Tomorrow
Tomorrow is not Wednesday.
Tomorrow is Tuesday.
I do not have a Writer’s Meeting tomorrow.
I do not have a radio show tomorrow.
I still have another day to read Banfield.
I have work to do tomorrow.
I will see my girlfriend tomorrow.
I have a quiz tomorrow, I am prepared for it.
I am on top of things. Tomorrow is not Wednesday. I am ahead of the game.
None of this.
I’m convinced I’m turning into someone I hate.
It’s for a couple of reasons… I don’t feel right hanging out with my friends lately. I feel distant and irrelevant. I don’t feel generally welcome anywhere. I worry that I’m trying too hard around Diona.
Right now I’m in a position of power at the paper and I can’t isolate myself enough to think I’m doing a good job. I’m too much of a neurotic fucking mess to really believe I’m even remotely liked, and I don’t have anything resembling a social structure to support me.
I don’t feel welcome anywhere. Friends, family, etc. I’m a dysfunctional fucking creature and I’m not ready for the future. I want nothing more than to just hide.
Don’t. Can’t. Goddammit.
Places to donate your hair
Locks of Love
Toupees of Toleration
Wigs of Woe
Hairplugs of Hatred
Extensions of Ennui
all falls down
Man I promise, she’s so self conscious
She has no idea what she’s doing in college
That major that she majored in don’t make no money
But she won’t drop out, her parents will look at her funny
Now, tell me that ain’t insecure
The concept of school seems so secure
Sophmore three years aint picked a career
She like fuck it, I’ll just stay down here and do hair
Cause that’s enough money to buy her a few pairs of new Airs
Cause her baby daddy don’t really care
She’s so precious with the peer pressure
Couldn’t afford a car so she named her daughter Alexus
She had hair so long that it looked like weave
Then she cut it all off now she look like Eve
And she be dealing with some issues that you can’t believe
Single black female addicted to retail and well
Man I promise, I’m so self conscious
That’s why you always see me with at least one of my watches
Rollies and Pasha’s they done drove me crazy
I can’t even pronounce nothing, pass that Versace!
Then I spent 400 bucks on this
Just to be like nigga you ain’t up on this!
And I can’t even go to the grocery store
Without some ones that’s clean and a shirt with a team
It seems we living the american dream
But the people highest up got the lowest self esteem
The prettiest people do the ugliest things
For the road to riches and diamond rings
We shine because they hate us, floss cause they degrade us
We trying to buy back our 40 acres
And for that paper, look how low we a’stoop
Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coupe
I say fuck the police, thats how I treat em
We buy our way out of jail, but we can’t buy freedom
We’ll buy a lot of clothes but we don’t really need em
The things we buy to cover up what’s inside
Cause they made us hate ourself and love they wealth
That’s why shorties holler, “Where the ballers at?”
Drug dealers buy Jordans, crackheads buy crack
But the white man get paid off of all a dat
But I ain’t even gon act holier than thou
Cause fuck it, I went to Jacob with 25 thou
Before I had a house and I’d do it again
Cause I wanna be on 106 and Park pushing a Benz
I wanna act ballerific like it’s all terrific
I got a couple past due bills, I won’t get specific
I got a problem with spending before I get it
We all self conscious I’m just the first to admit it
Ruining Everything 4-30-08
I did pretty good this week. What you really know about the dirty south?
The only technical qualm? I accidentally rhymed like twice. It was annoying.
Ruining Everything 4-23-08
Here’s the next one.
Oh shit you guys this one was too retarded. My CD burned wrong and I had to play a couple tracks off an album by The National while Karina went and grabbed my flash drive. It turns out OK, but the first half hour is a little bland.
Unless you like the National a lot.
Ruining Everything
Here’s something new for you – I’ve got a radio show now.
I know, it’s stupid.
I’m in a little rut right now – I don’t much feel like I can produce anything worthwhile. This doesn’t bode well for me, with my existence fundamentally rooted in producing and creating shit.
But the radio, well, I can’t overthink that one too much. I pick the songs I’m gonna play and talk about them in the meantime. Join me, as I accidentally treat women older than I am as jailbait.
PS: My roommate and his girlfriend are giggling their asses off and making kissy noises one room over. It’s making me ill. I need a new roommate for next year, as he’s going to France. Any takers?
Hit by a bus
I feel like I was hit by a bus waking up today. So I’ve got two thoughts to espouse.
1. Your cellular phone will outlive you. I think I’ve feared that in the famously disconnected world we live in, where technology replaces the human touch of whatever and especially one in which I maintain so few connections, that friends could be gone weeks before we notice them missing. But a generally easy way to ensure that someone is still alive is to call their cell phone – even if they don’t pick up, that it rings is a pretty good indicator that they’re still around somewhere, as the phone very likely would have otherwise expired. A ringing phone indicates pretty well that the phone’s owner has a home base to return to and charge their phone late at night, which generally excludes their imprisonment, death, or other incapacitation. That is, of course, unless they’re to pass away silently in the middle of the night.
2. There’s a time of every semester, I’ve found, where my sleep schedule altogether resets itself, and I’ve just hit it. Sometimes it gets to a point where I collapse at 7PM, wake up at 2AM and then just do homework until I end up eating breakfast (???). This semester was much more passive – I passed out around 11:30pm reading a book last night, trying to catch up with homework. That may be because the last few days have been quite the blur, but I’ve sat up since 8:30AM trying to get through this book for an exam Thursday. It’s refreshing to be up early and not have to fight with myself to make it to class, but I worry about my ability to pull long nights studying for exams and writing papers. Both of which, I might add, I’ll be doing this week.
Bhindi Switchee
My second mashup was Bhindi Switchee, which was Bhindi Bhagee by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros and Switch by Will Smith. I didn’t really like the Will Smith song all that much, but it worked really, really well together. I finished this probably a month after the first one, thereby reassuring myself that I was not a “one-hit wonder.” I was a “two-hit wonder” for probably six months after that, retarded.
Click the picture for a download!
Stray Camras interviewee found on Red Line
So here’s one from the April Fools’ issue of TechNews at IIT. We have an interview weekend every year in February where we really show off the campus, and in years past we’ve been forbidden to leave campus – a rule which I flaunted freshman year.
Though IIT has a laundry list of yearly traditions that have fully infiltrated the collective consciousness of nearly the entire student body, few events rival Camras Weekend in scope or impact. For one weekend, every organization on campus is out in full force. You might think it would be quite easy for someone to get lost amidst all this chaos – and you’d be right.
Authorities are not yet releasing the full name of the interviewee, instead only electing to identify her as “Student 9.” She is a 17-year-old high school senior from somewhere in Minnesota. After going out to one of Chicago’s many fine pizzerias with her host on Thursday, February 21st, she was quickly swept up in the bright lights and loud noises of a city so different from her Arctic homeland. Her first attempt to exit the train as it arrived at the station proved fruitless, as the relatively brief window of time in which the train doors remained open was too big of a challenge for a laid-back Minnesota girl like her.
The unsuspecting host, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says she thought she saw Student 9 leaving with a group of friends toward the 35th Street exit. “It was a little like Home Alone 2,” the host said, “except without the comic mischief.”
Meanwhile, Student 9 made a second attempt to exit the train car at the Garfield station, quickly darting from the car the moment the doors opened. Her victory, however, was short lived. “I thought this was my way out! But there were lots of cars and some guys were yelling at each other and it smelled like [urine] and there was a scary man asking me for money and I had to go hide!” The southbound train had paused behind her as its doors inexplicably opened and closed no fewer than six times. Student 9 quickly dashed back through the doors just as they were about to close for the final time.
Try as she might, however, each station was more intimidating than the last. Upon reaching the station at 87th Street, she no longer could muster up the courage to exit the train car. At the 95th-Dan Ryan station, she was startled to hear the last call of the night – “This is 95th, as far as this train goes. All passengers must leave the train. Thank you for riding the CTA Red Line.” “I thought the train went in a loop!” an exasperated Student 9 told us. “Don’t you have a loop in Chicago?” Desperate and unable to leave the train, she cast hygiene to the wind and hid beneath one of the seats as the train pulled into the trainyard. “I was worried that the cleaning crew would find me and throw me to the street,” she confides, “but I never saw a cleaning crew the whole time I was there.”
In the weeks following, she devolved into an almost feral, wolf-like state. Untrusting of strangers after they universally refused to redeem her IIT-issued complimentary meal tickets, she largely relied on discarded food waste for sustenance. “French fries, stepped-on M&Ms, unused packets of Taco Bell Fire sauce. It wasn’t the most appetizing diet, but whenever my resolve wavered, I tried to remember the Sodexo-provided lunch and powered through.”
After surviving for weeks on the train, Student 9 was coincidentally spotted by her host, who was returning from a routine trip to Target. Upon recognizing her, the host was able to cajole a weakened Student 9 to the Sox-35th platform and eventually lead her to Public Safety, where she is being debriefed.
Student 9 has recently signed a book deal. Her book, “AdversIITy: How a Quest for a Scholarship led to a Life of Homelessness,” will be available nationwide this October.