Echo! Echo!

The sad thing about sexist geeks is that they ultimately believed what society told them to oppress them. They believed that it's OK to shun people because you don't understand what they are about, it's OK to shun everything Other. I mean, come to think about that. You are a geek. You have been called 'faggot' for your interests and for caring so much about a 'stupid' comic book. You have been told you aren't a real man, and are wasting your time on stuff that doesn't matter. And it made you sad and lonely and you fought through it, because you have been taught it's OK to suffer. I am sorry about that.But what do you do when someone makes a comment about how your culture makes them feel and takes the time to analyze patterns in it?

 You go around and tell them they're wasting their time on stuff that doesn't matter. Stop it. You don't know. You don't know how other people feel - as is very strongly evidenced by how your culture treats Others. The protagonist you identify with is mostly real, the other characters are props. It is great that you got to tell your story, but this story is lacking when it comes to other narratives. Because it couldn't be any other way, unless you consciously exercised your empathy muscle. Let the other people fill in their narratives.

 You don't know how I felt, growing up in a world where everything pink is inferior. You don't know how I came to not care about how I look, despite that. My story and her story and his story, are important. And you are not the protagonist, because you couldn't possibly be. 

Ενδοσχολική βία

Αν έχω δύο αναμνήσεις απ'το σχολείο είναι οι εξής: το πώς με κοίταξε ο μάγκας που με κορόιδευε όταν τον τράβηξα απ'το γιακά της ηλίθιας μπλούζας του και του είπα να το βουλώσει. Έτρεμα μετά, αλλά δεν μου ξαναμίλησε. Δεν χρειαζόταν κανένα εξωτερικό ιντερβέντσιον - απλά ωμή βία για να με αφήσει ήσυχη - κι όμως ήταν αυτό που κανείς δεν τόλμησε να με συμβουλεύσει. Για να φέρεται κανείς υπεράνω, πρέπει να είναι υπεράνω - δεν ξυπνάς μια μέρα με πανοπλία απέναντι στις βρισιές - την χτίζεις. Και τη χτίζεις όταν βλέπεις ότι έχεις δύναμη. Όχι όταν προσποιείσαι ότι την έχεις.

Η μαμά μου πάντα μου έλεγε να μην τρέχω πίσω από κανέναν, γιατί είναι καλό κανείς να έχει μια αξιοπρέπεια, κι εγώ την πίστευα. Δεν ξέρω πώς την εννοούσε την αξιοπρέπεια, όμως περιμένοντας μέρες μπροστά από οθόνες για ένα μύνημα και ένα φριεντ ρεκουέστ δεν ένιωσα και ποτέ πολύ αξιοπρεπής. Γιατί είναι αξιοπρέπεια να θες να μιλήσεις σε κάποιον αλλά να τραβιέσαι και να περιμένεις να σου μιλήσει αυτός πρώτα? Γιατί είναι αξιοπρέπεια να έχεις θυμό και να σκύβεις το κεφάλι?  Να τη βράσω την αξιοπρέπεια. Είναι απλά συμμόρφωση σε κανόνες, που όλο και πιο arbitrary φαντάζουν, δε χρειάζεται να της δώσουμε και ωραίο όνομα για να χαιρόμαστε μόνοι μας.

Και τη δεύτερη φορά, που πήρα τον σκουπιδοντενεκέ και τον άδειασα στο κεφάλι του τύπου που με ενοχλούσε σε όλη μου τη σχολική καριέρα, μια χαρά αισθάνθηκα. Όταν σκεφτόμουν πώς θα τον αποφύγω να μη μου πει τίποτα, και από ποια γωνία να τη δω την κατάσταση για να αισθανθώ υπεράνω  - ναι κατα βάθος με ζηλεύει και δεν θα κάνει τίποτα στη ζωή του - και πάλι σκατά ένιωθα. Ίσως συγκρίσιμα σκατά μ'όλες εκείνες τις φορές που το τηλέφωνο δε χτύπησε από μόνο του και δεν υπήρχε άλλη επιλογή από την αναμονή. Διότι το να δείξει κανείς ενδιαφέρον είναι δείγμα αδυναμίας.

Όλα ανάποδα.

Choice: Autopsy/Anatomy

Most of the badness in life derives from choices - external events are ultimately irreversible, and the voice in your head knows it. But, what about the would've, could've, should've clusterfuck that follows every half-assed choice? I know one is supposed to 'own their choices' and 'leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on' but what does this all even mean?

 Did I 'own' it when I decided to never say no? I mean, can you own the choice about not owning your choices? Thinking back, all the choices that scarred me were, in one way or another, instigated by fear - fear of the alternative. But you can't trick the mind - it will forever remember that the alternatives were there and discarded. But maybe it's unfair for it to do so, since when asked to aid with the choice, it agreed with the fear and deferred.

 I haven't grown up in an environment that favored alternatives. You are either going to do X, or you aren't - but if you aren't, God help you, you're on your own, and that's so unknown and terrifying

. I am not so scared to ask for alternative colors or items in stores because the clerk, I feel, is obliged to cater to this. The rest of life does not quite work that way - how does one ask for alternatives, if they deep-down feel grateful/honored to even have one choice? Maybe they don't, and maybe that's OK. But I don't understand how gratitude and honor makes you unable to speak logically - and that's when the voice in my head starts to yell 'COWARDICE!!' and the meta-discussion (pretty much the reason I have this blog) begins.

The joke, is on you

Τώρα τελευταία μένω ξύπνια μέχρι αργά και διαβάζω ξανά λογοτεχνικά βιβλία που διάβαζα ως παιδί.Αυτό που διάβασα χθες λέγεται 'Μου μαθαίνετε να χαμογελάω, σας παρακαλώ?'. Με είχε τρομοκρατήσει όταν ήμουν μικρή, ότι τάχα μου είναι τόσο εύκολο να αποδιοργανωθείς και να πατώσεις στις πανελλήνιες.

Αυτό, δεν είναι αλήθεια, όχι όταν έχεις διαβάσει - να μην τα πας καλά σε κάποιο μάθημα, οκέη, σύμφωνοι, αλλά όχι και να πατώσεις. Εστίασα λοιπόν σε αυτή την σχετικά μη ρεαλιστική εξέλιξη της πλοκής - και, τελικά, είναι κρίμα, γιατί το βιβλίο έχει άλλο νόημα. Λέει τα ίδια ακριβώς πράγματα που μου είπε αργότερα ένας κύριος με μουσάκι πολύ προφέσιοναλ σε ένα γραφείο, για οικογενειακούς γράφους απελπιστικά συνεκτικούς και αίσθημα υποχρέωσης προς τους άλλους και αναβολή της περιπέτειας.

Το βιβλίο επίσης μ'έβαλε να σκέφτομαι πάλι το σχολείο, την 'στείρα αποστήθιση'. Όλοι ξέραμε να το γράφουμε στην έκθεση όταν το θέμα ήταν 'Πώς η παιδεία μπορεί να ... ' αλλά δεν νομίζω ότι ξέραμε γιατί είναι στείρα η αποστήθιση. Βαρετή σίγουρα, αλλά όχι και τόσο στείρα άμα παίρνεις εικοσάρια μαθαίνοντας δυο - τρεις παπαριές με σύστημα. Το να σου κάνουν πατ-πατ στο σβέρκο που αποστήθισες μια ωραία φράση, η οποία παρεπιπτόντως μιλάει για τη στείρα αποστήθιση, είναι ο ορισμός του οξύμωρου. Θα έλεγα 'αθάνατο ελληνικό εκπαιδευτικό σύστημα', αλλά όταν ήμουν μέρος του δεν έκανα τίποτα, και τώρα που δεν είμαι, δεν με νοιάζει.

Και, ας χτυπιέται κάτω η συγγραφέας, ούτε το ότι δεν πήγα πενταήμερη μου στοίχισε, ούτε τελικά συνέβη τίποτα που με έλεγαν φυτό και άργησα λίγο να πιω την πρώτη μου μπύρα. Αυτό που μου στοίχισε, είναι το ότι μάθαινα τόσα χρόνια πράγματα ανούσια και το ήξερα, απλά θεωρούσα ότι 'πρέπει'. Τον χρόνο που πετάχτηκε στην ανάλυση κειμένων που ελάχιστα μου προσέφεραν σε αυτή την ηλικία, δεν θα τον χρησιμοποιούσα σε εξόδους ή μακιγιάζ (αν και δεν υπάρχει τίποτε μεμπτό στο μακιγιάζ και τα φτιαγμένα μαλλιά και όλα αυτά, όταν το βλέπεις σαν κάτι δημιουργικό και όχι σαν κάτι απαραίτητο για μια αποδεκτή εμφάνιση). Θα τον χρησιμοποιούσα να δω πως δουλεύει ο κόσμος, να βρω τις κλίσεις μου. Γνώρισα μια Ιταλίδα που μου είπε ότι βαριόταν να ξυπνάει να πηγαίνει σχολείο και γι'αυτό καθόταν συχνά σπίτι και προγραμμάτιζε παιχνιδάκια, και έτριβε τις ασυνήθιστες -ίσως και όχι- προτιμήσεις της για αγόρια που μοιάζουν λίγο με κορίτσια σε ολονών τη μούρη. Και τι έπαθε? Ξέρει τι θέλει στη ζωή της, να τι έπαθε. Να το ξέρεις Βαλεντίνα ότι όταν μου τα είπες αυτά δαγκώθηκα αλλά, εν τέλει, you are an inspiration to us all.

Τι ήξερα όταν ήμουν 17 για την 'αποξένωση των μεγαλουπόλεων' και τον 'άκρατο καταναλωτισμό' και την 'κριτική σκέψη'. Αυτά ήταν 'κάτι που παθαίνουν οι μεγάλοι άμα τα θαλασσώσουν και που δεν πρόκειται να συμβεί σ'εμένα', 'το να είσαι ξιπασμένη και να θες να αγοράζεις ρούχα και παπούτσια συνεχώς' και 'το να μπορεί κανείς να μαντέψει τι θέλει να ακούσει ο δάσκαλος σαν ερμηνεία κάποιου κειμένου και συνήθως τείνει προς το δραματικό και το πολύ συναισθηματικό', αντίστοιχα. Και αν ήταν όλα τόσο λάθος, γιατί τότε γαμώτο έπαιρνα άριστα? Το κορόιδευσα το σύστημα ίσως, και νομίζω έτσι κάνουν οι περισσότεροι, αλλά τελικά το σύστημα κορόιδεψε κι εμάς, κλέβοντας μας χρόνο. Να γιατί δεν μας ρώτησαν ποτέ 'Πώς μπορεί το σχολείο να παρεμποδίσει την παιδεία'[1], γιατί τότε μπορεί να σκεφτόμασταν κριτικά στ'αλήθεια και να ξυπνάγαμε μια ώρα αρχύτερα.

[1] Παράφραση απο Mark Twain, αν και δεν γνωρίζω το πλαίσιο στο οποίο το είπε

[snippet]

He said, he wanted to grab me by the shoulders and shake me up until I realized I did not have to be a victim anymore. But he didn't actually do it. And he only said it outloud because we were sitting in a circle of chairs and talking about our feelings with a referee. I owe a lot to this room with the chairs, although it might have all been imaginary.

Απόψυξη Ι

I found this in the drafts (September 2011) I think I allow myself to express only what is acceptable from the point of view of others and, likewise, I get really mad when someone expresses something that I didn't reasonably *allow* them to express - the nerve of some people, to insist on contacting me when I've made it "clear" I am not interested - I have put walls in my communication channels for a reason. But what about my point of view? Am I doing it again? Muting everything that matters, until it's too late and I am not feeling it anymore? What a waste of potential, inspiration and feelings. Fuck.This.Shit. I like romance! I like to be with someone where it's safe to express feelings, not sweep them under the fucking carpet, lest things get too serious. I don't want any of this 'takin' it easy' crap, not when I am CONVINCED I want to spend a lot of time with someone, even if I am somehow mistaken and projecting and they don't really deserve it. If there was something that you said or a certain way that you looked that inspired me, it's not casual anymore, I am sorry, and it is a huge fucking problem if you don't feel the same way.

blah

Seamen bet on the number of people they expect will throw up during each boat trip. They got a running total and prognostics and everything. They have my greatest sympathies, I admire their handling of idle time, I wish I could think of something more awesome to do on a boat trip (paint on sleeping passengers' faces? scream at the first dolphin that appears: 'MOMMYYY!! I know it's you!! You've come for me at last?? :D'?) but I can't. This is perfect boredom management.

Speaking of management, life is a helluva lot of fun without it. Color me a happy camper.

I am slightly bemused in my corner, but it seems to me, humor is just the icing on life. Sheer intelligence doesn't cut it. It doesn't, no, if it ain't backed up by some sort of substance, some sort of soul. Despite the lols, I still feel like I always want to be somewhere else and, fairly enough, expect that others feel the same. So, that makes my world a world of zombies. Naked zombies, bathed in sludge, prancing around like hobo maniacs, but zombies nevertheless.

Θυμάμαι ένα πρωί σε ξένο σπίτι με κόσμο πεταμένο σε έπιπλα. Ο καθένας ξύπνησε μόνος του και εκείνη έφυγε, κι ας ήθελες τόσο πολύ να κάτσει. Και μετά έφυγα κι εγώ, και ήταν πολύ πρωί για να καταλάβω ότι έλεγα, πρακτικά, αντίο.

Είναι δύσκολο καμιά φορά, όταν απομακρύνεσαι περπατώντας από μια συναυλία, να προσδιορίσεις πότε ακριβώς σταματάς να ακούς τη μουσική και σου τραβάει την προσοχή ο θόρυβος του δρόμου. Τα βήματα σου σε οδηγούν, αργά, αμείλικτα αλλού, μα δεν το καταλαβαίνεις γιατί αυτό που σε χωρίζει δεν υπάρχει.

η γάτα στο φωταγωγό

'Πάντα αυτό κάνω, ενώ έχω συνολικές αντιρρήσεις, συμβιβάζομαι.'

Την ξέρουμε την αλήθεια κάθε στιγμή, και μπορεί να βγει στην επιφάνεια ξαφνικά, μέσα από ανούσιες συζητήσεις για ανούσιες επιλογές.

Η αλήθεια ψοφάει τη στιγμή που γελάς και λες ότι δεν υπάρχει πρόβλημα, μπορεί το σάντουιτς να μην είναι όπως το θες (γιατί δεν ασχολήθηκες) αλλά θα το φας έτσι κι αλλιώς. Αλίμονο στους απανταχού πεινασμένους που χαχανίζουν στο κινητό και κανονίζουν να σκοτώσουν ένα απόγευμα ή μια τετραετία έτσι, επειδή το υποσχέθηκαν. Και είναι τόσο εύκολο να κάνεις υποσχέσεις! Αρκεί να ξεχάσεις να πεις ότι δεν είσαι σίγουρος.

Εγώ πολύ θα ήθελα να κάτσω όλες τις υπόλοιπες μέρες να κοιτάω το κινητό μου και την οθόνη μου και να φοράω αυτά τα κομμένα γαντάκια και να πατάω κουμπιά και γενικώς να περιμένω με ανοιχτές αγκάλες. Αλλα δε μπορω επειδή υποσχέθηκα να φυγω, κι αυτό εν μερει επειδη φοβομουν οτι θα καταληξω να κατσω μόνη μου με τα χερια ανοιχτα στο κρυο και, γαντια ξεγαντια, στο τελος να με φαει η μαρμάγκα.

Κι ετσι, τελικα.. ισχυει αυτο στην πιο γενικευμενη, οχι αναγκαστικα ροζμαντικη εκδοχη του.

4:04 - Life not Found

Sitting by the fireplace, listening to mom rambling how she never does anything for herself, while 'your father has his tennis sessions and yoga classes', I become slightly enraged. So whose fault is it? His? Mine? I've had my taste of the unfair and I did not like it.

I wonder if that's the future. I wonder if I will sit with some young kid one day, trying to think it all through for them, make them see the surefire way to riches and happiness all laid out in front of their eyes, if they would only listen. And then I'll say, 'Son, you will waste half your life trying to figure out what I'm telling you now. So shallow up your youthful pride and do what needs to be done and do it well.'

Kids these days, they like the protection, the clean clothes, the 24/7 support, but try to give them a little bit of direction and they suddenly remember they're supposed to be all independent and follow their own path and stuff like that, which is ridiculous, frankly, when they clearly can't even tell the business end of a fork from its handle. Rebellion without responsibility can not be real.

However, if he says 'I'd rather waste 90% of my life if it means the rest 10% is spent living', then I'll know he's not a kid anymore.

Lost in the Super Market

Going to the super market is a ritual. It's a way to be alone with a multitude of mostly harmless information. It asks questions like, what's the average price of mayo on this self, not including the 'light flavored' jars that nobody really likes anyway or which is the greenest item on this corridor you could be seen wearing. There are things that scare me and only me and things that amuse me to tears always, like that bossy can of milk. There are inconsistencies I don't care to fix and optimal paths I never follow. Going to the super market, I am reminded why I shall never ever ever grow up.

[The carbon dioxide from the refreshment I got makes my nostrils flare up. Yup, it's cancer.]

Before the Now What

Days pass colorless between intentional mistakes and unintentional cruelty. I lie awake at night thinking of the portrait of my soul - is it too late? Soon, things will change, and I would like to be remembered as someone kind.

I dream about you very often, now that I don't speak to you about things that don't matter, my soul reaches out for you. You have done spectacularly well for yourself, I admire that. I know now that I shouldn't have bothered with technicalities. I want to speak close to your face again. Your darkest hour is over, for now, and you know what, although you might not think it, you shone right through it too.

I have little time left before things around me fall apart. I see it, everyone drifting away, getting their act together, planning their future, creating. And I feel I need a major push to get going, because the crossroads are close and my direction undefined. I want to pursue... art? I dunno. I want to try pursuing art.

But most of all, I want to do something that makes a difference. I want to improve my life in many areas. But I still can't muster the strength to clean up after me properly. Old people struggle to walk half a mile - and I am young and perfectly capable (to be incapable).

Love cannot save you from your own fate.

Behind every single lingering bad feeling is the disappointment for a scheme that failed in ways unaccounted for. Even if it was a scheme to make someone else happy. For all my talk of honesty and straight-forwardness and what not, I don't have it.

I always scheme, to get what I want.

the quick brown fridge jumped over the lazy bridge

[sx]

I wanted to get satellite Internet access on board just to be able to sign in as caroline@sapiokaravo and include a witty pm about the bomb threat and subsequent thorough search of the ship by officers and scuba divers. Oh well, boredom and lack of battery life made it impractical to do so.

When you lean on the ship windows looking out for a long time, counting passing jellyfish -23- and then, you get bored of observing them muffin-like creatures and decide to look back inside to check on your stuff, it feels like you are on DRUGS. Passenger seats spinning, cabin rotating, straight lines moving in a wavy fashion - not that I would know what it's actually like to be stoned, but I bet it is something like that. Unless the movies have it all wrong again like they do with the slitting your wrists part.

I painted my fridge brown yesterday - not because I'm fond of the color, or fridge decoration, but simply because my parents wanted to cover some scratches and I'm the most qualified person to operate a paint brush in the house. Brown is an unfortunate choice, but a necessary one, seeing it's the only color of paint we have in the village and, hey, it also matches the rest of the furniture. That this color renders the fridge invisible in low light, thus making late night navigation in the kitchen a frustrating ordeal for the hungry, I can grudginly accept. That this particular hue of brown gives birth to unwelcome implications in the presence of food, I can tolerate. What I cannot put up with is the knowledge that the very act of painting the damn fridge robbed me of being present in a defining moment of sport history. Fuck you, fridge! You won't be all that smug and smiley when the first thermodynamic law catches up with you!

:D

emotional anti-matter

I feel like there's something poisoned inside my mind, like a black stone maybe, which you may be able to sidestep, but not forever. Something that radiates misery and guilt and shame and disgust and anger and contempt every time it's touched and the only way to be completely free would be to remove it somehow, because it never stops shooting these things out. Disgust - the desire to move away from a source of perceived pollution, to banish it from the world, my world, forever. There are triggers everywhere. How will I ever be free? I despair. There is no solution. There is no convincing why I don't want to do what would by all accounts be beneficiary for me to do. All accounts? Well, being like other people, overcoming mental blocks, greater intimacy, better chances, peace of mind. The way it's presented, the benefits far outweigh the perceived costs, so I "should" just shut up and kill a part of myself that can't realistically be part of myself because what the hell do I know, I'm just inexperienced and bitter.

Not being normal is very strange. All the things you see in the movies, you experience them in a totally different way. Shit that other people put up with without batting an eyelash becomes A FUCKING TIDAL WAVE. You want to do stuff for odd reasons. "Normal" emotions like love manifest themselves like flowers with a note in your door from me, for no reason at all.

I am productive and respect myself. I stand up for what I believe. But what I believe causes me to hate my kind. How can you put up with this shit, how. It boggles my mind, say it ain't so. Say you're all just pretending. That you were tricked and lost part of your soul in the way. How can you not know better. I don't want this empowering separation you speak of. I want to be the same with the others, the strong ones, but now I can't. I'm afraid the others will reject me for trying to be like them, but I am absolutely terrified that one day, I will actually want to be like you.

I don't know what to think anymore. Ignoring the elephant in the room is draining. Confronting the elephant in the room leads to broken bones and ridiculously late nights like this one. I can't kill the damn elephant in the room because it's got the rest of you (and them) backing it up. And I can't change rooms because you only get one. CHECKMATE.

The only thing worse than overstaying your welcome is realizing that you are welcome for the wrong reasons. I see it clearly now, all my schemes, the choices I've forced, the choices that have been forced on me, they all need to go away for good. I know the feeling that comes with each one of these mindless actions though. Time for observation, and change.

εμένα μου αρέσει που περπατάς στραβά

Συνηθισμένη, ψυχαναγκαστική ανασφάλεια μαζί με κάτι άλλο, μου χτυπάει την πόρτα (or more like, την γρατσουνάει με τα νύχια της). Έχω βαρεθεί τον εαυτό μου.. να έχω τα ίδια ηλίθια κόμπλεξ από την εποχή του σχολείου και απλά κάθε φορά να βλέπω χωρίς να μπορώ να πω ένα "σκασμός!" πώς δρουν αυτά σε όποιο setting βρίσκομαι. Ή να το λέω και να συνεχίζει αυτόματα η ίδια διαδικασία. Νισάφι! Ινάφ! Ξέρω τι πρέπει να κάνω.. να ανόιξω την πόρτα μες στα μούτρα της, και να της πω, ναι ρε γαμώτο, έχεις δίκιο, κανείς δεν με αγαπάει γι'αυτό που είμαι. Eπίσης, while you are at it, είναι επίσης αλήθεια ότι οι γυναίκες είναι ανταγωνισμός και οι άνδρες ποτέ δεν ενδιαφέρονται αρκετά. Αλλά αν ισχύουν και τα δύο ταυτόχρονα, why even bother competing? Άρα δεν το πιστεύεις. Ηρέμησες τώρα; Άντε, γιατί έχουμε και δουλειές (που λέει ο λόγος, γιατί τελείωσα). Ξαναέλα όμως όποτε θες να μου το θυμίσεις μην τυχόν και το ξεχάσω ποτέ. Μην παραλείψεις.

shellfish for breakfast

Physical attraction is cheap. Cheaper than those used movies nobody's ever heard of for sale in store baskets. It makes me feel so small, so cartoonish, when it's all there is. But, on the other hand, most everything is give and take.. You don't care if your tennis buddy appreciates your personality? Whatever, I am not up for it, and yes, I do think that the many! shitloads of! people who are have found a very intricate way of lying to themselves in order to sustain an ego structure dictated by.. whatever. And it's working for them, too.

Love on the other hand.. does it even exist? I am not sure it's not an even more intricate ploy of the ego to get what it wants. Maybe not. Maybe it's a yearning of the soul. A completely unreasonable certainty that, hey, this person, they have some part of me I didn't know I had lost, and I want it back, whatever it takes. And that, things may blow up, people may cry, and I do care, but not enough to never see you again.

You make me feel so blank. Thank you.

3 different pieces of the same puzzle

Air near my face from a cute little overpriced flowery device. I am waiting for the future, and I know you'll be there in 10, 15 minutes tops. But all I have is now, my head in my hands, lying down on the bed and feeling strange, like I'm about to float and it's so easy and so tragic at the same time, that all I will ever feel, is this. I got this feeling once when driving with my dad, when passing a bump in the road - we were sustained in the air for a second there, and I felt like, this, is everything. You can leave, but you can't, and that's terrible, because then you have to stay on the ground and die.


If there's an elephant in your room, do not expect me to want to go in there and get my bones crushed in the name of friendship. Not all goodbyes are the same. You cannot simply copy paste nostalgia and missing-you's every time somebody leaves, even if it's under the same scorching sun, at the same bench, in the same rotten forest in the black heart of the city. Some times, you just don't feel anything.

As I type this you're probably slicing the throats of defenseless tomatoes open and tossing cucumber peels down the drain. This is what society is doing to you, me, everybody. Molding us and hurting us against our will. Within this concept, even if we win, we lose. The only way to "win" is to refuse to play. If the only reason anybody's life is worth observing is because they're playing an exceptionally good or an exceptionally bad game, then all they will ever have is fools who laugh at them and monkeys who try to match them outwardly. And you call this, a life.

impasse of the soul

I wish life had an undo button. I wish I could go back at the time and place where all the daily crap could be brushed off as not relevant. I have no idea how other people can be happy with the way things are, I can't. I am bailing out.

Colorful dust falls from the sky, but I cannot touch it. And soon, I will not even want to touch it. I shot my own capacity for happiness in the stomach by being a people-pleasuring idiot, I want my fucking self to crawl into a hole and die.

People smell of sun lotion in a crowded bus to nowhere, my electronic devices hate me, and in a sense, who can blame them. They're trying to get away from me every way they can.

I always had the abstract idea, in my mind, that things will somehow turn out to be okay, that there's something for everyone, that there's always some way out, if you just think things through long enough and ask enough people for advice, stick around and try to make things right.

The truth is, there's no such thing as okay. Trying to fix one thing always ends up messing it up worse, or creating an unforeseen problem. Like I told my psychologist in October, life has some very stupid errors in the source code, debugging it is virtually impossible, and like I have recently realized, you can try and try and try and the misery will never go away.

I am never happy. In fact, I am incapable of emotions outside the regret-guilt-resentment-anxiety-anger range. And I have no freaking idea what to do about it, nothing seems to work, not meditation, not talking it out, not positive thinking, not escapism, nothing. When I wake up in the mornings, I get this feeling that I am somehow loading myself, my past and my attitudes onto my brain, a split second after waking up. It's a strain, to go through the day with myself resting so heavily on my shoulders, I wish I could just get a new one. But even that wouldn't work.

Fuck off, and die

It's sweltering in Boston, and a dozen Tufts University coeds are out in shorts and tanks, attracting the usual stares. Only today the stares are for a different reason: the girls are huddled around a 750-pound machine that looks like a spaceship, long and wide with a bubble-shaped cockpit open to reveal a mass of pipes and wires. It's actually a solar car—one they've built from the ground up and hope to race next year. Suddenly sparks fly, and the girls jump back. They may be engineering whizzes, but they know a hazard when they see one. They call a teacher over to help solve the problem, as Alex McGourty, 21, gets ready to take the wheel. A junior with blond hair and freckles, she built her first car engine in high school: a biodiesel "veggie mobile" she ran on McDonald's fryer oil. McGourty revs out of the driveway, and almost immediately dislodges the car's chain. Campus police block off the street, and the baseball team, just returned from practice, lines up to watch. "Look out," a construction worker yells. "It's the Nerd Girls!"

The Nerd Girls may not look like your stereotypical pocket-protector-loving misfits—their adviser, Karen Panetta, has a thing for pink heels—but they're part of a growing breed of young women who are claiming the nerd label for themselves. In doing so, they're challenging the notion of what a geek should look like, either by intentionally sexing up their tech personas, or by simply finding no disconnect between their geeky pursuits and more traditionally girly interests such as fashion, makeup and high heels. In fact, calling them "nerd" is no insult at all—the Nerd Girls have T shirts emblazoned with the slogan. The crew includes Cristina Sanchez, a master's student in biomedical engineering (and a former cheerleader) who can talk for hours about aerodynamics. Caitrin Eaton, a freshman, asked her boyfriend for a soldering iron last Christmas. Juniors Courtney Mario and Perry Ross giggle when they talk about what fascinated them most about "No Country for Old Men": how did the assassin's air gun work?

These girl geeks aren't social misfits; their identities don't hinge on outsider status. They may love all things sci-tech, but first and foremost they are girls—and they've made that part of their appeal. They've modeled themselves after icons such as Tina Fey, whose character on "30 Rock" is a "Star Wars"-loving, tech obsessed, glasses-wearing geek, but who's garnered mainstream appeal and a few fashion-magazine covers. Or on actress Danica McKellar, who coauthored a math theorem, wrote a book for girls called "Math Doesn't Suck" and posed in a bikini for Stuff magazine. Or even Ellen Spertus, a Mills College professor and research scientist at Google—and the 2001 winner of the Silicon Valley "Sexiest Geek Alive" pageant.

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there's more, but no.