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Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

[info]fistshaker chose these things about me:

1. Comics

I unashamedly love comics. When I have the time- most of the time, since i don't sleep- I keep current with both marvel and dc's main titles, as well as many independents. I also read regularly around 5-10 webcomics, and even had my own for a time. I specialize in comic-style art and layouts and have been associated with several independent comic book projects- most of which never got past the point of concept art, but who cares? it wouldn't be a stretch to say that comics have been a pretty huge part of my life.

Which is why I'll probably knife a bitch if they talk shit about comics.

2. Cigarettes

ah, my bane and my salvation, my demon and my prop. i have this incredible love/hate relationship with cigarettes. my grandmother died of lung cancer, which was directly attributable to her smoking two packs a day. and yet i follow in her footsteps... i started smoking when i was 14, stopped when i was 15, started again when i was 18, quit breifly when i was 21, and am currently trying to quit. I mainly smoke menthols, but shift brands/styles like the wind blows. seriously though. this time i'm quitting.

3. Theater

I did theatre for a while. All tech. I don't anymore, but occasionally get the itch. For a while there, my goal was to join IATSE and do touring productions for the rest of my life... that sort of thing doesn't go away permanently. for various reasons, though, it didn't happen.

4. Sacramento

I live here. For now.

5. Black and/or Leather

I'll admit it, the overwhelming color in my wardrobe is black. I was a goth for a really long time and a theatre tech after that, so, it's always going to be a comfortable color for me. The color black speaks to me on a lot of levels, and, to be quite honest? most of the time I don't feel like putting a lot of effort into wearing an outfit that looks good. Black is no muss, no fuss. I will never be able to own a white cat, but I'm not a James Bond villain. Leather is the reason I can never be a vegan. i love leather. Leather boots, leather accesories, leather belts, leather jackets... give me a guy in a black leather motorcycle jacket and i'll have a tortured on and off relationship with him for a year and a half. No, seriously.

I'm at Liz's reading blogs and I came across this list thing. So, thanks to wikipedia and the power of boredom, i've compiled a list of Best Album For Each Year I've Been Alive. So here we go:

1985 - The Smiths - Meat Is Murder
1986- Sonic Youth - EVOL
1987- New Order - Substance
1988 - the Sugarcubes - Life's too good
1989 - NIN - pretty hate machine
1990 - depeche mode - violator
1991 - the smashing pumpkins - gish
1992 - madonna - erotica
2993 - bjork - debut
1994 - portis - dummy
1995 - the chemical brothers - exit planet dust
1996 - weezer - pinkerton
1997 - daft punk - homework
1998 - marilyn manson - mechanical animals
1999 - NIN - the fragile
2000 - NIN - things falling apart
2001 - daft punk - dscovery
2002 - interpol - turn on the bright lights
2003 - dresden dolls - dresden dolls
2004 - the divine comedy - absent friends
2005 - goldfrapp - supernature
2006 - dresden dolls - yes virginia
2007 - daft punk - alive 2007
2008 - the presets - apocalypso (so far)

you can get married now.

A paragraph from my paper

"Queer was Burrough's second novel, but it didn't surface until his fame and noteriety had exploded. Originally written shortly after the death of Burroughs' wife Joan, it wasn't published until 1985 due to its open discussion of homosexual relationships. Ironically, the book's direct dealings with homosexuality seem rather tame in the 21st century; there are no direct descriptions of any homosexual acts besides the main character, Lee, having bouts of “the adolescent lust of junk sickness” (83). What one can most take from Queer in the context of this paper is the subtext of longing permeating the entire work. Burroughs had a great talent for writing the extremes of the human condition, with a leaning towards that most familiar sensation to the addict, “want” transmuted alchemically into “need”. Addictive patterns formed the wallpaper of his life, and in Queer he went into extensive detail about the need and lust that can consume one in the throes of infatuation; “an amoeboid protoplasmic projection, straining with a blind worm hunger to enter the other's body, to breathe with his lungs, see with his eyes, learn the feel of his viscera and genitals” (36). While authors had described infatuation before, they usually kept it to either the grand overarching romantic cliché or the spurious claim that the person that was “loved” was the one they were meant to marry, procreate with, be with forever, etc. Burroughs was one of the first authors to describe it as the dirty, grimy skin-hunger that it truly is; the grasping screaming gnawing scratching obsession that is inexorably twinned with physical attraction. Bubbling just under the surface of everyone, palpably present in the rest of his canon, lust aeterna."

Arthur sent me this. Fuck drama and ennui, take three minutes out fo your day to look at an adorable kitten.

In response to Alan Shapiro's essay, Why Write:

[background: Shapiro has just been diagnosed with ADD, and the psychologist that diagnosed him with same has opined that his writing may be compensatory behavior for his condition. S. is none too pleased with this diagnosis.]

"Shapiro's reaction to the psychologist's labeling of his writing as "compensatory behavior" for his condition is similar to many people's reactions to the nihilist philosophy that life is inherently meaningless. "But there must be a reason!" they cry. "Why else are we here?".

It makes a kind of sense; the human brain is currently the fastest processor on the market- too bad it comes saddled with a ridiculously inadequate body. Why did the mind evolve to the point that it can contemplate the meaning of existence when there is no meaning?

Irony aside, the fact of the matter is that in the vast majority of cases, one's life and the actions taken in it are in fact meaningless; nobody in 5,000 years is going to care who made what wingnut in what factory before going home with with person. The concept of "compensatory behavior" is the 21st-century version of "the voice of the gods". Anything can be labeled as being caused by some neurosis or another. Eating is compensatory behavior for feeling unloved. Working out is compensatory for body dysmorphia. Fucking is compensatory for codependency. The point of this response is, everyone spends far too much time analyzing why they do things when they could be actually doing them.

Figuring out why you do things is compensatory behavior for ennui."

Also, I unlocked everything about A. that I'd written as friends-only.

My mother needs help moving things from one storage unit to her house. Any volunteers?

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Well?

MY MOTHER BOUGHT ME A PHONE WHEN SHE RENEWED HER PLAN BUT I DIDN'T GIVE HER CREDIT FOR SAME BECAUSE I AM A HORRIBLE SON. Happy now, mom?

[edit] No, she is not: IT WAS A BIRTHDAY PRESENT. will edit more as needed.

You know what would be really interesting? A plugin for your music player, or an app or script or something, that tracked your music listening habits for say, an hour or so, and then Burroughs'd up the lyrics of all the songs you listened to, creating this pastiche-poem of the media that reflected your mood after you got fired or dumped or severely injured. Most of the time it would probably be nonsensical, but every once in a while there'd be that gem, that amazing moment where everything synced up and validated that yes, this was how you felt for that moment. Kind of like life.

It's kind of depressing when you realize you can seriously identify with Bright Eyes.

So I've finally jumped on the Of Montreal bandwagon; at this point I'll be toting Animal Collective's banner before the end of spring. My music has been in this state of flux lately, which it always is around this time. Winter, by default, is chipper electropop season, so as to create a bulwark against my low-level seasonal affective disorder, but now that it's not, well, February, I don't feel the urge to grasp at every straw in the universe to prevent myself from imploding. So, I guess now was the right time for the new Portishead to leak...

Speaking of music, I was in a bar yesterday- shut up- and god, I enjoyed myself more than I have alone in a long while. I was surrounded by senior citizens and smoke, Frank Sinatra was on the jukebox and I was just really content. I went outside, looked at the sky, put on The Divine Comedy's "Snowball in Negative" and just started misting up because i was, if only for a moment, living la belle vie. I think that kind of ties together with the last sentence of my first paragraph.

I'm inbetween obligations right now. Lately it kind of seems that I'm constantly that way; I'm not saying I don't have fun with these obligations, but honestly I kind of miss the days where I would wake up at two and do whatever I wanted. Oh well, no rest for the wicked.

As re: the music, oh my god random guy next to me if I can hear that mope-rock so clearly you are seriously blowing your eardrums out. Do you want to be deaf by 24? DO YOU?!

Uh. Achem. Anyway.

Let's make a quick post before my japanese midterm- eek, by the way.

I'm finally caught up in nihongo- all it took was the threat of failing the class if I didn't get in all the work like rightnow. So, on two hours of sleep I have done everything- everything- I had missed before. And, it's all kind of perfect, except for that one section where I had to answer those random-ass questions.

I've been v. socially engaged the last couple of nights; monday I went to the depot with Taketa and learned that yes, indeed, I *am* a cheap date, now that I'm not constantly jacking myself up with nicotine. This is both good and bad, because while my tabs will be much cheaper, this also means I might get myself into some... interesting situations. I also learned that apparently I'm over T... that only took three years or so. This came up with my suggestion that if some old troll were to hit on me, I would label T as my totally-monogamous-has-adopted-a-Korean-child-with-me-capital-B-Boyfriend. That coupled with the fact that T and I could probably kick half the people in the Depot's asses (well, besides the lesbians) would dissuade any hopefully bought drinks with a side of a) rohypnol or b) innappropriate touching. But then an "I need an adult" moment DID happen, and... I couldn't do it. The idea just seemed so ludicrous, So it turned into, just, "Yeah, this is my... yeah."

Even as late as early 2007 the idea of even having T be my ersatz boyfriend would have thrilled me to no end, and I would have taken full advantage of that opportunity to act all boyfriendy in the hopes that yes, he would see that I was in fact totally awesome and yes, he would totally date me. Obviously this did not end up being the case, but it existed in the back of my mind for so long that I never thought I would really be over it. In fact, it turned into this weird, I guess, backup crush. I was into T and then I was into Derek and then that went to its sour end, and then back to T and then Logan, usw usw usw. But yeah, I guess that's over then. "Of course, we'll still be friends..."

I followed up the night of faggotry with a night of japanese homework until Susan decided that she was going to take me for late night adventures. I lured Arthur away from his evil math and off we went. We ended up wasting a lot of time in Beto's, that place on Howe(?) and ElCa that's very quickly becoming a staple of ASZ (Also Sprach Zarathustra?) hanging out, before deciding that damned the consequences we were heading to midtown. So we did, neglecting to remember/care that it was at this point 2 AM. We passed Lipstick, the climax of last week's adventures, just as all the hipsters were getting out; again, only using the main entrance. Seriously people. Three doors. Anyway. As it was now officially beer o'clock, we the Gleesome Threesome decided there was only one more place we could really have adventures. Oh that's right. 24-Hour WalMart.

Honestly, this would be a lot more entertaining as a photoblog, but A to my knowledge hasn't uploaded those candid shots of us with cat shelters on our heads and the Fish Riding Experience. Actually, I don't know if there were shots of the FRE, but my god was it surreal. I'm sure he'll phostoblog about it and I guess I'll just post a link to that.

Oh. Speaking of crosslinking between journals...

HI NEW INTERNET FRIENDS. I'M GLAD YOU DECIDED TO SEEK OUT MY OH-SO EXCITING AND ENTERTAINING LIVEJOURNAL ON THE INTERWEBS! DOES THIS MEAN THAT ALL OF A'S CRAZY NET STALKERS WILL START TO NET STALK ME TOO? JEEPERS OH GOLLY I JUST CAN'T WAIT!

Yeah, that vitriolic post about tthhee ppaarrttyy was referenced on the county-famous Diary of Antoine Roquentin and read by several internot celebrities. It even got a comment from one of them! Neat, huh? So you better enjoy my LJ while you can, because if I say the wrong thing now, it might get hackzored by a greyhat. Or, a lolcat. Either or.

Ok. Midterm time. Wish me luck!