Yodo's · Stories

Oh yes, I wrote once...

My entire brain hurts.

Yes, all guys suck.
Why, though, do so few people admit that all girls do too?

My sister's (5 now, still a terror. STOP THOSE GODDAMN "AWWW"S.) first and foremost request to Santa was "a puter that you put a CD in and it plays a game." This seriously worries me.
"Why, Ben?" You ask. "What makes you worry about your sister wanting computer games? Isn't that what you wanted all through your childhood? Didn't you play computer games pretty much every day of your life since you were 6?"
It feels like that, sometimes. It really does. But when I actually think about my childhood, while there were a few hours of computer games, it was hard to get good and addicted to shareware games on a 486. While SkiFree will always be dear to my heart, I wouldn't say the addiction really began till I was close to 14.
"Is it because she's a girl? It is, isn't it? You chauvinist bastard."
Not really, no. It's more that she's 5 years old. I know from experience that while you can meet lovely people on the interwebs, sitting out of the sun's grasp and tapping away at a keyboard isn't the most social or physically engaging of activities. And at 5, she should really be partaking in the more active bits of life, not seeking the dark embrace of a room you can play the latest games in without glare.
And of course there's the guilt bit.
"What guilt bit, you self-obsessed nutbag?"
Well, I didn't really realise this until she added to the list "A radio that's an iPod like the one you have", but she's never been on a computer before. She only wants it because computers take up a large part of the lives of her father and I. Which of course leaves me feeling kind of guilty because the stupid little thing idolises me despite all efforts at dissuading her (Like, seriously. Shrieks of joy and jumpings upon whenever I enter a room even if I consistently make her cry within 10 seconds of her doing so) and I repay it by avoiding her as often as possible, mostly taking the form of fleeing to my room and playing on a computer.
In other words, I think she's after a computer because at home she's lonely.
Of course, being as sedentary as somebody who gets everywhere by walking and spends 4 hours a week learning to kill can be, always being tired and not actually able to have any sort of consequential conversation with her, I'm rarely inclined to bother to keep her entertained when she's at home. Of course, I'm usually not actively hostile like most of the rest of the house, but that's another tale, and not actually that good of an excuse.
So one of the New Years' resolutions is to find time for her. At least 10 minutes each day. And while she won't be getting a computer for Christmas, she might be getting that pony, more or less.

Personally, I feel sorry for the political satirists.

And so the festivity wears off, the parades wandered once again into the distance to wherever it is parades go. Y'know, I was in a parade once, and still can't remember where that is.
Anyway. Yes. The day was long, but wondrous, an exhaustive spectacle of mindless adoration. You heard the chants as they went by, each screaming the name of the holiday with glee.
But, as with all good things, it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. At least, that's what she tells me.

Happy Hugh Day, folkses.

I am buzzing at a very low frequency.
You know that sort of buzz you get on when you're actually motivated to bother doing something with your life, when you're ready to dispense with the procrastination for a little while and do some work? Something like that.
Only, of course, I'm not working. I'm sitting in front of a monitor, typing words of little consequence in an effort to get myself back in the swing of writing on a daily basis. Not necessarily to you, but at all.
I guess doing my taxes counts as this buzz being not-a-waste.

So today I woke up at around ten-thirty, which is far too early given that I'm currently on holiday, and decided that today was the day I was going to do some WORKS. Get the data for one of those three reports that'll be due in a month, or put out the request for data to do that poster with. Totally got my work ethic on, which as you know is amazingly rare.
Then I made the mistake of wandering around some forum or other and noticing that Bonnie had mentioned a site by the name of Goodreads, a way of leaving your spoor all over books you've read in the past or are reading now and seeing what your friends are going through.
At the time of writing, it's 4 hours later. The day has been spent almost entirely listing the stuffs I've read at some point. It's a lot of stuffs.
Damn you, Bonnie, and your awesome linkses. When I fail you'd better have some damn good books on your list for me to read while seeking employment as a gigolo.

So I was thinking about conspiracies after staying up too late looking at Youtube (The busy life of a university student in the midst of exams, eh?) and I was thinking.

The Area 51/Majestic 12/JFK/etc. etc. conspiracy is the best conspiracy-buster ever.

Seriously, look at this crackpot. Nobody could sit through everything he's saying without an enormous smirk, unless they're particularly gullible.

And therein is the key.

It's old ground, I know, but it's true. Having some nutcase spread tales about the government's underhanded operations (the ones they're doing without the knowledge of anyone who's not directly involved, president included) is the perfect smokescreen for any true devilry that goes on behind their glassy smiles and dubya Bushes. Not only does it lure conspiracy nuts off on a total wild goose chase, it makes their pursuit so laughable a concept that nobody's willing to even consider secret earth-shaking manipulations any more.

I'm not claiming to know what this hypothetical conspiracy does (although it's definitely not what William's saying there) or even if it exists, but perhaps if you really wanted to unearth something you should start at the beginning and look in the opposite direction to the road more travelled.

(Author's note: Too many lecture slides, not enough sleep and it's currently 1 AM. Don't mock me too unbearably.)

So this evening I've written a fictional account of martial arts training, Betweenways chapter 1 and a rewrite of the first fourteen chapters of Genesis (seriously). All of it was deleted, mind you, due to crapness, but I tried.

Wubs.

The long walk home again, half-glimpsed afterimages of the graphs and diagrams he'd overstudied flashing in his eyes, disturbing his vision ever so mildly as he made his way along the streets. Didn't matter. He could hear people as well as he could see them, hear the faltering in each footstep, hear the tension hidden deep within the voice. They never hid it as well as they'd thought. This isn't a familiar place, but I want to have sex with the girl next to me as soon as possible so I'll fake it. I'm scared enough of being made a fool of that I'll start something if you bump into me. And through it, himself, a child in a giant, trudging embarassedly through it, trying to organise his mind. He'd given up trying to hide the truth of himself long ago. Never managed to conceal the reality anyway, no matter what he tried. I don't want to hurt you too. Don't bother me.
Twelve weeks of study, compressed into roughly two days. Not everything, but enough. Too much brainwork, probably, all of which would be released in days. That was okay, he only needed it for a day. SPECT, BAER, other acronyms, each eliciting another barrage of symbols, pictures upon his mind. But it was in there, that was what mattered.
He wondered, sometimes, how the normal people that surrounded him handled it. By going to class, probably, something he kept intending to do until the morning of whichever lecture he'd meant to go to. Too early to bother with. Hadn't been, until he'd stayed up till 2 the past night. Must fix that in the coming semester. Just like he'd intended to fix it in every semester, before it happened. But definitely next semester.
Hungry. Normally, he'd've stopped in for a snack at the supermarket, the fast food joints, one of the cafes. There was no shortage of sugar if he could afford it. But not today, the pills had cost too much. Hello, young barrel. My, your base is smooth today. Let me scratch at it again, old friend?
He could afford to get something on the way home and starve before the Big Start, or eat when it mattered and show some self restraint.
Unusually, he showed some self restraint.
More pills in his backpack. Didn't fix anything, but they made it tolerable. Itch-B-Gone. One a day, and the rest of the redness can be hidden by long sleeves and a manic grin.
Could be anxiety, could be diabetes, could be a whole new form of virus as yet unseen by humanity. Could find out, if he could afford a dermatologist. But that wouldn't happen any time soon. Manic grin, as per, and a silent prayer for absolution from it soon. Made a hell of an icebreaker, anyway. Hi, scratch my back. It's not communicable.
Worry over the shortlings, each for their own reason. One following in his footsteps, and he knew the darkness of that path. Another skipping along the road towards either Zappa or greyness, depending on the strength of his will and the girdability of his loins. A third, closer than ever but still beyond reach, and even then he'd have to overcome two sets of sanity and a couple of years of rationalisation to fulfill his distorted desires. It could still happen, screams one tiny part of me from behind the brick wall that surrounds it.
Let go, it won't. It has to. It can't. It must. It won't, and you know it.
I do.
Guilt and shame, the perfect accompaniment to romanticism, a barbed-wire fence against which to be thrown by the thought police when taking the hounds of love for a walk. Didn't we tell you to keep them kenneled after the last incident, sir? And you seemed so acquiescent...
Damn you, Kate Bush. Although you do deserve a compliment for just knowing something good was gonna happen. Can't wait to see what.
ABR, SQUID - his favourite acronym of all - and EOG. Two days, but it would suffice.
He hoped.
After, or perhaps before, he could go and get the payslip. Money spent, but he needed the amount for more. Hippos went hungry, his mother and Osho could work through their tarot together, but he still needed to eat. For all the good it did his physique.
And, again, the grandiosity began. Defer, work, move, fly away. Except deferring meant no free money, work meant killing off everything left, moving needed thousands more than he could hold on to, and flying away needed something, anything for him to fly to.
He'd done from. It wasn't as much fun after the first decade.
And there, ooming before him, was home, and all the thoughts that lay within him subsided as he got back into character. People around now, have to seem human.
Or close.