Change.

It’s painful. I’ve had my show of rebellion already, and I know it will only grow worse as the day darkens. I admit that I want to do some pretty unhealthy things right now. I feel like I have to make up for what I’ve done with all of this. I wasn’t ready, I’m not ready, I’ll not be ready for quite awhile it seems. If I’m honest, in some cobwebbed corner of my head, I don’t believe there will ever be a time and a place for what I feel I have to say. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of it can never be voiced, not unless I somehow completely switch personalities and become alright with being so mentally vulnerable.

Is the solution to throw yourself into quicksand, laugh, and say, “Sink or swim, motherfucker!”, or do you go gradually until it doesn’t feel so much like blunt-force trauma? That’s the problem: if go measuredly and then I slack off into nothingness. I am very much an all or nothing person. I don’t go all the way with something, chances are I’m not incredibly serious about it, and given some time to think it over, I’ll reconsider what I’m doing and generally avoid completion all together. I have to be impetuous; my nature is too cautious for my own taste, so I end up coming off as something of a daredevil in certain situations when I am nothing of the sort. It’s simply me trying to put an end to my own inaction, my own cowardice as I often see it. The only way I can do that is by sealing the deal according to my initial reaction and ignoring any logic or doubt that might arise should I choose to think it over.

I know that I need some incredible change if I want to go on. I have to force myself into something or it will never get done and I will let it all get the best of me.

Even writing this feels like idiocy. I sit here yanking on my hair and cringing, while constantly searching for something to listen to. I don’t know why this is such a problem, why it has such a hold on me. I feel like it’s all I’ve got. It’s the only tool I can use when I’m here all alone and need to acknowledge that there is a world outside of this, thoughts outside of this. People—right now, this instant—are out and about enjoying their lives as I type this in my room with the curtains drawn and the lights all off. They’re living. I walk into work and people talk about it. This thing called life that I’m clearly not comprehending. 

The other day, one of the guys walks up to me and tells me there are flyers in the break room for some concert or other. Yesterday, as we’re standing there throwing things together and going through the general small-talk, he says out of the blue, “So did you get one?” I laughed. I hope I didn’t seem rude. But I laughed kind of loudly, turned away and had to stop myself from going into a fit of giggling. Yes, I am mad. I think my situation is beyond hilarious. I compose myself, just as he asks, “Are you going to go?” Know what I said? “I don’t leave my house, I like to stay home.” 

Yeah, I like to stay home, do nothing, stare at the walls, sleep, and pretend that I’m not an entirely fucked up indivivdual. Would you believe that I am actually good at that? It’s almost a talent.  

Why is that so fucking hard for me to do? Why can’t I just do it?  All you have to do is jump. It can be the smallest baby step or a running leap, and off you are sailing into the great abyss below with nothing to catch your fall. It’s not supposed to be pain free or make a whole lot of sense at first. It is, above all, absolutely illogical. That is what makes it beautiful. It’s like trying to take Alice in Wonderland and completely get it. The fact that I hate that book says a lot about me as a person. No, I don’t like it when I can’t sort it all out and dissect it with some degree of accuracy. I hate it, in fact. It bugs the shit out of me. Makes me frustrated. If I can’t make sense of something I tend to write it off as a personal flaw, a mark of stupidity.

Yeah, there you go, more proof that you’re stupid.

It’s a dumb way to be. It’s self-defeating. I know. But this isn’t some fucked up, pseudo-intellectual psychology class where we can take all our feelings and try to explain them by using subjective data that has been corrupted by every person whose hands it has fallen into. This is life. It isn’t that simple, and explaining and understanding sometimes doesn’t accomplish shit, to be frank. Yeah, I get that I am depressed, I get that something needs to be done. But knowing and caring are two different things. I know how to fix it, but here I sit, not doing anything. You can’t be forced to feel. Maybe wanting to feel is the first step and I’m doing nothing but furthering my own agony by being impatient about something that obviously takes time.

I hate waiting. All I do is wait, while it seems like everything tightens its hold.

I don’t have to be anyone.

The food didn’t taste like anything this morning. I didn’t want it. I finally gave up at trying to make it sweet and settled for bland. I ate as much as I could convince myself. I want to be Raymond. I want Tyler to put a gun to my head and see if the next morning I have the best breakfast I have ever tasted. I want to see if I wake up that morning and don’t feel sorry. I want to see if something comes to me in the morning haze, a feeling maybe. I want to wake up and experience something besides dread and a wretched disappointment with myself. 

People are in love with an idea of themselves. Maybe in a sick way, I am too. That vision is supposed to propel us through life, make us desire improvement and recognition for our efforts. We all want to appear better than we are, and as a consequence this gives us motivation to live, to have the satisfaction of not only pleasing ourselves, but receiving praise from others for being so fucking incredible. A vicious little cycle.

But if you don’t care? If that vision is all about being the cruelest person? You must find enough satisfaction in what you selfishly get out of it. I’m not suggesting that it isn’t always selfish, in fact, come to think of it, conventionally this is less so than most visions. In truth, you have to settle for less than everyone else. You have to be alright with the fact that no one is going to understand it or appreciate it as you do.  You have to go it all alone and hope that the monsters that lurk aren’t going to feed off of you in the dark. Your suffering means nothing to anyone, and they will laugh at you and attack you until you are beaten down and weakened. No one will tend to your wounds. No one will regret that they tore that wretched thing down. Ugly things shouldn’t be suffered to live, after all.

And I am not ready. I leapt off the tower of humanity out of fear instead of faith, and there was nothing below to break my fall. I crashed all the way down, condemned to be a mangled heap of something that once was. In my eyes you either accept yourself (even if it is reluctant) or you spend a lifetime doing the job of killing yourself rather than allowing the world to do it for you.

Maybe the true escape is being nothing and having no qualms about it, not being burdened by what you’ve been taught or by whatever inadequacies you see yourself as being afflicted with. Maybe we are being stupid by trying for something that we all know is as pointless as anything else.

All we do is struggle constantly against who we are because we are so enamored with what we could be.

I’m not here to make you proud.

I’ve been waking up early every morning, much to my annoyance. The barest of light comes through the curtains and a roll over and groan. Not again. Not another one, another morning. I know that I do in fact need to get up. So instead of fighting for more sleep, I relent.

I end up outside in my pajamas, upon my mom’s recommendation. My dad is standing in the back with a can of spray paint fixing the rack for his truck before he puts it back on. After experimenting with the weight of it, we decide the safest choice is to use the framing of the garage to hoist it high enough, rather than having the both of us deal with back problems for the next week by lifting it with brute force. It’s heavy as hell.

It always times like that that he starts talking, when we’re working on something. I don’t know why. Every once in awhile he’ll say things to me, stuff that he won’t say to my mom. Occasionally he’ll mention something about the past, something about his brothers or some crazy incident from school. Today he starts talking about this kid from work who wasn’t paying his bills. This kid keeps turning up at my next door neighbor’s house, because of the girl who lives there. She’s a meth addict, from what I hear, and apparently he fell into that whole mess as well—hence the unpaid bills. My dad goes onto say how it is a complete waste, how all of these younger adults assume that other people are going to be there to take care of them. He says to me, “They just give up and don’t even try”.

The conversation got me kind of mad, but I didn’t say much. There’s not much to argue about, really. I’m not about to express sympathy for someone who throws themselves into drugs headfirst. I was around it, I didn’t participate, even though it probably would have gotten me some friends and their questionable respect. But I know what it’s like to give up, to want nothing but a temporary fix, because you come to the realization that there is no long term one, no surefire cure. I have, in  many senses, forsaken hope, a future. I go for what I can get, what I see as attainable. And how am I any different in what I do? I find things to slake the unquenchable thirst for anything, any kind of feeling that isn’t pain, and I let everything else fall to the wayside. I just have chosen different poisons, and am better at keeping them hidden.

It was a sad moment, but I didn’t feel it much, only acknowledged that it should have been. Blinding numbness is back in place again, my suit of armor. I’ve known that I will never be what I was expected, not even what I personally expected. Sometimes that is horrible to think about.  At the same time, I was never here to please anyone. I never signed up for this, and I will give this worthless thing what little I believe myself capable, until there is nothing left.

Is that not trying? Is that not in itself, an attempt?

It will have to do. It is all I have.

Surrender.

I don’t know what I was planning. The day started off bad, probably due to yesterday’s not-so-pleasant ending. I needed to get out of the house this morning, found that I couldn’t, since I happen to be at the beck and call of my mother. My driver’s license isn’t valid right now because I’m not on the insurance, so there was no hope of even driving to town to get away from myself, not that I would be brave enough to do it anyway. 

I was stuck in the house going fucking mad. I barely slept last night, and for whatever reason decided to leave the cats out of their cage to wander around aimlessly so that there would be something alive and breathing, even if it meant hearing them crash into things at all hours. I couldn’t stop thinking or get my body to rest, and today it was the same, though with a lot less panicking and crying and a lot more anger. I had to tell a lot of lies yesterday to keep my little episode a secret; blamed my crying on hormones and a stupid story with a bad ending (I wasn’t even reading yesterday, but of course, my mother believed me). Then my godparents decided they wanted to talk to me over my webcam, and wouldn’t leave me alone about it. So I told them I was sleepy and looked like shit, to give them warning. All they said when I got on was, “You do look really tired”. It’s amazing how easy it is to put in that ridiculous cheery tone and act like I’m perfectly fucking fine. I even baked cookies yesterday for distraction.  

Today I was a belligerent fucker. I snapped at everyone and everything. Even my cat was an annoyance, though he has been hounding me since yesterday because he knows something is off. He keeps trying to crawl into my lap and I just shove him away. He finally went and fell asleep in the window after a long session of staring at me unblinkingly and getting yelled at for it. I think today I was mostly annoyed by the confirmation that no one is ever going to notice. Even crying can be written off as from something else. My pacing is normal. My moodiness isn’t unnatural to them. 

Months of living on almost nothing with binges in-between, have really fucked my body over. All I want is sugar and sleep. I end up forsaking actual food for a few bowls of ice cream and nothing else. And that only lasts two or three  hours before I feel the gnawing hunger and have to do something to keep my mind off of the sweet, sugary, packaged crap stored in the next room. But I’ve kept my weight normal enough that no one is worrying, though they certainly comment enough. I want to throw people out of windows sometimes. Needless to say, being perpetually starving has done nothing to ease my temper, and it has made my mood swings all the more terrible. I still feel fat, awfully so, which I acknowledge is just stupid. But for whatever reason, I can’t get it out of my head and I keep losing more weight as the months drag on. All of the clothes I bought recently are too big now. I have to keep altering everything so it doesn’t look like I am wearing something two sizes too large.

Yesterday all I got was the sugar, not the sleep. Today I only got the sleep. It makes me feel psychotic, being this way. Trading one sin for another and hoping that it will be enough to get me through another day. I went quading after waking early, since it became obvious that the only way I was going anywhere was if I did it myself. I nearly crashed a few times driving far too fast around winding corners. I didn’t care. I came home no better, no freer. I still feel my chains no matter how far I run, that is the sickening part. There is no getting away. I finally drugged myself up with some pills from the cabinet. Fell asleep for hours and hours, and woke with the night creeping in through the curtains and a cat milling around below my bed.

I can only ask myself these days, if there is anything worth it to make going on like this a bearable burden. I can write all I want, read, I can draw, I can fight all I want, but every single day I go to sleep knowing that it will get no better. I can integrate, I can make a life for myself, but it will not make me happy or even slightly less insane. I will never wake up feeling vaguely contented with where I am at and who I am. There will always be visions of something wretched.  

In the end I know that all I am doing is the thing I so adamantly disagree with: searching for reasons that I’m never going to find, just like everybody else.

My version of normal?

It’s been an interesting few days, to say the least. I think I’m vaguely getting the hang of it, though I do fuck up from time to time without noticing until someone mentions it. I had a long conversation with this other guy who works in the back with me sometimes. I started trying to fill in the gaps with his English, teaching him new words (he also taught me a little more Spanish). He’s very quick about learning it, so it’s not difficult at all. I say it once and he emulates it, then starts using it immediately in conversation. I catch him standing by the toaster repeating the words under his breath. 

Nearly everyone exclusively speaks Spanish or only one word of English at a time ( a few of the men are much better at it), which leads to a lot of chaos and screaming back and forth trying to figure out if I heard the person right (it’s made even more complicated by very thick accents). I understand parts of it, leftovers from Spanish classes forever ago, but most of the time that isn’t enough to get by, since they speak so quickly to one another I can’t catch it fast enough to register.

Anyway, this guy, he has the typical sort of beliefs about what a person is supposed to do with their life. He speaks fairly good English, though again, I have trouble with his accent combined with the fact that the kitchens are so deafeningly loud, so we usually have to say things twice through all of the beeping ovens and other noise. When I told him about myself, the whole not having friends and not wanting to settle down, he was astounded. I end up finding out that he wants two kids and a wife. But he doesn’t seem done with his line of questioning.

He started asking me, “What are you going to do with life?”

 When I said I didn’t know (I was tempted to say I don’t care, but refrained since I don’t even know this man), he looks even more confused.

“Don’t you want to be somebody?”

I shake my head and shrug.

“Don’t you have dreams?”

I want to laugh. “A house? I don’t know.”

“What you mean you not know?”

“I just don’t.” I’m smiling in that secretive way, but refuse to elaborate any further when he continues to ask.  

He has to go off to do the dishes, and leaves me to man the kitchen. I’m cleaning because there are no orders to fill and all of the food is stocked, so there is nothing to cook. It doesn’t take long before he wanders back, probably not even five minutes. He’s giving me that weird stare that he does, like he wants to say something, but he’s not sure if he should. He’s watching me clean.

I laugh and ask him, “What?”

“It is bothering me,” he says. “It been bothering me.”

“What I said?”

“Yes. You must have dreams. You don’t have kids, there’s no one to take care.”

“No one to take care of me? They’ll probably throw me in a rest home.” I’m laughing, but morbidly, I think to myself that I’ll never last that long, nor would I endure the indignity of not being able-bodied enough to care for myself. I voice none of it. 

He’s shifty. I don’t trust him even slightly, but he helps pass the time and is nice enough. He talks about other people though, so I’m sure he will talk about me. But I’ve decided I don’t care if anyone knows. What does it matter at this point? It is the truth, as much as I am willing to divulge, anyway. 

I finally got to know my manager, even ventured to ask him his name since I couldn’t remember it. I found out about what he wants to do and all of that. We talked a little about college and different degrees. It’s so weird how everyone wants to know your life story. Even the one guy who is rather ill-tempered and sloppy about everything he does, started talking to me about his belief in the degradation of society, which he says is proven by how stupid orders are getting. I thought it was hilariously funny in that pseudo-intellectual way (he was entirely serious). I didn’t say much to him about it. I figure it is best not to let myself be known on that account. The world-hating is for me alone to contemplate.

While making orders, out of the blue, the guy from before asks me, “So what is normal to you?”

I’m not sure what he means for a moment because of the long stretch of insanity wherein everyone decided they wanted food at 9:00 at night. Then it dawns on me that he is continuing where he left off earlier. “You mean normal lifewise?”

He grins.

I put the toppings on the order I’m doing. I stare down at the paper, thinking, deciding. Then I look up at him.

“Me. I’m my own normal.”

Never.

It keeps raining and raining. As a kid, when I was feeling bad, I would often tell myself that the sky was crying for me. Self-centered, child-like thought, but  it always flits through my head when it starts pouring down relentlessly, like it has been recently.

It’s not so terrible. I’m trying not to concentrate on it. I realize that I am always so damned negative, especially lately. All I can seem to think of is doom and gloom, nothing else. I’m caught in the drain going down, down, down. Sometimes I think I should let loose and just enjoy the drowing, let it take me where it will. But I hate relinquishing the tiny bits of my illusion, those beliefs in at least a partial control of who I am and where I will go. I know it isn’t all that real, but if I push enough, occasionally it can be. It’s only a matter of wanting it.

I’ve been listening to the Diamanda Galas version of Gloomy Sunday. Her voice took me forever to adjust to; at first I hated it, found it too operatic, almost laughable. But the lyrics got into my head like a splinter, and suddenly I found I liked the oddness of it, her tones. It does not have the happy ending the Billie Holiday version has. It’s supposedly a more more accurate translation of ”The Hungarian Suicide Song” the song that it was originally based off of.   

“Gloomy Sunday” Diamanda Galas

Sadly one Sunday
I waited and waited
With flowers in my arms
All the dream has created
I waited ’til dreams,
Like my heart, were all broken
The flowers were all dead
And the words were unspoken
The grief that I knew
Was beyond all consoling
The beat of my heart
Was a bell that was tolling

Saddest of Sundays

Then came a Sunday
When you came to find me
They bore me to church
And I left you behind me
My eyes could not see
What I wanted to love me
The earth and the flowers
Are forever above me
The bell tolled for me
And the wind whispered, “Never!”
But you I have loved
And I’ll bless you forever

Last of all Sundays

It’s strange that that song lifts my mood instead of worsening it.

Rift.

I want to self-sabotage. I want to ruin everything and make sure there is no hope. I admit that. I don’t want this to work; for once I want the failure, if only for a reason, a little shove.

My mom was giving me a long talk this morning, the kind that is supposed to be comforting. She was telling me what I should do, I got annoyed, and said something like, “Yes, I know”, which prompted her to say some words, that at the time, I took the wrong way.

“You always make so many mistakes.”

A long pause.

“Why, because I’m a fucking failure?”

I said it out loud, I said it. I said it in that bitter, if-you-only-knew voice, and smiled grimly even though I knew I sounded childish. Of course she says she didn’t mean it that way. She makes the point that I always come back after doing something and talk about what I should have done, that I should try to be more prepared this time, since I always forget what I’m supposed to say or ask. 

Yes, because I can’t get anything right. I know. You wouldn’t believe how acutely aware I am of it.

It was just not the time to say it, not at all. I felt like it was all glaring back at me, laughing, mocking me. Sometimes I think the past is what kills me, more so than the future. It seems to transcend time and taint any positive thoughts I have left. I let it get to me, because in some ways, I feel it’s what I need to force myself to make some sort of move and end my idleness. I play it over and over because I want to drive myself crazy. I want to snap. I want to look at the world as more vile and ugly than anything else, and see not a single redeeming quality in it. Just to make it easy. Just to make it worth leaving, even if it isn’t entirely true. I’d use a lie if it could make it simple. I’d end as a hypocrite, quite contentedly.

I went to the city, did what I needed to do. Put resumes and cover letters in everywhere. I stopped by the Humane Society, put in an application and filled out some other papers so that they might call on me to volunteer sooner or later. It was very difficult at first, walking in, asking, when I feel so fucking inadequate. I have so much trouble just talking to people. And the more time I spend alone, locked away in this room with all the curtains drawn and the sunlight chased out, the more I let it take its hold.

But the numbness has grown worse as I predicted, and for whatever reason, after the first few times of approaching yet another customer service desk, it didn’t make my hands shake. I was nervous, but it was very diluted and vague, not quite the tangible thing I’m accustomed to. Instead, there was mostly tiredness and a voice in my head that told me darkly, that it is all so pointless. That voice of pitiless truth. Maybe that was why I managed to go through with it.

There always reaches a point where exhaustion is far surpassed, and a strange residual weariness sets in. Instead of walking, you slow to a crawl, dragging your feet, dreading every single step, almost counting them. I always tell myself when I start running, “Just imagine how much it’s going to hurt the further you go”.

I’ve kind of given myself a secret ultimatum. I don’t really like where either option leads, but these days I don’t seem to like much of anything to begin with. I feel like I am sort of at this turning point; perhaps it’s age, but nothing to do with legality or anything of the sort, just an inner feeling I can’t fully put into words. Compelled, is close to what I mean. I’m being drawn in toward something, or maybe subconsciously I am pushing myself in this direction. I think I want black and white, which I know isn’t all that possible, but in this case, it is, oddly enough. I’ve made it that way. I was afforded this one piece of control, this one meaningless life to fuck up if I so choose.

 I was irritable beyond belief for most of the day (my mom got the brunt of it, unfortunately), and putting on a fake smile made me grind my teeth. It took all day to get everything done. But everyone was very friendly; I didn’t meet one person who was rude or who wasn’t willing to help, which was a very pleasant change. When I finally did finish, I was in a better mood because I hadn’t any reason to be angry with what went on. It wasn’t what I expected, and though I had no appetite, I did not feel as ill as I had expected. I wanted nothing all day but for it to be over and night to fall again.

Done, for now. And night has indeed come.

Negativity.

I’m awake, isn’t that shocking? I only got up out of bed so I’d stop planning. That’s what I was doing, laying there. It’s been so fucked up, I don’t know what I can truly do anymore. I’m drowning in all of those setbacks, and telling myself over and over, proving over and over, that the list of reasons to continue has nearly been erased blank, that this is all a useless, stupid struggle I would have been smart to quit back when I was 14 and knew better.

I knew it then, I know it now, but I hesitate. Over and fucking over, like an idiot. A stubborn, worthless thing that is too obsessed with trying to win, trying to show that all those people that they were wrong about me, that I can be this way and breathe. But I’ve been lying. I’m always lying, even to myself, because sometimes the thought of not being here is more scary than surviving. It’s my parents, I guess. My dad will write me off as yet another mark against him, some cruel joke of the universe to grant him a child that didn’t want to survive beyond 20. And my mom will cry and ask all those stupid questions about what she did wrong. I don’t know mom, don’t you remember when I told you that I wanted to die?

Every time I try to say something, the words catch in my throat and I choke on them. I feel the bile rise, and I swallow it down, thinking, “Now don’t be a weak, snivelling child”. But it’s not the voice of my tormentors anymore; it’s my voice. I am the enemy now, because I built up these walls, laid every fucking brick, and it’s my right to tear it all down. Tear it down and begin anew with an even stronger foundation, with even more hate imbedded in the walls. Or…I can just end. If I don’t want it anymore, my castle can be torn down and never rebuilt. It can wither away, dust on the wind, as I do that deed everyone is going to hate me for.

But didn’t they always hate me? Wasn’t I always the bitter disappointment? These days it’s hard for me to sympathize with them. They should have looked, should have seen it coming. Truth be told, it’s not their responsibility anyway. If they blame themselves that their choice. But my reasons are my own. My choice is my own. I’m so dreadfully tired of people believing that parents own their children, that they can somehow control them by laying down the law. I care a great deal for my parents; they have kept me after I failed their tests. But I never asked for this life, and I never asked them to hold me above the water. I think I would have preferred to drown. I deserve to be left behind, learn life’s lessons without a protective safety net to catch me when I make a mistake. I want consequence, because this life of protection has done nothing but make me will away being human, will away that survival instinct that is supposed to save us all like a life raft. But it’s not their fault; it’s mine. I should have strayed a long time ago. They made their mistakes, so I am entitled to my own. I should have ran.

Practice makes perfect? And the skull hunt….

I got up early. Yes, feel free to gasp in utter astonishment. Okay, it wasn’t that early, it was 11:30, but hey that’s an improvement from the day before when I rose from slumber at 5:00pm after being awoken for dinner….Haha. No one can surpass me on that one. Hell, I would have slept even later if I hadn’t been woken up. Anyway, on with it.

I decided to actually attempt to improve my driving; I’m getting very antsy about this whole ‘job’ idea. Who knows, maybe just a desire for cold hard cash here and now. Plus once I start making money wherever I end up working, then I can start paying the insurance on the car for myself, which will take an IMMENSE amount of pressure from my shoulders, and surprise surprise, actually make driving a pleasurable experience rather than a torturous one. I crash, I pay for it, plain and simple—that would be an independence I have been waiting for since I was 15. Anyway, today was throw myself into the pits of Hell day. I parked in horrible spots on purpose, drove across roads I typically avoid because the highway traffic is a pain to cross over, and even tried my hand at parallel parking. It wasn’t fun, but I did it. I was in a very stubborn, angry mood all morning, so it was a good day for me to finally ‘face the demon’ so to speak.

Later, after I got home, my dad was telling me about an elk skull he saw when he had been hunting about a week prior. Somehow, by some miracle, he actually agreed to go with me and show me the relative area it was in (he couldn’t recall exactly where it was, only a general spot). More driving lessons, in which, he did not yell once. Truth be told, I haven’t driven with him since I was about 16. It got so depressing and made me literally want to hate him, so naturally I was not thrilled at the prospect at having to be in a car with him while I was driving it. But hey, this time no stick shift, wonderful automatic and plenty of hours driving with mom (all the way to Vegas and back once, even).

Driving there went well, it was finding the skull that was a huge pain. He knew it was by this old wrecked car, out in the field beyond the road, but unfortunately the area was full of underbrush and toppled trees, which made the search…difficult. It took a few hours of straffing back and forth, over the same sections again and again. I’m surprised he tolerated it that long; who knows what got into him. He checked one side, I the other.

After a long while, he finally was starting to admit defeat, that someone must have found it and taken it. But I knew it was out there, even if we wouldn’t find it today. Skulls stay on the side of the dirt roads for years, so the likelyhood of someone taking this particular skull in the middle of a field wasn’t all that high at all.

We had to search A LOT. There was a ton of ground to cover, and it was raining off and on. Generally I enjoy the rain, but not in this instance; the cloud cover made it difficult to spot the distinctive white of a sun-bleached skull that on a sunny day would stick out vividly. I did find a few small bones, and searched quite a bit in that area but came up with nothing else.

I was in the complete opposite direction on my dad, when I finally see him, just barely, in the distance. I pick out something big and white that he’s carrying, and realize that he’s found it. He sees me and stops, and waves the skull above his head. He also found an arrow, which made him happy because he’s been trying to collect all the bow-related equipment to get better at archery.

The skull is blindingly white. It’s crushed in a lot of spots, but it’s still pretty cool, being an elk skull. I also finished the skull I was painting today, and glossed it finally. I added a few more flowers and crazy shit to it; it came out better than I expected it to. Then I have the new one to work on along with another skull that my dad and godfather found; it actually has partial antlers though again, a somewhat crushed face. It’s very small too, it’s a deer skull rather than an elk skull.

This is the one we found today. You can tell it was out there for a long while—there was no gunk on it whatsoever, and it is very white from being exposed to the elements for so long.

This is the one my dad and godfather found on the side of the road no less. It’s very small compared to the others; the teeth are about human-sized, whereas the elk teeth are the size of quarters. The side is smashed in, but I really like that it still has a bit of the antlers on it.

A side view of the same skull. You can see the other one next to it, which makes it seem about the same size, when in actuality this one is quite a bit smaller. But even that elk skull next to it is small in comparison to the one I have hanging on the wall of my bedroom….

The painted elk skull. The gloss really helped bring out the colors of the paint; they were very dulled before because of the black spray paint. I had to do several coats over each painting (hence some of the mistakes) because the color kept fading out because of the black underneath it. It was a pain, but I’m glad it came out alright in the end.

A side view. I decided to do a flower design around the eye socket…how charming. Haha.

Another side view. I tried to vary the designs, but I’m not all that creative about flowers and happy things. I had to set the skull aside for several days because I kept running out of ideas of what to paint onto it that was…fitting with the theme.

Close, top view. That’s the ‘eye of nature’, and some other random crap. The larger flowers are ones that I learned from an artist who used to paint me. She gave me a few lessons on how to give flowers a bit more depth and demention, so that they aren’t so plain. I really never thought that I would ever be painting again, especially something that would need flowers. It was interesting trying to pry that old information out of my head….

Another close one of the top of the skull. I don’t know what’s with that one crazy design, I just decided I wanted something big that wasn’t a flower.

Side view, more close this time. I did a daisy. I also lined the teeth in red, which I saw on a lot of day of the dead skulls that I looked up. I like the red because it reminds me of gums, oddly enough. Makes it more ‘alive’ or something.

There are mistakes here and there, but I’m rather happy with it. I’m just glad I didn’t entirely ruin the skull like I thought I would.

Quasi-Heaven is only attainable in small increments. Then it fades away….

I feel like a crazy person. A numb, distant, sadistic crazy person, almost on the brink of normal…that is if normal includes “numb”, “distant”, and “sadistic”. Don’t know what I’m talking about? I hardly do. My mind is fluttering around like a damn humming bird. Trying to stay on one thought is like trying to control a ferret: damn near impossible. Ferret on crystal meth, no? I should know, I have a ferret…. Not important, but it does give my description merit. Anyway, on with the inevitable talking….

What’s wrong? Who knows. I haven’t really been asking myself lately or done any form of introspective thinking, as I’ve been preoccupied with many other things…. For one, I completely gave in to my desire to consume food…lots of food. Generally I constantly monitor what I’m eating (rather obsessively..I admit) But lately…oh…fuck. Eating. Everthing. Can’t. Stop. Eating. It’s like I opened the gate to paradise…and hell. I hate that I do it, yet I don’t have the will power to stop. And for once I’m allowing that to be the answer…I’ve become so lost in the pursuit of control that I haven’t been letting myself live. And with my beliefs…that is unacceptable. So, viola! Enjoy paradise for a few days kid; it isn’t going to last long.

Along with that, I said “fuck it” to everything else. I read all day long, I write shitty poetry and never post it, I draw horrible pictures and don’t give a shit…I neglect my journal, I stare into space of daydream for hours and hours a day…listen to music far too loudly, ignore the existence of the dog, ignore the fact that my hair looks like shit and needs to be dyed, ignore the fact that I HAVE the hair dye but am too lazy to use it, brush off the fact that I haven’t been getting regular exercise, pretend that I don’t actually need sunlight to survive (gotta love dark sheets that go over windows…), pretend that I’m dead so my cat won’t try to steal the blankets, pretend that email doesn’t exist, never answer the phone even when you hear it ring (and lie when anyone asks), skip to the naughtier sections of Juliette, watch BBC because it is entertaining, daydream about lobbing the heads off of irritating newscasters, and last, but certainly not least, forget that everything not only has a price, but a limit. You only get so much. Then, as all things do, the candle is snuffed out…and the light fades away. Forget that, wipe it from your useless memory and listen to my brainwashing: Everything is good. Everything lasts forever. Everything is good. Everything lasts forever….

You know that saying, “with absence the heart grows fonder” or some such equally stupid bullshit? Well, it’s not true. Never has been. I know it was meant for lovers, but I’m applying it to other people. My mom, for instance. She’s coming home…tomorrow. Honestly, talk about the WORST timing. It’s like God’s up there in his fluffy clouds laughing his ass off right now about my predicament. Bastard. I should sue…anyway…. What’s terrible is that I was just starting to feel…okay…for the first time in I don’t know how long. So long ago, I can’t remember. I was really starting to think that maybe I was beyond salvation from the constant, nagging depression, and that even being alone had somehow lost its power for soothing me. But no. I felt…alright today. I wasn’t dreading the day, or worrying about what I had to do. Is this what normal people feel like? Well, you know, minus the whole loner issues, the sadism, and lack of giving a shit (meaning: absence of feelings). Haha. It’s sad that a day where I don’t focus on dying is a day that can be deemed “good”. Apparently for me that’s as good as good gets.

There’s hell for you. Apparently Sephiroth lives there….

I’ve been going outside the last few days, burning through fuel like crazy on my ATV, forgetting for just a few pleasant hours that there is a place called “home”, or a life that I hate that I am expected to return to. Paradise looks a lot like hell. Ugly, deformed, spindly trees line the small trails, while dispersed throughout are weed-like shrubs that seem never-ending. In the summer it’s like being in a desert with trees—high desert—I suppose it it called. The dust chokes, filling the air so extensively that it is impossible to see. It coats the lungs, covers the clothes. Dirt is beautiful. My hair, shiny and black when I left the house, comes back with me as a dull grey, fibrous like a horses mane from the clouds of dust. Sometimes I go to sleep without washing it, just for that great second where I turn my head on my pillow at night and catch the scent of oil and gasoline. It’s like a goddamned aphrodisiac. I always laughed when I heard people say such things, but now I understand. It’s my silent reminder that there can be times in my life that aren’t a struggle I didn’t choose, times where I live for the challenge, and where I can put thoughts aside for a time…even if it is limited. It’s times like that that remind me of what could be, were I able to coax a little bit of willpower out of myself.

Paradise? Looks like it to me. I like a place with some mystery. Not my picture, by the way, or my forest. If the forest I wandered in looked like that, I might die from sensory overload.

Anyway, mom’s coming home, like I said. I finally feel…not horrible, and back she is again, and I’ll be trapped for another year in a house that I can’t escape. No time alone. Inevitability. I know now that my naivete in believing that happiness is possible, was a stupid one. The best I will ever get is mediocre, or “not horrible”. But even that pathetic gift comes at a steep price, one that I regret everyday I am forced to attend school and pretend that I care.

That is the way of things, I guess.