But I don’t want to go among mad people, Alice remarked.
Oh, you can’t help that, said the Cat. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
How do you know I’m mad? said Alice.
You must be, said the Cat. Or you wouldn’t have come here.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Runaway Notions
I have many "talents". And the list is growing everyday.
I recently discovered that I have the ability to induce calm panic attacks while performing normal everyday tasks. Completely unprovoked-- well unless you count self provocation.
I can't quite put my finger on how it starts. But I have a hunch that it might be related to my new hobby (and yet another talent!): to replay conversations or interactions I've had with people over and over in my head. I start thinking about details and before you know it, each sentence, nay, each word in my memory branches out, taking on a life of its own, spawning more and more possibilities. My memory isn't great, and it's probably selective at best, which only makes me second guess everything. It's wierd because I still look calm and normal, but I feel like my brain and heart are exploding, only someone must've hit the mute button on me.
I start scrutinizing every word, every action. I almost always jump to the conclusion that mistakes were made, most likely my fault. My eyes dart to my phone, I want to check my email. Nobody has called. Nobody has written. Therefore it is only reasonable that they are probably all sitting in a room somewhere having a grand time, conspiring, trading notes about how much I suck. And I've probably given them enough ammo to, it is a cruel joke that I ever thought I might be likeable. I constantly think my coworkers are talking about me, because their voices are low. They are displeased with my performance, I MUST be slacking off, or stupid, or both. Then usually around this time, paranoia seeps in and begins to kick any remianing shred of logic's ass.
All the while, I'm still sitting there, on the couch, smiling robotically at the TV. Maybe even fake chuckling. Right at that moment, there are two completely different events taking place, sharing the same time frame. On the one hand, there's cheesy music and colloquial dialogue. On the other, rapid and chaotic brain activity, terror, suffocation, and stress induced chest pains. It becomes hard to tell which one is background noise.
I digress. The only way to snap out of it is by reminding myself of the worst case scenario: to spend life in complete solitude. Which isn't so bad. In fact assume rejection unless otherwise noted. Breathing returns to normal. My eyes start to focus again. TV swims back into view, Scrubs is on. Everything is a little darker, but I care less.
I never used to get carried away like this. This can only mean that my brain is evolving, into that of a mental patient's. Shhhhhhhhhhhh.
Everyday at exactly 4:57 PM, my brain packs up and flies to outer space.
Leaving my "I'm stuck in a field that I don't really care for but might as well make something out of while I'm here" energy severely compromised.
Abandon me as I am stuck—in excel. Reconciling data is complicated 10 billion times when there are a gazillion formulas involved. #DIV/0--#VALUE--#N/A, #NAME? I worship this program's creativity in coming up with so many different ways to say "Fuck you, try again."
I'm thinking of making up a song that strings together all these arguments, maybe throw some other commands in there. A must have lyric: "I Vlooked up your mom last night." Hell, that could even be a facebook group. Oh the possibilities. Or, check this, yo momma's so fat that the circular reference error in excel, is actually referring to her. <--*Trademark yo momma joke courtesy of Michelle's outerspace brain.*
Outside, I'm staring extra hard at the monitor screen. Clicking away, mechanically calculating returns. Inside, I'm on vacation. Like today, I was eating Fun Dip when it happened. Fun Dip, what a presumptuous and false claim. Clearly the candy isn't living up to its name at all. Firstly the stick that you use to dip into the powder tastes like sugary sweet death. It also looks like a piece of chalk. Then there's the cherry flavored powder, which tastes like ground up chalk, and I can talk because I once ate chalk on a dare. So it's literally like dipping a piece of chalk into more ground up chalk. Again, what is so fun about Fun Dip? If anything they should call it Lame Dip. But, it's not altogether hopeless. Instead of cherry flavored chalk powder, they should use pop rocks. So that everytime you take a dip, it's a PARTY in your mouth. Now that's FUN. <--*Trademark product idea courtesy of my outerspace brain.*
I'm off to test this product. I wonder if eating enough will numb my mouth.
Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick. I'm convinced that this is the official sound for blinkers in all Enterprise Rentals. I would know. Dodge, Chevy, Ford. They all make this same sharp and precise ticking. Same rhythm, beat, tone. I drummed my fingers along, silently counting. I despise the smell of rentals. This one smells like plastic, devoid of personality, of belonging. After a minute, 40 ticks or so, I decided that I like the sound these blinkers make. Soothing. If nothing else, they had a consistency that I found comforting.
I need a signal. Left: Things are going to get better from now on, life is going to stop flinging shit in her direction. Right: "Finish her." I don't care which one. I just cannot return to normal, drab, dreary. Life at this point is snowballing, rolling down the hill growing ever so large, collecting more and more speed. I find it irrational that I am sitting at the bottom of the hill, quietly listening, waiting, watching. I should be screaming my head off, running to meet it, running the fuck away. I flip on the left turn signal, wait exactly a minute, then flip on the right. I do this as I wait for Ann to come downstairs. The minute she opens the door, that's how I'll make up my own fate.
No this game makes no sense, but it's fun. I can't seem to rationalize anything anymore. I pose questions all the time, and I'm the only one responding. That game also makes no sense, and it's no fun. Flick left, flick right. I'm dumbing life down to a coin toss. Here comes Ann.
I had the worst dream last night. I was riding one of those spinning teacup rides, except they were shoes. I was inside a shoe that spun around, chaotically fast. I thought I was going to vomit, choke on my vomit, and die. I will place heavy negative emphasis on that last detail by adding that the worst way to die, in my opinion, is to choke on your own vomit from some stress induced situation. Not only is it uncomfortable and painful, but it's pathetic and embarrassing. I want to look like a hero when I die. Even if I'm not, even if I'm the village rapist, a murderer of children, or some fascist dictator, I want to look like a hero just for when I die. They can find out the terrible truth after, what do I care I'm dead.
There's more.
My friends were standing by the ride chatting as I spun round and round, into my death. I was shouting for them to throw me the shoe laces. Predictably, no one responded, no one even looked in my direction. Round and round. My skin, shaken loose from my bones. I felt the chunks coming. I wanted to wave both arms wildly, so that I could catch someone's attenton. But instead I hugged the tongue tighter and screamed for laces. Everything was a white blur, fading to black. The proper words should have been: "somebody, help me."
Reality. I sat up. I could still feel chunks welling up in my throat. I thought it humorous that even in imminent death, I would creatively try to save my own life by demanding something so ridiculous as shoelaces. It really made sense at the time.
Something I recently heard -- from someone else who once heard:
Everyone that we meet in our lives is a mirror to our own selves.
Supposedly every encounter is a learning experience. You learn something different about yourself everytime you meet someone else. Even if some encounters seem to be a huge fucking waste of time...they're not. Although I will always rue those times, I can now rest assured that at least I have this bit of cheesy truth to jam down my throat.
If you worked in what used to be an abandoned mill far out in the middle of nowhere, miles from any consumer hot spots. Instead the mill is right next to a gentle quiet flowing stream. And an art museum. Let's throw a museum in there. Pretty groovy huh.
So let's say the way the water supply works is that you have to transport it in from the nearby city through a pipe running under the bridge. Oh and there has to be a bridge also. And to ensure a constant supply the pipe is insulated with a thin layer of wires which generate heat. Engineers, feel free to insert a more technical description.
So one day you go to work and it's really cold. The kind of cold where you take heaving gasps to catch your breath. The kind of cut your face, make you cry, render your body immobile cold. And you are informed that due to such inclement weather conditions, the pipe has frozen. Its heating system, broken. How ridiculous would it be if you had no running water at work. That translates into no bathroom and no coffee. Wait so to make this story even MORE bizarre, you find out that it's going to be days, months even before the pipe can be fixed. Or maybe warmer weather. MEANWHILE, get this, you get a company wide portapotty. ONE portafrigginpotty for however long it takes. And instead of putting it smack outside, it's in the basement where the workmen are there 24/7 to work on the pipe. I mean can you even imagine that, how bizarre would that situation be, not to mention going to the bathroom with two workmen conversing nearby?
Oh wait, it's not made up, it's actually happening...to yours truly. And add to that: internet is also down and I am mid-reporting cycle which means staying until 10 every night. Flying portapotty solo. Mano e porta potty.
I don't know about you but I need a reason to get up in the mornings, or more importantly, to go to work. Well...besides the obvious.
And two amazingly wierd incentives come to mind:
~~~~ I think about all the food that is stowed in my bottom right drawer. My boss complains that he is running out of filing space all the time and I find that hilarious. Because I'm storing enough food to hibernate for the winter. In case anyone was curious, there are assortments of almost any food that can be considered as "junk" and/or "snack." Candy, chips, chocolate, rice cakes, granola bars, cereal, and of course, PITUH chips.
~~~~Mad for Music. Commuting to work takes anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes, so about 2 hours back and forth. I decided to make the best of this otherwise boring and tedious journey by exploring different albums, artists, soundtracks. I've even dived into my old music collection, some are shockingly good, some are still ghastly, and not surprisingly so. Don't YOU wish you had a two hour drive everyday. Plus when I get to work, there's launchcast. In the next room my boss has Bloomberg TV or Bloomberg radio on, and he laments the fact that we can't get CNBC on a TV. Something about cable wiring. I just chuckle to myself because I'm blasting Indie Pop. Aaaaassss the stock market crashes. J/K. But it could happen.
So yea. Two cheers for the musically inclined fatty.
[I will preface this entry by completely doubting my ability to be coherent at this point]
The Mysterious Disappearance of Michelle Chen’s lunch. If anyone has any information as to the whereabouts of one sad and hungry girl’s lunch, please contact her. You know where her office is, and if you don’t you should commit it to memory immediately. Any information, ANY information at all would be sincerely appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Michelle “I am SO hungry that even if this ends up being a misunderstanding, I won’t see it that way” Chen
PS. If you don’t have any clue as to what I am talking about, but nevertheless would like to give me some food anyway, that would be ok too.”
This note is SO going on the fridge in the kitchen.
The day started out fairly meh. I would venture to guess that the blasé mood had something to do with the sheer amount of excel troubleshooting awaiting me at work. After attempting to reconcile a horribly formatted banking statement in excel, I decided that I would check on my self portrait attempt #2. Only to realize that once again I was pwned by my monitor screen. This time the picture is horribly discolored--to be what I can only surmise is a horrific shade of salmon. Sigh. Maybe glamour shots are not my forte. Giving up, I go back to “playing” with excel. Sit in on a conference call that my boss was not even invited to, and was feeling pretty good about myself until I get to the kitchen. Documented time: 1:35 PM, someone has eaten my entire stash of Lean Cuisines in the freezer. Either that or someone is disgusted by the idea of Lean Cuisines (I kind of am too, but they were on sale) and has thrown them all out. The secretary, a potential witness to this heinous crime, was there at the time so I says to her:
Me: OMG someone ate all my Lean cuisines. Noooo, not my luncchhh. Sec: Well maybe you should label them as yours next time. Me: I don’t know how I feel about parading the fact that I eat Lean Cuisines. I seriously didn’t anticipate Lean Cuisine theft. I mean they’re definitely no Lunchables. Sec: Well if they had NO lunch, they might want Lean Cuisines.
She had me there. So here I am, contemplating death by starvation. Running out of optimism, running out of energy, running out of brain power. I’m surprised I can still spell, let alone ramble on like this. But outrage, that’s the true motivation behind this entry. It’s hard enough trying to put a positive spin on each day as it is. The last thing I need is some inconsiderate baboon eating 4 Lean Cuisines and never even contemplating that they may be consequently ruining someone else’s life. Allow me to demonstrate: If I somehow make it out of this alive, I could potentially suffer brain damagemess up reconciliations for big time accountslose a billion dollars with ONE wrong excel formulalose my jobhumiliate myself at dance class tonightbecome homeless or insane. So the next time you think about taking a coworker’s food, you might want to think it through first. Actions without consequences, that’s what’s wrong with this world. PWN PWN PWN!!!
[I]t's the small stuff that we crave. That's what gives us the illusion that life is infinite, the only thing that saves us from the terror of consciousness, the root of which is that uniquely human knowledge that we are going to die.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are the lovers of law and order, who observe the law when the government breaks it
Why isn't my life like a situation comedy? Why don't I have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do but drop by and instigate wacky adventures? Why aren't my conversations peppered with spontaneous witticisms? Why don't my friends demonstrate heartfelt concern for my well being when I have problems? ...I gotta get my life some writers.
The saddest part of a broken heart Isn't the ending so much as the start The tragedy starts from the very first spark Losing your mind for the sake of your heart
You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.
See, it looks a lot like staring at the sun and it sounds so much like broken glass. Perhaps you're reeling from an awkward pass and it feels just like you want to die and there's no one left to watch you cry. I've got to convince myself and just about everybody else that there's no love.
Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called by the Masai "Ngàje Ngài," the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.
Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.
Why have I sold out? You think I'm supposed to grow old, beating some trite old protest drum that people don't hear anymore? Please; protest is now just a backdrop for a Diesel clothing ad in a slick fashion magazine. My goal is to create a metaphor that changes our reality by charming people into considering their world in a different way. It's time -- for me, at least -- to be clever and seduce people by entertaining them. I'll never be heard if I'm always ranting and griping.
Let me tell you something you already know. The world aint all sunshine and rainbows.
It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it aint how hard you hit: its about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving foward.
How much you can take, and keep moving foward. Thats how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth.
But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you aint where you are because of him, or her, or anybody.
Cowards do that and that aint you. you're better than that!
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Patience. n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.
The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww.
I started a blog, which nobody read
When I went to work I blogged there instead.
I started a blog, which nobody viewed.
It might be in cache, the topics include:
George Bush is an evil moron.
What’s the story with revolving doors?
I’m in love with a girl who doesn’t know I exist.
Nobody hates preppies anymore.
I started a blog, but nobody came.
No issues were raised, no comments were made.
I started a blog, which nobody read.
I’ll admit that it wasn’t that great.
But if you must know, here’s what it said:
One hundred of my favorite albums.
Two hundred people I can’t take.
Four hundred movies I would like to recommend.
Ten celebrities, four of whom I might assassinate.
I started a blog, I sent you the link.
I wanted the world (you) to know what I think. ~Sprites
