Stupid ad for a silly movie (crank), but it got me thinking. I can imagine myself sitting in a hospital bed with a phone next to me and a timer on the wall counting down from 60.

Hello? Mary? Hi, it's Sam. Sam kallen, from school? Yeah, well, how are you? Oh yeah? That's good to hear. Oh, I'm fine. Well, actually, the reason I'm calling is because I'm going... well, I just wanted to say that you really meant a lot to me over the years we've known each other and, what? I said I'm glad we know each other. Yeah. Yes, that's right. No, I'm not asking you out. What? Um no I can't really call you back... hello? Hello? Damn

I can see me all drawing a line through a list I have written on some paper or something, looking at the clock, then picking up the phone and calling someone else.

But what are you really supposed to say before you die? I love you? I'm glad I knew you but now it doesn't matter because I'm almost dead? I think after a while I'd get bored with that and start making things up. "I'm going to die in an hour, and when I'm gone, I'd like YOU to take the money I hid in the walls of my house"

I hope everyone knows how much I care about them.  It's not easy to express caring, and often I wonder if my caring is actually just me tricking people into caring for me, but regardless I do.

I'm just getting more and more nervous and put off.  This whole thing with going to Wheaton for a party for a girl I havn't seen in almost a year... it's driving me crazy.  I still don't have a gift for her, and I also am bad at partys, and I also don't know what to wear, and I am woried about paying for it, and I'm expected to meet with some other people while there, but I don't feel like interviewing with anyone.

all I want is a place where I can hang out with my friends.  But who are they?  shit...  I'm so sick of my social life.  

... And, I keep sleeping through things I need to go to.  I slept through a job call, through a videogame conference, through a class... it sucks.

Samuel Beckett's characters have little motivation.  They will all die, and it might as well be today as tomorow or the next day.

I want to be back at wheaton, where I have friends and community and girls who talk to me.  I'm looking to get married soon and that won't happen if I don't know any girls.  (the ones(one) I know in kalamazoo doesn't count for obvious reasons) and I don't trust any of the other ones.  Trust.  Ha.  Trust them to what?  Act maturely, I supposee.  Act like non-drunkardly college sluts, I gueses.  Just like I trust myself, I guess. 

Anyway, I'm at the erocketstar with Jon and that's going well, except that my stomach is killing me.  McD's + coffee = bad idea.

 

(I hide my fears and lonliness by acting tough: sweearing, drinking (redbull), being rude, etc.  I call it "being me instead of being afraid" but i think it's just a front.)

Has Life Got You Down?


Do you find that your Social Interactions are not Fulfilling?


Can you find NO SOLACE in Work?


IF SO, HERE ARE YOUR OPTIONS:

die
live for a while, then die
try to find something interesting to do, then die
check your e-mail, then die
maybe write a book about dieing and watch as no one buys/reads it, then die

TO ASSIST YOU IN YOUR CHOICES, HERE IS A PICTURE OF A FORK.


Since LONG AGO, forks have been used to EAT. Eating is a simple way of passing the time before LEAVING THIS MORTAL COIL.

Since LONG AGO, forks have been a symbol of DEATH, the four tines representing LIFE, DEATH, SOCIETY, and NATURE, while the handle represents a man's FIRM GRIP on LIFE.

guys stuff is really dumb.  Life needs to figure itself out before it thinks it can tell me what to do.  I mean, jeez.  Come on life, wtf? 

too many choices.


I want a lover.

well friends, a lot has happened the past few days.  I've been with my family quite a bit.  I love my family so much.  My brother is a true pimp.  He's got a lot to learn but that's ok because he's in the right place to learn it.  My mom and my dad worry me.  I don't think they'll break up but they certainly aren't as happily married as they have been before. 

I think it has a lot to do with my brother.  I don't know who's fault anything is, or if there even is anyone to blame.  I don't really understand the dynamic at all, but it seems like it follows a pattern.  My brother has a responsibility which he neglects.  My father gets upset about it and tries to micromanage.  For whatever reason, my brother doesn't meet my dads expectations.  (I don't know why.  Maybe it's because he's being micromanaged and figures someone else will take care of it.  Maybe he resents never being given praise for good works.  Maybe he feels like no matter what, dad won't think it's good enough.  Maybe he's lazy.  Maybe he just forgets.  You can't tell someone to remember to remember.  I don't know.)  My dad punishes my brother, but the punishment does not motivate him.  So my dad tries a different punishment and a different punishment, but none of them work.  Not to mention, he elects a punishment on the spur of the moment, and then later he "forgives" my brother and doesn't follow through on his threats.  From what I've learned about psychology, not following through on a threat is one of the worst things you can do because if you do then people will start to expect it.  Anyway, then my dad gets upset and takes it out on everyone around him by being generally petty; doing things like saying something that is crazy confusing (or misspoken) and then being upset that people don't understand, or acting like it's everyone else's fault that he can't hear what they say (he's loosing his hearing).  This upsets my mom so she feels sad and bad and just bottles it all up inside.  She just keeps it hidden away where no one else can see it, maybe she tells a few friends but she's to smart to do something spontaneous that would make the situation even worse.  This bottling it up affects her greatly, because she is not a woman who should keep things stuffed inside of her.  I can tell that she's not herself when she does.  It's really sad because she has such a delicate flower but when she carries this huge weight it crushes her down.  This affects her relationship with my dad and my brother, because she doesn't have the patience to deal with my brother's neglect or my father's pettiness, so she tries her hardest to ignore it and make it go away. 

I don't know what to do.  I don't think there's anything I can do.  While I'm worried about my little brother some, I'm pretty sure that he'll turn out ok, because he's still in that stage where he can grow and learn and change.  I'm more worried about my dad.  I'm afraid that he's going to end up being a bad father, and that will ruin the rest of his life.  Being a good father is one of the most important things in every man's life, I guess.  If you screw it up, you're screwed big time.  No way around it. 

I feel like he has to find his own way, and make his own peace with himself.  I don't think there's anything I can do to help, because I'm not in a position where he would graciously accept it from me.  Kallen men have always been a disappointment to their fathers.

I don't really understand love.  I don't understand how I could love anyone other than myself.  I don't understand how I could ever love one person, then, upon loosing them, love another.  I don't understand how I could only love one person at a time.  It seems like if I think I have love, I could just say to myself "loves come and go; might as well save time and let it go."

Hi everyone,

I just took a shower and I was thinking about how movies are unrealistic and I decided it's because people make them more interesting than life typically is.  We all learned the graph in high school about narrative structure, _/.._ introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion.  Life usually doesn't seem to work this way.  It always seems to be missing one or two of these essential elements.  Either it has rising and falling action with no climax, or climax and falling action that just comes out of nowhere, with no rising action.  Or there's no conclusion and the story just seems to keep going without any resolution.  Most stories I hear in real life can typically be responded to by waiting a few moments, sucking on my teeth, and saying "yep."

So my challenge for you all is this.  Can you turn an actual event in your life into a proper story, following the narrative structure graph?  I'm going to try to do this today.  Let me know if you think of something.

I had a wigging weird dream again

it was the one where I went back to wheaton then realized that I wasn't supposed to be there.  I got into a fight with a teacher who wanted me to apologize, but I said I wouldn't apologize for something not my fault.  I walked past the philosophy department on the way back to my dorm because I already knew what they would say about my situation.  I got to my dorm and looked for my room but I couldn't find it, and I realized that I didn't have one because I was going to summer camp, not Wheaton. 

and then


and then I woke up.  I seriously dreamed that I woke up.  I dreamed that I realized it was a dream and woke up in my room with my bed in the corner and trash scattered around me and my computer next to my bed in the basement in my apartment. 

I dreamed that I awoke. 

is there anything more spooky?  What if I never awake again?