The Future is Incredibly Now, an essay with no apparent direction, trying to hold itself together the best it can with the ideas contained within (a concept that could be compared to a country if one was so inclined to make such connections)

     Okay, while writing this I've realized that I go off topic A LOT, and end up making new points in entirely different directions than the original flow of conversation. The reason for this is usually because the topic touches on another related topic I want to discuss, but sometimes it's to justify the preceding statement. Other times it's to explain what I mean. Probably the least common but yet still allowed reason it will happen is for comedic relief. In the following, however, I'll try to keep the last one to the minimum, it's confusing enough as it is, plus my writing has a tendency to the humorous regardless.

     So, I'll be highlighting the following text so that you as the reader can follow along easier, though if you pay attention to the parentheses you'll notice they do keep the ideas intact and neatly separated. Going back to the idea you were reading before however, especially with the new information, can be tricky when there's just so much writing. So I'm going to try some highlighting techniques to help your eye absorb all the information that's here. I'm only doing this because after reading over it, I got a little lost before finding my way, and I wanted to reduce the turbulence. You'll find a key above.

     Also, there is no "tab"bing in online writing, the tab button moves your "focus" (for lack of a better word) to another thing-a-mabobby (be it a new text field, a check box, etc.) instead of adding the five spaces in front of a paragraph. I feel this is distracting-not having those spaces I mean-especially when you've got related topics that need to be separated by a paragraph for length reasons, because when you separate the blocks of text there's still no indentation to let you know you've started a new paragraph. So I'm bringing the tab back, five spaces inserted manually at a time. Anyway, here's my essay. Enjoy.

      

     One of the things that I miss about college, and honestly something I probably didn't take enough advantage of while I was there, is the opportunity to have face-to-face conversation about important topics with intelligent minds being schooled in their respective fields. Everyone's got an opinion, this much is true, but I've often stated (often to negative replies) that unless your opinion is educated, it is invalid. And ignorance isn't such an awful thing, but if you're going to believe strongly in something and have conversations regarding a topic, you ought research a bit before expecting to be able to support your side and/or change minds. Intelligent conversation can be two sided, in fact, most philosophical debates are multi-sided (have more than two sides). 

     Of course, with philosophical debate, the point of offering two equally compelling sides is to allow a student to experience both sides of an argument, keeping the mind open to either as the "correct" mode of thought. While this is great practice if you're simply going back and forth on what eventually boils down to matters of opinion about abstract concepts, when you get down to what we make laws of, the need for a clear winner as to how people should think of things becomes greater. In these cases, the best solutions are often compromises, though with as firmly divided as our country is, we may be soon learning that while compromise is a great way to build roads and bridges (literally; this is a great reason why the federal aspect of our nation's government was of great importance in specific periods of growth [The accommodation of travel across such a great span of land would've gone a lot slower if the plotting, designing, and constructing of the bridges and roads that make up our interstate system would've been left up to individual countries to decide], but with division rising in our nation it has become apparent that state issues are keeping this nation--and the world when you really get down to it--from moving forward on what I feel are the truly important issues), it doesn't seem to keep them kept up very well (this is more figurative; the point here is that our nation is nearly divided in half, and the original reason this nation was founded was religious freedom, and we split from England because of taxation without representation. Basically, the foundation of this country was built upon many noble ideas, but mainly the idea that people will pay to live in a country they believe in, as long as their ideals are represented), and it is rare that a compromise garners enough support from both sides to render itself a viable long-term solution.

     Basically, taxes are taken whether you believe in them or not; they're necessary to keep the hospitals open. However, if you don't want your local hospital to have an abortion clinic, and your feelings are in the popular majority, you have a valid claim at taxation without representation (which is discussed in our constitution, and I'll just quote here: "This fundamental law of our republic is secured by several clauses of the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 7, Paragraph 1 provides that "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." As Congress was originally designed, the Senate represented the various state legislatures, and the House of Representatives represented the people of the United States.132 Thus, this provision guarantees that it will always be the representatives of the people, rather than the representatives of state government, whose consent must precede the imposition of any federal tax." ) if you are being taxed federally for a national healthcare system that pays for your local hospital, and mandates that abortions be legal there. If it were left up to the locals, perhaps instead of abortions the community might decide to "donate" all the unwanted babies that people have a way of coming up with to science, furthering research in stem cells, birth defects, and whatever else could be learned from what is now generally blended and discarded. It's a stretch, but again, the point is that if you don't believe in abortions, you should not be federally required to pay for them. 

     This country may have been founded on the basis of "religious" freedom, but using that as an excuse these days almost seems looked down upon. So let's change the word from religious to philosophical (because in all honesty religions are generally just philosophies, or ways of life, tethered to a/multiple deity/ies) or even simpler, personal, because that conveys the gravity of the notion without offending the non-religious. I'll use my previous example, you may be an atheist, but the idea of putting fetuses to use in scientific research may sound better to you than just tossing them out. This is just a matter of common sense; regardless of whether or not you believe it's a life, you can't deny the benefits of studying a fetus over discarding it. So, hey, SURPRISE! An atheist and a Christian could actually come to a compromise on this matter. This is, in my opinion, an example of what could potentially be a perfect compromise. On the side of it's a life, you have the fetus at least being put to good use, one could even compare its life to a soldier storming the beach at Normandy: though individually the lives may have seemed to have been wasted, as a whole their sacrifice achieved a greater purpose. On the side of get rid of what we don't want, [according to the most recent statistics, twelve percent of abortions involved serious risk to the mother's health, and one, ONE, percent involved rape survivors. Which means a whopping eighty-seven percent of abortions are performed for one of the following reasons, which I'm just quoting directly from the source: "3/4 say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or other responsibilities; about 3/4 say they cannot afford a child; and 1/2 say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner (AGI)."], you have the ability to still get rid of what you don't want, but guess what? You have to carry it to term! Why? Because those are simply the consequences of unprotected sexual activity. Get a condom, get on birth control, (cause not having sex is pretty much out right? Amazingly, the only ninety-nine point nine nine nine repeating percent effective method of birth control (I don't say one hundred because, well, Mary. Jesus? It failed once.), chastity, seems to be the most ridiculous notion these days. By the way, if we were living by standards in a different time, you could've been killed for this sort of thing, or at the very least seriously publicly shamed) or be prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions for nine months as a reminder to the importance of safe sex. And be glad pregnancy is a sexually transmitted disease that ends after nine months. Herpes is for life, bro. Hell, you could even throw in a five  hundred dollar a month stipend for your first mistake, to balance out the sacrifice being made on the mother's part, and a five hundred dollar a month taxation the second time to make sure you learn your lesson the first time. Of course with no abortions, you then don't represent the side of rape victims and those the baby could kill, which I might add would have to be determined with a fair amount of gravity. Simply enough, special clauses would be added to accommodate the minority. That's how laws should work: Clear general rule for the general public, with exceptions provided as necessary. Obviously a Utopian society would be ruled without exceptions, because Utopian law would reflect Utopian society: perfection, but Utopia probably won't be subject to much rape either.

     So where does that leave us with regards to deciding what should be law in our country? Well a better question, one that has an answer in my opinion, is: is the importance of a strong federal government in our country becoming overshadowed by the importance of state-wide issues? I would say it is. As it stands, our country is ruled by a mixture of democratic and republican ideals in a (barely) compromising system of bi-partisan leadership wherein two major parties attempt to represent what they believe to be two sides of a coin, and we all pretend (well, some of us may actually have been duped into believing) that the flipping match we pretend to control (again, some people believe their vote matters on a national level; it doesn't. Vote local if you want to see change. The electoral college [the "educated minds" of our nation, if you will] elects the president, not the general population. If you don't believe me, ask Al Gore) is a suitable (and [HAHA!] accurate) way to represent over three hundred million people. Of course, when we pledge allegiance to the flag, we pledge allegiance to the REPUBLIC for which it stands. (So what's the difference between a "republic" and a "democracy"? Well, I found some definitions I couldn't reword better, so here they are: In a Democracy, the sovereignty is in the whole body of the free citizens. The sovereignty is not divided to smaller units such as individual citizens. To solve a problem, only the whole body politic is authorized to act. Also, being citizens, individuals have duties and obligations to the government. The government's only obligations to the citizens are those legislatively pre-defined for it by the whole body politic. In a Republic, the sovereignty resides in the people themselves, whether one or many. In a Republic, one may act on his own or through his representatives as he chooses to solve a problem. Further, the people have no obligation to the government; instead, the government being hired by the people, is obliged to its owner, the people. The United States is a mixture of the two systems of government [Republican under Common Law, and democratic under statutory law]. The People enjoy their "God-given" "natural" rights in the Republic, and the Citizens enjoy government granted privileges (also known as "civil rights") in the democracy.)

     But we have strayed far from a republic, though with the evolution of different "human rights" (those rights that we, as a populace, feel that every human being deserves regardless of citizenship [though often times the humans involved in our human rights movements were already citizens, they simply wanted to be treated as equals amongst their white/male/straight peers]; the ones we consider "inalienable") movements over time we have somewhat gotten back on course. And now we find ourselves as a democratic nation divided almost perfectly in half. The worst part is that this population divide was mainly caused, and is propagated to this day, by issues that should be, have been, and will be decided at the state-level (marijuana laws, "gay rights," abortion laws, gun laws, etc.) before being made into federal law. But therein lies an important question. If these issues can be solved on a state-to-state basis, why involve the federal government at all?

     Or better yet, what positive role could a federal government possibly play if when it comes time to lay down federal law it leaves half of its population unrepresented? This is how it all ties back into taxation without representation. In my opinion, we've reached a point in history where people are forward thinking enough to realize that sometimes it's in everyone's best interest if certain parties are simply separated, and allowed to exist equally, working together towards a common goal. (Granted, the US didn't have such a great time trying that concept out during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, but we have evolved significantly since then and we also would be working off the basis that we are already equals, not like the group we're trying to accommodate is in some way inferior.) After all, in 2009, Texas was ranked as the WORLD'S fourteenth largest economy, in 2012 California ranked number nine globally. If you simply let them live as they want, with no federal involvement in personal life decisions, I believe you'd find the people of each of those states would band together, and if anyone wanted to leave for religious/philosophical/personal reasons, the opportunity at an equal existence more religiously/philosophically/personally suited to you would be a short drive down the interstate.

     So why separate people into states based on matters of religious/philosophical/personal ideals? So that they can exist happily in their state, follow their own laws based off their own ideals (or at least a closer representation of their ideals based off a much smaller voting population), and leave other people in other places to live by their ideals (you know, like how the countries of our world treat each other now. But, better?). With everyone feeling represented and content with their government, quality of life would simply improve, not to mention you could be truly proud of where you lived. Also, with everyone not so concerned about what to smoke while holding hands with who after whatever medical procedure (or after shooting whatever animal is legal game in your state/ the intruder who tried to kill your family), we could focus more on what I feel are more important global issues: exploring, understanding, and evolving to the space we all have to live in (this notion varies in complexity from the simple notion of ending world hunger [yes, it's simple. We have enough farmland in the United States alone to feed the world. So the deserts of Africa aren't working out as far as keeping people healthy and fed? And we haven't brought them over here/built modern societies there because...? Oh, right. Cost. Nevermind. I forget that there are more important things in this world than the lives of others. Like dollars.], and developing self-sustaining environments on land, and advancing modern medicine; to the more complex exploration of the yet unknown depths of our oceans, and studying the characteristics of the creatures that survive there; to the even more complex and largely theoretical concepts of "outer space" travel and the possibility of true immortality [strip away the effects of gravity, add perfectly contained and conditioned environments [necessary for any extend attempt at "outer space travel"] and the potential improvements in medicine and it begins to seem less crazy of a concept]), otherwise known as building bridges and roads. (did you catch the reference there? To the importance of federal government in a country's expansion? I'm comparing the interstates to spaceships here, people. Does anyone even read this shit?)

      Alas, I fear nothing will change as it should because the change necessary is radical and would cost a few people too much money. (Also, it's not like having a bunch of different countries has really furthered our adventures in space, unless of course you count the excitement surrounding the Cold War era space race that led to the lunar landing/best hoax of all time [which even if it wasn't possible then, we've got shit on Mars so...] . Plus, with the weaponization of every new energy source we encounter, we humans are just as likely to blow ourselves up before we ever make it off this rock.) That, added to the fact that people STILL haven't figured out that we're all from the same planet, and that we should be working together to go forward, rather than against each other in order to control each other, makes for a stagnating Earth, populated by a bunch of angry little bipeds and the creatures subject to their will.  

     So while on the one hand I truly believe in smaller government for most of today's issues, I also believe that a global government must be established for the issues of the future. But that'll probably only happen when we get invaded, or whenever shit gets real again (think meteor, or ice age, or zombies?), and by that time it may be too late. Therefor, focusing on the present, we as a people need to wake up and realize the role our government plays in our lives, and start working towards a more perfect world. Utopia may currently be a distant notion, but go back two hundred years and try to explain the difference between LCD televisions and LED televisions. Yea. The future is incredibly now.

And Getting Well

Whenever I get sick, I go into burrito-coma mode. For the past few days I've been wrapped up in a blanket, sweating my expletives off, hibernating, trying to get well. It's what I do. See, the way I figure it is my body's overheating (fever) is my blood pumping through my body, supplying it with WBCs to fight infection. So, I get uncomfortably hot so my blood just pumps like crazy through me, and my body heals itself. Also, with little to no physical movement I don't burn many calories, so I don't have to eat much, and I sweat all the water I drink out, meaning I get to just lie there for days, getting up to use the bathroom maybe once or twice.

I don't know if it's a great way of going about it, but I feel better after only a couple of days so...

Oh, also, shout out to Mucinex DM. Your shit rocks.

sick

ugh... i felt my throat getting scratchier and scratchier all night. when i awoke... well, i'll spare you the details, but suffice to say i'm ill. i'll be sleeping a lot, trying to get better. i don't know how much writing i'll be doing in the meantime, check back in a week or so. hopefully i'll be better.

Gotta stop being such a puss.

Started thinking about what I would write about next and I started getting all teary-eyed. Seriously, if I'm to write an autobiography, I'll end up writing a tear-jerking bestseller that will eventually become a blockbuster, poignantly punctuated by my suicide the night of its release. Jesus. Get ahold of yourself, Joseph.

Anyway, gotta change a tire tomorrow. And work on getting some insurance. That, or start making plans to completely avoid the state of Arkansas for the rest of my life. Which seems unreasonable. I've been trying to decide which story I'll re-write first, Gamblin' Man or the Shitty Zombie Epic, but I think I've decided I'll do them both, updating them every other day or so. Taking turns. Just crankin words out. I'll get to writing the autobiography later.

This is the best part.

The encouraging 35 page-views per day or so have all been me. After turning my own page-views off, I'm down to 0 a day.

whatever. returned the games to vintage stock. it all worked out i suppose.

back to artwork

EDIT
 i'm seeing some pageviews. if you're reading this, don't stop coming, tell your friends. i know these blog parts aren't great,  but i only do these to try and write a little something about the days and how i spend them. the real gems are the stories, which i'm thinking i'll just start another blog for when i get enough of them. a comlete re-edit and re-write of everything i've got from before. maybe even a couple endings? that's an exciting idea. i'll work on that.

(Tu/Wedn)esday December 1(1/2) 2012

I was going to write something up about Vintage Stock, about how it's great that you can still buy old school games at an actual store, and at half decent prices, but I didn't. I felt bad, but after trying the second game I've bought there that hasn't worked, I don't. Hope against hope people, or don't.

Regardless, I'm focusing all my attention on this other project at the moment, so here's a peek during the delay.

Also, I'd like to re-iterate the fact that my old stuff can be found by clicking on the dates on the side. There's not much, far less than I would have hoped to have compiled by the time I was this old. It's December, and with January first around the corner, another attempt at the "I'll write all year" resolution is soon to be made. In the mean time, read over the old stuff if you'd like. After all, with December 21st, 2012, right around the corner I may not be making that resolution, right?

In the off chance that the world does end soon, I'll be writing every day before I resolve to in the new year. Maybe I'll have a better chance if I resolve to continue rather than start.

2.99

the game i've always wanted, since i played the demo on halo on my beloved "icebox," was 2.99 at vintage stock, a game store around here. talk about one man's trash, another man's treasure. also, kudos to the concept of the store. that's it. working on other stuff, so i don't feel like writing much.

To those it may concern,

The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.

i really did have a conversation the other day, where a guy asked me about my past, and when i started typing it up i got teary. fingers flying, i typed as fast as i could to get the feelings out before i forgot, and made a shit ton of errors in grammar. so after a little editing, i posted it for the masses.  of course, the masses who read my story are... well, not large i suppose. but i would like to be able to spend my time writing stories. besides, while not every detail in every story is entirely true... the cathartic release i experience while writing i feel transfers through as emotion the reader can relate with. i call it elaborated nonfiction, and if you'd like to help me continue it, visit my page, and if you could, comment on my stories. just the page visits would be awesome though, i see them every day. and though i'm writing this for myself, i believe that what i'm writing is pretty well written, would make for a good read... i don't know. if that's true, just keep coming back. call it science.

The Stranger's Story

I wrote this as a short story exercise in dialogue. And please, it's a work of fiction. I've never done drugs. Anyway, a little backstory, /b/ is an imageboard (and for those of you visiting from it, please, don't hate, i'm not saying where) on a website (very specifically) that has been notorious for harboring the underbelly of society and allowing them to exist as an anonymous community, Omegle is a chat website used to find random strangers to discuss anything and everything. our story follows the conversation between "You", the user sitting at this end of the conversation, and "Stranger", the user sitting on the other end of the conversation. I didn't do this for class, so i can't say i got an A on it, but I would like to point out that creating distinctively different typing styles was challenging when i actually tried to do so. I hope you enjoy it, it... was difficult to write, but I honestly feel it's one of my best works

The Stranger's Story

-->

Okay, /b/, I was on Omegle today, had this conversation with a stranger. It started randomly, progressed randomly, and then... arrived here. which... well, read it.

And don't worry, /b/ros, it's typed up first, so it'll be coming quickly. I just copy/pasted it and added this bit to a doc. I'll bump with wallpapers? or YLYL that has made me laugh. Your choice. Vote on it, I'm starting with wallpapers.

>…...........................................................

>...After some time in the conversation....

>…...........................................................

You: I don't really see a point to life without kids.
Stranger: well, i don't really see a point to life, so... haha, i guess i just try to have as much fun as possible, within reason of course.
Stranger: i'm not one to... indulge in severe excess.
Stranger: at least, not publicly.
You: Good for you.
Stranger: i have been known to binge on oxycontin in private though, i had a pretty severe addiction for almost a year. i mean... before then too kinda. and... kinda after then still a little bit... but more under control?
You: Sad.
Stranger: but i dunno, it wasn't the party scene, i'm a recluse. it was the trap house scene. you know, depressing people doing depressing things because we're all depressed?
You: Why do you think that is?
Stranger: well, haha, because... we were all depressed? hah i dunno how to explain it really...
Stranger: everyone's got a story, ya know? and that part was... well i don't think about it too often.
You: brb
Stranger: life has a way of kickin us all in the nuts with different pairs of shoes.
You: back.
You: How so?
You: And while we're on the topic:
You: I feel more and more people are depressed nowadays...
You: Maybe I'm just old and think my time was better.
You: But I don't know.
You: Don't think I'm that old.
Stranger: nah, it's not that you're that old.
Stranger: it's the times man.
Stranger: you're not that old, times are changing at... an alarmingly accelerating rate.
Stranger: and, i dunno, we were all depressed for... well, whatever reason? some of us in the house had dead friends, or no parents. some parents actually lived there. but... i don't know, i saw depressed people, everywhere. in and out all the time, and some of them had become bitter, and angry. but i saw content people too. thinking back really, there were the...“white sheep”? those, well.. you know, living in ignorant bliss of the state of the world, oblivious, floating high above any possible problems. sometimes it felt like nothing could touch us out there. our lives were about getting pills, getting high, and sitting around, waiting for the next time we would get high.
You: yeah....
You: weird...
Stranger: yea...
Stranger: i mean...
Stranger: i dunno man, when you hate yourself
Stranger: and you hate everyone else
Stranger: and you can't put your finger on why
Stranger: and you also can't help but feel like everyone hates you, after all you, you hate everyone, and you hate yourself, so why wouldn't everyone else hate you too?
Stranger: and all the voices in every movie, every video game, every conversation happening at every table, in every restaurant, every hallway, every street corner, the voices become those people you remember from that place that doesn't exist, and they're still... laughing.. and... why...
Stranger: you don't even know what they're saying most of the time, and they're so mean to everyone. you know they can hear you too, everyone can, and you can hear everyone, everywhere, sometimes you just sit and scream in your head as loud as you can, at least then it's just one noise... just, just one noise... for a little while.
Stranger: but then you find a little pill that, when you snort it, gives you an hour or two of silence, and for the first time in years, there's just the one voice, that... it's your own. you recognize your own voice for the first time in years and...
Stranger: and, and, it's just you! and you had your rituals about it. when life got too much, you'd put the evpatoria report's golevka album on, and you would put your headphones on, and the silence would begin to fill up as you sat on the couch. music filled it slowly at first, chimes and tubular bells. then a launch cycle countdown began, as if perfectly timed, when you swing your feet around and up onto the couch, laying down as your eyelids flutter shut. as the timer counts down, you now know not to expect the beat, it doesn't come. instead, the synthesizers begin.
Stranger: it would start mellow, and you could see orange clouds behind your eyelids, and you could feel them rolling in as if from over a cold morning hill, dense and low hanging. ambient yellow music danced calmly through the orange clouds at first, high pitched and sharp, until the drum roll thunder split the scene, striking the rhythm of blue rain patterns out of the orange clouds. the yellow lightning lashed the orange clouds to a fiery red ash, and as the song would crescendo, the red ash and blue rain would mold to form a violet-blue flower of comfort and tranquility, which would grow roots behind your eyeballs, wrapping your brain in a floaty and foamy, all violet-blue, and calm, quiet... you could almost feel your soul getting lighter.
Stranger: and for those two hours, you felt... it was the softest warmest blanket, on the darkest coldest night, big enough to hide under and keep the monsters away. it was prayer time before being tucked into bed by your mom and dad, sneaking a book you know they saw you sneak, and exploring new worlds til you passed out with the book still open on the floor, your hand still holding your page. and it was quiet.
Stranger: and you smoke more cigarettes than you can really afford to in those two hours, because those two hours are everything you've been waiting for, exactly what you ordered, and the smoke slithering through your sinus tunnels is... just worth more now. value, ever elusive, reveals itself in such a personal way.
You: damn you really break that down
Stranger: and when you come down, you watch the feeling leave with a look on your face that's best been described as lost, cold, and despondent. feeling the comfort slither off your shoulders, the itching starts, and you spend the rest of the day trying not to scratch the scabs as they heal. just thinking about it....
Stranger: how it was so quiet, how the voices just... went away. where did they go? and... god... god, why did they have to always come back? you knew they came back, but you sent them away anyway. every day, more and more... do you remember those hours?
Stranger: how no one could hear you, how you couldn't hear anyone but you? the hours, the days, the weeks.
Stranger: you want to know what it's like? it's like paying outrageous prices for a product—unchecked taxation running rampant, risking life in prison; living amongst people you once wouldn't have given money to outside a gas station, just to get a couple hours a day of peace and quiet.
Stranger: and at first nobody there knows your name, and they don't care
Stranger: because they're in their own hell, and you're just another part of it; like you're in yours, and they are to you.
Stranger: and you don't know anyone's name, and you don't care.
Stranger: and you sleep with any broken dreamer who bats her eyelashes at you, because you're both here, and you're both alive, and it's quiet. there's... so much silence to fill...
Stranger: and when you look over, and you see their fragile limbs trembling and twitching as they soar in their dreams, far above the stained sheets they sleep in, and you see their noses red, their hands marked, and their skin aging; you can just tell that they were beautiful at one point. beautiful creatures, abandoned by the world, forgotten by god, who had turned, as you had, to the only solace they had found in this world, a little blue pill.
Stranger: but you generally try to keep your distance from everyone anyway, after all, you don't belong there right? these aren't “your people”... but soon... the house becomes family. and ray, big goofy ray, tricks you into taking too many muscle relaxers, “switched days on ya,” he called it laughingly. you slept for a full 25 hours on the couch in the same position, and woke up a day later. you all laughed a lot, and you learned a great way to sleep a couple of days away.
Stranger: then, one night, out of nowhere, she asks you to sleep with her. it's so simple, you were just sitting on the couch getting ready to fall asleep when she asked it. “you wanna share the bed? the couch is pretty full, can't lie down. come on, you're sleepin' with me.”
Stranger: and with that, it started. you slept in that room for a month, and when the family moved trailers you slept in a new room for a month, and so on, sleeping almost a half a year with her, often after she had just had sex with someone else. because you never had sex with her anyway, remember?
Stranger: you just held her. from that first night, you never made any moves on her. she slept with her back towards you, “i like to cuddle” she had warned you that night. “but don't worry, i don't bite.” then she got herself comfortable. you wouldn't even hold her until she told you it was okay, poking fun at your shyness. You were always so careful not to move her arms, she had those wrapped around her five and six year old sons in front of her, and even though they slept like rocks, you were always just so careful.
Stranger: and the opiates had only been attacking your body for a couple of months, so your face hadn't started to sink, a little youthful skin still clung to your tired bones, but you were getting there. give it time.
Stranger: your eyes still had a little life, though the world had taken its toll, and when she looked at you, you could almost see life returning to her eyes. but they were long glazed with a glass mask so perfectly fused that it seemed only you could see through the fog. she called you her little brother often, you woke up every morning you stayed, which was every night you weren't out somewhere else, to drive her kids down the country road to the bus stop. and those kids would go crazy when you would get back from a long run, play a little guitar for them, and give them candy from the gas stations you'd stopped at along the way. life was simple; life was dirty; life was exciting. but most of all, life was quiet when you told it to be.
Stranger: but then you get a call one night, a thursday actually. you were out drinking on the pier. you always went thursday, when the place was quiet and you could sit around and stare over the water into the clouds and the moon... but you get a call, and it's her. when you answer, she's crying, and crying; there's just a lot of crying, and then she says his name, before bursting into more sobs.
Stranger: turned out ray died. after calming her down i finally got the story out of her, she had found him laying in bed with the needle still stuck in the vein in his hand. she said he had been acting weird so she went to check on him, and he wasn't breathing.
Stranger: but ray knew his limits. and we all knew he'd been torn up for over twenty years. what with the combination of his son dying from an accidental overdose, then his wife dying of a suicide, both of the same medicine, it was no surprise when we saw what he used to take his own life.
Stranger: we all knew he did it on purpose, and i mean, i don't think lowly of him for it. he decided he was done, i admire his courage if anything. he owed me... thousands of dollars worth of pills, but hey, i'd dump them in the toilet if it brought him back.
Stranger: i didn't go back to that house though. i don't know what happened after that over there. i threw my burner away and went back into the csu, got out in a week and a half, and quit doing pills as much. i still saw her every now and again, after ray died, but she became distant, only calling to borrow money to get scripts, and never returning it. i don't even mind. i wish there was more i could have done.
Stranger: change is a sudden and radical thing in my life, and so i had to just, move on. the future is now.
Stranger: but i mean, you asked... “what it's like?” so... to sum it up... i guess it's not really just a bunch of depressed people, doing depressing things... because we're all depressed to some extent, right? so we must have the opposite yet equal potential within us to be just as happy, right? and the times i've had, the people i've met, the path i've walked, who i am; has led me to where i am, and i'm pretty okay with who i am. truth be told, the world just keeps spinning man, and really fast. we're all just trying our hardest to hang on, and maybe learn a thing or two before we have to let go for good.
You: I don't even know your name.
Stranger: david. david d. davidson. i'm just your average guy trying to get by. i've always wanted to, i don't know. change minds i guess? but i don't know how i possibly could. regardless, i'm going for cigarettes. glad we got to exist together for a while, david. i've gotta be honest, relishing in the past... ah. anyway, cigarettes. gotta go. peace, love, and chicken grease, cancer calls.
You: My name's not David.
Your conversational partner has disconnected.



He disconnected before I realized what he meant, but the things the stranger and I talked about before then, his life... Well, I enjoyed the got some feels from his story, and I thought I'd share his experience with you, his /b/rothers, so you could get to know one of your own, david d. davidson, and remember that we're all just trying to hang on, and maybe learn a thing or two before we have to let go for good.


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david d. davidson is a popular meme on /b/where a thread will consist of everyone posting that their name is david davidson, or some variation thereof, when the Stranger called himself david d. davidson, he clued in to the fact that he frequents this board, and i'm actually about to post this to /b/ to see what happens. i'll probably get at least a couple people angry for mentioning their secret base, but whatevs. also, today marks the day that my blog goes public. don't you jerks make fun of the fact that i never update shit. get off my case dammit.

"Nothing Ever Works Out the Way You Think It Will," and other such depressing titles.

It's true.

I didn't finish the stories.
Surprise surprise.

Not really, we all saw it coming.


fyj=xj,jchkck.

This is silly. Really. Silly.

Sweet merciful Neptune. I never update this damn thing. This is incredible, it's been over a year. I was going to say less than a year, but I just realized, no, it's actually over a year now. I've gotta get back to writing. This is ridiculous. I have some stuff I've been working on, I'm going to try to get some of those things finished up. Because I'm working on a bunch of projects, and these are a couple that would really feel good to finish up on.

So yea, this is part of the blog part. Story part to follow soon. Hopefully. It's not done yet, but I want to say by the end of this week there better be a damn good story posted or I'm going to be upset with myself.