been a while since i updated this thing - it's always like that, isn't it? you'd think after the first thirty times i might bother to change, haha, but so it goes.

life is changing faster than i can keep up with, in all of the best ways and some of the more confusing and conflicting. sure, it's senior year, so that's always supposed to be a confusing time, but that doesn't really help the fact that, well, it is confusing. very much so.

yesterday i turned in my two weeks notice at Sylvan Learning Center, where i worked for a few months as a teacher's aide, giving teachers their books and doing other odd jobs around the office. feeling kind of conflicted about that, because it means that in two weeks i'm going to be out of work and won't get those regular paychecks.

but on the other hand, that job made me fucking miserable. with school and life and work... it's just too much. i don't deal well with stress, and i definitely don't function well if i'm constantly working all the time. i need my alone time, Fate, so fuck off.

when the two weeks are up though, i think things are going to get a little bit better. obviously we'll see. but it frees up time for me to work on my writing, and i desperately need that. there are a lot of things i need to write, and not enough time to sit down and write them. hopefully that'll change.

biggest thing on my mind?

my beautiful girlfriend, and the story she asked me to write. a story without blood or darkness, conveniently, and even optimistic if you can believe it. things are changing, and some of them for the better. on a functional level, it's good for me to be able to expand my talents to a different kind of story. on a deeper level, it feels good to be writing something for somebody that i care about so much instead of writing about hate. it's harder to write, but it's rewarding.

optimistic.
i'm feeling strangely optimistic.

if you've actually bothered to read this far, then i'd like to reward you with one of my new favorite pieces of writing. i've been reading the works of Megan Dipo (also a terrific Dark Artist) for a while now, and most definitely enjoying them, but this particular piece resonants on many different levels. i hope it makes you feel the same way it affects me.

enjoy, and let her know she's awesome.

[link]

writing again, funnily enough it's shortly after schools starts.
working furiously on Breathe Deep, trying to get some sort of story in place so i have somewhere to work towards. sure, the story will evolve in time, but it's nice to have something to work from and to evolve from, you know?

also started work on a third short story to take up space during the interim. i'm attempting to make it reasonably romantic while maintaining my required tragic flavor to it. the tragic part is easy, it's the romance that i'm not so interested in. but it's supposed to be hard, that's why i started writing it the way i am. don't expect it to be sappy.

also realized something mildly depressing.
i don't write well when i'm not going to school.
it's like, i spend most of the day at school forced inside my own head, right? so i spend all that time thinking about my stories and the characters and my feelings, sketching phrases inside my composition notebook so that i can put them to Word when i get home. it's the most productive i've been in a long time.

but what the hell am i gonna do when i graduate??
gonna need to find a new conflict, ha.
is it possible to write without pain?
to write without a need to exorcise all your tormented feelings?

looks like it'll be a while before i have to find out.

you ever get the feeling that maybe you're a little too proud of your geek fan-dom for your own good? like maybe you're buying too much awesome geek shit for your budget?

nah, me neither.

screw you slashfilm.
i love you, but you're just not good for me.
not when you post articles like this: [link]
that's just not kosher.
time limit + tron = so not cool.

so yeah, i bought one.
so thanks.
now i can't eat for the next two weeks.

i'm just kidding slashfilm.
i still love you.

p.s.: i still live with my mom and she buys the groceries.
so nyeaa.

summer is almost over.
well, summer BREAK at least.
it's been a decent one, all things considered.
september 3rd is back-to-school for me.
senior year, class of '09!

i think the last thing that i really need to look forward to is bumbershoot at the end of the month. definitely going to be a hell of a lot of fun. is anyone else in the seattle area planning on going?

i guess they've got a little schedule-maker thing, so i put together a profile of the stuff i plan on catching. the only thing that sucks is that the William Gibson stuff is at the same time as the Offspring, but i guess you can't have EVERYTHING. Gibson for the win, Neuromancer was one of the books that shaped my literary palette from an early age.

haha, probably a little TOO early considering the content in the book, but that's a little too late to worry about. i'm still stoked to hear him give a talk, or whatever it is. i don't care, it's William Gibson!

check it out here: [link]

belgium.

been fighting off a lot of things lately.
a lot of depression-related shit, mostly, trying to deal with some current issues going on in this wonderful life i try to avoid a claim to. haven't been writing a whole lot, until tonight.

it's funny how the right music, the right mix of self-loathing can lead me to my first literary breakthrough in a month. i started with writing a blog about how much i hated my life and everybody in it when something snapped, and suddenly i started rewriting 'breathe deep' again, even better than the last time. i've got the feeling that 'breathe deep' is going to be something special by the time i'm finished with it.

with this particular story, i really have an attachment. it's personal, i feel for the characters. it's understandable i guess, since it seems like the only times i can write it are when i'm at my most emotional. it's still a feeling that i'm not used to, such a passionate LOVE for something that i'm creating. it's my child, an infant of a novel that only i can bring into adulthood and eventual publishing. it's the only reason for me to live, to create this work of ultimate passion and to cast it upon an unwary world in a great torrent of anger and all the hurt that i've inflicted upon myself in the creation of that literary bastard.

'breathe deep' is everything at this point.

the other thing contributing to my motivation isn't a 'thing' at all, but rather the most inspiring literary figure i've discovered in the entirety of my life. her name is megan dipo, and she writes on deviant art under the title of fallenidle, located here: [link]

there's something about her writing that has always appealed to me, a depiction of grit and pain and hurt that has always resonated with and consoled me on rainy nights. her work is the passion that i lack so often.

and yet... it's not despair. there may not always be a light at the end of the tunnel, but there's determination to buckle-down and march among the souls of the damned to get to the end nonetheless. if not hopeful, then accepting and understanding and determination on the part of the characters to make whatever they goddamn well want out of their decaying lives.

these are the things that i aspire to.
if not hope, then the will to continue on despite...
everything.

despite the pointlessness of existence, to make a life that means something to the people that it's supposed to be meaningful to. i need that. i need to feel like there's a point to existing, even if it's just an illusion that i can use to carry on to tommorow.