three cheers for depression
2001-08-15 - 10:05 p.m.
I�m only posting right now for one reason: Sister has, out of the goodness of her heart, has told me that she�ll make me an omelet for breakfast tomorrow morning. And I guess that�s all I needed to get out of whatever sort of psychological quicksand that I had fallen into. So, I wanted to say �god bless little sisters�; the rest of the entry is just filler, for the emergency situation of self-induced Alzheimer�s.
The rest of my summer passed relatively uneventfully.
Chased a bat around the house like a newborn kitten. And when we both decided that it should be �taken outside� I quit playing and shut the door behind him...the bat went back to hunting mosquitoes by the summer�s moon, and everyone else went back to sleep.
�Do you know whose vacuum cleaner that is on our front yard?� �Father
On a particularly boring day, I organized the linen closet. It appears that we have much fewer linens when they have been folded, but this is partly sue to me yoinking a few sheets for college. I tell ya, having me around the house is just like having one of those robots on the Sims Expansion Pack (TM). Wel, like one of those robots that snifes yer sheets when you�re not looking, anyways.
Sidenote: There�s two error messages that I don�t mind getting in windows, just because they�re amusing. �An unnamed file was not found� and �Warning: The system is out of memory. Save the document now.� The latter I got a picture of with my digital, but it came out fuzzy; like a UFO sighting that you can�t actually prove.
Before the linen episode and during the same day, I went on a recycling spree. I even made up little labels for each of the bins in the entry-way-room, so that whomever does the recycling when I�m off to college won�t have to sort all the life-infested tin cans from the misplaced mouldy milk jugs from the lost and psychologically troubled soda bottles.
Sidenote: Sometimes I wonder if any of *this* would�ve happened, if I had gotten a decent amount of sleep in the first place.
The bulb blew out in my room and I was forced to replace it with either a �soft� bulb or a �softer� bulb. This left me quite perplexed as to why anyone would want a light bulb to have properties of cuddliness, or why the degree of cuddliness would be an issue people consider while shopping. But utilizing my amazing foresight abilities, I predicted that the switch would be in the �on� I would quite possibly get shocked. So I grabbed the soft one and headed back up to my room...no shock. It was not until then that the world existed simultaneously in multiple states of �phooey�ness.
�erg. I think I'll gonna turn into a puddle.� �Nemo
And the depression set in. an evil, 1978 type of depression, followed quite unoriginally by a typical 1979 type of depression. And this sucked very much, but I can�t really describe it, because I�m just not in the mood to right now...nothing in my brain works, and plans never work out the way they are planned to.
Sir#1: Live. Is like...a cat in pill form.
Sir#2: Dude, yer trippin�.
Sir#1: No, really...all you gotta do is add water, but then it gets pissed off at you, because it�s wet. Just like life.
Sir#2: Dude...that�s deep. But I thought life was like a moose in a tin can.
Sir#1: No dude, that�s just Canadian.
The chickadees had a thriving civilization. Steam trains, international communications, elevators, and brand-name shoes, with those little basketballs on the front so you can pum-�em-up...they had it all. One day, an argument started between two chickadees. As is the case with most arguments, the original reason for arguing has been lost to history, but the insults from the first chickadee fight were passed down through several consecutive generations. The first bird made some claim about the other bird�s mother, and the second bird replied with various forms of nouns representing bodily waste. This of course, was followed by ruder and ruder comments, until a pleasant �ideal swear� was formed (and the chickadees, upon completing their argument, died of starvation). Also known as The Perfect Insult, it can roughly be translated to the word �tweet� in English, and theoretically represents every type of uncouth comment imaginable. The chickadee population soon became obsessed with the new word, using it whenever things didn�t go exactly as planned, or when they stubbed their toe on a tree branch...or simply as a filler in conversation. Such was the foulness of this particular word that every chickadee was using it to put down every other chickadee, and no one had any time left in their day for technological advancements. The elevators, no longer being maintenanced by volunteers, soon became inoperable or unsafe for use. Steam boats sank into the ocean and steam trains fell off their tracks. As a last-ditch effort to save their race, several chickadees banded together, attempting to establish free food, to feed the impoverished chickadees that had wasted too much of their time swearing. The project itself was a flop, but soup kitchens were reestablished as �birdfeeders� and produced by the human race to save the blasphemers for future studies. The birdfeeders today are nothing more than red-light-district bars, where young squirrels can learn the art of rude verbosity. Now only stragglers and loners remember other words from the old chickadee language, and their civilization is all but a fairy tale. It is said that the chickadees once had a thriving civilization...and now all they do is tweet at each other all day.
I started thinking in a more direct voice toward my ceiling, as if it would respond. And then it did. Only in shapes and patterns at first...I have somehow mastered the art of inducing hallucinations upon oneself.
At some point, I screamed. Evidently, I must have gotten Really bored, because I had �woken up� to find myself organizing silverware (inside the drawer, no less!). Such is my state of boredom, and a sorry state it was.
Mental relief came the next day when I woke up at six in the morning to head down to Mitch�s house (in Pittsfield). Went guitar-shop-hopping in Bangor and Brewer, and poked into several pawn shops as well. I nearly started a car accident with an old green apple; resourceful me. Went to WalMart (TM) for paint, and almost bought a video game...but then we went home and played Master of Orion, and there was much noise about my inability to use the �[next] turn� button. And there was Chinese food in there someplace. Mitchypoo discussed his theory of...whatever it was; somehow it centred on the girl working the cash register, involving some �special sauce� and eating Rae�s meat. I had my food put into a baggie and foolishly forgot to take it with me when we left...too busy using fortune cookies to make faces at the waitresses, I guess. So the incredibly nice waitress from our table ran out to give me my uneaten food, and...somehow the day just disappeared, and it was time to head back to Houlton.
Revelation: Sitting around with nothing to do is so much more fun with two.
Did a Walmart run to get really cheap school things, just pencils and pens and paper and such. The way I see it, that�s all you need...I mean, assuming that you can keep your notes organized after class, and assuming that you have a teacher that actually requires you to write in pen. (Otherwise, it woulda been just pencils and paper fer me fer college *s*.) Sister and Step-sister were busy buying everything under the sun for high school, so I got bored and started smelling the crayons. Then I got my head stuck in a Crayola (TM) distribution box, and talked in a robotic voice to the employees until they told me to take it off.
Simon�s All-Encompassing Theory of...Everything (TM) has been placed on the shelf of non-priority ponderings. Some of the theories just went...too farr too fast for too little a mind, and really, that�s what an all-encompassing theory is all about.
Step-mother has a day-by-day calendar of some sort, and this is what it reads for 13Aug2001 (credit goes to Arnold Fine) :
� �I don�t believe this!� I said, trying to hold back my laughter. �Can you imagine the expression on those kid�s faces when they opened the suitcase and found a dead cat?�
She started to laugh, Aunt Faye was actually laughing!
�Wait, wait- that�s only part of the story. Sophie came home! She really wasn�t dead! I only thought she was dead because she was lying so still when I found her in the bathroom this morning. Being jostled back and forth in that suitcase must have finally roused her. When I got back to the house, she was waiting at my door!�
�Arnold, thank you for all your help. I prayed for Sophie to enter Heaven, and she came back to me.�
The next time I went to visit Aunt Faye, she had a little sign on her front door that read �This is Heaven.� �
...I don�t get it either. Especially for a religion-based calendar. Why the hell was the cat in a suitcase, why the hell didn�t she do something about the dead cat in the bathroom, and why the hell should any of this be so hilarious?!? I guess you had to be there. If I get to heaven and there�s cats trapped in a suitcase like grasshoppers in a glass jar, I�m going to be very displeased.
Sidenote: Assimilation may not be the healthiest form of existence, but it seems efficient, and the whole idea of the process is growing on/in me.
Went foodshopping with the family. Father said he would only spend ten dollars, and like any good consumer, proceeded to pile the cart high with useless junk. Sister, who is sixteen years old, made a huge scene in the store because father wouldn�t rent her a Keanu Reeves movie (Keanu Reeves is in Word�s dictionary, *twitch*). Then Step-sister complained that it wouldn�t be fair to get just Sister something, so Father had to get her a resalable bag of microwavable french fries (because, as she said, his homemade fries �suck�, even though are one of the few things he prides himself on). This consumerism is violent. It�s wasteful. And it�s making me siC. We live in a state where nearly 82% of the residents are eligible for food stamps; and all they seem to talk about is not having enough money (they make about $60 000 a year and don�t have to pay for the house, utilities, or the gardener) and nitpick each other about what hasn�t been done. Sister pipes up: �I (lotsa emphasis on this word) walked the dog today. I really, like, took it out and it ewww went to the bathroom and everything. So, see? I (more emphasis) did something, so you (with a strange sort of off-handed emphasis) should give me something for it.� It used to really irk me that the parents only said �thank you� to someone who complained to high heaven about not doing whatever it was that they were doing...but I guess that�s just one way of raising a kid (positive reinforcement of the negative, er sumthing like that). And it bothers Sarah that they only talk to us when they need something done, like we�re their employees and they don�t want to get to know us too well because then they might have trouble firing us later in life. Sarah and I used to have it good, when we lived with Mum. She actually took the time to cook us meals, talk with us, play cards or dice, or even battleship, for christ�s sake. But we�re growing up, and the poor house on the corner of nowhere just isn�t something we can go back to. Gotta be a consumer, �cuz the rest of America wouldn�t have it any other way.
Sidenote: Darwinism in the toaster oven. Do regular pop-tarts have white frosting as a result of being more easily visible in the dark, or from a process of economical evolution, because the food colouring was just too expensive? And we must wonder how long it will be before the smores-flavoured pop-tarts are entirely eliminated from the system, due to the simple mutations of their cousin species.
Me: *looking at some oyster-type shells in the kitchen* �
Step-mother: �HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DID I SAY YOU COULD LOOK IN THOSE BAGS ON THE COUNTER?!�
Me: �No, I just thought that the soda bottle might crush-�
Step-mother: �BUT I DIDN�T TELL YOU YOU COULD TOUCH THEM, DID I?! WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN YOU GET INTO OTHER PEOPLE�S STUFF?�
Me: *little voice* �sorry...�
Step-mother: �GOOD. Now, would you like to see what I picked up on the coast?�
Me: *still in little voice* �no, i�m all done...� *starts to walk away*
Step-mother: �Jerk.� *shoves the shells back into the bag and slams a soda bottle on top of them*
I need to get out of here.
Revelation: It seems that everything wants to be what it isn�t, and contrary wise, what it is, it doesn�t.
