The Diary of Zachary Michael Davis — Vol. IA

#### Entry 1 — 16 March 5764/2004 — "Opener"

I've decided to start keeping a diary, on the premises that maybe my life and my thoughts as they stand now are something worth preserving. A series of text documents documenting my life. Here I will discharge all of my deepest darkest thoughts and fears and dreams. It'll be a top-secret showcase of how deep and amazing I really am in my mind—or perhaps, how shallow and stupid. (We'll see.)

_Why would you put so much effort into writing something that's not meant to be read?_

I know, it's odd coming from me, I who wish so much for fame and love. But I'm toning my writing skills. Does it even matter if anyone sees it? Isn't the very declarative action of _writing_ enough? You can't expect fame. And if I'm only writing for myself, as a record, then, and only then, can I truly be honest, and commit my secret thoughts to something permanent, even if it's still secret. The _real_ self-indulgence. Moreover—_it's all a lie_. I do intend some other soul to read this at some day. Maybe my family members (if I have any) will read this when I die (if I keep it up, and keep it period). Maybe if I'm famous when I die, they'll make it into a book. Or when I'm still alive—my wife (if I get one), or a close friend (if I get one) will read it. Or I'll put key excerpts on sluggy.net within the month. The point is to preserve, so that even when I forget most of what I'm living and thinking now, my life at this point will still have some tangible remnant other than family photos posed for reluctantly. This, if I keep it up, is part of my legacy. So—!

I woke up hoarse. My nose was dripping all day, and in the afternoon I was wheezing and coughing something terrible. Took the ELA section of the California High School Exit Exam today. Had to write horrible essay on horrible story called "My Wonder Horse." A morning session took out Art (period one) and English (two). An afternoon session took out Biology (five). I didn't finish my Journalism (Primary Elections Feature, Fatalism and Video Game Influence Column) or Spanish (who knows?) homework, 'cause I spent two-plus hours last night writing poetry, that (after I was done) I decided sucked. It's part of an ongoing Word War I imagine me and Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff are waging on each other. (Big Wordplay Bonus!)

Tomorrow is the first DFAL track meet. Northgate at Las Lomas. I'm doing the 1600m, 800m, and the 4x400 'B' Relay. The final 'A' slot was between me and Alex Paauwe. I told him to take it. He's faster, he'll be more rested, and he has more passing experience. The meet tomorrow means there was a pasta feed today. I didn't want to go. But I enjoyed it. Ate too much. Hitched a ride with Wil Marasco, and got there early. Didn't socialize much at first. Later. had great conversation with LDS girl (name unknown), and a few others that started when someone mentioned gay marriage. She talked about morality and normalcy and how gay people choose it and how sex is for babies and serving God is what it's all about. I just talked about religious issues in general, not taking many positions, but mentioning things like how a lot of Bible law is fucked up (not verbatim). She questioned where in the Bible my stuff was from, and I said the Old Testament, and explained the nature of my pseudo-Judaism. As a debate tactic I said "I'm going to hell" more times than was nice (that value being zero). Stupid! "No no no!" she said, and told me about the Mormon equivalent of purgatory. And now I've started my diary. First entry done. Hope it wasn't too stupid.


#### Entry 2 — 17 March 5764/2004 — "Home Opener"

Provisional verdict: "Stupid and shallow". Soon to be permanent?

I was even sicker today, and I complained to anyone who would or wouldn't listen about it. The day of the first league meet—the home opener—and I was having difficulty breathing. A goodly number of people pitied me briefly for my illness. Many like me to a degree, though I know part of it was also to get me to shut up. Mailed in summer school application today.

CAHSEE second day was today. It was easy. Eliminated Art (period one), Biology (five), and part of Journalism. In addition to sickness-hate, I was depressed about homework and how much of it I've failed to do, and how second edits are due tomorrow, and I've written so little, and how I forgot to prepare for Honors English Sample Assignment (and I don't know if I can take Honors intensity), and for the biology project for which I am again partnerless and is due on Monday. I sat on gum during Journalism, too. I ate lunch in the 400 hallway, sitting in the shade against the 300 building, observing the four-oh girls I know who eat there. A four-oh girl is a girl with ambition, and the name I have given to them is derived from their absolute minimum Grade Point Average. My sister was (and is, at UC Berkeley) one of them. They take all the AP and Honors classes they can get and still function. And they do function—they are women of the moment, in control of any emergency. They're happy, too—or look it. It's they who'll be the lawyers and the scientists and the CEOs and also President, if it weren't for the fact that the electorate, to date, only puts white men in that office. The girls at that table had baskets of baked goods. I was offered some by Lizzie (last name unknown). I politely declined. I didn't want to infect the bowl by putting my hand in, and I didn't want any sweets, anyway. It was RACEDAY!

Oh yeah, it's St. Patrick's Day, hence the baked goods. I didn't wear green. I told people "I don't celebrate St. Patrick's day. Why should I? I'm not Irish or Catholic or alcoholic."

During lunch I adopted a new philosophy. Actually, I've adopted it several times before only to reject it very soon. _Sensation is a subjective phenomena_, I thought to my self over and over again. _No one else can possibly know what I'm feeling. So if I can pretend perfectly that pain (real and emotional) doesn't exist, for all intents and purposes, it doesn't. You're not suffering. People all over the world are starving and have deadly diseases and are fighting wars. So just ignore your pain, which is imaginary. Permit only convenient emotions to be felt. Work to achieve your desires without feeling the wanting, the pain._

I rejected the philosophy by 2:10 that afternoon. I made it through Spanish. The moment was finally here, I was free and was RACEDAY!

I'll try some loose reenactments here.

\_\_\_\_\_

[Scene: Knights are stretching. ZACK is next to his crush LISA.]

ZACK: Do you hear that wheeze? I'll probably only do a 5:30.

LISA: [chuckles] Only a 5:30!

ZACK: I did a 5:15 before the season. I 'm sick, so I figure tack on 15 seconds.

LISA: 8:36!

\_\_\_\_\_

[Scene: Score-board end grass. ZACK has just run a 5:25 1600m]

COACH DENNIS TRACY: That was less that practice speed.

DAVIS: I tried, Coarch! I tried, and…

TRACY: Well, you're _sick_. Get some water in you and get in the shade.

ZACK: Yes coach.

TRACY: The 800 won't bother you as much, I think… I'm sure of it.

\_\_\_\_\_

I got complimented on my mile by people. Lisa Rodgers and Kalynda Stone were notables. For so long, I thought Kalynda hated me, after the Rugball Incident, and the Caramel Incident. But now she's always warm to me.

I was feeling bad. Not very bad, and I think I was overdramatic about it. I clarified with Coach Kristen that I was gonna do 'B' team four by four: She had me on 'A'! And then my dad convinced me to scratch the 4x400m. And then he talked to Kristen and together they convinced me to scratch from the eight. I was reluctant and stupid. Dad was _pissed_ on the way home.

\_\_\_\_\_

[Scene: the truck. Peter DAVIS and his son ZACK.]

DAVIS: [driving in a reckless and angry manner] I care about _you_, goddamnit! I don't care about this school, or this track, or—

ZACK: You were right! I was just emotionally feeling like I owed the team something, and—

DAVIS: You don't owe that team anything! They owe _you_!

\_\_\_\_\_

So I went home, and avoided Mom's egg salad for dinner. (Stupid and shallow and weak!) And I went in my room and read _Atlas Shrugged_ for a while. And then I turned off the light and masturbated for a bit. And then I got up and wrote this. It's 7:29. I'm not going to Midrasha, I've delayed my homework too long. I've spent far, far, far too much time on making these long entries. It's more than a diary deserves. I'm even cheating on the concept of a diary by thinking about what will happen to me in the future, and what I'll say about it. I even have been thinking of and typing out entry titles in advance.

My life… my dreams… what am I doing to achieve them? Why, oh why have I done this to myself? Why can't I take my take my chance, do the work, fix my life? Young and able, why haven’t I sculpted my self into the four-oh boy (even when I do get a 4.0 GPA, I'm still not a four-oh boy— it's more than a GPA: it's a philosophy!)? Why ain't I a track and writing star, when all it would take is a little more white-collar work? Why did I let myself go (so to speak)? _Why?_

_Who is John Galt?_

Whining will get me nowhere. Dreaming of love and fame and ability, Zack M. Davis, signing out.


#### Entry 3 — 18 March 5764/2004 — "My Life as a _My Life as a Teenage Robot_ Fanboy"

Today was mostly a waste.

My throat was e'en worse today, so I stayed home from school. Yesterday, Mr. Dewes told me I could turn in the Honors English 3 contract into his box before school started—but today I wasn't going to school. I talked it over with Father, and I decided to just not take the Honors course.

\_\_\_\_\_

ZACK: Heh. If I'm the sort of person who forgets the deadline, maybe it's better that I don't take Honors…

DAVIS: Oh, don't beat your self up over it.

\_\_\_\_\_

Victoria the cleaning lady came today. Eleven to three-forty. I hate when people are in the house working… I think I feel a tiny bit guilty: they're doing something productive, and I'm not. But the guilt is only enough to vaguely unsettle me. I read 100-plus more pages of _Atlas Shrugged_ today. The irony is pretty damn thick: instead of catching up on schoolwork during the day off granted to me by disease, I spend hours reading a book espousing the morality of productivity. I idly flipped through _Economy of Errors_, that satire book in Dad's office. I browsed the internet: looked at the sluggy.net forums, but, keeping to my self-imposed exile, did not post. I don't know why I thought stopping to post in my favorite online forums would help me accomplish more. It just freed more time for me to spend on other nonproductive things I love: like this diary. There was a thread in WGARS for writing humorous 4-line poems about fellow Sluggites; Sorceress wrote me one. I don't think she knows I'm on official hiatus.

After Victoria left, I watched a tape of a _MLaaTR_ episode that I hadn't seen that I'd recorded. "Attack of the 5½ Foot Geek / Doom With a View." I know I'm in the "target audience", and I don't care: that show is _fine art_. It is the one show now on TV that truly makes me happy. I admire Jenny's battles with evil villains and gender stereotypes and stereotypes about the natures of a robot, and her uniqueness. I envy her friendship with Brad & Tuck, and empathize with her never-ending quest for popularity. I empathize with that tactless freak Sheldon as he desperately tries to win the heart of that goddess-like (in terms of strength) robot.

I read Sports Illustrated today, too.

My entire day, in short, was spent absorbing media and avoiding the production of homework-media. Therein lies the mistake of this day. Art—creating it or viewing it— in literature, online, in animation, or wherever else— is one of the things I love in life, but it is not an end in itself. Art as expression in the form of, say, fiction, is for inspiration, it's for dedication, and it's so important. But what use is absorbing fiction, or online text-life even, if one does not experience enough of the real life upon which all fiction is based? Great fantasies are, and this is what makes them so great—based on _real life_, just with a number of non-real twists. If it had no connection to the real world, it would be incomprehensible. _That_ was the mistake of the day—dosage! And now it's eight forty-three; I've done nothing. I made choices. I chose immediate pleasure knowing it would bring future pain when it's three AM and I've got tons of things to finish for the Monday the twenty-second, that has, as the clock measures things, already come. This is why I'm not going to Honors English Three, and this is why I'm so afraid of Jesse Cilenti's terrible wrath. Dosage! Consequences! I've made my choices. I will have choices to make in the future. This is it. This is life. The real thing, even the well-off can feel the real chill of the possible future pain slicing through you. But it hasn't. This is the indy life. You made your choices, and you will feel their impact. This is the real way…

It's great! It's ev'rything anyone could expect it to be! Thank you (unless that threat of future pain is anything more than just an empty _threat_)!



#### Entry 4 — Saturday 20 March 5764/2004 — "The Call Stands"

Okay, it's around 3:00 PM as I'm starting typing this…

I did go to school yesterday. I coughed a bit in Art (period one), and Kristina, the girl who sits next to me stared at me for a moment. I bet she was remembering the time she had pinkeye and I was afraid of catching it, and…oh, I think she hates me. Not because of that. She doesn't like my mannerisms. Some people just end up getting on the nerves of others, but happenstance. Fuck it.

Very weird conversation happened in English. I was making a dumb joke about my illness…

\_\_\_\_\_

ZACK DAVIS: [Jesting] What was it? Severe… Acute…Respiratory… Syndrome?

KATHY ACKERMAN-ALEXEEFF: [Confident jest comeback] Oh, so you have SARS? You probably shouldn't be in school, then.

ZACK: I was kidding. I have the common cold.

JAMES LILLICH: [Jesting] Ha! Commoner.

ZACK: [Stumbling jest comeback] Hey, commoners _rule_… the people… it's all about democracy...

KATHY: [Confident] Actually, the United States isn't a democracy anymore.

[Pause]

ZACK: [Vaguely put-off] Fine. _Republic._

KATHY: No, we're actually an oligarchy now.

\_\_\_\_\_

I don't think she was kidding or joking or jesting. Maybe. But I'm pretty sure I remember religioustolerance.org say that the U.S. was "sliding into oligarchy", too. People believe that. I don't see how people fail to realize that, soft money and a case of possible election fraud aside, the voting public _can still throw out the elected officials_ on Election Day. That's a republic. 2000 was an aberration. Elections normally don't come down to a few hundred votes. Cynicism overtaking perception—wow.

Another interesting conversation happened in Spanish, one that isn't worth describing except to say that it was about the humor value of the first person conjugation of the reflexive Spanish verb _divertirse_, "to have fun". It's fascinating, the peculiar ways people act because of taboos.

I had made it through the day…

Went to doctor after school, got medication, he said I could race today if I felt okay.

I did the 1200m in the distance medley (1200, 400, 800, 1600) at the Miramonte Relays. Splits were 71-76-67 for a 3:34. Our team (Varsity; Me, Kyle Corson, Alex Paauwe, Wil Marasco) came in sixth. Pauwwe did a 2:09. Jefftag did a 59.x 400, Andrew Sheehan did a 5:20 1600 and Joe Brown did a 3:4X in the 1200 of the frosh-soph distance medley.

I've spent 50 minutes writing this. I've got homework to do. I've said and done some particularly dumb things to people the last few days, I think. Little things, that I haven't logged here. I'm afraid of the next year, and my responsibilities as a scholar-athlete-journalist, and looking through all these mistakes… whatever! I said it in my last entry. Oh well! The call stands. This week was odd, I lived it, it stands, as it is, as a week in my life… it was something and I lived it and it's done and it's partially documented, and if the documents are poor, maybe it's 'cause they are what they had to be, themselves having been part of the week. I've just been reading since I got back from the meet, but now…

Rebuild, and goodbye!


#### Entry 5 — Sunday 21 March 5764/2004 — "Fast Twitch"

Slept until eight, having stayed up until midnight after re-entering sluggy.net. Read a lot: finished _Pebble in the Sky_, which I started yesterday. Delayed homework. Listened to powerful 4-song set of music to inspire me to do homework. It didn't work. After noon, I masturbated (so _much_ of that lately, I don't always mention it in diary, and, somehow, don't always remember it, as if all these instances of depravity have converged in my mind into one collective memory) and then napped forty minutes. Felt better. Still didn't do homework. Nicole came home. Dad, I, and her played basketball. Posted more on sluggy.net, made new avatar. Despair and hope seem to be mounting simultaneously now. I've doomed myself scholastically, but I think that maybe… _something_. This week, the entry week to spring break—this will be something. I note it. I know. Or I don't, more likely. First short diary entry.


#### Entry 6 — Saturday 12 June 5764/2004 — "Returner"

Check the date, dear reader. It's been a while since I've added to this diary.

I've been busy trying to live my life and contend with all the things in it, so I haven't been documenting it. I still want to maintain this diary, but the idea of writing in it almost ev'ryday was stupid. I will update when it's prudent.

The last day of school was yesterday.

I did okay in track season this year. I ran a 2:08.3 at the Top 8 Invitational. I ran the 1600 in 4:53 a couple of times. I mostly only ran the sixteen in relays… the 800 was my speciality event.

I think I'm getting a C in journalism. For Issue 7, I volunteered to do a news article on seniors who won athletic scholarships. I thought I would be able to interview the people, and write a good article. But I didn't interview anyone. I let shyness and anxiety tear me apart, and I wrote a crappy article based on what information I could get without talking to strangers. The photos on the article are courtesy photos from the 2003 yearbook.

My father would nag me about getting the interviews done, so eventually I just started lying to him about it. I got away with it, anyway…

I'm going to take Chemistry in summer school, so I won't have to take it during the 5765 school year.

I'm going to the Goldhaber's birthday party tonight. It's a boy-girl party, I'm told. Good. I'm eager to meet new girls in the hopes that one of them might be "The One". Searching for a girlfriend is hard because you not only have to find someone you like, they have to also like you. I've come to suspect the chances of both occuring between two people are rather low, leading to some sad situations…

One party can waste hours pining away for someone who doesn't really care about them at all… and if that party is extroverted about it and repeatedly seeks out the other, than the other might end up really annoyed. There's no polite way to say "I don't like you, go away." One day I shall have to write down in this diary the story of me and I girl I met once called Nikki. I won't do it now. I don't feel like it right now. It would take too long. Or it would be too painful.

Tonight, before the party, I'm planning to return Nikki's phone-call of last Wednesday...

While writing this, it occured to me that maybe it would be nice to call up Emma Mayerson, a old classmate of mine at Tehiyah. Just to talk. Why not?

I'm going to be running a lot this summer. I've set an ambitious goal– 520 miles by Sept. 1. That's 45 a week.

I've thought about writing a novel or novella this summer, too. Back in… I think it was May, I started writing a high school romance novel. I might continue it. Maybe I'll write some other great thing, or some short stories.

Nicole came home yesterday, and is still here. It's 6:03 PM now.


#### Entry 7 — Sunday 9 January 5765/2005 — "Sth Stable"

Okay it's ten-eighteen and I have decided to un-abandon my diary (again)—half a year after my last entry. I've realized that this is going to be a very incomplete record of my life, and now I'm okay with that so I'm not going to pretend I can fill in everything signif that's happened since last June. I'm just going to write, and not worry about the quality, completeness, etc. 'cause I've already got enough worrying to do about stuff that matters. Finals for Fall Semester of Junior year are the week after next—and I am screwed. Present estimation has my GPA at a two-dot-eight. Yeah, that's right. 2.8. Doing my homework is just so fucking boring and I've even been lying to my parents when I need it to temporarily save my ass, and that is so wrong, but—I just don't want to deal with Father's wrath. But these are things you can't avoid—you can only delay them. I don't know what my parents are going to do when they see that two-eight (or lower!)… It feels like my life as I know it is going to end in a few weeks and I am scared and nothing can be okay again. But of course I am being superdramatic. I need to learn to bear pain. I need to learn to be invunerable to what anyone says and untouchable by boredom & sloth and able to eat vegetables. I don't know why I am so fucking weak but I know it's a fucking travesty. Well, I'll either make it though or I won't. In the big picture, the big, big, big, big, big picture, it doesn't really matter that much 'cause I am just one human among six billion, and it's in doubt if we (or our decendents/trancendents) will even be able to survive indefinitely. It's a hostile universe, and if humans go extinct… it's over forever. Meaning vanishes from the universe— Well, maybe if there's other intelligent life out there, then it's not over. The point is that in the face of this my personal struggles are really not so important. If I die… I still live vicariously through any analogues of me out there. Of course, this raises the question of whether I'm doing enough to save the world (I'm not). I really need to live a less wasteful and decadent lifestyle, maybe.

I'm thinking about not doing track. I haven't really _cared_ about running since last June, and I need to bring my grades up, and I would like more time to read and write— yeah, I've (finally) started writing fiction like I've dreamed I would for so long. "The Devotion to Something Afar" (a genius bit of unpublishable metafiction) and "Free At Last [working title]" (a philosophical fantasy story, hey it worked for Joestein Gaardner) are both sitting at around 2700 words. I feel like I should get "Free" on bond paper and in the mailbox to _Asimov's_ before my parents see my grades. As if Father's going to kick the computer tower in rage over me getting a 2.8. (And _he_ ran away to California during high school and flunked e'ery class but two.)

_The Page_ is actually good this year. Bigger staff, we got decent print quality now by giving a digital copy to Twin Palms instead of paper copy, we actually have BEATS so we get real news… our advisor, Emelie Gunnison, is one of the greatest people I've known, ever. She's so nice but not too nice and is so capable.

Okay it's ten-fifty and I should start doing all the homework that I have to do tonight. Oh I should be so much more organized. Oh, and I quit sluggy.net forums forever in August. _Teen Titans_ rule. End entry hope this lasts forever this file must live

—Zack M. Davis


#### Entry 8 — Monday 10 January 5765/2005 — "World Citizen"

The problem with documentation is a big one. My closet and desk drawers are full of papers I decided to keep at one point, but surely I can't keep all those papers. And now that I've picked the diary up again I half worry about how I should keep it. I have a copy on the computer and a copy on a diskette. That's enough, right? 'Cause I mustn't lose this. Paper copy? But maybe too I am overdocumenting my life, thinking too much about writing and not enough about _living_. (Must the two be opposed?) After all, my planner serves as planner and sketchy record of days and holds many short ideas or words that come in the day. And then there's this, and I was thinking even during the day about what I was going to write about now. I can't keep so many documents, but I must perserve the ones I want to keep… Someday soon I will clean out my closet.

Anyway, it's three-forty-seven and Nicole and Mother just left to Berkeley; I don't know why Nicole was in town today. I stayed up pretty late last night doing some of last week's math homework; got two of them done, was gonna do a third a school but forgot my TI. Finals are _next week_ and I think I am pretty close to screwed. I checked my PRC grade online today just when I got home and it said that I had a B- when I was sure I had a D or something. But it didn't appear to have been updated in six weeks. Did I drop >10% in those weeks? Maybe. But I might not be so screwed. The final's 20% of my grade, so maybe maybe maybe Father won't fucking kill me.

I was going to schedule an interview with P. Lickiss today to get info on my story on Interdistrict Trans students getting sent back, but I shyed out _again_. He even walked right by me (he did so last week too) and I went for my notebook and let him pass instead of going for it. Maybe something about my brain is just wired wrong, 'cause I know this is just so stupid. Edits due on Friday. I'm also writing a column about Wikipedia and a quarter-page music review. And graphics is gonna be more intensive 'cause we're gonna try to stay legal. And I have a lot of other homework and ops drawings for ART and finals and oh dear my life is fucking falling apart. But then, it _always_ seems like that, doesn't it?

The thing I wrote on the top of this day in my planner was "World Citizen—free from predjudice, free from fear." I want to be near-perfect, and make only innocent mistakes, and it seems so easy—but for some damn reason life is painful and I can't do all the things that must be done. After checking my grades this afternoon (and after being interrupted!) I masturbated again, the same fantasy as always. Sometimes when I do it a lot, the head of my penis gets red and it hurts. Is this normal? WTF?

I felt some trepidation in writing that (and it's only partway down!), but this is _my_ diary, right? The entire point is being able to say _anything_ you want. Anything. I am suddenly reminded of sth from _Ender's Shadow_. Bean doresn't write anything unless he means for it to be read. Bean is _rational_. Well, hell. It's nice to be able to say anything, even it's only you tapping out crap on your keyboard, and saving it somewhere, as a record. A record if I die or something, a written record of my mind. But I said all that in Entry 1, so forget that.

I don't think I'll get much—any—fiction work done tonight.

I ran over part of the Whole Foods grass on my bike today this morning and felt a little guilty.

I really have to talk with Lickiss tomorrow. I really have to get my homework done. I really need to make myself invulnerable to anything that now, as I am, can hurt me.

—Zack M. Davis, 16:12.


#### Entry 9 — Tuesday 11 January 5765/2005 — "Shying Out, What, Ow"

Dear Diary:

I didn’t get that interview. And the guy walked by me at lunch _again_ but still I let it go. I got up early to psych myself up, and I was running my mouth "hell of" in ART with the express purpose of learning to not care what people think about me, so I can interview people easily. And then Despondence set in again during SPN—emotions, my emotions, are hard to peg to words (perhaps getting better at this is a useful function of writing these logs), but I guess I'll call this day mid-despair with a one or two spikes of pseudo-reckless-abandon, with a lot of that dull, enervated confusion-pain [provisional name]. In JOU, dumped my quarter-music to Andrea, who wanted to do one, so now it's just News and Wikicolumn. And comic. Laura Peterson (almost posit on that name) put together our _Great Gatsby_ scrapbook project, and it looks great. I have an 85 in HST now. It was raining in the morning, so I drove with Mother to, from school. And I have those 4-5x ops drawings to do tonight.

_Something has to change with this life._

And that interview has to get done. Tomorrow I will try to think of, oh, the tsunami, maybe, or starving or fighting in war, and how interviewing the principal is fun. I've spent far too long on this.

—Zack M. Davis, 15:40


#### Entry 10 — Wednesday 12 January 5765/2005 — "Anyone Forgive Me?"

Scheduled that interview with Lickiss via Secretary Lyn Zusman. This at 1530, after an entire day of crippling (crippl*ed*, rather) nervousness. I only got two ops done—probably because of said anxiety. Got up at 0500 today to finish ops/do JOU prep. Talked with Nadia Thompson in morning, exchanged cell numbers. It’s so hard to control oneself. I imagine myself as I should be—able to stay calm, fearless of that which is not scary, never showing any anger or fear or pain. But my vision of myself as I should be always breaks up against the harsh reality of day. Hurt, the Hurt of everyday life, overrides Reason, and I go back to acting in the same old patterns. It reminds me of something Josh Meltzer once said, on the topic of the i-muzz—that work ethic is fixed, that some people are just better than us in that way. That he and I can never be i-muzz. I still think there must be some—switch within yourself that you can flip. Some mental trick of (compatibilist!) free will that will let you overcome your base reactions. A scary thought is that maybe this belief that I can change is based on believing what I want to believe, and not Reason. I do think I have Reason, but… so does anyone who believes anything. If my convictions are true ones, good ones, they should be able to withstand heavy questioning. I read online that there was this one philosopher who defined free will as being moved by the motives you _want_ to be moved by. If we accept this definition, I don’t have free will. I have chosen what to pursue as good, but I have to get off my ass and chase it if anything’s going to happen. I want to be a success in my own life. And I want to break free of the obselete ideologies of the past, but keep the good ones. I hate stereotyping so much, it’s so stupid. But for all my high-minded ideals, am I free of unconcious or semi-concious prejudice? I actually don’t think so; I think it might be that I am a little uncomfortable around black people. Stupid!

Another bias I might have (always must check for biases) is that maybe I oversimplify other people too much. I know I am fucking complex, for as I write my diary I look at the words and see that they do an awfully poor job of capturing the sentiments. My dad likes to say “If you knew how often other people think of you, you wouldn’t worry what they think of you”. He may have a point. If I don’t totally understand myself, and I don’t actually act the way my ideal self would act, what are the odds I really understand anybody else as much as I might feel I do?

Erin Greene comes to mind… what is she really like, beneath the surface, as it were?

I think I might be a little lonely, though I loathe to admit it. Oh, there are people I could hang out with, but—well, I don’t know. Nadia really seems to like me (as a friend) a lot, but I find her, well, boring. I should be able to assure myself. There’s another flaw. Related anecdote from today, verbatim or so close as makes no difference:

ZACK DAVIS: Why do people need other people anyway?

BRITTANY NUGENT: To make little people!

She and Maria Ortiz thought that was funny. I, however, do not.

—Zack M. Davis, 1906 (!— I have homework to do!)


#### Entry 11 — Thursday 13 January 5765/2005 — "Leaning Into It"

Dear Diary:

I have a straight C in PRC. If I ace (well, 98.78%) the final, it becomes a B-. But Thompson said there'd be an extra credit assn. tomo, so maybe that's a hair less. There's an online test for extra credit in SPN that's due Friday at midnight (or 0000 Staturday) but it's super-long—~200 questions plus ~40 short answer / essay. I have to write my column and there's that interview with the principal tomorrow & I have to be ready. I feel somewhat hurt and confus'd amongst the general sub-turmoil of my life. This too will pass, surely, as all events pass, but I fear am liable to get fubar'd in the interval. But really, what do I have to fear, anyway? I can't seem to make enough sense of things. I feel this writing is inadequate.

I read on Wikipedia yesterday that Anne Frank named her diary Kitty. What shall you be called, friend? And what will become of me, and who exactly should I decide to be and am I something good by the standards I have chosen?

Here's to clean living some-day,

Zack M. Davis (1551, UTC minus 8)


#### Entry 12 — Friday 14 January 5765/2005 — "Charleston, Charleston"

Dear Diary (Kitty, Catalina, Cleta-Naomi, Raven, Starfire, Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff, _etc_.):

Got that interview. I did okay. Writing a story shouldn't be _too_ hard, don't know what to do graphically. Lickiss recommended I bring the draft to him to fact-check. I was feeling cheerful-inspired most of the day, but as 1330 got closer I regressed into that frantic interview anxiety—I did the job, though, and that and quality of said job are what really matter.

[1320—Rm 502]

ALISSA GOSSETT: You can do it. He's really easy to talk to.

ZACK DAVIS: No, it's just no amount of consoling can soothe an irrational feeling 'cause it's totatlly irrational…

GOSSETT: I don't think it's irrational. Public speaking is like everyone's number-one fear.

In ENG (that's first period), we turned in our _The Great Gatsby_ projects and did a binder check. I have a 71 in that class now, and with the binder check (I had all stamps this time), the project (200 points, I think!), and the final, I imagine I can get that up to a C+, and I hope a B-, but jumping nearly 10 percents may be very unlikely/impossible. I don't know how the points break down, so I can't really say anything at all. Anyway, Mrs. Spencer put on some "Charleston" music for people to dance to (and, you know, get that Twenties mood, I guess), so of course I was the only one dancing. And you know how I dance, friend. People were either impressed or pretending to be so while actually ridiculing me subtly. A girl video'd me on her camera phone. Someone asked me why I don't do that at school dances or something, and I mentioned my policy of not going to dances without a date. "It's _bad buisiness_," I said, more than once. Phil Hitchcock urged me to dance in SPN—Phil Hitchcock is _not_ in my first-period English class. I entertained the thought of being the next Star Wars Kid.

(Fancy that all this happened during hours when we were supposed to be, you know, learning stuff! Sometimes I feel guilty that my life, this high school life is too easy. But if it _is_ too easy, why do I hurt so often, and how can I even dream of surviving RL?)

What I decided was that if I could dance to Twenties music in front of the entire class, I could surely interview anyone I needed to for _The Page_ without feeling scared at all. I was certain I could do my daily life without feeling bad at all—I get that notion often, that assuredness that I can handle things and that I don't have to hurt at all—but then, it never seems to turn out that way. Not being able to put some semblence of control on one's emotions—that's a pretty fucking pathetic part of human existence. Or _my_ existence, rather—other humans are better than I in this, and in anything.

I'm glad it's the weekend. Need to write news, need to do comic, need to write fiction, (need to STUDY,) want a slowdown. Nicole and her roomie are coming o'er for dinner tonight. And I still have to do that _huge_ online SPN test. I know I should not have written this now, but I'm really liking this thing. I imagine trading diaries with Ms. Right, The One, shortly after I meet her. I imagine being (rich and) famous in the future, and after my death this will be published. Of course, for me to be that, I have to write something _publishable_. A lot of things. And for me and The One to get together I have to make sure I am worthy of her.

I'm scared of what's on the other side of Fall Semester Report Cards, but not as much as before. I wish for forgiveness.

Love you,

Zack M. Davis, 1645 (UTC minus eight)


#### Entry 13 — Saturday 15 January 2005 (Common Era) — "Recovery"

Dear Diary,

Last night was neat; Nicole's roommate (Christina, I am sure) is cool. I was in a particularly quirky mood and there was much laughter.

I didn't do that online SPN test.

I slept late this morning and listened to music in my room, browse-reading _The Changed Man and Other Stories_. "Sepulchre of Songs" and all that. I started drawing my comic for Iss. 3, but I got frustrated with the perspective, and crumpled up the page. That was absurd, an irrational waste, and there wasn't even anyone else to observe the drama—not to say that moments like those are what I want others to see of me, but to note that screaming _at the air_ is flawed in its very foundings, while screaming at someone is only wrong depending on the circumstance. Then I flipped through _7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens_ a bit. I understood again how mornings like that were such a waste. It's so hard to stay consistent.

SO despite the fear of overdocumentation, I'm adding here again (interrupted by Mother's delicious omlet), and afterwards—after the words—I intend to do some fiction-writing (which is very enjoyable once I actually _start_) and use that momentum to do sth required, and maybe even clean up or something (!). Maybe I will check my e-mail first.

Here's to figuring things out, and, perhaps someday, _Figuring Things Out_,

Your only friend,

Zack M. Davis (1323, UTC minus eight)


#### Entry 14 — Monday 17 January 2005 (Common Era) — " 'And then we will be no more rack'd' "

Dear Diary:

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This wknd went by very quickly. Tomorrow is the SPN final at 1020. I am thinking maybe I want to talk to Gunnison tomorrow about my news story—but that means I have to _write_ my news story. I pushed "Running Water" up to ~1600 words. I am really liking fiction writing, and I think whenever I finish it that "Freedom" is publishable. But I've got RL to take care of, of course. Went driving/errands with Mother. I have to write that news and finish HST journals and study more for SPN (and draw that comic!), and I feel quite nervous right now. One must _work_ one's way to the glorious future, I keep reminding myself. I need to be less fragile. I need to relax, and to silently, steadily do that which should be done.

Give me strength,

Zack M. Davis (1627, UTC –8)


#### Entry 15 — Tuesday 18 January 2005 (Common Era) — Untitled

I think I did rather well on the SPN final. Sr. Axel Hernandez is giving us two extra days on the extra credit, but after I got home I accessed it, and the list selectors were not showing up. And of course, I have PRC/ENG studying to do, and that JOU writing. Didn't talk to Gunnison. I watched the _Teen Titans_ episode "Date With Destiny", which I had taped yesterday night. But I also watched some _Danny Phantom_, which in retrospect was a complete waste of time_. One must be choosy with the teevee shows one watches_! Must not forget that again; it's not like that shit helps me relax or anything. I could have been writing during that time. Norton AntiVirus quarantined a virus on Dad's computer, it was pretty weird, this window kept popping up. We need to find my Driver's Ed. certificate or else pay Safestway $20 tomorrow. I keep thinking to type little events, but then I don't, as if they don't belong here or it's too hard to explain. Are these the right words? I know not.

I do not feel good now. I feel distressed (Mother says I seem _flustered_, an even better term), and it's causeless, or so close as makes no difference.

Where does Inspiration go, when it leaves me? Can a human hold onto a feeling?

Help me, Brooke Durant!

—Zack M. Davis, 1555


#### Entry 16 — Wednesday 19 January 2005 (Common Era) — "DQ"

Dear Diary:

I failed my driving test. Didn't creep, erratic steering, came off turns too wide or something, seemed rushed, made a dangerous maneuver (automatic DQ)—the whole shebang, you might say. I need to take pictures of a girl's soccer game for _The Page_, and I don't want to go tonight, so the plan is that Mother is driving me to Acalanes on Friday after the Kaiser Permanente group therapy—or, as I have dubbed it, "the cheap shrink." I think I did very well on the PRC final (multiple-choice with a study guide), and well on the ENG final (multiple-choice + ese).

From today's _Contra Costa Times_ TimeOut Section: "Many more men than women prefer to marry beneath them, according to a study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. [graf break] In the University of Michigan study, researchers asked 120 male and 208 female undergraduates to rate there attraction to a person described as either their supervisor, their peer, of their assistant at work, based on a photograph they were shown. [graf break] Men were significantly more likely to say they preferred to date and marry a woman when she was described as a work peer or an assistant than when she was identified as a supervisor. The lower the status of the woman, the more that guys indicated that they were interested in dating or marrying her. Women … showed no discernable preference … [graf break] Reasearchers said the findings provide empirical support for the widespread belief that powerful women are at a disatvantage in the marriage market because men may prefer to marry less accomplished women."

Interesting findings, and also maybe a little sad, I think. I've always hated with a passion the stereotype that men don't like accomplished women, that men's egos just can't deal with powerful women. I know _I_ want to be with a woman who is as accomplished, as smart, as strong, as possible—in accordance with the right kind of personality, interests, and other attributes, of course. I'm not so childish as to need to feel _more powerful_ than my girlfriend. I find the idea contrary to principles of love—love is about finding someone you _admire_ who admires you right back.

I remember reading on the internet somewhere that "You are loved for your flaws." How degrading, how insane! I'm with Ayn Rand on this issue.

One also really has to wonder about people willing to answer questions on whether they want to date or marry someone _based on a photograph_. Granted, the article doesn't tell us the complete method used by the reasearchers, of course, but I'm assuming that they didn't tell the subjects to imagine that the person in the photograph has whater kind of mind you want most in a mate, and _then_ ask the question would you date her.

I'm not so delusional as to assert that looks don't matter: They _do_ matter, and matter a lot. If they didn't, we'd all be bi. But, to me, anyway, a fantastic mind is just infinitely more _valuable_ than a fantastic pair of tits.

Anyway, whatever the studies show about the _general_ behaviors of men and women, there will always be deviants.

I have a lot of work to do, and I've spent too long on this again. I think I may be censoring myself too much in this diary writing—I have more thoughts, and more varied thoughts, than what I explain here. For instance, I was arguing a litle bit for the other side (that the study isn't sad) in my head a bit there with the romantic preference issue. Do not mistake me—I _am_ commited to Equality.

EBNoM Razorbacks are coming o'er. I need to work. What the fuck is wrong with me. What the fuck. My life is so confused; I can't even sort out my own thoughts quite right; I can't (yet) even write perfectly the accessable truth.

_Neutrality Reinstater_,

Zack M. Davis, 1912


#### Entry 17 — Thursday 20 January 2005 (Common Era) — Untitled

Dear Diary,

The HST final was easy, as I knew it would be. ~140 multiple-choice. Before and after test I wrote a poem to post on kitoba.com, the title of which I have just now tweaked to "Contest! (Everybody Hates Meta-poetry, and So Do I)". I may have had ideas for a few lines yesterday, and only put them into practice today, or maybe not, I remember not. Mother was there handing out cookies (why does that Finals custom exist?), so I walked with her to where the gray car was parked at EMP, and we practiced driving. Taking instructions and criticism feels bad for some irrational reason. But I get better and better at neutrality as time goes on—remember when I was a child and would throw fits so often. Came home and watched _DS9_ episodes "Children of Time" and "Blaze of Glory." I was going to only watch "Children of Time," but then changed my mind (of course). The kitoba.com board is not working, and I am thinking of not posting the poem at all—you know, self-containment, not needing to bitch online, and all that.

Everyone finished Kolda's final before the allotted two hours, so there was some conversation going on. Someone brought mini-cupcakes. We are so spoiled it is probably sickening.

Quick wit—Approximation of a conversation:

ZAK NELSON: What final do you have next?

ZACK DAVIS: Wha? It's seventh period final, I don't have a seventh period—er, AP Superheroism. I hear Mr. Kent's final is pretty easy.

NELSON: [laughs] Yeah, I'm glad they got rid of that Mr. Wayne. "What’s your superpower?" Uh, _nothing_!

"AP Superheroism" is a fictional class I made up (taught by one "J. Wakeman"!) back when I filled in the schedules sheet on the back of one of one of my school directories (They gave me _two_, for some reason). [Note, 4/17/05: I had actually written "ROP/Superheroism" in my directory.] In my planner, my beautiful, beat-up, quick-expression planner (and I have you, too! I output so much expression!), I have the seventh period marked down as "Self-control" class, taught by J. Jones-Thnuak.

During the _desordenado_ talking after the test, Max Hirshik brought up that new book that says Abraham Lincoln was probably gay, and I said it sounds like someone's just trying to sell books—I referenced what I read on _Slate_ that said the evidence was weak, weak, weak. Like Lincoln closed a letter to a friend with "Yours forever." So what? The _Slate_ piece said that he did that to several people. Anyway, the conversation, which included Mr. Kolda, digressed into more talk about homosexuality, I think Max was talking about water polo guys acting as if they were, and someone said something about wrestling, and someone said no one thinks of girls water polo players as lesbians, and Kolda, a water polo coach, said don't say anything about his girls, and he described them as princesses, and the girl who made the comment about girl's water polo said no she didn’t mean it that way, and this track of talk that I don't remember well was going on. (I have trouble describing complicated incidents in my diary; I feel like maybe my memory of events is flawed, and that I am probably libeling someone. But you can't commit libel in your own diary, _verdad_? And if I "wanna" be a good writer, I have to be good doing things like converting memories to words.)

So I tried to exchange a look or two with Chris Rehdish—that look Nicole and I sometimes give each other when Mother talks about souls. I'm not sure that he saw, or even if he was listening to the conversation at all. I wanted to distance myself in his eyes from all the gay talk, which had an air of gossip about it to me.

Chris has a pin on his backpack—it has the words "That's so gay!" covered by a red circle with a line through it. I remember one time I mentioned to him how I read on the internet that people have made up gender-neutral pronouns and [I] implied that was weird. And he said that he had a friend that was transsexual so he didn’t think it was that weird. I feel bad about that incident, because I actually think {ey, em, eir, eirself; and other such sets} was a pretty cool idea. Back to today—as the talk was going on eventually I said "Why does it matter?" and Mr. Kolda said "It doesn't."

The rest of this day is dedicated to writing my news story (!!) and doing my comic.

I turned 17 over three weeks ago, but it is just now that I am thinking about how _close_ I am to legal adulthood. It's probably—it's probably time to start playing the part. I want to be indy so bad—but independence also requires strength, and I—I can't get things done on time, I can't even eat vegetables, I can't always control my own emotions; I am just so childish-_weak_.

Sometimes I worry if I don't learn to be better, I will not only be hurting myself, but also the things I believe in. As if the other servants of the Cause doesn't even want me on their team, because I do damage to them whenever I step on the field, because people will look at the wreck that is me and the Dream will be dirtied in their eyes.

But, whatever my weakness—I have the coolest damn diary in the whole municipality.

Love ya babe,

Zack M. Davis, 1428


#### Entry 18 — Friday 21 January 2005 (Common Era) — "Want to sell my story / Hope it isn't boring"

Dear Diary,

Today was a good day. The ART final went well, and our JOU final was to put our stuff on the page, and I enjoy layout. I act pretty nervous the entire time, but there's something purifying about it. I'm not much of a reporter as yet, but putting the content on the page is something I can do well. I think I am valued on the staff, yet I constantly am seeking reassurance. Anyway, by some miscommunication, the EICs didn't know about my column, and there's no space for it, so it's getting axed and moved to Issue 4. I am glad, for it lightens my load, and the writing was kind of weak so I have an extra month to punch it up.

I didn't start working on my news story until last night, when I tapped out ~300 words before bed. (No comic as yet.) It's not a disaster, anyway, though I still can't think of what to do graphically. Kate gave me the name of someone who knows someone who got deported from LL (I think Kate's source, Ariel Brown, was on Xross Country) so I should call her tomorrow. I know, I know, there's no room for "should" in this world—it's either I _do it_ or I _don't_. I give you the reports after the time does the passing.

In a burst of inspiration, finished my ToC redesign. It looks _great_.

I drove with Mother to Kaiser Psych to find out more information re teen talk group. I talked with one John Arvada (I think it was Arvada), PhD. I said I didn't need help. So I am not doing the group.

Then Mother dropped me off at Acalanes, so I could take pictures of the soccer game. It's hard to get good photos; soccer is a fast game. I got two really good shots, and one _spectacular_ one, though. I am very excited about it—it is a frame of a girl heading the ball in a crowd near the goal.

Mother set up an appt. with Andrew Michaels next Wednesday afternoon, and I was angry because that's layout week. I told her the shrink is a waste of time and money and I threw something of a fit about it in my room. (Breakdown of Neutrality, curses!) Mother heard me, and we talked. I also have a dentist's appt. on Thursday. Layout is just so important to me. I suppose I feel like if I'm not a good reporter I have to at least make up for it by being there every hour, polishing the pages of _The Page_.

Just now, I read some articles on fiction-writing on the SFWA site. It made me feel farther from my publication dream.

A new semester awaits; a new day awaits! Brooke Durant is frozen in time, but my time never stops, never stops, and I am constantly hurled into the future, and must learn to deal with all times in fairness, for "I'll be good tomorrow" tends to fail when the day represented by tomorrow is constantly revised forward.

I'll keep you posted.

Trying to find someone without looking,

Zack M. Davis (2144 Pacific)


#### Entry 19 — Saturday 22 January 2005 (Common Era) — "Broken"

Diary Dearest,

It's pretty clear by now that I am something like the proverbial broken record—I keep repeating myself. I keep repeating the same old mistakes over and over again, and I repeat my regrets of making those same mistakes. This is not the way to break records. Every Friday night, I say tomorrow I will muzz. And every Saturday is exactly like every other Saturday. No comic was drawn today, no news story was finished, no telephone calls were made. Mother and I drove to buy a bike light. I placed holds on two books on ccclib.org. I went on a bike ride in Shell Ridge. (It was too muddy for my tastes.) I watched _Jeopardy!_ and _Teen Titans_ ("Titans East, Pt. II") and part of _Justice League Unlimited_ (which I turned off before it was over because it was horrible). Masturbated in the morning and in the evening. Put ~200 more words into "The Devotion to Something Afar." I didn't _do_ enough today. Watching _Teen Titans_ is great, but it's not enough to just have fun with the fictional—to make it worth the time in more than just pleasure, you have to be _inspired_ by it, inspired by it to _do_ something glorious (defeat Brother Blood, ace all of one's classes, write a novel, _&c._).

Repeat, repeat, repeat. Tomorrow I'll be good. Tomorrow.

Maybe I am lonely. But I can't depend on Ms. Near-perfect to save me, for I know not where she is. Brooke Durant will have to do. I want someone to show you to, Diary, someone who will read these words, and like them, and not be distant from them. I want someone to forgive me. Maybe I am being histrionically romantic-dramatic, but you are _my_ journal, so I can write whatever I want in you.

Maybe I am lazy. The cure for that comes from within, or does not come at all.

Progress is what it is all about. I am writing more, I've been writing in you every day after abandonment so long, and because writing is maybe something I want to be good at, this is small progress, but small progress is good—espc. whn compared to my retrogress.

The calendar says Monday is no-school—a teachers' work day.

Tomorrow, I will be, must be, good. For the Cause, for the glorious future, for Ms. Near-perfect, so I can watch _Teen Titans_ Season Four at peace with myself, so that I can write a novel, so Ms. Gunnison will still call me a rockstar, so that this document will be something important, a record of the thoughts of a great human before he was actually great.

I think I am having an out-of-body experience right now—is that what this feeling is called? I was thinking of my self, and suddenly I felt separate from at all, I felt apart from myself. A WTF is this life? kind of moment. Consciousness is so subjective.

Please forgive the repetition,

Please supply me inspiration,

Trying to find some The One without looking,

Zack M. Davis at 2154 Pacific


#### Entry 20 — Sunday 23 January 2005 (Common Era) — "Constantly Warring"

Dear Diary,

Well, I certainly wasn’t good today, but I don't think I was _too_ bad, either. (Progress, maybe.) Uploaded and B&W'd soccer pics, downloaded and B&W'd a public-domain (I am almost postitive) pic, e-mailed them to _laslomasthepage@yahoo.com_. Compiled short list of royalty-free picture sites for Journalistic use. Made no telephone call. At ~2000, I drove with Mother to Barnes & Noble (sp?) — looked around there, for a few seconds daydreampt of being a novelist. Felt rather glum in the morning. I wrote a bit of a song—on my synthesizer I alternated between pressing an F-sharp/A-sharp/E-sharp chord and a G-sharp/C-sharp/F-sharp chord (think I got that right)—that was the backround, while I did that I was singing a tune—

_Pleasure and glory_

_Nothing is boring_

_Everything happy has pain at its sourcing_

_Pleasure and glory_

_Constantly warring_

That was as far as I got.

Days have a way of slipping by astoundingly quickly. WheTF did Sunday go? I have tomorrow, a no-school day. I can't quite figure myself out. I know about Neutrality, but I can never seem to execute it for very long, whine and annoyance and anger creep into my voice at times, I let them creep. I know, having imperfect emotional control is reputed to be a part of being human. I still feel kind of broken. My _damned_ situational shyness still exists, and I don't think there is a solution, save brute willpower. My self-imposed loneliness sometimes wears on me, but I keep it, for I feel somehow there is something very, very noble about holding oneself back from ordinary interactions, saving oneself for the extraordinary ones that are surely just o'er the horizon, and in the meantime having only a journal to talk to. But what is nobility if I fubar myself?

I can't quite figure myself out, I'm not even sure if these words are an accurate depiction of the life. I'm going to bed. I hope I can finish all that should be finished tomorrow. I hope I will find I can easily be dauntless tomorrow. I hope I have a lucid dream.

I love you, I need you, forgive me, protect me, talk to me,

Zack M. Davis, somewhere in between

2155 PST


#### Entry 21 — Monday 24 January 2005 (Common [_Ser_ first-and-third-person imperfect tense]) — "Avoidance (Pleasure and glory / One's transitory)"

Dear Diary,

I probably spent 6 hours online today, most of it reading at _kurzweilai.net_ (sp?). Avoiding my journalistic dilemma, no doubt. Strange—I don't feel so worried about this Layout Week now—but then, this is _after_ I have given in and decided not to call anyone today. You can't feel nervous about an event that you won't allow to happen. You can, of course, feel nervous about the consequences of the non-occurrence. Undoubtedly, writing this instead of doing JOU work is avoidance, too—this is the void dance I do, the shameful thing I do when there is something uncomfortable that needs doing. _And yet still I write this at this moment when it could be done, should be done, later_. I choose to write this.

I want to put my soul into this writing, and yet, perhaps another part of me does not, considering that still I hold back a little from you, and not only because I cannot find the right words. And yet I think of how I will tell all in future entries, and maybe the thought crosses my mind of what someone reading over all of it will think. I imagine a human reading this and then go checking up on _kurzweilai.net_. But maybe ey will just be bored from all the cursed metawriting.

Conflicted! Conflicted/TheNewAuk, writing repetitively about just how bad I really am.

In the shower this morning I got a few ideas for "Freedom", and I added a tiny little bit of text this morn.

I look forward to tomorrow, to working on _The Page_. It's just interviewing I can't stand. Lickiss should give us access to the construction site so Alissa can talk to the construction leader and I can take pictures.

I feel somewhat tired now, which is bad.

Complexity,

Zack M. Davis

2001 PST


#### Entry 22 — Thursday 27 January 2005 (Common Era) — "Vincibility"

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I went to bed at ~1900 and slept. I arose in the early morning, and imagine my delight at finding that my computer was still on! It is perhaps because of this that I am writing to you now, at 0436 Thursday morning.

Issue 3 is acting something like a _disaster_. On Tuesday, I did get the pictures of the field, and later that day I made the cover for the issue with those photos. It looks great, and it is probably the only thing about Issue 3 that is so right now. Stories got axed yesterday, and people planned last-minute ones to take their place. My story is still short text, and yesterday afternoon Ms. Gunnison told me to go talk to secretaries in counseling, I think, office, but I did not, for the same reasons as always. Perhaps I should not call them reasons, because they have nothing to do with Reason. On the contrary!

Staying legal in regard to images causes difficulties because back when we were renegades we had the biggest, greatest image library in the world (the internet) and now we are obeying copyright law and do not and the transition is awkward. (_Awkward_ is an awkward word because you have to type the sequence 'w-k-w'.) I drew & scanned & placed my comic yesterday. I woke up at ~0500, drew it (I had already drawn the panel borders the night before), started inking it, and finished inking it during school.

In SPN, we switched back teachers again. We started the yr with Ms. Amaro, then switched to Axel Hernandez for some reason until the semester, and now we've Amaro again.

Yesterday there was a Track & Field meeting at lunch, and Shreiber persuaded me to sign up to see if I get, as he terms it, "the fire in [my] belly" (or sth like that) back.

Saw Andrew Michaels, the shrink, yesterday. I told him of the Singularity stuff I read on the internet and of how it is sort of sad to be an evolved being, and be full of cognitive biases, _&c._ And he kept going about my lack of eating [lunch] with people, and said he was in favor of social integration.

"Integration…" I murmured after a pause. Of course he inquired further, and I told him I thought that was a strange word. He didn't think so. I told him it sounded like the few being assembled into a whole. He agreed with this allegory (wc?), and I voiced my disagreement—I said I am reluctant to address a social group as an entity in its own right. I, slipping into metaphor, said it may be convenient to call it a forest, but really, it's just a bunch of trees. He said that the trees are dependent on each other—a tree alone in a desert will not fare as well. That is obvious, of course, and I told him of how I hate to group people, and how this sorting of people is what makes war possible. "Categorize sparingly," I think I told him was a policy of mine. But I admitted that I am not so delusional as to assert that culture does not have an effect on this individual—on the contrary, it has a massive, overreaching effect.

What is there to say about being human? It is a subject I shall have to do much thinking on.

Would it will be that these words will be preserved,

Would it will be that the Dream continue,

Would it will be that I will learn to act Rationally,

The only one you know,

Zack M. Davis

0511 Pacific Time


#### Entry 23 — Friday 28 January 2005 (Common Era) — " 'These Currents Are Still Killing Me' "

Dearest,

_The Page_, Vol. 54, Iss. 3 is done. Totally done. I was at Layout until ~2100. At the end Ms. Gunnison and I were the only ones there. I exported the issue to PDF (only 18.8 MB) and I left as Gunni was composing the e-mail to Twin Palms. My news story got finished, of course. Near the beginning of sixth, Gunnison told me to leave, and don't come back until I had gotten the ints I needed to finish. I ended up running into my counselor (whom I only half-recognized, and it was pretty obvious that it was so) and she directed me to talk to a counseling secretary who I talked to briefly. I asked her why people would want to lie to attend Las Lomas and she told me to answer and I, playing Gunnison's "innocent little reporter" said "You tell me," and I got a quote.

I'm not proud of my news story, or the method by which I wrote it and gathered the information. I am, in fact, rather ashamed.

Before all this, I was feeling something horrible most of the day—that damned interview shyness, that cursed anxiety that makes everything seem beyond redemption. In the early morning, I put on that reckless guy act. By SPN (fourth) I was crying. During PRC (fifth) I got a pink note to go to the crisis counselor. Ms. Amaro had been concerned about me, so she [referred] me. I told the crisis counselor how I don't blame the pressures of daily life for any hurt I might have; my life is easy, and if I am not strong enough to deal it is only justice that makes me hurt. She asked me if I had ever thought about killing myself, and I told her no. And Diary, I have not had you long enough for you to already know that that was a lie! But I only _think about the concept_ sometimes of ending it; this is totally, totally different from actually seriously _planning_ to end it.

This morning I overheard Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff say something like "contrary to popular belief, I am not a walking encyclopedia." I thought of saying "Could've fooled me," but I did not. It may have been with this at the back of my mind that I had I think maybe two dialogues today (one with Amaro) along the general of:

"Are you okay?"

"What's _okay_? I don't know what the word means. I'm not a dictionary."

I did not do my homework. (Fuck me!) I stayed up until 0200 last night (_i.e_., this morning) skip-reading _Dayworld Rebel_ and reading parts of _The Meme Machine_, hating the nihilism of the latter. (More on that another day, maybe.) And, of course, I was worrying my eyes off about ints. I don't know just what is wrong with me.

During lunch I was doing a graphical thing for _The Page_, and someone popped a bag or something, and there was a pause where I was really pissed and then I just _snapped_—"What the FUCK is wrong with you people?!"

Yesterday in HST (second) Brianna Larson, who now sits behind me, got a letter (and a 200*3* media guide) from UC Davis, and she had already gotten one from Sonoma State, and Andrew Sheehan and Casey Pierson were clamoring over the letter and guide and being generally rude. I told her we were just so in awe because just looking at her stuff was the closest any of us would get to running in a DI college.

Signing out,

Zack M. Davis, The One for someone (presumably)

2216 Pacific Time


#### Entry 24 — Saturday 29 January 2005 (Common Era) — " 'The Mask Makes Me Feel Cool' "

Dear Diary,

Today was a fairly normal Saturday of the pleasant waste persuasion. I stayed in bed late this morning, catching extra sleep and masturbating (twice! How disgusting! But of course, it's not disgusting in the act).

At ~1100, Father and I went to the barber shop, the usual place.

My report card came.

English 3 — C

US History — B+

Art 2 — B

Spanish 3 — C

Pre Calc — C+ (Comments: "Does Not Do Work/Homework")

Journalism — A (Comments: "Good Class Participation", "Does Excellent Work", and "A Pleasure to Have in Class")

Total GPA (non-weighted): 2.67

I was given to understand I had a C– in SPN; I am happy to see it is actually a C. The JOU grade made me happy. I thought much about my place on _The Page_ today.

I watched too much TV today, but it did include some redeeming programs—_MLaaTR_ season 2 (which restored my liking of that show) and _Teen Titans_ season 4 ("The Quest"). Also I listened to NPR in the early afternoon (_This American Life_) and in the night (_Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me_). Pledge drives can wear on one's nerves, I think.

I realize as I write this entry that it is not Saturday after all, but Sunday, as midnight has, as it has a way of doing, passed. I have stayed up far too late.

I also did my Iss. 3 self-evaluation early, I typed it, formatted it at the top like a memo. Father went to San Francisco in the evening/night. No actual homework was done today, and no writing. Half a weekend, half-thrown out!

What is there to say about being human, and about being me, or anyone else? These are subjects I shall _have_ to do much writing on.

Talk to me,

Zack M. Davis, 0027 Sunday 30 Jan 2005


#### Entry 25 — Sunday 30 January 2005 (Common Era) — Untitled

Dear Diary,

This weekend occured as most weekends have done since as before that time in the past when my memory goes all fuzzy. It was mostly pleasant, but was devoid of Greatness. I think this is because for all the rhetoric I give you, Diary, about Greatness, I am not really so much committed to a real action-plan. I get myself drunk on ideals (Defiant Indy Human, near-perfect, 2179!) and then just—put them off. You have to have a time-table, all the experts say, you have to be committed to the action as well as the concept. You can't just listen to the self-improvement tape, you have to do all the journalizing exersizes that it recommends. If I may create an epigram (a quoteable quote, as it were, if I truly know the word): _If there was any justice in language, then "someday" and "never" would be the same word._ This, of course, has been said a billion times by me and others in various forms (as has the statement that it has been said a billion times, and so on up), but no talk about procrastination seems to have ever stopped the phenomenon.

What, really, _is_ the greatness I talk of so much? It is best I define it in text. I ought to do all my homework as efficiently as possible. I ought to write the ficiton that comes sixteenth-formed into my head. My media intake must be more—checked, controlled. The emotions must be regulated, too—perhaps they need to be in order for the others to happen—I must be able to feel that which I _rationally_ decide is desireable to be felt. So many times I strike out at people (with my words) in annoyance and anger, even while thinking that this is undesirable behavior, even while thinking that I should hold this rage in, deny it, make it as if it had never been.

I slept late again, of course, and at ~a little before noon, Father and I drove to a Bank of America towards Concord, and then back. He departed afterwards on a business trip to San Diego. I am considering rescheduling my second drive test, which is now scheduled for Wednesday. I am starting to rather dislike driving. Oh, operating the car is easy enough. Right pedal is go, left pedal is stop, yeah, yeah. But getting every maneuver deadly precise is difficult, and they expect you to be aware of _everything_ around you. Such standards of awareness and skill, of course, are totally necessary—motor vehicles are dangerous machines! Emotionally, though, I just want to _get that license_.

I spent much time on the internet: I listened on _drivethrurecords.com_, I read a great deal in the _Slate_ archives, and read some Wikipedia. Stuff about gender and sex catches my attention.

Mother returned from her yoga retreat, naturally hyped about all that spirtual—if you will pardon the word—bunk. She wants to change our diets, and she claims that that in turn will change everything (for the better). To be certain, I would do well to learn to eat better, in my alleged quest to come closer to the superhuman. But diet is one of the spheres in which I care about least, where the benefits of being sane don't even begin to pay for the pain of transitioning—assuming I really can make a transition of this sort. If you will pardon the dualism of my speech—we're not really in control of ourselves. Not totally, not completely. As long as there are things we don't really like about our own characters, we can't be said to be totally in control, because if we were, we would change our habits to fit our vision of perfection. If I could program an android to take my place, and choose character traits as one chooses brands of toothpaste—robot Zack\* would differ from Zack-prime. And Zack\* would be better, by my own standards.

I wonder about my romantic future. I look at what modern dating offers, and I think sometimes it would be good to remove myself from all that, to deny that desire to just be with _someone_, to stand apart from it, and watch everyone else pair, until the day—should it ever come—that my Perfect One and I meet. To save myself for her. But sometimes I want to plunge, plunge myself into the standard system, and just ask someone I _like_, knowing I don’t want to marry her. Ask Lisa, or Erin, or—Kathy? (Picture the thought!) to the Valentine's dance.

I remember reading in _Utne_ about a woman who [made] a name for people like herself—"quirkyalones"—who were so incredibly romantic that they choose to stay alone. I looked it up on the internet once, but turned away after the site I went to had a picture of a vibrator in a sidebar accompanying the text and it said "quirkyalones own vibrators." Is it a women's only thing? I intend to look that up again.

I think that when I get independent of my parents I will sign up for _match.com_ (I assume that must be the biggest dating site because I see so many ads for them, and because I want a big pool, it's okay to let the advertisers win this time), and that way meet someone.

For now, anyway, you, Diary, will go unread. I have already wrote about showing you to a partner, but I shall mention it once again, because you are my diary and I can write whatever the fuck I want. I think showing it to her, silly as it sounds, is a key motivation for writing this. It’s hard to accept writing as an end in itself. For me to pour so many hours into you, I feel like someone, someone, has to see this truth. But by showing it to one other person, how much has changed, really? It's just another person who sees. And we are all going to die and our works be forgotten. I have decided this is okay since I decided to not think of myself so much as an individual who can have no concern for the world after ey is dead, but rather as a collection of properties—yes, I know my individual consciousness will die, but there will be others like me (many who are like me but better, by my own standards), others who I would approve of, and they live on. But the universe is projected to end sometime. We'll have to escape to another universe or something. In any case, that's problem to far in the future to care about. I want someone to see you, because trading diaries for reading material is just about the most romantic thing in the world. And, as I am already over 13,500 words here, before long, you will be a full-fledged book, and maybe someday if I keep it up and keep it period, a collection of books. Well, you are writing practice, too; practice is important.

I love you,

Zack M. Davis

2135 Pacific Time


#### Entry 26 — Tuesday 1 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Captive Audience"

Dear Diary,

Have I been _boring_ you?

Don't answer that.

—ZD


#### Entry 27 — Wednesday 2 February 2005 (Common Era) — "DQ II"

Dear Diary,

I failed my second driving test. I went into bike lanes on right turns without looking to see if there were bikes in them. That's a dangerous maneuver—automatic disqualification. At the time, I don't think I even recognized it was a bike lane. And Mother took me into that area afterwards lecturing me, telling me to _look at her_ while she drives and I _couldn't fucking take_ her fucking lecturing and I was starting to get whiny and fucked up emotionally; I wasn't crying but I was pouting and speaking in a fucked up voice and thinking about \*SI\*. I hated her talking like I didn't fucking know anything. Here, for the record—this test, in addition to the dangerous maneuver, I only had one or two bad marks in the scoring section (it's hard to decipher the DMV people's notation—is that a slash, or the finish of a circle, it looks almost certainly like the outcrop of the circle but I must not give myself the benefit of any doubt) compared to 14 to 19 (I am pretty sure it's nineteen; there is a vertical line through one column, and I think it indicates bad marks down the line) bad marks (plus the dangerous maneuver) the first time.

And I know emotions like this are so worthless and one must deny them—but I did not, or can not, and as I was writing part of this entry I let out a little yell and Mother came to me and said that it's okay to cry.

My third chance—the final chance lest I have to restart the process—we scheduled it for the fourth of March, or, as the "Appointment Response" slip a DMV woman gave me calls the day, 030405.

Now I feel calmer. I wish I were better at controlling these tides—would it were that I send all the despondence away from me, leaving only a glorious energetic neutrality in its wake. So to speak.

Mother just suggested she and I go to college planning night at 1900. Dad has his EBNoM meeting tonight, so I think I will be able to tape the _Teen Titans_ at 1830. (Because our television has been damaged, we watch TV through the VCR and so we can no longer watch one thing while the VCR tapes something else.)

In JOU, we have a story meeting tomorrow so I will have to go the rounds of my beat during the day. Ms. Gunnison is determined on shaping us up. Even though this year is much better than Volume 53 we must not "rest on our laurels" as Ms. Gunnison says. We must continue to reform the system and not be lazy and get the stories.

I have been doing my homework lately. That is good.

I was feeling sort of inspired today, but it was like a negative inspiration, I guess, because it was focused on living well not so much as a sort of "transcendence" but rather as a sort of spite. It was inspiration to live well and defy the conventions that I do not like; it was that "pay the bastards _no mind_!" sort of attitude. The word "defiant" was in my mind. "Defiant Against the Old Ways" I wrote at the top of today's space in my planner. Mother and I, with a bit of intersperse by Father had another one of those long philosophical discussions last night. Father said something like about how I had a young man's viewpoint, and Mother had an older woman's viewpoint. Something of that nature. I hate how he does that—can he not see that the census statistics of a person making a statement weighs _nothing_ when considering that person's viewpoint? The viewpoint, the argument itself, is all that can be considered, and my status as a young man means nothing when considering what I have to say. I was thinking today at lunch: look at my stats—I am a 17-year-old white male American, but that doesn't tell you _anything_ about my _character_. Neuroscience may show that people my age show behavior pattern _x_, and that males show behavior pattern _y_, and I don't dispute that anymore. Science is all we have, and I mustn't reject the results just because I don't _like_ them. But there is _so_ much variation among humans in the same groups that each individual needs be judged by _their own_ merit, because the group statistics are just that—_group_ statistics.

So men are hardwired one way, fine, thank you for the knowledge. But not all the wiring is hard. So I have been shaped by American culture, fine, it is important that I recognize that. But American minds show great spread. Damn predjudice in all forms! May my mind be free of these stupidities! Science will have the final say, of course, in what we humans are. But for now (and I think probably forever) I will be flying the same difference banner in my heart.

I have to do all my homework; I have to write a novel; I have to be perfect; I have to succeed; I have to live well. I must try to be as best I can. For the Cause, for the humans, for everything that I have declared anything. I must make a mighty ship of myself and name it _Shameless II_.

"I have chosen to have a moral obligation to be perfect!"

Diary, my only friend, my world, my log, my power,

May you live forever, may this feeling stay with me forever.

PAY THE BASTARDS _NO MIND_,

Zack M. Davis

1758 Pacific Time


#### Entry 28 — Friday 4 February 2005 (Page Day) — "Under Construction. Turmoil, Change, and The Life"

Dearest,

Cloud Nine is a pretty precarious place to live. Despite your contentment, you are always [vaguely] wondering if your supports are going to disappear on the next step. I have been feeling uncharacteristically well this week, except for a few lapses like the […] one documented in "DQ II" or the time yesterday when I found my new back bike light had fallen off somewhere. On the balance, though, I feel like _things are going to be okay_. (Revolutionary!) Philosophical revolutions are many and close between for me, so perhaps I am overhasty in my feeling that I understand now how I can live the good life. I must take into account how no matter how many times I chant "I can do it" during times like now, the situation looks different when everything is falling down. Until I discover a all-encompassing action plan for good times and bad, the interim plan is to not let things fall down. I think the new semester is contributing to my good humor. It's much more fun trying to build an A base than it is to fight to maintain a C.

Today, we got assigned our stories for Issue [4]. No chaotic volunteering during the story meeting this time, the EICs just assigned stories. A tyrannical system? Perhaps, but I sort of like it. It's efficient. You write the story you are assigned to. I am reminded of a shibboleth from George Orwell's _1984_ (which I never read, this is Wikipedia heresay): "Slavery is Freedom."

Anyway, I'm doing a short (perhaps mini) feature on Electronics/CAD classes. I put that down just to fill out my slate of story ideas yesterday, after I talked briefly with Mr. Poehnert. But that is my assignment, and I feel I can do it. During today's JOU class, I felt I got a "glimpse", a feeling, of what it is to be a (nonfiction) writer. I felt like a real writer. You gather your information as best you can, and you write your story as best you can and it gets published with your name above it and you _don't dwell on it_, you just go on to write new stories. Issue 3 was released today. I am respected at _The Page_. Alissa Gossett says I do everything for us. Caitlin Casey, when I asked her for advice on how to do a tech feature said she was sure I would do a great job. Now that was probably just politeness, but the point is I am someone, and I can maintain that position by just going on and gathering facts and writing stories and formatting pages and drawing stuff.

People _like_ me, I think, and it puzzles me a bit. Father says I should learn to take compliments, saying only 'thank you', instead of denying the reality of the charge. He says when you deny a compliment you make the giver of the remark feel bad. But I don't believe in molding my speech to the feelings of people overmuch. I must deny it when someone accuses me of goodness, because if I let myself really believe that, it might cease to be true. I'm not so sure I am okay with declaring (or maybe even recognizing overmuch) yourself a good person (well, not _you_, Diary, for you are no person at all), because then you get complacent, you get lazy, 'cause you know whatever you do you are still basically good at heart. I can feel good about actions of mine, but I must always remember that goodness must be earned. Nothing can ever redeeem you _permanently_, for all time. One must constantly strive to be better. I have imagined a romance, a very beautiful romance, about two humans, one male and one female, each who denigrates eirself and worships the other. And together they progress, become better and better than they were, maybe with small setbacks, as the years go on. Their love is pure.

I want to be that male.

In the morning, I got in front of the school with a box and began handing out _Pages_. I put on a sort of paperboy act, being enthusiastic about it all, trying to "sell" our free paper.

"Anybody want a copy of Las Lomas' _The Page_, our _free_ student-run newspaper, twenty-eight pages of journalistic quality, that's 'quality' with a Q-U-A 'cause we know how to spell here at _The Page_, I'll hand you one, or you can take it from the box, if you don't want to touch anything I've touched, it doesn't really matter, sorry I'm not very fast at handing things out—"

Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff came and took a copy and I said "Thank you, ma'am" (as part of the showhumanship I was addressing most people as 'sir' or 'ma'am') and she said "I have a _name_," indignantly. "I meant no offense!" I called after her. I think she said it was okay or apologized or some such thing. I remember not, or I heard not, or sth.

Later in the day, I entertained the thought (Fortune favors the bold!) of coming to her later and apologizing further for not calling her by her name when I knew it. "I just don't want you to hate me more than you already do," I imagined myself saying.

I got all my PRC homework done for this week and Thompson checked it today. We had a worksheet to do in that class, but I didn't, it being Friday. (Such decisions always seem bad in retrospect, and in retrospect only.) I helped try to think up names for Chris Steele's auto racing team. His selection was (and I think is) the Knight Riders. Some of my better suggestions included "the Photons", "the Butterflies", "the Monstrosities of Velocity" and "All Your Race Are Belong To Us."

In ART, I worked on my profile self-portrait, which is looking very good right now.

At lunch I sat in the library reading the _Opposing Viewpoints_ book on "Male and Female Roles."

I think I understand it now, the method, I mean. Fearless—because everything is scary—and shameless, because nothing in this world could make this name clean.

Diary, my only lover, my world, my logarithm, my power, (Ha!)

May you live forever.

Pay it no mind,

Zack M. Davis

1636 Pacific Time


#### Entry 29 — Saturday 5 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Confusion!"

Dearest,

Susan Blackmore doesn't believe in herself. Literally. In the final chapters of _The Meme Machine_, which I just finished, she argues that there is no "self"—that the idea of an inner self who views mental images on a mental screen and is the controller of all a human's conscious actions is a fiction memes use to help propogate theirselves. There is no "you"; decisions just sort of—make theirselves.

"[W]e can live as human beings, body, brain, and memes, living out our lives as a complex interplay of replicators and environment, in the knowledge that this is all there is… In this sense can we be truly free—not because we can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators but because we know there is no one to rebel."

Scary stuff. It explains "out-of-body experiences" though—that weird—viewpoint I causelessly fall into for a few seconds on rare occasions. It's hard to explain, and happens so very rarely. Blackmore describes temporarily eliminating the false self as "like waking up from a state of confusion…" The sensation is suddenly the entire world seems absurd, and you don't know who you are.

I do not seem to have the words for it. A sci-fi story I read once comes to mind, though—"Warm", which I think is by Robert Sheckley (sp?).

I went driving with Mother in the morning, and I dropped off _Getting Permission_ and _Dayworld Rebel_ at the library, and we went to see Grandfather. I did most of my math workshit [_sic_] in the afternoon but there was one problem I could not do (how does one factor the unfactorable?) and sent me into maybe an hour of fairly mild despair. So much for Neutrality, so much for everything is scary so there's no point in being scared. It was mild, though, like I said. So I took up a notion I had earlier in the day—I would go to the library again. By myself. Via bicycle. And I wouldn't just drop off something—I would stay and read.

I am feeling a little heat about my English project, which is to write a persuasive essay. My chosen thesis was to argue in favor of World Government—World Federalism, specifically. I feel silly about it though. It's so unrealistic and maybe it's not so good after all. So I am thinking of changing (again, actually). I told Father this morning that I hadn't picked a topic yet because I didn't want to explain it to him. (Claudia Hay fucking hates liars.)

So I went to the library and looked around the stacks. I browsed _A Field Guide to Boys and Girls_, _Mind Siege_ (secular humanism is evil!), and _Worlds of Wonder: Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy_. I almost left without getting any books, but I walked to the sci-fi section and immediately I saw that the library had gotten a copy of _Homeward Bound._ I checked it out anon, and left the library with a renewed (no pun intended) feeling of inspiration and determiniation. Great! The only problem is that those never seem to last forever. That seems to be part of the human condition, sadly, or my condition—that no matter the boundless hope I feel at times, when the pressure is _on_, despair descends, and I just want to go somewhere warm and cry, sensing somehow that there is no tomorrow. The end of the world. And it passes, by event or of its own course, and I am restored to the semblence of rationality. So pointless, so destructive. Time for a cure may be running out: what can I do? Learn to let go of Blackmore's "selfplex"? Get a prescription to fuck with the chemicals that create my mind? A big "Fuck no!" to the latter, and fairly probable one to the former.

Mother and Father are to go to the school's Crab Feed tonight, and so there may be a possibility of me getting to watch _Teen Titans_ alone tonight. "Birthmark" looks like the greatest episode ever. I know it will be replayed, but I want to watch it tonight, and the parents already know I like to watch this "dumb cartoon" (_my_ words, incidentally) so I think I will watch it (unless one of them has a TV preference at that time) even with the stigma that comes with watching a Y7 (or some such rating) program at 17. I lie to my parents enough, I might as well be honest that I really, really want to watch this dumb cartoon.

"Let them battle over you—"

I have many fears, though they are quieted right now. I have low-level anxiety about my electronics feature. But I still remain just a little optimistic, I think, or am I just saying that?

I _am_ a writer. And I will write more, I will write stories; I will write "Control."

There is _nothing_ to be afraid of in my life. _There never has been_.

Here's to believing that,

Zack M. Davis, WRITER (not an acronym)

1831 Pacific Time


#### Entry 30 — Sunday 6 February 2005 (Super Bowl Sunday) — "Tongues in the Ginger Jar"

Dear Diary,

I finished _Homeward Bound_, that book I got from the library less than 24 hours ago. Oh, surely I skipped some grafs in my zeal to find out _what happens next_, but it's a 597 page novel. The point is, I spent a hell of a lot of time reading last night and today, and as great as reading is, time is something of a precious resource in the Republic of Zackistan, and it may have been wiser (not just in retrospect) to spend that time planning and preparing for the coming week, rather than greedily devouring the gripping narrative and dialogue of Mr. Turtledove. (What am I, _The Ink Drinker_?)

I am considering not talking with Mr. Poehnert, the electronics teacher, tomorrow, and instead delaying it to another day. I need to do some research (like finding out from Rohit Dugar again how to pronounce that name), but also I feel like I need more time to make myself ready to interview people. But really there is no ready, and more time to think doesn't really banish the nervousness. Despite magical thinking, tomorrow always ends up feeling just like today. My ambition to be a valuable team member is always hampered by that instinct to run away from the work and go drink chocolate milk and masturbate and read and cry in my room. But if one can't do one's work, one can't depend on _having_ chocolate milk or a room to drink it in. Not that _The Page_ is a real job!

I am addicted to being comfortable, and it is liable to destroy me. Mother and Father have wondered aloud before if they have spoiled me. I tell them that they cannot be blamed for my actions, for if they can, their parents can be blamed for them, and back and back indefinitely, to the beginning of existence, if there was one. Responsibility is a human-made concept, and if we are to be at all consistent, it must either lie with the indivdual, or not exist at all.

I no longer worry if I am overdocumenting my life by writing in you as I do, Diary. What I am doing is trying to compress the subjective experience of being me into text. Impossible, of course. It's pushing a petabyte into a few kilobytes. Despite _Factoring Humanity_, it's not even desirable; it's a basic part of the human condition that each other's minds are forever inaccessible. Mystery, and all that. When it comes to communicating, we must struggle with things like words, and we wouldn't have it any other way, right? Or maybe I am just displaying sour grapes, so to speak. A related example—people say Utopia would be boring (and thus no Utopia at all, and the very concept was flawed at the get-go), but—is it? "Border Guards" comes to mind. What would it really be like to be Understood? Horrible, surely, or—well, I feel uncomfortable writing about this topic. Maybe, irony of ironies, it's because I can't find the right words. But I never can, so I should learn to press on. In any case, it's all for the best—I am pretty sure!

If I miscommunicate things here, then perhaps if I write enough all my errors will cancel each the other out.

It's good to write like this, even if I am mostly screaming into holes because the sensitive nature of trying to transcribe myself makes it so I would only want a very significant other to read this. But have I really said anything so sensitive? I mean, so much of this is only metawriting, which is so basic (and yet so profound!) as to be near-contentless, and much of it is just me berating myself for being a fucking coward, which I do in public anyway. Is my mind really that dirty to make this secret? But then, I censor myself. Is perfect stream-of-consciousness writing even possible? I think I think in words mostly, but if I did, surely I would never have to rephrase things. And, of course, there is the task of making it coherent, sorting things into sentences. I do much deleting when I write these. But there's another censorship here, too; I think some things that I refuse to put to paper (screen, for now) for fear, I think, of breaking some taboo. Is that true, or am I just writing that to keep the drama more intense for the person who may read this someday? Why—What the fuck—I—

_Remember, your errors in translating Thought to Words will likely cancel each other out._

Will they? What about those systematic biases I hear so much about?

_Bah._

I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, I notice I have been typing for an hour now. This time, too, could be used for planning for the week (and finishing that homework), but I am doing a little bit of that as I think about my life (and meta). This writing, though taking time that could be used in improving (or saving) my school (i.e., real) life, is a—pure—way to spend time. Writing is something I think I would like to master. As _Worlds of Wonder_ said, the first million words are just for practice. And if I die this week (I am so depraved that whenever I am forced out of my comfort zone I think of death), then the time I spend now makes for a more complete record of the complex jumble that is myself.

Ah, purity. (You'll have to forgive me if I tend to use mystical-sounding terminology when I write. It pleases me. INFP.) Writing is pure—(you will also have to forgive my love of em dashes) it is pleasurable, in its fashion, but it also has productivity (of a fashion) to it. Many other things that are pleasurable are just a waste. You get the joy in the moment, but the joy fades, and you are left with nothing. Masturbation is a good example. No, actually it's different: you are not left with nothing—you are (if you are male) left with a mess to clean up.

Watching _Teen Titans_ is great if I use what inspiration I might get from it to go _do_ something. But if I just keep sitting and watch _Justice League Unlimited_, and then read some Turtledove and go to bed at 2336, it's not so great.

Purity. The concept reverberates in my mind. Clean living. Having no irrational fears. Getting good grades. Being a productive writer. And still having some time to—as that Covey guy puts it—"sharpen the saw" with, say, some good fiction. Or maybe, once in a blue moon, jacking off, when I've been _especially_ good.

But my comfort zone traps me—I have yet to escape it. This intrapersonal jail has no bars, wire, fences, guards, or walls—I am only trapped here because I don't really, deep in my heart (liver?) want to leave. So the heart must be modified. Would it were that I had more _time_. Would it were that I had the perfect girlfriend to _help me_. I am so pitiful, and yet so undeserving of pity. I am so fucking great at writing about my feelings and inserting obscure cultural references into the writing, but it's not a marketable skill, so I have to find one. It's a sad, sad story—or perhaps, not so sad at all. I think clean living involves making up one's mind.

Purity & complexity,

Zack M. Davis, 1740 Pacific Time


#### Entry 31 — Monday 7 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Flat as a Paincake"

Dear Diary,

Today was the first day of Track & Field practice. I did not train this winter. Word is that Andrew Sheehan is not going to do Track. We had the opinions meeting in JOU. Gunnison was not there. Some people were criticizing her, which I do not understand at all. In ART we did contour drawings of faces from photographs and Ms. Gray is going to hang mine up. I do not have much homework tonight. I am feeling the JOU nervousness and am a bit forlorn now. Lonely, maybe. I think I did more looking at girls than usual. I think I have been doing more of that detached wondering lately. The world is so big, and why does anything exist, anyway? I am definitely changing my English persuasive essay topic (again) because sometimes when I think about my current one I get a strong negative emotional reaction. I guess I am just not that much of an extremist. There's not many social issues I am sure about. My sympathies lie with the Democratic party, but I do see the case for small government. Am I turning apolitical? For my persuasive paper I am thinking about arguing for paper trails on electronic voting machines. That's right, I'm _against_ vote fraud. It is said that time heals all wounds, and I believe it—this high-school stuff may seem in a decade to be nearly as if it ne'er were. And I am just one human among an unimaginable many. 6e9+ people on this planet. But still I fear small things. My diary writing does not seem so beautiful today. I wonder, as I have before, about moving this computer I write this on to my room. Privacy, and all that. I am not sure the parents would like me spending more time in my room. But it would be nice to write at my desk in my room. But recently all I have been writing is in _you_, Diary. No stories. No _fictional_ stories, for it could be said that you contain _my_ story. Is it readable? Is it a good story to live? In PRC I could not do the first three problems on the quiz, and as I handed it in to Mr. Thompson at the end of fifth I lamented that I did not know how I could have gone wrong and he looked at the paper and asked a question that made it obvious that my mistake had been in assuming that the t-tables had been representative of logarithmic functions. Thompson says we're getting more time tomorrow to finish the quiz, which I think is dishonorable (and I said as such to some of my classmates) because the point of quizzes is to test one's knowledge and this goal is subverted if we are allowed to review what we didn't know before finishing it up the next day. But it's open-note, anyway. I am sad. Maybe I should seek friends, but I feel like shutting everything in is more perfect, and cleaner. Why should I need people? And what good do friends do? They and I talk of trifles and the experience has pleasure to it, but never am I truly _expressed_. (So greedy am I, wanting expression!) I _should_ be able to use this as communication enough, and then in public act as a good robot, demanding nothing socially or emotion'ly of the humans around me. Should, should, _should_. I am something of an idealist, it seems. Diary, I must spend more time writing in you about what _should_ be than what was and is. I want to be perfect, or at least good. I want to break free of traditional suffering. (Would I have much to write about then? Hell yeah I still would. And I could make more time to write fiction, too.) Surely there must be a way to turn my _should_ to _is_. There has got to be away to pull my own self up, by my own bootstraps, to use a cliché there. There must be a way to just _do without_ certain things. I say "there has to be a way" but I notice too that there does not. The universe doesn't seem to care about the humans. However much I say there has got to be a different way, there may be, and there may not be, and my statement, my _wish_, has no bearing on what is true. Maybe what I need is a transcendent free will. Maybe, as I have said many times before, I need the ideal lover. Maybe (here comes the inevitable part) I don't need anything at all.

Here is the send-off,

Yours, friend,

Z. Michael Davis, Wishful Risk-averse Idealistic Touchy Enigmatic Rationalist

1943 Pacific Time


#### Entry 32 — Tuesday 8 February 2005 (Common Era) — " 'So call this a lesson that's worth being learned' "

Dear Diary,

Nobody knows anything about anyone else.

[name redacted] has a blog, a LiveJournal, specifically. I've seen her adding to it during JOU. Today, she was adding to it during that class, and I got close enough to catch her screename o'er her shoulder. It's [redacted]. During seventh period, I went to the Mac Lab and looked it up, and—I don't know, for some reason, it didn't seem like [name redacted] to me. I almost felt as if I had gotten the screename wrong. The blog was titled [redacted] She listed "masturbating" as one of her interests. (Hey, me too!) Here is an excerpt from today's entry:

"I must admit that it is rather fun to fool around with guys especailly when you have a good idea that they are intersted in you. In fact is it WAY FUN! Those who are reading may not be able to relate and could think that it is somewhat cruel to do such a thing...I suppose it could be cruel if it got out of hand....hm.....See, a girl can make me melt but a guy just doesn't seem to have that same effect...yet...mwa ha ha!"

I browsed the blog for a while, and I think I may have been sixteenth-[disappointed] that I didn't see myself mentioned.

I imagine doing to her something like what I have imagined having Brooke Durant do to Clyde Lowell in one of my fiction stories. I imagine myself saying to her, "Hey, [blog username redacted]—" and then I will "notice" my "mistake" and look guiltily at the ceiling while continuing, "_I mean_, [real name redacted]."

Yesterday night, I was so caught up in my JOU anxieties that I cried for a while. The causeless terror drowned out anything Reason might have to say. I read parts of an Anthony Robbins book and _Year's Best SF 5_. "Border Guards," and all that. I didn't do my homework, but all I had was SPN. At track & field, we did hills and core, and John Venanzi asked me about JOU (he wants to take it next year, and said he was thinking about going into journalism) and on the jog back to school I explained to him the process of _The Page_, and even talked briefly (or not-so-briefly?) about how I am so "emotionally fucked up" (my exact words) and I am such a bad reporter. There was no shame. I told him that journalism was something to go into if you like to write and you like to talk to people. By the end of practice I felt really good, really uplifted, really shameless. I felt like there was nothing to be scared of in my life, ever, and that everything was good. I don't have to be like Raven, I reasoned, and I _can't_ be like Raven. I can be myself. And I don't have to feel bad anymore, ever, and I can write this feature story and everything will be fine. This is how I felt.

But now that feeling is gone, really, and I am just operating normally. Could it have been the endorphins from running, or could it be that I had flipped that internal switch again, and that I can make it stay?

In JOU, I even mentioned to Danielle Hammon how I had cried last night. It feels good to tell people things. It is a release to _emote_ in front of real people, and, for some reason, telling all to _you_, Diary, doesn't provide the same. (Fuck me!) Ms. Gunnison is still sick. The class is not the same without her.

The one-hundredth episode of _Gilmore Girls_ airs tonight, and I intend to watch it.

I am happy for late start Wednesdays at my school.

I am going to put a stay on [the m-word] for now. That's a filthy habit. This stay, I think, will have a good deal of holding power, unlike so many of the others. Clean living! Fly the banner!

Anthony Robbins says that people phrase prohibitory rules that they will break as "I should not..." while committed, unbroken rules are phrased "I must never...". A sound thought. I phrase what _should_ be "must never"s as "should"s all the time.

That is to say, I phrase what _must_ be "must never"s as "should"s all the time.

Can I recapture the rapture of this day at 1700? It should be so. Nay, it _must_ be so.

Bless my fucked-up head,

Hope, too, that some day (preferably today) it can repair its own depravities,

Z. Michael Davis.


#### Entry 33 — Wednesday 9 February 2005 (Common Era) — " 'Is this the / Attention you deserve?' "

Dear Diary,

In HST today, somehow someone mentioned how it was so sweet for a guy to get a star named for a girl and I said no one owns the naming rights to stars; selling certificates for custom star-namings is a _scam_, and quite an obvious one. Mr. Kolda said (multiple times) that I should look into that because here there are girls in this class who think that's cool. Wouldn't your crush like that, he said. I indicated no. Thinking of Kathy, I said that she'd call me an idiot for buying into such a stupid scam. At lunch, I went to the Mac Lab and looked at the FAQs of some companies that sell star names, and I was pretty much right—companies have their own internal database of stars and they sell exclusive naming rights to them. But that name is only recognized in that company's star-naming system, of course. It's a novelty, a symbolic thing. To me, that is a waste of money. Only idiots pay for symbols in a world where anyone can make one. You might as well just make your own certificate in Microsoft Word that says "The star formerly known as Polaris is hereby named Janesmitholaris," or some such thing. I clumsily explained the situation with the star-namers to Brianna Larson and others during the fifth period, PRC.

I didn't do the JOU set-up today. I was thinking about lunch, but then in ART I just decided, in the cowardly way that I do such things, that I was not ready. Edits are due Friday, so if I want to be good, I would manage to sit in on an electronics class tomorrow (ditching a class to be able to do that) and then write tomorrow night. But tonight suddenly I remembered how parents are alerted with a telephone call when you miss a class, and I realize that—despite my earlier cavalier attitude about the matter, in fact, I _don't want to get a cut_. Tomorrow I think I will beg Ms. Gunnison (she is back) for help ("check my ego at the door"). Tomorrow morning, I will try to set up the sit-in for Friday. (Or maybe I will not and get Gunnison's advice during sixth, and bust the deadline even further! Fuck me!) I think maybe I will bust the deadline far so I can get help, because it's better I am prepared than on-time for the first deadline. Maybe I won't ask, 'cause no one can do my work for me, and I will just have to think of questions all on my own. I may fear Ms. Gunnison criticizing me, because she has been so good to me, and I couldn't stand her hating me. But then, shouldn't I be trying to free myself of caring what others think? But then, if I didn't care what anyone thought, I wouldn't be in such a bend about my chosen reporting duties anyway, _verdad_? Fuck me! But I found out that this is slated to be a half-page feature (strange), which works heavily to my advantage. My Issue 2 news article had a big picture and was 301 words. My Issue 3 news article had no picture and was 432 words. (I checked those out during class today.) 300–400 words. That's not hard. I could write 300 words about nothing! (That was me exaggerating, see?) My JOU bind makes me so sad, at many times I am positive I must quit this class next year, but other times I identify with _The Page_ so, and I love it, and I remember the bromide that quitters never win and winners never quit, and I know I can never give up the dream. One must make decisions in life, and I will make mine (for I am counting taking no action as a decision). And it leads you where it leads you. Obvious, but somehow I find it important to say.

We are all as photons in the bright beam of history: one among many, and who could track our exact position and velocity? (That's right, nobody!) Time marches on. It is a beneficial change of perspective for one to think long term. One hundred years from now—this, all this, will be history, as 1905 is history to me. I am pretty sure that everyone who was 17 in 1905 was dead. Maybe there are two or three people in all the world who are 117. Their struggles must have been so important to them, and time moved, and things changed, and now they are history. As I will be history, unless Singularity intervenes and I go on for a bit longer.

I remember reading somewhere (probably was in the transhumanist essays I have browsed online) that 1905 wasn't really represenative of the twentieth century. In 1905, people couldn't have fathomed what was to come. And here, in 2005, we're into the twenty-first, but the world is going to be changing a lot. But then, things are _always_ changing. The flux of history as a whole surely doesn't pay attention to our calendar. True, history is made of people, and many people may pay attention to the Gregorian calendar and that may have some effects (think Y2K problems and fears), but overall, how could that really make any difference? History doesn't divide itself into neat little 100-year segments, each with its own particular character.

After school, I hung out a little with Mike Seed, Stubs (was that the nickname?), Josh Day, and Jeremy (last name unknown). Mike said I am different this year: last year I was happy and this year I am more gloomy. "Good," I told him. (That got a puzzled reaction.) He said (and my recounting of what he said isn't chronological, I think) that I am more philosophical now and that philosophy only leads to suicide. It seems like Mike is never serious about _anything_: I don't think I've caught him at it to date anyway.

There is something alluring to me about being a bit gloomy. If I deny myself happiness, the emotional reasoning goes, then I won't be so vulnerable to tragedy (or what passes for tragedy in my crazy world). In metaphor: if I don't get high then I won't fall so far. Though I love my emotions (some of them, anyway), I also have a strange love for something far, far away from that and from me: emotional imperviousness—being able to be totally calm, being unflappable, untouchable. A constant but not at all intense gloom seems close to that.

Passion is so important to me, but I am just so fragile. My world is shattered by little things, so if big things ever come around here—it's _bad business_.

I _already_ don't feel like I can do the JOU thing tomorrow morning. Already the urge to put it off, to run away is gnawing at me. How did I survive last year? How can I keep being a journalist? But I can't _quit_! Quitters never win!

I am so confused. I don't know what to do, and what is pardonable, and what is unforgivably vile. Are people too nice to me, being enablers to my wimpiness? Or is it okay to have weakness, is it okay to be like this, is it not a sin? Thinking again of _Atlas Shrugged_ (that again? WTF?), what happens to the world when the weak are given support, and what happens to it when no one helps and only those who were molded tough enough make it through okay? Maybe too much compassion makes everything go to hell, because people feel entitled to be supported, people feel like they can be lazy but they still deserve the good life as their birthright. This thought may help me through my bindings. When things get (seemingly) tough, I will just remember how if I quit, if I laze, if I forgive myself—I damn everything good in this world, everything that was built through good old hard work and endurance. I will deny myself sleep, I will deny my self emotion. I will strive, with misery on the inside. But I have a poor track record of bearing pain. How can I be strong _this_ time? Why should this time be _un_like all the others?

I have come to look forward to writing in you, Diary. I may not be good at the buisness of living, but I am good at writing about myself. Writing letters to no one, that is my forte. It's a better hobby than video games, anyway.

I hurt, and I am confused. Not that that makes me deserving of anything. I continue to live, and history continues as well, imperceptible to me, but I know it. My life is millionth of a blip in history. I say that to comfort myself. The end of _my_ world is not the end of _the_ world, misery in _my_ world is not misery in others.

With love,

Zack M. Davis

2037 UTC –8


#### Entry 34 — Thursday 10 February 2005 (Common Era) — " 'I've tried / These lines / One too many times' "

Dear Diary,

Didn't do the JOU thing today, either. But I checked my premises on the method I will do it by. I am only writing a half-page. There's no reason I should sit in on a class. I remember when I did my beat check for this issue that people eat lunch in that room, so tomorrow or sometime next week if I am still retarded, I will go during lunch again and just ask more questions to Poehnert and to the techie kids, and ask to see what is happening. And I will bang out 300 words afterwards. No need to cut ART.

Tonight I will write what I already know from my beat check and turn that in.

I was thinking of telling the EICs I will not do JOU again next year, but then I decided against it, and now when I consider how fucking _twisted_ I am being about this half-page story I realize I simply _must_ quit. If there is ever a time to change careers, I will tell people, it's high school. I know I can find something else to be devoted to, something that does not drive me fucking crazy, or rather, does not bring my fucking craziness to the surface. I mean, sometimes I don't want to do my other schoolwork, but I don't get panicky about the thought of solving equations.

I felt lousy upon returning home today, and for some crazy reason I masturbated, which never makes me feel any better anyway.

As part of our unit on persuasive techniques, we continued watching _Bowling for Columbine_ today in ENG. _Whatever my depravity_, I sixteenth-think to myself (surely I am making a "dark" joke!), _I never shot anyone. I am a good person, in the balance._

I said something _mean_ to Erin today.

I am going to go see the shrink shortly.

Tomorrow I am going to take pictures of the boys' soccer game at Acalanes for _The Page_. We are having practice at the same time, so in a way, that is convenient (I have a ride, _etc._) but in another it is not because I have to be doing two tasks.

History is beaming—

Pay it none,

Zack M. Davis

1549 UTC –8


#### Entry 35 — Friday 11 February 2005 (Common Era) — "And everyone was falling / And everyone was breaking"

Dear Diary,

I didn't do the JOU thing _today_, either. In JOU class, I told News Ed. Kate Kleespies that I didn't do it "because I'm a fucking idiot". I told people how I was thinking of not doing JOU next year because I can't fucking interview and because I can't fucking interview I can't fucking journalize, and if I can't fucking journalize I should get my ass out of journalism class. Kate reminded me that there is more to making _The Page_ that just the reporting side. That made me feel better. I publicly made the final tweaks and calculations on an idea I had had long before: a formula to determing whether to sign up for JOU next year of not.

Let P equal the probability _The Page_ is better off with me, and let Z equal the probability I am better off with _The Page_. Let D equal 0.65Z + 0.35P. If D > 0.5, sign up for JOU. I pegged Z at 0.3, and P at 0.9, "because none of y'all know how to work the computers."

0.65(0.3) + 0.35(0.9) = 0.51

Zack Davis is on the staff next year, Q.E.D.

It's good to have a challenge in one's life, is it not so?

Later in the period, Ms. Gunnison asked me how I was doing and I said "not so well."

"Why?" she said.

"I decline to state," I said.

"Pleading the fifth?"

She looked sad to hear that I was not so well. She cares about me. She shouldn't.

That woman is something special in the world, is what I think.

Alissa was having trouble with her (now ex-)boyfriend. She said he came to [her] house and gave back everything she had ever given him.

I don't know how _The Page_ is coming together. People were chattering a bunch in class and Gunni said she _hopes_ that means everyone is totally on track. I fear that we aren't on track. _I_ certainly am not. I must find sanity this wknd. Asking people questions is not so hard. There is nothing to fear in my world, nothing, nothing, nothing!

The new kid in JOU class, Chris, took pictures at the soccer game in my stead, but my practice ended before the game was over so I took pictures, too. I got a good shot of Jamie Chandler. It was starting to drizzle, so I put my camera away, but then I noticed Las Lomas was about to take a penalty kick, so I got out the camera quickly and managed to get a shot of the goalie on the ground having failed to block the shot, and the ball in the air in the goal. I had one other neat shot, and when I got home I e-mailed those three to _laslomasthepage@yahoo.com_. Distance was actually at the school today, contrary to what I had thought. So I was with the others. I told Caitlin my bit about how I thought the world would just be a much nicer place if she was Supreme Ruler of the World. She laughed and said thanks.

An excerpt from a 9 February 2005 post to [username redacted]'s [blog name redacted]:

"Hello Mr. Davis. I know that you read my journal--or that you have at least once when Laura saw you in the library. At first it kind of tripped me out but when I thought about how I made it public and it is entierly my resposibility it wasn't that bad. Heh heh. Now I will be tempted to write things just to wig you out. HA HA."

This _must_ be a reference to me (surely she was not refering to _Jack_ Davis!), but it feels like it isn't. I never read [blog name redacted] in the library, I read it in the computer lab. I was surprised to find out. As [name redacted] was tripped when she found out I found out about [blog name redacted]. Maybe I should apologize, for catching her screename over her shoulder that day.

In ENG, Counselor Dianne Green came to talk to us about course selections and we got our transcripts and course catalogues.

I am glad it is the wknd. I want a break from the madness (or rather, the _sanity_) of the school week. I want to relax.

I never feel _done_ writing to you, Diary. Oh, individual entries feel _quite_ done (more than that, many times), but by your very nature you can never be complete.

The morp (that's "prom" backwards) dance is tomorrow. Sit Valentine's day is Monday. I want someone to show you to. Yeah, yeah. I know, the repetition. Fuck it, too. I hurt still, but that's not even mentionable. Life is always hard. Even when life should be easy it feels hard. One shouldn't need to escape from struggle overmuch, 'cause there isn't much of an escape from struggle. There's always something to deal with in life. Something to deal with.

Traditionally suffering,

Zack M. Davis


#### Entry 36 — Saturday 12 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Thoughts on Certain Types of Relationships"

Dear Diary,

It is the afternoon now, and this is shaping to be a Saturday like any other. Old patterns. No great leap forward to purity. This writing (sweet _writing_!) shall turn the tide presently.

I slept late. In the morning I read fragments of books I've read before and listened to inspiring music, and letting all the inspiration run down the metaphorical drain.

We got invited to a family reuinion. Father's—uncle?—some relative he hadn't seen since he and Mother's wedding—has died. I browsed the internet some, looked at the online archives of _Wired_.

Last night, ~2100, Brittany Nugent called me on the telephone, identifying herself as "Britannica." I said "it's nine at night, why are you calling me?" There was someone else online, and Brittany tried to get em to say "hi". Something like that. Some confusion. And she said "I'll let you go" get your rest, and I hung up.

One of my parents, of course, was the one that picked up the phone initially, so they knew that a girl had called me, and proceeded today to make the incident into more than it was, _i.e._, nothing.

Mother talked to me about it briefly.

Father talked to me about it briefly today, too. Even though it was just a few hours ago if that, my memory is very, very fuzzy, so the following is very muddled and confused. He said she sounded nice over the phone, and he asked if her name was really Britannica. One of the questions he asked me was if she was cute. I didn't know how to respond to that. There is no good response. "Yes" implies there is something romantic here; "no" sounds cruel and antisocial. Father said how the only girlfriend he had in high school was because she sort of pursued him. And he also said "I know women can be hard to deal with." (Almost-verbatim.) And I said that he doesn't understand the situation at all. "You go on about—you say—'women are hard to deal with'—but that's not it at all," I said. There was no situation, I explained. It was just—Brittany calling me.

Diary, I don't care about Brittany Nugent. She is a girl who sits across from me in art class. That is all.

Mother says of many of the girls at my school that they are cute, as we drive to school.

I hate the word "cute."

I hate how people act as if prettiness and niceness are the only virtues for boys to look for in girls.

It is my right to like or not like whomever I like. My feelings are my business. Do not misunderstand me. If someone is friendly to me, of course I must be friendly to them. That's courtesy, that's gratitude, that's civility. But there is never an obligation to _be_ friends with someone. If a love is unrequited, let it be so! No one should have to fake a sentiment.

Cute? Nice? Looks are not so important. I would call "nice" a prerequisite if it were not that I suspect people use the term especially for people who are IMHO too passive, too concerned with not giving offense. What about intelligence, skill, courage, interestingness?

"I know women can be hard to deal with," my father said. How—outdated! Now look here, I don't think of women as some separate species with incomprehensible ways that we men can never truly understand. I scorn the whole standard model. I am a human, first and foremost. I am also male, and there are many characteristics that go with that or usually go with that. But I don't view female humans as some inexplicable, alien "other." It's stupid. It's prejudice. It reduces the vast variety of humans down to two sketchy stereotypes—neither of which I like.

I do not feel altogether satisfied with this entry, for some reason.

ZD


#### Entry 37 — Sunday 13 February 2005 (Common Era) — " 'These Currents Seem Likely to Keep Killing Me' (And You Can't Explain) "

Dear Diary,

It is Sunday again. Week gives way to week gives way to week, and it is Sunday again and another school week stretches out before me, and that too will pass, slowly as I look forward, and quickly as I look backward, no doubt. Yesterday I did a really good job on this really easy HST assignment that is due Wednesday. I worked on "Running Water" for a while, but it was mostly thinking so the ms. only grew by a few hundred words. I went to bed before 2200, and today I got up at 0710. Father has been ragging me about my long-term projects, which annoys me. He tells me that I must not leave things to the end or I will be very unhappy. I know this, but too I know that even if he knows I know, he has no reason to trust that I have got everything under control, considering my history of not having things under control, and my history of not even having my_self_ under control, assuming the notion of something controlling itself makes any sense at all, which it might not. _Causa sui_ qualms, and all that. Mother inquired if I want to go driving today, and I said I did not. I need practice, of course, but this Sunday I just want to be left alone to counsel myself, and likely not get much homework done, but that's okay, because making sure I am emotionally okay to enter the week is more important. But I am rarely emotionally okay, so perhaps it is altogether wiser to abandon the desire to feel happy and safe ever. If that's possible, which it probably isn't. I am not entirely sure if the tone of this entry so far is altogether genuine, or if it is me being a bit highbrow cynical self-critical (do forgive that phrase, I have trouble with inventing this sort of terminology), which is a little disconcerting, because if I can't understand my _own_ behavior, then my _a priori_ chances as to understanding any number of many other things may be lower than I have thought. But again, if I make mistakes in transcribing the life, they may cancel each other out, leaving the reader (if there ever is one) a fairly good idea of what is the—wreck?—that is Zachary Michael Davis of Walnut Creek, California. Father wants to see my deadlines for my long-terms. I want to be left alone to you, Diary.

Oh, I don't think I have mentioned this—I did actually move the ancient computer I write this on to my room, I did it last Wednesday, and it is my room where I am now. It is very nice having privacy. Not that I suspect my parents look over my shoulder (only mean people do that, like TheNewAuk did to [username redacted]), but the fact that I can write without even anyone knowing at the time that I am writing feels so great and free. I think I will get more done with this security.

I listened to part of NPR's _Weekend Edition_ this morning.

The world is so vast, I said it before, and I will say it again, if only to comfort myself (again) that my struggles are not struggles at all. There are 6e9+ people. Incomprehensible. And so many are suffering. There is war and slavery and hunger and rape and all sorts of oppression—

Father just came in here and told me to lay out my long-term timelines. "I know you're into your writing," he said. Work supercedes passion, though. This truth is sad to me, and makes me feel as if I want to do something drastic and meaningless about it, to protest it. ("I _hate_ you, Reality!") I can't find my ENG assignment sheet on the persuasive essay, and I did not write the dates in my planner. I think the roughie is due this week. I shall start it today.

We're used to believing the things we see in print, but everything that is written was written by another human, and humans, as we know from our own lives, can make mistakes and distortions. There is so much media out there, with varying degrees of authority. Straight facts and opinion pieces and everything. It can be hard to tell what's true. 6e9+ people of all sorts out there.

And all of them influenced by their culture, so that when you wipe out a culture, it could be said that you destroy more then just the incalculable sum of all those lives, but also the greater superstructure. I see this, but also I scorn collectivism. Because I am _not_ a typical American. I am not one insignificant part of a whole, rather I am an individual member of a large class which is _not_ united into anything you could call an entity in itself, and never could be without drastically changing the nature of the class. [Margaret] Thatcher was right: there _is_ no such thing as society.

I wonder if I am making any sense at all, or if this is just the pretentious mumblings of a pseudo-intellectual. This is an advantage of diary writing, you just put out what you feel like putting out, and there are no critics and no consequences. There is also no _communication_, which would seem to be the entire purpose of putting out. Paradox, or just the simple facts? Let the reader decide, but there is no reader! Well, hell!

Tomorrow I _have_ to do the JOU interview. I've sworn that a lot, and it rarely gets done. But time goes fast, as I have observed, and so this trial will go fast (in retrospect, at least) and whatever happens I will blaze on into the future. And the world is vast, as I have observed, and many suffer, so the trial is not important in the main scheme, because surely there are analogues of me out there somewhere and somewhen, and compared to other sufferings the trial is no trial at all. After all, it is just talking to people, which I do any day anyway.

"If you knew how often people think of you, you wouldn't worry what they think of you." Okay. Nifty.

Father and I just scrubbed the sink together, and he mentioned me considering not to do JOU next year, saying that's okay as long as I do something, and I told him that I was going to do JOU next year, after all. I said that there are some parts of it that a hard, but it's good to have a challenge. Somewhere in the conversation he said "as long as you're running _to_ something and not just _from_ something." (Near-verbatim.) A noble sentiment.

In writing the last two paragraphs I have undergone some emotional corkscrews from "Work is great; I can do it" to "this is a disaster; life is horrible" and back and back to neutral. All poles were not very intense at all, just a sixteenth-feeling in the mid-lower layers of my higher mind.

I can't explain or understand the situational JOU nervousness that almost constantly gives me pain. (But it's a _challenge_!) Could it be insane of me to sign up next year, knowing my insanity full well? Or is it noble to continue the fight against one of my irrational weaknesses, even though the weakness seems invincible at times, and the fight will surely fubar me, and running away like a coward (check that, not just _like_ a coward) would leave my psyche safe and mostly untroubled? It would serve me well to remember the message of that Ogden Nash poem: "if some kind of sin you must be pursuing, / Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing."

What is the worst case scenario? I make a complete fool of myself, I don't write the article, I fail JOU, and Ms. Gunnison hates me forever. People screw up their lives much worse, every day.

If I killed myself today, 6e9+ people would go on with their lives as if nothing had happened, because, relatively speaking, nothing _would_ have happened. Maybe this diary will be read by some future historian as a primary source document of life in the early twenty-first, or maybe the humans will go extinct soon.

It might be a liberating thought, if I could believe it: if I were to kill myself today, nothing would have happened. So why not live? Why be afraid of anything? I need to break free of these damned limiting emotions. I need to jettison ambivalence in the areas where it kills me, again and again. I've got to capture and hold that feeling of boldness, that feeling that I can say anything and do anything and nothing is sad, and nothing can hurt me. That feeling always fades in short course.

If I were to kill myself today, the world would go on.

I'll drink to that everyday, and twice on Sundays.

But surely the reader knows I am being histrionic.

There is no reader.

FUCK!

Here's to Liberation Day,

Zack M. Davis,

Destroyer of Worlds?

POSTSCRIPT— It is now 1730 and I have spent hours browsing the internet, detatched from my original stated goal of doing additional research and printing for my persuasive essay, for which I have done no writing. I read of E-Prime and I looked at an anti-Esperanto site for a while and found a very cool Chinese poem. The school week looms large, and the main lamp in my room no longer works. I took a long shower, and I thought of a good line for my essay. I thought of \*SI\* for no reason, or maybe as a symbol about how everybody and everything hurts. And to think—I would call it likely that all my troubles—_all_ of them, considering how charmed my life is—are just the result of a chemical imbalance in my brain. I would never take behavior-modification drugs because I don't want to edit my personality. But despite high-minded claims of preserving my natural personality, I know that such a drug wouldn't be much of a death-analogue. It would just make me feel different. Life seems sad and confusing now. Or am I just being dramatic again? Is any of my pain real, or am I just really good at pretending? I remember reading online about \*SI\* and how people get triggery, and people have to try to quit. When I cut myself, it was a voluntary act. It's something of a cliché, but I really _could_ stop any time I wanted to. And I did. So was I really _that_ miserable? Or did I somehow, at some level, _want_ these scars on my leg, so I would have proof, even if I never showed it to anyone, that _I hurt too_, that I too am not content, that I too suffer miserably without suffering. It may have been a subconscious plea for sympathy, misdirected in that I never showed anyone. Well, actually I did. My father knocked on my door on I think the second day I had done this, and I said come in, but my short pant leg was still rolled up, showing several bloody shallow slashes. It was an accident, an oversight, that Father saw. I promised him that that was the last time. It wasn't, as it turned out. He agreed to not tell Mother. He said—he said he'd have to check me, but he never did, he merely asked once. But I am hardly a \*SI\* sufferer. I mean, I have probably only taken blade to flesh in maybe six or so sessions/occasions. I have wonder'd if the very fact that someone is willing to \*SI\* just out of drama is proof that they truly suffer, because people who are really okay have no need to show that they suffer. But I reject that hypothesis. Maybe this writing, too, is an act, a show, a cry for attention. Iterate indefinitely. It is now 1817. Life is confusing. What am I? I don't know. I don't know much. I hurt. Please forgive me. Things are hard. Life is hard. I can't make it. But I mustn't think negative. What am I, what am I, what is this, and why?

—ZD

POSTPOSTSCRIPT— It is now 2111, and I am feeling tired, which is a disaster. I didn't do any essay writing. I added to both "Running Water" and "The Devotion to Something Afar". I am feeling the JOU nervousness again. I am thinking about quitting again. Quitting would be running from something and not to something, but I don't much care right now. Telling my parents and the people in the class I already told I was coming again will suck. I need to write down my questions for tomorrow but something inside makes me not want to do even that. I am thinking of going to bed right now and thinking in the morning, but I am liable to oversleep and panic when I wake up. I am even thinking, just barely thinking, of the treason of procrastinating this until Tuesday! Writing fiction is great. It is a hobby that somewhat resembles productivity. And you can get paid if you are really good. I think I may go to bed, thinking of ints the whole way so as to have productive dreams. Maybe I'll go lucid or something. I hate myself. But I never shot anyone. I have many virtues, to be sure, but they get drowned away in—this. This non-essay writing, time-gobbling madness. But could the madness really be the source of my creativity? Is the vice inseperable from the virtue? I don't believe it. Where ever the FUCK I end up going, even into death, at least I left a written record. I know what I must do. Do it for the future of your fictions, if nothing else. I am really thinking about delaying. I don't feel ready. But I could be getting ready right now! But I am tired! I remember writing in my planner, my junkbook prime, these words: "Why do I do wrong? Is there any good in me but song?" I ask it again. I love the songs, my stories, _you_, Diary. But there is tricks and there is _living_, and the one is dependent on the other.

What did _I_ do to be so blue? A hell of a lot. Bear with me. (Apologies to Ellison)

—ZD

END Vol. IA