It is done!

With today's purchase of Extraterrestrial Live,, I have completed my collection of Blue Öyster Cult LPs. This statement is contingent on Heaven Forbid and Curse of the Hidden Mirror never having been released on vinyl- I don't think they were, but if I'm wrong, please tell me, so I can hunt them down- and I'm naturally excluding compilations, side projects, and the like.

I'm not a collector kind of dude, so I don't think I'll move on to picking up singles, promos, and so on. I'm pretty content having the entire catalogue of one of the best bands ever to walk the earth on vinyl. All I need now is to see them live.

My mail situation appears to have been fixed, and today I received my Om shirt from Rachel. It kicks much ass, as does the woman who gave it to me. She even included a nifty sketch in the package! Add roughly five miles of strolling, some new magazines, additional LP purchases, several cans of Schlitz, and the company of the Mann and my brother, and you can say that D.A.S. has had a fine day.

Hypertrophic sense of well-being.

Last night/morning I had a really good, heart-lifting dream. Well, it was good up to a point, and then it became so weird that I refuse to talk about it (for now, most likely- knowing me, I'll end up drunk one night, talking about dreams with the right person, and beans will be spilled). Weirdness gave way to disappointment, because the time came in the dream when I knew that it was ending, and I didn't want it to. All I wanted to do was keep hanging out with Niddah, but others got in the way and ushered me out of the Dreamlands and back to paltry reality.

I received- almost a year after the fact- my one-year anniversary name plaque at work. As requested, they inscribed (read: screened- it wasn't even fuckin' engraved) it "D.A. Smith." Unlike everyone else who's been there long enough to receive one, I didn't put mine on my desk or atop my monitor, but took it home in anticipation of the day that I have another office and will be able to announce myself to visitors with a chunk of wood and brass facing the door.

The weekend: so far, so good. Hung out with Dave after work, been drinkin' Schlitz, and am looking forward to attending the inaugural game of Houston's brand-new football (er, soccer) team, Dynamo, on Sunday. I find it highly amusing that my city named its football team after the premiere FC of Moscow, but what the hell. It's good to have a sport in town that I actually enjoy. A bunch of my best friends will be coming along with me, since I scored free tickets from work, so it will be a blast... unless it's a 0-0 draw or something equally unspectacular. In that case, I'm tempted to incite hooligan-style violence. I may have one spare ticket available, but I'm waiting to hear back from someone before I can say for sure; when I find out, I will spread the word. If you want to go to the match, do it! Cheap tickets are $12-15, and you're bound to have a good time. It's at 6:30 at Robertson Stadium, on the UH campus. Support your local football (uh, soccer- sorry, I prefer "football," as that's what EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD CALLS IT, and I picked up the term living in Venezuela) club!

I fear that I will have to go to war with the United States Postal Service tomorrow, seeing as how I haven't received any mail in my name in the past two weeks, and I've been expecting some important stuff. Son of a bitch.

Good news for fans o' my fiction.

Forty-odd new pages of Unheimlich are now on the internet for your reading pleasure, and just in time for me to take a piss, brush my fangs, and finish watching an episode of Lost before I overrun my scheduled bedtime.

Let me know what you think, y'all, and take it easy.

Wake.

Patton told me an amusing story tonight about Ethiopian soldiers in the Korean War after I asked him if he'd ever served alongside anyone but Americans. Long story short: Ethiopians put up Chinese heads on stakes. Along comes an officer of some other contingent, and, aghast, he yells "you can't do that!" To which the Ethiopian CO on the scene says, quite naturally, "We just did."

Scott leaves in two weeks. Motherfuck. That's gonna cause and additional -10 on all saving throws vs. despondency for a while... and I've been rolling low enough as it is.

Kagnew.

I had a good time at Uncle Smitty's this weekend, which should come as no surprise. I watched some Jeremy Brett-era Sherlock Holmes on satellite TV, read about the Korean war, and talked with my uncle, Scott, and Vanessa about everything from teaching to backwoods East Texas black culture to NASCAR to the fate of General Motors. Around 1:30 in the morning I caught a half-hour documentary film called Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square, which was beautifully animated and compelling in its sentiment and simplicity- not to mention that it sated my need for anything Chinese.

I got absolutely nothing done in terms of writing, but fuck it. The weekend passed too quickly, but it served its purpose, and I'm a little more at ease with life right now.

It's time to go investigate Ethiopian military involvement in Korea c. 1951-53, so I'll catch y'all later.

The coughing of angels sounds like the hum of air conditioners.

Dave left for New Mexico yesterday with his dame Julie, and won't be back until sometime Sunday, so I've got the place to myself until I make my own brief journey to East Texas on Saturday. I fucked up my new routine last night by watching Lost until seven in the morning, but made up for it by managing to do everything I needed to do, and then some, this afternoon (when I woke up almost two hours later than I wanted to, but fuck it- results are results).

I got paid today, and I've calculated that I can pay off my credit card (when I did so online, I found that my credit limit had been doubled; this is information of a most dangerous nature), pour some dough into savings, pay the electricity bill and rent, and still have money for moderate beer/tobacco intake, a showing of V for Vendetta on Friday, a few boxes of 7.62 mm ammunition, and a few other diversions until I receive my next paycheck. Out of that will come gifts for Matt and Holly, whose wedding I will be attending, as a groomsman, on the eighth of April, most likely sans date.

So, yeah, things are running smoothly for the time being. Writing has been accompanied by the music of Godflesh and Jesu, both of which are the work of the unceasingly impressive Justin Broadrick and suit the current mood of Unheimlich and yours truly to a T. My mind is clouded by months-old spectres less and less. And, to top it off, I suspect I will be receiving a gift in the mail soon from Rad Friend 2006 #1, but only time will tell.

Good night, y'all.

Move along.

Not much to report here, really. I'll be putting up some new Unheimlich material within the next week. I'm enjoying Bruce Dickinson's newest solo album, Tyranny of Souls, quite a bit. I'm going to my uncle's this weekend. I talked to Amanda tonight.

There you have it.

Excursus.

Saturday was a day of general inactivity, at least until nightfall. All I did was watch Lost, which Andy lent me and I find quite compelling. Come dark, Matt Smith stopped by, bearing me a gift of Czar Nicholas II Nostalgia Tea, and we proceeded to shoot the breeze and take a perambulatory expedition around Montrose, stopping to examine books and drink cappucino. Then I came home, enjoyed more conversation with Matt and Dave, fried some bamboo shoot and tofu dumplings, and fell asleep on the couch watching Lost again.

I didn't write at all, I think, but I figure it's all right to take one day a week off from doing so.

You're getting nothing from me, because you offer nothing in return.

I was going to write something here, but I decided not to, because I'm fucking tired of making bitter allusions.

I will say this, though: Black Sabbath pretty much cures all.

ALL RIGHT.

I forgot to mention in my last entry that Andy and I are going to start shooting "All Right" this summer. If anyone wants to donate their days/evenings/homes/sweet rides to our miniature epic of suburban cruisin', drinkin', and makin' the scene, let me or the Link know. You won't be paid, but you'll have fun, and you'll get a copy of the finished product.

Don't worry; you've got a couple-three months before it goes down. That said, we've been putting this off for too long, and we need all the help we can get. After all, this thing is about y'all. And us.

Remarks only minutes after zero hour.

Well, the new behavior patterns seem to be working. As I noted yesterday, I've been writing up a storm, and the only lapse in my schedule/activity has been the beer-drinking. Sticking to three a night ain't gone so well, but I haven't had more than four. Until tonight, that is, and that's because it's the beginning of my weekend, and I'm by no means drunk, just buzzing. I want to avoid getting indiscriminately soused over the next few days, however; I'm tired of doing so just for the sake of it, and if, as I suspect, I end up spending at least two of my three weekend nights alone at home, I don't want to waste them by getting drunk (and almost inevitably depressed).

I hope I can maintain this level of discipline for as long as it takes to achieve... what? I don't know, exactly. I reckon I mainly just want to keep the old corpse in decent shape, and not let drinking, or deep gloom, or nocturnal loneliness get in the way of writing. Unheimlich, and my own perception of myself as a writer, are too important to piss or groan or lachrymate or sleep away, like I seem to have been doing for far too long now. This is what I meant to do when 2006 began, but better late than never.

Y'all take it easy, and don't forget I love ye.

Once again, Brant Bjork gets it right.

"Took a month but now I'm movin'
back to the world where I belong in"

And fuckin' A, is it good to be back. I'm sloughing worry and mental conundrums like they were dead skin. So far, seems like everyone's on my side, which makes it all easier.

Twelve pages in three, maybe four, days. If that ain't results, I don't know what is.

Sunshine and discipline.

That's the key.

Up by 1300.
Clean up, stretch, do push-ups.
Run errands.
Write for at least half an hour, if not a full hour.
Cook lunch/dinner.
Sit outside and read, or play video games.
Go to work.
Waste up to ten hours of my life, but not let it get to me.
Come home.
Check email, perform other online bureaucracy.
Write for at least an hour.
Enjoy other diversions.
Hit the sack by 0530.
Slowly move reveille back to maximize sunshine exposure, and hit the rack accordingly earlier.
Reduce beer consumption to three a day.
Quit smoking April 12.

So far, so good.

Holding the line.

Another good day. Not even work managed to ruin my mood. Andy was kind enough to drop by this afternoon and leave me with a veritable treasure trove of entertainments, for which I am grateful. Pixilated distractions sound like a pretty damn good alternative to banging my head against the wall when my writing dead-ends.

Today is Patton's birthday. Not that Patton, but Richard Patton, one of the security guards at work. He's 78, and he's a bad-ass. Let's hear it for Korean war vets who still smoke to this very day, are blind in one eye, and have dozens of awesome stories to tell. Patton's the best thing about working the night shift.

Rad in triplicate.

I have managed not to let anything- work, lack of writing, HER- get in the way of a solid Sunday evening, despite my being (unsurprisingly) drunk as hell. I'm even listening to some incredibly depressing music, and I'm still fucking happy with everything. Take that, all y'all letdowns!

P.S. I think I'm gonna buy the whole run of Buffy right now. I am so fucking pleased that nothing, and nobody, can drag me down at this moment. Fuckin' A, I'm glad I have the two or three people that matter in the long run, and the means to contact them constantly. I love y'all.

Another weekend.

My weekend's been good, more or less. There were the usual episodes of self/booze-induced despair and stupidity, but they were outnumbered by the good times. I got to see a lot of folks that I never see enough of, some of whom have never, ever let me down as human beings. It's more than I can say for others, but ain't that how it always goes? Fuck 'em, and fuck me.

I spent tonight half-passed out on the living room floor, drinking beer and listening to Venom's MMV boxed set. Frankly, I'm surprised I bought it, but I'll be damned if it ain't good to be able to listen to certain songs again.

I also started reading China Mieville's The Scar. A hundred pages in, I can't believe I'm not any further. I reckon I want to stretch it out.

A couple weeks from now I'll be heading to my uncle's place with my brother. It'll be the last time my bro makes it up there for the next couple of years, more than likely. Talk about fuckin' depressing.

I wake up shortly after 9 AM, already dejected, hung over, and wondering where my phone is.

Jesus, I can't get anything right. I'm going back to sleep.

BATTERY!

I mean both the Metallica song of the same name and the battery of applications I've been filling out tonight. The former hasn't let me down in the past 15 years, but filling out an application for U of H, so I can take an introductory Chinese course this fall, is a bitch. So is the voter registration card, but only because the fucking pre-printed address on the front is completely inapplicable to living in Harris County.

So: tomorrow I call U of H and demand to know why there's no spot on the Texas Common Application for dudes who just want to come back and take a couple classes, and walk down to the library or post office for a proper Harris County voter registration form. That's right, my ass is finally gonna vote. Why? KINKY FUCKIN' FRIEDMAN.

Work week's over, I got paid, Fry Night Deuce is tomorrow, and certain people's behaviors still baffle me. Not a bad night, really.

Oh, yeah! I've had dreams involving China every night this week. Very, very weird dreams, ranging from being in some kind of treaty port/legation enclave city, to watching Qingdao erode and crumble into the sea, to shit I can't even remember. It's been fascinating, and the nightmares I had earlier in this week have thankfully subsided.

One of said nightmares involved riding through a- get this- baroque-era oilfield and shooting everyone in my path with a pistol that needed to be cocked twice before being fired, only to run into a horribly sadistic Daniel Day Lewis (I don't know how I knew it was him, but I did; y'all know the logic of dreams). Mr. Lewis' face was tattooed to Queequeg proportions, and he put an end to my killing spree by inflicting, upon either myself or my traveling companion- can't remember which- one hell of a nasty punishment. DDL held a Russian Orthodox cross- you know, the kind with the additional crossbar- made of razor-edged steel, and commenced to shear my, or my companion's, fucking hand off halfway through the palm. I can still see DDL blithely speaking to whomever was being mutilated as he pushed the blade through, cutting flesh like it was butter, and even worse, I remember seeing what all that muscle and bone looked like in cross-section.

And while it wasn't a nightmare per se, Monday night/Tuesday morning, shortly after falling asleep, I was visited in my bed by four Chinese in plaid shirts. I swear it didn't feel like a dream, because I recall hearing them speak to one another, then waking up and sensing them next to my bed. In the dream I was having, I knew that the four Chinese in question were either early Kuomintang members or the Gang of Four, but upon waking up and knowing they were staring at me in my bed, I couldn't recall which group they were, and I was so fuckin' creeped out that I didn't have the balls to turn over and look at them, much less ask them who they were.

Honestly, I'm not insane. Really. I think that I'm just finally getting the hang of proto-lucid dreaming, and given my recent inundation with all things Chinese, my dreams (and the incident that I still believe wasn't just a fuckin' dream) are reflecting it.

Man, I do sound nuts. If I am, so be it. Better to go nuts over my inability to lead the defense of the Chinese coast from an offshore fortress due to angering the local spirit of said fortress than, say, a woman. Waking up drenched in sweat and paranoia is easier to handle than aching atria.

Ha ha! I can't believe I'm going to post this. I reckon if I wake up tomorrow and regret it, I'll just delete it, but probably not before some choice folks read it. Adios, y'all!

-D.A.S.

Ich liebe Dich, Internet Archive!

Holy shit, I think the Internet Archive managed to save my old website from SHSU. If it has, I'm downloading it all. For the time being, I'm going to read everything I wrote back then.

(a little later)

Jesus Christ, I really don't change, do I?

"I know I can write my way out of this black hole"

The title of this entry comes from "Wish List," a Jets to Brazil song that Sara used to play in the car often. I've been thinking of that particular lyric a lot, because it seems increasingly pertinent in the face of my staggering sense of self-defeat.

So goddamned often it feels like I'm going nowhere, that where I am might as well be nowhere, and that everywhere I've ever been is becoming nowhere with each passing day. I know this probably isn't how things truly are, but man, sometimes it's tough convincing myself otherwise. I'm denied, due to circumstances and doubt, many of the things in life that would make for a mentally and spiritually even-keeled D.A. Smith, but there is one thing that nobody/nothing can take away from me- or give to me- and that is writing.

Writing is hope, exorcism, the slow strangling with my own hands of despair. Writing is fooling myself and others and rejoicing. Writing is the only beauty I can offer the world, no matter how ugly or shabby or poorly punctuated or badly plotted or tritely characterized it may be. Writing is, like Jets to Brazil said, my way out of this black hole, and while I don't bet on finding anything but a grey void once I'm out of it, there's only one way to find out, and by the Logos, I'm going to find out, and revel in every moment of the process.

"If ever I should seem to take for granted
this lovely life that I have been handed
darling don't just stand there, come knock me around"

It's me and my writing against me and everything else. I'd worry about the outcome if I didn't believe that you can't beat a man who doesn't care.

"They took my words and wrote them off as passing
It pissed me off enough to keep me writing"

Let's do this.

Better.

I feel normal now, more or less. I probably shouldn't have walked roughly two miles in the midday "heat," which kinda fucked me up for a while earlier this afternoon, but hey, the ferrets needed Frontline.

Work sucked, just as I predicted, but not too badly. Feeling halfway decent helped, though no level of health or illness could stop my usual Monday-afternoon apoplectic rage at the amount of shit for me to do.

Anyway, things seem better than they probably really are, but that's all right for now. I need all the illusions I can get when it's 2:50 AM, lest the usual dread take over and ruin the night.

ugh deuce

After a night's sweaty and nightmare-ridden, yet somehow still good, sleep, I remain feeling shitty and feverish. Work is going to fucking suck.

Ugh.

Earlier this evening I was hit by a sudden bout of feverish chills, which pretty much killed my night out and landed me on the couch wrapped in a blanket and reading. The chills started alternating with intense feelings of internal heat, making the night a merry-go-round of shittiness.

On top of that, it's Sunday, so I'm typically bummed out by the thought of going to work, and nobody was around all night, which has made me lonesome. I can't even find something to distract myself with, like TV or a movie or writing or whatever. God, what a shitty night, and it's not even over.

The fix is in.

'Nuff said.

Wow.

Everything was six kinds of solid until sunset. Then things pointed to nocturnal solitude, which I generaly loathe despite my own love of solitude.

Fuck that shit, though. I have basked in sunlight more than a chump would.

A request.

Here and there I get responses to my posts from anonymous users. This drives me nuts; please, folks, leave some kind of written signifier of who you are. I generally know who's reading my pre-dawn communiques, so when I get a comment from someone going incognito, I scratch my head and try to figure out who "anonymous" is based on their usually one-line responses. Lazy friends? People who really lack names? Random strangers? Inquiring minds, namely mine, want to know. Much obliged.

And much obliged to Herr Link for answering the call of the colossus-slayer.

Evidence.

Odds are I've posted the lyrics to this song before, but I'm doing so again, because it's one my favorite songs of the past two (three?) years, and certain lyrics resonate with me at different times. Y'all decide which ones are weighing most heavily at the time of writing.

Damn Katatonia for releasing their next record in March, when the weather, and almost by default my mood, will start turning pleasant again.

"Evidence"
Katatonia
Viva Emptiness

I hold my breath and check the time
One minute no collapse
If you only knew what I would do for you
One thirty breathing lapse
We're going in my voice is thin
When I tell you to remember
That no one will find you
My promise from the heart
If we part my pulse will guide you through

Be still for a moment
Everything depends upon you
If you die I will die too
Once we were heroes
But everything has changed since then
Now they recognize you too

I stay too long something's wrong
You walk out of the picture
I hold my breath and check the time
One thirty i collapse
We went in my voice was thin
When I told you to remember
That no one will find you
My promise from the heart
If we part my pulse will guide you through

Be still for a moment
Everything depends upon you
If you die I will die too
Once we were heroes
But everything has changed since then
Now they recognize you too

I am the evidence
You passed the test and that's so good for you
O love will you read the letters I will send to you
Will I come along
Will they let me out to take the test
O love is the score enough for me to pass the test

Staggering.

I really want to play Shadow of the Colossus again. If anyone's got a PS2 they don't want, let me know.

If I could ever write anything that struck me the way that game did, I would go to my grave a happy man, whether or not said piece was ever seen by another human being.

An unarmed Stilwell.

What would you think and feel if someone dumped you somewhere completely unlike the place(s) you'd spent your life in until that point? Somewhere where the language was light years from yours, you looked nothing like the locals, and even wondered if you'd catch shit for standing out so badly? Where you had to watch everything you said, because the authorities were scrutinizing you and everyone around you? Where you couldn't drink the water? Where you had no fucking clue how local cultural concepts actually worked, and therefore lived in fear of offending people? Where you were so much better off than the locals, by dint of being an outsider?

What if the person that dumped you in this place was you?

The plan is to take an introductory Chinese class this fall and see how it goes. If it goes well, I may take another one; if it goes poorly, I might just go ahead and try to get a job teaching English in China anyway. Immersion, und so weiter, not to mention the continual fascination I have with the Middle Kingdom. I just don't know whether or not I can go it alone, though I've long since assumed I'll have to.

Shit, it ain't like I've got a whole lot going for me here in Houston. The folks are solid, no doubt, but stagnation is getting to me. Almost ironic, given my advocacy of idleness, but anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a proponent of torpor so much as of wu-wei.

Who knows, though. I reckon I'll do all right whether I end up overseas or here in Houston.

Damn it, it's six-fuckin'-thirty in the morning and I'm not in the least bit sleepy.