Utter Desolation

You, Too, Can Be a Superhero!

2005-06-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

I bought City of Heroes yesterday, and let me tell you, it is definitely worth it! I'm not so sure that it was worth having recklessly fucked off money for groceries and much-needed razors; but unfortunately what is done is done, and I can only hope my friend Audrey will bail me out with a loan. I've already played twice with my fire-elemental, mace-wielding, stogie-smoking Feuerwehr, and it has been a joy comparable to none other found in my online gaming experience, though Red Orchestra is still a close second — and yes, Tripwire, I will buy it when it goes retail! For those of you who don't know about this incredible game, it is an MMORPG, short for "Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game", not to be confused with puny, not-at-all-massive, MORPGs, I guess. Anyway, you get to custom design your own superhero, then go out around town, solo or in teams (highly recommended), to fight and vanquish the forces of evil, leveling up and gaining abilities and powers along the way. I'll get a pic of Feuerwehr up soon.

For all you fans of World of Warcraft, who are tired of spending the better part of the day occupied with fishing and other assorted mudane minutiae, I highly reccomend this game, but then I have traded my bias for swords and sorcery in for tights and ... well, I guess I still am wielding a mace. A suitable, but to be short-lived, comprimise.

My Electronic Castle

2005-06-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

The computer in my room is hooked up to the Internet, at long last! I'm glad I no longer have to use that crappy house computer, on which the joy of Red Orchestra was denied me, not to mention having had to bear up under the incessant churlish drama and bellowings of my house mates. Indeed, now I can all the more shut myself in my room to avoid them! I'm not the most social person, which is aggravated by the fact that my job as a gas station attendant taxes my limited tolerance for human interaction, after which I simply have little patience for the boisterously boorish behavior of my peers. I don't hold it against them, as I understand much of it has to do with their upbringing and former "addict" lifestyle — but that doesn't make it any more pleasant.

Getting online was an arduous and time-consuming exercise in trying to punch a hole through lathe and plaster, which involved both a drill and a steak knife! Not at all elegant, I know. A pity I am probably going to end up moving to Bill's room within a week, as his room-mate is moving out. Guess I'll have to buy another ethernet cable, or see if Norm has one that's long enough, then climb into the attic to run it alongside Bill's line. At least I will end up in a larger room that will offer more privacy and a more pleasant and trustworthy room-mate. Until Bill moves out, of course, into an apartment with Josephine, though I am getting the impression he is ambivalent about that enterprise.

College is just around the corner, and just as I feared my calculus course will prove to be a very short, and therefore also an intense one. I can't believe the fools at the college, whoever they may be, think math classes should be shorter in duration than most other classes during summer term! Nonetheless, with earplugs and diligence I should do quite well, as I always have been good at math. I'm also starting volunteering for FreeGeek tomorrow, which I will likely end up using for the dual purpose of self-education and getting scholarships. Since federal grant funding is getting cut and the Perkins loan being phased out, the time has come to start learning how to hustle for scholarship money, especially since I seem doomed to attend a university, possibly in Corvalis.

My true wish is to lay my head in Tammy's lap and remain still in peace and bliss in a timeless, dreamlike state, no longer plodding forward to an unknown end for equally uncertain hopes, staving off dreads both knowable and unknowable.

Dread of the Future I

2005-05-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Looks like I'm all set to start summer classes at Portland Community College, beginning June 20: I even successfully appealed my disqualification for financial aid, and am reluctantly taking out yet another Perkins loan. It's insurance, of a sort, in the event I tire sufficiently of pumping gas that I quit or get fired, I will have enough money to tide me over until I find another unrewarding and irksome bottom-feeder job. I just have to be sure not to spend it all on various home improvement projects. I'm only taking two classes, Calculus and Speech Communication, primarily because I want to ease my way back in to school, but also because I want to take time to independently catch up on my math and physics knowledge, and to leave time open for much-needed counseling. I'm rather scared, honestly; though I have decided to major in nuclear engineering, my resolve is tinged with doubt, and I still struggle with my insecurities and self-destructive tendencies — just being intelligent isn't enough.

I so wither under the baleful gaze of the sun: my beloved Northwest is being buffeted by yet another heat wave, the temperatures having risen above 90° F these past couple days. I am reluctant to call it "unseasonably" warm, as it seems to have become the new norm. I so dislike this kind of weather: give me a nice drizzle at 60° F, interspersed with the occasional cloud break. That is the weather I knew as a child, but it seems our foolish ruining of the environment is exacting its toll, and even the scientists (who aren't on the destroyers' payroll) aren't certain how it will play out. Indeed, there looms much terror on the horizon: a multilateral nuclear arms race seems to be in the offing, the American economy may very well collapse under its artificially valued bloatage, water and food shortages may starve millions, and whoever may be left will assuredly fall prey to the new resistant viral and bacterial strains lurking in the no-longer hidden corners of the world and even our own very noses.

Ereshkigal, My Mother

2005-05-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Step by step and measure by measure, I am taking steps to make my new "home" feel more like a home: I have an air purifier, a computer and a computer desk (soon to be connected to the internet?), even a lava lamp for the headboard to my bed. Still, without Tammy I feel utterly alone and full of listless sorrow, so much so that I can neither read nor write for any length of time before an agitated restlessness comes upon me and I end up sitting in front of the house computer, flipping through the same sites over and over again, or checking and rechecking my email. Godlessness, I really want a cigarette! though I know it will taste foul in my mouth and my stomach will recoil and churn against it; and I wonder just how much my despair and anxiety have been magnified by this untimely endeavor.

She told me earlier that she wanted to enjoy some quiet time alone, yet she seems to have been out and about all weekend — unless she simply isn't answering the phone. Either way, I can't shake the feeling that she simply doesn't want to talk to or be around me. So this is what it's come to? I am left feeling deeply wounded, so much so that I am fighting back a mammoth rage: part of me wants to tear at her with hurtful words, and cast the shredded carcass of our love and friendship into Ereshkigal's bleak underworld forever. Hah, how can I cast down that which is not to that place wherein my own heart resides?! Perhaps it would be best for me to depart immediately for Oregon State University, as soon as the opportunity arises, to attempt to fully immerse myself into the prosaic world of calculus and nuclear physics?

Even in doing so, can I escape to desolation that is become my heart? Indeed, I am almost come to the point where I would sooner clothe myself in sackcloth and ashes like Job, bemoaning my fate to a callous and uncomprehending audience that is the world, until the wind I have sown at long last carries me away in a magnificent whirlwind of utter ruination.

Pomp and Circumstance

2005-05-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

I finally got my hair cut yesterday, and it looks good! For years I have let my hair grow into a mass of split ends, hanging down to the bottom of my shoulder blades. As I have grown increasingly tired of the frizzy mess, not to mention that it is thinning — alas that we mortals must slowly wither and die, some of us growing bald in the meanwhile — the time was long overdue for it to have been cut short. I almost went to Bishops, but then I saw a place called Do or Dye down the street and decided to eschew yet another chain in favor of supporting an independent business. Since I have no real concept of hairstyles I gave the beautician Sissi free rein to do as she saw fit, the result being a pompadour! It looks great, up or down, so I hereby refer anyone in the Portland, Oregon area who may actually read this act of exhibitionism to go to Do or Dye on E. Burnside & 28th. Pictures are forthcoming.

Ozzy Would Be Proud!

2005-05-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

1 day and 21 hours without a cigarette, and while I may be bearing up well under the physical withdrawals, I do want to bite the heads off the featherless bipeds that scurry and chirp their inanities around me. It is good that I have weekend to ride out to remainder of my these withdrawals, as I have been somewhat lazy and surly at work these past couple days, though I hope not enough to have elicited any complaints from my esteemed customers. I'm sort of on probation, due to the volume of complaints people have made about me, and I need to either get it together (keeping my mouth shut) or move on. This gas station I work at has got to be among the most kiss-ass in the state of Oregon! Actually, I think I'm going to have my boss drop a day out of my schedule, because I think I need to take it easy for a while: what with the months of fighting with Tammy and the college administration, and then moving into the Oxford House, breaking up with Tammy, and now quitting smoking...

Besides, if all goes well, I will be back in college part-time this Summer, and if there are enough funds left, I may even go full-time in Fall. I have finally decided on a major: nuclear engineering! I haven't been this excited about an academic field since I first started college, when I was under the delusion that I would actually want to become a mathematician. Sure, I'm good at math, but I find it so boring in and of itself: I prefer working with things over concepts, anyway, as my career development test scores indicated. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I am going to have to enroll in Oregon State University in Corvalis at some point, since Portland State University doesn't have a nuclear reactor. No need to hurry, though, since I can catch up on my engineering requirements at Portland Community College, and maybe dual enroll for a little while, before I need to move down there. This will give me an opportunity to tie up some loose ends here and prepare myself financially and academically.

I Release Thee, My Love

2005-05-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

I broke up with Tammy finally, in an email the day before yesterday: I can't be selfish and try to pressure her to give me another chance when her heart is full of trepidation and is weighed down by a train of painful memories. Also I cannot allow myself to turn to shrapnel, waiting for her to drop the axe, as it were. My hope is that once she sees that I am working to buff out the rough edges to my psyche and behavior, and after I make considerable progress doing so, she may lose her trepidation and will allow a ray of hope to pierce the mantle of gloom I have laid upon her. Maybe, but I must also bear in mind that for her it may ultimately be too late and the damage too great; and though I contend that few wounds cannot heal, and indeed that feelings can be to some measure generated by will, unless she is of this mind also then this particular dream is shattered. But the shattering of a dream is not the end of all dreams, and indeed sometimes a thing must be destroyed for a new thing to become, though at the time one often cannot know it.

That I am here is an excellent example of that. I live in an Oxford House, which is a house of men who are dedicated to abstinence from all intoxicants, such that if a man lapses he is kicked out. While the living situation is somewhat crowded, there being two persons per room and roughly 14 per house, it is surprisingly less so than I thought, and this residential capacity results in cheap rent: $230/month! Not only that, but I have an opportunity to further cultivate social skills, including much-needed tolerance and forbearance. When Tammy and I moved out on April 31st, I was originally headed for the TPI shelter downtown, from there to save my money and move into a room or studio. When I lost control of my emotions and decided to get shitty drunk, I ended up in jail, whereupon after I got out and went to work to tell my boss, a friend of his got me into this place. Fate is a strange thing that will betimes lay waste to a great citadel, and out of utter ruination raise yet another.

Incidentally, for those interested in getting into an Oxford House, 30 days' abstinence is required to get into one. I lied to get in out of desperation, and while I am not pleased with having done so, the deed is done and I am confident that I will prove to be solid in my commitment to abstinence. Maybe one day in the distant future I will reveal my falsehood and seek forgiveness.

My Heart Is Become an Ocean

2005-05-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

I am come nigh unto an utter desolation of the heart, and this desolation I look upon is largely of my own making...

Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
—Shakespeare, King Richard III

Being the late bloomer that I am, I have discovered true love at the ripe age of 31 in the person of Tammy; only I am going to lose her, likely to a man in Colorado. I curse thee, oh man, and would slay thee in my pain and rage, yet my sword is broken and my curses can only fly back on myself, for it is I who has crushed this love's delicate blossom. It is irrational, in that it is self-destructive, but my heart is swollen to overflowing with sorrow and hatred for myself, that I have undone the love she once held for me. Will she not heed my pleas to let her heart mend and let me prove to her that I may yet be worthy of her love? I fear all I can do is helplessly watch her drift far away from me, beyond the horizons of my present desolation, eventually and inevitably into the arms of another man. That I am alive is only because I fear death slightly more than I hate my self and my life, for many times have cold waters to the west whispered to me of their murky solace. So is my desolation become an ocean, in which I would drown, but not die, though betimes I were that I would.