chapter five: the haunting on sad hill

good title. i once wrote a seven thousand word story and titled it "sad hill." those were the only two well-put-together words out of all of them. "sad hill." I am not an advocate for creative justice, I have other failures aside from these kinds of failures which also merit mentioning.

bought thirty bucks worth of art supplies for unclear reasons, and a big black canvas portfolio which I carry everything around in now, it has replaced the little brown backpack, which itself replaced the sleek red duct taped trapper keeper, which begat I don't know what.

haven't finished anything in weeks, after the piss-reeking jacket, which is a story for another time.

I look back at what I've done and I can point to Evicted as the thing I did when I was sixteen, and Pinhead Story as the thing I did when I was fifteen, and year seventeen is empty. what did I do last year? exorcism? the jacket story was really a desperate, despaired attempt at making something that meant something more than itself, so transparent it's sickening to revise.

this is futile, the only thing to do is keep writing and try to make it better, which I always do.

chapter four: grand theft paper

so I applied to a bunch of new places, and along with the five copies of my transcripts/ letters of recommendation I'll have to print out, every admissions office I spoke with said I'd be a fool not to send in every last word of everything I've ever published ever. enter: the library.

IMPERATIVE NEEDS:
- paper, 1 ream
- printer (library's will do)
- zip drive
- hooded sweatshirt and/or hat
- car keys and/or running shoes

chapter three: burritos, my first love

every restaurant I go to, I ask if there's Mexican on the menu. not ask the waiter, that would be awkward- excuse me, does your specials menu include a burrito? which would follow with: oh, it doesn't? why am I here. (cause I'm me.)

john o'reilly is hosting family feud behind me. the television is on all day to ward off intruders. I imagine being a burglar waiting outside in the street, looking up at my living room. when will they turn the TV on? it's cold out here.

went skiing today; drove to the mountain today; got pulled over because of my not-visible license plates. guy let me off with a warning. thanked God I wore my jeans under my snow pants, otherwise I'd be in deep shit.

COP: You know what the penalty is for driving without a license?
Y.C: No, but I'm going to guess by your tone that it's pretty fucking intense.

applied for job at Big Y; having no dreams about nails, which is nice. have to finish the story about the punks and the bad jackets. reading Camus. don't know why.

after leaving the mountain, went by Big Y, to pick up an application, only to find- Much to My Chagrin- that they only accept online applications. (i am so sick of online applications- filled out one to CVS, Rite Aide, blah blah, not counting the zillion college apps- at least big Y won't pork me for sixty five bucks, God-willing.)

while at Big Y, got a ten-pack of burritos. best three dollars I've ever spent.

chapter two: corona on headaches

went skiing yesterday and tore something (not sure what, but my knee got kind of big. it's fine now.)

left the place at three o'clock to pick up my mom at work, wrote from 4:00 to 5:00, briefly stopping for freezer-burned burritos and coke.

had a terrible dream about an amusement park: i got lost and wound up spending the entire day with a bunch of midwestern tourists. HARDCORE tourists, with the zebra shirt and cargo shorts and Cannon camera on a string around their neck. I said I had a headache, and they handed me a beer to put on my forehead.

woke up at three o'clock in the morning. my mother had been calling all day. i had been asleep. she asked my neighbor (a night nurse, who was also trying to sleep at the time) to go in and see if I was still alive. I replied that I was. it was touching.

I was writing a story about two guys searching for the beating heart of punk, and I'd like to finish on that thought the way I began- with nothing other than it in my brain as I tailor it into a solid form. expect more difficulty with this in the future: which leads us to college, which leads us to the imminent terror of "my lifestyle is killing my parents."

dear god, I can't wait for burning man.

chapter one: all god's children vomit whole cheeseburgers

and that's what they call the united states when you're in another country: the Enormous Floating Cheeseburger, not a tectonic plate or anything nearly as appetizing, believe me, it's just a bun and a slab of ground-up meat from different unattractive parts of the same unattractive cows, fried, with cheese dripped on it, and a bun on top. Maybe some fries and a soft drink. Mexico for the fries. Canada for the drink.

do you know what I'd love more than anything else right now? I would love to see Mike Gravel stare at somebody. Just deadpan at one person. Five minutes. Uninterrupted. Nobody talk. Just watch him stare. Stare, stare, stare.

my jacket is falling apart. am I gaining weight? I don't know. I should go to the gym- what gym? that's a joke.

Candidates talking about change. Bullshit, I want to throw things at the television. I want to throw the television. Damnation and hellfire candidate, who's that? I want him on the ticket. Vote for Kucinich, maybe, Dodd and Biden are out, Ronald McDonald left the building. What the hell do I care about politics?

I guess the most frustrating part of any vacation to Disney World is watching CNN on the television in your hotel room and wondering if anything on it can hurt you.

A tiger broke out of the zoo in San Francisco. "Surely," said CNN, "we will all perish." We did not.

They killed the Virgin Mary in Pakistan. "Without a doubt," said CNN, "we have not long to live." Why am I still alive? Thinking as you hold the God knows which one of God knows how many cheeseburgers, why am I allowed to eat this? That's not the source of the pain, but close to it, and probably close enough to be tempered by the pain itself: If I am as especially inconsequential as anybody else, why am I not hungry?