the kicking horse of scope creep

Ten years is a long time, but I’ve forgotten all the other options.

Codeine – Barely Real

(Right click and save. Sorry about broken promises. Sorry about no fun.)

I’m feeling sad and distant now. I’m sure I felt sad and distant then.

At best this serves as further evidence of my death.

Vampire Weekend – The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance

(Right click and save. In the immediate future I’ll work on getting back to retelling what happened in Southern California in what now seems like the distant past.)

This is from before. I don’t want the chronology to get confused.

When I mentioned her all the boys who spent too much time in the library knew who I was talking about, but none of us had ever talked to her.

Turbo Fruits – Devo Girl

(Right click and save)

My mother’s hair was blond once. Now it’s almost perfectly white.

I was reminded of this as I stared up at the smog that covered the San Fernando Valley like a lid.

I stop laughing, giving it up entirely for the remainder of the two months. I start plotting deaths, beginning with my own and then moving on by proximity.

My inaction comes from an inability to decide who is most deserving. At the time it wasn’t clear to me that “who comes first?” wasn’t a particularly important question to answer.

I kept walking, unshaven and feeling disgusting. On to the laundry where Julie worked. She took a break and drove me over to her apartment so I could shower and change clothes (I never thanked her properly) and then she dropped me off again.

Indoctrination and force-feeding followed. Everything about that place feels vague now. I wrote stuff like this:

the acceptance of a rational truth first requires an irrational leap. the acceptance of something (arbitrarily?) true without rational proof. this acts as an (invisible) center upon which all additional truths may be built into a coherent system. believe what is true.

I was an embarrassing mess.

I don’t know if I need to elaborate any further. I was taught to believe in death as a sort of schism, and that’s exactly what this was.

The cut was clean.

The cut was permanent.

If I concentrate I can remember watching myself as I sneaked out the back door of the unfamiliar house where I attempted to sleep that night. I can remember dragging my suitcase behind me, sweating profusely. But I’m not sure that it happened like that at all.

Did Janet really shout to me from the bed of a passing pickup truck? If she did, why didn’t she get them to stop? Why didn’t she try to stop me?

Why did it take me ten years to realize I was dead?