My days since classes ended have remained just about as (if not more) busy. Every summer this comes as a surprise to me. I still haven’t turned in some remaining work and though it makes me feel uneasy, I am not making any apologies for it. I have an acute case of burnout. Or at least gum-up. Burnout implies that I have been shining so brightly that I wore myself out. But a gummed-up carburetor happens from lack of use and crappy fuel. It’s a gradual process and can cause a lean condition in the engine, which makes the engine run really hot. Hot enough to eat itself, if you’re not careful. Sounds pretty familiar.
I didn’t plan it this way exactly, but I would be lying if I told you that rebuilding these carburetors, replacing this ignition coil, and rebuilding this brake were not symbolic acts.
Filed under: End Times, Personal Minutiae | Tags: CM400A, graduation, motorcycle
This is it. I have Prince’s motorcycle, minus the weirdo batman fairing and Prince symbol…and Prince.
You know what? Maybe this is a better picture:
Happy Graduation to me, even though I skipped the ceremony and have not technically turned in all of the work required to graduate yet! Hey, when these things pop up you have to jump on them. Don’t worry. I’ve taken it away from myself until my work is done. More on this awesome development later.
Filed under: Personal Minutiae | Tags: dreams, grief, memento mori, nightmares
I sit at a table with my mother, my wife, my father and his friend. For some reason my father and his friend are wearing oddly-colored windbreakers. They are getting ready to go somewhere. Since my father should be dead and this is not the first time he forgot, I figure I better tell him. At a break in conversation I lean in and say, “You know you died, right?” He looks confused. “You know what happened on (date), right? I mean, you are not alive. You probably shouldn’t be here.” I realize instantly that I’m being rude, and turn to my wife and mother for a rescue. They look confused, like they don’t have any clue what’s going on. And then it hits me. “You don’t even see him, do you?” They give me a look like families give Alzheimer patients who can’t remember their names any more. Some combination of realization, deep sorrow, and pity. But mostly pity. Then everything is fading. I know it’s a dream. I am awake. I still feel bad for being rude.
I took a long bath tonight. To read a novel for an ethnic-American literature class, and to procrastinate a bit on the more serious work I am mired in now (and am allowing myself a break from). The novel was not very good, but it was short and it was thought provoking, or at least re-provoking. It got me thinking again about my own ethnicity.
At the beginning of the course, we had a discussion about how those of us from a white European background have very little opportunity to learn about our ethnic heritage. There are at least two good counter arguments to this. The first is that, being the white European majority, learning about our heritage is the default, the stuff that everyone learns whether they like it or not, and that more specific studies of other ethnicities are necessary because they are traditionally neglected. Very true. But second and more interesting, I think, is the argument that the majority ethnicity of the US is not white European but a new ethnicity which I will call “whitebread American.”
Let’s face it, for most, we’re white and that is the end of it. Any connection to real European traditions or heritage is so tangential, diluted, and subconscious that it is hardly meaningful to think of us as European. (Not that any of these distinctions are particularly meaningful, when you get down to it.) So what is the culture of whitebread America? What are our values? Traditions?
We are the uprooted. The disaffected. There is a certain meaninglessness which some of us are driven to reconstruct into meaning and which others embrace. Our traditions are either absent or faux consumer versions of someone else’s. We’re too apathetic to be European. Our identity is built from the outside based upon inherited guilt rather than from the inside based on any sort of shared values.
There is a story here somewhere I think.
Filed under: Personal Minutiae | Tags: Canada, CBC Radio 3, depression, DLPA, Leslie Feist, motivation, St. John's Wort
^- Pidgin latin for “seize the moment,” or a general description of my progress on school work lately? You decide.
I am here listening to CBC 3 Radio, which is really fuckin’ wild, I don’t mind saying. Its a nice change of pace from Sky.fm’s Roots Reggae station, which had been my late night study music of choice for the last several months. I have to say, though, it is a little weird and disconcerting that all the women seem to sound like Leslie Feist, who herself sounds ever so slightly like Alanis Morisette. It must be a Canadian, or should I say Canadienne, thing. I love Canada.
So it’s been awhile since I blogged, and even longer since I blogged substantially about myself. So long, in fact, that it was on another blog entirely! I have a lot of reasons for that, some right and some wrong. Here is a sampling. For the majority of the last several months I’ve been pretty severely depressed. I’m not very happy to begin with, and that’s just sort of part of who I am. Unfortunately, an unexpected goodbye to a loved one made me lose my sense of humor about it and then things got really dark– the kind of dark you don’t joke about and you can’t pull yourself out of. Obviously, my semester hasn’t gone well. I might not graduate. In the face of all that blogging hardly seemed justifiable and even if it had, it’s hard to muster the energy for blogging when getting out of bed in the morning is an almost insurmountable challenge. On top of that, I had nothing good to say about anything or anyone.
A few weeks ago, the severity of the situation hit me. I was ready for drugs, therapy, whatever. It was a real low point. The next morning, after talking with family and friends I had calmed down and began thinking about things rationally. I decided to begin St. John’s Wort and DLPA, at the recommendation of someone who knows, and monitor the results. I have noticed a marked difference. I am still quite panicked and a little blue but it has sure taken the edge off. I can pretty much function and my school work is no more difficult to finish than it normally is (which is excruciatingly difficult, but not impossible). Unfortunately, it is already close to too late.
So why am I blogging? I have realized that depriving myself this outlet is exactly the wrong thing to do. I have come to terms with the situation, to the extent that it is possible. I am hopeful that things will work out in time, and things will be OK. (They always have been, after all.) I know that things are getting better because I wasn’t hopeful about anything a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to think about the future at all. Now I’m back to my old fantasies about wilderness camping and, oh yeah, I want to buy a motorcycle… really bad. (More on that later.)
Tonight I am stressed way out but if I take a minute and a deep breath, I am almost approaching a sense of wellbeing. So I decided to seize the moment here and make some record of this. I found some motivation tonight. Maybe the key is in here somewhere.
Filed under: End Times | Tags: consumerism, mind movie, mindfuck, propaganda
There are a bunch of these videos on YouTube which are apparently meant to hypnotize the viewer into being happy all the time and being wealthy and living in hotel-sized houses and riding jet skis to work. They seem to be related to the movie The Secret which I have decided I never want to watch. I think in this case my cultural ignorance is justifiable. Kind of like how I don’t watch pro wrestling.
From the YouTube notes:
Watch video first thing in the morning and before you goto bed. Stay in a happy mood all the time and be grateful to attract wealth.
EDIT: Fortune cookie??
Filed under: Music & Instruments | Tags: cigar box, guitar, instrument, music
This guy Jay builds some pretty hardcore cigar box instruments. I’m jealous.
My own humble cigar box awaits a neck from Jay and the presence of any time to put it together. Ah, summer projects.
