Reposts, vol 1

People will invariably abandon the reliable in favor of the novel. The easiest example to use is that of somebody who cheats on their romantic partner. New people are exciting. They might be smarter, or sexier, or more worldly. If it's about sex, they may be especially hung or stacked or freaky. Overall, though, I think it's merely that utterly indefinable newness which causes us to stray, with a hint of "must have the forbidden fruit", with the rest as window dressing. This line of thought entered my mind in a conversation last night. As usual, I was talking about myself. I mentioned the odd fact that, in one extent or another, each woman I've seriously pursued has been involved by the time I showed up. First real girl #1 went out casually with me for a while, before cheating on me with some big orc-looking motherfucker. Once she started going out with him, though, I was suddenly once again the cat's pajamas, the eel's hip, bee's knees, etc. That is to say, things only got serious with her once she was cheating on somebody else. Real girl #2, I merely charmed her into dumping her boyfriend before going out with me, so that we were both technically clean, despite some emotional infidelity occurring well beforehand. So in a way, it was refreshing, if mind-bendingly depressing, to recently get rejected straight up due to boyfriend. The moral decay of society isn't complete.


"With every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room."
-obligatory Gatsby quote.


There's not much to do here at home. Even if I didn't lack a vehicle, there wouldn't be. Sit with my grandmother, try to get her to eat, try to stop her from unlatching herself from her wheelchair, carry her to her toilet, try to help her sleep, make sure she doesn't try to walk on her mending hip. As usual, it's depressing but necessary, and I rather like my primary family even if we annoy each other. Last night my great aunt died. She was 95, given three months to live several years ago, yet we were surprised. We were sort of prepared, since she'd been declining, but she was tough. Quite a few of my family members weren't particularly fond of her, or at least, had an issue with her. I only met her twice, she was nice enough, but then, I only met her twice. Given the intensity of the troubles with my grandmother and my family, I can't help but feel somewhat numb, which I'm pretty sure is fucked up. Having gotten used to the idea of two people I'm incredibly close to being incurably ill at present, I'm if anything sort of relieved that somebody in my family got to live almost 100 years with full lucidity and physical faculty. I hope that if I live that long, I have half that luck. Given the Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis in the family, though, I think I'd be pretty okay dying at 60, 65 tops. Assuming I marry and start reproducing at 25-30, and don't space my kids out to a ridiculous degree, the youngest will be an adult. Ideally, they'll have even graduated college by the time I kick that bucket. I won't live to lose my mind, or my physical faculties, or burden my kids. Whatever poor fool of a woman I convince to marry me will still be virile enough to enjoy the rest of her life, given the miraculous state of modern medicine.


"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
-High Fidelity (totally appropriate given that for the past couple of days I've been listening to "Jessie's Girl", "Creep", and other assorted sad bastard music nonstop)

I love movies, I love music, I love books, but unlike some people, I realize that the people in them are not cool just because they're sympathetic. Some of my favorite characters are utter twats. Jay Gatsby invests his entire life toward wooing a woman. His entire motivation for pulling himsebecoming a wealthy elite is to make Daisy his. When he's rejected, he has nothing left. The dream is dead and he follows soon after. Both main characters from Lost in Translation are arrogant and aloof. Seymour from Ghost World has let his social awkwardness rule his life, Enid Coleslaw from the same is selfish, somewhat manipulative, and cowardly. Are we seeing a pattern? Do I act like that because I sympathize with those characters, or do I sympathize with those characters because I act like them?

(I thought of putting a quote here from a shitty movie I've never seen before but which had the perfect sentiment. Alas, I have standards. If you can guess the quote or even just the movie, you will win a genuine imitation Marvel no-prize.)