I Hait Earthquakes

Ever open a packet of Fundip only to find that the dipstick is broken in two places and you can't eat the happy sugar without getting your fingers sticky? Story of my life.

I'm sorry that I haven't written in a week and a half, though I'm sure none of you particularly mourned my absence, but I was busy pitying myself over a recent turn of events both for myself and the rest of the world.

You see, not so terribly long ago a horrific earthquake struck Haiti, a country with which I empathize because after Poland, it has the worst luck of any country on the planet. I don't particularly empathize with the people involved because they should have learned their lesson twenty or thirty disasters ago. And besides, plenty of other people do empathize with them, so I feel like the quota is full. Among these plentiful other people, is a girl with whom I have been talking amicably for the past several weeks.

I say talking amicably, but really what I mean is that we were standing together on the first stepping stone of the path across the raging river of my flaws, a path which eventually ends with me dropping my pants and her fellating me out of pity (rather than running away while screaming 'I said 'No!'').

Again my words may be misconstrued. My rationale for mentioning the pity involved in the potential fellatio is not that she would be inspired to pity by my nude Fundip stick (as part of the purpose of the stepping stone path is to get her past typical expectations), but rather because everything that this particular girl does is to some extent motivated by pity.

Which is why she is going to Haiti to aide in the relief effort. This damn Earthquake has sunk not only an entire country and its inhabitants, but also the next stepping stone in my quest for a bed partner. How could God do this to me?

Bus Ride of Woe

Maybe the world is beautiful. But I, like the fat kid in Willy Wonka, have gotten myself stuck in the chocolaty refuse river of my own inhibitions and am thus unable to reach out and join the joy. I find myself surrounded by beautiful things and yet unable to reach them, to interact with them, in theory even to mate with them. I am a diabetic in Candyland.

This morning I rode the bus to class as I usually do. I don’t do this to save gas or protect the environment or anything like that (I wouldn’t be to hurt if the world got a chance to experience my misery) but rather because the bus stop is in the sun and is thus warmer than my apartment, and because the bus doesn’t take time to warm up while my fingers become ice-welded to the steering wheel.

Apparently the bus one cycle before the one I rode left a bit early because mine ended up being overwhelmingly crowded. I was one of the last to climb aboard and so ended up forced to sit in the back and… next to someone. She was attractive too, which only made it worse. I hate sitting next to attractive people because I start to think too hard about how I act when I’m not sitting next to an attractive person, and then I become self-conscious and then I blush and then I glance to see if they’ve noticed and then they notice my glance.

As expected, this girl notices my glance, but not before I learn several things from it. Though probably originally attractive, this girl had marred her face with piercings which, generally, I hate. She proved a weird exception to the rule though because there was so much metal on her face that she actually kind of reminded me of Seven of Nine from Star Trek Voyager, an association which is never a bad thing. Then she starts chatting.

No one else on the bus talks, but she does. To her credit, she was exceptionally friendly, fairly intelligent and even seemed somewhat flirty. I tried to be witty with my answer and what resulted was a sentence completely devoid of vowels. Very embarrassing. Seven interpreted this pathetic attempt at conversation as a sign of nerdiness and, with characteristic kindness, she shifted the topic to something that she must have assumed I would like better. She asked what I thought of Avatar, and I plunged instantly into a state of silent depression.

You see, earlier, when I said the world was beautiful, I didn’t mean Earth, but rather the alien world of Pandora. The gorgeous blue-green leaves and adorable umbrella bugs more than make up for the six legged beasties that want to kill you. And it’s all rendered in such seemingly tangible 3-D. It’s all so much better than this steaming cesspit of rats and roaches in which we pass our lives. And yet, it is all fictitious, doctored and created and totally unattainable. Of course, if I were any character in Avatar, it would be the tree, bull-dozed and brushed aside (except of course for the fact that the tree in Avatar seemed to be having a good deal of sex). Yes, my life is inadequate, but maybe it isn’t my fault. Maybe I should blame God, if he is, for making the world the way he did instead of listening to James Cameron.

So I did not respond to Seven of Nine, but rather sat, staring out at the dull world of reality through saddened eyes while, I assume, she continued to talk for a bit before giving up and staring forward like everybody else. Of course, later I realized the stupidity of my reaction. Perhaps I should wear an Ed Hardy shirt so that everyone can know how stupid I am and just steer clear. No. If I have to tolerate this planet, then it has to tolerate me. Bring it, world! Pandora’s box is open!

Tundra of Despair

They tell me that Orlando is the coldest that it has been in twenty years and I live in an apartment with roommates who have, in their infinite wisdom, decided to circumvent the unrealistically low utilities cap by leaving the heat off for the winter. As I sit at my desk, shivering despite my long-sleeve shirt and jacket, my roommate pops in to reassure me by reminding me that his aunt deals with temperatures colder than this in the summer. She lives in Sweden. That’s her fault. This roommate of mine is wearing a T-shirt. I hope he contracts pneumonia and dies slowly and painfully. This tragedy would be entirely his fault, as too is the fact that my apartment is an Arctic wasteland. It saddens me to think that this frigid realm in which I live and this twenty-year low in central Florida meteorology perfectly reflect where I am in my life right now.

I realize that this is hardly a perfect analogy – though summer will come for Orlando, my life, I suspect, is perpetually stuck in a frozen rut – but what can you expect from an already subpar brain functioning at below suggested operating temperatures. And yet the failure of my attempted correlation creates two points at once – my tragic stasis and its cause. I’ve been in school for nearly three years now, and unless a new field opens in biocardioengineering/journalism and I am able to hybridize the majors that I have attempted to pursue, I’ll still be here in three more.

I am simply psychologically unable to focus on one course of action. I choose, with absolute certainty, that I will be a SeaWorld employee, and it takes me eight months and twenty-eight credit hours to realize that I don’t like dolphins. I simply cannot commit to one course of action. I feel as though my mind is suicidal, choosing a Cliffside trail, then jumping off every time the slope becomes too steep. Don’t misunderstand; I’m not suicidal. Because the source of my depression is the fear that my death will be the conclusion of a long series of failures, killing myself at such a low point would render my fears self-fulfilling. Of course, if and when success does grace my life (I would say ‘when hell freezes over,' but by the look of my frostbitten fingers, it already has), I suspect I won’t want to kill myself either. A conundrum, but I digress.

My evolutionary inability to pursue and/or commit has of course strangulated my love life as well, or perhaps I should say my ‘potential for love life,’ as there never was much of one to be strangled in the first place. So of course, there is no one to warm my bed on this coldest of nights . Thus, lacking sufficient blankets to insulate my body from the harsh realities of the world, I find myself fully, or well past fully, clothed sitting at my computer, wasting time and waiting for the cold to set in so that, like Jack in Titanic, I can simply let go and slip away into unconsciousness.

Until then, I am at a loss.