I must see Aaron again, hopefully frequently, although I don't know how that will pan out.
The bum guest of the evening was Martina's replacement (where was the teena?), a girl from Montreal called Leanne. Real French name, that. If her hokey songs and pretentious style hadn't settled it for me, the fact that she walked in on me while I was peeing surely did. I didn't much like her singing, and certainly didn't appreciate THAT.
Still happy, kind of working on big things... not that they are big, they won't be for a while, and probably will be abandoned, but it's a time for planning, I guess. I've never done that before, planned something and then followed through. Maybe this time will be different. There's a first time for everything, after all.
Posted by hKath at
11:10 AM ()
=============================