I've brewed a big pot of coffee in hopes of breaking myself out of the greatly debilitating mental funk that has rendered me all but totally incapable of being the brilliant boy genius my SAT scores always said I could be. But then it's a bit late for that at this point anyway with the apparent inevitability of my sad college career ending ever so abruptly with the conclusion of this bastard of the year, sans diploma. I'm sure the grief and depression I'm feeling is simply for show, though. I mean if I really cared, I probably wouldn't have let this happen in the first place.

At the very least five or so cups of caffeine may help me crank out a couple of the newswire articles, a welcome development after being so lax over the past month or two months or however long it was. Maybe then I'll be able to stop worrying that the extended absence is being interpreted as a lack of interest when it has really been, I assure you, due solely to a most distressing lack of capability on my own part.

At least it's Christmas, the magical time of year when a wish can come true, provided you've been a good enough boy or girl. If this fourth cup doesn't save me, maybe Santa will. To me, my secular savior!

I read Maus for the first time this weekend. When I first heard about the book several years ago, I imagined that the writer and artist's decision to portray the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats would result in a depiction of the Jewish men and women as diminutive victims kept under the paws of gigantic oppressors. In that sense, it would be no different from every other World War II story I had ever read that displayed a wholly subjugated and dispirited Jewish people terrorized by evil Germans for the duration of two hours or three hundred pages until the thrilling "Yay America!" conclusion. Only it would have kind of a Homeward Bound feel.

Instead, the book divides its time equally between one man's experiences during the Holocaust and his son's experiences as he creates a work based on his father's stories and in spite of their troubled relationship. This story, in its decision to focus on accurately replicating the feeling of listening to a cranky, faded, and flawed man's story in lieu of pursuing mere historical accuracy, achieved what nothing else I have read on the subject had. It made me see a Holocaust survivor as more than a simple victim, or Exhibit A in the trial of mankind.



I also determined that I need to abandon Pennsylvania and Illinois as soon as possible. Neither state is a home and neither state has anything to offer me, and the longer I stay attached to the two the worse off I am.

I don't have anywhere to go or that much money (maybe a thousand if I sell my stuff), I can at least get a free airline ticket from my parents and move with the knowledge that there isn't much a new location can do to make me feel worse than I do now. I guess I just need to find a place that'll give me a chance, or at least not eat me alive.

I remember being slightly bothered by The Land Before Time as a very young child. For the most part, I'd watched movies and read stories with the expectation that the male lead and the spunky female friend would inevitably get together at the end because, as far as my young mind knew, that was how things worked. With The Land Before Time, however, despite the presence of a male lead and a wise-ass female friend there was no romantic conclusion. The male was a brontosaurus and the female was a triceratops, you see, and such a union would have been an abomination in the eyes of God on par with whatever lewd display gives rise to ligers and wholphins.

I guess the lesson I should have learned is that no every incredible male/female friendship needs evolve into a romance in the end, least of all when one of you is a fucking triceratops. Friendship is a nice enough thing in itself and, rather than being something you settle for, it should be embraced because those who do not have friends are bound to be eaten like all the socially maladjusted animals who weren't cute enough to merit their own video series.

Incidentally, I've lost my own best friend after an extended battle with the cancerous resentment and indifference that had come to mar what was once a pretty snappy relationship. Frankly, I don't see why either of us had to make it official by acknowledging how poor things had gotten between us. I suppose it was just that we hadn't talked in so long and therefore couldn't be sure the other felt the same way. Granted there was some kind of vague promise that we'd keep in touch, but if you need to conjure an informal agreement to do something that should come naturally then it's clear that any further correspondence would be largely forced and unpleasurable.

I suppose I was kind of a bastard in the end. Sensing the conclusion, I think I rattled off a grocer's list of everything I've ever been afraid to say to anyone before just to take advantage of the twilight of a close relationship. To some extent it could be seen as an attempt to rekindle intimacy and trust through the practice of secret sharing, but I'm really more inclined to believe that it was a silly game on my part wherein I'd say anything just to see what her reaction would be. And who cared if she thought less of me when we wouldn't be talking in a few months anyway?

Another significant friendship ended before my eyes last week as well, though there's much less to be said about that one.



That one matter had been plaguing me for quite a while. Maybe with it resolved I'll be able to turn my mind elsewhere and, perhaps, find myself able to concentrate once again.



Somehow I've watched Love, Actually three times in the past week thanks to the practice of keeping a television on in the background.

I indulged in a week long depression, and I suppose a week is long enough. Even if allowing one feeling to persist for so long were not a bore for myself, it is certainly a bore for anyone who has to hear about it. So, for the sake of my world, I'll try to imagine panda bears hugging each others and little ducks quacking an adorable tune.

And the sky smiles at me with an upside down rainbow mouth and bright, cloudy eyes.

What do you expect from your friendships?

Ever get the feeling that you've spent your entire life patronizing people?

I'm sure it's not true, though.

I'm still finding my footing with this whole newswire thing. Bear with me.

Can you see the fear in its eyes?

Or do pigeons always have that look?

Sympathy is self-pity.

It is my belief that you cannot understand a feeling without experiencing it for yourself. If that is the case, then the ability to understand the feelings of others is strictly defined by what we have felt throughout our own lives.

I can only understand your grief if I have felt grief myself. Furthermore, if I have only felt a little grief, then I could never hope to understand a far more extreme form of grief.

Two people can never have the same feelings, though. We're all too different.

So, if you sympathize with a person because they are clearly sad, you are not sympathizing with their sadness. You are sympathizing with your own definition of sadness, your unique understanding of how it feels to be sad. You are sympathizing with the strong memory of a sadness you once experienced. You're sympathizing with yourself.



Maybe all the emotional states I recognize in other people, be they zeal, mania, lethargy, elation, or excetera, are all qualities I've seen in myself. How would I recognize and comprehend them, after all, if I did not know them personally?

And we're always in some kind of emotional state, aren't we? And isn't the way we act and communicate with others determined largely by emotional states?

So maybe we aren't just sympathizing with ourselves. Maybe we're laughing with ourselves, hating ourselves, loving ourselves, and just plain talking to ourselves. Maybe, no matter how populated your world may be, you're still your only companion.

I'm a little worried I have brain cancer because of how difficult it has been for me to concentrate lately. I suppose that's kind of silly.