december

#335 December 1.

The reality of the situation settled on Harry like a heavy, woollen coat. He was about to kill or be killed, right here in this dog-smelling pit, and there was nothing he could do that would change that.

He thought perhaps his life should flash before his eyes or something, but it did not. Maybe he should try to think of something wonderful, a last fine thought of what used to be. First he summoned up the image of his wife. That did nothing for him. Though his wife had once been pretty and bright, he could not remember her that way. The image that came to mind was quite different. A dumpy, lazy woman with constant back pains and her hair pulled up into an eternal top-knot of greasy, brown hair. There was never a smile on her face or a word of encouragement for him. He always felt that she expected him to entertain her and that he was not doing a very good job of it. There was not even a moment of sexual ecstacy that he could recal. After their daughter had been born she had given up screwing as a wasted excercise. Why waste energy on sex when she could spend it complaining.

He flipped his mental cardfile to his daughter. What he saw was an ugly, potato-nosed girl of twelve. She had no personality. Her mother was Miss Congeniality compared to her. Potato-nose spend all her time pining over thin, blond heartthrobs on television. It wasn't bad enough that they glared at Harry via the tube, they were also pinned to her walls and hiding in magazines she had cast throughout the house.

These were the last thoughts of a man about to face death?

There was just nothing there.

-Joe R. Landsdale, "The Pit"

#336 December 2.

His job had sucked. His wife hadn't.

God, he was beat at every turn. Frustrated at every corner. No good thoughts or beautiful visions before the moment of truth. Only blackness, a life of dull, planned movements as consistent and boring as a bran-concious geriatrics bowel movement. For a moment he thought he might cry.

-Joe R. Landsdale, "The Pit"

#337 December 3.

All she wanted was to be left alone, which didn't seem a lot to ask. She expected little, and received less, and thanked her gods for what she got.

It was a dull, grey life, a mutant kind of life, an abortion of a life. But it was hers, and she accepted it.

-Helen Zahavi, "Dirty Weekend"

#338 December 4.

Life's just like death, just not quite as entertaining.

-Steven Snedker

#339 December 5.

My goal is to become a mediocre academic, and then a mediocre worker, without a shred of joy or enthusiasm. Until one day I can't stand it anymore, at which point I'll promptly go home and watch more television.

And when the television breaks down I'll watch all my wasted opportunities.

-Flemming Kaspersen

#340 December 6.

We have advanced psychotherapy to roughly the same point that the rest of medicine had reached in the era of leeches and witch burning. Imagine walking around with a toothache until you died for lack of 20 cents worth of medicine. It looks a lot like that from up here.

Civilization has only reached so far. We've pushed back Mother Nature to her last treeless ditch, and we look behind and see the ooze of our own nature rising over our feet. So long as you are standing you are safe. Drop, and suffer barbarism. Be beaten, raped, killed, and no one can help if you cannot help yourself.

-Michael Chase

#341 December 7.

			My Life


A hellpit of smiling workers grovels before a green-skinned god,
	Seven thousand snot-faced children dash into traffic,
		Lost people with empty expressions call me
			To talk about their life,
				As if I care.
				  Die Now.
				    Now.

-Jason Corley

#342 December 8.

I have always been here
I have always looked out from behind these eyes
It feels like more than a lifetime
Feels like more than a lifetime

Sometimes I get tired of the waiting
Sometimes I get tired of being in here
Is this the way it has always been?
Could it ever have been different?

Do you ever get tired of the waiting?
Do you ever get tired of being in there?
Don't worry. Nobody lives forever,
Nobody lives forever.

-Pink Floyd

#343 December 9.

"When a tree is polled, it will sprout new shoots nearer its roots. A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginnings and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree."

Hermann Hesse, _Beneath the Wheel_

I first read the above metaphor several years ago, and it has stuck with me since then. What I like about it, besides the effective and appropriate natural image, is the unpopular truth it conveys: Sometimes it really is too late to start over. Sometimes you have to accept the fact that you won't make as much of your life as you might have made.

-Paul Callahan

#344 December 10.

"On almost any night of the year, soldiers from nearby Fort Lewis were sneaked in for clandestine sexual relations with patients..."Steilacoom," five separate individuals would say, "was the whore-house of Fort Lewis." Frances was sud- denly subject to obscene perversions, raped by orderlies, friends of orderlies, and other patients hundreds of times. One of the most vivd recollections of some veterans of the institution would be the sight of Frances Farmer being held down by orderlies and raped by drunken gangs of soldiers."

"... her daily life was taken up with ... backbreaking work like cleaning up the piles of human waste and vomit that covered the floor after every feeding. When Frances refused to work -- which was often -- her punishment was an ex- tended series of shock treatments. Week after week she was wheeled into the treatment room and jolted into insensibility, and each time she regained con- sciousness, she remained what the staff termed "unresponsive." "

[This was before the lobotomy, so she was able to enjoy it all]

Dr. Freeman lecturing just after giving 13 women lobotomies at Steilacoom: "The patients for whom this operation brings the best results are tortured with self-concern, who suffer from terribly painful disabling self-consciousness, whether it expresses itself in pains in the body organs or in terrible distress from feelings of persecution....in ordinary language, the technique severs the nerves that deliver emotional power to ideas. Along with a cure comes some loss in the patient's imaginative power. But that's what we want to do. They are sick in their imaginations.."

-William Arnold, "Shadowland" (The story of Frances Farmer)

#345 December 11.

If I had done much worse on the exam I probably would have killed myself then and there. The reason is that academics is about the only thing I've ever been good at, and my life is just barely enjoyable as it is. If I were forced out of academia, then the struggle which has been my life just wouldn't be worthwhile anymore.

Being put on a waiting list just typifies my life. I would not mind dying tomorrow. What I fear is living out my life always finding it just barely tolerable enough to go on, such that in the end I will never have been happy.

#346 December 12.

I have never been able to start a relationship with a woman; sometimes I can barely tollerate the isolation I've felt all these years. I try to avoid loneliness with various friendships, but presently I seem to have too few of these, and feel a great deal of hostility from acquaintances. And I currently have no life beyond my academic one; no family life, no romantic life, no social group.

#347 December 13.

Actually, I consider Santa Claus to be another aspect of the commercialization. I think I was thirteen before I realized that there were young children who were actually taught to *believe* in Santa, and I still consider this a cruel, if unintentional, hoax by misguided parents. What is Santa, after all, but an ersatz Christ figure for those unwilling to come to terms with evil and good, capable at most of acknowledging the "naughty" and the "nice?" I am agnostic, I think, but I cannot deny the reality of the subjective religious experience, and this sense of wonder and yearning has been with me for as long as I can remember. Santa to me is a sort of mockery, a "safe" substitute for true religious feeling. I do not approve.

-Paul Callahan

#348 December 14.

"And a very happy National Non-Denominational Gift Giving Season to you to sir!"

-Stephen Okay

#349 December 15.

Xmas is a pagan festival hijacked by the cult known as Xtianity.

Xmas is basically celebrated by having horrible jingles playing in all the shops since October, coloured lights put up all over the place, and lots of cheap Korean plastic presents in the shops for everyone to give to each other ("Oh! Another pair of socks! Just what I've always wanted...").

Xmas day itself is celebrated by everyone opening all the presents under the tree with fake smiles and equally fake thank-yous (I *hate* getting cramp in my smiling muscles...), then overeating at lunchtime on tasteless turkey, overcooked brussel's sprouts (ugh! I hate those things), and too much red wine. Strange thing is, most of the adverts on TV are for stomach pain relievers, and headache tablets.. Coincidence? I don't think so..

By this time, all the kids below 5 years old are screaming at each other, the adults are arguing about who's going to wash up the dishes, and all the children are hiding in their rooms, wishing everyone would shut up. And the aged relatives is either pointing out how the world has gone to pieces since they were young, or discussing their medical problems in deep and nauseating detail.

-Michael Marsden

#350 December 16.

driving along the highway really made me realize what a mess we are i wish i had more time to wallow but i have too much meaningless shit to do why do we all move mindlessly down eternal lanes of tar and think it's normal? why do we destroy zillions of tons of natural fucking resources and call it advertising?

this society's blindness and lack of any morality/priorities/brain is making me disgusted and yet it disgusts me even more that i'm part of it and only have these moments of clarity on rare occasions the thought that the rest of the time i'm cattle just like them makes me want to do something gross or violent i wish i were articulate enuf to express myself here too but i'm not so i'll just go back to my life of normalcy and satisfaction thru acheivements that society makes me love but that really have absolutely no worth

-Clinty

#351 December 17.

The typical nervous symptoms are: trembling hands, dry throat, frequent liquid shits and and a feeling of insecurity. This can go on for years. Sometimes it seems to have passed but just a little stress will make some or all of the symptoms return. Also, some anti-depressants can make you throw up, or tremble uncontrollably.

Tics are involuntary spasm of the muscles, usually facial muscles. Will stay with you for a long time. Will perhaps get better, but never go away.

-Neugamme

#352 December 18.

And of course THEY are probably reading this, but fuck 'em. If they want to make me "disappear" like they do to people every once in a while, (Sometimes the stress gets to people and they send them to "employee counseling", which basically means a couple weeks with a company-appointed headperson and they don't let you back until said HP verifies that you can "return to the work environment". Like in the best Soviet hospitals, most of them don't come back...) so be it. I never fit into their mold, so I don't see why I should try now...

-Steven Okay

#353 December 19.

I find myself in an interesting position, I feel lost from the rest of society. Having been in a black depression for three years now, trying to come out of it is killing me. I feel like I'm still 18, but without the cock-sureness I had back then. Just the inexperience and naivity. All this time life has just passed me by, and I often wonder if I will regret that for the rest of my life. I think I will. But what is important is that I somehow get back on my feet... if I slip into depression again I may find myself never coming back.

I am continually amazed at how easy it is to lose my foothold. Just one bad moment, or one bad day, and I find myself back where I have always been.

-Michael )The Eternally Gullible(

#354 December 20.

No, all men are not equal. I'm better than everyone else. But seriously, while the details of each of our lives may differ, we tend in general to share the same emotions, hopes, fears and insecurities. Now some of us can live with the fact that we are nothing more than a (relatively) long biochemical reaction and with the fact that 'we are dust and to dust we shall return'. Some of us don't need to think we're special, that we have attained some profound truth that sets us apart. Some of us need all this. But in death we're all equal. No special cases, no remissions. Just cold earth and worms.

-Lucifuge

#355 December 21.

   I cry now.  Good, thick, heavy tears.  I let them roll
   way down past my nose to my chin and feel them brushed
   away by my shoulder.
   I choke out "God, I wish I was beautiful...".  The words
   "like him" trailing in a whisper to myself.
   I think how I hid my love from everyone even her at first
   I still hide my other feelings but today everyone can
   watch the parade.

-laposkymatt

#356 December 22.

Life is not shit. Shit is brown. Life is grey.

-Steven Snedker

#357 December 23.

Sentenced to life in prison
Cut off from the world
No one can hear my voice
The walls are too thick
I tried once,
Screaming until my voice vanished,
But that was long ago
I turned to writing
Slipping notes through the bars
That time too has passed,
I know no language others can read
I simply sit in my cell,
A soul waiting for death,
To free me from this body.

#358 December 24.

This really is the absolute end, the final chilling desolation, in which the whole majestic sweep of creation becomes extinct. This, ladies and gentelmen is the proverbial "it"...After this there's noting. Void. Emptiness. Oblivion. Absolute nothing...

It' marvellous though to see so many of you here tonight - no isn't it though? Yes, absolutely marvellous. Because I know that so many of you come here time and time again, which I think is really wonderful, to come and watch the final end of everything, and then return home to your own eras...And raise families, strive for new and better societies, fight terrible wars for what you know to be right...it really gives one hope for the future of all lifekind. Except of course that we know it hasn't got one...

-Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

#359 December 25.

Without owning pain and rage, it's difficult to trust someone's sense of what is good. And it seems to me that a person has a right to own that pain and to scream as a result of it. And we have to teach that to ourselves, ot our friends, and, most importantly, our children. When I was a kid I wish someone had said "You have the right to break any fucking thing around you because of the suffering you are going through", instead of "Shut up!"

What I would like to say is that I'm dying to see my child navigate the waters between the womb and deathon her own terms, on life's terms, without her mother and me burdening her with our sins, the greatest sin being that of ignorance. Because we have not confronted our own conflicts, our own sins, we will burden our children with what has been going on since time began. That's what I'm interested in. We made the movie because that's our responsibility to these children.

-Harvey Keitel on "The Bad Lieutenant"

#360 December 26.

Loneliness is horrible, but then again, so is most company.

#361 December 27.

Thinking over the last few New Year's, I got angry and depressed. Angry over the fact that I never do anything New Year's, depressed cause there is nobody to do it with.

-Orion

#362 December 28.

As the group starts the countdown to New Year's, I sit silently. When they reach `zero' they all shout. I get up and leave.

I go home, look at the answering machine. The zero stares back at me. Call some friends, no one is at home.

Drive to various friend/acquaitance houses. No one is home. Decide to socialize, drive next to the single dance club in the area, stop my car. I realize if I go in, I am committing myself... I know people who work there, and they will be amazed if I show up without somebody dragging me through the door.

I leave.

Go home, angrier than I've ever been since I matured enough to realize anger doesn't solve anything (re:6 years). Angry at myself, my situation, my absolute fear of the opposite sex. (Have a couple of relationships fuck you over lately? Yep.)

Sit in front of my computer and lurk.

Go to sleep.

-Orion.

#363 December 29.

I watched My Cousin Vinny (which sucked) with my parents until 10:30 PM, then we watched 1992: Year of the Farce until 11 PM, when I went to bed.

This year I will be 25.

#364 December 30.

> Do you think that you're the only one who's ever been alone? Who's ever
> been down? Who's ever had a depression New Year's?

What difference does that make?

Went to a party. Had a pretty girl throw confetti into my hair. Discovered that I was just sitting there, watching the other guests having fun. Left the party to lay on the floor next to my stereo and hear depressed music. Went back just in time for midnight. Left 10 minutes later. Watched the the fireworks for a while (I live on a hill - great view). Saw my favourite german dubbed kung-fu movie for God knows which time. Tried to sleep, but my internal organs wouldn't let me relax. No proper sleep before 11. Same procedure as last year.

-Jesper Lauridsen

#365 December 31.

"Son, I just want you to know: life is a black sucking vortex of anguish and despair, filled with brief moments of false hope and empty joy all the while dragging you inevitably closer to final, absolute and eternal death."

"Thanks, Dad..."

january

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