08/02/2003 - 11:12 p.m. | you're all fucking useless

Day went more or less as I said, except with less construction paper animals and more "Dark Angel" (I lazy). Mom and I went to Ottawa, bought jeans, and pillow supplies, which we may start on tomorrow if I can stop being so damn lethargic. I had a peanut butter something or other on the way home. Strange strange strange. Played "Castle of the Winds" for a while because I could think of nothing better, and then TV until it was time for us to leave for dinner.

Met our friend Tina in big old Naplate, Illinois. Woo woo. Had a screwdriver and some pretty damn mediocre chicken fettucini (sic?) Alfredo was flour-y and the chicken was gristle-y. Stop making up words. Man, there is some big ass loud insect in here I need to go fuck up. Back shortly.

Then my parents and Tina and I stopped in some bar. There was this old guy there they had for, uh, entertainment, I guess. He more or less had a Casio keyboard on which he would have songs ("My Heart Will Go On") play themselves while he did karaoke... except he always sang like 3 times slower than the song was originally intended. It was one of the more depressing things I've ever heard (and I spend eight hours alone with my thoughts every day at factory), so I got out of there to get some Tropical Sno. Apparently "Cherry Blaster" was voted best flavor (Told you! I knew it would be cherry! I just didn't think they would go so far as to pick cherry and black cherry together), I figured I had to try it. I was really disappointed. Anyway, I drove around eating the shitty thing and listening to Rod Stewart's "Infatuation" on the radio, and I thought about how I'm almost always alone. And I guess that could be a fairly depressing thing - having no one, I mean - but if there's one thing I can always give myself credit for, I am good at keeping myself afloat. There's always something more I want to see (even if it never comes), and there are always little things that just make life worth hanging around for. I've never even contemplated suicide, which I've been told is sort of odd for someone in my position. But, let's look at tonight. I was driving around, thinking about what a loser I am, and Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" came on. Now, that's a fucking brilliant song, if you haven't heard it. "Abra, abracadabra / I wanna reach out and grab ya." I mean it. And then I was making a turn on this street, and this SUV wanted to pull out backwards from a parking lot in front of me, and it could've done it if it had been a normal-sized car, but it was fucking retarded huge SUV, so it needed me to let it through. Fuck that, I said. Waste a few more gallons sitting there. And it just makes my night, you know? If I can be entertained by something so small, I hardly see how life couldn't be worth living.

We had yet another discussion about mental illness on the ride home after I came back to pick my folks up. I can now for sure say that my meds are doing nothing for me at all. I would stop, but if I do end up getting an increased dosage or something (this is still up in the air), I don't want to go through the diarrhea period again. Anyway, you know why I think people have such stigmas against mental illness? Conceit. See, human beings are just like any other mammal - just a bunch of cells and chemicals lumped together into a fairly well-working organism. Somehow, though, we got the idea in our heads that we are more than the sum of our parts, that there's something that make us truly better than just a bunch of crap stuck together. Call it consciousness, call it a soul, call it whatever you want. People need to think they're better than just a bunch of the same tiny things that donkeys and parakeets are made of. Thus, the term "mental illness." It almost seems to imply that there is something wrong with the way we ourselves are personally thinking, that it could be changed if we simply "tried hard enough." Bullshit. That's like trying to think cancer away. "Go into remission, you piece of shit! Right now! I'm serious!" Mental illness is just a little quirk here or there in brain chemistry or construction. Nothing more. But to admit this, you have to admit that it's a structural flaw, the same type of thing a monkey or a llama might have. Here comes the conceit. "No way! I can fight this! I am more than the sum of my parts." No, you can't. I haven't seen anybody sucessfully do it yet. Now, don't get me wrong. We have amazing inner resources that can help us surmount many things. But, I've tried outfoxing my repetitive paranoid tendencies, and they aren't listening. They aren't in my control. There is something wrong with my neurotransmitters and shit, and I can no more control them than I can my heartbeat. We want this illusion of control, but unfortunately, we don't have it. I've been told that it's weak to take medication instead of trying to "fight my problems head on." Well, I think it's pretty weak to deny one's own weaknesses and try some pansy ass solution to a problem that's never going to work. Grow up already.

That said, I'm not really pissed off or anything. I'm just sick of certain stigmas, as I'm sure we all are, and I hope you could at least understand my side in the way I can at least understand yours. So here I am, ranting away about them. Sorry abut that.