Slowly but surely it has come to this as I knew it would. This blog has now become a test of my ability to persevere. To keep on writing when my creative coffers are empty and yet to keep it interesting enough for me to read on a later day. Very few people in the world know of this blog, which begs the question, why do I write? Surely, it can't be for an audience, as the hit-counter on the front page cheekily proclaims. It's not really cathartic or anything of that sort. I believe it's just words for their own sake. As a litmus perhaps to see how much I can do with them before they run out.

Among the most interesting things I saw today was the website of Elena, a Ukrainian girl with a motorcycle and more guts then any man I've seen. She rode right through Chernobyl and made a photo journal of the ghost town that remains. Elena's pretty.

Life is unfair. Mostly because there is a lot more I want to say but I shall not, for reasons mentioned in some earlier posts. Onward the revolution.

The world is too loud for me and my generation is going deaf. Can someone please turn down the volume?

Today I took out the garbage. Almost three years of old emails from friends, lovers, enemies, and morons were deleted with the click of a button (Many clicks actually). I enjoyed doing this more than I should. I've changed.

I want to write some more on how liberating this feels, but words fail me and I need to sleep.

I also realized that I've stopped writing poetry. It's been more than two years since I wrote my last poem. I stopped. Just like that. And somehow, that feels liberating too.

I feel peaceful, but I suspect that might just be because I'm sleepy.

Good night.

Some music has to be listened to. Each word analyzed, each metaphor grasped and held close to your heart, until you begin to understand what it was the writer of the song wanted to tell you. Of course, you'll never fully understand, and it will take on a different meaning everytime you hear it. That's how poetry is. It changes you.

Some music has to be felt. It's a rhythm, a melody, a counter melody, a horn moaning until you can feel the horn-player's despair and taste his sweat, electronic beats that touch your soul like religion, violins that crash and soar, a bass guitar that seems to vibrate with the song of your life. Music to dance to. Music to make love to. Music that speaks to you in a language you thought you had forgotten a long time ago.

Most music should simply stay in store shelves and never be heard. Ever. A pity that the world around me disagrees.

Spring is slowly sneaking back into Madison. The days are longer now, than what I remember them to be. Trees are still leafless and nude but many are sporting the beginnings of leaf buds. It's still cold. My hands still freeze and mornings are still an unwelcome affair, struggling to stay under cozy blankets as time marches by. I have to be patient. Summer will come soon.

Creativity is dead. If it's alive I can't find it anywhere. Not in anything I write, nor in what I read. It decided to leave movies and music a while back, I know, but I am left wondering, if there's anyone left, who can really spends time with it. Everything that's been written or said recently has roots in something more seminal from the past.

The end of the world is nigh. The signs are all there. Strangely enough they've been there for decades now, but Armageddon refuses to come. I think it's scared of us. I don't know why. We're a generation of pushovers and nervous wrecks. Maybe that's why.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I know.

Yield.

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slow-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation that's dying in the corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
But don't cry, baby, don't cry, don't cry.
-The boy in the bubble, Paul Simon, (remembered from off the top off my head, there might be mistakes).

And we wonder when quoting stopped being plagiarism and turned into literature. Standing on the shoulders of giants.

Lesson of the day: Never, never ego surf.

Another Tuesday.

I realized something about myself today. Things break around me. Watches, cell-phones, the little rubber legs on laptops, shoes, shoelaces, slippers, zippers and a lot else. Somehow molecules seem to lose adhesive and cohesive properties when I'm near. Sometimes structural integrity itself decides that it doesn't prefer my company. And magnetic and electric fields generally find me annoying and leave. This is not a happy realization. I like things, pay good money for them and I don't like them breaking.

Things that annoyed me today:
1. My reliance on numbered and bulleted lists.

2. The absence of a good Gimp port on Windows. Ideally one that doesn't cost money. Because, if I had the money to spare now, I might have bought Photoshop.

3. Finally accepting the fact that I'll never get a computer fast enough.

4. The death of good music.

5. Feigned political neutrality.

Another Wednesday awaits tomorrow.

After a brave attempt at some real blogging, I'm back to gimmicks.

Things that annoyed me today:
1. The weight of my backpack after I stuff it with my laptop and a couple of books. What's more annoying than the weight itself is that it reminds me that I'm all out of shape. How will me dream of becoming a super fearsome avenging detective ninja ever come true if I keep this up?

2. The fact that I can't read From Hell. I have the time. I have the book. It seems interesting enough. But I can't get myself to read it. Just like anything by James Joyce, it's an incredibly hard read. This isn't good news. I might end up adding this book to my list of books which I began but couldn't finish. That list already includes Ulysses, 1984 and The Doors of Perception. Cheer up Mr. Moore, you seem to be in excellent company.

3. The fact that I don't seem to enjoy music anymore. Any music. Ten minutes is the most I can do, before I look for the stop button.

4. Stupidity. And stupidity coupled with stubbornness.

5. Impatience. My own.

6. There's more but see item 5.

Anyway, having got all that out of the way, I'm happy to note that I finished reading Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson yesterday. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Transmet is a comic chronicling the life and works of Spider Jerusalem, your friendly neighborhood paranoid foul-mouthed freshly-bald investigative journalist who works for The Word, a newspaper publishing in a future that is unlikely yet familiar. I want a bowel disruptor.