Cam_S's Xanga

Grad school apps and smoking in the winter

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:08:16 GMT

Put both myself and my computer in autistic mode to handle grad school apps. The death of my hard drive proved to be a blessing in disguise--it wiped my bookmarks and my game software from my machine. Put my television and game console in the living room. Turned of AIM and all other distractions. Forgot to eat for a couple of days.

I started my applications on Sunday. most are due tomorrow. They're all currently done and paid for. I just hope my rec letters are on their way.

While I was holed up in my room like a hermit, developing an ulcer and drowning it in beer, coffee, and other such things, my roommate got a cat. The house now smells like litter box. Thus, I've retreated into my room to chainsmoke the smell out. It might not be an improvement, but I can take the scent and it cover up the odor of cat urine and fecal matter.

It's cold. Really god-damned cold, and I haven't written anything in the past couple of days, though my fingertips feel sore from typing out the same information ad infinitum. Sometimes I forget that the little black marks in front of me are supposed to be words.

I feel hungry and dehydrated; I'm going to go fix that, now, but I just know that I'll get that smell in my mouth when I go to eat and drink.

I need to get out.

All I need to do now is send off my final manuscript sample and wait for acceptance letters. Then I get to work on my thesis.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:31:59 GMT

I don't have permission to put this up, but I wanted to.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:48:01 GMT

I hate coming on here only to angst, but I'm putting my meaningful stuff on Being & Context now, so that's that.

Angst. It's a word that's pejorated somewhat, but I'm using it in an older sense: a profound and deep-seated spiritual condition of insecurity and despair.

Before I begin, I want to make sure that you know I'm not referring to my work here--at least not monolithically. But I wonder: if I can't find a human being who accepts me, how can I expect my work to be accepted?

I'm coming to the conclusion that I will never have a meaningful relationship with a woman beyond mere friendship: whenever I try to move further, I inevitably fail, and I inevitably break myself in the attempt. This has happened dozens of times, and I have no success stories. It's rare that I receive even so much as a smile or a platonic hug. I am no more successful with women now that I'm a senior in college than I was when I was a freshman in high school.

Extrapolating from what has happened before, I'm going to die alone wrapped in a rosary of failures that turned to chains.

God, no wonder I don't advertise this Xanga's existence.

The fact of the matter is this: I feel like a diabetic on Halloween. I feel like a color-blind child lost in the Louvre. I don't know how to fix this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I feel like I've tried everything, and everything just fails on me. The worst part is that I know my friends sympathize, but there's no way they know exactly how I feel. I'm lonely as all hell, and it scares me; I have no idea what real intimacy feels like. I don't know what it's like to feel the affection of another human being, to know what it's like to be devoted and to feel that devotion accepted.

Last night, I was up until 5AM, trying to calm my mind, trying to trick myself into feeling like things would be alright long enough to fall asleep. I barely got four hours of rest, and it was interrupted by cramps.

I don't want to be J. Alfred Prufrock; I don't want it, but nothing's going to take that feeling away. It's getting very hard to go on with this mockery that is my social life--maybe I should just become a hermit and throw myself into my writing. At least then, I'd only have one problem.

New Site

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:16:28 GMT

Hey, folks. Got a new blog:

http://beingandcontext.blogspot.com/

I'm still keeping my Xanga, though, for personal notes. "Being and Context" is for more theoretical stuff.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:30:12 GMT

To wound the autumnal city.
So howled out to the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind.

Not dead yet

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:57:41 GMT

Just wanted to let everyone know that, despite my silence on Xanga, I have not yet died.

I have not, as of yet, published anything. Futurismic has expressed some interest in seeing more from me, which would be great, should I actually come up with a usable idea.

Working on founding a production company/creator-owned multimedia thing. Got some ideas; need capital. I feel dirty because of that part of the job, but its necessary.

I post stuff on facebook on a weekly basis; I might consider doing the same here.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:10:28 GMT

I'm 22, today.

Is it bad that I'm disappointed that the world didn't end? It would've been the best birthday gift ever.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:32:39 GMT

Rejection letter from Weird Tales in regard to a story I sent back in July. At least I didn't get rejected much sooner than this. Ah, well. To be expected, I suppose.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:01:53 GMT

Supposed list of books that Sarah Palin tried to ban when she was Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska

The Republicans fail English class forever.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:27:00 GMT

I know that no one wants to read this. It's the same thing so many people have put on this site. It's the same thing I've put up here so many times. I loathe myself for this, but I feel the need to communicate it and I don't have anyone on hand to communicate this to, and I want to put this out there; not for anyone but myself.

Fucking hell I hate it here.

I'm going to let that sit there for a moment.

I don't mean "here" in the sense of my physical location, though as I sit in my house looking at the screen, I can definitely think of better places in time and space than this location, this now.

On the tenth, I turn 22. This means nothing to anyone outside my family. Sure, my friends at school will wish me a happy birthday. They'll joke with me. They might even take me out for a drink. But it doesn't mean anything, really. I don't mean to shit on their possible generosity, but I don't know if I deserve to be 22. I don't know if I deserve another year of fucking things up for myself and others.

My achievements seem like nothing, to me. With enough time and the desire, anyone could have accomplished as much. With my time and desire, I have accomplished very little that I really wanted.

Take my novel. I wrote that because I wanted to excise "Roger" from my brain. Roger is me. Roger is the me that I hate. Stephen is me. Stephen is also the me that I hate, but I hate him for what he does, not for what he is. I wanted to cut "Roger" out of my mind, take the weakling that he is and write the story of him transforming into something else, then cast it out into the collective unconscious; take the artifact and destroy it by dispersing it.

I hate Roger Harding, and he keeps hijacking the way I relate to the world. I hate being indecisive, for not being able to relate to others easily, for being alone, and I can't help it. If you have ever read "Behemoth" and wanted to hurt Roger, good. That's what I wanted to do to him, too. Because Roger is me, and apparently I hate me.

Any greatness I had in journalism came from what others did, not from how I presented it.
Any greatness I had on stage came not from me, but from me trying to be someone else.
Any greatness I had in organizing came not from me, but from the elements so organized.

I understand that my achievements might seem impressive to my peers, but only Behemoth was truly mine, and it was born from hate. I can do anything I need to do, except when I want it.

And here I go, marching this parade of self-hate and self-doubt and self-pity out for all the world to see. I don't have any clue how to fix this...perhaps I have depression. I doubt it, though. If I were depressed, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed.

Maybe I'm just a hateful narcissist; but I hate the world around me, this place I'm in, as much as I hate myself.

Tell me, how do you feel about the fact that everyone you care about and rely on will leave, or die, or reject you? I'm not saying that it will happen to you, but it's the feeling I get. So many of the people I feel obliged to and who are my friends seem to be leaving. Good. I wish them luck. I don't want them to stay near me solely because of me. What kind of asshole would I be if I did?

But by the same token, I feel like the world is dissolving around me. I feel that so much of what I built is just a sandcastle menaced by a cresting wave.

I want to escape. I want to breathe smoke until my body quits. I want to drink until my insides rot. I want to run until my heart explodes. I want to break the mirror that is the world until things look right in it.

I want to write, I want to create. I want to draw my own patterns in the meaningless world around me. (Apparently I want to be Rorschach.)

But none of this will happen unless I climb out of this hole I've dug myself. I can't go backward. I know what lies there. I can't stay here, because I hate it here.

I don't want to go forward. I don't have a choice in the matter.