How to survive an internship:

1. Check email.
2. Surreptitiously sign on to AIM.
3. Surf the web.
4. Check email.
5. Play with office supplies.
6. Write letters on letterhead.
7. Make photocopies.
8. Check email.
9. Fax things.
10. Call people and ask them to fax you things.
11. Staple.
12. Surreptitiously chat with people on AIM.
13. Send your buddies letters on letterhead (using free postage).
14. Check email.
15. Blog.

In less than a month-and-a-half

I am leaving the country. In less than a month-and-a-half, I am leaving the country. In less than a month-and-a-half, I am leaving this country. In less than a month-and-a-half, I am leaving this country behind. In less than a month-and-a-half, I am leaving this country behind for good.

I don't go to parties

so much as I haunt them. I serve as this sadistic reminder of what happens when their values are taken too seriously, stories told and secrets kept. I ball into their corners and linger in the shadows, and you fear me, not because I am imposing, but because you project upon me exactly what you might become. And you might be right.

Good-Bye Lenin!

made me nostalgic for East German Communism and I never even lived it.

I'm money, baby

Dispatch to the Universe:

I am no longer the guy in the PG-13 movie everyone's really hoping will make it happen. From now on, I am the guy in the R-rated movie—no one is sure they like me yet. No one knows where I'm coming from.

I'm a bad man, a very bad, bad man.

Culled from Jessi's Away Message

I think that a friend who's a British citizen and knows that the one thing you want from life is to live in Britain, but won't marry you, isn't really your friend.

Fifteen Weeks Later...

The Doc told me today, "I think you might be depressed."

No shit. What the fuck have we been talking about for the past fifteen weeks?

Feelings in the World

There is no feeling in the world quite like the attention paid to me by an attractive boy who makes sassy comments while I am intoxicated. It doesn't matter if it goes anywhere, but those fleeting moments when he plays to me as an audience are unbelievable.

Accordingly, there is no feeling in the world quite as sobering and dishearting as when that boy leaves the party early because he is tired or bored, and the attention paid sublimates into something nonexistent.

Déjà Vu Déjà Vu

So basically everything that happened three days ago (and five days ago): ditto.

Except it wasn't a meal, it was on the way to work, so it wasn't on a surface street: it was the ten. And instead of having friends, I faced it alone, so nothing needed to be said.

A rogue tow truck picked me up as I was calling my insurance company. The University Auto Center found the "real problem" this time. Keep your fingers crossed, kids, and feel free to firebomb Pep Boys on Washington.

I've only had my car back for a matter of hours, but every nuance in the road provokes sheer terror. Whenever I see the speed drop, I know its dying, I know its dying, even if its only because I've taken my foot off the gas.

I take deep breaths to try to relax, but it only reminds me how toxic the air is here.

I'm this close to cuddling into a fetal position and never leaving my room.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

Well, it's about time they found those WMDs.

All I Want is a terrible movie...

But I am embarrassed to admit I watched the whole thing—and only because doughy-eyed Elijah Wood slays me. Maybe that's the real reason I can't stand you-know-what, because Peter Jackson did his damndest to make the boy look ugly. (And it must have taken quite some work, let me tell you: those baby blues never stop glistening.)

Before the movie started, I commented that Elijah might just be the Jodie Foster of our generation. The rare child star who actually continues to have a career, whose early works are relegated to forgotten studio closets when he one day makes off-beat, indie flicks that are surprisingly delightful.

Ten minutes into it, this argument held no ground. The fact that Mandy Moore co-stars in this film should have scared me away from the get-go. But this is not simply a bad B-movie to laugh about over alcohol. It is dreadful. Wood and Moore must have been utterly stoned (or very keen to bed each other) when opting to take on this project.

Not too long ago, I made a list of various people I would like to date. (Scooby Doo was surprisingly high on the list, his personhood aside—c'mon, wouldn't it be cool to date Scooby Doo?) But after this, Elijah, I'm sorry, you've been demoted to a one night stand.

News

Finally, someone is listening.

You may think I'm being ironic, but...

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
I’m just out to find
The better part of me

I’m more than a bird, I’m more than a plane
More than some pretty face beside a train
It’s not easy to be me

Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I’ll never see

It may sound absurd, but don’t be naive
Even Heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed, but won’t you concede
Even Heroes have the right to dream
It’s not easy to be me

Men weren’t meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I’m only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me

It’s not easy to be me.

Déjà Vu

So basically everything that happened two nights ago: ditto.

Except it wasn't desert, it was dinner (and it was at Buddha's Belly, which was delish), and we actually made it (so that's some progress, I suppose). And instead of a random assortment of burn-outs, it was Ryan and his friend Jenny. It was on the way back to that place which shall remain unnamed. So it wasn't Vermont, it was Santa Monica.

And instead of someone asking me a question, I said, "Oh crap, not again." The tow truck came in a healthy twenty minutes.

Those Pep Stooges will pay.

Yeah, it is a bitch, kid

We lay on the bed there
Kissing just for practice
Could we please be objective?
Cause the other boys are queuing up behind us

If I remain passive and you just want to cuddle
Then we should be okay, and we won't get into trouble
Cause we're seeing other people
At least that's what we say we are doing

I don't think you can be dealing
With the situation very well
You take a lover for a dirty weekend, that's okay
But when it's over
You are looking at the working week in the eyes of a gigolo

You can't understand why all the other boys are going for the
New, tall, elegant rich kids
You can bet it is a bitch, kid
But if they don't see the quality then it is apparent that
You're going to have to change
Or you're going to have to go with girls
You might be better off
At least they know where to put it

Note to the Universe:

There is a reason I don't talk about art, why I avoid conversations like, "What makes an artist?" And it's not (only) because I am superficial. They always end up far too fraught, too angry, too tense. Because I do have strong opinions, but they are nihilistic in the most utopian way possible.

"Only the shallow know themselves." —Oscar Wilde

Truer Words

When will you realise that it never pays
To be smarter than teachers
Smarter than most boys?
Shut your mouth, start kicking the football
Bang on the teeth, you’re off for a week boy

something so zen

about calling the shop to ask about my car and being transferred to the service department where the phone rings into infinity.

CarF*ckers

I wanted desert, so I gathered together a random assortment of friends who were glum and tired, coming down after the ecstacy they took at a rave last night. We wanted not merely pie, but a House of Pies, so we drove up Vermont. I hit a pothole and saw my speedometer drop from forty to zero. I'm still moving, I thought, but slowing down.

"Why are you going so slowly?" Jessi asks.

I put on my blinker and pulled onto the next side street, and she just lay down and died. The tow truck came in a record-setting five minutes. The driver looked at it and told me that gas wasn't getting to the engine, so she needed to be taken to the shop. I smiled and nodded—he's the one driving that truck.

So she was dropped off in the deserted Pep Boys parking lot, just waiting to be vandalized. And the four of us shuffled away as nonchalant as when we'd entered the car. Somehow it just seemed so blasé, so we got some coffee and waddled home.

Bad Credit

Thanks to the Patriot Act, I cannot receive a credit card at my school address. Stupid Terrorists.