gross spider episode

another themus familiarus. or whatever.

driving down the road, hands on the steering wheel, foot on the gas pedal, eyes straight ahead, when, in the lower right corner of my visual spectrum emerges, rather, worms, as if an alien from out of the stomach of a woman from the movie Alien, this gross black spider who, by the way he tumbled out, over and back into the heating/cooling vents, must have just defrosted from a frozen near-death - like a fly that flutters back to life from out of a cruelly conceived icecube torture tray that i hear the kids have done. so after a bit of mental vomiting i realize that i'm in a lot of trouble. too timid to look closely, yet too timid to keep from glancing over to where that wretched creature had wrecked my proverbial shit, i'm lucky i didn't end up like some person that crashed his car off the road

also, chad, you've got a lot of things on your mind

hahaha, so untrue. between managing friends and manouvering down the highway to get to work, there's absolutely nothing. i love absolutely nothing. i hate that i love it. that's a bad way, i suppose. i guess i have to accept it.

in this new paragraph, the main topic will switch to me complaining about how i can't see past my own discomfort. it is my most most familiar theme. oh, was what i just saw good? i couldn't tell because i was preoccupied with being so hypochondriacal. actually, i'd think there is something wrong with our bodies if they are not perfectly scissored and lean. i mean, they were designed to work a certain way and be a certain porportion. but anyway, most people are like, 'well, you don't see us complaining about those minor irritations'

yeah, i know, for the most part i don't hear you complaining about that. you probably have more things on your mind

a house, a family, a town, ...a horror

i started reading The Stand last night. unofficially, that makes 232 books i'm in the middle of. there's something about stephen kind that just bores the hell out of me sometimes, but other times he really is masterful. so many characters and situations just seem like caricatures of characters and situations. they seem like the mtv of situations. they're so obvious and annoy me. but when dialogue heats up or action begins he can suck you in for twenty pages a clip. actually, it reminds me a lot of michael chrichton. i just wish i didn't have to read the boring parts to enjoy the good parts, but you do. but i'm getting better at keeping focused through boring things again and so i thought i'd give the stand a try again (i'd read thirty pages before). let's see what happens with this

update

i wrote things but then the internet shut down on me. the computer/connection here does that fairly often.

but Lisa, what can I do, I'm only one person

people argue things like, 'americans forget that they are not the moral superiors of the world.' argue that; it's a good thing to throw around and for a good reason. but americans haven't 'forgotten.' they have never learned that in the first place. no society has ever. it's good to bring up, though, because it helps us learn it.

anyway. it's so hard to say anything. always, on some level, i'd disagree with myself. there's nowhere to stand. it was so much easier when you were oppressed by an evil tyrant or, instead, working to gain more lavishing from one. but if this does go away, and all societies become as america is, where, internally, we don't have much to fight about except for how we treat people and places external from us, then it would either lead us (historically) to civil war(s) or to a new step. maybe a technological lust. a historical paradigm shift? where advancement in technology and the excitement thereof becomes more pertinent than war. but war wouldn't go away.

but anyway, we're evolving as humans. and if you look at it objectively you'd be inclined to say that if you were in that situation you would have acted like that as well - at least most of the time or in general. you can recognize this and try to even things out, but really, it's just tough luck. we have castes in our species, not just in a society, that are based on culture. but these are changing. too slow for you? you can be one of the people that speeds things up by caring about it and protesting it. people will do these things. people will do everything to get to where we are going.

and you wouldn't want the king of england busting down your door and pointing a gun in your face. would you? WOULD YOU?

multitasking

'i only want to be happy,' he told me. i only want to be happy.


unrelated: i'm stuck. it will pass

from flat on your back

it's thursday the 13th and the moon is half-full and tonight, at mid-night, the wolfman will sit at home and question the meaning of his life, sipping tea in his new robe he just picked up at a yard sale, and he'll wonder if life is what he's made of it and does everything that seems that is just seem like that because he's made it there and doesn't he often get confused as to the many different perceptions he has on life when he just looks at it from different moods. maybe it's just those moods that need to be molded, refined. life is how he feels. he sets down his mug and reaches for a pencil to write that down and grabs his small tablet of paper that has, written across the front of it in black, 'recollections, recognitions and regrets.'

ah, a friend comes over, and they greet and note each other's physical appearances (or lack of keeping up thereof, ha!), and mention their days, and sit and invite to sit, and talk and interact, and even talk and interact about the subject of thinking and about the subjects of thinking, and then, in front of the living room fire, play chess, and get frustrated and the friend leaves to fellowy goodbyes.

it gets late and the wolfman needs sleep, but first he takes a few moments to pray. he activates a pleasant, strong part of his brain and focuses on keeping it activated. he chants words from habit to stave off distraction and, in effect, he prays to himself, to the part of him that is strongest, to help the part of him that just simply has the most stamina during the day.

so i live near the woods

as do many spiders. i went outside for a cigarette, as i'd had 3 beers, and i spotted this big spider, not the biggest in nature, mind you, but big nonetheless. and i thought, eh, i don't mind it too much. i walked down my 3 stairs and lit up. full of energy, yet bored, i looked to him again and resolved myself with a sigh. being the largest creature around i thought i'd give him a go for some interacting and walked up a few stairs and leaned toward him. so bud, i thought, and wondered some feeling at him. but just as i realized i was comfortable, i looked down and there, right by my side, was another spider of the same species. i jumped back and laughed at the situation. right as i was getting comfortable with them one was there to shock me to a distance again.

it's funny how they don't move; much more frightening. i liken it to opening a closet door. if someone is inside there with intentions to scare me they might often shout 'boo!' immediately, and cause me to fall down backwards in surprise. but had they not moved at all things would have been much worse. giving me time to see and recognize their unnatural appearance makes for more of a soul-wrecking experience as opposed to just an emotional release. damn those spiders and what they symbolize to me.

just some little things, like a quote and what i'm going to dress like for halloween

so one of the 'personalities' i play against in chessmaster's favorite quote is: 'being able to play chess is the sign of a gentleman, being able to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life.'

i came to the conclusion that i could probably get away with (even quite well) going to halloween dressed in a shirt and tie and carrying a clipboard if, when asked what i am supposed to be, i would say, 'i'm the costume judger,' and then proceed to eye them up and give them a grade. it would be great to go with another costume judge so that we could act detached from the proceedings, even if confronted by people calling us poor sports, by ignoring them and whispering our opinions to each other about who might be winning the competition. hah! and then if people really did start to get into the fact that we would really judge them and announce a winner we could, of course and with justification, stand on a sofa and announce that, 'well, it seems like there's a lot of excitement over who has chosen the best costume and so without futher ado i'd like to announce that it is me, chad swope, dressed as costume judger! let's get him a beer!'

hmm, i think i'll try to pull that off.

hang your hat

I'm so fully removed from when i was detached from myself. I guess it could be described that way. being detached. at that time, though, i would never agree that there was a correct description of anything. i was always getting what people said but missing their point. how can you tell someone that's missing your point that their missing your point.

there have been other examples where i've recognized myself and that state of mind, but recently i saw a Next Generation that was especially poignant. i'll mention it because it was most recent but also because the further i get away from Then in time each subsequent example seems more impactful and real and definite. i'm becoming more willing to define what i was and move on. but anyway, i'll crack on with this.

the characters had their ability to enter REM sleep blockaded. eventually, without dreaming, they began to go crazy, as it were. i recognized myself in the way the actors portrayed the exhausted characters. data would try to explain something to picard and you could see him concentrating with an effort. data would need at least a few connected sentences to get his point across but picard could never link anything together. data would state something obvious (perhaps that the warp drives were inoperable) with the intentions of carrying on towards the solution, but picard would get caught up in considering if, in fact, the warp drives were indeed inoperable and after he'd come to the conclusion that yes, by the love of god, they most certainly are and that everyone knows that that's the problem, and then he'd get upset and feel like data was patronizing him. data would realize that picard's mind was incapable of taking any assertions for granted or that he was giving undue concentration to things that shouldn't have high prioritation, and so data'd just carry out his own plans.

the characters couldn't see where people were going. instead they'd incessently examine the truth of each particular thing someone told to them. they'd realize that they didn't know anything for sure and many of them became as animals and tried to fight.

say a word long enough and it loses meaning. take something out of context and it loses meaning. take feeling out of conversation and there is no point to it. language is very key when conveying information, but also for conveying feeling and sharing of strife. i can overlook it if your words don't have any factual truth to them if i can recognize that you're truthfully trying to get across a true feeling. these are times when it is not so important to be exact. i think this is called scope, or something. heh, or maybe common sense.

longest shadows ever cast

but didn't you remember about the plans that you made. look right there and you'll see a person in excitement. you can rub his head and pull him to your shoulder. he can show you what it is like to be yourself. smoke a cigarette and ash out the backseat window. feel your hand pump itself into a fist and say something, anything. they'll all respond and save you. your happiness is a bravery; it opens you to attack. but so many of them are there with you, helping to keep you where you've dared to go, hoping you'll help them as well. go sit in your room, fear, i'm going out to play.

he'd never robbed a 7/11 b4. he'd never even drank a beer. walking those late night small town streets made him want to do these things, made them exciting, made a smile come to his face. he wondered about doing them but was told they were wrong. he wondered what it meant when he could grow a beard. he hoped that he wouldn't have bad dreams.

he went inside and put his shoes where they belonged. he didn't wonder anything for the rest of that night.

bolded

Arthur, your feelings don't justify your decision. please tell me that your feelings are with you. they are all that you have.

my feelings have been sacraficed, Lancelot. it is the natue of my position. i accept it as such.

but you must have feelings that justify what you do. even if they are feelings that overcome your immediate feelings. at least explain to me those feelings. it would be the only way that i could understand you.

it is not possible, dear friend. i am no longer as you are. for me it can not be so easy to simply act as i feel. i must be unattached to make the right decision.

you speak with such air of wisdom, but you convey such foolishness. do as your heart tells you.

my heart tells me, friend, that it should not be relied upon. my heart has learned this and much to its depression.

but depression is only part of what your heart will teach you. if all you have learned from your heart is what is wrong then that is the only place that it can lead you.

and much to my depression.

the goodness in your heart strives to be acknowledged, arthur. much like your person strives to achieve goodness through this war, first, you must find it within yourself. you have made your way to a position of much power. how you handle your struggle will be reflected, manifested in this world.

i have given up on my struggle.

then you have given up on this world. all that is left is for you to grit your teeth and be stabbed through the heart.

then that is all that is left.