Listening

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it means to listen. I think that for most of my life I've been too scared to listen to other people. I hear them, but I don't really try to silence my own thoughts and fully pay attention to what they're saying. I think this has made me very stupid in some ways and ended up making me very isolated from other people.

As I've become more aware of this, it occurred to me that more often than not people are more like me than they are different, and it makes me wonder why listening is so difficult. I don't know why, and maybe this sounds a little stupid, since everyone always tends to romanticize the past, but I think it's modern media. Almost as soon as I was born I've been immersed in it. Television, radio, the internet, advertising. It's all around us all the time. We don't really have a choice, so we become force-fed consumers of all kinds of ideas that have been polished to look meaningful, even though most of them lack much substance at all. They come at us so fast that we consume, but we rarely digest, and I think that's the real problem. We're so accustomed to being force fed this garbage that we respond the same way when another human being wants to connect with us. We sit there and go through the motions of listening, but we're not. We consume what's said to us and continue on with our day as if we've just heard another pointless radio advertisement.

zombies and crackheads

Last night I had a dream ... Me and my mom were driving to a Marriott to meet a family friend, but as we got closer and closer everything began to look really run down and decrepit. When we got there the place was overrun with zombies. They were slow and they looked worn, like the zombies in the resident evil movies but if you got too close they'd bite you. For some reason I had a gun, so i started blowing zombies away while we made our way to the elevator to meet the friend (when I woke up I realized how dumb it would be to take an elevator in the middle of a zombie epidemic; ALWAYS take the stairs). So we make it up to like the 10th floor and meet up with the friend (who's like the only non-zombie in the whole hotel). I don't remember how they got back down, but I jumped from the 10th floor window and landed safely on the ground. It was pretty awesome.

After that I hopped in the car and we made it into a zombie safe-zone where I met Dillon, my best childhood friend. We say hi and I go to the cafeteria to get some food. While I was paying (apparently there are no free meals, even during the apocalypse), I look up and realize the cashier was Dillon's older brother. I say hi, but he's clearly not all there. There are half finished lines of cocaine everywhere and he's twitchy and super high. As I leave for home with the food I run into Dillon, we just nod, but I can see the uncomfortable sadness in his eyes.

i wonder...

Just came back from costco... as I was walking out to my car I saw a mexican dude loading 5 mattresses into the back of his pickup truck.

i'm an idiot

So I'm taking a creative writing class this semester. I only signed up for it because I had the professor for another class last semester and she was great, but I've ended up really enjoying this class too. Anyway the class is full of girls: 4-5 are cute, 10 are average looking, and there are 3 dogs. This is good because aside from me, there are only 4 other guys (one of which i'm pretty sure is gay). So today the professor pairs everyone off with partners to read eachother's assignments and sets me up with one of the really cute brunette's (I wish I could describe her better than that, but I guess that's why I'm taking a class on creative writing). Cute girl picks up her stuff, smiles, and settles down next to me. I tell her I didn't do the paper, she laughs and says she doesn't feel like reading anyway. I give her paper a quick once-over and deliver some empty praise. I don't even remember what the assignment was supposed to be about. We start talking about the weekend and I mention that June was skunked again. I have a stupid dog. She asks what kind and mentions that she too has a dog. I ask what kind. She tells me it's a labradoodle. I tell her that's a stupid breed. Cute girl does not like me anymore.

loneliness is looking in the mirror and seeing nothing

June was sprayed by a skunk the other night so i can't just let her out in the yard anymore. It's mating season for pepe le pew, so now I have to take her out for walks every night. I usually like walking her in the dark. I can relax and listen to music without having to stop and talk to neighbors i don't know about all the snow we've been having lately. But it's been unusually cold out, and even under a tee, flannel, sweatshirt, and leather jacket it was uncomfortably chilly. So before going out I got nice and drunk. I know alcohol actually lowers your body temperature or whatever, but it makes you feel warmer so stfu. Anyway, between walking past the same cruddy houses and June trying to pull me into bushes after very interesting smells, my mind started wandering... What makes someone lonely? Most people say loneliness is something that happens when you're not around people, but I don't think that's loneliness, it's just being alone. Loneliness happens when you're missing a part of yourself, but you don't know which part. I need to find my missing part.

Fuck I'm depressing.

first post

hey

It's 2:36 am and I'm sitting in front of my computer, a little drunk, watching Role Models for the 4th time. The main character's kind of a dick. He's bored with his life so he focuses his negative energy on other, irrelevant stuff that distracts him from how much of a dick he really is. And now I'm thinking about who I am and who I want to be, and where I am and where I want to go. It really sucks when you know where you are and where you want to go, but not how to get there. And not only that, but you don't even know where to find a map to get there. It's getting late and I don't really think I have anything else to add, plus i've really gotta take a piss, so that's it for now.