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// "It All Comes Together" \\
(( 08/11/03 anada526 ))
\) (/
I don't have anything particularly noteworthy to write, other than an
ode to the joy of writing textfiles again. Since Anada's disappearance some
time ago, I've written a few textfiles, but haven't sent them to any other
textfile zine. I don't really know why; fear of rejection, maybe, or, the
fact I've got a running online commentary again for the first time since I
graduated from college over two years ago, or, most likely, I didn't feel
like it.
Since Anada went MIA, life's changed a lot. My first novel, Axis
Mundi Sum, has been published by the Invisible College Press. I'm close to
finishing my second novel. My drinking skyrocketed for a while, then evened
out. I spent a year in the suburbs, living the laid-back life, and then
moved back to Houston proper. I started growing my hair out. Read a lot of
books.
Man, have things changed. If I was a better writer, I could put into
words the visual picture I've formed of the trajectory of my existence.
Right now, my life is hinting at being on the upswing for the first time in
a while, and I'm waiting for a little more time to pass to be able to
construct a new mental topographic map of recent months. Hopefully, by the
time I do, I'll be able to write about it to my satisfaction -- preferably
in textfile form.
Man, I missed this. Since getting a book published made me feel like
something resembling a legitimate writer (I'll be even more legitimate when
I no longer have to hold down a day job), I haven't taken a lot of time to
write anything but novels. Hell, I felt that way even before I got a
contract. Now, however, my outlet for non-novel, non-personal website,
writing has returned, and I can write differently. I can let it flow
freely. I can write random shit without wondering if friends will use it as
a tool to inquire about my life. Words become water, become a couple beers
when there's nobody around to drink with, nobody to entertain.
Simply, and not entirely truthfully, writing is fun again.
I planned on ending there, but something else occurred to me.
Textfiles are, among other things, my outlet for unabashed doubt. I haven't
written anything like this in a long time, and it is, I dare say, cathartic.
Sweet Jesus, I can't begin to describe how happy I am to be writing this,
listening to Hypocrisy's "Fire In the Sky," my mind drifting under a night
sky to past moments where I found myself daydreaming about other past
moments.
This is exactly where I want to be.
--The Corpse
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"All I Really Need To Know I Learned In College" by Beth ............line 76
"These Days" by Effy ...............................................line 177
"Movie" by Pheeble .................................................line 221
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
"All I Really Need To Know I Learned In College"
by Beth - Porada@aol.com
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to
be, I learned in college. Wisdom was not at the top of the university
mountain, but there in the early morning light in the gutter at the bottom
of that mountain. These are the things I learned:
Share everything. Use the campus computers to download bootleg music to
burn onto CDs for all your friends.
Play quarters. Sure it seems meaningless and juvenile, but that's only
for the first round or two.
Don't hit... more than once per rotation: wait your turn.
Put things back where you found them. If you went to a house party and
picked up someone for the night then the next morning, be kind enough to
drive them back to the curb in front of that same house... or at least to
a bus stop nearby.
Clean up your own mess... or at least shove it under your bunk until the
end of the semester.
Don't take things that aren't yours or, as we like to say in college,
"don't take any shit from anybody."
Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Or, if that "hurt" happens to
be because the two of you got down in a drunken stupor the night before,
just cross the street and look the other way as if they were a complete
stranger to you.
Wash your hands before you come home from Cancun.
Flush the toilet, and all suspect substances -- if you hear sirens outside
the front door.
Warm cookies and milk are good for you. That's why you can eat as many as
you want on the campus dining plan and bill them to your parents. And
don't mind that extra flab... it's just the 'freshman fifteen'... everyone
expects you to gain it: it's just part of the college experience.
Live a balanced life -- learn a little and think a little and draw and
paint and sing and dance and play and work every day a little. Then drink
shots all night, puke in the morning and do it all again!
Take a nap every afternoon... that's when you will be sitting through your
most boring classes.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and
stick together... then begin singing boisterously, "Show me the way to go
home!" or "Hey hey we're the Monkees!" Sure, it might seem a little
strange, but it's a ritual that every college freshman must go though.
Just means that it's closing time.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seeds in the yogurt carton: The
paper burns down and the smoke goes up and nobody really knows how or why,
but we all like it.
Cats and hamsters and white mice and even the little seeds in the yogurt
carton -- they all grow up and reproduce and have to care for their
offspring until they die. So do we. Some of us may even have to graduate
and get a job. You see, it's called 'real life.' If possible, try not to
think about it for now.
And then remember reading your first letter from the college financial aid
office and the first word you learned -- the biggest of all -- DEBT.
Yes, those student loans are going to come due sooner than you think.
The good news is that after graduation you can get a job and sit in a
cubicle taking all that shit you refused to take in college.
But don't let that detract from those four (or more!) glorious years.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule (NEVER
spill the beer) and love and basic contraception. Ecology (grow your own)
and politics (legalize it!) and equality (waiting our turns in long keg
lines) and sane living (surviving the inevitable roommate-from-hell).
Take one of these items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult
terms and apply it to your assigned reading along with a good dose of BS.
There! You've just written your first college essay!
Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world --
played like this totally mega-huge, lollapalooza F'ing game of quarters and
then lay down with one of our classmates for a nap. Or if all governments
had a basic policy to always look the other way and pretend like they didn't
know each other the day after they did something really embarrassing
together.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are -- when you go out
into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together and sing "Hey
hey we're the Monkees!" as loudly as possible.
Copyright 2002 B. Andersen, apologies to Mr. Fulghum (who learned
everything he needed to know in kindergarten ... right, sure, as if he never
went to college)
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
"These Days"
by Effy - effy@anada.net
Chest painfully contracting with each cough, I spent another night
self-quarantined in my apartment watching TV, the cable modem gone dead
again. What hell to have to resort to public access television late on a
week night. At least I had gotten out earlier -- gone to visit my
bandmates, gone to visit my friend at the mall on her night shift, grabbed
a coffee. I thought previously that if I hadn't done these things, I
would've surely gone insane spending another day alone with my cold. I knew
the infection; I could taste the sickness in my throat as my coughs made
crackling, wheezing noises. At least it gave me the initiate to quit
smoking two days before, but I think that was adding to my insanity.
Yes, my newfound insanity, not so shocking or interesting to speak
of. Pretty self-absorbed, in actuality. My doctor six months ago had
labeled it depression, but probably only because I deeply believed it to be
so. But I really think that isolated times like this one caused me to stop
and think what has become of my own soul. I could spout off intellectual
wisdom at the drop of a hat to anyone who needed a verbal boost -- but when
it came to looking inside myself, all that was there were brimming feelings
of longing and resentment. Longing for perfection in my relationship, which
if I had a better opinion of myself, it would've been so. Resenting the
past for making me the resentful human I am. Trying so hard not to be
human: hypocritical, ever-morphing, and dying. Dying scared the shit out of
me. Not my own death, but that everyone I love would die before me, and I
would never be able to teach myself to be fulfilled on my own. Again,
selfish? Everything done in the name of happiness is essentially selfish.
And I didn't believe in sin. Or god. I hadn't thought of god in a long
time.
Numbers came up that eventually became profound. 23. 33. 11.
1111. 8, 9. Such is justice and strength. Hawks soaring in the sky could
momentarily comfort my inner anxiety and need. Crows could brighten my
spirits. But aloneness never allowed me to cleanse myself. Examine
birthchart -- Saturn, my karma, in Libra. Balance. The scales. Justice.
Number 11. On the downside -- karma can be harsh when you have to not learn
to live your life through others. When did I become this?
Understanding myself was never enough initiative to change myself.
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
"Movie"
by Pheeble - funxdome@hotmail.com
It all dashes past, like frames on a movie, like quicksand. I have
no control over it, I just have to sit back like a spectator in a dark room
and watch my own life played out by other actors. Sometimes I can't even
grasp what I myself am doing, its just a vivid scene portrayed in gaudy
colours and special effects. Somehow, I can assume the argument that I was
washed away in a blur of events, or a whirl of magic. Sure, I didn't know
what I was doing. I never knew what I was doing.
Words written, programmed, defined for me. Alienesque in sound and
meaning. A script dictated and actions dirrected and followed to the T.
And when the movie's over? Who takes the blame? Who will stay with me?
The lights fade up, the curtain comes down, but the play is far from
over, but I merely present another player. There is no tomorrow, but
another sequel to some shit house film that no one wanted to watch anyway.
/|/|
( @ @)
) ^
/ ||| (c) 2003 Anada E'zine www.anada.net * Anada is cat-friendly.
/ )|||____________________________________________________________________
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