August 1998 thoughts

8/31 - You don't have to shower someone with praise to get on their good side. Just notice and comment on that one little thing about them that everyone else seems to miss.

8/30 - Look around. Your family, friends, coworkers, strangers on the street, are the same basic people, the same human material, that existed a hundred and a thousand years ago. They have the same traits that would have led one to be a slaveholder, another to be a slaughterer in the inquisition, and another to lose their head to the guillotine.

8/29 - sometimes right when I'm waking up in the morning the stuff I have to do that day seems unbelievably bizarre. I remember in High School waking up once and having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept that I had a Latin test that morning. To make up a language called Latin was bad enough, but to actually, after teaching people the language, put pieces of paper in front of them and have them make marks on the papers indicating what they'd learned...was just too much.

8/28 - I got a lot of work done today. I feel so proud of myself when I get a lot done, even if I know that most of it was trivial or even pointless.

8/27 - I think it's so funny when guys will act all nonchalant as women are going by, and then turn around after they've passed and intensely check them out.*

8/26 - The days are getting noticeably shorter, but I don't find that a bad thing. It's like the lights going down at the beginning of a theatre performance. I am a creature of the night and fall is my favorite season.

8/25 - more on lawns: it just seems silly to spend all that time and equipment and energy endlessly cutting back the grass. What a waste of a Saturday morning to spend it maintaining your lawn. Why don't people either let nature take its course or plant something that's engineered to stop at a certain height?

8/24 - My dad told me about a dream he had last night where he was standing in a Chinese garden, talking with the proprietor of the garden, who was growing all the ingredients for a perfect sweet and sour sauce. My dad told the guy that he refused to purchase any sweet and sour sauce unless he were first given a free sample. He also demanded that Bill Clinton receive a sample free. He had Robert Redford go to the president and assure him that he would receive his free sweet and sour sauce sample.

8/23 - I don't really understand the point of lawns.

8/22 - "The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating." Pearl Buck

8/21 - People love it if you get them a smaller-than-thimblesized mug with their name on it.

8/20 - The world would be a better place if it contained fewer animated kitten gifs

8/19 - Dare to be Boring.

8/18 - If you can afford to go to a restaurant, you can afford to tip!

8/17 - Question everything.

8/16 - "I guess I just have to stop smelling them collectively" - something I actually said today which was serious and meaningful in context.

8/15 - I find it convenient to write notes to myself on my hand. It is amazing how many people are bothered by this.

8/14 - I have the house to myself for 4 or 5 days. I forgot how much I love living alone. You can make as much noise as you want in the middle of the night, leave a mess in the kitchen, and walk around naked after your shower. :)

8/13 - [original comment deleted] A job is a wonderful thing to have.

8/12 - "When I am happy, I am a Zen Buddhist; when I am depressed, I am an existentialist" - a guy named Dave. Eloquent summing up of my philosophy/belief system/spiritual leanings; wish I'd thought of it first.

8/11 - I've had so many crushes on guys that I'm sure they never knew about. It makes me wonder who has had a crush on me that I never knew about.

8/10 - One of these days someone at work will try to engage me in inane small talk about the weather or kitchen appliances once too often, and I will be forced to tell them in great detail about my love life, my most intimate medical history, and all my family's hidden dysfunctions.

8/9 - I used to love amusement parks. I used to love to swim. I used to love the ocean. I know I am grown-up now because I haven't done many of the things I truly love in years.

8/8 - Strange that some people are more embarassed by a small personal compliment than by the harshest criticism.

8/7 - I actually thought I was sufficiently jaded and untrusting never to be disappointed in or betrayed by anyone ever again. I was wrong.

8/6 - There are some people (and even one animal) who have been dead for years who still seem more real to me than living people I see on a daily basis.

8/5 - I find it so sad when I see little old anciently elderly women wearing tons of makeup and jewelry and high heels and stuff.

8/4 - Most people are so predictable in their behaviour that if they died, a simple computer program could run their lifeless body through its routine motions and no one would ever know the difference.

8/3 - Sometimes the only reason you have to stay alive is to see what will happen.

8/2 - I can't hear the word "antelope" without thinking of a cantaloupe, and vice versa.

8/1 - I have some really cool enemies.

* - note: maybe women do this, and/or guys do this with guys. I don't know, I've never really noticed that. (But then, that's not really what I'm oriented towards noticing anyway).

July 1998 thoughts

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