I have a decent job waiting for me up in Chicago. The job starts in late January, which is also when the lease on my current place ends.

Plus/minus:

+ the job pays twice what I currently make.
+ I could probably stay with my Uncle Karl for free.
+ Karl is one of my favorite relatives.
- The job is not in an industry I'm interested in. (It's IT work connected with assisted living communities)
- It is cold in Chicago. I wouldn't be able to ride my bike until at least late June.
- The job would involve sitting in cubicles for long periods of time.
+ Relatively little supervision at work. (ie: I can come in hungover and spend lots of time working on my own projects as long as the work gets done.)
- The work is really boring. Spreadsheets boring.
- Karl just bought a house with his long term boyfriend/life partner/whatev. I might be harshing their domesticity.
+ If I worked in Chicago January through late summer, I could save enough to pay off my student loans. I would also have a lot of extra money.
- I know almost zero people in Chicago. I know zero people who are into the industries I'm considering (fine arts, photography, writings, etc)
+ Chicago is one of my favorite cities.
+ I would no longer be living in squalor.
+ My roommates would not be insane.
+ There's a pool I can swim in during my lunch break.
- I would be abandoning all the projects I've been working on for the last year, just as they're starting to show potential.
- I might be trapped at the Chicago job via complacency for a lifetime.

The + and - I've listed here have different weights attached to them, obv. Still, I would appreciate any advice you can give me. Also, feel free to text your advice to me: 404.754.9469. Especially feel free to text me on Tuesday and Thursday between 4:30 and 9pm EST, when I will be at work and bored.

Also, considering hopping a train for a music festival in Richmond next weekend (August 21-23). Holla if you're in Richmond/DC.

I haven't been sleeping well lately, so I just took 5mg of something which is supposed to help. So far it just makes my legs seem really far away, but not sleepy.

This is what my weekend's been like:




I've also been writing this:

    ...Donated toys are strewn about the park’s sandbox and gazebo, a hodgepodge of colorfully painted rocks and signs line the woodchip paths, and several gardeners maintain their own rows of plants. As Charlie walks through the park, he points out tool sheds, showers, a sweat lodge, kitchen, and the drum circle stage – all built by the community over the last 22 years. Standing next to the sweat lodge, he explains the purpose lying behind the park’s tranquil beauty, “It’s like stairs. You go up a standard set of stairs, and you don’t think anything of it. It’s just automatic.” Charlie stops to greet a neighbor, then continues, waving towards a koi pond and the gardens behind it, “With this, we want it to be a shift away from automatic. You feel this place like a shock to your system. That’s the art I see in our community.”

Your thoughts, meditations, descriptions of hummingbirds - all very useful.

PS:  These drugs are kicking in a bit harder.  Gonna deny Christ three times, than get some sleep.

PPS:  That fourth picture was actually taken several months ago, in Chicago.

[30 minutes ago.  I'm walking to my car, on the phone with my mom.]

Me:  So, do you guys need a ride from the airport?
Mom:  No, your father's renting a car.
Me:  Why?  Karl's going to be away all weekend, and he'll let you use his car - or, I can chauffeur the two of you around.
Mom:  That's what I told Chuck.
[From my right, a parked car starts shaking.  Violent girl screams erupt from within.]
Mom:  What's that?
Me:  Just some kids fucking.
Mom:  Oh.  Did you want to have brunch with the family on Saturday?

This looks like fun.

The flight attendant upstairs gave me all these little airplane sized bottles of booze as a going away present.  Never in my life have I wanted more to be one of those people who drank and drove.

Remember those surveys I was hiding around the city?  That's what I've been doing in my spare time.  Gotten three back so far, responses posted here.

Quote of the day: "you know I don't fuck without indirect lighting."

Been working working working, driving to a different facility each day.  I hate driving.  It's like, with every tap at the gas, I can feel dinosaur bones being vanished.

I feel like the guy who goes to buy a wedding ring immediately after seeing Blood Diamond is supposed to feel.

The weather was finally nice enough to go biking yesterday.  I borrowed my upstairs neighbor's bike.  He's a flight attendant, says I can use the bike whenever he's out of town.  I sort of wanna take it and never give it back.  Chicago's so flat.  But if you aim South and towards the lake, there's just a bit of downhill, you can get clear across town in about two or three hours (it takes at least an hour and a half to drive the same distance0.  I'm trying to figure out how how to ride the bike to work and keep my SUPER FANCY WORK CLOTHES (WITH COLARS AND OPTIONAL TIE) unsweaty and unwrinkled.

I guess so people's minds start to drift when they look at clouds.  For me it's always been trees, specifically, tree branches in the wind.  There's just something about laying under a freshly leafed tree, watching the branches stretch from behind your head up into the sky.  It's nice.  Feels connected, even more connected than saying "hi" to old people at the ice cream shop on a sunny day.

I've been going down to see Troll Haired Gall every Sunday at her bar - in the entire time, I've seen maybe three customers total.  I think of it as practice for going to real bars.  Anyway, she feeds me fish sandwiches and good beer, we exchange travel stories and talk about coincidences.  It works out pretty damn okay, okay enough that I realized yesterday how much I'd miss Sundays in Chicago.  I realized it was inevitable, even arriving in the middle of winter, but still...

Maybe visit for that music festival thing next year?

Ummm.  Other things: went to party with anarchists last Friday.  It was like a fundraiser we were throwing for the co-op book store.  I brought pretzels.  Karl found my explanation somehow funny the next day: "I gave the pretzels to the anarchists".

Do you realize, I'm almost 23?  Another month and a half.  Fuck.  I don't wanna be 20 something.  My pants aren't expensive enough to make it in the 20 something world.  I like 10 dollar pants.  Though, the funny thing is that my "dress pants" are cheaper than any of my jeans.  I mean, a week's worth of work clothes cost about 60 bucks, plus another 40 for shoes.

Fuck.  Still awake.

Concert was sold out, ended up wandering around, molesting playground equipment with help of Troll Doll Hair Girl and friends.  The funny thing is, I had won tickets to see Ratatat tonight as well, but I skipped the free concert to see OOIOO.  Who I didn't get to see, because they were sold out.  And The Lichens were opening.  Fuck.

Anyway.  The air is just cool enough to make wearing a jacket silly and just a t-shirt a bit on the uncomfortable side.  Wind predominantly North by North West, strong enough to knock person balancing on top of playground swing off.  Makes for hilarious facial expression, skinned palms.  This is the first time I've fallen off something in months, so the balance training last year is working well.

Haha.  Balance training.  I have acrobatics as a primary skill, current level 65 (-5 for taking the Student prestige class).

[That last sentences is a combination of rules for at least three different RPG's.  Name two, and I'll send you something awesome and not at all a pipe filled with nails and hershey's kisses.  Name three, and I'll show up at your door naked at the time of your choosing.]

I've been working on this theory for what feels like years.  So far, I'm still not sure what the theory is, though I could give you a few key words:

connections
progress
balance

Really, those don't give me any idea of what the theory's about.

Gal Mentioned Previously asked me "do things touch?", and I think she had something else in mind, but it's a good way to describe the central question behind my theory.

I need to figure out if I've got any money to spend this weekend.  Managing my personal finances has been a lot more fun ever since I stopped putting money in the bank and started hiding it my lamp.  See, I've got this big pile o' money, probably getting towards or a bit over $2000, in denominations of 5, 20, and 50.  It is quite a large pile.  I get about $450 each week from work, and I spend between 100 and 150 on food and entertainment.  So, too figure out finances, I take out big pile of green, count it up, divide by number of weeks I've been working here, and hope that total amount is more than 300. 

I've been spending less these last few weeks, but I also had to miss a day of work on Monday in order to get car keys, be deloused, and have a picnic in Humbolt Park.

It is a good park, though too flat for my tastes.

Chicago is weird.  They dye their rivers green for St Patty's.  I think Saturday is gonna be me wandering up and down the river wearing a lion head and carrying two flasks of whiskey.  Or scotch if I'm feeling contrary.  Saturday's St Patrick's, right?

This is so strange.

I'm sitting here, and I'm not actually sure if I want a drink or not!  Week of sobriety is seriously fucking with my brain.

I mean usually, answer to question "Do you want a drink?"  is "Yes, please.  Stout and a double shot of whiskey, heavy on the ice.  Thanks."

But there's this big bottle of gin on the shelf, and I feel completely ambivalent towards it.  And this is only the fourth night of the Week of Sobriety.

Internet, we are in for some strange times.

Oh, and I sent the story out to 9 different magazines today.  I think I've got a good shot with about a third of them.  If I'm lucky, this thing will actually see print outside of a city based lit mag.

I just got hit by a wave of... I'm not sure you could call it depression.  The realization that I'm sitting in this room waiting for 11 o'clock to roll around, so I can sleep, and work, and eventually reach the weekend, and even then, I'll still be waiting for that flight out of Chicago.  But Chicago isn't the problem.  When I reach Atlanta, I'll be waiting for the flight, and when I reach London I'll be waiting again, waiting for Turkey, Summer on the Baltic, movement.

It doesn't stop, this dissatisfaction with the world around me.  I find myself doing everything to force change, grasping at the substance of my perceptions, trying to somehow transcend the constant do this thing do that thing go back and do this thing again nature of the world.

And the best thing I can get is distraction.

There's a woodshop across the hall from IT, and I can't help feeling I'd be happier as a carpenter.

What I'm reading while pretending to work:

Online:

Overcompensating
Templar, Arizona
Voids
Hatesong
Penny-Arcade
Questionablecontent
Warren Ellis

Offline:

The New Intifada
Junky
Porno

Awake again.  It's cold.  Too cold to sleep, too lazy to get out of bed and rummage up second blanket.  Oh laptop, you are like the hot plate which warms the cockles of my heart.  Current plan: vibrate till I become warm or become super saiyan.

Journal - I've got lots to tell you about my day.  I lost a hat.  I hung out around goths without getting in a fight or getting hit on by a middle-aged couple.  I fought crime.  I cleaned dishes.  Played computer games.  Made eggs.  Fought cat.  Distributed secret intelligence.  Contacted revolutionaries.  Found the Greatest Book Store In The World.

Ex:

Me:  I'm looking for an author, but I don't know his name, or the titles of any of his books.
Employee 1:  When did he write?
Me:  He wrote in the 1950's, tended to replace apostrophes with forward slashes, beat writer...
[a minute or two of discussion]
Employee 2:  [correct name].
Me:  You guys are fucking awesome.

Bonus round:  cookies and booze to the first person to get the author's name.

UPDATE:  Author is Hurbert Selby Jr.

The more time I spend in offices, the more sense Rousseau makes. Not that I think the guy's anything short of completely batshit, but I suppose he's useful to read as a sort of reflection of his times + how he influenced Marx.

I think, in 100 years, the invention of the office, as in the physical environment, the box we store people in, the cubicle - these images will be the stereotypical pictures of our time, just like pre-civil war south had the plantation, and ancient Rome had the coliseum. I can feel it working its way into me, and sometimes, I worry that my memory of Chicago will be entirely dominated by florescent lighting and offwhite walls.

EDIT: That's the scary part. This whole thing is viable. There's really no rational reason not to finish college, than return to Cube World. It wouldn't be too hard to get a job in a box doing something I can tolerate, working in editing, or management, or something. But I don't want to do any of that, and I'm getting to the point where, each moment I do one thing, I dig deeper into the life of always doing that one thing, or always living in that one city, or always something something.

So, now what?

Keep almost falling asleep while driving to and from work.  Need to add another 5 minutes onto my swimming time.  Coffee - good or bad?  Pan's Labyrinth Wednesday, I think.  Talk to Bria's Posse about Thursday night.  Clean room.  Put pillow cases on pillows.  Post office.

Let's say I distribute questionnaire on the weekends.  I only place envelopes and forms in interesting, low traffic areas.  Don't think I could place more than 50 per day.  There's a stamp which costs $0.24.  I'm not sure if it's valid for interstate use.  Speaking of which, I'm using Jeremy as PO box, and he wants to add "attn: Muted Trumpet Industries" to the address line.  Since when did address have two d's?  Anyway, I might spend as much as $100 on this.  Ideally, I'd be able to steal office supplies from one of the departments around here.  Inquiries are ongoing.

A note:  I'm putting together a pc for one of the pastors.  His password is "jesus".

Yesterday, I put silicone glue on my finger, than forgot about it and scratched my neck.  Ended up feeling very conductive.

What accidents occur in the IT industry which might lead one to gain super powers?  I keep trying to push server shelves onto myself, but it never works.

Spending too much time under artificial lighting.  Is this weekend Valentines, or next weekend?

For immediate distribution:

This is a CareTracker Questionnaire.

Please complete this form, place it in the provided envelope, and see ihavequestions.livejournal.com for further information and survey results.

Question 1)  Assuming we're using the Breakfast Club classification system (Princess, Athlete, Brain, Criminal, and Basketcase), what category best fit your role in high school?

Question 2)  Wasn't that movie great?

Question 3)  You're getting through these questions pretty fast.  Do you fill out many of these surveys?

Question 4)  What are you doing on Tuesday?

Question 5)  What are you doing on the Tuesday after that?

Question 6)  What will you be doing on the Tuesday 5 months from now?

Question 7)  I'm not sure if you realized, but there's a good chance you'll be bat-shit insane by the time you die.  Given your fast approaching insanity, what do you think about our recent Superbowl loss?  Personally, I wonder if I'll remember it when I'm eating prunes at every meal and drinking tea with dinner.  I guess I'll probably buy a dvd of the game or something.  I mean, it was pretty historical - after all, Lovey's not exactly a common name for a football coach.  Though, I guess, with a name like that, coaching football's your only valid choice.  Sorry.  I'm distracting you from the question.

Question 8)  Where did you find this?  How long did it take you to fill out?

Question 9)  On a scale of 1 through 9, how well do you think you're life's going?

Question 10)  What do you do for a living?  What do you dream of doing for a living?

Question 11)  You may have noticed that this is the last question.  If you've got anything else to tell me, please, don't hesitate to write it here.  This is your last chance.  We may never see each other again.  I probably should have made Question 8 the last one.

Ideally, I'll begin distributing these (as well as stamped and addressed envelopes) throughout the Chicago area sometime this week.

Question for y'all:  should I address the letters to a PO Box in Georgia, or Chicago?

What does a guy have to do to start a snowball fight in this city?

Chicago, this is your chance to be cool.

I challenge you.

Mano e Mano.

Or stereo!

City, I will kick your ass.  My snowballin' is supreme.

Feeling people-phobic today.  Went wandering a few miles down Clark over the late morning and afternoon, got French pressed coffee, a copy of the 1970's translation of The Master and the Margarita, some thermal underwear procured through illicit means, tried to get into a cool church, didn't end up hitting the lake before turning back.  Still don't know what this lake is called.

Spent the rest of the day reading, writing, and watching the entire second season of The Office.  I like computers, they are great, they keep my lap warm and put music in my ears.

My roommate's cat is in the hospital, which is unfortunate, because it reminds me how nice it feels to be around warm animate objects, which, in turn, might have prompted me to go out and do something tonight.

And, I've just realized that my writing's mood has begun to match my actual mood, the one in my brain.  Damn.

I think I've got a date with Some Random Internet Girl tomorrow, which should be interesting if it happens.  Maybe I'm supposed to call her?  She gave me her number in her last email, so I guess we're supposed to arrange details over the phone.  Don't like phones, never really made a good impression on someone unless my pants are off, and in that case, general public is usually only impressed with the scale model of Picasso's Guernica which I got tattooed over the length of my penis a few months ago. 

A picture, for those inclined towards the visual:



In any case, I find it difficult to leverage much concern towards tomorrow.  Could use some coffee.  That's a good reason to go on a date.  If nothing else, date = coffee.

I've been spending about a third of my work day answering personal ads in a manner which could only be considered surreal:

Hello!  I am a Boy!  I have witty repertoire and private parts!  Drinks and ambiguity this Thursday?

That's from memory, but you get the gist.

Chicago good.

So my schedule's basically set for the next eight weeks.  And my favorite parts of the work day are the 20 minutes listening to my radio in the morning, and the other 20 minutes, the ones spent listening to my radio on the way back.  I say my, but it isn't because the presets go higher than 92fm.

Do you ever get like that?  Thinking, "well this is it, this is my life for the next [increment of time]"?

All the fucking time.

I mean, I like it.  I don't have any obligations, I work, I suppose, but it's not really like any work I've enjoyed.  For one, physical pain is not an obstacle to be overcome.  AKA working in offices is really lame.

Hey.  I'm gonna just keep writing, without any lj cuts.  Sorry.  Don't like 'm.  Words from now until 8, when I'm leaving to see Frightened Bunny play at The Empty Bottle.

The best part about going to new places is hearing words without any actual images or other sensory bullshit associated with them.  It would be fun to get a bit brain damaged, lose the part of your mind that's responsible for recording memories which fall under the category of "Remember that time when..." - I mean, I don't like having stories associated with things, makes me snug and comfortable.  Actually I'm comfortable now, and really enjoying it.

Tunafish sandwiches for dinner, nice hard bed, and I'm naked.  What more could you want, except to remove that image from your head?

I've been saving the random stuff I wake up and write in the middle of the night:

Not an immense shit, but a sort of skirmish, battle between elementary laws of biology and physics. Biology won, or more properly, the shit left his bowels. And he chose that act as his last of the night, slipping from bathroom, to study, to his own sofa bed, imitation leather and clenched between two bookshelves, neither of which contained an author who's words had been recorded within the last hundred fifty years.

\Hoho.  Guess what that was inspired by?

If you didn't guess Joyce, than you haven't been reading enough.

Chicago is good.  People seem friendlier here, though it may just because I no longer have a mohawk, and have been practicing my smiling.

.......................................

 I'm working towards remembering that a certain girl's fake name is MonkeyGal, the certain girl, who told me she wished to remain anonymous, as she drove me to a bank so I could withdraw money, the certain girl who will be in rehab for the next few months.  She drove an old police cruiser which had been painted reddish.  She often had candy, but ate the candy much less than I, who eagerly haunted the crooks of her dorm room or backseats of her rolling hunk of red steel for hersheys or tootsierolls or caramels of any brand.

And she was surprisingly chubby for a heroin addict who once dated the dean of some college in the midwest.  Occasionally she would mention the dean, who, it seemed, was 20 years MonkeyGal's senior, that much older woman would fly to Atlanta just to visit MonkeyGal.  Once I asked her, where did you get those flowers, pointing to a shock of them clear smooth vase.  And she said in an of hand way that the dean had given them to her, the dean I never saw in the two years I knew the girl.

She once told me that talking with me was like being on drugs.  I took it as a great compliment, given the number and variety of drugs she enjoyed, as well as the delight she took in them.  I assumed she was sober when she said that, because I didn't know her as well then and because I didn't really know even a part of her until a year and a half later, when, early in the semester, after she had missed a class, I had asked her what was wrong, and she said it was the drugs, and I asked what she was on, and she said nothing that week of truancy, she had been trying to avoid them she was actually on meth most mornings we had class together and had tried heroin a few times since summer.  It is easier to stay in ones home and avoid doing drugs, than avoid those things at school.  Which was not funny, not funny at all, because MonkeyGal didn't have any friends at school, didn't buy from anyone at school, and this meant that the thing driving her towards drugs or at least the thing she felt drove her towards drugs was in the school itself.  And I confess, as she talked and I realized what she might not have meant to say, I worried that I asked to many questions, or not enough, or not the right kind, or reminded her of sobriety, or something, and thought, not then, but much much later that if I knew myself I might know the part of me that could reach out and harm those around me, extinguish that part, and leave myself open to know others.

Anyway, I don't know if I mentioned it, because to be frank I can't read my own writing, but the girl asked to be anonymous because she didn't want anyone knowing she was in rehab.  And she left before I could get her address so we could at least exchange letters, though we talked about her sending me some of her stories from the facility, which is how I imagined the place she would stay.

...................................

Well, that's enough writing for me.