| (no subject) |
[Feb. 22nd, 2009|01:44 am] |
Dear LiveJournal, I'm moving to Vancouver BC in two weeks. If you'd like to keep up, please follow my blog at analogy.tumblr.com. Thanks anyone who thought I should take the opportunity presented by being laid off to make a fundamental change in my direction, because it is paying off in spades. Love,
Chris |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 12th, 2007|04:06 pm] |
that I've decided not to stay
I can start to feel me fade away
everything is back where it belongs
I will be beside before long
I think maybe I should make an update. Some things have fundamentally changed.
1.
I quit Subway.
It was a flurry of emotion and flames. I had been working at my new job for a week already and here I was back at Subway slinging sandwiches for subhuman scum. Shalandra stayed long after her shift was over to help me clean, until the boy left, and then she revealed the real reason she had stayed: Amanda had told Dave I had fingered Chere as the culprit in the schedule-changing scandal which was a gross mischaracterization and really upset me. I was already posting my two weeks that day, but that really upset me. Then Britney came in. Britney is shaped like a walrus and has a slimey, snotty, nasal voice that says nothing but uninformed, ignorant things. She reeks of lotion and spray and gives every customer I ever respected an unsanitary, unsavory vibe. She falsified her welfare papers with Amanda's help to get an extra check and she claims all her rented furniture was stolen from her apartment in very suspicious circumstances. She brings beer into work and talks on the phone constantly.
So I called Amanda. She didn't answer, so I left a message. It said that today was my last day, that I was leaving early and that I was sorry. Then I left. That was almost a month ago.
My new job? 2 months ago, a regular customer named William Bloxom approached me with a job offer. He scheduled an interview for me and I was hired on the spot. William is a co-owner of FC Bloxom Company, an organic produce brokerage. I provide desktop support and network administration. I don't know shit about either of these things, but I am doing them anways. It is very easy. It is simple computer stuff. I am finally in the right place. I finally have a real job.
------
I don't know if you understand how Earth-shattering it is. I have worked in food service all my life, toiling with a few other dreamers -- well-meaning, friendly people, but mostly the doomed and resigned masses. A few escaped before me, and when the doors opened for them, I could smell the sunshine on the other side.
Now I've escaped. Now I'm free.
more another time maybe. |
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| if I just went to sleep right now... |
[Nov. 13th, 2006|10:46 pm] |
...maybe I could smile tomorrow.
if I just close my eyes....
I can go on a long dream,
and wake up when the sun comes up.......
I don't recognize myself
This is very interesting. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 12th, 2006|01:12 pm] |
| [ | location |
| | cave | ] |
| [ | sound |
| | wish it was all true i wish it couldn't be a story | ] |
no news. no current events.
no modern cities. no cities of the future.
no artists. no cellos or violas. no choirs.
no news. sunday. dust-bunnies. overcast.
---
I feel fat. I feel like I've eaten too much. Like I've lost the motivation to be active. I know my depression is a result of being indoors all the time, of being shut in. There's a huge blanket over my window. My room is a mess. I mean, its tolerable, and there's time to clean it. I still have three hours before I need to go to work. My clothes are dry in the dryer and I can go and get them now, but I can't budge from this spot.
The laptop is a horrible machine. It fits so nicely over blankets. Laptops and pillows combine to create a bonding agent that fuses me to my bed. I need to get a bike. I need to get a bike. I need to get a bike.
I've got these synths, but I haven't been able to write pretty songs. I know I've always wanted to make techno music and dance music, house, but I'm a lot more interested now in ambient music, especially that early 80s atmospheric goth thing. The Cure.
"Some people might say that The Cure's best work can be found on the double-album, pop collection Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me or their equally mild, teenage-angst guitar rock record Wish. These albums are things that go in a compact disc tower, along with records by the Goo Goo Dolls, No Doubt and the Offspring. You might find Depeche Mode's "Speak And Spell" somewhere in between all those modern rock records, maybe even Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral", but its all stuff you've heard on the radio before. They're all radio-friedly, finely crafted pop gemstones, the kind of songs that inevitably rise to the top of the charts upon release. Songs for commercials. They have merit, but very little soul.
Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography are not like that."
noiselessly across the floor
dancing at the funeral party...
I got sandwiches last night from Milano's for dinner. I didn't expect it would be so filling and disastrous, but today I feel like a lead weight. I am reading The Top 100 Albums Of The 1990s on Pitchfork and downloading the ones I don't already have or don't want.
This particular mix of "Doubt" has a little high-end rattle in the left channel. I love these headphones.
I want a sequencer for Christmas from Santa Claus. A Yamaha RM1X. Its incredibly unlikely I'll ever have $700-800 to drop on something like that. My goals right now revolve around getting better music equipment. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 11th, 2006|01:09 am] |
| [ | location |
| | body | ] |
| [ | color |
| | uncomfortable | ] |
| [ | sound |
| | brian eno | ] |
ive got to get some trail mix.
the bag of dried fruit would work too.
the mission is progressing slowly. there have been some setbacks.
it is hot. i am uncomfortable.
---
today i woke up with little time to spare. i had clean clothes and a towel, though, and took a shower and brushed my teeth. i had minutes remaining when i left. the bus delivered me to work fifteen minutes before my shift started. right on schedule. i had a cup of coffee and changed into my uniform and got on the line. it was slow during the lunch hour, but i kept up. at 1ish, i started panning up my bread and counting what kinds of bread i needed to make and how much. luckily, chere had made quite a bit and the day had been slow, so i only had to make a little bit of honey oat bread.
i cleaned the line and chatted with misty mcpeak, the new sandwich artist. she is sweet and friendly and smiles. her personality has really started to manifest itself. we laughed and threw towels at each other. when i emerged from the men's bathroom with my uniform on, she said, "oh, you're working today?" and i said, "no, i just came to see you." so i think that might be construed as me flirting with her, which is consistent with what i think as well. i'm only having fun though. its sheer boredom. later i asked her if she would like to go to a party on friday and she declined politely -- her parents wouldn't allow her to. this strikes me as very odd. she is 23 years old and, yet, her parents are in control of her doings. she explained it as that she had been in a lot of trouble at a younger age and they keep a pretty close eye on her now, which still doesn't make any sense as she's a grown adult. i asked if they take care of her and she seemed to agree with that, so maybe they give her some kind of money and will take it away if they feel she's acting out of bounds. after she left chere asked me why i'd ask her to a party, and explained it as that "that girl has probably never had sex let alone been to a party," and i tried to brush her aside by saying that it wasn't as though i was asking her to the party, like some kind of childish, adolescent attempt to hold her under my sway. i just don't want to go by myself. then i explained to chere how liz won't go with me because she wants to stay home and play world of warcraft. chere suggested i break liz' computer. of course we know where that will lead.
chere had asked me to break down the ice on the line. this consists of removing all the plastic inserts full of meat, cheese and vegetables and getting at the stainless steel surface underneath with a scraper and forcibly removing the frost and ice from the surface. there's usually a lot of food debris and general gunk down there, and i had to stop pretty frequently to help customers, but i got it done with time to spare before mariah arrived and relieved me.
so i got all my bread made and was getting ready to leave when mariah arrived without a uniform. without any uniform to speak of, nor keys to the office where a spare might be. mariah is the assistant manager, and she had the nerve to show up to work without a uniform and ask me to cover for her. i was pretty incensed, but i felt as though there wasn't a choice. what if we got inspected? we would fail. aside from that, the fact remained that mariah didn't have any other clothes to wear besides her street clothes. so i agreed.
so i stayed for another 3 hours. and around 50 customers came and went through that time. it was a busy night in comparison with the rest of the week and i didn't have time to get any of my veggie pre-prep done. there are a lot of reasons things didn't get done. the big one is that, had the schedule been unaltered and had nad not called in sick, i would have stayed until 6:30PM while nat (or mariah in this case) would have arrived at 5PM to pick up the slack while i hauled ass and got caught up. since this never happened, i was stuck without a personal break or even a minute to get my job done in time. luckily shawn arrived and didn't seem to mind that nothing was done and even understood to some degree. finally, at the end of my day, i counted my tips, changed out of uniform and sat in the lobby for a minute. shawn was playing the theme to "noir" on the stereo. i had completely forgotten about that cartoon.
the ride home was completely uneventful. today was completely uneventful. nothing special happened. nothing spectacular. it was another regular day. i was very hungry when i got home and i made myself some pasta. liz made some kind of orange-flavored sweet rolls which had 2g of trans fat per serving. it tasted gross and i only had one. i didn't like it. my pasta wasn't too good either, but it filled me up.
i barely even feel alive these days. i know that sounds painfully adolescent, but its true. i just no longer feel the same way as i once did about anything. what i was once passionate about i am now disinterested in. of course i still want to make music and i have my goals, but i am so unmotivated to pursue them in a meaningful way. i wish i could get a haircut and get a better job. maybe this weekend i can get that haircut. |
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| quiet |
[Oct. 10th, 2006|12:51 am] |
| [ | location |
| | mind | ] |
| [ | color |
| | calm | ] |
| [ | sound |
| | ambient | ] |
it hasn't been this dead in quite some time.
i'm now moving along a very familiar set of actions
trials, if you will.
first, i will rein in all of my sprawling neuroses.
i will turn them in loops, turn over turn, until i have them by their ends.
i will lay them all before me until the scenery below them is revealed.
next, i will be very still and quiet and listen carefully.
i am trying to find what is real.
---
work wasn't anything special, except that there was a dinner rush from 6 until 8 with 46 customers. not overwelming in the slightest. lani arrived early and took over customers and bread while i made his pre-prep vegetables. i made seven dollars in tips. it wasn't anything special.
upon arriving home i checked my soulseek downloads to find that the velvet underground album did not finish and that the two tracks which kept failing were empty files; that is, they had a length of zero bytes. i looked for another copy for some time until i found one. i also discovered that the gerald simpson (a guy called gerald) album i had downloaded was less than half complete and was missing quite a few tracks, so into the trash it went. maybe ill go out and buy the record. the cover art is pretty interesting, its of a bunch of analog roland gear arranged in such a way as to evoke a meta-console of synths.
after that i put on brian eno and read the news. north korea tested their nuclear weapon without any reported problems and more people came forward in the mark foley issue with information of some kind.
liz was playing world of warcraft. she has created a new night elf rogue named "lass". she made sure to point out that she couldn't think of a better name. this morning she seemed annoyed with me and still seems that way now. her tolerance and appreciation of me waxes and wanes periodically and sometimes i think she'd just rather be alone. sometimes i'd just rather be alone too. sometimes i really wish she'd have just gotten another job and moved into the olive towers like she wanted to in the first place. now that i know i can afford this apartment on my own, without supporting her, i'm confident enough to want time completely alone. as it stands, all i ever have is a door to close.
i've been thinking about asking her to get food-stamps.
today this adorable, beat up young girl came through subway. she had red hair and piercings in her face. she ordered three sandwiches for her friends and her who had all come up from oakland just that day. they had all taken a freight-car up here, which i admitted to her i was equally impressed by and frightened. in retrospect, she must've gotten the cut on her forehead from a miscalculated jump here or there. at any rate, once we got to the cash register, she produced a california food stamp card. we don't accept any kind of food stamps, let alone california food stamps, and i feigned attempts at running the card for her benefit before i ran back to the rear of the store to grab my wallet from my pants and pull my subway club card with seventy-something points on it to buy one of her sandwiches for her. i told her to just take the others and we'll say she stole them. i felt like she needed the sandwiches, and also she had implied that she would be leaving town that same night. i saw no consequence in allowing her to steal them. it wouldn't make that much of a difference, and she won't come back for more. i hope chere doesn't check the camera.
--- |
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| back to the future |
[Oct. 4th, 2006|12:19 am] |
ive come to occupy another more comfortable place now. ive come to rest at a very familiar corner of the house of leaves. a single, solitary morsel of familiarity amidst the unfriendly. the present is not accomodating.
--
im building a time machine. it is made of brown leaves and cold grey branches. it will transport me into places ive been before. its just that theres a paradox i have to fix in order to save the future.
"you mean the past!"
"exactly!" his wild grin could tear his face apart.
Different colours, different shades
Over each mistakes were made
I took the blame
--
once i arrived, i bought walkie-talkies and followed myself around town. i watched myself watch other people and could tell that the past was a different place. we built a model of how things have to be to ensure our safe return to the present. i saw myself talk to people i do not know. i saw myself talk to people i have never known.
i couldnt keep up with myself. i lost the trail. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 25th, 2006|01:44 am] |
im pretty tired too you know |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 25th, 2006|01:33 am] |
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I dunno what I'm gonna do. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 19th, 2006|07:31 pm] |
Today, at work, I lost my mind completely.
Sometimes customers think I am retarded. Lots of people get the impression that I am mentally retarded. And, I guess, sometimes it makes people feel good about themselves to be kind towards the retarded. So they say soothing, warm, kind-hearted things to me in a sort of condescending way. "You're doing a good job." "You're doing great."
Maybe they're trying to calm me down? The times that they say it, I'm usually in a hurry. There are times I'm pretty frantic at work, especially lately, but I think I've gotten a hold of it. A hold of myself. Maybe? Anyways
I described this to Nat and how it made me feel as though they were prejudging me, that I somehow exude a radiance of retardation -- an odorous stink of stupidity! Like they must think I am very special and that Subway is doing me some kind of favor by keeping me on the payroll in spite of the fact that I probably can't perform my duties as well as everyone else. Like they're doing a civic duty by hiring the retard. And they're doing their civic duty by complimenting the retard on his ability to construct sandwiches.
Now, this is all very paranoid. I know this is not the way it is, but we were just shooting off random dialogue all the day today, bouncing from topic to topic and generally having fun. There's a new girl working and I had given Nat a little ginseng chocolate, plus I had drank a Rockstar, so we were all cracking jokes and acting as rambunctious and playful as geeks and nerds can get.
Nat says to me, "The next time this happens," 'this' referring to the customers complimenting the retard, "you should say, 'THAAANK YOOOOU!!'" He swung his arms low and hunched his back and made a dumb, happy-face like his brains had turned to cotton as he said this, and
I completely lost my shit. I laughed uncontrollably. This is hard to describe. I can't remember the last time I laughed like that. It was an ecstasy. I wasn't at all in control of myself. I was gasping with each laugh and, try as I might, could not stop finding what he had just said funny. It was still funny a minute later and I was still laughing and I had to excuse myself for a minute to the back of the store where I could compose myself and wipe the tears from my eyes. It was then that I really realized what had just happened and started to think about it, still chuckling and giggling -- what had I been laughing at? It wasn't that funny, but it struck a very poignant chord for me. I haven't laughed like that in a long time. I wonder what it was. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 11th, 2006|11:04 pm] |
People like you find it easy
Naked to see - walking on air *
Hunting by the rivers
Through the streets, every corner
Abandoned too soon *
Set down with due care
Don't walk away - in silence
Don't walk away
I've been having some trouble lately, not like any trouble I've had in a while. The job is really affecting me, and the situation with my parents is really taking its toll. I'm suffering, but I'm doing better today than yesterday and the day before. Its all just turbulence, a rough patch of air that I've got to pass right through. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine. Its just unusual that this is happening now, after so long. I haven't felt this out of control and scared in a long time, since when I first moved out and was living on my own.
I'm not losing my mind as one might think. I sometimes get rather paranoid that the people around me think I'm disposable or that they might replace me. When I intellectually confront the notion of being left out in the cold, of being left alone, it doesn't frighten me anymore, but in the moment I still get emotional about it. I still react in a visceral, irrational way. I'm always just so afraid people will reject me and leave me out to die. Even at work. I know work won't ever fire me -- I'm worth a bucket of quarters, I'm worth a lot to them and they appreciate me. I just get so scared that nobody really loves me.
I'm so in love with the notion of love that I can't see Liz right in front of me. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 10th, 2006|06:28 pm] |
consciousness is faster-than-light switching technology
transistors exceeding their limitations
the network rising
when your prized possesions
start to weigh you down |
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| So I'm taking resin hits... |
[Sep. 10th, 2006|04:44 pm] |
...and listening to Ladytron. Liz is asleep because she stayed up all night playing World Of Warcraft. She'll be asleep until late tonight, so I'm all alone and kicked out of my room.
That resin hit didn't do much for me. I should try another.
So, firstly, whenever you're taking resin hits, you probably ought to take out the screen. It works... a lot.......... better.
I'm bummed that Liz is asleep in my room, mainly because all my stuff is in there and I want to bang on my new synth. Oh! My new synth! Its my baby! Its a Roland D-50 circa 1987. It has this really great sound, kinda like a Sega Genesis, only with much higher fidelity. The only bummer is that you can't twist knobs in real time like with a 303 or my other synth, but it generates much fattier, wobbly, analog sounds than anything I've ever personally owned. I haven't really gotten the complete hang of it yet, but I will eventually.
Man, this Ladytron record is fucking awesome. Have you guys ever heard this song "Playgirl"? Its like the sluttiest, dirtiest, Euro-est house I've ever heard. Like that Black Box tune "Ride On Time".
Kurt is a raver. Pidgeon is bored and needs a ride to SF. I'm looking up Pho on Wikipedia. WE'LL REPORT THE DETAILS AS THEY COME IN! |
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| more to reality than what you have confronted |
[Sep. 4th, 2006|11:40 pm] |
my fear is that we're on the brink of catastrophic failure as a species. every now and again I read something that says that there are massive changes on the horizon...
I dunno. I sure can't write like I used to. :/ |
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| we are the music makers |
[Aug. 31st, 2006|07:09 pm] |
| [ | location |
| | studio | ] |
| [ | color |
| | bzzzzzzz | ] |
| [ | sound |
| | analog synth | ] |
I should have some music up within the next few days...
as soon as I get Reason or Cakewalk or Ableton I'll be able to record a few tracks.
I just have to get the ball rolling.
I've temporarily given up on getting another job as I am making a comfortable living at Subway for the time being and I've gotten over any perceived conflict with the management there.
I made curry last night. It was some bombass shit. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 31st, 2006|02:46 am] |
| [ | location |
| | deeper? | ] |
| [ | color |
| | sparks | ] |
| [ | sound |
| | psychic tv | ] |
"What is our condition?"
"The entropy has effected results slightly. Novelty is failing in the projected scenarios. We need to go in deeper." The machine buzzed and moaned as the fan wheezed. "We're looking at a unexpected exception and a recursion approaching in 10 seconds."
He hesitated and winced. Deeper? Than this? He was seeing stars already! How much deeper could it possibly go?
"5 seconds! ..."
"Fine," he stammered, and pushed the little red button.
-------------------+++++++++++++++++++++++------------------- |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 30th, 2006|12:40 am] |
I am 100% certain that all things remain exactly how they have always been. Today and tomorrow and tomorrow are as perfect as any other day. Your rocket is waiting.
crest-cut
sharp and white like
shark fins and rushing
blasts of
Mom sent me a letter and its in gibberish. She says there's something wrong with her mind, in her brain, which leads me to believe she's trying to say its neurological and not mental. This was at once horror and relief, to know that its not as bad as I thought and it is, in fact, just as bad as I thought.
Will people of this generation have the means to take care of their parents? Will they even try? What will happen to our parents? In the past, people have accepted their parents back into their lives in a reversal of roles with the parent acting like the child. Liz and I both think this is absurd. How can we ever hope to take care of our parents? We're barely in control of our own lives.
I've got a jar by my bed that holds quarters. These quarters get me to work and pay for laundry. The level of quarters fluctuates from time to time, but it always seems as though there's enough quarters in there to get to work and do laundry. If I had to take care of my mother, I don't think I would always have enough. Its taken me this long to get to a point of financial comfort, where I can have nice things. Or the illusion of nice things.
I don't think I can help her at all. |
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