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Shite-tastic

Had a really shitty day Friday - from beginning to end, it was the paragon of a shit-spiral-o-doom. It started with me getting dicked around at my car dealership...I called up to make an appointment to have my cd player installed, as per my salesman's message. I was told that Thursday was busy, but that Friday would be fine. So I roll up to the place at 7:45 am...I had woken up at 6:45 (yes, this is super early for me) after having gone to bed at 1:30 or 2:30 and having had an awful night of sleep. Unrested, I rose and drove to the car dealership, only to have the guy tell me that I had to "talk to my salesman" because he didn't "think that we do that here. Other people might do that." So I told him that I'd already spoken to my salesman, he'd given me the service order number, and I made an appointment. He just kind of looked at me and told me that I had to talk to my salesman, bla bla bla, he didn't think he could do that...bla bla bla. It left me with a feeling of anguished rage at the assholes at the place...why let me make an appointment if 'you don't do it that way' ? It made me wonder about the organizational skills and competence levels of those who work there. I basically grit my teeth on my way out of the parking lot, so as not to curse out Jim or whatever the fuck his name was. I think he was being particularly condescending and was trying to placate me - I hate that shit. So then I proceed onto work...getting there well before 8:30am...this sucks. So I'm there and guess who is to join me in my non-academic zone to spoil my work environment? Why, it's none other than STUPID RACHEL!!! as I have come to call her...you might remember her from older posts in which she dicked me over / is a socially inept bitch! So yay yay for me, she has decided that even though she lives in East Nashville (note...this is far away from the B. that I work at) she has decided to work at MY STORE. What the fuck? wer'e not on great terms, and I really didn't want to see her or speak with her. I was trying to channel my fucking chi all day so as not to be completely candid in a Justin B. complex sort of way. I managed all right, but was just in a sour fucking mood all day. This, in part because I was thinking about the conversation I had with Andy about the "meeting people" / say what you mean thing. He totally didn't get my point -- I was just making conversation or maybe bitching about this phenomenon, and he tried to turn it into this big philosophy of language problem...and either we were talking about 2 different problems, or we just see the world very differently. He was trying to spar with me, and that was the last thing I wanted. I left the conversation frustrated and kinda pissed off and irritated at him...That was Thursday night...and I was thinking about it all Friday and it was just stewing me into an even worse mood. I was brooding. Let's put it this way: Lee and Stephanie were going to have a get together Thurs night, and I almost didn't go because I was supposed to go with Andy and Carolyn and Norman. I just wanted to sit home, listen to the rain and the Smiths, mope, and read my Barthes. But I went, steered clear of him mostly, and had a good time...although...This is turning into a long story. While I was at this party, I talked to Stephanie, Lee, and Stewart mostly. It was chill, and all the other people there were talking about this stupid summer course they are taking. It's not a stupid course - but that's all that Andy, Carolyn, and Norman talk about when I am around them - I'm not taking it, haven't read half the shit they're reading, and don't know the professors who are talking...and it just gets to be a bit much. I see no need to join in a conversation about things I know nothing about / have no interest in. So I talked to Stephanie, Lee, and Stewart instead. Then I get Carolyn telling me I was quiet all night and Norman telling me I was being all melancholy. Differences in perception... OK. So we're back to Friday. So I'm stewing about my car and Andy and all this, and R. joining me at work...some things tried to snap me outta my bad mood, but I wasn't having any of it. I eventually leave, go home. I'm to meet Carolyn and Stephanie at the Friggity Frist museum for a "Friday's at the Frist" thing. This was pretty ok...busy as shit though. Then we went to Stephanie and Lee's to meet for dinner...and we go to this place that was just a nightmare from beginning to end - slow ass service, a manager who's a prick, and I didn't even get what I ordered / and I got it late. It took 2 hrs or so to get outta there, and then the manager was trying to charge us all $20 cover...when it was our waiter's fault we were still there. Mind you - the place was NOT busy when we were there...he was the worst waiter I have probably EVER had. So this capped off my day nicely. That's pretty much the long / short story of it all.

Today was better. I started writing up some ideas on my postscript to my Godard paper / my response to Andy while I was at work. Listened to some Miles Davis and Jack Johnson while at Info 2.

That's about all. I think I may be a hermit tonight. I'm feeling sort of anti-social.

 
"Sometimes in my life, I'd take all my hopes and dreams, all my ambitions and aspirations and give them all up...trade them all in, put them all to one side...for a springboard, and a pair of shorts, and a plain white tee shirt, and the ability to do a perfect backflip." - Ballboy, "I Hate Scotland"

Marty and I were talking the other night about the potential of all the lost archives of this blog...this part of my life, my history, my thoughts and feelings...and yours. It's a little piece of where I have been, what I have thought about, and who I was at a certain moment in time. And it's also yours. When Marty posed me with this question - as to how I would feel about such a loss - I felt kind of indifferent about it. I was still myself, after all, and yea, I had some hardcopy poetics and thoughts scribbled on recycled paper and in a black book journal, the second in the series. I wasn't to be reduced to that computer screen, after all. For some reason, when Marty asked me, I felt okay with it, if indeed it was lost, but I would have felt awful if I was the cause of the loss of all the whatnot, yours and mine.

I guess I just got to thinking about this blog, what we do, and the purpose of it all bla bla bla. I guess I just got to thinking about my life. Most of what makes the page here is the minor key non-headline news or the wanna be poetic ramblings of my mind. I'm no poet. But then, maybe I'm no philosopher, either. I spend a good deal of time trying to convince other people into the discipline, telling them that yes, they are good philosophers, or that no, they don't have to have every single philosopher under their proverbial belts or in their imaginary backpacks of the mind; at 22, 23, 25, 20 something or other, that one doesn't necessarily have to have the encyclopedic knowledge that we admire in certain professors or individuals. And some of these people leave the conversations satisfied. I, however, haven't managed to fully convince myself of the same. There is so much that I don't know or haven't read, and I feel outclassed by most of the people in my department. Yes, I've got Kierkegaard and Nietzsche pretty much under wraps, as we seem to eat dinner or go out for drinks on a regular basis. But to think that I haven't even met Descartes yet! Or that I haven't been introduced to Adorno or Levinas by friends yet!!! Yes, I'm sure this sounds like the complaints of a pseudo-philosopher with ambitions...but ambition...? I have a lot of ground to cover.

I just wonder at times if I am on the right track, or if I have been derailed from my true "calling" - whatever that might mean. My mother still thinks I will be a musician, and I start to suspect that Justin thinks the same... Not that that means anything one way or the other, but things like that make me wonder how people perceive me from the outside. I can only see myself as an image...I wonder what other people see or feel when they encounter me. On a different note, I've stopped asking - I used to ask people that question over and over, "what do you think of me" and all that nonsense, and no one really has given an adequate impression or what have you. Not that I was looking for definition from without, but I was just curious as to how what I thought I was putting out was received, if it was at all. Then it halfway stopped mattering to me what happened after it left me. I mean, seriously, I have always been of the mind that "this is me, this is what I'm about, if you don't like it or don't get it, fine. fuck you" that sort of thing. But I guess I've gotten to the point that I've plain stopped asking the question. No one really knows what to do with it anyway. I think that's what makes me a bit...er, mysterious or enigmatic or whatever. I'm looking for understanding where other people are looking for connection. One of my professors claims that especially in matters of love, one looks for love - the last think one really wants is understanding. I guess that makes love my Achilles heel, or me a bit of an aberration.

Part of me does think that philosophy is what I am supposed to pursue - I'm a writer, afterall. I might write a paper / postscript to my film paper for fun this summer...basically on Barthes, but with a nod to Eisenstein, Bazin, and Godard. I think it could really be a great addition to my paper, or to what I have been thinking in terms of that. I see the world in a very Eisensteinian way, as my photographs evidence. It's about the confluence, the conflict, the cut and paste / the framing / the way you see it before you snap the shot off, if that makes any sense, and then the meaning that is born from that composition. Anyway...

In other news, I'm tired of the sense that meeting people is an exercise in futility. Lots of plans and good conversations and interesting people, and no follow through. I meet people in coffee shops and bookstores and sometimes plans get made in a tentative 'we should hang out sometime' fashion, but then, few people actually mean it. It's just frustrating because I say what I mean, and that's that. I might actually jam with this musician who works in my office vaguely...who I just found out is a folk-rock-indie something or other musician...so that'll be fun. Again, if it actually comes to pass...

Well, that's the cliff notes to my life at the moment. Work by day, swim by night, and pretty much just keep on keepin on.
Hope all is well.

 
Jim, I think it's dead

Sorry if I killed the blog by trying to get all technologied up. My fault if so. Blame the red headed kid.

What now?

So my mom was down here for not quite a week and not quite a weekend, but somewhere in between. At this point, having gotten to show people around the city, I've become sorta proficient at walking and / or driving around, and showing the highlights. Rotier's is always a must...We had fun, saw some historical stuff, went to the Parthenon (and inside) to see the Gaudy Gilded Athena. I swear it's the single ugliest statue I've ever seen. Make her gold - ok, I might buy it, especially since the old statue at the real Parthenon in Greece allegedly had a gold one...plenty gaudy, but doable. This is just astonishingly atrocious. They put makeup on her! She looks like a really ugly drag queen or something. AWFUL! That's all I can say. But that was why I wanted to go, because I wanted to check out how ugly she was...as I heard she was... We also went to the Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home) and went downtown, etc. I also ate at South Street this crab -bar - has lots of harleys outside - place...goooood food, and fish from parts unknown (Landlocked...). Good weekend in general. We also looked at cars because my transmission was shot...and got one. I have a white car, which I can't believe. Bizzare. Speaking of bizzare, I was talking with my mom, and she said something very Nietzschean, which I pointed out to her...and then I grabbed The Gay Science and On the Genealogy of Morality to illustrate my point. From within GM, I found jo jo's number!!!!and called that kid up at 2:30am NY time, and we talked for like an hour or something and just basically caught up on what's what and all that. It was really good to talk to him : ) it had been way too long. Apparently he had been thinking of me that day, and then I happened to call / find his number, etc. I figured he'd be up or wouldn't mind hearing from me even if I did wake him. Huh.

That's about all. Stupid Rachel has moved in on my turf at B. and has gotten a job at my store. The only person in the department I have a serious problem with, and she gets a job in MY store. That is my non-academic zone, and she's invading. BITCH. I am pissed off, if you can't tell from the tone. She's socially inept, and I don't want to deal with her anymore. UGH! I will do my best not to bludgeon her with a dull object.