If you ask me,
"Why do you go running in the village every night?"
I will field this question.
I do it for love of panting. I enjoy the air in my face, I think I am like a dog, and I like to stick my head out the window in a moving car, too. I run for a while, breathe heavily, and sweat like mad, it's good for me. I always jog past the backerei, so I can smell the smell of pretzels baking near midnight. I run to lose weight, and keep it off. I run because I have a complete lack of a sex life, and I figure if I atleast do something that makes me sweat for an hour every night, I should be fine. I do it for the 6 years of cigarette tar built up in my lungs. I do it for the millions of slobs and fattys out there, to lose weight so they don't have to. These are all good reasons to go running every night, and they are certainly why I do it; but there is one major reason I have continued all summer: A LITTLE KITTY CAT.
He seems to like me. When I come running down his street, he jumps off of the car he has been lying on, and scampers up to me. I always stop and give him a pat on the head, even if I haven't got my heart rate up. I shouldn't care about my stupid heart rate when there is a little cat craving a pat! Ever since my first encounter with my little late night friend, I have run the same route, and just about every night I run into him. He always jumps into the street right in front of me, so I have to stop or risk running him over. He's a good cat, and I think he might be one of those cats that gets put out every night. They have milkmen here in Germany, the kind that drop milk on your doorstep; I feel like I'm in a warped version of Suburban 1950's America. Someone puts the cat out, and in the morning a milkman drives through the neighborhood dropping milk on everyone's doorstep. I can't wait to be in a place in my life where I can open the door of a morning and find my cat next to my milk and newspaper. I would be happy.
"It's got nothing to do with your Vorsprung durch Technik, y'know." --Parklife, Blur
23
I think I am well on my way to having bragging rights, but I'm not there yet.
Please don't bother yourself by thinking I am going out of my way to rub in the fact that I am going to some wholly incredible private school. I am just so happy, that I have nothing else to do but explain how my plan is to unfold.
I will begin my attendence at Antioch College in September, and I will continue on at that school until I am ready to graduate. I will apply to some equally as influential and prestigious institution of higher education sometime in 2006, so that I may be considered for a Master's program in Autumn of 2007.
My hopefuls are (alphabetically):
The plan is to apply to all of them sometime in my third year of school at Antioch, see which of them accepts me, and choose among those.
Then I go for the Master's!!
23
The easiest way to move on is to not stand a chance.
23
I am fine. I am just fine. I will be 23 in 23 minutes.
When I was living in England in 1998, I got caught with hashish by the police. I ratted on all my friends, and they all got arrested while I got off scott free.
I just got an email from one of those old friends, and he's apologising to me.
After they got arrested, their parents came to bail them out, and a few days later we all got back together. We drove about 30 miles from our town, and some one said, "Hey, we're out of papers. Luthy, go get some papers."
I got out of the car to go into the store to get some rolling papers, and left my 1/2 oz. of Hash in the car. I went inside, bought the papers, and when I came back out, the car was gone.
I guess I got what I deserved.
At any rate, it's been long enough now that J. is willing to let bygones be bygones, and I'm sending a letter off to him in North Carolina (LIKE A HELLA-COPTA!) in the morning.
today: I awoke at 0600 to go to work and be there by 0700. There were fewer than 15 dogs today, so feeding them, walking them, and cleaning up after them took a shorter amount of time than usual. I was out of there by 1020. I got a ride home from a co-worker called Liz, in her Pontiac. At home, I watched the film EQUILIBRIUM. I thought it was a bit predictible, but overall, a nice big budget action extravaganza for the kids!
I went back to work at 1600, and walked the same damn dogs. It took even less time, and I had to walk halfway home, because my ride was unprepared for my early quitting time.
I wanted to see Touch of Evil, but no one at the stupid video store had stupid heard of it. Instead I rented Punch-Drunk Love, and I thorougly enjoyed it. I would heartily recommend it to anyone.
My run this evening took me past the sportplatz here in Dudldorf, and there was a rock band playing. It was 1am, and they were jamming Linkin Park and Jimmy Eat World. I found it disgusting, and only ran faster, so I would not have to hear it for long. I was relieved when I passed the backerei, for the smell of fresh baking pretzels took my mind off "CUT MY LIFE IN-TO PIE-CES! THIS IS MY LAST RE-SORT!!...."
no entry yesterday, I hope you can guess why.
Today I took a train to Köln, it took two and one half hours from the nearby Bitburg. I paid about 40EUR for a round trip fare, and my dad gave me 100EUR to blast into the Kölnische economy. I had fun wandering the walkplatz, and visited the cathedral, scoffing all the while at the massive monument to the arcane belief structure that is Catholicism. I was not too amazed at the Döm--I had seen it before in 1997--but it is tall, and that's one thing it has going for it.
I shopped the day away after the cathedral. Köln is full of happy consumerism, and low prices on brand name merchandise. I visited the largest store I have ever seen in my life. It was six stories of high fashion at reasonable prices, and the store covered an entire city block. I spent hours in that place, and I left with a few new shirts.
I also had several beers with a man called Marcos, he spoke stilted English, and my Deutsche was sufficient enough for the two of us to have a nice conversation. It was full of glaring grammatical errors, on both sides; but it seemed we each overlooked how poorly the other was putting words together for a chance to exercise the use of a foreign language. I had lots of beer, and got nice and warm, and then stumbled my way back across town to the train station.
I took the train from Bitburg-Erdorf at 1033, arrived in Köln 1307. As stated above, I wandered into a cathedral, several giant stores, and through a walkplatz, whatever that is. At 2030, I boarded a different train in Köln, and got back to Bitburg-Erdorf around 2300.
I went home, tried on my shirts again, and then went promptly to sleep.
I have a clean bill of health. Today I had a physical, and the doctor says I am fine. He's a German, and he speaks fluent English. That's good for me, I say, but he does have the most atrocious handwriting.
I am healthy, I have no diseases. I will not be dying any time soon.
I hope you can say the same, and I wish you the best. I don't know who I am writing this to, so it is a little creepy.
Whoever you are, I hope you don't die.
I'm putting off an important assignment. I have been given the chance to earn college credit for my time working as a pizza delivery boy back in South Dakota. Antioch offers its students, among other things, opportunities to advance themselves and their career while still in college, and I have already started working, so I am ahead of many of my classmates already.
The only trouble is, I need to write a 6-8 page report of my time at work. It needs to express what I got out of it, what I learned that will help me in the future, and where I can go from here. I'm just having a hard time coming up with how to put it all into words.
I'll think of something. Let the devil be damned!
I think I know why I am so nervous lately.
My parents have been asking me usually every day, "Are you all right?" to which I respond with some sort of flippant comment that alludes to my deep deep melancholy just below the surface, but sounding something like, "Yeah, I'm great!" I couldn't figure out whether this was normal behavior for me or not and, for a while, I gave myself over to a general antipathy, combined with a lack of understnding of other people's shortcomings. I have been ill at ease for a few weeks, ever since I found out I will be going to Antioch college in the fall. I was about accept that I am a disagreeable lout, and that I will be such for the rest of my life.
But just now, I discovered something. It was the result of thoughts I have been having on my own development as a fine upstanding adult in today's world, and how I will fit in at a school like Antioch, and I feel that this discovery will aid me in becoming a better person: I haven't dedicated myself to anything. There is nothing that excites me beyond reproach, no one great cause that I stand for in this world. My melancholy is directly related to my lack of passion for a person, a reason, or a purpose.
I am excited and anxious that I will soon be a member of a very small and extraordinary school, and that I will one day have an Antioch degree in hand; but my drive is not for the degree (that is only a material award), for now I am gunning for some PURPOSE.
The school is good at showing people how they can influence the world, and getting them to go and do that thing that they are supposed to do. Once I have my passion, I will be a whole person. I have let myself become too complacent, I want driven and determined to be words that describe ME. My hope is that I discover some meaning, some raison d'etre, and that I use it to change the world.
The world needs some change, can you spare a dime?
Love this song.
I want you to read it, maybe you could find it too, and listen to it.
I think I like it so much because there is a reference to heroin use in it, but it's subtle and quick. It's more of a romance for a girl who he can never have, so he'll just be friends forever.
--------------DEAD FLOWERS performed by Townes Van Zandt--------------
And when you're sitting there
In your silk upholstered chair
Talking to some rich folks that you know
Well I hope you won't see me
In my ragged company
You know I could never be alone
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the Queen of the Underground
Send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flower by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
And you're sitting back
In your rose pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby days
I'll be in my basement room
With a needle and a spoon
And another girl to take my pain away
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the Queen of the Underground
Send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the Queen of the Underground
Send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
No I won't forget to put roses on your grave
I am now a runner. I am in the habit of running every night, and it feels like I am in control of everything around me. I took the advice of James Allen, from As a Man Thinketh, and have become a part of the adage, "They themselves are makers of themselves". I feel in control not just of the physical world around me (I made it rain today I swear to you), but more importantly my mind, and the ethereal world within.
I have begun to think deeply on my hour long jaunts through the village, about the world, and its future. I have stopped thinking about time in terms of weeks, months and years, and have begun to have meditations on the evolution of humankind in terms of decades, centuries, and millennia.
I don't have the time to write now what exactly I have been thinking, but be sure that when the time comes, I will write many words on the state of things that exist in this world within me and without me. There are more words that course through my mind, intensely, every day, than could be written in a year of typing. I only hope that my time among the living will give me the chance to leave behind some work that can act as a touchstone for future generations to look upon and take heart. If that is all I can accomplish in this life, I will have lived well.
I want to leave behind something that will help the world in its hour of need. I hope to have the foresight to craft a master work of such strength, intensity, and complexity that the world, for generations after, will look upon with awe and wonder, to aid and assist wherever there is a lack.
This is my ultimate goal. I beleive it occured to me whilst I ran this evening. Something else occured to me as well, but only as an afterthought...
I believe I will attend to this journal starting now, EVERY DAY from now until the day I end my life. Another lofty goal, to be sure, but it will give me a bit of self-esteem, which in my estimation I seem to be lacking in great amounts.
I have decided to get excited about shipping off to Ohio for the next four years.
My excitement will have to be expressed to my circle of friends in Rapid City, when I get back on August 23rd, and I hope they enjoy it.
I have a plan to spend "7 Days Of Alcoholism" in Rapid City, with my friends.
I have made many friends in the city over the past three years, and I hope to spend time with as many of them as possible in the short time I will spend there before I go off to a new college. I will spend the next four years in Ohio, and may never see many of my Rapid City friends again.
I declare, if you do know me, get in touch with me and we'll go drinking. If you don't get in touch with me before August 23, be aware that I will be spending every night in one of Rapid City, South Dakota's downtown bars--Paddy Oneill's, The Brass Rail, The Firehouse, or Murphy's. I will be avoiding every other bar, so if you want to see me, look in one of those bars.
If you happen to be underage, just let me know, and I'll come visit you anyway. I might bring alcohol--I will be an alcoholic for 7 days.
Today is my father's 16th anniversary.
He was married to my mother for about eight years, so that means he's been married now for twice that time. I haven't asked him yet--I don't think I will--what he has done differently with his wife that he did not do with my mother. That is sort of a touchy subject, for, according to my mother, he was physically and mentally abusive to her and my siblings. There are so many secrets and lies that both of my parents continue to keep and perpetuate, thinking they are protecting me. I just want to sit the two of them down (separately) and interview them. I can then try to piece together their married life according to the tales they tell, and the inconsistencies between them which are sure to arise.
Sounds like fun. Of course, my idea of fun is a large group of strangers around a scaffold watching a condemned man be put to death at the end of a rope.
yeah, fun!
23
I woke up to a downpour of epic proportions. Outside, the rain came down in torrents, smashing into the garden, and reducing the flowers to tiny bits of color on the grass. It was four'o'clock in the afternoon, and I was still in bed.
I stayed in bed for fifteen minutes more, figuring if I had already wasted a whole day, fifteen minutes would make no noticeable difference. I stayed up late into the morning, got to sleep around 6am, and still slept all day.
I enjoyed sleeping all day. I dreamed about cakes and female indoor football. The women were huge, and they played football better than any men I have seen. The game was being played in a small arena in some large midwestern town. The vendors at the concession stands were selling bottles of water that were laced with LSD, and I got in a fistfight with a man on line at the hot cat stand. He contended that he was ahead of me in line, and that I took his catsup, so we came to blows. We fought for what seemed like hours, and I finished him off ten blocks away from the stadium in front of an auto-repair shop. I got a hankering for pistons and cam-shafts, and I broke in, thinking I could get my hands on some delicious car parts. Breaking and entering in dreams is lots and lots of fun. I hopped into the driver's seat of an incredibly expensive car, and searched the glovebox. I found a cellophane bag, inside it were tabs of LSD, ecstasy pills, and Thai Sticks. I took this as a sign, and I got twenty dollars out of my pocket to leave behind for whoever owned these drugs. I felt very good then, like I had the whole world in a bag in my back pocket.
I then awoke, and after fifteen minutes of rumination, I searched my pockets for a cellophane bag, hoping against hope that what I had just dreamed was the truth, and that I had a stockpile of good drugs. I was haunted for hours after by the thought that if I had acted differently in my dream, I might have come out of it with a cello-bag full of intoxicants.
23
I got back from running a short while ago, and saw that the car was not in the drive. I thought, "That's odd," as I skipped up the steps to the door.
Upon the door was a note, attached by cello-tape:
Dan,
We had to run Annette [my stepmother] to the E.R. For a possible gall bladder attack. Will be back as soon as we can we have the cell phonewill call when we know more.
US
That freaked me out. It was a "WHERE WERE YOU THEN" moment.
On 9/11/2001, I was in bed most of the day.
When JFK Jr. died, I was watching TV.
When my stepmother had a possible gall bladder attack, what did I do?
Did I call the cell-phone, to find out what happened?
no.
I got a Pepsi. I am now about to open the Pepsi, and then I will drink it.
This is the first stop on my new weblog, here in the slowly expanding Rapidfish universe. My thanks go straight to Rob, who has given much time and energy to make this happen. I enjoy now having all this space, freedom, and flexibility to make a 'blog that is mine all mine. If you become a regular reader, I want you to know that questions about the number 23 will be met with silence and/or ridicule, so don't ask about it.
I don't have to link to other people's sites anymore, but I've so little time, so...
23
