(I first saw Maria again when she was alone at a McDonalds for a dinner of fries one night.

I bought myself an ice cream and I walked up to her, she sitting framed by the night window, and I asked her if she still wanted to go on the road trip we talked about. She turned and got real surprised, and laughed and punched air as she said my name. She was real glad to see me at a time like that, she said in short bursts, and she asked me what it was all like where I went to high school and college, and I told her I had really been fighting in Vietnam. She looked sort of upset that I didn’t tell her that.

We talked for an hour more. She told me all about how she had just recently joined this band after all this time, and about her starting high school, and about getting a part-time job at a bookstore, and I told her felt real happy for her.

I tried asking her about the road trip again.
Of course she still wanted to go, she said, but she wasn’t so sure if she could pull it off. And I told her it would be nice if it could all just work out like that, and then maybe we could go off after the trip and get married somewhere and we could live in an apartment in the middle of that city with all the cars and people rushing by every day, and we could get her beloved Mr. Dewinter then.
She just laughed, said maybe.

So I asked her if she still liked me.
She paused for a great deal, and she asked me if I’d be fine if she didn’t.
And I said yeah, I think so.
I said I wasn’t sure if I liked her a great deal anymore, anyway, but I was just curious.
And she said because it was just chemicals in your brain, right? And they all change. And I shrug, said yeah. And now she avoids my eyes. I asked her if she liked me after all this time, and she shook her head not really.
I wasn’t even sad then, but this odd feeling sort of like frustrated-from-skipping-breakfast hunger came over me, and I felt like screaming, bawling, honest to God.

So I tried to bring up another topic, and I told her the world outside looked pretty killer, but she shook her head stop it, was staring deep into the linoleum expanse with these watery eyes.

So then I told her she was still a pretty amazing person even now.

She looked pained for a moment.
And I asked her what time she had to be home. She glanced at the clock by the door, and rubbed her eyes, and told me eleven real quietly,
and she picked up her fries and got up, because it was already half past 10.
And when we both got to the door, I asked her if I could walk her home, and she nods.

Well, on the way home, we saw a sort of fat cat, and she wanted to give it some fries, but when she got real close, it ran down the street.
So we chased it all over before we lost it, and then we spent a bit trying to find it, until it was all past eleven.
And right then, we figured we’d better get home pretty fast.

And she turned to me right then, and she told me to not be sad, okay?
I told her I wasn’t sad, it was just I felt this feeling that was a lot like what you feel when you’ve skipped breakfast and you’re real angry at your hunger, you know? She said well that’s good, then—she was feeling a bit of that real strong back at McDonalds.

And then looking real frustrated, she said she wished she wanted to do something great with me real bad, she wasn’t sure what, paused.
I nodded real mock-sincerely, pretended I understood exactly what she was saying, and she laughed.
I told her I suppose I should leave you here now. She nodded.
So I started turning back for my own house.

When I got back, I really didn’t care much about the road trip anymore, or Mr. Dewinter, was all, though my stomach was telling me otherwise.)

"Hi, God. I'm sorry if I'm being a bit disrespectful--do you mind? Can I just say a few things? I just feel like talking right now, but at 1 in the morning, everyone's gone to sleep. On the Road is a marvelous book, God, and how I wish I had a motorcycle--I'd like to travel around the country on a motorcycle, "Si! Manana!", and are they allowed on highways?, and God, right now I wish you really were Pooh Bear, and the world was a softer shade of gray, where I could go on ghost tours and visit the Extraterrestrial Highway without having to worry about demons and angels and cosmic battles with heavy implications, where I could jack off to whatever sorts of girls of whatever ages and maybe someday have sex with whoever wherever without being so wracked with pangs of you-sent guilt, where there won't ever be such a thing as awkwardness, or such a thing as fear--But God, I'm sort of frightened; are there demons, God?, and is there a you?--God, I see cold; I dream of a you not so cold and a bit more cuddly Pooh; God, are you?: Only chuckling at my self-conscious melodrama and all my odd quirks? Thinking it silly that I should be so worried silly about offending you? Are you ever longing to give your kid a bit of On the Road warmth from this broken-cracked-polystyrene reality, but can't you reach?--Are you as close as Michelangelo thought?"

The aniblogosphere and TypoC

Well.

The Aniblog Tourney is ending this week (vote here, fellow readers), and I'm fairly confident Star Crossed will win. I'm quite glad for him. On flip side, I was very surprised (and rather disappointed) that Memories went out so early into the tournament.

What really strikes me now is how internet can bring like-minded people together and help so many of them find niches where they can make a name for themselves. The aniblogosphere has made underground celebrities of normal otaku. A few of the ENFPs and a certain ESTP over at Typology Central and few more INTPs over at INTP Central are all well-established figures among the internet's MBTI-geek community.

I haven't found anything of the sort yet. I doubt anyone except (maybe) my two subscribers read my blog. Of course, I've stated that readership wasn't a goal I was aiming for, but isn't it nice to think there are people interested in every mundane detail about your life?

I'm sure I will find one of some sort if I stay here in cyberspace for a few more years, though.

Just kidding.

I
am a
future
crash-helmeted ghost
looking down
on a now crash scene--
battered body and sirens scream and shining lights in the infinitynight
(all in technicolor)--
I
Easter Island stonefaced
grinning ghost
laugh-thinking:
"Is that me, maybe?"
It doesn't feel like me.

My Id's taste in music.

Hey, kids!--it's Sigmund Freud Week here at Psychic Spy Satellites: an entire week of blog posts examining the Id, Ego, and Superego behind all the little things I love about life.
First up under the operating table: my taste in music, or rather: my Id's taste in music--something of a complement to whatever somethingorothers I wrote just a few weeks back.



So here's the question: what sort of music do I really enjoy listening to--by which I mean the sort of stuff I'll love regardless of my ENTP friend's opinions, the stuff I might even heap one hot coal on myself over for every goosebump I get.

Here's the lineup (and I might regret posting this):

-Numb, by Linkin Park
-Love Lockdown, by Kanye West
-It's My Life, by Bon Jovi
-Drowning, by the Backstreet Boys
-It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish, by My Chemical Romance
(or that song which has retained its status as my favorite song for well over a year now)
-Invincible, by Muse
-Kiss the Rain, by Yiruma

I have more, but I feel I'm on the brink of losing my indie-music-snob-dom...

So what sort of music do I really enjoy listening to? And what is it I love in those songs?

1. Emotionality (or the reason I believe I'll never come to appreciate IDM):
I want to know about the musician.
I want feel whatever it was the musician was feeling when he or she wrote the song.
I care about the vocals and the words because I feel as if they have an ability to move listeners like no other part of the music. I'm not certain, but I think much of the feelings brought about by other instruments are heavily tied to the listener's culture and whatever associations it has made for the listener.
I've written a whole post about this a while back, and I'm not feeling a need to elaborate.

2. Melodiousness (Kill me, ENTP friend!):
Much to my own chagrin, I can only get into a song if it's harmonious enough.
As much as I'd love to love Joy Division, something about the melody in "Love Will Tear Us Apart" seems off. As much as I love Radiohead, I can't stand "Faust Arp" for the same reason. And the discordant music I pride myself on loving--Crystal Castles, Nine Inch Nails--is actually quite conventional (and sometimes surprisingly cheesy--"Untrust Us" and the entirety of Pretty Hate Machine) melodically.

3. Catchiness (or why "Grounds for Divorce" by Elbow makes me happier after a listen than anything by Jeff Mangum):
I have a short attention span. I like songs that propel themselves forward for me with simple beats--I like electronic body music and KMFDM dancefloor hits. I like Britney Spears' "Circus." I like "Let It Rock." I like the Backstreet Boys.
(Side note: I found myself distancing myself from the Pink Floyd and Dream Theatre crowd as soon as my ENTP friend called them "cheesy." Sadly, progressive anything, in my own observation, is usually antithetical to catchy. )



And there we have it: emotionality, melodiousness, catchiness--the very antithesis of the aristocratic "art" music I try to listen to these days, and also (sadly) the reason I enjoy music much less than I did before.

Wow, I'm glad I got all that out. Now let's talk about our weighty, intellectual topics and their implications again, while listening to "Oh, Comely."

But, Jesus Christ, what's this I'm feeling right now?



Fraudulence?




Alienation?

Three cheers for science. Or should we be scared?

The thing everyone's secretly wondering:

IS The Aeroplane Over the Sea about Jeff Mangum's sexual fantasies concerning Anne Frank?

(And then the other:

Does Jeff really love Jesus?)