Life according to my favourite composer.

'I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.'

Cheerful old fellow, this Chopin. I stumbled upon a collection of quotes and was impressed, although not surprised, by the intensity of his depression. The master of romantic piano music really needs to watch more Monty Python.

Here he is describing his accomodation whilst staying at Majorca:

'It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or haircurling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. '

I could live without curlers, but white gloves are a necessity. Watch this space for more paleness.

Here he goes again, expressing my own and everyone's great doubts about it all:

'I am gay on the outside [...] but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death.'

And finally, a long, long parade of doom and gloom:

'This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. (There we go.) A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life.... Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!... Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? ... But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is.'

Aspiring psychologists take note: here is a case study that can be diagnosed with just about anything. Great thesis topic.

Aspiring musicians: buy the nocturnes. And if you know any aspiring inventors named Doc, sign me up for the nineteenth century.

There's just no end to the monty python references.

This will not do wonders for my schoolwork.

Do not expect to hear from me for awhile.

I feel so very, very betrayed. I never knew Neil would let me down like this, but evidently he has less respect for the way I'm trying to cope with addiction than I had believed.

*draws deep breath*

Today, my guitar teacher lent me the complete DVD set of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Now, it's possible that he doesn't realize just how deep I'm in. Just how much of a flaming nerd I really am. But then, most people aren't exactly very public about this kind of thing. I felt you all should know only so that when you next observe me giggling uncontrollably for minutes on end in the middle of math class, you don't leap to the conclusion that I am insane. Crazy, yes. Not insane.

There was some more stuff that happened today but I can't remember it now.

EDIT: I've just realized that out of my five latest posts, four mention monty python, and the fifth is about science fiction. See, this is why I can't answer when people ask me what I want to do with my life.

Happy? Obviously, I'm ill.

I really love Greek names.

Well, it took me 356 posts, and in the end I didn't write it myself, but I've finally put my name on the blog. I know it comes as a huge revelation to most of my readers.

In the news today, Dufault has offered me a half-credit for doing one of my favourite things in the whole world: alphabetizing and organizing a bookshelf. Specifically, the one full of Smiley's books in 210. Both seem happy with the idea of somebody working on it, but I bet they aren't as happy as I am.

Also, after watching Life of Brian twice at Alicia's last Saturday, and after Orlando's failed attempts to pronounce 'real root' in math today, I've decided that I should try and go a whole day without saying the letter 'r'. Hopefully many ridiculous situations will arise.

Today my brother completely freaked the shit out of me with a fake egg, which he threw over my head. I lost consciousness for a fraction of a heartbeat, and when I came to I'd dropped my dishes in the sink and lost my spoon.

And finally, a link to one of my favourite things on the interweb. Visions of the future, as seen in the past. It's priceless.

Brothers, sisters, can't you see? The future's owned by you and me.

Castor and Pollux.

More books.

While Arthi fought yet another battle in the office on Friday, I found a Nebula Winners anthology on the lost-and-found shelf under the teacher's boxes. It looked lost and forlorn, so I (out of the pure and honest goodness of my heart) elected to give it a home.

As it turns out, one of the stories featured in the collection is Asimov's Bicentennial Man. The novelette (novelette? novella? short story? who cares?) happens to be one of my favourite Asimov shorts (and, if you know me well, you are probably aware that I have read far, far too many. they are mind-expanding), as well as one of the few stories that I suggest reading next to a box of tissues (lots of stories make me cry, but tissue tears are an entirely different brand of feeling, and one I believe others are more likely to share). Basically, it's about a robot who wants to be human. So yes, I guess you can bring out the transvestite comparisons. Recommended.

I actually remember seeing the movie once, a long time ago. Of course, it was considerably stupider and more glamourous. The inevitable casting of Robin Williams and addition of a love interest were a letdown, if an expected one; from there, it slid somewhat complacently into cliché. After all, the wonder of the original story is that only an author with such a stark, unornamented style -- a style stereotypically male and stereotypically haut sci-fi (bas sci-fi, or so I term it henceforth, being more along the lines of those horrifyingly fascinating space-erotica paperbacks) -- could pull off such a plot and retain his dignity.

So yes, it was probably worse than the film version of I, Robot, but I'm not absolutely sure. ('I'm Will Smith, I hate robots, I wear Converse'; cue incomprehensible but vaguely interesting car-robot-chases, and a little later you have one very confused fourteen-year-old wondering what exactly the answer to the mystery was, and who the robot referred to in the title is, and what any of this has to do with Asimov.)

Bugs.

It was huge. It was black. And it flew. Around my bed, to be precise. It was a battleship of a bug, an monster of uncountable appendages, ridiculous proportions, and an indeterminate number of body sections, all bound together by some mystical dark force. Had it not appeared to possess several times the requisite number of legs, I would have called it Death in insect form, but this unearthly beast was beyond classification in any known arthropod genus. As my body locked into position, my reflexes rejoicing at the advent of the crisis for which they had been designed, my highly-developed brain (nourished by the sort of novels one cannot admit to having read except among a trusted few) came to the logical realization that here, at last, was the probe I had so long expected to see. Here was evidence of extraterrestrial surveillance; I had known it all along.

Needless to say, my father was unable to locate the levitating Leviathan. While I searched the basement for harpoons, pitchforks, and holy water, he grabbed the net we used to catch tadpoles, fish, frogs, and the occasional budgie (what good would such a weapon have done him?) and poked around my room. I sleep with heavy books beside my bed now. (Which is true, but after all, I always have.)

Today, my brother was on the garage roof when he stepped on a bees' nest.

It isn't really my story to tell, but I have no doubt that it is one of the worst experiences of his life. I've never heard anyone scream like that before. He leapt down (eight feet up, and he leaps down?) and ran into the house, shrieking and flailing his arms, a cloud of striped warriors following him everywhere he fled.

'Get out get out!' I screamed. 'Go to the park! Go find mom at the park!'

Exit brother, unshod, tearing for the park, the hounds of hell at his back. Exit brother's friend, running for home and his own mother. Cut to attic, as I contemplate climbing out through the window. Close-up on lingering swarm in living room of house. Back to attic, with me pulling on pants and putting socks on -- two on my feet, two on my hands.

Brother's friend came back, bringing his mother, three other kids, and antihistamines. In honour of the fresh audience, I provided my best impression of a paranoid, senile widower.

Paranoid, Senile Widower (locally, Old Sockhands): 'Go away! Get out while you can!' (Waves socked hands.) 'They're all around you! They'll get you too!' (Runs down two flights of stairs, charges out front door. Socked feet, hands disappear into distance.)

And my brother. Panic attack, pink and swollen, chunks of skin missing. Mercifully, bones unbroken and allergically unreactive. But the trauma, and the pain.

Perhaps I'll just stop sleeping. I'll patrol the second floor, standing sentinel outside my brother's door, armed with a rolled newspaper and a rubber boot. And always, always watching for the Martian bug.

EDIT: I forgot. Get Fuzzy, I am shamed to admit, was today a fairly accurate reflection of the way my own mind works. I'll never make a politician.

The idyll.

Two books. Three days. Plenty of zeroes.

'What's so funny about Biggus Dickus?'

-Life of Brian

Honestly, if this lending of books proceeds in a way anywhere close to its current rate, this will be a hell of a year. I've had two people give me books to read since school started. And not just give me the titles, which is fantastic enough; I mean actually hand over the volume with a return-whenever date affixed.

On the first day of school, Frances from my homeroom lent me Good Omens, which Alicia has been telling me to read for a year or two and I've been resisting because I like to pretend I don't like Neil Gaiman. I'm almost finished. I thought about saving it, but I've never had much in the way of self-control. I figure I'll wind up with my own copy eventually anyway.

Then, today, I was looking at a book on Orlando's desk. The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. This, I said, must be the most amazing book in the world ever. (One of my dad's favourite phrases to use around me has always been, 'I've told you a million times not to exaggerate.') So she took the hint that I honestly wasn't really making and handed it over. (If the whole year of precal is spent talking about zeroes, infinity and math puns, I may actually learn to pay attention.)

My second driving lesson is coming up. I'm trying not to think about it. And for those who don't know I'm the worst driver in the history of the world, I am. I can't drive a car, I can barely steer a sailboat, and I'm just very happy that I've never hit anything worse than a mailman while biking. Hey, we should go biking soon.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, Sophia. What I actually wrote was: 'The powers of darkness. The void. The portal to a world of emptiness.'
What I should have written was: 'Zero is the mind-killer. Zero is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face zero. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when zero is gone past me I will turn to see zero's path. Where zero has gone there will be zero.'
(In other words: Wonderfully confusing Dune reference!)
And yeah, I'm super glad you're in those classes. I'm stoked. It'll make it so much more interesting.

NEW EDIT: xkcd is my favourite webcomic. Not that I read more than one. Definitely not AHAHAHA. But seriously. I've been following for awhile, and it's consistently amazing; check it out down the right. And don't give up on it if the first one you read is about weird fetishes. (Not that anyone honestly would. Quite the contrary, I believe.)

I could have kissed them.