Well, in a desperate search for something, anything, to write about, I went and took one of those online quizzes. At least I have the example of a respected blogger to validate me. As you can see, she came out as Mother Teresa. Unsurprisingly, I turned out to be someone a little more down-to-earth....scorched earth. Hee.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Yeah, you gonna be frontin with me, you BEST like chemical warfare. Cause I'll BRING it. Bitch.

Of course Saddam and Mother Teresa, as personified by us, roomed together (fairly) peacefully for four years, which is amazing. Mother Teresa was pretty much responsible for the peace, though. Saddam usually sat in the corner and played video games/sulked about Love Gone Wrong, while Mother Teresa exercised all her virtues of Forbearance, Charity, and Putting Up with Shit. Only occasionally did she resort to Pointedly Cleaning Up Someone Else's Mess While They're Sitting Right There.

In other news, I love doing html. Do you realize I coded the "respected blogger" link above by hand? I'm the mack, I really am. On the other hand, my joy is somewhat diminished by the fact that I've been hand-coding my italics all this time, and I just noticed the blogger window has keyboard shortcuts for italics, just like MS Word. Shit.

I just saw a completely transcendently awesome movie: Facing Windows. It's Italian, and the main characters are two of the most best-looking individuals I've ever seen. Eye candy aside, though, it's such a good movie. It's deeply moral, too, without ever being remotely preachy. Reminded me of Lost in Translation, although this movie is very different in most ways.

The funny thing is, I pretty much saw it by accident. My parents and I were walking around this cool Atlanta neighborhood where we used to live before we went suburban 17 years ago. We passed this tiny, one-screen indie theater, and my dad was like, hey, that movie looks like fun. We thought it was going to be a cute fluffy French romance, and instead it was...I don't know how to explain it; you pretty much just have to see it. That means you, Dan.

I only smoke cause my mommy makes me

It's turned into a daily routine: we're on the way home from the store or whatever and my mother will turn to me and say:
"Oh honey, if we get home quick, don't you think we'll have time for a cigarette before your dad gets home?"

"No" is not an acceptable answer to this statement.

My mom doesn't smoke, has never been a smoker, in fact disapproves of smoking. I guess way back when they used to go out to bars a lot, she'd bum the occasional cigarrette despite my dad's worried disapproval. I don't think she had a single drag in the twenty-odd years since then. But ever since she discovered that I smoked occasionally at college, she's been niccing out like it's Joe Chanesmoker's third day on the wagon.

So we sit by the pool with our beers. The truth is, I don't really feel like smoking. It's 87 degrees and sweaty, even in the late afternoon, and the mosquitoes have already started making angry pinkish-white welts on my skin.
"I think I'll just share one with you, 'k mom?"
"NO, I'm not gonna share on with you! I want my own cigarette."
"Well, maybe I won't..."
"Dammit, I can't smoke alone, that's as bad as drinking alone! Light up, kid!"
"Ooookay...."

So yeah, I'm home again. It's...nice, I guess. My brother and sister are both out of the country, so it's just the three of us. I have fun with my parents; we think the same way mostly, and laugh at the same things. But I see myself in them in weird ways, and it hurts. My mother is fragile, always close to tears about anything. I'm not like that at all, outwardly; I'm much more like my father, who shows no emotions and acts out his depression by being quiet and withdrawn.

But there's my mom in me, too, underneath. I feel so damn cold and analytical around her; I understand how her heart bleeds for every common hurt, but the dominant side of me knows you just can't be like that, not over everything. You look at the people around you, and you can't help loving them so much it hurts, even when they're pathetic. Hell, because they're pathetic. And then if you look at the pain they're all in, it's just fucking overwhelming. I think God puts in a safety valve, though, that makes it so you can't feel the pain all at once. I think the burden of it would kill you if you could actually feel it, all the messed up shit that you and all the people you love have in their hearts all the time. Shit goes down, and you think your heart's going to fucking break, but meanwhile you have groceries to buy, and checks to write, and you can't actually think about it that much, can't feel it in its entirety even when you try.

That's why art is so necessary; it gives you a release for all the pain inside. I'm pretty much unable to cry about things that hurt me...once this year we were all out drinking in the van, and I felt like absolute hell. But I couldn't make the signals to my friends, the people I love the most on earth, that I needed comforting. It felt like I was pretending, even though I really felt those things. My other friends cry when they're sad, even the boys sometimes. But I only cry when I'm watching a movie, or listening to music. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what my dad does.

Likewise, I think the guy might (have) read this. He's too nice to have mean stuff about him on the 'net, even if only he knows it's him.

Yeah, so I think the dude in question might (have) read this. And I really don't want to hurt his feelings. Because he's very nice and also kind of unhappy, I gather.

Life's little revelations

Tea tastes sweeter than it is. Yeah, that statement sounds like it doesn't make any sense, but it's true. You take a sip, and it tastes sweet, but then you realize that it doesn't actually taste as sweet as it...seems like it does. No, really. It's like the tea takes the sugar and makes more out of it than it was before. I came to this revelation one morning while sippin on some black tea, and it gave me this little happy feeling inside all day. Things like that, like tea being sweeter than it actually is...it feels like the universe is trying to make up for being such a bastard all the time, by giving you a little surprise gift in a Kermit the Frog mug.

On the other hand, I was looking at my bank account on one of B of A's horribly bloated, error-filled pages, and I noticed with a dull sense of un-surprise that no matter when you make a withdrawal, even if it's at an ATM in a ghetto Mexican restaurant at 2 in the morning, it posts to your account right away. Whereas deposits take at least three days to even show up as "pending". Bastards.