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last thursday i made a spontaneous decision to go to san diego for the weekend.  i was happy on the drive down, mostly because i'd finally carried through on a big whim.  my time there was tame... getting drunk, stealing shit, eating greasy-as-fuck food.  didn't get to see any fireworks on the 4th.  i didn't see anyone much aside from 3-4 of my close friends while i was there.

i left san diego last night with a sour taste in my mouth.  the dogs were barking, i was tired as fuck after getting my ass beat in tennis by my brother, my parents were nagging, i hadn't seen any of my friends all day [in spite of plans made], and i just wanted to get the hell out of there, even though i knew my destination wouldn't have much to offer, either.  i just wanted to be on the road, feeling like i was going somewhere/anywhere.

the drive sucked.  i got really sleepy about an hour into it.  the first three rest areas i passed were closed, so it was about 200mi before i found an open one.  i reclined my car seat and tried to sleep for 45 minutes then gave up.  two hours later, just as i passed a 'next rest 100mi' sign, i got incredibly sleepy.  i started to drift and swerve, closed my eyes for seconds at a time and turned on cruise control.  i followed trucks because i didn't want to get back too early.  i got to the next rest area and set my alarm for an hour, and i did fall asleep.  when the alarm went off, i shut it off and went back to sleep for another three hours.  i woke up at 545a really pissed at myself for sleeping so long, and pissed at the sprinklers for dousing my car in non-potable water.  i was still tired even after that four hours of sleeping, so it was another drowsy 2.5 hours of sleep until i finally got to the apartment and slept three more hours.

i went to work late and feeling like shit.  that's all there is to say about that.

spent the last seven hours doing... what?  cooked dinner, watched a replay of the wimbledon finals, read blogs that led me to read up on existential depression that led me to read up on the many worlds interpreation for the 83rd time.  a big day of doing shit i've done, seeing shit i've seen, reading shit i've read.  spinning wheels.

---

popped two klonopin an hour ago in hopes of getting a full night's sleep before i have to go into the law firm office tomorrow and finalize my decision to accept the job offer.  the salary is going to be garbage, at least at first, so if this job doesn't entertain me fairly rapidly i know that i'm going to get restless and sick of it.  i don't know at this point if i'm going to go the grin-and-bear-it route or quit-my-job route.  it'll come down to my mood at the time, i guess... and we all know how violently unstable that is.  or at least i know.  sometimes i seem to be the only one to know.

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feeling awful the past two days.

i feel like people don't care. [BOO HOO.  THERE, NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO THINK IT!  or you can, and not feel so bad/good about it.]

i feel like i'm not -good- at anything.  i read awesome blogs, watch amazing athletes, listen to brilliant musicians.  take them all for what they are and it's really inspiring, but i'm in the kind of mood where observing all of those things just makes me angry at myself for not being equally skilled at anything... unless sulking, downing klonopin, playing it too safe, and smoking count -- and they don't.

my life is idling.  two weeks notice at my current job were given a week ago but i promised, for reasons that elude me, to stay on for an additional week.  perhaps to avoid having too much down time to myself, though i think that i would've taken that free time to go on a giant solo road trip to either figure shit out or finally go full-blown insane.  only one way to find out.

suicidal thoughts have persisted for the last 24 hours, from all angles:  the classic 'i hate life', to the more novel [to me] reasons like 'it doesn't matter if i die since i haven't and won't accomplish anything anyway', 'my death wouldn't be much a loss to anyone', 'if life is always going to beat my ass and annoy me then...', and 'fuck it, i don't care anymore'.

most of the time my reason for not attempting is that it doesn't feel genuine enough.  i reflect on my motives behind an attempt and usually conclude that i'd just be doing it for attention, or that i'm just bored.  the reason i didn't polish off my klonopin tonight was that i have something i have to do in the morning [go to the law firm].  if i really mean to kill myself then future plans and obligations should be irrelevant, right?

i feel like i have no chance in befriending people i'd really like to befriend just because my shy and boring side is always the first side that gets exposed to strangers and there's no way around it.  it's annoying 'cause i have to present this not-me side of me to a person at first, so their first impression of me is usually negative and invariably wrong.

it's when i'm really down or really up that i actively try to give advice to others.  in the latter case, it's because i want to share the wealth.  in the former case, it might be because i'm secretly trying to give myself advice.   but i never take advice that i give to others, no matter how good they might tell me it is/was.  this is the last comment i gave on a xanga entry:

ain't no point in thinking about what you've done for the last nineteen years... you were a mindless baby for a few of those, so they don't count anyway. why not think on what you can do in the next nineteen years... which start -today-, by the way.

pretty good advice, if only because it's so painfully obvious. yet i won't take it, because i don't believe myself.

thought about calling the suicide hotline earlier, but i don't know if it'd help.  i feel like it'd just be a very cliche and useless phone call, or it'd just force me into more unhelpful self-reflection.  i may call yet before i go to sleep.  i haven't made any real plans besides downing the rest of my klonopin [which probly wouldn't do anything, since i've had 8 in one night before and all i felt was complete relaxation], so my case probably isn't 'severe' from an objective perspective. 

---

sometimes when a really neat phrase or idea comes to mind i write it down in my phone and save it.  the last three:

'even light has a speed limit.'
'even the cobwebs are gathering dust.'
'butterfly flutter by' -- i just wrote this one because it was so sonically pleasing.

---

'ashes to ashes' would make for a pretty neat anti-smoking campaign slogan.

---

i feel listless.  i've  felt it a lot lately.  i feel listless even when i'm restless, if that makes any sense.  i'm without neither spirit nor energy, but sometimes there's just this out-of-nowhere desire to move myself to a far, far away place.

---

i mean, if i'm going nowhere and don't anticipate feeling otherwise, why not die?  there's no diamond of the past to dust off and rediscover, nothing's going right for me right now, and there's no hope on the horizon.  i just feel like i'm floating through shit, acting like my big break out of depression is going to walk right up to me and fix everything in an instant.

if someone said that last paragraph to me, i'd give them advice.  i'd tell them that, well, you just have to take matters into your own hands.  it will be difficult at first, and it will certainly hurt, but that hurt is just part of the healing process.  once you get into the habit of doing things you love and dismissing the rest, and once you get comfortable with actually feeling good about yourself, those habits will stick and the old negative habits will get the boot.  just persist for a little while longer... things are destined to turn around with enough patience and will.

but i never take my own advice.  i re-read that last paragraph and it sounds full of shit to me.

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obviously when i'm down i focus on the negatives.  every little bad thing pisses me off.  i feel like  my luck has been particularly bad as of late, even when it's just little things.

can find all my cds except one cd i really want to listen to on my drive... bad luck.
three straight closed rest areas when i'm tired as fuck... same.
hiccups come up and hang around for forty minutes while i'm sleepy and angry on my drive... same.
people flake out on me... same.
bring an mp3 player to work for the first time in weeks to find that i am missing a headphone piece... same.

it's just a bunch of whining.

---

sometimes people say to me, 'well just think about all the other people who have it worse than you'.

how are you helping me when you're just belittling my pain?  am i supposed to say, 'you're right, this intense pain and feeling of misery must be nothing compared to a starving child or a terminally ill person.  if they can keep trudging on amidst their horrible situations, then i can, too'.  it doesn't work like that.  all of my shit still fucking hurts.  it's about how drastically my situation differs from what i perceive as the status quo.  if it goes far enough away, i will feel like shit... i will very much feel like shit.  and when i'm in that  state of mind, why do i give a fuck about a starving child or a cancer patient?  i don't.  i have my own problems to deal with, or stew on, or do nothing about.

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22 years old, folks.  i used to talk about wanting to get away from all of this nonsense by just packing up and driving away, drifting from place to place just writing and playing music.  but i don't even feel like that would be any better right now.  i'm not good at music.  my voice blows and my music always sounds suspiciously like the music that i'm most into at the moment.

what i want is a major change.  and in the absence of a concrete idea of major life change, the closest-fitting alternative is death, i.e. suicide.

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whatever.  just going to stare at the ceiling awhile until [hopefully] this klonopin kicks in and i can get in a decent 7 hours of sleep, then accept that job w/o salary negotiation just because i don't feel up to it right now, then come back here and clean out my entire klonopin stockpile.  and whatever happens after that happens.  at this point, i don't care.  just power through that one thing i have to do tomorrow, then go completely fucking insane and reckless.  and it won't matter one little bit.

there's more to be said here on this shit -- what would make me feel better, how much of this mood is my fault vs. someone else's vs. nobody's, how sick i am of falling into these depressions and how i thought my medication had taken care of ever having to have these kinds of episodes anymore, why i feel so goddamned pathetic -- but it'll have to wait.  if you've honestly got something to say, send a message.  comments usually hold back and are useless... that goes for yalls readin this on facebook too.

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when i feel like super-shit, like i do now, i tend to avoid things that would calm me down:  going out, seeing friends, listening to calming music, smoking.  like i feel so close to the breaking point that i just want it to come so i can see what happens, i.e., what i'd do if i finally reached the true brink of insanity.

well at least i don't feel like cutting.  i do feel like drinking myself stupid, but i have no alcohol nor money to buy it.  if i  were at a casino i'd probably bet every penny i have to my name.  if i didn't have that meeting tomorrow i'd clean out all of my prescription bottles for either attention or death to come to me.  i left my guitar in the car because i figured that i'd just strum random chords for 30 minutes before getting bored and thinking about how shitty of a musician and songwriter i am.  earlier i thought about how much happier i'd be if i just had unlimited money.  then i wouldn't have to take a shitty job, then i could go out and try any damned thing i wanted that i thought held some glimmer of making me happier -- having more confidence,  moving far away, buying drinks for pretty girls, feeling like the world is my oyster. 

all over the place.. hoping sleep will clear my head, but it probably won't.  going to need to pop klonopin before that meeting tomorrow so i don't come off as a completely disinterested pushover.

but at this point, the mindset is 'to hell with everything, i've had enough'.

love yall, etc.

my current therapist [me] says i should counter every negative thought by coming up with a positive thought to cancel it out.

so.

- i'm sick of hearing the pounding bass and shitty auto-tune that hurts my ears every time someone 'bumps' their music when driving down my street.
+ i can always put on headphones and listen to the good music on my ipod.
- my ipod is broken.
+ i can listen to music on my computer.
- my computer is broken too.
+ i can use someone else's computer, like i'm doing now.
- this computer is annoying.
+ i can take a break from using the computer by reading instead.
- all my books are buried in a giant 'for sale' bag, covered by a bunch of crap.
+ i can sell those things to earn some money.
- it looks like only two of my ebay items are going to sell.
+ i'll be making money if/when i accept this job offer that i really want.
- the salary is kind of low.
+ i can always try to negotiate the salary to a more acceptable amount.
- the guy who's hiring me is out of town all week.
+ i have more time to plan out my negotiation strategy.
- i don't like being in this 'limbo state' between getting an offer and accepting it/starting work.
+ i'll still be able to keep my current job until i start that one.
- the library is booooring.
+ i hardly do any work there but still get paid.
- even so, i've managed to be late for/miss work nearly half the time.
+ it's okay, because at least i'm operating at my own pace.
- i don't like the habits that being consistently lazy about work are instilling in me.
+ habits can always be kicked.
- they take a very long time and a whole lot of will to kick.
+ i'm down to smoking only 4-5 cigarettes a day.
- 28-35 minutes off my life every day.
+ i watched some fucking sick anti-smoking videos today and they really made me consider trying to quit.
- then what will i do with my time?  fall into a bottomless pit of thinking and feeling down?
+ more time to make music, read, etc.
- i'm presently uninspired, just playing my two finished songs over and over again.
+ at least you'll get better at playing them.
- even so, people say my voice sucks.
= OH WELL WHAT CAN YA DO.

+ stop whining, that's what. do somethin' about it.

- this limbo state is annoying.  for some reason it feels like i -didn't- get the job, even though it's already been offered to me.
+ but i DID get an offer.
- if the guy's out of town all week maybe he'll rethink it and retract the offer.
= THAT'S THE KIND OF DUMB THINKING THAT RUINS EVERYTHING.
+ stop whining.

? i feel like 'leaving everything behind, getting in the car and never coming back again', again.
= i think i'm just afraid of falling into another undesirable routine.
+ maybe i'll end up really enjoying my new job.

? maybe.
+ and if not i can always leave everything behind get in the car and never come back again!
! yeah!

= ridiculous entry.
+ least it cheered myself up a bit, that's all that matters... this ain't no blog.

on that note -- i know this song is incredibly old, but if you haven't ever heard it -- or haven't in a while -- well, yr in for a treat.

A Nervous Tic Motion of the He - Andrew Bird