My Dream Girl Don't Exist (hopefully)

I was in a super-macho discussion once. The topic came onto "Dream Girls".

Actually, I believe they declared it "Most fuckable girl our imaginations can render".

They were discussing all these attributes that The Most Fuckable Girl would have. Long legs, long hair, big lips, shapely tits, the usual. When someone suggested something less physical, it never really got much further than "nice" and "nymphomaniac". You know the conversation.

(PS if you're female, don't even begin to pretend that all owners of XX chromosomes are so elite that they are beyond these discussions and daydreams.)

Anyways, it got me to thinking as well. My dreamgirl.

Well, let's get the base stuff out of the way. Pretty and cute without being hot. No cigarettes no tatoos no piercings. Personal: Has to like Disney. And video games. And maths. Can't like hip hop metal dubstep rap twilight soap operas clubbing. Can't be too religious, can't be too immoral, must like peanut butter, can't like it crunchy, hates wotsits....

And suddenly I'm in Hell.

This thing I've created, it would be made to perfectly fit ad suit me. And I would be enamoured. I would cite Love at first sight. It would be everything I wanted, and I would be complacent.

There'd be no Love.

How could there be?

Friendship is kindled from similarities, but Love is born of differences and clashes. They allow growth and understanding and compromise (and not the shitty sort).

What would I have?

The conversation would be the first thing to go.

After raising up each of our interests and confirming our mutual approval of each thing, we'd be stuck.

"Man, isn't _____ just the greatest?"

"Yeah, it is."

But with this girl, this perfect girl, how could I ever consider leaving her? She's perfect. We're soul-mates (as if this construction would have one). There would be no way I could tear myself from this safety. I'd have this half-assed, lukewarm happiness, and I'd think it was Love. I'd believe it. And any reaction against this hell, any stirrings of recognition and warning, would be shot down by my own "love" and introspection. Perfect girl is perfect, so anything bad must come from the only other component in the relationship. And how I would torture it until it was fitting of this perfect girl.

And that's the scariest thought I've had in a while.

I am not a well-kept man.

Well, saying that as a middle-class British citizen who lives in relative prosperity.

But recently, no, I've not been taking very much care of myself. Breakfast has been non-existent since the start of secondary school, and lunch has become a rarity (this has the neat side effect of dooming me to remain 5'10 short and weedy for life). I've noticed that my capacity for food over the years has actually lessened accordingly- for every two bites 18 year old Shaun eats, Shaun circa '06 could've eaten three or four. Which is kinda sad.

I'm so tired these days. I work until late, distract myself with instruments (and bass) for a while longer, and find myself overtired once in duvet. My mean sleepytime has been 3-4 hours nightly.

I'm fairly sure I'm not cycling as fast as I used to- but that could be down to my tire's deficiency of air, and my own of saddles.

And when I get home (typically late, due to commitments thoughtlessly accepted), I always binge on milk, collapse upstairs and nap uncontrollably. An hour or two later, it's time to groggily go downstairs and deliver late papers in the cold and dark and keep my throw up in my tummy.

Rinse and repeat.

And there's work on Friday and Saturday, but that's no big deal.

I can't complain though, as it's all worth it.

I can't wait until Uni. I'm really stuck in a rut here. I can't wait for freedom, for re-invention.

(For social groups not based on elitism)

I have this weird idea that, if I go to Uni, my quality of life will magically increase despite the harsher poverty and the bigger workload. But it's that delusion that'll probably fuel me. It certainly won't be breakfast.

Cobwebs are the ghosts of absence.

The first spiderweb I saw today made me happy.

Entangled was a wasp. Call it cruel, call it sadistic, but wasps terrified me for the entirety of my younger life. We all have our vices.

I was soon rebuked by the second cobweb. Another wasp. This one, however, struggled, for it was being eaten. It spasmed so animately as to convey a near sentient appreciation of fear. This didn't sit well with me, but what could I do?

The third was the most unsettling. I had delivered a paper to a certain house in the early hours of Saturday. It was now a deceptively bright Monday evening. And before me lay weeks worth of pristine webwork, draped along the front door. Its sole architect peered curiously through eight eyes at the disturbance from his sabbatical seat.

And that weekend wasn't exactly shut-in weather, either.

Confronted with such a lonely reality, I cycled away more solemnly than I had started, promising myself I would become less emotionally invested in the wanton doodlings of spiders.

An open letter to Jeff Mangum.

I wish we could talk.

That's hard, as you're a hermit.

When I look at your lyrics, when I read them, they're so alien. They mean so little. they're odd, nonsensical. They look like the ravings of a madman. And you've been accused of worse.

But then I hear them, and I realise that I've never heard anything that I have been able to so strongly relate to. I don't know how. But I adore it. To be able to understand your stream of conciousness, to empathise with your worries, it comforts me. It feels so... personal.

Sometimes, I don't listen to you for months at a time. Partly so I actually listen to other bands.

Mostly for how it feels to have an old friend return after departing for so long.

I'm looking at my iTunes, and I own ~2 GB of Neutral Milk Hotel songs. About 80-90% of that are bootlegs and demos I'd downloaded. I've been making it a personal mission to listen to them all over the past few weeks. Properly listen. Sat alone, eyes shut, headphones on, listen. Today I finished.

I downloaded them because I wanted more. Because you stopped so suddenly, so harshly.

But I also downloaded them to hear you. to hear you talk with the crowd. To hear you stutter and swallow away your anxieties. I wanted to hear you try so hard to explain what you were trying to say in your songs, before you broke away so upset. No one present understood. I didn't even need you to tell me.

I wanted to get to know you. To understand why you felt and thought the way I do. I wanted to wish myself to a small club in '97, where I'd stand silently, trying to take it all in. I wouldn't talk through your set, and make Neanderthal noises and heckle you with requests. I'd realise I was in the presence of a true artist.

Your music came at a difficult time for me. Frankly, it was the only difficult time I'd ever had, and for many many people it would've been a fairly mediocre time, if that. But you helped. I'll never be able to first listen to "King of Carrot Flowers" or "Aeroplane Over the Sea" happy, or in love (oh, how music sounds when you're in love). But they got me back to happiness, to optimism, to living.

I can't thank you enough.

Just paying the bills, folks...

So apparently Digeus System Optimizer is a thing (I wish they'd spelt "Optimizer" with an s). Having a quick browse through the features, it brags a "Duplicate File Finder", tweaking for your Media, Security and System Speed and at least three different ways to clear out the garbage that easily fills up computers. As someone who is scraping the last 5 GB of his hard drive, I'd say it's definitely a worthwhile investment. Plus, it comes from the good guys at Digeus, whose software I've reviewed before, and it's been goog, solid non-spyware (which is quite refreshing). So for anyone running a pc junked up with disorganised downloading, I'd give it my personal recommendation. More info here (Safe link, I haven't been hijacked by a spam-bot).

I'm in that kinda mood.

[As deciphered from my spidery scrawlings)

The mood where I want to write, but all I have to write is definitely too raw for the blug, but happens to be just raw enough for my Moleskine (Which I adore). Hopefully, writing in here should allow me to temper my pointlesses into something that carries a little meaning and coherency. My only fear is to inhabit my Moleskine entirely and end up never post anything on the blug.

I like to believe that everyone is a person. In that, I like to believe that everyone has unique thoughts and feelings, and explores their own universe in a way that is alien and beautiful. I try and persuade myself that everyone has moments of profoundness. That everyone thinks. All the time.

Which is why it really shakes me when I see people who aren't. It really upsets me. People who keep themselves alive if only to witness a tv programme, people who live for Facebook statuses. People who replace being human for the emotions pimped out by 2nd rate writers and directors. People who need scraping off of the floor. It really scares me.

There are people, acting like they are normal people, and they don't even have an imagination.

At the time of writing, I'm blinking back tears.

How can this happen to someone? How can you exist and live in a world like this, and not care about things, wonder about whys, worry about ifs? These flat, colourless blobs are everywhere. They're sat on buses, watching their children with matte eyes.

They huddle and hive together, pretending they're feeling.

They don't know what they aren't.

This used to be about Maths.

Her name was Jenny.

HOW META

It's not like I have nothing to write

But when I write something, it's typically taken from some sort of inspiration. And, usually, that inspiration comes somewhere from my life. At the end of the day, this blug has been a small collection of very vague feelings I have amassed over a short period of time. Which, in honesty, is disgustingly lame. But we have what we have, and if it gives me guilty pleasure, and others some good snickering material, maybe that offsets the fact that this blug is but another in the sludgy mire of similarly poor journals of angst.
However, I normally attempt to at least abstract whatever clumsily autobiographical emotions I'm feeling into something at least partially accessible. But I've just felt so... specific, recently, if that makes sense. Ignore that it sounds like a phrase Miller would use. So, I'm going to resort to my usual last line of defense- bullshitting.

When I was out today, I couldn't help but see the Jehovahs out and about, dolled up in their most trustful clothes. My sympathy goes with their children, paraded as tools of guilt. I can't wait until I have my own place, when I can answer the door to these intruders, pull out some deck furniture, perhaps take out a chilled jug of juice, and spend an entire morning debating with some very well dressed brick walls. Use their own tactics against them. And at the very least, waste enough time to take a bullet for the neighbourhood.

I feel I've been living far too decadent recently. Late nights, later mornings, bad eating, swinging from recluse to domestic tourist far too erratically. But that's Easter holidays. I can't wait until school starts up, and my lapses into slothitude feel justified, if not out-and-out deserved.

After I feel I've received all the tuition I'll ever need for Bass (Tuition for Bass? PSH! You and your talentless ways, Minnear!), I'm going to learn how to sing. I sing (badly) far too much, and if the world has to put up with it, I should find someone who can chip my voice into something tolerable. I can't even imagine the realms of pleasure attainable from even barely passable vocal expression.

I also need to learn the *tiniest* amount of acoustic guitar, enough to make pretty sounds, not enough so I play anything vaguely-professional sounding. I've had a bunch of ideas bouncing around that rely on a Buffay-esque sound, so my musical shitocity may come in useful. Of course, on websites, I'll call it "unorthodox". But it does mean "amateur".

Listen to more Decemberists. Can not overstate this. Very accessible earlier stuff, incredibly indulgent recent stuff. Smart, eloquent and an audial delight. Also obscure enough to earn a good number of indie points, if you're into that.

I may have to up sticks employment-wise, which upsets me. I need constant and More substantial pay, which may not occur in the summer, which is apparently when business slows down, and they don't need the extra help- i.e. me. They're not dropping me, of course, but I'm non-contracted, meaning they're not going to call me in unless they need me. This is all a huge bummer, as the people I've been working with are simply fantastic, and so friendly, and I can't help but feel like I'm letting them down a little if I left (despite the fact I'm a terrible waiter). I'll miss them terribly. But employment's a selfish thing, and I need financial backing if I want to drive, and go to Uni, and teach, and live the life I want. Of course, this then brings in the dilemma that should I even be employed in "The Best Years of My Life"? Am I squandering away prime youth? Which, of course, you don't get to find out until it's far too late.

Although.

The life I yearn most for isn't the partying, or the traveling, or anything typically associated with youth.

I literally can't wait for teaching, for marriage, and parenthood.
*DISCLAIMER* I'm not gonna get married and have a family of five at 19 years. Just to put it out there! That is a long way away, and I'm very aware of this! I do in fact understand I am nowhere near responsible or emotionally mature enough for that, and won't be for at least a decade.
I can and will wait.
But I can't wait.

1:42

I can't get to sleep, so I've turned on my Touch's toilet wi-fi to try and knock out some of the thoughts that may be preventing said sleep.
I've been thinking a lot about experiences, particularly bad ones.
A few years back, Niall and I got minorly attacked on the way home at night, which was pretty new to me.
Niall has since then been more cautious about where, when and how he walks, in order to avoid repeats. And rightfully so.
But I don't. And I know, that on some level, this is because I want to be attacked.
This blug, by the by, is not a confession of masochism, far from it.
But doesn't everyone want an ineresting life?
I want a life full of experience, bad and good. I want to go down highways in a beaten convertable with a select handful of friends. I want to pick a direction, someday, and just go that way for a day or two. And I want to get punched in the head more often, if it means a more interesting life.
I'm sure this lust has limits somewhere. I'm sure I wouldn't wish cancer or rape upon myself (though I'm resigned to the eventuality of the former). But a very, very stupid part of me does.
I mean, not to dip into clichéd amorphisms here, but phrases like "The road less beaten" and the such weren't coined on a whim.
Eugh, this sounds like an advocacy for Bohemianism.
Either way, I'm not sure I've broken nearly enough bones to have lived a full life. I'm going to take a lot of care choosing my mistakes.
(Also, like to point out that this has been worded very carefully to not contradict the first ever post that dealt with incredibly similar themes)

I had a scary thought.

A recent need to research that soul Fred Rogers reminded me the nigh cliché point he and many others made that "We are everyone we've met", etc. Which is all very deep, and sparks all those idealist notions of Grand Unification a lá Evangelion. And on a psychological level, this goes along with the thesis that the conscious is composed of experiences, and the thoughts and pre-dispositions hitherto contrived from them.
But I'm a forgetful person.
I can't recognise a single member of my primary school. I have forgotten fairly important people in a matter of months. If I search through my memories of My childhood, I'm met with memories of idiotic moments, of odd jokes and mundane trivia. If our personality is fundamentally composed of our dealings with everyone else, and you forget them and those memories, have you lost a part of yourself?
I managed to qualm my fears with assurances of the power of the subconscious, but then that makes me someone who doesn't know why they are what they are, and how they got there.
But then, it gets worse.
So, if everything impacts us as a person, we go through hundreds, often thousands of social interactions a day. Each one with the potential to mould and change us. So even if we are this amalgamation of half remembered instances, we're never that exact person for more than a few seconds. And we can't even keep track of, or even be remotely aware of what has affected us, and in what way.
And for me, and the majority of people bored enough to be reading this, this is the most vulnerable phases of our developments. Our brains are actively rewiring themselves for adult life.
Just by having a chat with anyone, I could be setting myself up to be a worse person than I could've been.
And on the opposite side of the spectrum, what about extended relationships? Of families, partners, best friends? These connections, incomprehensibly potent and poignant? Do they realise what they're doing, or have done to me? Do I? An argument, an idea, hell, a joke, that's all these people need to radically change me.
And me. Making the somewhat arrogant assumption that I am not completely without charisma, and that I am paid attention, I too am contributing to this constant, manic reworking of Super-Egos.
I sincerely hope I affect positively.

"There's nothing more cosy than having a few restraints to kick up against"

I'm using haikus
To exercise precision
Maybe it will work.

My current constraints
Should focus these abstractions
To something solid.

One final preface
**** Kireji and Kigo
This ain't about that.

I seem to be ill
For I've lost will and resolve
Saudade-itis

Think about Auschwitz
Everyone despises it.
I don't think I do

Maybe I'll explain.
Disgusting horrors occurred
They should be hated.

But the halls, the bricks,
The construct is innocent.
That is how I feel.

It's getting better,
But I need to make my joy.
I've done it before.

Am I living right?
I don't see enough sunsets.
Should I make more too?

I'm scared of slipping.
I'm supposed to go way up.
High stakes, big losses.

If I took a leap
And you caught the moment right
I would be flying.

My corpse is heavy,
But I would sink far further
If it stopped holding.

Through the floors and ground,
Burrow, freefall, descend, sink.
All, so I could be.

I'm drained, depleted.
But I'll make myself human.
I'll do it by force.

Now I've put away
Every nothing I'd conjured
I'm cleansed, Cathartic.

"O Happy, Living Things! NoTongue/ Their Beauty Might Declare:/ A Spring of Love Gushed from My Heart/ And I Blessed them Unaware.

It was a day in July
And I was going through the tedious motions of delivering papers.
I entered a street, and duly took no notice of my drab surroundings, as I circled into a driveway.
And I don't know what it was when I came out
Maybe it was a change in the lighting
Or maybe a change in whatever background music I was listening to
Or a change somewhere else
But as I walked away from the driveway, I noticed how stunning these flowers were.
They were bright, radiant, literally radiant.
They were illuminating everything around them.
The moment was so slow.
I actally stopped walking for a split second, and intook a little.

In a way, I regret this moment ever happened.
Not so much that it did happen, as it was a stunning, poignant one.
But I regret that it had to happen.

In Penny Lane...

I thought there was a "Bar for sharing photographs".
Which I couldn't help but think was a stunning image.
Just the idea of a pub, specifically for whipping out wallets and albums, telling strangers about your kids, whilst he shows you pictures of the time he went to the Grand Canyon.
I just thought it was so fantastically... Rural? a little stereotyped. Quaint? Maybe. Beautiful? Without doubt.
If teaching falls through, or I retire, or something, that's a very strong possibility.
Either way, turns out there was a "Barber sharing photographs". I like my version a bit more.

I should write.

Okay, I know opening a blog post with a comment on how little I write has become somewhat compulsary, but there was a time (This time last year) where I swore it'd be daily.
HAH.
So, let's be frank. Right now, I am indeed in Post-Break-Up-Break-Down. I won't talk about the relationship, as I would get profoundly upset if the reverse were to happen to me, and in the msot modest way possible, this is a blog about me. And considering its obscurity and lack of readers, it's more or less for me, as well.

I'm coping. I've gone past the break up music stage- The Smiths with their cruel honesty, and the bitter irony of poppy Beatles tracks (Although, within the compilations I'm listening to, there is one song, Yesterday, that was hidden amongst the no longer true cries of "She Loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" perfectly and unexpectedly summed up my entire situation and sentinents, like some kind of empathising shinobi).
I've actually started relistening to a lot of Jonathan Coulton, who is absolutely fantastic, and if you search the iTunes podcast directory, you can download 52 of his tracks for FREE from his "Thing a Week" project, which ranges from the sombre to the surreal. Think Flight of the Concords, except with a lot more experimetation and taking itself seriously more often.

I've only had to see her for two days since the break up (Boxing Day, no less) at school, and we've tried our darnedest to pretend we can't see each other. Or at least I have, and she's just really good at being ignorant or something. It's still difficult. Apparently, she wants to be friends. I'm not sure I can do that, seeing as being around her hurts, as I'm still in Love with her. Except I guess at this point, it becomes creepy, unrequited, weirdo Love. Eugh.

I've been trying to release my misery in the form of jokes that makes everyone around me feeling awkward, like "Man, this work is hard. you know what else is hard? Living after being dumped by the only girl who I've ever really Loved.", which I find completely hilarious, but makes everyone else die a little inside. I think I'll stop soon, as hilarious as it is for me, I don't want being with me to be permanantly associated with uncomfortableness.

I don't think it's coincidence that I'm trying to pick up new hobbies at once now. Bass guitar, more writing, Game creating, documentation by time-lapse-photography, cooking, it goes on. Mid-life crisis and I'm only 17.

Well there it is. Summation of the lowest point in my life, mainly recorded for the sake of looking back in a year or two, and commenting on what a miserable idiot I was. Or maybe clutching a needle in one had, gazing at the screen, weeping and screaming "This is where it started!".