A temporary miserable existence

It’s been a bad week. To cap off a bad month.

It’s been drives to and from work in silence. My beloved 10-stacker being refused permission to entertain me. I notice everything now. Even my engine seems to be having a hard time.

- I know how you feel buddy.

It’s Winnie the Pooh and me on the couch eating Cheezels (me, not the bear) and watching the Simpsons like it’s the Discovery Channel.

It’s stuffing my face with chicken, garlic sauce, pickles, tabouli, beer and pizza just to keep unnecessary thoughts away. Or perhaps it’s more the company.

Sleepwalker hardly ever talks to me anymore. He just sits there. I just sit there. We’re both just sitting there looking at each other.

- How’s the seat?
- It’s very comfortable, thank you. How’s yours?
- Oh, it’s quite lovely, thanks for asking.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo…

It’s the Saturday night when she comes over to tell me it’s over for her. And we sit on the couch (the bear is ousted to make room for her) and I’m hungry so I’m eating a BBQ pork bun and she’s laughing at me and crying at the same time. (If she had just been laughing, I would have told her to get out.) The TV is turned down low.

- Do you want some?
- No, I don’t feel like it.
- OK. Well don’t beat yourself up too much about this. You’ll be fine.

She’s not laughing anymore but she’s still crying. I try for more comforting.

- Are you sure you don’t want some?

She didn’t. Oh, and in case there is any confusion, it’s the BBQ pork buns I’m offering her.

But at the end of the day, which feels like night, and is actually morning, it’s just me again. It’s like this every day. I’ve just been watching TV. Reading a book. Playing a game. Anything to get me so tired that I can fall asleep right away when I get into bed. Sleepwalker takes Winnie the Pooh by the hand and walks out of the room, leaving me to my own devices. Leaving me to the sound of my own heartbeat. The rustling of things outside my window - of what I care not imagine.

And when I sleep I have this fever-like dream. Except without the fever. Nothing much of it makes sense to me now. It involves me. She is there too. And there is some running around and some caves and stuff. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that when I wake up, I am oddly calm and feeling strangely fine.

Sleepwalker says good morning.

- So that’s that?
- That’s that.
- Nothing more to say?
- Well…
- Yes?
- Just don’t screw up anymore.
- Right.
- It’s time to work.
- Yes. So here we go. Again.

When it rains, it pours. And when it pours, you'd like to at least have your xbox with you to take the edge off it a little. But I don't have mine.

Such is life.

Don Pancho sucks

With Australian Idol, there was Levi, and maybe Axel and Kelly. They were contestants who passed off 'try hard' for 'individuality' and somehow managed to fool a lot of people. Before them, there was Selwyn. He actually did OK. And now in Popstars Live, we have Don Pancho. Standing a whole foot and a half taller than Mini Me and looking like a poor Jack White caricature, Don is apparently out there representing rock music. The thing I hate about this is the fact that he's actually convincing a lot of people! Molly stood up on his table and told Don 'You Rock!' Of course, it's probably just that Molly's got a fetish for young Asian boys but that doesn't explain all his other fans and the fact that he has still yet to be voted out. The way he's going, he might actually WIN! *GASP* He ruined 'Seven nation army' and did 'With arms wide open' worse than when me and my friends sing it at karaoke! I realise that only about 100 people in the whole country vote for Popstars and that just his family's votes would probably be enough to make him a Popstar, but to those others who vote for him and aren't family or friends with him, please please please think about what you're doing!

Meanwhile, is it just me or does Australia's talent just suck compared to America's? I may not like Kelly Clarkson's songs but her voice is incredible. When she made a guest appearance on Australian Idol and performed 'Miss Independent', I was feeling sorry for Paulini and Cosima. They were just crap in comparison. Not even either of the guys could project their voices like Kelly can. And just have a listen to Fantasia Barrino in the current American Idol series. She's amazing. She's sounds like a prettier amped-up Macy Gray. She's got more talent, more attitude and more stage presence than anyone on the last Australian Idol. It's really sad.

Anyway, best be leaving now. Oh and yeah, Don Pancho sucks!

I'm sure it used to be so much easier than this. urghhh. I don't want to think about anything. I'll just concentrate on my basketball semi finals tonight. Then I'll go and drink myself silly. If my finances will permit. urghhh.

Feeling the same way UPDATED

I’m feeling kinda funny again. Not funny ha ha. And not funny queer either. That’s for sure! Maybe funny isn’t the right word.

I’m feeling rather stagnant since there are a lot of stuff that I think I need to do in order to have time to do the stuff that I really want to do. Although I don’t know what any of these things are. Some parts of my life are going extremely well. Other parts, not so. So the result is that I’m somewhere in limbo.

__________

You know, when you don’t have friends and nobody wants to be around you, surely you’d have to come to a point where you realise ‘Heck, maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s me!’ Surely, you’d realise that you have to change your ways…

__________

Maybe I do lack passion about everything. I kinda only go halfway and then hope someone else will finish things off. This guy I was hoping to work with told me that about my long-running-yet-to-be-produced-and-and-maybe-never-will play. He said ‘you might have to drive this project yourself’ and I said ‘the reason why I went to you in the first place is so I wouldn’t have to do that. I’m just not a producer-type’ and he says ‘the truth is, there is no such thing as a producer-type. All you need is passion, self belief etc.’

While, I suppose, he does have some sort of point, I didn’t appreciate being lectured Anthony Robbins style. And who defines what dedication and passion are anyway? Surely having written 180 pages of script required some dedication and passion, right? I’m just not good at organising stuff like that. He is. I think the only people who say things like ‘there is no such thing as a producer-type’ are probably producer-types themselves. That’s how they can say stuff like that. It comes naturally to them.

It reminds me of something totally unrelated.

Fat woman: You know what they say, ‘Big is beautiful’.
Al Bundy: Do you know who came up with that?
Fat woman: Who?
Al Bundy: Fat girls.

__________

I am obsessed at the moment with this song

She don’t want nobody near

By this band

Counting Crows

I was looking forward to hearing them perform this song live. But alas the show got cancelled and I can’t exactly blame Adam Duritz for cancelling.

As with most Counting Crows songs, I don’t really know what it’s about. But as with most Counting Crows songs, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just good music.

__________

I’m not quite obsessed with this song. But I do enjoy it a lot.

Creepin’ in

By Norah Jones and Dolly Parton.

I think Norah and Dolly should make a whole album together. That would be fantastic.

__________

I tried to get into Cunica Vera (from My Restaurant Rules) the other night. We couldn’t get in. That’s about it, really. Oh yeah, Sam is really nice. That’s about it, really.

__________

This would usually be more in the Riss school of blogging, but I couldn't resist...

http://countingcrows.com/adam/3-31-04.html
http://countingcrows.com/adam/4-01-04.html

I love Mandy Moore all over again.

xtn tells you what to think and what to say

I'm sick of hearing about people who say stuff without being able to back it up. I'm talking here about when someone says something like 'oh [insert name] would make excellent boyfriend/girlfriend material' when in actual fact they wouldn't wanna go out with [insert name] themselves. If you can't back them up, they're just empty words and you're better off not saying anything. Even worst is when you say it to their face. Actually even worse is when they end up hearing what you said from someone else (and, let's face it, words usually do eventually get around) and your intentions end up being misconstrued even more!

Give compliments if you will, but stick to singular vague qualities. Like 'She's pretty' or 'He's really nice' or 'That oddly-placed mole isn't really all that distracting after a while'. If you wanna say something so definitive like 'Anyone would be crazy not to wanna go out with you' then be prepared to back it up. Otherwise, don't say it. Chances are you don't mean it anyway. Chances are, what you really mean is 'He/she, on paper, seems like a perfectly good catch but personally I wouldn't wanna touch him/her with a ten-foot pole'. These thoughts are best kept to oneself.

Also, if you're already in a relationship, don't say stuff like 'If I was single, I'd go out with you' because, again, that's empty and meaningless and can't be backed up. As my friend Audrey might say, if it is not falsifiable, then it's not valid!

Finally, while 'reliable' and 'dependable' might be flattering for a car or washing machine, most human beings probably wouldn't like to hear those as being their best qualities.

So, in conclusion... oh I can't be bothered. I can't even believe I'm posting this up!

xtn writes about stuff

I’m feeling the itch again. To start writing something. Some big project. Well, big for me anyway. I can feel it because I am up late again, thinking of ideas. I haven’t done that in a while. I usually write a whole lot. Then I get discouraged and I stop writing. Eventually I pick myself up and start again.

The disappointment has to be far enough in the rear view mirror. Yet at the same time, it has to be still visible to motivate me. Negative emotion is the spark because I can’t write when I am too happy. Yet if I am too close to it, then it’s like having too much spark. Or something. Actually I don’t think that holds very well.

Another way to process negative emotion is to think of all those who are worse off than you. It’s not very nice but it may work. I once heard about a disease where men develop gigantic testicles. I always imagine that these men always have a harder time than I do. They grow so big that the men have to carry them in wheelbarrows. I think it was common in some part of Africa or somewhere. I’m assuming that I learnt about this in biology. But to be honest, I can’t remember and I have never really checked this out myself to see if it is true.

There are lots of facts that I just take in that I never check out. For example, a friend of mine told me once that there is a Gospel according to Timothy that was left out of the Bible. In it, is a story of Jesus, as a little boy, getting really frustrated at another little boy that he tells the boy to drop dead. Having unknowingly used his celestial powers over life and death, the boy does indeed drop dead.

I liked this little vignette because it places emphasis on Jesus’ humanity – that he too didn’t always understand who he was and what he was capable of. And so I’ve told this story to countless others. But I’ve never actually check it out myself. There was a priest present when I heard about this, so I am assuming that his silence must have meant that he too had read or heard of such a passage. Priests seem like reliable sources of information to me. As do nerds in white lab coats pointing to numbers on a computer screen.

On the other hand, there are things that many people believe, without ever checking out the facts, that I know to be false. Take, for example, ancient Egyptian curses. These are a load of crap. Made by Hollywood. I’ve had this one checked out. Yes, the Book of the Dead is, indeed, a real thing. But all it was was a set that spells that gets buried with the mummy to ensure safe passage into the afterlife. You could argue that such a practice is quaint but there’s nothing really scary about it.

Conversely, one would assume that Sleepwalker is simply a figment of my imagination. But he’s actually real. Well, not real in the same sense that you and I are real (I am assuming that this blog is not being read by non-corporeal beings) but the concept of Sleepwalker comes from a real Egyptian myth about ‘Khu-frin’ (translates to ‘sleep-person’).

You see, the ancient Egyptians believed that to get into the afterlife, one of the trials you have to pass is that your soul (heart) must weigh less than a feather. The trial is presided over by Anubis, the jackal-headed god and Thoth, the ibis-headed scribe, would record the weighing. One of the many spells in the Book of the Dead was a bribe to Thoth so that he would change the records in your favour and allow you to pass into the afterlife.

The story of Khu-frin is about a thief who buys a Book of the Dead with the afore-mentioned spell because he knew that he would not make it into the afterlife on his own merits. But as he had no family or friends, when he died nobody bothered to bury the Book with him and so when it came to the weighing, he mentioned the bribe to Thoth, except that Thoth knew nothing of any payment from Khu-frin. Realising that the spell may not have come through for him, Khu-frin tried to cover his tracks but Anubis overheard his bribe attempt and so punished him by relegating him to the realm between life and death. In this state, Khu-frin could only communicate to people in dreams or hallucinations. His only hope of redemption was if he managed to steer enough people onto the righteous path, through dreams or hallucinations.

And that is where I got the idea for Sleepwalker from. You might wanna check that out for yourself though.