Mesmerisch's Journal

8:31pm: Old haunts
Thursday night, at home in Wolfsburg. Niklas will be three in a few days. He is off sick right now on a stringent schedule of nose sprays and cough meds. Am somewhat surprised that I can still post here after all these years. Revisiting old haunts.

1:58pm: "When you're young, your potential is infinite. You might do anything, really. You might be great. You might be Einstein. You might be Goethe. Then you get to an age where what you might be gives way to what you have been. You weren't Einstein. You weren't anything. That's a bad moment. But I remember something Carlyle wrote: '...there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.' I realized my salvation might be in recording my wasted life, unflinchingly. Maybe it would serve as a cautionary tale. Maybe it would help me understand why."

- Chuck Barris

12:12pm: THIS WEEK on DENTAQUEST 2000
A striking pair of bright red staple-jaws were 'spirited away' from my desk by a shadowy office supply hoarder. I immediately shot out an "inter-office email", "requesting" that they be returned ("No Questions Asked"). I was, of course, more than a little rattled by the whole ordeal, but you'll be relieved to know: this morning, "Red Snapper" mysteriously reappeared, perched atop my Post-it Dispenser (affectionately known as "Little Pip") -> You'll become familiar with the cast of characters in no time at all. Be sure to tune in for Next Week's "DENTAQUEST 3000" [Episode Title: "Mailing Database Corruption!" Rated NC-17 (Obscene Language)]

12:48pm: Projekt Vaterland
Anyway, when I'm not treadmilling my way out of debt, I've been turning my flat into a veritable Festival of Lights. It's nearing aesthetic perfection: a very thrilling prospect for me. I love having my own place. I've set up the bathroom so I can spend hours in the bathtub and still be productive (study, use the phone, eat, drink, etc - only an underwater laptop could improve the situation.) I better get back to work. Kerry

2:14am: Cape Town is staggering. I'm staying with Granny, but each day I've been driving down at least a section of the Cape coastline. There's nothing I like more than staring into the angry sea (from a high cliff).

I was taking lots of photographs, up until the point where somebody smashed my rental car's window, and stole the camara from the boot. I've been calmer about the whole thing than I expected, and will go camara-shopping tomorrow.

Have been reading Tristan and Iseult recently, and as a result (I can only assume) my dreams have been extremely 'mythic', and somewhat baleful. A few nights ago, I was walking through a 'Pick-n-Pay' supermarket and I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I looked down to find five small white arrows piercing my chest. The arrows had been dipped in a cumulative neurotoxin of sorts, which I knew would eventually render me completely witless. But more immediately, a component of the poison had already begun dissolving my internal organs. The rest of the dream consisted of my quest to find somebody who could successfully remove the little spikes. Sort of like a sword-in-the-stone deal. It was vivid... right down to the drops of blood on the scratched linoleum in the tinned-fruit aisle. I felt so tired the next morning that I just lolled around in bed, drinking Rooibos Tea, until early afternoon.

Adrien (Rigolage) and I had a 'Break-Up Barbecue' the night before I left. That went off pretty smoothly.

The night after I arrived in Cape Town, I went to a markedly formal dinner with Adrian (Kohler), and discovered that no connection yet lingers between us. It was as if we didn't recognize each other. It was both freeing and distressing, in that I am now sufficiently disembarrassed of vestigial highflown ideals. Or perhaps I have simply finally divested them of this problematic emblem.

I haven't tasted true singletude for so long now, and think it's good for me. It's only right, really.

Adrian (Kohler) is now "committed" to an altrustic art therapist named Anya, and Adrien (Rigolage) is spending copious amounts of time with a trendy young hipster named Andrea.
Adrian + Anya
Adrien + Andrea
Adrien, should you read this, I'll add the disclaimer: I know you and Andrea are 'just friends', but the parallels are just so elegant in a literary sense.

9:14am: Whilom élan exhausted, I still see lights along the way, yet imagine my sustaining fascination is really for nothing more than the friction between feuding tragedies. In the end I divine a dead heat between loneliness and lung cancer.

9:06am: CHOOSE YOUR OWN TRAGEDY! (Reader Participation Requested)
Riaan stirred to the dull throb of survival. Three tiny bones in his right ear faithfully rattled out each muted thud his unremitting heart thrust through the bloody boulevards buried beneath his flesh. His languid cognizance drifted, eavesdropping on the dogged murmurings of his remains.

Breathing into a damp pillow, in the flickering calm of his half-waking, he forgot. For a few thoughtless seconds, he nestled in a gurgling infant-sentience, too torpid to bear knowledge, yet too animate to plunge back into the unspeakable landscapes of his nightmares.

He lay, unfettered by memories, images, the tortured etchings of his history.

YOUNG READER - YOU DECIDE!

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO RIAAN’S BLISSFUL INANITION?!
WILL HE WAKE UP AND GO TO WORK - OR - WILL HE DIE, FOREVER LIBERATED FROM HIS ACHING ANAMNESES?

HIS FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS!

10:42pm: There's a recipe for soup at the end
Every day this tableau vivant is distorted ever so slightly more. Since 11 or 12, I have known (of course not in these words) that some time after soaking my corneas and irradiating those little pools, the ricocheted light undergoes my particular brand of encephalous twisting. I don't have to try anymore. The images are already renovated by the time they 'come to mind'. They are all becoming increasingly abstracted. It seems like a distortion of colour and composition, but in truth, the visual parameters are most likely the same and it must all be the translation. When I don't need them to, the shapes don't translate into word/name-referants. I can disconnect from their connotations. When there is no pressing need for presence, I can give the impression of rapt attention, but really, I flicker in and out of my surroundings. I find myself 'awaking' in strange 'places', even conversations, which I will suddenly realize are utterly foreign to me. It's like a spiritual ADHD, except that I couldn't be more unswervingly engaged. De facto Kerry - I'm enraptured. I feel surrounded by simulacra.

In another vein, I've become considerably clutched by my own fragility, worried, but almost enamoured. I spent a long time with my hand on my clavicles today, and these promontories were so much so, my skin felt a gossamer. I'm certain I can't survive, but it makes things a little exciting. Ah, the allure of the ephemeron. I will now refrain from quoting 'How to Disappear Completely'.

I made a wonderful soup today:

Chop up a whole packet of bacon into tiny pieces.
Chop up 2 Vidalia Onions into tiny pieces.
Fry the bacon and onions in a pan.
Once golden brown, pour them into a pot with the following other ingredients:
1 BIG can of crushed tomatoes
2 regular cans of sweet corn
1/2 pint of cream (full cream, the kind some put in coffee)
1 1/2 tablespoons of Marjoram
Simmer for a while.
Serve and
Pepper to taste.

It's quick and rewarding. Someone make it - you'll like it.

3:35pm: Human, All Too Human
Every day seems to deliquesce into the brume of the last 8,545 or so.
Henceforth, I will be keeping a small scribal souvenir from each one.

Daily, I will post brief summary lists of:
1. How I have 'uebermensch'ed myself. (My apologizes to any Nietschian's reading)
2. How I have 'untermensch'ed myself.

You'll most likely find them rather sapless, so feel free to take me off your Friends' list.

Having spent most of the morning watching 2nd Season Soprano's episodes (Tony, Pauli, and Christopher's expedition to Italy was the last episode was the last on the DVD - A woman boss! - Those crazy Italians!), I really should get the ball rolling here.

Le but primaire d'aujourd'hui:
(Today's Primary Goal)
- Use the term 'voluptuary' as often as possible. (Voluptuary - a person devoted to luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites; a sensualist.) Without fail, I must weave it into a conversation with the clerk I will no doubt encounter at the BookHolders Shop on Route 1. (I'm headed there now. I want to sell my textbooks from last semester.) It'll be a stretch but where there's a will, there's a way, eh?

Les buts secondaires d'aujourd'hui:
(Today's Secondary Goals)
- Memorize a whole flock of German verbs (including their simple past stems, strong/weak statuses, etc)
- Write a Linguistics essay on a study of iconic gesturing vs. ASL signing used for pronominalization by deaf people.
- Learn half of Chapitre Cinq for the French Test on Tuesday.
- Write out a study plan for my Nutrition Test on Wednesday. I abhor this class. Of course I could use it to benefit myself but I settle for letting it make me feel diseased.

There are so many people I should be calling, emailing, etc. I just can't keep up anymore, and when I can't keep up, I bow out.

1:50pm: Thank you for the <3-shaped nail file.
Just got into work. Valentine's Day is full heart-shaped swing here at DentaQuest. (I unwittingly wore red today, and now every passer-by must must must say something to the effect of "Red!")

My desk is littered with paraphernalia. "Erin" sent me a card depicting Winnie the Pooh holding out a pot of honey and saying "Thanks for being there!" If, by 'there', she means second cubicle from the bathroom on the left then, well then, it's my pleasure.

This whole holiday gift-giving thing is a little absurd. I don't even know who "Erin" is! I have a hunch she may be the newest addition to member services, and if so, I haven't said so much as word to her. Nevertheless, she received a thank-you email like the rest of them:
"Dear ----,
Thank you so much for the (delicious/beautiful/useful/fragrant) ---- !
Happy Valentine's Day!
Kerry"

On the flip side of ye old Valentine's coin, last night Adrien surprised (it was a surprise because I adamantly renounced the holiday a few days ago) me with an exquisite white azalea, a heart-shaped helium balloon (with a heart-shaped hole in the middle, through which poster-Amelie's face is now peeking mischievously through), red carnations (another addition to the Amelie shrine), Godiva chocolates (Better watch out - Amelie may eat them by the time I get home! ... sorry... I'm off the hizzook right now), and 3 pairs of underwear, each with a screaming monkey printed on the front. There's just no telling with me. I would usually have been repulsed, I guess there's just no telling how I'll react to anything. I, myself, have no idea. Next Valentine's Day might be different.
But for now, surprisingly, it's wowowowow. Thanks Adrien! - You're incorrigible! <3 <3 <3 [Can you believe it? I'll regret this later.]

I have to work myself into a frenzy now. Ciao.

9:32pm: Of course, you do realize it's (I'm) completely fictional...
It dawns on me that my life has become startlingly analogous to Ground Hog Day (the movie, not the actual day.... but I suppose that was obvious. Nobody seems to acknowledge the Day anymore... Well when I say 'nobody' I really mean 'me', and for 'me' it's nothing more than a deserted memory. I suppose by the very mention of it, I've abolished its 'deserted' status. I digress... Don't get me wrong here... I have no nostalgic attachments the event. I don't even know when it is (would be))

The point I'm trying to make is that, like Phil (or Bill if you will), every day seems a duplicate of the former. Obviously this is far from a new or perceptive sentiment. ("same 'ole, same 'ole" - unrelated to anything, may I just mention that I harbour exceptional hatred for this little idiom, which they pitch around the office as liberally as their Pop-up Post-it notes).

The events of my days, like Phil's, do, of course, differ from one to the next. This morning would be an example. I woke up to discover God had ashed his colossal frozen cigarette over the whole mid-atlantic east-coast region. (Well yes, of course, one would think His country-sized cigarette ember would melt the snow before it reached the earth, but remember I said it was frozen. God smokes freezing cigarettes, not burning ones. And of course it's possible: He's an omnipotent deity; who are YOU to question His Almighty vices? I redigress...)

University of Maryland was closed so I had the whole morning to soak up the "devastatingly beautiful" landscape. What did I do? - I huddled in a blanket in front of a computer screen and poured over at least a dozen websites devoted to "The Zodiac Killer" (incidently a fascinating little story).

When I tired of this, and discovered theonion had not yet re-issued, I took off my shoes and stood the front garden. I looked down and fancied my feet feet to be burning-hot pokers. I couldn't, understandably, sustain that little fantasy for too long (They swiftly transformed into shivering, anemic, (hairless), squirrel babies). "Refreshed" I retreated inside to get ready for work.

My point is: it takes a really dazzling day to make me realize how dreadfully despondent I am. Of course, come Monday, I might be forced to sit through yet another linguistics discussion group full of babbling blockheads, I might accidentally pour orange juice down the sleeve of my faux-fur coat, external email might be down - and yet, I'd be gripped by an unbounded puerile ecstasy (on account of something as simple as my Pilot 'Precise' Extra-fine Rolling Ball.)

I've been sousing myself in French and German recently, staying up to 3,4...declining verbs and things of that ilk. Ironically enough, in general, I've been imposing a sort of communicative paralysis on myself, systematically replacing people with concepts. It feels good, a little claustrophobic in here, yet nevertheless comforting.

That said, ever the contradiction, I am sort of hoping I'll get at least one measly comment out of all this, damnit. Post you favourite Outkast lyric or something...I (don't) care...
Confutably yours,
Kerry

4:04pm: Bleak Little Eremite the Book Louse

There abode, once upon a vesper mouse,
Asigh and ashuffle, dolour-struck louse.
Every dusk, lushed on hot mammalian vein,
She’d crush up and sniffle the dandruff cocaine.

Tiny tears would plummet to their sober dilution
Aquiver in a globe of clotty claret solution.
Since lonely licelet she’d languished spouselessly,
Apout and aprate in the same pore louselessly.

Now in that hot haze of hemic champagne
She gazed aglaze in icy disdain
Numbly past dandling lice pairs
Agrope in the pulsing jungle of hairs.

Life spread out before her in fields of mucid flesh
And lay dead behind her like Ishtar and Gilgamesh.

12:45am: Old School Steel
Couldn’t be bothered with work today. Woke up at 8, hung onto consciousness just long enough to explain my nonattendance to DentaQuest, then lapsed back into blissful slumber until Adrien roused me at 1 with the prospect of pancakes. I can’t eat pancakes without lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, melted butter, and old-fashioned maple syrup. We had all of those in the kitchen save the lemon juice, so this translated into a trip to Shoppers. This, however translated into a trip to the Chevy Chase, CVS, CD Depot, and in conclusion, Terrapin Trader, where I rapidly became attached to the idea of having my own filing cabinet. I finally set my heart on a magnificent old monolith, your standard “Steelcase” 60’s four-drawer. It’s colossal, 45-litre-colossal. Adrien couldn’t even close the boot of his car… with both the back seats down. I adore it. I really feel I have an unnatural affection for the thing. I almost quiver in excitement at the thought of garnering all the filing necessaries from the office supply closet tomorrow. After getting it downstairs, we did make another expedition for lemon juice, but by the time we got back it was 4pm and I was due to visit my parents. Anyway, I digress, my cabinet really ties together my whole room. By ‘ties together’ I mean ‘dominates’. It’s completely incongruous, not to mention breathtakingly unnecessary. I want more.

Everybody’s (Adrien, Cousin Sean, Cousin-Sean-girlfriend-Mel, Plainface, and Bollinger) upstairs watching TV. I opt for limericks and fine hazelnut chocolates. (It’s a new years resolution thing)

There was a young lass named Kerry,
Who, bored with her life on the prairie,
Gave up the ghost
And died by French Toast
Draped in Jerusalem Cherry.

1:35pm: Vaporean Gloom
I’ve just been clouted with such deep nostalgia. I discovered Pokemon.com and began browsing their Pokedex. Boy o boy. I just can’t express the strange cocktail of emotions it engendered. Squirtle really set it off.

I guess I've never told anybody here about my Pokemanic Period. Genaro and I simultaneously collected succulents (all indigenous to South Africa of course) and Pokemon Tazos. The Tazos were little round Pokemon trading disks and they came in packets of Simba Chips from the local res tuck shop just across the parking lot. I'd buy at least one packet/day and had accumulated over 500 before I left Cape Town.

Genaro and I would spend hours on my floor discussing our favourites, their evolutions, the merits of the different manifestations, etc. Genaro was always keen on the more sadistic incarnations. For example, while I was mad about Bellsprout, he preferred Victreebell. I liked Mew, he, Mewtwo. We both agreed Ninetails was the most graceful, Vaporeon the most glamorous, Bellossum most adorable, and Metapod the most succulent.

We also each owned hundreds of different succulent species. Genaro kept most of his in a greenhouse in Johannesberg and I kept mine in long thin half-bamboo-stem planters, which littered my room. Genaro and I would swap and plant crassula slips for ages. I’d wax lyrical about senecio haworthii’s elegance and he’d go on about the plumpy perfection of his beloved euphorbia meloformis. (I had one too but it had basal stem rot). I'm so despondent.

What do I collect now? Dust.
Perhaps I’ve destroyed one too many serotonin nerve terminals. I’m so glum today. All my tazos are in a box in a garage in Cape Town and all my succulents were left in the "care" of my godmother (who doesn’t know the first thing about exterminating aloe mites, aphids or mealy bugs).
Sigh.

10:42pm: If I only had an incarnadine sweater
I swear I’d feel 23X better.
Oh how I abhor non-committal red.
I want it dark and dense as lead:
An arrant rash, Bolshie and brazen,
A crimson splash dirk blade emblazon.
Like the Baron, Pimpernel, eye and Letter
The Tape, Square, Tide, and Irish Setter.
Let it be Stop-sign and dinoflagellatelet.
Arresting and cardiac, blushing hot platelet.
I only toast stout vermillions,
And double-distilled malted Killians.
It must be thick and communist,
But sadly, dear, I will resist
For, to suitably rubify,
You see, I fear, I’d have to die.

- Kerry S. Robb

5:49pm: “Permissible Exposure Limit” (or "Half-Life")
Nothing makes me brood and mope
Quite like a stable isotope
Nothing leaves me so drearified
As a good old lactose disaccharide

Oh how I yearn to just expire
In a raging exothermic fire
I’d be happier as carbon ash
I’d be happier as diaper rash

I care not for you, noble gas
I care not for your atomic mass
Nor your bloody odious quantum morass
Yet I’ll cling til ‘this too (I) shall pass’

I’ll haul my orbital --- into gear
Damn it all, I’ll persevere
I’ll stay up late, cursing every hour
Wasting all my watts of power.

- Kerry S. Robb

9:54am: PAH!
I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown.
- Homer

I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me mentally master the rather insipid cosmos of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
- Kerry

(I think mine sort of has an 'edge' his doesn't)

9:41pm: Sleek yet warm... like me.
To celebrate the last chemistry lab of the festive season, I finally bought myself a pair of 40-gram midnight-black "Thinsulate" Driving Gloves.

7:20pm: Free Mugoth T-Shirts!!
If you are feeling ultra-altruistic today, would you help a friend of mine win his silly little online competition? He's the aforementioned fanciful scamp (don't let the wry smile, fiery tongue, and hard outer shell befool you) named Eddie (aka Mugoth)

To help him win (He's just giddy with excitement...)

1) Go to this site and register as a free member of the message board

2)Go to the messageboard topic/ballot box "Aurora".

3)He is listed under "Hard Dance" and is listed as "Mugoth the Destroyer (Eddie Tirocke) DCSkillz- hard dance/tech trance

If you do vote for him, comment in his journal and he'll send you a free T-shirt. (Even if you're in England or South Africa!) He's just that kind of a guy.

11:36am: As we all know it's better to go grocery shopping when you're full.
In the same vein it's better not to shop for clothes naked.
Just a thought, not a sermon.

9:13am: on a real Nin kick.
Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

4:32am: Only in the throes of procrastination would I obsess over the fact that I've used my very last Cling-Free Static-Stopping-Sheet. That's right folks. I'll be sartorially staticky for the next week, probably longer. How will I survive?

10:59pm: We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Anais Nin

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
Anais Nin

8:28am: Figured you'd be interested to hear that everyone's favorite little autocrat, overjoyed at the prospect of another 7 years as mighty ruler of Iraq, and perhaps in an effort to make up for past indiscretions (the 'gassing' and whatnot) has benevolently, decided to boost Iraq's morale and:


EMANCIPATE THE PRISONERS!

That's right - all of them: murderers, rapists, child molestors, those facing the death penalty, the whole criminal kit and caboodle, [except, of course, Israeli and American 'spies'] are now free to roam the streets.

Iraq must be so proud.

10:41pm: "It sounds to me like someone is starting to get the faintest inkling of The Rules."

Lest your hopes be raised, I like to remain in the moment before blinking, down in the bulges, behind two thin films that might as well be pools when you keep your pupils nestled in their bellies resting on the rims, watching the specks glissading on the surface tension. Of course at their height of distortion, these precarious pouches, rather ungraciously take the plunge, and I'm left to sit it out as still and silent as possible until they well up again.
If I can't see you, you can't see me, and unlike the infant delusion, in this case it's true. (While on the topic, I'm not making some sort of high-flown solipcistic claim here, as I steer clear of dry-eyed reflections)

I sort got off the subject here, but the gist is:
Rules? I don't know what you're talking about.