Tuesday, September 18--

spinning: nothing; I wouldn't want to wake anyone

Well interestingly enough, my body has dispensed with sleep altogether. I planned on going to bed at around midnight. That was almost six hours ago.

*fumes* Why, why can't I sleep? It's not like I'm not tired. I'm exhausted. I can hardly hold my head up. Even the dog got bored with me and went to sleep. For some strange reason, whenever I plop into my bed, some key process fails to commence, and I'm left lying there, feeling dumb.

Here's something I composed, lacking anything better to do:

Declaration

Of course I'll fly again!
Didn't I still want to be an astronaut
after the Challenger
disaster?

I swore to myself
I'd never take another
train or bus

and
that
still
stands.

--waiting for fall @ 5:41 AM -- remember this

Sunday, September 16--

spinning: Pizzicato 5--Happy Sad

I resolved to go to Boston. My grandmother was shocked that I would ever consider stepping foot on a plane now. No, I'm not worried. Worst case scenario: the plane goes down. Likely scenario: an uneventful flight.

I have a very happy-go-lucky approach to life. People have been doing bad things to other people, in varying degrees of severity, everyday since the beginning of time.

Everyone in my house has an awful cold--except me. I guess somewhere back in my youth spent in various day cares, I aquired this particualar bug. But anyhow, I found myself playing Nurse Yvette the whole day. I ran back and forth to the store, getting fruit and fruit juices, medicine and food. I cooked dinner. After last night's insomnia flopping on the bed and not being able to find a decent radio station proved too much to handle.

I ripped the radio out the wall and flung it across the room. It was childish, yet undeniably satisfying. Usually I'm extremely slow to anger, but just the right circumstances can make me explode like Mt. St. Helens. Lately, probably due to lack of sleep (I can't get more than four hours a night) my fuse has shortened considerably.

--waiting for fall @ 8:57 PM -- remember this

Saturday, September 15--

spinning: Three Dog Night--Mama Told me not to Come

To the untold dozens of people I owe phone calls to, I apologize. I'm on it, swear. I still can't sleep. I don't know whether it's recent events or something else. I get up a lot and blunder around in the backyard. Last night (well, early this morning) I saw Orion rising. If I remember my stargazing class correctly, Orion's circumpolar so it's always up there somewhere at some point, no matter the time of year.

Kids take disasters hard too. I think a lot of people forget that. The same way the Challenger disaster was forever welded into my 5-year-old brain, I imagine my little sister and brother won't be forgetting this anytime soon. Even though I'm sure this will go on thrumming in the back of my head for some time--I'll try not to say what's already been said a dozen times over--and better.

--waiting for fall @ 8:53 AM -- remember this

Thursday, September 13--

spinning: The Roots--You Got Me

I went to my first poetry class today--it was surprising how many of the poems were about Tuesday's events. I tried to write about it, but couldn't; too many conflicting feelings.

Everyone in that class was at least 20 years older than me, and one woman was celebrating her 91st birthday. We bickered over cake and lemonade over just who was to blame. There were people who remembered the Vietnam War, the Korean War, right down to World War I. It was interesting to hear.

I can't sleep lately. I feel like Edward Norton in the first quarter of Fight Club.

--waiting for fall @ 5:37 PM -- remember this

Wednesday, September 12--

spinning: PJ Harvey--This Mess We're In

Predictably, gas prices are going up--I heard news of a station that had raised prices to $5. My parents and I took all three cars yesterday and filled the tanks while gas was still reasonable.

I've been watching the news continuouly since yesterday, breaking only to run errands and clean the house. I scheduled my first week of part-time work, and wrote a poem for my class. Everything seems to have a slight pall over it, though I may be imagining it.

But when I look outside, away from the TV, it's just a breezy late summer day.

--waiting for fall @ 12:20 PM -- remember this

Tuesday, September 11--

spinning: Erykah Badu--Orange Moon

It was in my mind the second the shock faded, but I had no intention of saying it. Someone else was a bit more brave:

random guy in line at the gas station: Man, someone's gonna get blown the fuck up.

Indeed. I believe it was John Ashcroft who said he intended to "make an example" of the responsible party, which is something my dad would say when I was about to get the butt whooping of a life time.

I never thought I'd hear it coming from a government official.

--waiting for fall @ 8:39 PM -- remember this

What can I say? One moment I'm boiling water for rice, and the next I'm watching live feed of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. After both towers collapsed, I put my head in my hands and sobbed. Nothing like this has happened during my lifetime.

Shortly after 10 a.m. I heard a loud roar over my house--it was all the planes that had just left Cleveland, returning to the airport. Meanwhile, a plane suspected of having a bomb in it has been detained at the airport. SWAT teams are combing it over now.

The mayor evacuated several buildings downtown, and shut down two college campuses. Only two highways run through Clevaland, I-77 and I-90, and those were thronged with people, bumper to bumper.

I'm worried. I don't want to go to war, but at the same time, I'm furious. I want the responsible party brought to justice as soon as possible. It sort of yanks you out of your life, events like these. You start to think beyond yourself and your family to your country. I plan to give blood as soon as I hear information about where I can do it. It's the least I can do.

I feel helpless. I watched it there on live TV, the towers collapsing and I couldn't do a thing about it. I really hope nothing like this will happen again. But instinct tells me it probably will.

--waiting for fall @ 1:28 PM -- remember this

Monday, September 10--

spinning: Amel Larrieux--Infinite Possibilities

Welcome to the one year anniversary. In accordance with the changes that have gone on in my life, I've changed this blog's title to tautoLOGy. That makes it the second site I've named after a logic term. The first was the long-neglected circularity.

Other changes will be coming in the future. My time as a college student is running down, so I'll lose this free space. At that time, I'll slide on over to Kouki.

It's weird for me not to be in school. I mean, I've gone, year after year excluding summers since I was 4 years old. Now suddenly I find myself sitting at home, doing the housework, both jobless and degree-less. I kind of feel like a bum. I've asked my parents to throw me out several times, but they won't listen. They won't let me leave Cleveland until I have a concrete diagnosis and stabilize on medicine.

I never could have predicted getting so sick a year ago. In fact, this time last year I was optimistic about the idea of a summer internship in Japan and looking forward to jump-starting my career. Ah well. The most I've been set back is a couple of months and with luck, talent will grant me what motivation didn't.

I have a lot to think about.

Before I go, layout credits. Thank to tonystone for the fruit pictures. I really poured on the CSS for this layout, but I've tested it in Internet Explorer 5.5 and Netscape 6.1 at a resolution of both 800x600 and 1024x768 and it looks fine. If there are problems with other browsers, let me know.

That's it. Here begins tautoLOGy. Change your links and all that jazz. Enjoy.

--waiting for fall @ 10:57 AM -- remember this

Testing, testing....

--waiting for fall @ 10:28 AM -- remember this