(in bed)

I was really torn as to what to post as today’s glimpse into my “life”.

(“life” in quotations not an accident. Another very obviously emo shout out implying an ocean of boredom. Wait, wait. “…a sea of ennui.” BETTER, now I am sound avuncular and kind of bourgeois. Top drawer.)

Is it lame to use fantastic vocabulary words in everyday writing/speaking when the majority of people will have, at best, only a slight idea as to its meaning? Is it pretentious to do this? Or is it worse that when you do have that one great SAT word (let’s say “insouciance” or “inimitable”) in the most fitting of occasions, you don’t use it, because you know those around you are small minded nitwits who will make fun and “ohhh la la” your endeavor? Is it worse to be pretentious or dragged down to the depths of lolcatihazcheezburger & txt-speak? Ayn Rand would certainly say the latter is the more abysmal choice. I’m with her.

(Xenophobia is spelled with an “x” not a “z”…another tricky bit about the english language…an “x” is a sub for the “z” sound, occasionally. Just for funsies. We like to throw this in for immigrants and foreigners to keep them guessing. Our gift to the world.)

Isn’t it funny how you can neglect some of your favorite songs because you have liked them forever, you take them for granted? And then one day on the bus you fall into them on accident or on a whim… music on shuffle, and it’s like meeting an old friend?

(What exactly is the statute of limitations of friendships? If you were friends during those tender, adolescent, ugly-duckling years, don’t talk for a decade, and then pick up where you left off [well, not really... where you left off was asking your parents for permission, and paying for health insurance was a test question-not something that came out of your paycheck.] Do you call this person a friend? For a DECADE, a third of your existence you have not been in contact. I find it a stretch. Because really, when it all comes down to it, you are trying to be friends, but you can’t really ever go back. You won’t ever be spending a school night outside of 711, drinking mad dog 20/20 you got a migrant worker to buy for you at the local stop-n-rob, smoking clove cigarettes. Because at almost 30, this would be incredibly tragic.

But at 18, well, it was…well maybe it was sad and tragic then too, but in a entirely different genre.

You can’t ever go back.)

But I digress…

Information is like porn.

You are chatting up an aquaintance, discussing politics, origami, or possibly the worst show in existenence, (Lost/Heroes) when something is called into question. “…what was that joke?…what was that urban legend?…”

And its like the conversation, Any Conversation, is temporarily paused until the answers are found. It’s as if you can’t form words, the whole driving force behind talking is freeze-framed. You feel an itch. You can’t let it go. Without the answers to your questions, you couldn’t possibly continue discussing well, anything. Let’s imagine the douche you are chewing the fat with is not hooked on the same info-drug you are. He dismisses the question almost as quickly as it falls out of his fat mouth. You reach for your phone/computer/data-crack-pipe-of-preference and he tells you its “no big deal”…that you can “look it up later.” You start to hate him. A consumning, vehement loathing rolls across your retinas like a fog. You can hardly see him anymore. This cretin. This cow that stands between you and the answers. This imbesol. You want his face to melt right off to expose what is obviously his lack of any brain matter whatsoever. You start to sweat. If you are me, you scribble down the questions to remind you as soon as you escape the clutches of this toady, unibrowed caveman.

Information. I can’t get enough. More input!

The speed at which you can get immediate, as-fast-as-your-connection-speed-allows answers to anything is making me hopelessly ADD. When I read an article, if there is any kind of link, I click on it faster than explaing kills a joke. I then wander off to a link in that article and la la la… and within a pocketful of hours I am utterly disoriented and have no idea where the hunt for the elusive great white rabbit began.

You walk down the street, and you are completely alone. Everyone is somewhere else.

Listening to music-headphones jammed deep into the holes in the sides of their heads… trying desperately to create the soundtrack of their lives… going live in a constant, continuous music video. Texting little fingers madly dancing across the latest it-device, reading messages… just to look busy, talking on the phone…

Same thing happens at dinners, in bars, at cafes all over this economically nasty country… maybe the world. And it’s depressing. No one looks you in the eyes anymore. No one listens to the tail-end of conversations. They are already documenting the past thing, or catching up to the current thing, or chasing the future thing.

No one just is.

I find myself becoming the Multi-Media Third Reich. Which makes me feel simultaneously old and out-of-touch. But its really starting to get on my fucking nerves. Yes, ok, so we know now we can talk to anyone, anytime, and know exactly when everything on the entire planet is occuring.

Now it’s time to live in the present. Start with a minute each day where you aren’t at your computer, on your phone, or myspacing. Ok? See what happens when you pick your eyes up from your ratty screens and you see what is going on in real time all around you. All you have is this moment. There are no ctrl+z edit undo’s. Live it, or lose it.

And yes, I feel preachy and self-righteous. But mostly just sad… and not endearingly so. Sad that I am out on the street all alone. (Positively 4th St.)

I started writing this with the fervor of a buffalo hunter, full of piss and vinegar and evadradesque opinions, and then my attention deficit kicked in vis a vis The Debates.

Lost my train of thought… again. I feel like any locomotion of ideas I am focused on gets rattled and meanders into cloud town. Is this thing on? Hello? Am I in Harrison Bergeron? Hello?

I think it’s time to shut down the engines, take myself back to neutral (stockcar flaming). I’m really bored of pointing out things you should know already. We’re just going through the motions.

Fortune cookie hour is over.

~ by davenewworld on October 1, 2008.