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The_Ass_and_His_Shadow
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Name: Blake
Metro: Kyoto
Interests: Blake was physically born in the Helen Keller Memorial Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama in 1982. He was spiritually born in a dirty fountain in Searcy, Arkansas in 1999. He was mentally born twice: he first became aware of the human condition at age 13 while having a panic attack at high altitude in Colorado Springs. He formed his first philosophical value set (Pragmatism) while bored in a Spanish Literature class in Buenos Aires, Argentina one year ago. Blake enjoys computers, origami, lunch with peers, thinking about the future, and comparing himself to others. He too enjoys dancing (but that is a secret).
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
2/17/2004
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| This is my first weekend in my new room. I have a bag for donations to the Goodwill, I have two bags for laundry. I have everything I need. I have a small ant infestation in my bathroom. I put down little traps called "Double Kill."
The solitary life suits me on a regular basis. Bichon Frises like to sleep in crates, especially when they are young. Back when they didnt have humans to feed them, they found little hovels to feel safe from predators. So, they like a little bit of a hovel even after centuries on domestication, until they feel out the family home. Then the home becomes their hovel.
I saw an albino pigeon outside of Vons, when I went to get my ant traps. I wonder, long from now, when the earth is filled with cities (Coruscant), if animals will evolve to better survive in the urban jungle. Maybe they will look concrete grey, or even appear like stone gargoyles or hot dog wrappers. I wonder if I will come to equilibrium with nature in my lifetime. If I will evolve back into the world outside of civilization.
Aren't we obsessed with underestimating each other? I keep hearing, on the radio and in conversation, the term "survival instinct." Maslow says that when all basic needs are met, humans concern themselves with self-actualization. I think of creative pursuits, writing, fashion, identity, friendship. Do we compete with each other as a means to survival? The survival of our identities.
I want to be self-reliant. We all have to take care of ourselves. But I think that when two of us come together and interact, there is a mystery there. Isn't mystery the root of beauty? Can we be forever in a state of mystery about each other?
Today I am going to rest and maybe play some video games. I need some hygiene. I will tell you though, I have some projects in the works. So creative pursuits. I am actually working now, on my own stuff. And I feel full!
To you the same,
blake
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| With every passing day, with every passing day..... and then the rest of the novel.
How are you?! How the FUCK are ya? Ah, jesus, how are you.
If you want to know, I'm good too. You want to know something funny? I am a video game tester who can't afford to buy video games. That's not true. I could save up and buy an Xbox360, but I don't fucking want to. I don't even like video games. But, I haven't played enough to really know. My friend gave me a Gamecube, so I am going to buy that Donkey Kong bongos game. I wrote video game trivia questions for the upcoming trivia title Smarty Pants. In the Boy and his Blob, the ketchup flavored jelly bean makes the blob "catch up." So, there you go.
Let's make a deal. For the rest our lives, you and me will take care of each other. hahaha. That's impossible. You can't even promise that to yourself. But, what you can promise yourself is that you will stay with yourself until you die. Which is kind of comforting.
Ha! I just realized why so few people I know write blogs. Because if you write your thoughts out it might limit what people think you are thinking about. Diffuse the mystery. Duh, shitheads (pronounced shith-heads). Just make a blog and don't put your name on it. But then again, what would be the point of that?
Nice blake is obviously and slowly dying. I am just a man trying to find a bathroom. Don't get in my way. And I'm gay! HHAHAH. Why don't I have a wikipedia entry yet?
This is an official request. At my funeral, I would like a slideshow of pictures (and video?) of my life with the following songs played over them. "Fullness of Wind" by Brian Eno, "Maple Leaves (7" Version)" by Jens Lekman, or some other stuff from the mixtape I made for Miranda. And, I have this secret fantasy that a sobbing transsexual will request "Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
I'm going to smoke and go to bed.
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| Its been almost a year since I left Japan. Yesterday my brother (after his dreaded chem and spanish finals) took a nap and kept waking up in an inner panic. I asked him why he was worried, maybe because he was worried dad was going to get on to him for sleeping when he should be studying? Maybe he is worried about tomorrow's final? He said "I dont know, it is just one of those sick sleeps where you keep waking up." I knew what he meant.
I guess I am making a comparison between the last year and a "sick sleep."
I can't forget that it has not been without joy. Every time I see my dogs I scrath them and pet them and tell them I love them. Ive had some stellar QT with mom and dad as well. Especially dad recently. But for some reason now I can easily cast a dark cloud over my year here, it had been hard. Lazy days at home were speckled with trips to Alabama to scan pictures and learn about my geneology and spend my first time alone with my grandma, to nashville for a failed romantic trip to a Killers concert, to New york for a failed interview and an epic break-up (at least in the context of my life), a failed interview and successful friend visit in Austin, and missed trips to LA and DC to visit a brother and a friend.
All of this reinforcing a reverse-culture shock realization that my relationship to the world is vague and supremely unknown. The dark tone of this journal so far is probably more influenced by my pre-made margarita and the last 3 hours I spent watching "Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries." But, I got a tarot card reading a few month's ago from Emily's mom, and I got the "Ace of Hands" I think which she said meant I had a magnetic personailty, which was nice. And the "Death" card, which doesnt mean Im going to die soon, but means that my old life will die and a new opportunity will arise. In the last few days I got a huge loan for a summer school program at Harvard. Which is super ironic considering all the jazz I always talk about how evil status and heirarchy is. But a few days ago I googled "computer summer intensive" and it was some of the first entries that came up.
So it turns out I can only take 2 classes. So I figure one computer class and one art class. But there is a second intensive computer class that I could take instead of the art class. So I am left with the classic Blake decision. Art or job?
VISU S-60
Mixed Media (31905)
Annette R. Lemieux
This course introduces contemporary art through slide and video
presentations and assigned readings. Students create two- and
three-dimensional works for critique using materials that reflect the
practices and concerns of contemporary art.
or
VISU S-167
Adventure, Fantasy, and Visual Representation of Alternate Topography (31119)
(Website)
John R. Stilgoe
This lecture/slide/film/video course focuses on the visual constituents
of high adventure and fantasy engagements (beginning with the tradition
of Parrish, Rackham, and Pyle), emphasizing castles and
wandering woods, rogues, tomboys, and superheroes; polar exploration
and cryptocartography; post-1930s comic book illustration; fantasy film
after 1955; martial arts and animal sensibility; urban
fear; wilderness-challenge courses; and computer-generated and
video-adventure simulations. It analyzes the place of such
private-policy enterprises as corporate image-making, interprets them
against
corporate Gothic and romantic imagery, and extrapolates their
importance into the immediate visual future.
or
CSCI S-111b
Intensive Introduction to Data Structures Using Java (31331)
(Website)
David G. Sullivan
This is a fast-paced second course in computer science using the Java
programming language. The course covers fundamental data structures,
including lists, stacks, queues, trees, and graphs, and it
examines classic algorithms that use these structures for tasks such as
sorting, searching, and data compression. Techniques for analyzing the
efficiency of algorithms are also studied. Key notions of
object-oriented programming, including encapsulation and abstract data
types, are emphasized. Problem sets require a minimum of 20 hours of
programming each week in a Unix environment. ---- This choice is sort of a quintessential Blake dilemma. I am left with a decision that could possibly alter my entire life, but which seems in some moments, entirely inconsequential. But these are thing I know. 1) I must move away from home. It is going to be hard again, for deeply psychological reasons, but I need to reclaim my life. 2) I need to get a job. I need to pay back this loan, and other loans, but more important, I need to force myself to interact with humans on a daily basis. 3) I need to do it now. It turns out that my tarot reader may have been right. When an opportunity comes, go for it. I leave June 21st. This is my business plan as Miranda affectionately calls it. Thanks for calling Miranda, most satisfying conversation EVER! Love to everyone and hakuna matata, blake
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|  | Currently Watching
Mona Lisa Smile
By Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ginnifer Goodwin, Dominic West, Juliet Stevenson, Marcia Gay Harden, John Slattery, Marian Seldes, Donna Mitchell, Terence Rigby, Jennie Eisenhower, Leslie Lyles, Laura Allen (II), Topher Grace, Lily Lodge, Jordan Bridges, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Christopher Braden Jones
see related |
yada yada yada one thing leads to another.
I didn't take the GRE today as planned. So, I wont be going to grad school this year. Had a mini panic-attack early this morning when my brother asked me "Do you need the car? Cuz we have to leave in twenty minutes." 10 minutes later I was short with him when he repeated himself. "Yeah, I get it (20 minutes)" 20 minutes to make a final decision on my life for the next year. But, HAHA, if I had chosen to go I would be an hour and 29 minutes into the test right now. I would be in gym class.
(disclaimer: to answer your question, yes, the test costs a non-refundable $130 fee. But I read that most schools average all scores together when considering an applicant, which behooves me to do very well once rather than mediocre once and very well once. Also, in fall 2007 the format of the test will change, deemphasizing vocab and putting more emphasis on reasoning skills, aka bullshitting skills, aka playing to my strengths. And I sort of was only doing it to stall my beloved parent's (read "my") concerns about my future for a few months. I bought the Kaplan book. I know my shit....doubter.)
I am determined to conquer my greatest weakness as I see it, the capacity to get all up in my head and not do anything. I could ponder the merits of death and fabric for days. Which is how I got through middle school, but it doesn't help me now that I have to make a life for myself. I could live the life of the singer from Sparklehorse, disappearing into a druggy log cabin hermitage in Minnesota. Ive been thinking though, the "system" could work pretty well for me. All I need is some coffee and a computer. At least to make a career for myself.
Every couple hours, when I think my dreams are crumbling, all it takes is a nice phone call from Miranda or a friend, or some Wilco or Sigur Ros, or reading a blog to get me back.
So, as per the suggestion of the Kaplan book, I am going to start preparing for grad school a year in advance SNAP hows that for responsibility? I want to find a little job, maybe make a little home for myself in a nice hovel with a couple Wal-mart bookcases to hold all my books and an aerobed. For now I am living with my parents, and their extensive collection of nametags and hair-nets. I made a list of some things to teach myself and to research, ranging from the almost trite "html" to the magnanimous "avant-garde art mediums." Please be my teacher. Send me your best and most moving art and music and film suggestions. I want to know more.
Bart bought the web domain www.thepoetics.com Which is where I will be making his online film reel and resume. Hold me accountable for that.
Bailey wrote a short called "Gus Van Zant High School converstion Pt. 1" which I helped him with. One of my proudest moments this month was when his film teacher read one of the lines I wrote and accused us of plagiarizing "pulp fiction."
So, when I do stuff, I will put it up here, and you can be my chearleader. I gotta get GOIN! Gettin organized, gettin fit, gettin good. here we go
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| I feel a tension between my ironic side and my sentimental side, starting this entry. The person who starts entries with corny lines like "free writin' " and the person who wants to wow you with depth and obscurity are competing. But I dont feel comfortable as either of those people. A person making constant jokes at a burger place or a person crying over the phone. They both stem from me, but they arent satisfying ways to act because what I think and want seems to change every second.
When I tell the story of this weekend, it sounds fun. I went to Shizuoka to meet a great friend. I went to Atami, a famous onsen area and took a bath in an old hot spring. Now (goddamnit!) I am in Shibuya, Tokyo, in an internet cafe after a night exploring Shin-juku. That is the travel brochure, but the emotions I have been feeling have been frantically high and low.
When I say "high," I am thinking of waiting to meet Andres in an art museum, looking at some art that surprised me with beauty. It was a Raoul Dufy exhibit. Then having coffee with andres and feeling genuine awe and appreciation of him. Talking with Taylor on the phone, and the appreciation of him too. And Miranda back home...and Camilla here, just feeling completely confident in LIKING people, and respecting them, and wanting to show my love for them somehow.
But traveling alone has been like a waking dream. Things that I cringed at in passing, weeks or months ago, became my dark lens for viewing the world. I was grappling for something good to hold on to, something pure and real. But all I had was a self that I was bored with and an environment that I didnt know, and it added up to sadness, real sadness like I havent felt in so long.
It began with a physical insecurity. I started out thinking I looked good, but had a fall from that. I have been trying to smile at myself in the mirror sometimes, as if being my own best friend for just a second, but at the hot spring as I was bathing myself in front of the mirror, I couldnt help but feel a sense of digust with the way I looked. And everyone always comments on how beautiful my eyes are, and I looked at myself in that mirror, publically naked, and I noticed using those beautiful eyes, the rest of me. I thought about how tired I am of having to change.
I had a secret dream that I would bring someone I love back to that hot spring, and tell them how alone I felt there once.
Then I went on an expensive and day long whim to Tokyo. Without a thought for what I would do there. I realized later that I was trying to escape from what a disappointment I was to andres, how unfunny and boring I knew I was that day that I met him. And he called and said he wished I had stuck around, and I felt sick and ridiculous.
Last night, I was only the image I projected. I was a maybe 30 year old foreigner in t-shirt and jeans and converse, walking a famous part of Tokyo for who-cares-why, probably sex. So I was offered prostitutes "half Japanese half American" and called out with "HEY!" when I went down an alley. Which made me think of what is happening all around me that i dont know about. But at the end of the night, a woman looked me straight in the eyes and probed my mind for just a second. She was slender and japanese, wearing a white cotton dress over jeans, as if just some pretty college student. She took up a place beside me, walking, and I didnt immediately get what she was doing. But I felt a rush of comfort in that second, that someone had noticed me and looked me in the eyes. She said, "yoroshiku desuka?" (Is that a yes? or Do you want it?) And I shook my head slightly and kept walking. She made an offended sound in the background.
But I know now why it is so common, first hand. Because I wanted so bad to be touched, embraced by someone for whom I might be a welcome change of respectful and more attractive. To be a welcome change.
The whole day my mind was either deeply darkly boring...or racing with thoughts of the future, the uncertainty of going home, of becoming a nothing to people here, to people there, of kyoto, tokyo, wichita, los angeles, austin, new york, the library at WSU near my parents house, of let down eyes of dr. gose, of andres, of miranda, of old pictures on my fridge, the cramped internet cafe, my balcony, classrooms, the people smoking in front of me, of their lives, of boredom, fear and excitement, of the characters in my screenplay, on whether they exist, on how I must appear, on whether it matters, on lost religious feelings, bumming a cigarette for conversation but getting none, how I didnt study japanese much, secret inaccesible communities all around me in fun, and individuals around me in private agony, timetables, itineraries, cultural sites and travel brochures, poverty, cramped rooms of people pursuing their dreams, college students living with families, instant death and planned group suicide and easy days spent on beaches or at movies
Escape. I ask myself what has to change to make me one of those people happily going to McDonalds, and I dont know the answer.
One time in high school I had had a similar episode, a going into the darkness of my mind. But, I think I was sitting on the toilet, and I told my self that for the rest of my life, I will always get lost in my head and get lost otherwise. But that I could come out of it okay if I had confidence in the tools in my head, that my mind could solve any problem that my mind could come up with. And I take comfort in that high school wisdom sometimes.
In A Heart Warming Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers says that anyone who is interesting is completely obsessed with themself. I have come out of this obsessed weekend just wanting time with people, and seeing how interesting and sometimes inaccessible they are. But I want to be accessible, so much. I want to be interesting in every way, physically, creatively, in conversation from afar and upclose, after a while and in the beginning. I want to be young and honest. I want to be passionate about something other than myself. The force is strong with this one, now I remember.
Today I am taking the bullet train back to kyoto, for another two months of transistion. I am fucking scared out of my mind of my mind. I have been thinking though, that being happy is a skill. It is how good you are at finding distractions. And I have a whole bunch of people and experiences lined up, really good ones too. Like good video games and good people. I need to keep honing that skill, by working hard at it everyday. Like the game Myst, writing a world to live in.
For now, I am excited to see what enjoyable Tokyo breakfast I come up with, though it probably wont be in the PERFECT obscure, quintessentially tokyo restaurant after a bath in the UNKNOWN but ancient and beautiful local hot spring. I just dont have the energy to make that day happen today. I will walk around and see whats open, and not go to McDonalds ever. Or starbucks again, at least not by myself. Though starbucks is a constant temptation, I have just talked to so many wonderful people at starbucks, just me and them. | | |
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