Yeah, Yeah, Yeah... It's me.
5/1/96 - May. Snapdragon. The second word has no significance; I just felt like seeing it on the screen. I feel like bunches of things. Mostly I don't do or say things I feel like doing or saying. I guess I make an internal value judgement and not doing gets higher marks. I'll try not to think about why. I went to a concert last night. I was able to consciously tune out everything but the music. When I listen to a CD I do this all the time, but in real life stuff (conversations, concerts etc) it's hard to not look. The music was good by itself. It moved. In kind of a Zen sort of way the music was driving my head. (If anyone knows about Zen I'm sure you're saying "This guy is full of crap. This has nothing to do with Zen." I know.) I knew things I wouldn't have known without the music. Nothing important, though. The lyrics didn't cause me to change my philosophy or world view. I don't know the "secret of life" (or as the French say "the secret of life" but most of them speak a language I don't). The end result is I'm a happier person today than I would have been had I not been there and listened. I'm also a little tired.
5/2/96 - I was going to write about speeding. I drove to work behind anti-speeders this morning. It sounds like a boring topic now. My backup topic is tying Chris Moore up when my pledge class caught him in the fraternity house's basement as we prepared to dump train wreck (lasagna) into the showers. "Huh?" Okay. I was in a fraternity. My pledge class occasionally "raided" the house. We'd gather at 2am and sneak into the house. We'd do something messy, wake everyone up and get out before the brothers could grab us. The brothers would fume. Then they'd call us. Then we'd come over and do push ups until we couldn't do more. Them we'd do iron mikes until we couldn't do more. Then we'd clean up the mess we made. By the time the sun came up we'd need to go to class. So did Chris Moore. Did we ever untie him or is he still hog tied down in the kitchen? I bet he's pissed.
5/3/96 - My hands are cold. This is not an important fact. But what facts are important? I suppose this is relative... at least it is from my point of view. If I were to say "My friend Chris is getting married in about a month" (which I did) would you care? Maybe in an empathetic kind of way ("Gee Lee, that's nice; I'm happy for him"). But it probably doesn't change your life one way or another. To me this is a big deal; I've known Chris for 3/4 of my life (and that 1st quarter really shouldn't count). The point is simple; importance is relative. Where else can we apply this point... government? Sure, but that's opening a bigger bag of fertilizer than I'd like to at this point. My arguement would have been less government participation in everything is good because serving no one's interests is better than serving someone's over someone else's. Don't you love point/no support statements? I hate 'em, but that was mine and this is my space so don't complain. Well, my hands aren't cold anymore; I wonder who cared they were in the first place?
5/6/96 - Richfood Crispy Rice in a plastic cup... that's my breakfast. And only because I left a Ziplock bag full on my desk from friday's lunch. I think they turned off the climate control in here this weekend; it's darned stuffy. I can vouch for the tightness of a Ziplock seal; my cereal is still fresh tasting... well, it's crunchy. It tastes like nothing else. What else tastes like fake Rice Crispies? Not too much. There is bound to be something worthwhile to say, right? I can't think of a darned thing this morning. I could tell you I forgot to flip my calendar until this morning (almost a week late). I could tell you my band spent 11 hours in the studio yesterday. I could tell you I slept through my alarm this morning. I could tell you I won't finish this sentence, but that would be a lie.
5/7/96 - Today is my friend Chris's birthday; he's the guy getting married in about 6 weeks. I was thinking while I drove to work today... the car is an easy place in which to get pissed off (at least for me). I don't like to drive therefore I'm in a crappy mood already. Radio pretty much sucks so the mood gets worse. I'm usually heading someplace so driving is just a bothersome requisite step and not an end in itself. PLUS there are other people involved. Other people usually have other agendas that disagree with mine. Therefore I get angry for no one really good reason. I'm going to try books on tape; perhaps by distracting myself I'll stay more calm. I had another thought worth words yesterday. I want a job that I'd do even if I wasn't paid to do it. Hmmm, how? I read a quotation a day or so ago that said something like "Most people assume the things they want are somewhere else so they forget to look where they're standing." I put quotes around that, but it's certainly not a direct quotation. I believe it's time for me to exercise my genius before it atrophies.
5/8/96 - Today is my friend Pam's birthday; She's Andy's sister. Seconds ago I had a panic attack. I couldn't find my coffee. Last night I told my parents I wanted to be a writer. They pretty much didn't say anything. They believe I pick a new career path every day. I could be sophisticated and say "Career Du Jour" but I won't. How cool would it be to have a syndicated newspaper column? Got me. Does anyone know Dave Barry? I would guess the answer is "Yes, but not anyone that reads your journal, Lee." I can live with that. I wish things in my life happened miraculously; You know, one day I'm writing a weenie journal and the next I'm "The Next Big Young Writer". I think I have a better chance of winning the lottery (which is fine with me). I changed my wall paper yersterday. My officemate wanted Fred Flintstone while looking I found Shaggy (from Scooby Doo); I have a screen full of Shaggy heads now. I used to have Dave Matthews and his guitar. I wonder how Dave feels about being displaced by a mythical suspected drug user? With that question I sign off for today.
5/9/96 - "You must seek without seeking?" Ok, I said, but why? I have this Zen quotation a day calendar that is pretty cool. Many days the thoughts spawn thoughts of my own; I like this. The problem is quotations like todays... I must seek without seeking?! What the hell?! That makes no sense. There must be something lost in the translation. There must be two subtly different Zen words (ignorant me can't even guess in which East Asian language this stuff would be written) meaning about the same thing as seek. I know you've seen the jokes about English Movie titles translated into foreign languages; There are bound to be problems in reverse (English grammar sucks anyway). Oh, did you see the one about "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken"? Apparently in some language the translation meant "It takes a virile man to be tender with a chicken". My point is about to encompass more than I'd intended. Think about how much of what we know is based on foreign language writings... Scientific texts (ok, mathematical language is more or less constant), Philosophy (including Zen and the Bible) and I could go on, but I have work to do.
5/10/96 - Not much happened to me in the last 24 hours. Like the saying says "Don't let life happen to you..." Something like that. So I guess since nothing was inflicted on me things are ok. Of course the other side of that coin says I'm a lazy drifter or else I would have been out enhancing my life. Yeah, so what? I watched TV and let another 24 hours pass through that narrow part of the hour glass without doing something explicitly positive. I fear I'm going to learn some cool secret of life and then be upset that I hadn't been able to take advantage of my new knowledge earlier. Boy, that was stupid. Was I going anywhere with this? I doubt it. Every few days I may say something worthwhile but for the most part I just type out truely random thoughts for a few minutes. What is this doing for me? Well, I told myself I do this everyday I came into work, so I'm fulfilling a personal promise. That's positive. I actually enjoy the act of thinking (despite my inabilities); that's positive. I may not be the king of the world, but I'm doing alright in my mind. And I know there's room for improvement.
5/13/96 - Ok I haven't slept well since last week. I awoke this morning with a hangover. Before you start jumping to conclusions I DIDN'T DRINK YESTERDAY. I just like to say "hangover" because it sounds more romantic than "headache and sick to the stomach". I feel slightly better now; coffee usually helps. I don't think this is the reason I've been ill, but it is certainly something that's been bothering me. Irrational numbers. An irrational number is one that cannot be expressed a ratio of two natural numbers (ie 1, 2, 3...). Negative numbers and zero are rational. Examples of irrational numbers are pi and the square root of 2. Here is the problem (apparently this one bugged Pythagoras too): Ok, stop. I just realized something; I'm not confused by irrational numbers so much as I am by non repeating non terminating decimals. Before I make more of a fool out of myself I need to figure out exactly what it is that is bugging me. Maybe I am sick. I guess I'm just confusing myself. Are you clear on this?
5/14/96 - I was sick last night and earlier this morning. I'm fine now, but I came in late. I decided to write something here, but this is all you get today.
5/15/96 - I'm feeling much better today. I attribute much of my wellness to a strict diet of Lime Jello. Ok, maybe not strict, but I ate 4 whole cups of Lime Jello for dinner monday evening. I make it using the quick set directions. My mom gave me this great Tupperware pitcher; I could probably fit 8 cups of Lime Jello in this pitcher, maybe more. Most of my silverware (ok, cheap metal ware) came from my grandmother. Among the forks and spoons are some Disney pieces (eg spoons with Donald Duck on the handle) designed for smaller people. If I eat my Lime Jello from the pitcher with the Disney spoon it takes 15 minutes to eat 4 cups. The spoon is so small big pieces of Lime Jello wobble off... I'm limited to smaller chunks. If I'm concentrating on TV (which I watch in mammoth proportions while sick) eating 4 cups of Lime Jello could last for an entire episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (not as bad a show as I assumed it would be). As usual I have no point. I'm outlining middle class illness in the late 20th century. Someone in the future my be interested in what it was like to be sick in 1996. I'll be the definitive source. Aside from eating Lime Jello I dress in boxers and a T-Shirt and recline on the couch with the remote and the phone within reach. I stay in this position as long as possible then head for bed. Anyone need an interview for a doctoral dissertation?
5/16/96 - My car needed fuel this morning. That has little to do with the story, but I wrote it anyway. I drove the mile to the gas station without turning my windshield wipers on. This alone means nothing, but it was lightly raining. The water made cool patterns on the glass... ripplly like sand in a desert only very small. The distance from one ripple crest to another was less than a quarter of an inch. I could see everything through the windshield, but it was all out of focus. In fact I couldn't tell if my eyes were focused or not, no matter how hard I tried. I took my glasses off and I couldn't tell a difference. I hope no police officers read this. I hope my mother doesn't read this. Actually when I was younger and Dad took the family car through the car wash (usually after church on sunday morning) my sister and I would ask him not to turn the windshield wipers on until we'd built up speed and the water rippled as I described above. Mom would inevitably say "Bobby, turn the wipers on before you wreck the car". He'd do it and the fun was over (Fun?! What does that say about my family?). Anyway, I was in control this morning and I enjoyed it. What does that say about me?
5/17/96 - I realized yesterday evening that my childhood is slowly slipping away. I think everyone, when they get a job, starts to think this in a general sense. I saw specifics. I've managed to hold on longer than most people. I seem to have a difficulty choosing an image. Sometimes I have very short hair other times it's mangy (like now). Sometimes I have a beard other times I'm clean (sort of) shaven. I'm in a band; that's not conventionally grown up. I'd guess there are more people in bands under age 20 than there are people in bands over 20. My desk area is not mature. I have Legos, a rotten desiccated orange, a neon golf ball, a rubber reptile, drawings, a page from a physics book, a foam globe that I bounce off the walls, toilet paper packaging, an inflatable globe suspended from the ceiling by a paper clip chain... are you getting the picture? The thing is: I used to be less grown up. Am I approaching some maturity asymptote? Or am I decline further into the scariness of grownupness until I die? I hope it's the former. I still have a good bit up Beavis and Butthead in me. I had no clue how to spell "asympytote" so I looked it up. I passed "anus" on the way through the dictionary pages; I snickered.
5/20/96 - I was almost involved in an auto accident yesterday and, strangely enough, it was my snappy driving skills that averted disaster. I don't have the highest opinion of my motor skills (get it?) so that I am the hero of this tale is weird. I was cruising home from band stuff yesterday; it was 6:30p and my car and I were on route 123 in Fairfax, VA. I was headed south and was about to cross Burke Center Parkway when a Toyota (that's Atoyot spelled backwards) Camry, heading north on 123, pulls out in front of me to turn left. In about .5 a second I did the following: horn, brakes, head check and lane change. The other driver must have heard my horn; I saw his head jerk and he floored his Camry. I actually saw the Camry lurch as it accelerated to just barely beyond my front bumper. After those events all the blood drained from my head; I felt my collar bones fill with helium (at least that's how it felt) and my arms fill with lead. I was on I-95 before I was completely recovered. I think everyone should just trade their cars in for bumper cars. Driving would be safer and more fun, plus, every vehicle is a convertible. But the power grids overhead would obstruct some cool views.
5/21/96 - There are days when I'm certain there is a divine power watching over me. Some of these days the divine power reminds me of a 8 year old with a squirt gun hovering over an ant hill and blasting the watery bejeezus out of any 6 legged critter he sees. Yesterday evening I was a wet ant, but only for the 30 minutes it took me to crawl from my office into the safety of my apartment. I don't know what made me take an alternate route home I think I was going to go to the grocery store but then decided I didn't want to after all. Anyway I ended up on a road with many stop lights. I just missed green at the first one. Then I just missed green at the second one. Then the third. After sitting through 3 entire traffic light cycles in 100 degree heat I was pretty mad (I didn't turn the car's AC on because I knew I was going to be outside running when I got home and wanted to acclimate to the extreme heat). So as I finally pulled away from the third light I knew I was going to be stopped at the fourth. As the fourth light came into view I calculated the point through which I knew, if I passed, I would make the light. I was about 10 feet from the point when the light changed. Ahhhhhh! The same thing happened at the fifth light; I could hear the 8 year old's laughter. Then I had to merge onto a new road. Of course there was someone in the right lane that could move left but wouldn't. I think he even sped up and slowed down with me so I just couldn't get onto the road before the merge lane ended. I had to stop and wait for him to mosey on down road. But I was home. Do I sound paranoid to you?
5/22/96 - Ok, I was caught in a lie. I purposefully reported my whole traffic light/ wet ant story as if it happened on monday evening when I knew full well (what the hell does "full well" mean?) that it happened friday. The world really is against me when I can't even tell a tiny lie and get away with it. Not that I'm in the habit of telling tiny lies; in fact I like to think of myself as painfully honest. I'm just plain not good at deception. {Transition} And what about the Bulls? I left my former roommate's new apartment well into the second half of the Bulls/Magic game. My former roommate Brian, a huge Bulls fan (he puts his Air Jordans on the TV for good luck), was sobbing "it's over, it's over" in the corner as I walked out the door. The last I heard the Bulls were down by 13 or 15 or something unsurmountable. In the car this morning I heard the radio sports guy yapping about Jordan's demand for a 2 year 18 million dollar contract and how Jordan played the game he needed to play to convince Bulls management to meet his demands. I'm thinking "Yeah, he showed them what the Bulls are like without Jordan; How badly did they get beaten?" Then sports guy says "Bulls 93 Magic 88" and my jaw drops. "Huh? The Bulls were having their butts handed to them on a platter." Last fall when I wanted the Braves to win a baseball game all I had to do was go to bed. I guess this works for the Bulls too.
5/23/96 - My faith in music has yet again been fortified with 8 vitamins and iron, NO! wait, I mean by Agents of Good Roots. I saw them for the first time in about a month last night. They rock. In fact they were better than I remember them being and that's saying bunches. I had another pleasant experience last night (actually about 1:30a this morning); the honeysuckle is blooming throughout my favorite city. It seems wonderful to drive through the spring cool and smell honeysuckle on the wind. The smell is so much more vibrant in the cool damp air of night and early morning. The weird thing I've noticed about smells is how similar the good ones are to the bad ones. Two examples: sweet honeysuckle/sweet rot, seafood/beach rot. I remember the old pre Kurt Cobain Teen Spirit commercials; the teenage girl, referring to the deodorant, says "It smells like the ocean!" My God! What could be worse than smelling like a flooded cemetery for dead sea creatures? Even at it's best I'd never want to smell like the ocean. Ok, I'm done; I have coffee to smell and finish.
5/24/96 - Since my life's emotion defining function looks something like: f(x)=sin(x)(1/100) little things seem to have a relatively profound impact on me. I suffered one of the worst disappointments in recent memory when I walked out of my apartment and found it cooler outside than inside. I was so upset with myself for leaving the AC on and not opening the window (yes, my apartment has a single (one) window). In the winter I put the heat on 60 and still go outside every now and then to cool off. I was pissed off that I'd not slept in the coolest reasonable environment. I could feel my ears getting red and the disappointment shifting to selfloathing. Then I said "What the hell is going on here?" I couldn't believe I was getting this upset over such a wee thing as leaving my AC running through a cool night. But then I realized since I lack real provocative events, things that otherwise wouldn't even register on a graphical rendering of stimulating events are the darned peaks. Bummer being me... no, that's not true; I just need to look for fun instead of waiting for it to stumble by me.
5/28/96 -
My band assignment is writing the bio. Guess what!!! You get to read the
rough draft. Here goes:
Andy and Lee have been friends since they were half as tall as they are now.
Andy met James at college. Sometime after that Lee met Ken, Josh and Scott;
They worked together. Aside from meeting people, Lee and Andy wrote some
songs. At first it was Andy, James and Lee putting songs on tape with a
lousy 4 track but then an opportunity to play in front of people arose.
Scott stepped in to play drums... Help Wanted was formed. Some time passed and
Help Wanted decided Scott was better with a guitar than with drums... Ken
joined the band. The band recorded Goosefish a 7 song demo; the band played
some shows; the band played more shows. Josh joined, adding trumpet to the
music. The band played more shows. The band recorded The Flying Lumber
Incident...
Well, it's by no means done. In fact I think it sucks (good things it's a
rough draft). Maybe pictures will spice it up. I'll fix it later. I'm sure
this will end up on the band page sooner or later... check it out to see the
final product.
5/29/96 - Yesterday all my troubles seemed... crappy. I turned 26. Actually it was a pretty cool birthday. I sort of tried to ignore it. It worked better than I could have hoped. I didn't get excited and thus when it ended it wasn't a downer. Plus I got treated to lunch at my favorite (well, one of two) pizza places... SuperStars and dinner at my favorite Mexican place... Casa Grande. My aunt and uncle sent me this cool magnetic poetry set. It has 400 words (or word pieces) that you arrange into poems on the fridge. My other uncle and aunt called me, but I wasn't home (I'll call back tonight). I had a mathematical thought in the car driving home. I must pass around 500 cars on my way home (this may be high). There are 365 days in a normal year. I'll bet some cars have more than 1 person inside. All this info leads me to conclude that I passed within 20 feet of two other people that share my birthday. I know of 2 specific people that share my birthday: Geoff Hammond and Darren Snipes... Happy Birthday guys; sorry I'm a day late. Oh, I forgot to tell you why yesterday was such a crappy birthday... my Mom was 26 when I was born.
5/30/96 - The sun is out! It seems like days since the glowing orb has graced the Richmond sky. I find it complete cool that the sun can heat this planet from 93 million miles away. My parents have a fire place; from 3 feet away it's pretty hot. A mile is roughly 2000 times longer than 3 feet. 93 million miles is 93 million times longer than 1 mile. Basically the sun is 1,000,000,000,000 times as far away as the hearth is from a fire but, relatively, about as hot. Plus, you can tan in the sunshine, but fires just blister you (the joys of radiation). And the sun lifts depression. I was all kinds of pissed off at whatever you're pissed off at when you have to get out of bed when you don't want to, but then I saw sunshine on the shades. I threw them open and washed my room in real light. Not filtered through the clouds damp, mildew looking light like the last little while but real red-orange-yellow, squinting cause it hurts not to sunlight. I love it. I don't care that mosquitoes (is there an "e" in that word or not?) love hot humid weather... I've been down and now I'm not because I saw the sun. Yee Ha.
5/31/96 - This is it; May's last day for 1996. Last night I read about an asteroid that missed Earth by 200,000 miles. In astronomical terms this is the equivalent of a Major Charles Emerson Winchester III being shot through the hat without knowing it (remember that M*A*S*H episode?). But I digress... who am I kidding? All I do is digress. Oh well. Busy weekend planned for me; Andy's pop gets married tomorrow. My roommates (Andy and Chuck), my friend Chris and I are the groomsmen. Stuff tonight... stuff tomorrow. Then sunday I may run a 10K (but I doubt it) and I'll probably truck up to NoVa for band stuff. Work days have become my relaxation time. I just looked down at my keyboard; the light is coming in through the window to my left. The left side of my keys pick up the blueish tint of the natural light. The office lights are on so the tops of the keys are lit orangy. The rest is shadowy. The whole combination is quite appealing. Ohhh... Work call... gotta go.