Month: April 2004

I recall laughing in an empty room once.

I was sixteen and in the hospital, laying in my private room in the pediatrics ward, praying aloud when I realized, “Ha!” I realized I was talking to the ceiling. And it struck me as ridiculous. And I laughed and laughed and laughed. And that was the moment I gave up believing in god. Because it suddenly struck me as ridiculous to believe in this invisible faith reliant being that bestowed good and horribleness in such an apparently arbitrary fashion. A being for which the answer to every paradox was simply “you have to take it on faith.” And everyone would tell me that I was so lucky to be alive, that I had been spared “by the grace of god.” Or they’d tell me how they’d prayed for me, like they should get some sort of credit for that. Like “thank you for so obviously saving my life by praying for me. If you hadn’t prayed for me. god would’ve just let me die, but since he holds you in such high regard, he spared me just as a favor to you…” And it always baffled me that god was supposedly responsible for survivals and remarkable near misses and miraculous recoveries, but never gets any credit for the accidents or tragedies themselves. Either he’s just a sick,sick bastard or else he sure goes awol alot. Does bad shit happen because god was on his coffee break or something? Or better yet, does it fall in the category of “trials” and “crosses to bear?” Like humanity is a big science experiment, a big glass antfarm with god there reflecting sunlight through magnifying glasses at us to see if we’ll burst into flames or not. What kind of sick, demented bastard would invent a deity of that sort? I for one prefer to take stock in theories of random chaos. Random Chaos is a lot more forgiving. All hail the Church of Laughing Out Loud In Empty Rooms. And yes, I realize you’re supposed to spell the word “god” with a capital G.

In a twisted state of mind,

Corbid

My child is a computer genius. But I don’t understand why she put up a “Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill” animation as my desktop background. Is she saying something about me?

Dreamt that Kurt Cobain was alive and well and had a blog and was currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman and listening to Townes Van Zandt on the sly, and that he knew me well enough to write me raw, painful, cathartic emails.

Iris, goddess of private eyes, watches. Always watches.

Once she was mercurial, a rainbow, mother of love, the bridge between the crude worlds and words of earthly things and the elevated world of spirituality. Now she’s a lone heroine, and goddess of lone heroines and heroes. Now she’s a bridge between the desire to know the truth, and the truth we don’t want to know. Now she watches, unblinking….Iris was the winged goddess of the rainbow and the messenger of the Olympian gods. She was depicted as a young woman with golden wings and a herald’s rod and/or a pitcher in her hand…

In Greek mythology, Iris was the daughter of Thaumas and the Ocean nymph Electra (according to Hesiod), the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. As the rainbow unites Earth and heaven, Iris is the messenger of the gods to men; in this capacity she is mentioned frequently in the Iliad, but never in the Odyssey, where Hermes takes her place. Iris is represented as a youthful virgin, with wings of gold, who hurries with the swiftness of the wind from one end of the world to the other, into the depths of the sea and the underworld. She is especially the messenger of Zeus and Hera, and is associated with Hermes, whose caduceus or staff she often holds. By command of Zeus she carries in an ewer water from the Styx, with which she puts to sleep all who perjure themselves. Her attributes are the caduceus and a vase.

I actually had a chance to cook real food for dinner that wasn’t from a jar or a package for the first time in probably weeks (unless you count omelets, I am famous for my omelets…) tonight. Seared a london broil in butter in a pan on the stovetop, then sauteed some stir fry vegetables, then braised the whole thing in Killian’s Irish Red, which I can’t stand to drink but very much enjoy as a food seasoning, which is lucky as it was the only thing remptely alcoholic left in the fridge and the whole thing would not have worked quite as well if I’d used something like, say, soy sauce or apple cider vinegar. Made baked potatoes stuffed with cheese for the side. The whole thing was very Applebees special of the month, but not bad for an improvisation. Certainly a step up from totino’s party pizzas, anyway.

In other news, the new job situation is becoming more and more of a reality. It’s very strange to think that I’ll be leaving my job of two years for good soon. Working overnights is not just a job, it’s kind of a lifestyle choice. It’s going to be a very strange transition indeed. Yeah, the place was a bit of a pit, but it was my pit at least. In a sick way I think I’m sort of going to miss it a little. Plus the people there I’d worked with for a million years. It’s like graduating high school or something. But time marches on and there is good to come from all of this. Still, I’m just a little sad to leave. Not the job, just the familiarity of it all. And working days instead of nights. I don’t even know what that’s like anymore. It’s all so surreal to me. Whatever, that all seems so stupid. It’s just a job, anyway. One service job is the same as the next, right? Until I get back to school, work is not a method of fulfillment, it’s just a means to an end. Dear god, do I need to get back to school. I keep saying it, but I never do it. Oh well, maybe next time, right?

Corbid