Update

February 19th, 2003

Wow, talk about a diatribe, huh? It really does feel good to get what you’re feeling out onto paper (I mean pixels).

I had an exam in Psych class, but passed it easily. Thursday I have a geography exam, and on Friday I have a Rock ‘n Roll one. Plus, there were three papers I had to write over the weekends. I love how professors conspire to put all assignments due during the same week, then throw in some tests for extra measure.

I’ve written so many poems in the past three weeks it isn’t even funny. I really should look into getting them published.

I’m considering going to see The Miracle Worker. Shawn tells me it’s quite good. I need to do something besides sitting in my room waiting for the damn phone to ring.

Anyway, here’s one of the poems I wrote tonight:



“Doorstep”

the dark eve and the m

oment of hesitation

uncertainly lean

and her ey

es closed

and no

w mi

ne t

oo

a

nd

sude

nly, th

e world

is alive, all

things unspo

ken through o

ur

lips

It’s one of the more ‘normal’ ones, because I like to use odd spacing. HTML doesn’t allow for that, though.

Valentine’s Day

February 12th, 2003

Well, I got some nice mail today: a cheque to give to the University so they don’t kick me out of Friday. I have to go in tomorrow and pay it. I kind of feel like a fugitive: the University keeps sending me direr and direr warnings to pay or be killed by Siberian Death Troops.

Speaking of Friday, I also got a package from Grandma; she always sends something on Valentine’s Day. It’s nice to get something. Since I don’t know what’s going on, I’m going to consider myself ‘despondent’ this St. Valentine’s Day. Usually, I feel ‘bitter,’ so there you go.

I’ve been debating whether I should send my favorite little lady a letter, at least. I just don’t know; I really don’t like being in limbo. And all these friggin’ red and pink and white hearts posted around the campus don’t help my mood very much, either. 😉 A letter would be nice (nothing mushy) but might also be a bit presumptuous. Plus, can I send it tomorrow and have it arrive by Friday? Dave doesn’t know. Dammit, now I’m writing in the third person, the same way Shawn speaks.

Psych class passed quickly today. I think I’m getting more and more interested in it, which means I like three of my classes (American Lit, Psych, History of Rock ‘n Roll) and dislike two (British Lit, Geography).

Besides this weblog, I haven’t written anything in two days now. I’m feeling a bit weak. Maybe my blitz of poetry-writing last weekend was a fluke. I kind of got an idea for a blank-verse poem in Psych, but am not looking forward to counting syllables.

Update

February 11th, 2003

There’s a kid in one of my classes who talks like Elmer Fudd. I know I’m not supposed to laugh (he can’t help it, obviously), but it’s just kind of funny. Aren’t the things we find humorous bizarre?

Ugggh. I got an hour of sleep last night, so I napped from 2-5:30 this afternoon and from 9:00-1:00 tonight. I really need to fix my sleep schedule.

But I do have a great idea for a collection of short stories. They will be thematically linked by Highway 93; i.e. they will procede from north to south along the highway. Stories about all sorts of things, maybe about fifteen of them. Of course, I should concentrate on my academic writing first, but that isn’t nearly as fun!

Update

February 9th, 2003

So I’ve got the VCR all ready to record tonight’s episode of Undergrads, right? Now, this VCR is weird because you can’t hit Record on the remote, you have to hit the button on the unit. I know, stupid. So I hit record at the end of the show that precedes Undergrads, and then push pause. I tell myself that I’ll unpause at the end of each commercial, so I won’t miss any of it. Wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing doesn’t unpause! What kind of feature is that? So, I miss the first minute of the show… gr…. I knew that VCR would screw me over.

Then, after the show ended, I checked out the two episodes I downloaded last night. Guess what… one of them was the one that was on TV tonight! It never ends.

Update

February 9th, 2003

Yes, I’m alive. I’ve just been delving into the exciting world of poetry. I wish I knew a publication to which I could submit some of my poems. It’d be a delight to be ‘published.’

Dad and I went to Wade’s for a chili thing. There was supposed to be jamming, but no jammers jammed, jammit!

We watched Stand By Me tonight. “When the night, has come…”

Update

February 7th, 2003

I think Houston, We Have a Drinking Problem is one of the greatest albums of the millenium. I can say that because the millenium is only two years old as of this writing. It’s definately a keeper. I wrote a great review of it for Amazon.com, but only found out after I submitted it that reviews become the property of Amazon.com. Oh, well. I didn’t put much effort into it anyway.

God, Geography was a boooooring class. Yuckers.

I wrote a nifty poem in Psych class. I managed to do it despite the activities we did. Of course, I didn’t finish it until I got back to my room. It’s about two pages long. It’s written in blank verse, and I think it came out rather well. I like it so much, in fact, that I’m going to work on it for about a week before I post it on my website. Maybe I’ll even get someone else’s opinion on it. It’s called “The Highway” and it’s about this game I used to play: you watch passing cars on a road and try to dream up a story for each car that comes by. I wrote it out by hand, instead of composing it on the computer, which is how I usually write poetry. There’s just something about a pen on paper, being able to tap your pen with the words to count the syllables, that MS Word can’t match.

We had a floor meeting tonight. There was free pizza, so that made me happy. There are a lot more guys on my floor than I would have thought.

Tomorrow I go home for the weekend. I hope that the band practices. It would be nice, for a change. I can actually stay up later than usual tonight because my Rock ‘n Roll class is canceled because they need the Music Building all day tomorrow. It’ll an an extra hour or two to my sleep schedule. I’m kind of feeling tired tonight, which is really weird, because I usually don’t feel tired until about four o’clock in the morning.

Update

February 6th, 2003

Well, I overslept a little today. My alarm clock went off, but it took me about twenty minutes to get up. I really need some sort of backup alarm clock, put in some out-of-the-way place where I’d have to actually get up to switch it off. It would work, because it takes a lot of effort to climb back into bed.

I talked to Brenner and told him that Mr. Kane sends his regards. He’s a really cool guy, and I’m really looking forward to having the class this semester. For one thing, the reading isn’t as voluminous as in my other English class. We read about one short story a day. More time is spent actually thinking about the text. It also turns out one of my roommate’s friends is in the class, too.

Then came the other English class. I find myself writing a lot of poetry there. Today I wrote four poems: “Moth”, “Having Observed Upon a Sunset”, “The Anti-Sonnet”, and “Holden.” Why do I feel so creative when I’m supposed to be learning?

I finally got my financial aid dealt with. Turns out my bill comes to $360.84.

Other than that, I’ve been working on the novel I started in October. I finished it last night (at around two-thirty in the morning) and am now going over it and editing, re-writing, and generally fixing it. It’s amazing how much I’ve improved as a writer in just five months. I’ll probably never publish it, but it’s nice to know I’ve actually written a novel. Working on the novel is a nice distraction from my other concerns.

Anyway, I don’t want to waste any more of my writing energy on some silly blog. 😉

Update

February 4th, 2003

God, we had to work in groups in Geography today. I hate working in groups, especially ones in classes where I don’t know anybody. It happened last semester in Native American Studies, and it’s happened long before that. I’m just a shy person, I guess. The assignment went okay, but I hate being forced to work with people whom I don’t know. I got to see Alan Alda on Scientific Frontiers (or maybe it was Nova) during a video in Psych class, so that was okay.

I wrote a song today, but it’s waaaay too poppy to even show to anybody else. I feel torn between writing songs that have significance and writing songs that I like to play. Occasionally, I’ll find a happy medium, but more often than not it’s one way or the other.

Well, it’s quarter till eleven and I’ve resigned myself to my fate. The ball’s in my court, there are twenty-one hours left on the clock, but even that much time isn’t enough to score a goal. Still, you gotta keep on playing, even though you know that the game is heavily stacked against you. There’s a chance, yes; there always is; but the odds are so astronomical that only a Corellian would feel confident, and that would only be before C-3P0 blabbed them.

Update

February 3rd, 2003

I sure was tired this morning, so I skipped History of Rock ‘n Roll. I handed in my AIS (fingers are crossed), and slogged through the next English class.

All this plays second fiddle to the waiting I’ve been going through. It’s been a week since I called Erin and poured my heart out, and I’m pretty sure she said she’d let me know by tonight. She didn’t call. To her credit, my roommate was on the phone during the half-hour that she tends to call, so I don’t know. I think I already know what she’s gonna say, and I’ve been pretty much accepting that fact for the last year, but I have to know. Y’know, I just want to be able to know if, when she finally gets ahold of me, if I’ll despodently accept what she says or — and in my mind this is a remote possibility — I can go “Woohoo!” and do some strangely arrhythmical dance. I guess I’ll call her tomorrow, if I have to, but I’d feel kind of weird. I almost literally dropped a bombshell on her last Monday, and she probably needs time to mull it over, still. Is it wrong to phone and say “Well?” That seems so… so… much like delivering an ultimatum. I just wish I knew the answer to that. I know I’ve been pretty much reactive in every aspect of staying in contact with her, but I just feel that I should give her time here, to make a decision in her own way.

The thing is that she really is an empathetic person, so it could be hard to tell me what I’m fearing. But this limbo, this Purgatory on Earth, is much worse than flat-out rejection.

All I know is that I screwed up, big time, majorly, Iran-Contra, and if I have a chance I will let her know what she should already know: that she’s the prettiest, brightest, gosh-darn swellest gal I’ve ever met and that every second I’m around her is (literally) a dream come true. These words look so hollow on the screen, but that’s only because I can’t find the right ones.

Anyway, I’ve got this, for whatever good it does:



I couldn’t tell which had become more wet:

The rain, drizzly, falling on field and farm

Or the perspiration — I mean my sweat —

Which created small lakes under each arm.

When I saw her, dazzling as always

I jumped, because I still wasn’t prepared.

I did not know smooth words the smooth man says;

I fumbled, squawked, and nervously I stared.

I was suff’ring, yes, and deathly afraid,

But was happier than I’d ever been.

‘Twas later I this observation made

Which dispelled almost all of my chagrin:

I realized, as we were saying goodbye,

Perhaps she was merely as nervous as I.

Update

February 2nd, 2003

I really need to start writing these things earlier in the night, if only to make the dates match the day about which I’m writing.

I went for a stroll down my road today. It’s pretty serene, even with the highway a quarter-mile away. Usually I walk and listen to a Walkman, but this time I just walked and thought. I thought and thought, about a lot — and not. Sorry, switched into Seuss-mode there for a while. I did have a lot to think about, yes, and it was nice not having my dog to babysit. It was cold, but the cold was that crisp, refreshing cold you can only feel in your lungs. Strolls through Missoula’s streets just can’t match it.

I just finished my first AIS for an English class. The instructor is interesting, and for the first time (possibly in recorded history), I am really, really interested in my assignment. I gotta go to bed now.